The House of Sacrifice Page 3

  “They’re getting a bath prepared for you,” said Osen. A girl came running, offered wine in gold cups. She bowed her head to Marith. Her body leaning forward so that he could see down her dress. Sweat, running down inside her dress. Reached out and took the cup and his hand shook and the cup fell. Wine stain over the blood. The cup rolled on the floor. He stared at it. The girl stood very still.

  Marith opened his mouth. Felt himself about to scream. A choked dry shriek came out of him.

  “Get out,” said Osen. “Everyone. Out. Now.”

  A man who was perhaps a senior servant, the master of the bedchamber, dripping in silk and jewels, fat face fat hands, fussing about, “The mess, My Lord, My Lord King, the mess, I’ll have the girl whipped, I—”

  Osen said, “Get out. Now. Everyone.”

  “You’re not injured, somehow?” Osen asked when they were alone.

  “Of course I’m not injured. Don’t be absurd. I’m just tired.” Marith rubbed his eyes. “Three assaults in four days. Tiring.”

  A strange look on Osen’s face. Osen said, “Good.”

  “Of course I’m not injured. How could I be injured?”

  “I said, good. How could you be injured? I was just concerned.”

  Osen knelt down, began to peel Marith’s armour off him. Blood spatter, blood and gore streaming down him, flaking off him, whole bits of what had once been people, congealing in lumps, running off his skin.

  “Gods, this stinks,” said Osen. He was as filthy as Marith was. Marith reached down and fumbled with the straps of Osen’s armour in turn.

  “Leave it. I’ll do it later. The important thing is you.” Osen took his hand. “You’re shaking.”

  “I’m fine.”

  “This carpet is bloody ruined,” said Osen. Still struggling with Marith’s armour that was stuck to him with blood. “It’ll have to be burned.”

  The last time he’d been here, at Sun’s Height. Kneeling on the carpet at Thalia’s feet, Thalia’s face shining bronze like candles, looking down at him. Love and joy and peace.

  Osen said, “There! Gods, wretched thing.” Clatter of metal. The armour lying in blood and spilled wine. “Let’s get you next door to the bath, then. I’ll get you a drink for when you’re in there.”

  Blink of hope. “Hatha?”

  “A bit early in the day, don’t you think?”

  Marith blinked. “Please?”

  “You’re the king. I do as you say. But, look, maybe try to go a bit easy. Maybe?”

  Marith rubbed his eyes. “I’m fine.”

  “You said. But, look: go easy. Alleen’s choosing the drinks tonight. We tossed for it, who got to storm the Salen Gateway, who wussed out with the Sea Gate but got to choose the victory drinks. And you do look… tired. So go easy beforehand, maybe? Yes? No?”

  Marith rubbed his eyes. “I’m fine.”

  His legs were shaking. Osen had to help him into the bath. Voices of the servants fussing cleaning up his bedchamber. His head was aching. His whole body was aching. The bath chamber had windows of blue glass. Made his skin look blue and dead. Could hear screams. Smell of smoke, sound of fire. The girl sobbing, where she was being whipped.

  Chapter Three

  Four years, since Marith Altrersyr destroyed the palace of the Asekemlene Emperor of the Sekemleth Empire of the Eternal Golden City of Sorlost, carried off the High Priestess Thalia the Chosen of the Great God Tanis to be his bride, bested first his father and then his uncle in battle to claim both their kingdoms, avenged the betrayal of his ancestor Amrath in the ruins of Ethalden to be crowned King of Illyr, Amrath Returned, called all the fighting men of Irlast to his banner, set out to conquer the world.

  Four years.

  And most of Irlast was indeed now conquered. Cities razed. Armies broken. Kings and princes and magelords grovelling in the dust. Immier, Cen Andae, Cen Elora, Chathe with its rose trees all uprooted, the Nairn Forest a thousand miles of grey ash. The sky had been red from sunrise to sunset to sunrise, when he burned the Nairn Forest. The smoke had blocked out the sun. From the Bitter Sea to the Sea of Tears, he was king and master. Always, his power was growing. His shadow lengthening. His fortress of Ethalden was built of gold and gems and human flesh. He held court crowned in mage light and emissaries came to praise him from every corner of the world. His armies were uncountable like the grains of sand in the desert. Undefeated like the sea rising in winter. Feared like a famine when the rains fail. Over the face of the world they ran like water and the world was drowning. Over the face of the world they ran and their coming was like night.

