Idol of Blood (22 page)

Twenty-Six: Devastation

There was only one possible destination once they were within its walls. At the city's center, proudly raised above the rest, was the unmistakable dome of a Meeric temple. The mosaic of its curvature was not Ra's peacock and gold, but a more striking iridescent ivory and pale green. It was more ornate than Temple Ra at Rhyman, and far greater. Though night had fallen as they climbed, the temple shone with a terrifying brilliance.

They mounted the steps and entered, insignificant specks in the splendor of the wide-arched rooms. The intimidating halls were lit at the base of each column by a single candle floating in a silver bowl. Watercolor shadows chased up the lengths of the pillars to the vaulting walls and ceilings formed of a solid, arching sheet of a substance like pearl. The columns rising into these arches were of the same glassy, pale-green stone that graced the outside of the temple, carved with minute and intricate scenes. It was impossible to see even the whole of one column's swirling glyphs.

A myriad of figures covered them, some copulating—and not all the objects of this attention appeared to be experiencing pleasure—some at war, and one that made Jak's blood run cold: a being, neither man nor woman, seated atop a body out of which an ebullition rose from a decapitated throat. The head was held within the creature's hands, a look of agony and terror on its mute face, and the creature was mounted on the victim's erect member, its eyes and mouth in a gruesome parody of ecstasy.

Ahr touched Jak's shoulder and they moved on, their footsteps echoing from the distant ceiling. They passed through this empty outer court and came upon a darkened room over which a great expanse of stars presided. These were real stars in a real sky. The rain had abated for the moment, or perhaps only for this place.

There was a presence in this room. It was terrible, cold, as if something sharp had passed into Jak's lungs in place of air. In the center of the room sat a figure that seemed carved of stone.

“Come closer.” The voice was unrecognizable, deep and metallic, like an iron gate swinging on a rusty hinge.

A single light blinked into being as Ahr stepped forward, a tall candle at the terrible feet. She draped like the bones of water against her throne in a long, green gown, skin painted gold and hair matted wildly, eyes regarding them from deep, darkened sockets without expression. Something was in her arms, some awkward bundle she cradled. Ahr made a strangled sound of horror in his throat.

“What's the matter?” she asked in the rough, toneless voice. “Don't you recognize our child?”

Jak's stomach dropped as Ra turned the bundle before the light.
No.
She had
not
done this thing. But she had. It was a small corpse, foul with decomposition. Ahr fell to his knees.

“Ah,” said Ra. “You pay her homage. She will be a great Meer one day; you are wise to do it.” Ra shifted the weight of the dreadful child. “From your womb came my RaNa.” She kissed the decrepit face while Ahr gripped the tile. “Your breasts fed her. Where are they now, Ahr? What have you done with them?”

“MeerShiva,” Ahr moaned.

Ra's visage darkened. “
Shiva?
” She spat the word. “What has she to do with you?” Her fist against the platinum arm of her throne sounded with a force that rang throughout the temple. “The bitch takes everything from me!”

Jak took an unconscious step back. This wasn't Ra. There was nothing about this creature that could belong to the woman Jak loved.

Ra turned her head at the movement with the precision of a hawk. “You,” she said, expressing no sign of recognition. “Have you seen my subjects?” Ra sighed when Jak blinked dumbly, unable to speak. “They've all left me. I will need to make more, but it's so draining.”

She scrutinized Jak then with a predatory eye, and Jak felt for the first time since the death of Kol that sense of helpless terror he'd inflicted.

“You have breasts and a womb,” said Ra. “You are female.” She turned to Ahr. “Are you virile, mother of my daughter?”

Ahr raised his head with a look of stark bafflement. Ra stretched out her hand toward him and squeezed the air between them, eliciting a sound of surprise and pain that seemed to satisfy her.

“You can people my
soth
,” she said. “You and the female. Impregnate her.”

Jak's mouth dropped open, poised to say something, anything at all, though any response defied logic, but Ra had stopped this with a motion of her hand, leaving Jak gaping in silence.

“You will receive him.”

The floor rushed upward, and Jak smacked against it, stunned by the force of the blow of Ra's will, one cheek throbbing against the tile as though slapped. It was cold, such cold tile. Fingers dug into Jak's shoulders, thrusting hard against the floor—Ahr, doing Ra's bidding.

“No!” Ahr was shouting, struggling even as he fell over Jak, his voice, mercifully, full of horror. “I will not!” he cried, but he had straddled Jak's hips, one fist digging cruelly into the base of Jak's skull so that all Jak could see was the ground.

