Танит Ли - Anackire

When Vodon’s men brought down the final door, their bloodlust, so long aroused, so long denied, was a single thing, unanimous. Each man was nearly insane.

They spilled in over the door, yelling, yowling, and others sprang in behind them. All were checked.

Whatever they had expected, whatever the villages and towns of shrieking women and terrified men had lessoned them to look for, it was not here.

The floor torches burned. Across the mosaic, in their glare, the great statue of the yellow men’s she-demon, upraised on her tail, lifted the serpent stems of her arms. Beneath her, they stood, the people of Ankabek. Most seemed to look into the faces of the men who had broken down the door. Their own faces were calm, almost smiling, the eyes wide, luminous and unblinking.

And there were beasts, too, standing there like the rest, or held in the arms of children. The beasts, the children—all alike—

Another door crashed inward.

Another gout of men rushed roaring into the chamber.

And were checked.

A minute passed.

The Free Zakorians began to shout. Spears were hurled, deliberately short, to dive at the Ankabekians’ feet. Not one started, or stirred. Only the folds of clothing stirred at the wind of a spear’s passage, or some woman’s hair.

“What is it?”

“By Zarduk, I don’t know—” Vodon half moved forward. “A trance perhaps—”

Suddenly one of the younger Zakorians ran across the temple. He ran straight through the motionless crowd to the place where a tall woman stood, in robes golden as the goddess’ tail. Shouting, the Zakorian plunged his knife to the hilt in the woman’s right breast. Or would have done. The blade, turning on her breast as if on marble, skidded and snapped from its haft. The Zakorian cried out, a different cry. He backed away from the woman, the almost smiling statues with their glowing eyes, the brindle cow, the silken rat on the girl’s shoulder, the flesh that was not flesh. Then, screaming, he rushed from the temple.

“Witchcraft!”

Vodon choked down a sensation like blood.

“Maybe, but against themselves. Take the jewels. Take the great statue and sink it in the sea. Fire the place. The trees outside. Leave nothing whole that’ll catch alight.” Turning, he spat. As the passionless human statues watched him with their shining eyes, he cut down his officers, next their seconds, then pushed the long knife into his own throat. Presently, his men ran over him.

The night flamed redder than the Star could make it. The flame-colored leaves flared to black ashes.

When they dragged the tumbled Anackira to the edge of the rock, they congratulated their gods. They cast her down to Rorn, naked of riches, and blind, for they had gouged out her topaz eyes.

They drank above the bleeding, smoking groves, the wines of the temple.

A wind came with the dawn. It ravaged the blackened trees, blowing off charcoal dust.

Certain of the Free Zakorians did not like this wind. They groaned that it had been full of figures, swirling—a flight of ghosts, like arrows all from one bow.

Dead Vodon’s ship foundered as they sailed north.

Only one of the goddess’ yellow eyes ever reached Free Zakoris.

At midday in Elyr, the Vardian trader had called a halt. A mile away rocks stood on the dusty sky, and on the rocks two of the ubiquitous star-gazing towers. Here, from a great boulder, a waterfall speared down into a pool.

The Vardian’s two servants and the drover sat apart to eat. The herd of fierce Lannic sheep fretted and picked at the dry grass, and nearby, the two herd kalinxes sat bolt-upright, black as basalt. Such guards were trained from infancy, lambs put in with the kittens to be suckled by a female cat. There were no such beasts in Vardath. The Red Star did not burn there, either. Nor anywhere above the Sister Continent.

The Lowland Amanackire were unaffected by the sexual stimulus of the Star. The race of the second continent claimed to be.

The Vardian trader had long since come to think they were unaffected only while they avoided its influence.

He sat outside the makeshift tent he had had put up for himself, looking at the mix-blood girl. She was taking wine to the servants and the drover as he had instructed her. She did not move like a winegirl. She was thirteen if she was a day. Small supple waist, curve of the hips, the little round breasts. And the lovely white skin that never took the sun.

She brought the wine jar to him. Her eyes were lowered. He had never looked into them. Yellow eyes, of course. He had noted that from the beginning.

“It’s too hot to go on today,” he said to her. “We’ll stay here now, till sunrise tomorrow.” He knew she was dumb. That might be an advantage. She had filled his cup and stood meekly. Eyes lowered. “You’re not afraid of me, are you?” he asked. “Of course not. I’m helping you reach your own people. Safe from the greedy Vis. Perhaps you’d like to give me something in return.” He hesitated. She made no move. He said, “Lie with me.”

She did not flinch. She did not seem pleased.

“Don’t worry,” he said, “I know you’re young. I’ll be gentle. Am I the first?” She said nothing. He wondered if he would have to force her to comply. He preferred not to use force. “Go over to the water and get clean, around the rock where the others can’t see. Then come into my tent.” Rather to his relief she turned at once and went toward the waterfall. Probably she was not a virgin, and used to being had. Her quiet was servility not distaste.

It was dark red in the tent from screened-off sun. When she entered, light came in with her and stayed.

For a moment he could not think what it was, then he sat up with an exclamation. He went to her slowly.

“By Ashkar! The brutes dyed your hair in that dung-hill town.”

For she was golden-blonde. She was sheer Lowland stock.

And she was beautiful, extraordinarily beautiful. So white, so golden. Her eyes—golden. They expanded as if with tears, but it was pure luminosity.

The Vardian trembled with his need. He took the edge of her dress in his fingers. The fastenings were simple.

He pulled the garment from her. She stood before him naked.

Again, he was almost shocked. Her exquisite high breasts were capped with gilt. In her navel a drop of yellow resin spat. The hair on her loins resembled spun metal.

“Don’t be afraid of me,” he muttered.

“It is you who fear.”

He jumped away at the voice. She could not speak—had not spoken. The words had been inside his skull. The Vardian was familiar with telepathy, had experienced it with his own kindred, if mostly as a child. Beyond the initial astonishment he was not unnerved by the mere fact of mind speech. This mind speech was, however, unlike any other.

He shuddered. Her eyes seemed to eclipse the world.

Then he fell to his knees. It happened, his body’s reverence, before he knew why. On his knees, only then, he knew.

Cast from her light, a shadow rose behind the Lowland girl on the hot red wall. It was the shadow of a being much taller than the girl, though also long-haired and high-breasted, its many arms outstretched and swaying upright upon the coiled tail that formed its lower body.

“Ashkar,” said the Vardian.

He bowed to his face as wave upon wave of ecstatic and wondrous terror burst through him, until eventually he fainted.

The Xarabian ship reached home port uneventfully, on a smooth evening sea. Next morning, Rem and Lur Raldnor rode inland for the capital.

Lin Abissa was the first true city Rem had laid eyes on for over eight years, and Raldnor’s first ever. You could not count Amlan, whose charm was all in her littleness, her impression of a sturdy painted town.