Chapter Twenty
Time flowed silently by in the darkness of the cell, its eddies and currents uncharted, its depths unplumbed.
Four Kiren had Prince Dhich’une said?
One twelfth of a day: time enough to rise, to eat, to work, to sleep, to plough a field, to recite a cycle from the epics, to enjoy a repast with friends, to win a battle, to make love and then lie all warm and drowsy against one’s mate…
Yes, time enough, too, to prepare oneself to die, to confront the demons of fear and pain, to contemplate the mournful barque of Lord Belkhanu, the Final Arbiter of the Excellent Dead.
Harsan lay wrapped together with Eyil in her cloak upon the hard flagstones. She dozed fitfully, for she was exhausted. He could not sleep. Instead, his thoughts wandered whimsically of themselves. A remembered story came to him: of the aristocrats of the high clans who affected to make only subjective distinctions between the measurements of time and space. Four Kiren? When one was in the company of one’s beloved, then a year could be counted as a single Kiren, — while one moment of boredom might be counted as more Kiren than a tree had leaves! The distance from Tumissa to Bey Sii was only one Tsan if one were happy, but that from one’s couch to the wardrobe might be a thousand Tsan if one were weary of life…
He smiled wryly to himself, recalling chubby, argumentative Wareka hiSanusai and his lessons in philosophy at the Monastery of the Sapient Eye. Wareka affected the Doctrine of the Effulgence of the Now. Rejoice, Harsan, he would say. Enjoy! Do you not lie presently limb to limb with your beloved? The now is the all, the totality of being. As each second passes it becomes only a memory, whilst the future is naught but shadows and vague pathways yet unknown. Let the Weaver of Skeins anguish over the knots of your destiny!
Damn Wareka! Would that he were here now to take their place in this dungeon…
Then there were the dogmas of Pamaviraz the Livyani, named the Canon of the Establishment of Blessed Memory, popular with the adherents of the war-gods of the Tsolyani pantheon. Ohe, there was a brave song for you! Let both your life and your death form a pattern of beauty, they preached; make your deeds a rich skein worthy of heroes; live well and die gloriously, for your total worth consists only of the “noble actions” inscribed upon your epitaph. The most praiseworthy being is that one whose name is sung the longest by the bards of generations yet to come…
All of the God-accursed philosophers were welcome to Harsan’s present predicament!
The hinges of the heavy door screamed, and torches thrust in to dazzle their eyes. Rough hands pulled them apart, put manacles of cold bronze upon their wrists, and sent them staggering out into the corridor where Vridekka waited, accompanied by a squad of soldiers of the Legion of Ketl. These were zealots of the Inner Temple of Sarku, he saw, for beneath their copper helmets their eye-sockets were blackened with Tsunu-paste, and their cheekbones had been daubed with white.
“Put cloaks upon their shoulders, Jesekh,” the Mind-seer ordered. “The way is long, and the catacombs are chilly.”
The old man led off at a rapid pace through the passages beneath the prison. Rows of cells, tunnels, dim chambers in which enigmatic engines of torment loomed upon pedestals, dark and dripping caverns full of movements and secret scuttlings, all were traversed without comment. At length they stood before a round grating constructed of many little metal bars. A soldier produced a long, lever-like key, and five men thrust the gate open to reveal a dank, black-mouthed corridor beyond.
Once again Harsan entered the alien world of the labyrinths. Halls, porticoes, arcades, rooms, twisting stairs, narrow and rubble-filled tunnels, mighty chambers embellished with the ornate inscriptions of the Bednalljan kings of the First Imperium; then starkly bare crypts, improvised ladders; an oval court set about with slender columns and decorated with squarish, formalised motifs in a style Harsan did not recognise; the precise, geometrically perfect vaultings of the Engsvanyali Priestkings of the Golden Age… Stone demons leaned down to watch them pass, nightmares from the legends of the darkness, eyes that might have been carven-or filled with malevolent life-and mould-splotched, eroded bas-reliefs that kept them company as they marched.
All at once they emerged into an open gallery. High balconies cut from the living rock hung over their heads on every side, and thick pillars of a circumference greater than twenty men together could encircle by extending their arms and joining hands held up the ceiling. Rows of webbed, knife-edged glyphs along the walls bespoke the immortal, ever-living majesty of Kaa Drangash the Third, ruler of the Bednalljan Empire, dead now these many long, dusty millennia.
At the end of this chamber Harsan caught the glimmer of torchlight.
“Are they Ssu, Master Vridekka?” the soldier named Jesekh hissed.
“Not likely so close beneath the surface. Moreover, those monsters prefer bluish light. They do not see well otherwise.” The Mind-seer stepped forward and called out, “Ohe! Who is there?”
“Who, indeed?” A high, mocking voice rang back from the shadows ahead.
“Servants of Lord Sarku. He Who Coils.”
A black-clad figure glided out from behind one of the monolithic pillars. The mask of a priest of Ksarul gazed upon them with its blank-eyed, meaningless smile, all silver stained with blood-scarlet in the flickering glow.
“You go to your temple for the Giving of Praise?”
“We do. We require only passage from you.”
“Take it, then.” The figure stood aside, waved a graceful hand.
Vridekka’s party started forward, halberds held high, watching all around. The Mind-seer reached out and jerked the cloak-cowls down over his captives’ faces. Harsan had only a momentary glimpse of many men: some in black, and some in the sable and purple of Lord Ksarul’s feared Cohort, Lord Gruganu, the Knower of Spells. There were others as well: naked slaves with torches, and still more who were chained together and who bore picks and mallets. A heap of rubble told where they had been digging.
“So,” Vridekka said conversationally, “you Black-Robes would ' dri ve a tunnel from the Hall of Mettukeng into the Maze of Unretuming? I wonder what you seek there?”
“On your way to your temple, servant of the Worm,” the pleasantly sardonic voice replied. “The Concordat does not hold down here.”
Vridekka cackled. “Yet we are allies, eh? Slay us, and more than one pot will be shattered! We follow the same road this night, though your Doomed Prince loves not our Lord of Worms overmuch.”
The other gave a derisive, rippling laugh but said no more.
Could this be Kerektu hiKhanmu? It sounded like him, though the timbre of this man’s voice seemed higher. Harsan took a chance and suddenly shook his head as hard as he could. The cowl slipped down upon his shoulders, and he turned his face toward the Black-Robe, opening his mouth to cry out. The Temple of Ksarul was no friend to Lord Thumis, but if there were two rival players in this game, might there not be three-or more?
A hard blow took him in the back of the head, and he would have fallen except for the rough hands of his captors. The cowl was jerked back down over his face. A fist caught him in the ribs so that the words he planned became only a grunt and a gasp for air.
“La, it seems that one of your guests would not mind missing your feast!”
Was the man coming toward them?
“Perhaps because he may sleep tonight with the One of Mouths.” Vridekka sounded matter of fact, almost bored. Iron-hard hands continued to propel Harsan on toward the far end of the chamber.
“On your way, then, and may your great Worm crawl forth and kiss the backsides of the lot of you!” Again came the high, pleasant laughter. Someone barked a command, feet shuffled, tools clanged, and the echo of picks upon stone dwindled away behind them as the Mind-seer led on into the darkness.
At length the hands upon his arms pulled Harsan to a halt, and the cowl was thrown back from his face. He blinked confusedly, at first unable to comprehend the kaleidoscope within the chamber at whose entrance they stood: swirls of brown and gold and black and russet and ochre, a thousand colours, a myriad shapes, seemingly boundless distances.
Harsan had never before been inside a temple to Lord Sarku, Master of Worms. The Temple of Rising From
