The Leopard (Marakand) (28 page)

Consternation among the priests. Two Red Masks started up the stairs to meet others from the barracks. They would go, even if the fool priests did not hear her did not understand needed more to understand—

“They plot against us against us Gurhan stirs Ilbialla cries out I drink their dreams I see their dreams my children of Marakand in the deep caves in the secret water she sees she knows the sword brings night we cannot see beneath the river of night brings fire brings ice the sword of the ice the ice brings death . . .

“The Doves, the priest of the Doves, the hidden priest, he hides a wizard who comes to him he hides his secrets he hides his goddess they mean our death our deaths his death is ordained the Lady speaks. Bring him to me.”

Whispers.
A priest of Ilbialla? But they all died after the earthquake, the whole family, didn’t they? What’s the Doves, what does she mean? Some wineshop, some caravanserai, a tavern, the guard will know, send to the commander on watch . . .
A younger priest was sent scurrying up the stairs to wake the commander of the temple guard. No need to summon the Red Masks; the priests knew the Lady would send them where she would, without any need for word from the Right Hand or the Beholder.

Somewhere a girl was crying, not she-Zora. Weeping, voiceless, no sobs to shake her, to betray, just the slow hot tears that gathered, pooled, and rolled down her face, and the heavy arm over her that pinned her down.

Somewhere a weary old woman keened, arms hugged tight about herself.
My city my folk my sister my brother, ah, Marakand, Marakand, hear me, Marakand, save me, let me go.

“Let me go let me go let me go—”

Somewhere a woman stood guard, sword in hand, stood on a city wall, watching the road to the west, and in her mind she saw it black with moving bodies, spilling from the road, filling the pass, and their minds were filled with love of him and fear of him. He was coming to make the world his own, no rivals, no allies, no friend or lover or kin would stand by him; he burned the air and he would open the road with the dying of the world and the gates of the cold hells would be shattered and the very stars would fall, but she could save them, stop him, she could hold the east . . .

“Get out!” Zora cried, and the priests pushing close around her backed away as she clawed at her face, till a Red Mask crouched to seize her hands.

Zora. Cuckoo’s egg, cowbird’s nestling, Gurhan’s lost servant, but you are strong, strong as Lilace was not, will you be Lilace, will you be a Voice as Lilace was, a broken instrument? There is another way, a better way. She was unfit, unworthy, and it was not yet time but the time is come the time is here.

No, no, no, no, no . . . Let me go let her go let us go . . .

There is a better way, an easier way, a stronger way. To be honoured, not pitied. Worshipped, not loathed. To be strong, to be Marakand . . . hold me. Take me into your heart.

No!
She tried to fling herself away, to run, and was trapped in Red Mask arms.

“What’s she saying? Bring the censer nearer, Shija, she needs the smoke. She’s growing too wild. Voice, Revered Voice, what does the Lady say?”

Lilace broke. Lilace was burnt away. She was only a priestess, a speaker for the Lady, a messenger who carried words to the well and back. The ribbon that bound them was too thin, too delicate, the thread the lightning followed. She was weak; she shattered. She was the Voice of the Lady, but she could not bear the weight of the Lady once the Lady became great, became strong, became me . . .

. . . she lies, I am not . . . she is not . . . oh, hear me, let me go.

But I am the Lady and the Lady will pour through you, empty you, scour you clean with flame and you will be the Voice be Lilace be what she became . . .

Or will you join with me? Will you let me in of your own will? To be whole and strong, worshipped and loved and feared, yes, is it not the better way, the truer way? How will you serve your god, through infantile decades of death in life, a mouth for the Lady who cannot dares not must not be seen—

And she saw, she saw the Lady form of mist, she saw her waver, falter, shiver, young and old, dark and golden, beautiful and homely. A red light struck her eyes and her priests fell back and one cried, “She is not the Lady, she is—” but it was only her fear, only imagining, only what might yet be, for the priests had no faces, they were nothing but saffron robes with masks, the silver moon-mask of the Voice in the temple, which hid her slack and twisting features.

No!
And the vision was rent away, not for her, not that thought for her but she had seen and the old woman the Lady said,
See? Child of my brother Gurhan, see, be strong, seek truth.

Yes, see this truth.