  Marith the World Conqueror. God of war and ruin and grief and hate and vengeance. Dragonlord. Dragon kin. Demon born. Lord of Shadows. Death made manifest. Great king.

  Four glorious, wonderful, perfect, joy-filled years.

  Chapter Four

  He was slumped in bed the next day when Osen came to tell him that the Arunmenese rebel leader had been captured.

  “Oh. Wonderful.” Sat up. Lay down again. Oh gods. “He couldn’t have stayed uncaptured for another few hours? Just until my hangover went away?”

  “What did I tell you?”

  “What did you tell me?”

  “I—” Osen shook his head. “Never mind. I can deal with it, if you want.”

  “No, no. I should. I want to see him.” Bastard. Ungrateful stupid bastard. Marith thought: I left Arunmen untouched. I. Left. Arunmen. Un. Touched. And this ungrateful idiot decided to rebel against me. Which part of “untouched” was so difficult for people to understand?

  Managed to get up and dressed, just about. With Osen’s help. But, look, three assaults in four days. Tiring. And it was all Alleen Durith’s fault really, he had chosen last night’s drinks. Marith gulped watered wine, his hands shaking, fighting down nausea. The girl holding his cup stared at him trying not to look at him, like she was watching a man’s death. The palace staff kept sending servant girls to attend him, thin tight dresses and big whispering eyes. Send them away. One of them had almost touched his hand, carrying in his clothes. His hand tingled, like he’d touched something dirty, couldn’t wash it off. Sweat, running inside her thin silk dress.

  He came back into the throne room. They’d spent all day scrubbing it clean. Sat here last night and the bodies had still been piled here, he’d seen them, his soldiers and the enemy soldiers, piled up in mounds at his feet while he feasted, he thought again: why? It’s a stupid tasteless wooden chair. Mounted the steps of the dais, sat down, his legs were shaking. Curse Alleen Durith. He’d put on his red cloak, all bloody, it stank like his head hurt, it left trails of slime like slug trails on the chair. The crown of Arunmen on his head, and it was irritatingly heavy, and the previous King of Arunmen must have had a really weirdly shaped head.

  All very formal. The High Lords of his empire knelt in fealty before him, kissed his hands, offered him praise and gratitude as their king and as their god. Osen Fiolt. Alleen Durith. Lord Erith. Lord Nymen. Lord Meerak of Raen. Lady Dansa Arual of Balkash. Lord Cimer the Magelord. Lord Ranene the weather hand. Lord Ryn Mathen the King of Chathe’s cousin who led the allied Chathean troops. All his great High Lords, his captains, his friends, his trusted companions, the men and women upon whom he had bestowed the glory of his reign.

  All nine of them.

  No. That wasn’t exactly fair on himself. Yanis Stansel was back in Illyr acting as regent, raising fresh troops and overseeing the final construction of Amrath’s tomb. Kiana Sabryya was on her way to join them, escorting Thalia from Tereen.

  Ten. Eleven. And perhaps once he’d have been astonished to think he might count his companions as high as that. More even than the fingers of both hands! Look, look, father, look, Ti, look at me! Eleven friends!

  Valim Erith said, “Bring him in.”

  Stirring, voices calling outside the doorway. “Bring him!” A troop of guardsmen entered. A tall man chained and bound in their midst. He was naked. Dripping blood. Stinking of excrement. Hate and rag
e and terror on the man’s face.

  “My Lord King,” Valim said. “The prisoner.”

  Well, yes, obviously.

  The guards dropped the man at Marith’s feet.

  So.

  Marith looked down at him. Pale dying eyes. Refused to meet Marith’s gaze.

  Marith said slowly, “I left Arunmen untouched. I granted you freedom under my suzerainty. I left you unharmed. Yet you defied me. Usurped my crown. Claimed you could destroy me. Why?”

  The prisoner spat at him. A great gobbet of yellow phlegm on the gold-painted dais.

