Chapter III
Debate
In which they must reckon with a heavy burden
“Hold on here,” Bessa demanded. “Just hold. The Huntress wants Selàna alive. Would She want this of an abomination?”
“Well, to be more precise, remember Aunt Nalini said Selàna is not mine to kill. That the task of killing her does not belong to me. We all interpreted that to mean the Huntress didn’t want Selàna to die, but that’s not literally what we were told,” Alia pointed out, her tone mild.
Bessa’s eyes narrowed. On no account could she allow the huntress to feel complacent about the possibility of Selàna’s death. “If you want to be literal and more precise, your aunt wasn’t talking about Selàna. She was talking about the Handmaiden. Zephyra. And to be yet more precise, I killed Zephyra when I made her drink from Aletheia’s spring. Zephyra, the Handmaiden, is dead in every way that matters. That may be the outcome the Huntress wanted us to bring about. That may be all She intended regarding Zephyra. We weren’t given any instructions about Selàna.”
To her satisfaction Alia inhaled sharply, clearly caught off guard. With her arrow having struck home, Bessa swung her gaze back to Narsai, checking his reaction.
Edana’s expression of despair vanished as she, too, fastened her gaze on the priest.
“Again, my children, the fact that Selàna didn’t choose to become a vessel, and never willingly served the demon, may be what saves her. But the spiritual taint within her cannot be ignored. It must be dealt with, and you must factor that into your plans.”
Blood surged in Bessa’s veins, her heart aflutter as a new plan formed in the back of her mind. She reached over to pat Edana’s hand. “I think you might have already saved Selàna. Did you bring the thresher?”
“Yessss,” Edana replied, drawing out the word in her bemusement. “But it’s supposed to destroy infernal constructs. The point is for the spirit to be trapped in the thresher.”
Again Bessa looked to Narsai, who was eyeing them with interest. “I was told an eidolon can be extracted from a body, without killing the person. The eidolons we’ve dealt with so far were all inhabiting bodies that were empty of the original human spirit. That is why the host bodies died, because the fellshades fled once we killed their host. There was no spirit to animate the body. But Selàna is still in her body. Must the thresher kill her? Or could it extract, and contain the part of the shadow queen that’s in her now?”
For the first time, Narsai looked amazed. He sat back and gazed at Edana in wonder. “You have a thresher? And you’ve used it?”
“What’s a thresher?” Tregarde asked. “It sounds ominous.”
“As well it should,” Narsai agreed. “My people did not create the threshers for a joyful purpose. In ancient days, we used them to annihilate animachina that hosted evil spirits of Erebossa. It’s never been used against a possessed person. Or against an Abomination, as far as I know. But I will check the lore to be sure.” He stared at Edana. “Do you know the rites? I don’t. I thought that knowledge was lost.”
Edana slumped. “Her Grace, Nensela of Ta-Seti knew the rites. She performed them to help me defeat a fellshade inhabiting an officer in the imperial legion of Rasena Valentis. Unfortunately…unfortunately, she is not available for that service again.” She told him of Lady Nensela’s current fate, and how the seer had come to impose it upon herself.
“Nensela of Ta-Seti? She who stood with Ishmerai in the Valley of the Dead? Her?” Narsai’s mouth fell open. “Very well. That settles it.” He rose, and the others stood in unison, including Alia. “I have given you what wise counsel I have, but I will not let that be the end of it. I will check the lore. For now, let us proceed in good faith, that the gods do wish for Selàna to play some role, perhaps the very one you suspect for her, Bessa Philomelos. So let us move quickly. Time is against us.”
“But the gods are not,” Alia corrected, her smile wry.
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A tension, feverish and morose at once, settled over the group after Narsai took his leave. There were too many ifs for this venture, which set Bessa’s teeth on edge. As second in command of her grandmother’s vineyard, she had lived by contingency plans. She could not always count on a harvest to be bountiful from one year to the next. Some vintages inundated her vineyard with riches, others might be devoured by locusts, or suffer from a lack of rain. A downturn in the fortunes of her customers would leave them tightening their girdles, and buying less wine.
