As more and more ate their fill at the King’s table and the wine flowed like water, Ilati found herself fading into the background of Lugal’s sacred feast-day, listening more than speaking. Zidanta stayed to one bowl of wine and so did she, but few others were so conservative in their consumption. The constant chattering air was one of relaxation, as if for a moment the men of Ulmanna could forget the looming threat of civil war poised above their capital city like the hanging spear of the Lawgiver himself. A sudden clanging brought Ilati’s focus back to the head of the table, not an alarm, but the rings that the great King wore bashed against the resonant rim of his drinking bowl. Easing himself up like a corpse rising from its funeral seat, the dying Tudhaliya swayed slightly as he stood. Ilati doubted he was actually so deep into his cups that he had lost faculty: no, those burning eyes were as keen as ever, hungry for something. It was either the frailty of his condition or, more likely from the stories she had heard of the jackal-clever king, an affectation.
“In the name of the great god of this city, I hope you all have had your fill of my hospitality.” His voice rasped and struggled against his infirmity, but was clearly audible in the sudden silence. “Gathered before me are the sons and daughters not only of Sarru, but of all four corners of the world! Some of you are merchants, some warriors, some emissaries, and some, perhaps, are even wise!” He grinned, but Ilati was not certain if he jested or bared his teeth. “This day is a sacred day to our people, my countrymen and esteemed guests, and it is said that oracles cast on the day of the River God’s rebirth gaze deeper into the truth of the matter than on any other.”
Ilati shifted her gaze for a moment to Eigou. Her mentor sat stone-faced, no longer the animated and affable guest he had been, but instead a man contemplating as one condemned to the gallows might.
“So let it be said in the presence of all: for twelve moons, I have dreamed of a great red star rising in the East, so great it blots all others save the moon and the sun from their places in the sky. It rises from the shores of a flooding river to the very zenith of the sky, coming to rest at the point of a mountain like a god taking their place at the heights of a ziggurat. I promise to any soul who can interpret this dream for me to my satisfaction a just and fitting reward: a sword of gods-blessed bronze, a shield embossed in silver, a chest of fine jewels and unguents, and a place high in my esteem.”
Tudhaliya sat again once he had tossed the problem to the center of the room, a faint smile curling the very corners of his lips. Immediately the clamor began. It was, after all, a most generous offer. Most seemed a little tempted, even those who would normally never delve into prophecy. Then again, most had also had rather a lot of wine.
“There are only a few he actually cares to hear,” Zidanta murmured for Ilati’s benefit. “He will let the mob’s words devour each other until Muwatalli, Yaeeta, and Eigou are ready to speak. You have not met the first of them, but he is the eldest and wisest priest of Lugal. If I were a gambling man, I would wager none of the three will speak a word until the King has commanded it. For dramatic convention, if nothing else.”
Ilati watched the rival soothsayers from various places squabble with each other, before letting her eyes settle on each of those Zidanta had named in turn. Muwatalli looked almost as aged as Tudhaliya himself, but in far better health. The priest had a scribe’s stoop and pallor, with a paunch to his belly suggesting his days of missing meals were many years behind him. His hair was white and wispy, a few gauzy strands collected and arranged in a grand effort to conceal the balding to his head. His beard more than made up for what his locks lacked, cascading down his chest in plaits kept collected by gold bands instead of the angled cuts worn by Sarrian royalty. While he probably had little use for the sword or shield, the promise of Tudhaliya’s esteem would only further elevate his temple and jewels never went amiss.
Yaeeta still sat beside Commander Sarhad, her dark eyes hawkish as she watched her competitors squabble. She perched on the very edge of her seat, but had not spoken. Even without a cue from Sarhad, she was waiting for her chance. Her lips, still red as ruby, were curved into a spell-binding smile as she watched the others stammer or talk over each other, each one dismissed by a wave of Tudhaliya’s hand in turn.
And then there was Eigou, still as death in his chair. Ilati narrowed her eyes slightly when she realized his lips were moving soundlessly. It took time to work out what they were shaping, but once she understood, a wrenching dread struck her in the stomach. No. No. Choose another. No. No. I do not wish it. No. No. Please.
He communed with something, and it was something Eigou feared. Not once had she ever seen him shrink from something, yet even his posture suggested he would have liked to simply disappear from existence. He sat with shoulders curled, as if a little boy trying to take up even less space. His good eye closed as he whispered, but the ghost of his absent eye seemed to shift its focus wildly about the room, hunting for an exit.
Tudhaliya’s patience was not eternal. He waited until his guests started to quiet enough that he would be heard, holding up a hand. “So many have bravely come forward to offer up their interpretation, yet the Lawgiver’s own high priest sits in silence when his king has need of his counsel. Tell me, Muwatalli, what does this dream mean?”