  “Why?”

  Clatter of iron chains. The prisoner looked up straight at Marith. Stared at him. A wild man’s eyes. Pale and dying. Filled with hate. Empty croaking voice like a fucking frog: “Filth. Pestilence. Poison. Better all the world died in torment, than lived under your rule.”

  That’s why? That’s all? Marith stared at the phlegm oozing slowly down the steps of the dais. I call myself King Ruin, King of Death, King of Shadows. You think I don’t know what I am?

  “I am your king,” Marith said. “The Lord of All Irlast.”

  The prisoner lowered his eyes again. “You are my king. The Lord of All Irlast. So better that I die.”

  “You let a lot of your men die for you first,” said Alleen. “And a lot of mine.” He looked at Marith. “This is pointless. Just get it over with and kill him.”

  “Better that every living thing in Irlast dies than submits to you.” Spat more phlegm. Opened his bowels and shat himself at Marith’s feet. “My soldiers were lucky, that they died before they had to look at your face.”

  “They looked at our faces perfectly happily when we marched in triumphantly a few months ago,” Alleen snapped. “Threw flowers at us, made us very welcome in every possible way, then. They were perfectly happy and alive and most of them seemed to be enjoying themselves.”

  A great big feast. The city’s fountains running with wine instead of water. King Marith and Queen Thalia distributing largesse in the streets. Girls wearing crowns of roses. Singing and dancing all day and all night. Yes, the people of Arunmen had seemed happy and alive and enjoying themselves. Alleen and Osen and the other generals had been virtually fighting admirers off.

  “So why? Why?”

  The prisoner stared at him in silence. Shit pooling on the marble. Phlegm dripping down the gold-painted steps. Stared. Lowered his eyes, stared at the floor.

  Spat again.

  “Filth. Pestilence. Rot.”

  Osen rolled his eyes at Marith. Mouthed something that might have been “hurry up.”

  Always the same. Every few months, somewhere in his empire. Someone standing up, sword in hand, promising they could overthrow the tyrant, save the world from something it was never quite clear what. Being ruled by one man rather than another, perhaps. Overthrow the rule of evil! Freedom beckons! Kill the tyrant, throw off our chains, make me king! And all the young men and women jumping up shouting agreement, muttering prophecies, singing uplifting bloodthirsty war songs. And he’d have to break off whatever he was doing, march over with an army, deal with them. And they were all freed from the tyrant indeed, and never again had to suffer beneath his yoke.

  The smell and the sight of the filth dripping on the dais was making him feel nauseous. Really seriously worried he was about to be sick again in front of them all. Curse Alleen Durith and his choice of drinks.

  Hang on, hang on, it suddenly occurred to him. I’d already drawn up my battle plan giving Osen command of the assault on the Salen Gateway. There’s no way I would have changed it if they’d asked me to. They tossed for it? What?

  “Shall I kill him?” said Osen. Osen’s hand was hovering on the hilt of his sword.

  Marith nodded wearily. The prisoner’s shoulders sagged. Osen drew the sword.

  The prisoner raised his head, shouted out: “You think yourself so powerful! But one of your own generals plots to betray you! Conspires against you! Thinks you nothing but filth and death! Think on that, King Ruin! Even those who serve you wish you dead! Betray you! I know!”

  The prisoner’s face leering at him.

  The hate in those eyes. Why? Marith thought again. Why? I left your city untouched. I. Left. Your. City. Un. Touched.

  “I won’t tell,” the prisoner whispered. Smiled at Marith through bloody lips. “I won’t tell you. Even those closest to you loathe you. Plot to destroy you. See you for what you are. Encouraged me. Gave me money. Betrayed you. I know. But I won’t tell. I won’t tell you the name.”

  “You’re lying!” Hot desperate flush in Marith’s face. “I left Arunmen untouched!”

  “Filth. Rot. Corruption. They all loathe you, King Ruin. Want to see you dead.”

  “Marith—” Alleen Durith gestured to the guards. “Take him away. Get him out of here. Now.”

  “Betraying you!”

  “Get him out of here now!”

  Osen ripped down with his sword. The Calien Mal. The Eagle Blade. Sword that had killed mages and lords and kings.