So Bessa always kept contingency plans, and contingency plans for the contingency plans.
This time…this time, too much was riding on the works and choices of other people. To put her fate in the hands of others sat so poorly in her mind that Bessa visibly shuddered. Far easier to put her faith in endeavors whose outcomes depended upon her own actions, or on those of her staff, whom she had trained and commanded.
But now she must trust the priests; she must leave key decisions to them. Did she make her case to them as well as she could have? The price of failure was soul-crushingly high.
Now, on the way back to the larder to finish gathering provisions, one particular fact kept insistently jumping to her mind: if Thuraia should fall, there was no other world to flee to.
No Gate stood that would allow the humans to escape, as the Salamandra had escaped the doom of their own world. The giants had gone to the world of the Salamandra—
Bessa halted in her tracks.
“The giants went there,” she murmured.
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But where from? Erebossa? Or another world, where they were as natural as humans were on Thuraia?
“What about the giants?” Edana asked, overhearing her. She had reclaimed the basket she had earlier filled to the brim with persimmons, and was now filling it with root vegetables.
Meanwhile, Alia examined the lentils kept on a low shelf, while Tregarde measured out a selection of spices and cooking herbs into little sachets or tins. Sheridan looked through the medicinal herbs, particularly the ones suitable for making poultices. All of them indicated in some way or another that they were listening for Bessa’s reply.
Obligingly she said aloud, “Where do the giants come from? Can we send them back there? And are they at war with the gods? If so, why?”
“They were supposed to be gods themselves,” Selàna said, startling them by her unexpected entrance into the larder. She walked over to a corner, sack in hand, and opened the lid of a large copper bin that proved to contain flour. As usual, she avoided their gazes.
“Gods? In what way could that happen?” Edana demanded.
Bessa knew that Edana was no polytheist; she believed there was only one god alone, the Sower. And Halie, daughter of the Sea Lord, had not exactly contradicted her…
Selàna’s hand tightened on the metal scoop inside the bin. When she faced Edana her emotions warred across her face. Primarily wariness, with a touch of curiosity. And something else, another emotion that Bessa couldn’t identify at first. Then Bessa considered: During Selàna’s captivity, her mother had cared for and nurtured Edana, treating her as if she were Selàna.
Gods: Please don’t let envy get in our way, Bessa prayed under her breath. Strife was the last thing they needed.
“My mother’s priests taught me we live in a world of order, in the Cosmos,” said Selàna, her tone neutral as she scooped flour into her sack. “Erebossa was divided from the Cosmos in some primordial age that none of us can reckon. But Zephyra learned that in that time, Rahqu existed. She told Zephyra she had been overthrown. I don’t know by whom, but she likened them to the shahrabs of Anshan, lesser kings of a kind who guard and protect different nations and city-states within the empire. Only, the primordial shahrabs were together protecting Thuraia: The Huntress, the Sea Lord, the Restorer, and the Reaper.”
“The Nasiru,” Bessa said.
Alia bolted upright from where she knelt at a sack of lentils. “Guardians! You know that word?”
“I don’t,” Bessa corrected. “But Her Grace, Halie does. She’s the Sea Lord’s daughter, and that is how she refers to those gods. Whom Edana says are not gods, but are celestial servants of the Sower. Halie allowed for that possibility, as she said the Sea Lord claimed to be a servant of a kind. Not a servant of the people of this world, but of a power higher than His. And the Sower has the strongest power of any of the known gods, so I suppose that’s congruent with what the Eitanim believe.”
Alia exhaled. A smile played across her lips. “All right. The Nasiru. Good. This makes everything much easier. I am under a geas, not to reveal certain information to people who do not know of the Nasiru as Nasiru. And this Halie you speak of, she’s retrieving the Eye of the Seeker?”
“Yes,” Bessa answered. “But what of it? What does it mean that Rahqu is after the Nasiru?”