Zora saw herself, a bloated, grey-faced, sagging creature, grown stiff and heavy. The weight of her hair, dry, brittle, dull, dragged her down. She sat in a chair in a locked room. The windows were barred, and she rocked and rocked and rocked her body and spittle dribbled down her face and no one came to wipe it away, and she rocked, and her hands twisted and fought one another, and her face bore old scars, pale scars, where she had tried with her very nails to peel it away.

No . . .

What will you?
She saw again the woman armed, the woman strong and beautiful and clean, and Ashir bowed and Rahel, Rahel was afraid, Rahel rubbed her hands together and said, “Lady, what will you?” And she said, “Let the senate palace be raised again, let the senate meet, let the wards choose elders of wisdom to sit with them. Let the guilds be for the folk, not the folk to feed the guilds.” She saw the ruined houses of the great earthquake, the ones enmeshed in Family claims, landlords holding, waiting, never building, while the poorest paid all they earned for a room lightless, airless, hot in summer, damp and cold in winter, and the fevers took them, and her mother coughed herself to death. “Build,” she said. “The temple hoards, when it should build. The Families pile wealth upon wealth and there are children who sleep huddled in the ruins and the street guard are sent to drive them out. Let us build . . .” And Marakand was great and golden again, and the senate met in wise and solemn dignity, and the houses gleamed with plaster white and golden and there were flowers laid at Ilbialla’s tomb and Gurhan’s, in memory of gods that once had been, honoured dead. She rode out of the city with the folk crying blessings upon her, and they threw flowers beneath her horse’s feet . . .

Horses scared her.

. . . And there was a hospice built where the compound of Gurhan’s priests had once stood, all green and airy gardens and white paths and sweet-scented plants, and low, cool, bright rooms. The poor lay in white beds, while physicians in the yellow robes of the temple tended them, or they sat on benches in the sun and grew strong again.

And Zora who was the Voice as Lilace had been the Voice . . . Her body sagged and hung in heavy folds of fat about her, breasts dragging, heavy, belly flaccid, overhanging her private parts; her vast thighs shuddered as she moved, but her feet, her slender, her shapely feet were still her own, though her swollen ankles settled heavily on an anklet of dancer’s bells. Shija and Rahel dressed her in the black gown of the Voice, and she gasped for breath with the effort of moving the great grub she had become. Her lips whispered the flowing thoughts of the Lady’s mind, the jabber of her own fears, “No, not me, this isn’t me this mustn’t be me this is death in life is death let me go . . .” She watched—with loathing for herself, with hunger—as they brought the mask, the silvered moon-face, delicate, beautiful, with its tiny eye-holes and the slit in the rosebud lips through which she drank the smoke . . . she hungered for the smoke and licked her lips, as they settled the helmet-like mask of lacquered paper over her, showing her beautiful face her mask the face of the Voice to the world, and draped her in the veil of white silk tissue, that fell to her knees behind and before, and they settled her into a chair, not a closed carrying-chair such as senators and the wealthy of the Twenty Families used to travel about the crowded streets but a gilded throne that needed six strong temple guard to take its poles, because she could not walk so far, not from the Voice’s hospice on the bank of the ravine to the Hall of the Dome and the high pulpit where she would drink the smoke, bathe in the smoke, open herself to the Lady’s will and speak in answer to the questions of the priests, or to judge the accused, the blasphemers, the traitors, the rebels, the wizards who sought her death . . .

Oh, she hungered for the smoke . . . but in the back of her mind she was still Zora, still Mansour’s daughter, and she wept and beat her hands against the prison of her flesh, and still she cried,
No, I am not yours I will not be yours you will not have me.

And she was the Lady, riding her gleaming chestnut horse with a sword at her side against the barbarians who had slain poor pitiable Lilace, who raided the caravans of the road, her road, or levied tolls they had no right to, and threatened her city, who could be tamed and turned to good and virtuous folk of Marakand, to become her armies when the dark tide flowed up the pass . . . and the folk threw flowers beneath her feet and loved her. Was that so bad? And in the hospice on the hill, Gurhan’s hospice, in memory of Gurhan who had faded and died, honoured and remembered, as gods did fade and die, a woman who might have been her mother lay in a white bed in a sunny room and put an arm around the little girl who stood by her bed, a little girl in a clean, neat caftan, and said, “I’ll be coming home soon, my darling.”