Ra's foot rested at the bottom of her gleaming throne, wrapped in a sandal made of intricate strands of such tiny pearls it was impossible to imagine how they'd been strung. She had such delicate feet.

Ahr had torn Jak's shirt, his hands moving coldly with the will of Ra. “I will
not
!” he cried again, shoving Jak's legs apart with his knee, his palm thrusting Jak's silent mouth against the tile. Jak could feel him, hard and obedient. The tile tasted like cool water against Jak's lips. Cool like skin. Impeccable green, the color of a frost-daring plant over a frozen mound. This wasn't happening.

“I—will—NOT!”

Something snapped, a small bone of Ahr's breaking. And Ra—what existed of Ra for Jak: the bone-white foot in the caress of pearls—went taut. Ahr shambled back on his hands and knees, breathing raggedly. The corpse, RaNa's corpse exhumed from the merciless detail of Meeric memory, dropped to the floor.

“You haven't the power to defy me.” Ra stood, pearl-hugged feet stepping down from the dais and moving with carefully metered fury toward Ahr. “I—want—your—seed—in—her—womb!”

The feet paused before Jak, crystalline and delicate as the tile they walked on. Ra bent down to Jak's ear, and with a word, forced Jak to be present. “
Kol
.” Jak's lungs heaved as though breathing white-hot air, and Ra laughed. She placed her lips against Jak's temple. “Does the chivalrous Ahr know what you have had inside you?” Her soft breath curled like steam against Jak's flesh.

“What are you doing?” Ahr demanded, but Ra was no longer interested in him.

The warm breath was harsh with a smell like blood. A slender hand smoothed a stray hair from Jak's quivering cheek in a gesture that tore a sob from Jak's throat. Ra spoke clearly this time. “You received his seed repeatedly, yet you seem to think your cunt is too good for anyone else to penetrate.”

Jak drew in a sharp breath between the embracing cold of Ra's hand and the tile, skin clammy with fear and hatred. The air was like splintered glass, ripping tiny tears in the delicate membranes of Jak's lungs and throat with each aspiration.

“You are not Ra.”

Ra laughed, standing to her full height. “I am more Ra than I have ever been.” She stepped in front of Ahr, and Jak looked up as she seized him by the collar, dragging him up to her height with the cloth tightly clenched in her left fist. “You dare to defy me? You are dead.”

Ra's right arm darted forward and plunged into Ahr's abdomen, and he fell from her fingers to sink to his knees in surprise, blood flowing from his center like a dark fountain. Ahr held his hands against the hole, his face astonished, as if he could press himself back together. He opened his palms, fingers thick with blood.

Ahr raised his fathomless eyes, looking up at Ra as she regarded him at her feet with cold disinterest. “
Daufsuntma
,” he wheezed. Jak knew these words.
Forgive me.

Ra covered her ears like a child. “
Taísch naiahn
.”

“
Dai, maísch naiahn
,” gasped Ahr, “
puir ma lifta
,” then drifted like melting snow to the jade-tiled floor.

As Ra backed away, Jak scrambled toward Ahr, slipping in the dark pool of his blood as it expanded swiftly outward, and cradled his head in the lap he had so nearly violated. His skin felt cold.

“
Naiahn!
” cried Ra, and a scream tore from her throat, her voice rising in one long, indecipherable note until the sound was deafening. Jak curled over Ahr in an arc of protection as the sound dislodged tiles from the rim of the open dome to clatter to the floor around them. Ra stumbled back against her dais and pulled the dead RaNa to her breast, sinking to the ground.

“Jak,” Ahr choked, blood sputum spattering them both.

“I'm here,” said Jak.

“I'm sorry.” Ahr coughed and more blood spilled out of him. “I didn't understand,” he gasped. “We shouldn't have come.”

“Hush, Ahr.” Jak removed what remained of Ahr's shirt to tie it around his torso. “This is going to be okay. I'll get you home.”

There was a dreadful bubbling sound with each breath he took.

“Ahr,” Jak pleaded, but he was staring unfocused. Jak had to keep him warm somehow. The temperature of the open air of the temple was dropping precipitously.

The skin at Jak's nape began to tingle as though brushed by icy fingertips, and Jak turned, unnerved, to see another figure standing in the arch. She was magnificent, tall and imposing, with an impossible length of mahogany hair spilling from the depths of her cloak. Eyes like green fire took in Jak and the fallen Ahr, and Jak knew instinctively that this was Meer.

