Django Wexler - The Thousand Names

She stopped as the huge man returned, accompanied by a skinny boy of eleven or twelve years in a white wrap. The boy was as bald as his giant companion, with solemn features and bright blue eyes. He bowed to the old woman, nodded politely to Jaffa, and turned his eyes to the girl.

“We will find out what she knows,” said the old woman. “Onvidaer.”

The girl threw a wild glance at the knife. “Please. You don’t have to hurt me. I don’t know anything-I swear-”

“Hurt you?” The old woman gave another paper-dry laugh. “Poor child. We aren’t going to hurt you.”

Jaffa saw the sudden hope bloom in the girl’s eyes. At just that moment, Onvidaer moved with the speed of a striking snake, raising her wrist above her head and sliding the long, thin dagger into her left side beneath the armpit. It went in smooth as silk, finding the gap between her ribs. The girl gave a single jerk, eyes gone very wide, and then her legs buckled. She hung from the young man’s grip on her wrist like a broken puppet. Her head lolled forward, greasy hair swinging in front of her face.

“I have no desire to cause anyone pain ,” said the old woman. “Onvidaer is extremely skilled.”

Jaffa closed his eyes for a moment, running through the words of a prayer. Once, such a thing would have sickened him. Once, he had even sought to bring the prince’s justice to Mother and all who served her, to break the secret temples and bring their obscenities to light. Now, having seen the men who had risen in her place, he had bound himself to her service. Now he was able to look on the death of an urchin girl without much more than a tremor. There had been so many deaths, after all. And one lesson the Redeemers had taught to Ashe-Katarion at painful length was that there were worse things in life than a quick ending.

Mother crooked a bony finger. “Now, Akataer.”

The boy nodded. Onvidaer gathered the girl’s other arm above her shoulders, so she hung with her knees just brushing the flagstones. Akataer put one hand under her lolling head and lifted it, looking solemnly into her blind, staring eyes and brushing back her hair. Then he leaned in, with the quiet concentration of a craftsman at work, and gently kissed her. His tongue pushed past her slack lips. There was a long, silent moment.

When he was finished, he put one hand on the side of her face and pulled open the lid of one rapidly filming eye until it gaped in ludicrous surprise. Again the boy leaned close, this time extending his tongue through his teeth, and ever so carefully he touched the tip of it to the corpse’s eye. He repeated the procedure with the other eye, then stepped back and muttered a few words under his breath.

In the depths of the girl’s pupils, something took shape. Her body swayed, as though Onvidaer had shaken it gently. Her eyes closed of their own accord, slowly, then flickered open. In place of white, irises, and pupils, they were now filled from edge to edge with green fire. Her lips shifted, and a wisp of smoke curled upward from the corner of her mouth.

The old woman grunted, satisfied. She gestured Akataer to her side and patted him proprietarily on the head with a white-wrapped claw. Then she directed her attention to the thing that had been the urchin girl.

“Now,” she said, “we shall have some answers.”

“This is Mother,” said Akataer, in a high, clear voice. “I charge you to answer her questions, and speak truthfully.”

The corpse shifted again, drooling another skein of smoke. The glowing green eyes were unblinking.

“You followed Jaffa here,” the old woman said, gesturing at him. “This man.”

There was a long pause. When the corpse spoke, more smoke escaped, as though it had been holding in a draw from a pipe. It curled through the girl’s hair and hung oddly still in the air above her. Her voice was a drawn-out hiss, like a hot coal plunged in a water bucket.

“Yesssssss. .”

Jaffa swallowed hard. He’d been half hoping Mother was wrong, though that meant the girl would have died for nothing. Small chance there, though. Mother was never wrong.

“And who bade you follow him? Who are your masters?”

Another pause, as though the dead thing were considering.

“. . Orlanko. .,” she said eventually, reluctantly. “. . Concordaaaaaat. .”

“The foreigners,” the old woman said. She made a hawking sound, as though she would spit but didn’t have the juice. “And what were the raschem looking for?”

“. . Names. .” The corpse groaned. “. . Must. . have. . the Names. .”

She wriggled in Onvidaer’s grasp, and the green flared brighter. Akataer glanced anxiously at the old woman, who waved one hand as though bored by the proceedings.

“Dismiss her,” she said.

The boy nodded gratefully and muttered another few words. All at once, the corpse slumped, green fires dying away. The girl’s eye sockets were a charred ruin, and the stench of burned flesh wafted across the yard.

“You have done well, Akataer,” the old woman said. “Return to your chambers. Onvidaer, dispose of that.”

Jaffa frowned. “Mother, I don’t understand. What did she mean, ‘the names’? Our names?”

“It is not necessary for you to understand, child,” the old woman said. “Put the business from your mind, and tell me what occurred on the council.”

Jaffa remembered Khtoba’s sarcastic aside at the prospect of Vordanai sorcery, and wondered if the general would be quite so flippant had he been in attendance here. Would a cannonball kill Mother? Jaffa, looking at her frail, wrapped form, decided that he thought not.

He cleared his throat and began, summarizing the talk and giving his impressions. The old woman listened attentively, interrupting only once, when Jaffa was speaking of Yatchik-dan-Rahksa.

“He said nothing of Feor?” she asked.

Jaffa shook his head. “No, Mother. She must still be a prisoner, or else. .”

“She is not dead,” the old woman said. “I would have felt her passing. No, they hold her still. Go on.”

When he had finished, there was a long silence. The old woman’s hands, loose ends of the wraps fluttering, were never still. They sat in her lap, fingers entangled like eels, tugging here and there at the bindings as though they pained her.

“An abh-naathem ,” she said. “There is a warning there, though that puffed-up fool Khtoba and the upstarts who usurp the names of angels are too deaf to hear. The Desoltai remember the old magics.”

Jaffa remained silent. It was not his place to offer an opinion.

“Child,” the old woman said, “I want the truth from you, now, not what you think will please me.”

“Yes, Mother.” Jaffa bowed his head.

“Will the Vordanai retake the city?”

He looked up, taken aback. “Mother-I am no soldier. I cannot-”

“As best you can tell,” she said, her ragged voice almost gentle. “Is it possible?”

Another pause.

“The Redeemers have assembled a vast host,” Jaffa said, thinking aloud. “But they are poorly trained, and armed only with faith. Khtoba’s Auxiliaries are better, but. .”

There was a smile in the old woman’s voice. “You distrust Khtoba.”

“The man would sell his own mother for a thimbleful of power,” Jaffa said. “As for the Steel Ghost and his Desoltai, they will do as they see fit, and who can say what that will be?” He shrugged. “If I were the Vordanai captain, I would not attempt it. But if the gods smile on him and frown on us-yes, it is possible.”

The old woman nodded thoughtfully.

“I will give you a message to carry,” she said. “You must conceal it from Khtoba and the Council, of course. But I think it is time that I met this Steel Ghost.”