The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms

been my choice,” he said softly.

Nahadoth’s eyes flicked to him and lingered for a moment; there was a hint of surprise in his expression. “You must do as your lord requires.” Not Dekarta. Itempas.

“This is not his doing,” Viraine said, scowling. Then he seemed to recall himself, throwing Scimina one last glare and shaking his head. “Fine, then.”

He reached into a pocket of his cloak and went to crouch beside Nahadoth, setting on his thigh a small square of paper on which had been drawn a spidery, liquid gods’ sigil. Somehow—I refused to think deeply about how—I knew a line was missing from it. Then Viraine took out a brush with a capped tip.

I felt queasy. I stepped forward, lifting a bloodied hand to protest—and then stopped as my eyes met Nahadoth’s. His face was impassive, the glance lazy and disinterested, but my mouth went dry anyhow. He knew what was coming better than I did. He knew I could stop it. But the only way I could do that was to risk revealing the secret of Enefa’s soul.

Yet the alternative…

Scimina, observing this exchange, laughed—and then, to my revulsion, she came over to take me by the shoulder. “I commend you on your taste, Cousin. He is magnificent, isn’t he? I have often wondered if there was some way… but, of course, there isn’t.”

She watched as Viraine set the square of paper on the floor beside Nahadoth, in one of the few spots unmarred by Sieh’s blood. Viraine then uncapped the brush, hunched over the square, and very carefully drew a single line.

Light blazed down from the ceiling, as if someone had opened a colossal window at high noon. There was no opening in the ceiling, though; this was the power of the gods, who could defy the physical laws of the human realm and create something out of nothing. After the relative dimness of Sky’s soft pale walls, this was too bright. I raised a hand in front of my watering eyes, hearing murmurs of discomfort from our remaining audience.

Nahadoth knelt at the light’s center, his shadow stark amid the chains and blood. I had never seen his shadow before. At first the light seemed to do him no harm—but that was when I realized what had changed. I hadn’t seen his shadow before. The living nimbus that surrounded him ordinarily did not allow it, constantly twisting and lashing and overlapping itself. It was not his nature to contrast his surroundings; he blended in. But now the nimbus had become just long black hair, draping over his back. Just a voluminous cloak cascading over his shoulders. His whole body was still.

And then Nahadoth uttered a soft sound, not quite a groan, and the hair and cloak began to boil.

“Watch closely,” murmured Scimina in my ear. She had moved behind me, leaning against my shoulder like a dear companion. I could hear the relish in her voice. “See what your gods are made of.”

Knowing she was there kept my face still. I did not react as the surface of Nahadoth’s back bubbled and ran like hot tar, wisps of black curling into the air around him and evaporating with a rattling hiss. Nahadoth slowly slumped forward, pressed down as if the light crushed him beneath unseen weight. His hands landed in Sieh’s blood and I saw that they, too, boiled, the unnaturally white skin rippling and spinning away in pale, fungoid tendrils. (Distantly, I heard one of the onlookers retch.) I could not see his face beneath the curtain of sagging, melting hair—but did I want to? He had no true form. I knew that everything I had seen of him was just a shell. But dearest Father, I had liked that shell and thought it beautiful. I could not bear to see the ruin of it now.

Then something white showed through his shoulder. At first I thought it was bone, and my own gorge rose. But it was not bone; it was skin. Pale like T’vril’s, though devoid of spots, shifting now as it pushed up through the melting black.

And then I saw—

* * *

And did not see.

A shining form (that my mind would not see) stood over a shapeless black mass (that my mind could not see) and plunged hands into the mass again and again. Not tearing it apart. Pummeling—pounding—brutalizing it into shape. The mass screamed, struggling desperately, but the shining hands held no mercy. They plunged again and hauled out arms. They crushed formless black until it became legs. They thrust into the middle and dragged out a torso, hand up to the wrist in its abdomen, gripping to impose a spine. And last was torn forth a head, barely human and bald, unrecognizable. Its mouth was open and shrieking, its eyes mad with agony beyond any mortal endurance. But of course, this was not a mortal.

This is what you want, snarls the shining one, his voice savage, but these are not words and I do not hear them. It is knowledge; it is in my head. This abomination that she created. You would choose her over me? Then take her “gift”—take it—take it and never forget that you—chose—this—

The shining one is weeping, I notice, even as he commits this violation.

And somewhere inside me someone was screaming, but it was not me, although I was screaming, too. And neither of us could be heard over the screams of the new-made creature on the ground, whose suffering had only begun—

* * *

The arm wrenched its way out of Nahadoth with a sound that reminded me of cooked meat. That same juicy, popping sound when one tears off a joint. Nahadoth, on his hands and knees, shuddered all over as the extra arm flailed blindly and then found purchase on the ground beside him. I could see now that it was pale, but not the moon-white I was used to. This was a far more mundane, human white. This was his daytime self, tearing through the godly veneer that covered it at night, in a grisly parody of birth.

He did not scream, I noticed. Beyond that initial abortive sound, Nahadoth remained silent even though another body ripped its way out of his. Somehow that made it worse, because his pain was so obvious. A scream would have eased my horror, if not his agony.

Beside him, Viraine watched for a moment, then closed his eyes, sighing.

“This could take hours,” said Scimina. “It would go faster if this were true sunlight, of course, but only the Skyfather can command that. This is just a paltry imitation.” She threw Viraine a contemptuous look. “More than enough for my purposes, though, as you can see.”

I kept my jaw clenched tight. Across the circle, through the shaft of light and the haze created by Nahadoth’s steaming godflesh, I could see Kurue. She looked at me once, bitter, and then away. Zhakkarn kept her eyes on Nahadoth. It was a warrior’s way to acknowledge suffering, and thus respect it; she would not look away. Neither would I. But gods, gods.

It was Sieh who caught and held my gaze as he walked forward into the pool of light. It did not harm him; it was not his weakness. He knelt beside Nahadoth and gathered the disintegrating head to his chest, wrapped his arms around the heaving shoulders—all three of them. Through it all Sieh watched me, with a look that others probably interpreted as hatred. I knew otherwise.

Watch, those green eyes, so like mine yet so much older, said. See what we endure. And then set us free.

I will, I said back, with all my soul and Enefa’s, too. I will.

* * *

I did not know. No matter what else happened, Itempas loved Naha. I never thought that could turn to hate.

What in the infinite hells makes you think that was hate?

* * *