The Meer shook her head with a sigh as her eyes rested on Ra. “Child,” she scolded, lowering her hood. “What have you been swallowing?”

“Please,” said Jak, and the Meer turned her head, more evocative of a bird of prey than Ra had been. Ahr had begun to shake within Jak's arms. “Can you help him?”

The eyes flashed a green warning. “
Vetmas
are bought dearly. See what Ra has spent in granting yours.” She returned her attention to Ra, who huddled, rocking her unsavory burden at the foot of her altar.

“Please.”

The Meer paused and the air seemed to thicken, the barometer of her displeasure. “Pleas. Demands.
Vetmas
.” Long fingers moved through the row of clasps on her cloak with each deliberately pronounced word. “Is there a difference, Jak na Fyn?” The familiarity of Jak's name on her tongue was unsettling.

She slid the cloak from her shoulders, baring arms like ivory marble. She was like a statue that moved, one of the carvings on the temple columns come to life. The Meer turned with a look of cool disinterest and dropped the cloak beside Jak. “It is all I can spare.”

A spark of rage flared in Jak, but something in the Meer's words made it impossible to argue. Jak wrapped the heavy cloak over Ahr's shaking shoulders, and he calmed within moments. His breathing had steadied.

“Ahr.” Jak leaned close. “Stay with me. Do you hear me?” Jak thought Ahr gave a slight nod.

“You had best go home.” The Meer spoke casually over her shoulder as she stood over Ra.

“Home?” Jak exclaimed. “I'm not leaving him!”

The set of the Meer's back warned of barely contained anger. “I have given you what you need to take Ra's concubine down the mountain. He weighs little enough. Think for yourself.”

Jak's mouth opened in astonishment. Ahr needed help, not a fancy coat. It wasn't as if Jak could carry him.

Jak placed a hand against Ahr's pale forehead. “Ahr, can you stand?”

This time the nod was clear, but he began to cough once more, pink spittle running from the corner of his mouth.

Jak took him by the hand and braced the other arm around his shoulder, helping him to his feet. He leaned heavily against Jak, and it was impossible that he could even take a step, but when Jak pulled the cloak around him more securely, Ahr's supported weight seemed no greater than a child's. Perhaps the Meer had given them something useful after all.

“
Go
,” said the Meer, her back still turned.

“The bridge—” began Jak.

“You will find it restored. Go, before the price of your
vetma
becomes more than you can pay.”

There was no merit in arguing with Meer. Jak swept one arm beneath Ahr's knees and found him easy to lift, bracing him against one shoulder. Perhaps they could get home after all.

Blood was seeping into the fabric of the cloak as Jak crossed the smooth green stone of the temple.

Twenty-Seven: Veracity

Ra cast a furtive glance at the dark presence that observed her. It was a statue, a gargoyle. It was the angel of death.

“
Ahn na aht Ra, puir nai ahnna
,” Ra sang softly, rocking the child in her arms. “
Ahn na aht Ra. Nai ahnna
.” She stroked RaNa's gray cheek, and the dry flesh came away in her hand. “
Ahn na
.” Ra closed her eyes. “
Vetmaai. Meershivá
.” Half plea, half imprecation, it was barely audible.

Shiva spoke with deadly calm. “Stand up.”

Cowering, Ra curled around RaNa as MeerShiva crossed the room in a few quick strides.

“I said, stand up!” Shiva reached down and pried Ra's arms from the corpse, and Ra shrieked in protest. “Let go of this child,” Shiva ordered. “Let her sleep.” RaNa's body rolled from Ra's helpless arms and dissipated into the thin mountain air.

Ra moaned, struggling to break free. “You take everything from me.”

“You're a fool.” Shiva yanked Ra to her feet. “Are you so ignorant of your nature that you would destroy yourself? Have you no idea how you've come to be so mad?”

“Let me go.” Ra jerked away from Shiva's grip. “
Ahn na aht Ra
—”

Shiva slapped her, and Ra spun and struck the ground with a force that jarred her skull. The Meer was upon her before she could recover, gripping her in the steel of her arms and pinning Ra against her breast with one arm firmly across Ra's throat.

“I ask you again, child. What have you been swallowing?” When Ra said nothing, Shiva jerked Ra's head back and pried open her mouth, pressing two fingers into it until Ra gagged. “Hatred,” said Shiva. “Bitterness. Self-loathing. Shame.” She released her hold. “Why do you take such poisons?”