Choose
, said the Lady.

Zora wept.

I cannot force you. Choose. You must ask me in ask us in, to be one with me with us, to be strong, to be free, to be wise and great and ruler of the city, to make the east great and save your folk Gurhan’s folk all the folk of all the blind gods of the east against the death of the world that comes. Or not, and be still the captive Voice, a defiant soul a broken slave a prisoner in your own repulsive body in your own rotting mind as it slowly burns away.

Choose.

“Yes,” she whispered, crouched on the floor.

She felt the surge of joy, of hunger, and almost cried again, “No!” but she saw her hand on the muddy stone, the fine bones, the lean strong fingers, her father’s hand, and she saw the skin stretched to bursting over obscene, fat, grey-hued flesh, the knuckles twisted, swollen, fevered, the hand grown to a feeble claw that pawed with nails chewed ragged at her own face.

Strength
, the Lady whispered.
Unity. Power, to build, to save, to make anew. Understanding, yes, clear sight. Come to me. I cannot stand before so many.

They would see, too many would see, would fear, would suspect, if she failed to be their Lady, the grave, shy goddess to whom they sang their songs and danced their prayers—they would see as the true Lady fought for a toehold in the world, for a moment’s meeting with her folk, they would fear . . . The thought was snatched away from Zora, but she hardly noticed. She was shivering, trembling, shuddering, retching in her fear.

“Is it yes?” she asked, the Voice of the Lady asked the Voice. “Do you choose, do you choose me choose us choose to be?

“Yes.” Her teeth chattered.

“You must come to me—

“Do you give yourself to me?” her own voice asked. Was that not a part of the vows of marriage? Did she marry the Lady, then? That was the mad babble of the Voice’s thought, and the Lady laughed.
Do you give yourself to me, Zora of Gurhan?

“I—”

The Lady waited. The priests, kept away by Red Masks, waited, not certain for what. For the Voice to gather herself, to prophesy, to give them the Lady’s will. Or for the girl to pass out, overwhelmed by the glory and blessing that had come upon her, so they could carry her off to her apartments in the hospice where she could not disturb them, so they could haul their rheumatic bones from this damp cavern where the rain once more sheeted down from the open eye of the dome far above.

“I do.” Not her mother, in the bed of the new hospice. Too late for her mother. Some other mother. Some other child.

She crawled to the lip of the crack in the floor.

“Stop her!” Revered Ashir cried suddenly. “She’ll drown herself!”

Shija moved to grab her, but Red Masks were swifter, putting themselves between the Voice and the priests. Zora crouched, shivering.

“You must come to me,” the Lady whispered through her, patient, kind. “Come to me in the Lady’s well.”

Zora rolled over the edge, into dark water, and she fell.

She drowned. The goddess poured into her, ripped her soul open and fastened claws, flayed her and crawled in and wore her skin. Fire. Burning. This was how wizards died, she thought. Died, yes, and were forged anew. The water was fire, surrounding her, pulling her under.

The deep water, the heart of the goddess. The weight of nothingness beneath, sinking down, down, drowning down, burning in the secrets. Marrow, sinew, bone, heart and blood, the taste of cold water, stone on the tongue, the fire behind the eyes, the ice, the prisoning ice and the light of the stars that called, that flowed in her veins . . .

No, no, no
, the Lady of Marakand cried, a faint voice, a prisoner, a cyst within.

We are you are I am.

Black ice. Copper sky, murky, the moon low, moons. Sea, the outrigger canoe dancing on the waves. Long journeys. The white roads of the empire. The seas of sand, the seas of grass. The hunger that drove them—her brother’s, not hers—to know more, to be more, to hold all in his hand. A new folk, a new magic, a strong magic, a folk come like he and she over the sea, but the sea of the cold grey north. What could they learn from them? The magic of blood. The wars, the folk dead in the valleys, the Great Grass stirred to war, to spill to sweep over the land, to slaughter even the babes in arms and the cattle in the fields, the north in flames, as they fought one another, rivals, friends, lovers, and the world itself the prize once one should make his empire there. But the gods and the wizards and the kings found strength and stood, and summoned the Old Great Gods, and they were thrown down, and slain, insofar as such as they could be slain, and the Old Great Gods bound them, chained them, and set powers of the earth, gods and demons, to guard them, and the world was safe.