“It means I know who she is now.” Alia looked almost giddy as she rubbed her hands. “In my childhood I was taught about it. Look, the division of the Cosmos from Erebossa didn’t happen peacefully. The Sower is the one who divided them from each other, and this was partly to stop the being I now know is named Rahqu. All of the Named—and Unnamed—Ones we know of, these were created by the Sower to carry out specific tasks. But a particular Nameless One—Rahqu, I believe—wanted His power. From what my mother and her sisters told me, this particular Nameless One was stripped of its name when it was stripped of its powers. This one you call it by—Rahqu—is not its name. It’s a description of what it is: a spirit of the Void. It is neither male, nor female. It is nothing at all.”
Edana raised an eyebrow, intrigued. “The Primordial Void? It was embodied—so to speak—in a spirit?”
“A spirit of negation,” Selàna clarified. “The spirits of creation are her—its—enemies. I—Zephyra was told that the guardians of Thuraia had stolen Rahqu’s powers and had corrupted her children. They had to be turned back, she was told.”
“But really just sealed away from the world,” Alia said darkly.
Though she presented her back and hid her face, the way Selàna rubbed the back of her neck told on her state of mind. “I know that. I know it now. I’m sorry—”
“Those were Zephyra’s actions,” Alia said quickly. “As you said. She was told. How much do you believe of what she was told?”
“I know what you want: you want to know if any part of the lore she was taught could help you defeat Rahqu. If you could divide that lore from the lies interwoven with them.” Selàna turned back to face them. Though she kept her head low, she peeked at them through her lashes, as if to check their reaction. “I’ve been pondering the same question. Should I simply believe the exact opposite of everything she was told? No because some things she was told was true. You, and Optima Nuriel, and Optima Philomelos, were on your way here to destroy my fath—to destroy Amavand. That was true.”
“Truths in the services of lies,” Bessa murmured. “That’s what’s so insidious. You have to question everything.”
“And rely on nothing,” Selàna observed. “I have asked Fravak. There may be a ritual he can do. But it’s risky. And I am bound to this world.”
Plink plink came the sound of her tapping her cuffs. The soft violet light they emitted reminded Bessa that the bands were still at work, protecting them from Zephyra’s power to walk through Erebossa. Among other hair-raising possibilities…
“Why does that make a difference?” Alia demanded.
“When Amavand was dying, Zephyra visited him. He showed her his memories, and I believe those memories were true. His animus was not against the Huntress or the other guardians, but against the Seeker. Her prophet warned King Baraz, Amavand’s father, that Amavand should not be his successor. That he would bring ruin to Elamis if he were king. Five years into Amavand’s reign, Elamis suffered a siege from Shushan, and its crops were charmed away or blighted. Amavand suspected enemy reapers were acting to fulfill the Seeker’s prophecy, but he refused to abdicate. That was when Artostes showed up. And introduced him to her. The belet ershetu: queen of the darkness. But Amavand was able to show me his memories because we stood more in Erebossa than in Thuraia. You understand?”
“You want to review more of his memories?” Bessa asked.
“He knew what was true and what wasn’t. He entered an alliance with Rahqu willingly. He willingly killed my father, and tried to kill my mother. And he abducted me. He knew what he was doing, and why. The Nameless One didn’t need to deceive him at all, the way Zephyra was deceived.” Bitterness rang in her voice.
Alia held up a hand. “That’s true. But this is a dangerous time of year. Erebossa holds too much sway during the Dead Times. If you—if Zephyra hadn’t been allied with Rahqu during her shadow walk, it would not have gone well for her. Trust me on this.”
“I trust you in everything,” Selàna replied, earning an astonished expression from the huntress. Seeing the look on Alia’s face, Selàna added, “You never deceived me. Or did any evil to me. You’re all I have to hold on to in this.” She glanced at the others. “All of you. You’re all I can trust right now. I’m with you to the end. Please, huntress, is there a way to do what I’m suggesting? Amavand’s secrets should not die with him.”
Without realizing it, Bessa held her breath as she watched Alia’s reaction. The huntress sighed deeply and rubbed her temples, as if the matter pained her.
“No,” she said darkly. “They should not.”