Ra went limp against Shiva's breast. “It was killing them. I couldn't bear it.”

“Killing them?” Shiva laughed. “They're ordinary. What did you think killed the ordinary if not their inability to bear pain? Neither can you bear their poisons. Not after wasting so much of yourself on conjuring.” She held up one of Ra's arms. “I gave you milk, yet you continued to deplete yourself.” She shook her head. “You cannot lavish gifts in this manner and swallow poison at the same time. Each
vetma
you grant takes a piece of you with it. It is this which makes the Meer insane.”

A surge of hysteria was rising into Ra's throat. “You're jealous. You've only come here to take from me because I have built in a day what you spent years on!”

“
Fêt
,” cursed Shiva. “It was the resurrecting of my work that sealed your madness.”

Ra began to thrash against the powerful arms. “It is not madness! I am no fool!
Maísch
Ra!
Maísch
Meer! Let me go!
Faísch!
”

A barely controlled rage smoldered in the green of Shiva's eyes. “
Kasíschta, isch ahn fêt
. And what you have swallowed is garbage.” She held Ra's jaw between her fingers in a grip like ice. “But you are right, little
fêt
. I have come to take from you.”

MeerShiva shoved Ra to the ground and covered her mouth with her own, thrusting her tongue between Ra's teeth despite her resistance. Ra gasped for air, but the involuntary intake of breath seemed to create a vacuum devoid of oxygen, and her lungs convulsed as Shiva began to drink all that she had within her. Ra jerked her head and thrashed beneath her, but Shiva was merciless, drawing out what Ra had taken until blood sprayed from Ra's tear ducts from the pressure within, and at last Ra shuddered, unmoving and drained.

A stream of viscous blood stretched between them as Ra collapsed onto the tiles of jade. From her line of sight, a pool of even thicker scarlet spread over the floor where Ahr had fallen from her hands. “
Meershivá
,” she whispered. “I have killed her.” Her tears ran down to the tile as though they wished to join with the spilled blood of Ahr.

“You are self-indulgent to the end.” Shiva dropped into the throne as if she'd drained herself instead of Ra. “These are tears of self-pity.”

Ra didn't contradict her. “What I've done.” She closed her eyes against the tile. “There were others—I created. I ravaged. I killed.” Her stomach heaved. “
Ai, Meershivá. I fed on them.
”

“Come here.” The tone of Shiva's voice demanded instant obedience, but Ra could barely lift her head. She dragged herself to her hands and knees and crawled to Shiva, eyes downcast, prepared for Shiva's judgment.

“
Vetmaaimeershiva
.” The plea was barely audible. “Please, do it quickly.”

“Look at me.”

Ra raised her eyes to the merciless green.

Shiva extended her hand, and Ra flinched, but the long fingers only lifted Ra's chin with their delicate razor tips. “Don't be absurd. You cannot create people, except by birthing them. How powerful do you think you are?”

“But I—”

“ShivaRa,” she said sternly, using the name Ra hadn't heard since these halls had last stood. “You ravaged only yourself. Murdered only yourself. Ate only of your own heart. Only RaNa's essence was here in part, for she was part of you.”

Ra's tears began to flow harder. “But Jak and Ahr.” She could barely breathe, choking on her own shame and regret. Whatever Shiva had taken from her had left her painfully lucid and mindful of the unforgivable, irretrievable thing she'd done. It was a single obscenity she'd committed against them, impossible to separate into separate events, impossible to weigh and compare to whom she'd done the greater wrong. She'd destroyed them both. For a moment, she almost wished for the madness. “They were here. They were real.”

Shiva didn't deny it. “And yet part of you as well. More a part of you than any phantom you created. What you enacted upon them is what you wished to inflict upon yourself, seeking to destroy what little of you remained after all your acts of self-destruction. A pathetic attempt at suicide.”

A sound between a sob and a laugh escaped Ra. If only she'd succeeded. “I don't deserve to live. The Expurgists were right.”

The palpable wave of Shiva's fury rolled over her. “They were
not
right. I have punished myself for too long, believing it. And you have given of yourself until there is almost nothing left of you because you have believed it. You have even given away your sanity.” She stroked Ra's cheek thoughtfully. “Perhaps there is something I can give you after all. Are you hungry, child?”

Ra blinked up at her, not understanding. She hadn't known hunger for some time, but she
was
hungry, nearly faint from it, and terribly fatigued. “Yes, MeerShiva.”