Muwatalli stroked his long, plaited beard and then rose from his seat. He stepped around to the opening between tables, the crowd scattering out of his way and returning to their seats, both disappointed and eager to hear the high priest of Lugal. “It need not even be said that twelve is a sacred number,” he began ponderously, bowing deeply to his king. “I believe this red star is the rise of a son of the rushing river: the Suen, eastern of our city’s shores. The star rises to the very heights of the heavens because that will be the heights of his power, but shining with the purity of his blood.”
Tudhaliya grinned. “An answer that pleases me, but one I expect from you, Muwatalli. Your eyes ever focus on Sarru. Perhaps a foreigner would have a different perspective.” He turned his head to Yaeeta, who still waited like a hungry falcon. “Priestess of Ziana, she who rules the hearts and loins of men, what do you think of this dream?”
Yaeeta rose obligingly and moved to stand beside Muwatalli, who glowered at her presence. She bowed deeply to Tudhaliya. “The star of Kullah is diminished, my king, and has been for moons now. At long last, Ulmanna’s rival is broken like the spokes on a shattered wheel. The great star that rises is a hope I see for a peaceful kingdom, for was it not twelve months ago that I came to your city bearing the words of the King of Nadar, he who would be your brother king? Together, bound by the red blood of a marriage, Sarru would be made so great even the gods who sit at the heights of the heavens would take notice. Surely Lugal and Ziana both would etch the names of its king into the heights, like the peak of a mountain.”
“You are both fools,” Eigou spat bitterly, succumbing to the will of whatever bid him to speak. Everyone stopped, looking in his direction. The sorcerer’s golden eye flashed in the light of the braziers, their flickering light casting a shadow across his face. For a moment, Ilati thought she could see his phantom eye glowing dully in his empty socket.
Tudhaliya chuckled at the affronted look on Yaeeta and Muwatalli’s faces. “You must forgive Eigou. When the spirit moves him, he is a mannerless beast.”
The Nadaren priestess smoothed her ruffled feathers faster. “If we are so foolish with two eyes, one wonders what wisdom the one-eyed man has.”
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Eigou’s face hardened, scornful even as his lips twisted like he had tasted something rotten. “I have no use for the wisdom of men, harlot of Ziana. The words that I speak are not my own, but cast from my lips like thorns by the One With a Thousand Faces.”
Yaeeta paled as if she’d been slapped and Muwatalli made a sign of aversion to ward off the evil in Eigou’s menacing glare. “That one does not speak without a sacrifice,” the Nadaren priestess balked.
“Speak, Eigou, tell me of the depths of this dream,” Tudhaliya said.
“I will not, most accursed King of an accursed people.” Eigou sat back in his chair, ramrod straight.
Zidanta’s eyebrows rose. “He has never refused before,” the prince said in a low voice, glancing over at Ilati. “Why would he now?”
“He must have a most dreadful prophecy,” Ilati said quietly. “I wonder if he fears what your father will do to him. To us.”
Tudhaliya’s face flushed with rage, no longer a pallid consumptive’s complexion. “I have commanded it and it will be so!” he bellowed like a bull, flinging his drinking bowl in Eigou’s direction. The dish struck the sorcerer’s face, colliding so forcefully that Eigou should have flinched. “You will speak!”
The sorcerer still sat in his gallows calm, wiping splashes of the dregs of wine from his face with his sleeve. When he had finished, he looked at Tudhaliya with a hollow gaze. “Your Nadaren guest is not wrong, King of Sarru. The One With a Thousand Faces only speaks after a sacrifice. Just as you have dreamed for twelve moons until this revelation, in twelve moons the One With a Thousand Faces will claim what is theirs.”
A chill settled into the room. Ilati felt it acutely: the One With a Thousand Faces was not requesting a sacrifice, but instead would claim what pleased them as their due. That was a dangerous proposition and everyone with even half a brain, not muddied by their wine, knew it. Even Tudhaliya sobered at that, regaining some of his composure. “Speak,” the great king said anyway, forging ahead.
“You have dreamed for twelve moons, one for each day the lioness spent in the desert,” Eigou said hoarsely. A wind swept through the room, snuffing all but one of the braziers. “Yes, you saw the destructive flooding of a river, but only a fool would seek to claim its waters or name them. Do you not recall what you saw in your dream, the limbs and severed heads swept along as it destroyed city after city? Woe to you who would seek to claim a conquering son from those waters, for they are the churning souls of the dead!”
Tudhaliya leaned back in his seat, gripping the arms of his throne. Ilati thought she saw a dreadful recognition flash across his face.
