Children of Chaos

The great white slug studied her left breast. 'My humblest apologies. I was misled by the wound on my lady's shoulder into assuming that she had tried a sacrifice on her own.'

'Wound?' Of course the maids would have chattered.

'Made by a sharp stone, I suspect? A metal blade is anathema. Ah, I see from your flush that I am correct. You even knew enough to use your left hand, obviously. The blood sacrifice is the essential core, but very dangerous without proper procedure and peripheral ritual. Guidance is essential. Shall we discuss terms?'

'Gold.'

'What a sweet voice you have.' His stare wandered down to the vicinity of her hips. 'How much gold?'

'What exactly am I buying?'

'Guidance. Instruction. Merely spilling a few drops of blood on the earth will not suffice. You must offer sacrifice in a place sacred to the Mother of All and swear the correct oaths. There are rituals, as I said, but it is a brief service, light compared to the years of toil and humiliation some cults require. I should be happy to provide a knowledgeable mentor to lead you to the place and guide you through your vows to the Ancient One.'

No question that the promised mentor would be fat, hairless, and slippery-eyed. Blood and dark? No, that wasn't right. Cold earth was part of it, though.

'What powers does She grant and what corban must I swear?'

Pukar beamed at Frena's thighs, so enthusiastically that she wondered if he could see through the cloth. 'She rewards according to your offering. You swear only to endure. She is also Death, but when She gathers in the night, She knows and spares Her own. If I told you my true age, you would not believe me.'

'Yesterday I saw a mob burying a Chosen alive.'

'How do you know he was a Chosen, mistress? How did they?'

'You mean, if he dies, he is innocent; if not, he is guilty?'

'I never said She granted immortality. We all die in time.'

Frena shivered. 'I will have to think about it.'

'But not too long, mistress. Your appointment with the Twelve is only two days away and it will bind you with knots you will find hard to dismiss as mere insincerity if you later wish to acknowledge Mother Xaran. My! I spoke Her holy name and am not struck down. The mentor I mentioned will naturally require payment in advance. Five measures of gold.'

'Never. Two might just be possible.'

'Five. May the ground below your feet be bountiful, mistress.' Master Pukar bowed to her crotch and departed as silently as he had come.

¦

Every day must end eventually.

Frena sat up, trembling. Darkness?... noise...

Rain at last! It spattered on the floor under the windows—not a full monsoon, but a heavy downpour even so. The air seemed just as hot, but would cool soon. She rose from her rumpled sheet and stumbled over to close the shutters by the trivial gleam of her night lamp. Then she flopped back down on the edge of the platform, head in hands, and thought it over yet again.

Pukar was impossible. Supposing she could meet his price, which she couldn't, she could never trust him to deliver what he promised. Even the seer had not been certain that he was what he would not deny being.

Common sense said she should take her problem to Father ... to Horth—she could not think 'foster mother' or 'foster father'!—but he had lied to her all her life and she still did not know how much he knew. Had he been aware that his wife was a Chosen, or was that one of the things he refused to know, as Pukar put it? She could not ask Horth for help.

Perhaps there was a clue there. If the Chosen were the cult of Xaran, then it was a cult like no other—no great temples, no priests or teachers, just solitary devotees, hunted and hated. Saltaja needed a puppet to run that Celebre place, and a Chosen would never be a puppet. A Chosen might even have the power to avenge Paola's murder!

Frena-Fabia had to solve this alone. Her shoulder was bleeding again. Offer blood in a sacred place, odious Pukar had said. There might be one such place close at hand.

¦

Not daring to bring the lamp, she fumbled along the corridor. This wing of the mansion mostly held public rooms. Only Father and she slept in it; the dozen guest rooms were never used. The swordsmen patrolling the grounds were not supposed to come in, but might if they saw a light moving around. Her toes found the top step. She began to descend, being very careful because she remembered the black carvings and did not want to send any thundering down ahead of her. Her sandals made tiny hushing sounds on the marble.

That awful night of three years ago haunted her still. Then, as now, the house had been dark and seemingly deserted. Then, as now, she had seen a light under the door of her father's counting room, for he rarely stopped work to eat or sleep. Then, as now, she had gone in the opposite direction and on down the stairs. Since then the staircase had been made wider and more imposing; her mother's old quarters had been ripped out to extend the inner court, which was now surrounded by a covered walk. She floated along this cloister until she stood at the archway nearest the place where Paola had gone to die. If anywhere nearby was sacred to the Old One it must be there. It was certainly sacred to Frena.

The rain had grown heavier, although still nothing compared with what would come when the wet season arrived in earnest. No wind penetrated the confines of the building, but rain fell down into the court with its persistent hiss and the staccato plop of drips from eaves and branches. It magnified the heavy leafy and earthy scents of the garden. It was life, the life-giving gift of the gods. Shivering, but not from cold, Frena stood in the cloister and remembered that persistent dream. The door. Her mother. Beckoning. She could not re call any dream so vivid. Blood and cold earth... No, not that. Blood and birth...