  No sound. The prisoner dead on the floor.

  Alleen rubbed his eyes. “Marith…”

  “He was lying,” said Marith.

  Alleen said, “Gods, Osen, we needed to question him.”

  “He was lying. There was nothing to find out.”

  Alis Nymen made a croaking sound. Dansa Arual was staring at Osen with her mouth open.

  “He was lying, he was a traitor,” said Osen. “Who wanted to listen to any more of that poison?” He shrugged at Marith. “Let’s go and get a drink.”

  Four glorious years. Half the world broken at his feet. Broken towers, burned fields, silver crowns, gold crowns, thrones of gold, thrones of iron, thrones of wood, thrones of stone. We march on and on to the horizon, places I barely knew existed places that I cannot imagine. Impossible to think, really, that these places drawn in ink on a map are real places where real people live. Look to the far south, stare at the clouds where the land and the sky meet—there are people living there, houses, tilled fields, people dying and being born, people thinking feeling dreaming as I dream. Children, he thought, live there. And it is absurd that they are real and exist there. I cannot imagine these places these people. I march my army on. We kill them. All across Irlast my dead lie scattered, mounds of them, my soldiers, dead! Their bones lie on the dark earth for the crows and the dogs, all out of love for me. They march beneath my banners to die for me in places they do not believe are real places, killed by men they cannot imagine are real and live. Ask them why and they will give a thousand excuses. And yet they are ordinary men.

  “I need to earn coin, I need to feed my family, my children will starve unless I earn a wage somehow.”

  “I’ve got responsibilities to the rest of them in the squad. We’re a team. I can’t let them down.”

  “I swore an oath to fight for my king. I am a man of honour. I cannot break my oath.”

  “I didn’t want to do it. But I was ordered to. If we all stopped doing anything we didn’t completely agree with…”

  None of us know, in our hearts, why we do these things. Because we can. Because we do. They really think I don’t know they’re all waiting to betray me?

  Two more days of victory feasting. Outside in the city, the Army of Amrath swarmed over the ruins, killing everything they found. Marith took Osen and Alleen Durith with him to visit the temple of the god spirit of Arunmen. See the house of the enemy that had defied him. He had visited the temple after he had been crowned here, and the presence of the god spirit had been welcoming to him as a king and an equal. So now he must come again as victor and conqueror. Killer of the god. Have a smug but entirely justified gloat. Twice, you beat me off, but in the end I was the stronger. You promised to defend your city, and you failed, like all the weak things of life. The black stone that was the god’s physical form had shattered, they said, at the moment his blow had struck.

  Also, the temple was the architectural highlight of the city, and
thus of all Calchas. A very beautiful building. Huge and elegant. Loaded with beauty in gold and gemstones. Famed for its treasurers in jewels and silk. As one might expect. He was looking forward to seeing it again.

  Soldiers were pouring over snow-covered rubble. Digging up lumps of melted smoke-blackened gold. A group of them were having a fight.

  “What… what happened?”

  Alleen said, “The dragons…”

  “. . . sat on it?”

  “They took against it, certainly.”

  Osen said, “I think we might have managed to get some of the best things out of the remains. I can have the rest tracked down, if you like. The temple vessels and things.”

  “No. It’s fine. The soldiers can keep it. But the paintings on the walls… it’s a shame, I liked them.” There had been a picture of a woman done in jewels above the west window, her face was quite wrong but her golden hair, the way she held her arms—reminded him—

  “The dragons destroyed it. Good.”

  Osen scuffed at the snow. A lump of plaster. A suggestion of yellow paint. Not his mother. She hadn’t been his mother. The woman who killed his mother. She did. Remember. She did. Killed his mother and replaced his mother as queen and tried to put her own son in his place as king. And so he’d killed her and hung her body from the walls of Malth Elelane. Her and her son beside her.

  “Please, Marith,” she’d begged him.

  He went next to the place where they kept the wounded. Osen and Alleen did not come. A long walk. As was only correct and proper by every rule of warfare, the wounded were housed far off from anything, in tents far from the army’s camp. A presence to it that Marith could feel pressing down on him. When he reached the place he was clammy with cold sweat.