“And the star that rises in the east…” Eigou laughed suddenly, but the sound was strained and alien, almost madness in its frenetic edge. His voice changed, rising in pitch even as it gained resonance, echoing through the stone hall until there was no escape from the sound. “It ascends drenched in crimson blood, rending asunder every land its light will touch, wearing its glory like a crown. You seek to claim it as your own, but on the day that it will reach its place, where earth and heaven meet, it will belong to no one and no nation. It will shatter the chains of the subjugated. It will stir the dead from Ersetu. It will set mountains aflame with its fire until all that opposes it is scorched earth. Every man, woman, and child in this room will feel the echoes of its burning ascension onto forbidden steps, each rising higher than the last. And at the end, the order that men cling to like babes clutch at their mother’s breast will be shattered and scattered.”
Ilati realized Zidanta’s hand was at the inside of her arm again, fingers pressing gently against her flesh out of sight of the others. It was reassurance for her, but also a reflection of his own uncertainty and discomfort. The second son of Tudhaliya did not look frightened, but a grimness settled into his aspect.
She couldn’t help but think of her own vision: the sun blotted from the sky by darkness and Ulmanna undone as if by the hands of an unsatisfied weaver.
“This is a great insult!” Muwatalli spat, glaring at Eigou with a mixture of fright and anger. “You pollute Lugal’s feast day with these mutterings of doom. This sorcerer’s venomous lies are an affront to the Lawgiver.”
There were ugly mutters of agreement starting from the crowd, all of them eager to dismiss the dire future as a deception. Ilati knew that if this continued, Eigou could end up in chains or worse. She stood up suddenly, drawing everyone’s attention as she spoke with open contempt. “If the words he spoke were a lying affront to Lugal, he would have been struck dead where he sits,” Ilati said sharply. “Let us not forget that the Lawgiver prizes truth, especially on this, his holiest of days. To obscure the truth by burying the one who speaks it with aspersions is contemptible, especially from a priest.”
Muwatalli rounded on her. “And what would you know of such things, o accursed outcast born of misery? We have heard much of you, granddaughter of the snake who has spit his falsehood, daughter of the woman wielding the evil eye.”
“Clearly she is his accomplice,” Yaeeta said smoothly, words like oil drizzled onto hot coals.
Ilati’s expression hardened. “I say again: Eigou has spoken only truth. I swear on the name of the god of this city and the coming sign of the heavenly ones that his prophecy is true.”
“And what sign is this?” Tudhaliya barked.
The poet felt phantom scorpion legs nestled against her neck. She couldn’t articulate how she knew, but she felt the proximity of her dreadful vision from the city’s outskirts. It would happen not at Nysra’s bidding as she had thought, but at another’s, and soon at that. “Tomorrow, when the sun is at its highest peak, you will see it blotted out by darkness.”
“The movements of the heavens do not suggest such a thing,” Muwatalli balked. “It is not the appointed time for an eclipse.”
Ilati didn’t soften. “Yet you will see one, priest of Lugal, and know your sorrows will be many, for you have let serpents among you and insulted the One of a Thousand Faces.”
Tudhaliya let out a hiss of breath. “Very well. If this eclipse comes to pass, we will know Eigou’s words to be truth. But if it does not, I will have him stoned for speaking falsehoods on a sacred day. Kulziya, detain him.”
Ilati expected Eigou to struggle or lash out with power, but instead he rose to his feet and let the two bronze-armored guards accompanying Kulziya take him, meek as a lamb. His gaze traveled to Ilati as they bound his wrists and he gave her a small, barely perceptible nod.
Shir Del leaped out of her seat, seizing a bronze knife from the table. “You will unhand him,” the warrior woman snarled. “You have heard oaths and yet would threaten execution of him for what he has said? Such cowardice!”
Kulziya glared. “Watch your words, barbarian, or you will join him in bonds. You speak to the great king.”
Menes grabbed Shir Del, wrenching her knife arm back before she could hurl it at Kulziya in her fury. “Do not leave your daughter motherless because you cannot control your tongue, Shir Del,” he warned. “King Tudhaliya has spoken, as has Hedu. Trust your sister of battle.”
Roshanak clutched at her mother’s hip, then wrapped arms around her midsection. “Eigou will be safe, Mama.”
Shir Del blew out a sharp breath like a furious bull, but turned her eyes to Ilati. “You are certain, my sister?” she asked in Sut Resi.
“As certain as the death that follows every man,” Ilati responded in the same tongue. “The One with a Thousand Faces does not lie, nor suffer their prophets be made into liars.”
Shir Del dropped the knife, letting it clatter to the floor. “I hope you are right, my sister,” Shir Del said, temper cooling even as her glare remained fearsome. “They have more guards than I have arrows.”
Ilati knew there was nothing more she could do now. She turned slightly only to see Yaeeta and Sarhad watching her. The priestess of the treacherous one looked profoundly disturbed, while Sarhad had leaned back thoughtfully, his eyes narrow. If his toast had been a veiled threat, Eigou’s prophecy lingered far more open a challenge to Nysra’s plans.