Shiva slashed at the crook of her outstretched arm and drew Ra's head forward as the blood began to spurt from it. “Take of my strength. There is madness in it, but no poison. I keep the poison in my heart.”

The blood touched Ra's lips, and though she'd meant to pull away, she began to drink. It was like fire on her tongue, life skittering along the flow as a flame against fuel, surging into her and mixing with the answering spark of her own blood. A swarm of sensory information invaded her: images, taste and memory that were the history of more than a thousand years of Meeric existence. She pulled away for a moment, gagging and gasping, but it was like a drug on which she couldn't sate herself though it killed her.

She grasped once more at Shiva's arm, drinking desperately, by turns assaulted and transported. She drank horror and pain beyond comprehension, sorrow and loss like a chasm of emptiness in the core of the earth, unspeakable destruction that made a pale parody of what she'd done in her madness at AhlZel. And the unleashing of a wild, proud, unbridled power beside which every erection Ra's own Meeric cock had known was a fleeting, feeble pulse.

Through it all ran a strain of ineffable sweetness, a soft meter that swelled and receded within the dark notes of the blood. As she drank of Shiva's essence, the ecstatic strain grew surer and stronger, until all that had come before was consumed in that bliss, and Ra was washed clean, empty, reborn.

There was only Shiva coursing within her, and truth. Shiva
was
truth, and she had never known any before, had known nothing. Shiva was right. Ra was
ahn fêt
—a fool. This holy emptiness had been hers to taste within the Meeric stream and she'd ignored it. It was Shiva, infinity, justice—the terror and ecstasy of retribution and desire.

“Enough!” Shiva dug her fingers into Ra's hair, yanking her away from the warmth and peace of absolution.

Ra sprawled at her feet, her body singing with Shiva's blood. The jade and pearl of the room moved in gentle waves, a swirl of soothing light and color. Before her on the tile, a brilliant poppy of liquid spread. It held no significance but beauty.

“He's cold.” The words drifted toward Jak from far away, distant, sifting syllables that held no meaning. Peta knelt beside the awkward form draped in the sidecar of the bike, her wise eyes grave. “Did you hear me, Jak?”

“I tried to keep him warm—”

“He's
cold
, Jak. He's been dead for hours.”

“No.” Jak turned to Geffn as though he would refute it. “No—I carried him down to the bike. I stanched the wound.”

Geffn took Jak in his arms. “I'm so sorry.” More words, unintelligible as Deltan.

“No.” Jak pushed Geffn away. “You're wrong. You don't want him here. It's just as it was with Ra.”

Peta spoke quietly. “I told you no good could come of her association.”

“Ta!” Geffn rounded on her. “Not now. This isn't Jak's fault.” He reached for Jak once more, and Jak struck him, a burst of pain in the balled fist bringing unwanted clarity as Geffn stumbled back with a soft curse and a hand to his eye.

“
Jak
.” Rem's stern rebuke brought Jak back toward the bike, back toward Ahr: a silent, empty heap in the sidecar. Bunched layers of the Meer's heavy cloak supported his chin.

“The cloak,” said Jak. “The cloak is Meeric. It kept him safe until I got him home. I stanched the wound just as you taught me, Ta. You're mistaken. Feel for his pulse.”

“Jak. Stop.” Geffn's hand dropped from his swelling eye. “Ahr is dead.”

“Don't you say that!” Jak shoved him with both hands, but Geffn was persistent, drawing Jak into his arms once more despite furious resistance.

They lost their footing in the waterlogged earth, and Geffn caught Jak against him, bracing one knee in the mud as they went down, refusing to let go. “Jak,” he whispered. “Marsh Willow.” It was a pet name, not uttered since their informal separation. The sound of it burst something inside Jak, some last capillary of defiance, and Jak stilled and wilted against Geffn's body, unbreathing, as if time had stopped. “You're home,” he whispered. “You're with your family. Let him go. Let them both go.”

Home
. Jak surrendered to the comfort of the single syllable. This
was
home. Mound RemPetaJakGeffnMellKeiren was home—solid and ordinary, and unmagical, as Jak was. Jak had tried to make Ahr fit into the world of Haethfalt from the moment he'd first arrived, foreign and dark and aloof, from the romantic east. The threads of his fate had been set long before, and Jak had only tangled them, had only gotten in the way. God had come from death to claim him as her own. And now she had.