Anna Spark - The House of Sacrifice

Anyway. Things to be done. She adjusted the headscarf covering her burns. Went down out into the city.

She went first to the tomb of Amrath. Already crowds were gathered there to leave offerings. Just to see it. Amrath’s bones. The tarnished shards of Amrath’s sword and helmet and armour, twisted and boiled with dragon fire, eaten into lace by dragon blood. Marith had killed his brother Tiothlyn; the first Amrath had killed His brother that was a dragon, been killed by it as He died. Ever were the Altrersyr fratricides and parricides and cursed men.

The bones of an arm. The bones of a hand. A shattered ribcage. A shattered skull case. Blind eye holes, a hole where the nose had been, white pearly teeth but missing its lower jaw. Yellow old dry bare cold bone. A man who died and lay dead and unburied. A man who had no one left at the end to mourn for him. Marith had gathered up the bones in his own arms, laid them with reverence on a bier of white samite in a coffin of cedar wood in a coffin of iron in a coffin of gold. Over them a temple of black onyx had been raised, sat glaring in the shadow of Marith’s fortress. The doorway was high and narrow, like the doorway of the Great Temple in Sorlost. The whole tomb building, Landra thought with pity, was modelled on the Great Temple in Sorlost. Inside, the floor was black iron, the walls smooth stone. The gold coffin stood on a plinth of white marble. It was huge, to look as though the bones inside it had been huge as a giant. Braziers burned all around it, sending out smoke that was rancid with incense. The smoke made the air dry.

A woman leaned forward to kiss the coffin. A man placed a knife in offering at the base of the plinth. ‘Amrath,’ voices murmured. ‘Amrath. Amrath.’

Landra’s hands itched. The skin red and dry, her fingers puffed up, swollen, the skin cracked. She followed the woman worshipper, reached out and placed her hands on the gold. They ached. The metal felt very cold. She could feel herself shaking. Hear her fast shallow breath.

What do I expect to happen? she thought.

The air in the room whispered. Something will happen. Waiting. Her face reflected in the gold. Wait a little longer, and you’ll see, something will come, the face there will change, the dead will rise. Stare and her reflection is changing, no longer can she recognize that face.

Pity. My ancestor, Amrath, cruel hateful man of anger: unmourned, unburied, raw bones. You, also, would not have chosen this. Did not want this. The face there, so close, thinking it, feeling it: you trampled the world beneath you, who would ever wish this for their life? Everyone in the world, and no one. Amrath, my ancestor, you had what all hearts desire, all it ever can be is grief. To be touched by the gods is cruelty and suffering. To be as a god is to be nothing but death.

My ancestor, Amrath, help me. Grant me strength.

The face in the gold, a different face not her face. Eyes open, mouth open wide, it will speak, it will speak, tell me, help me … Pressed her hands onto the gold. Closer. Closer. Amrath, my ancestor, Your bones lie here, show me what to do, help me. A ringing in her body, a pulse there tolling. The heaviness of it. Trying to reach the surface, swimming, and the surface of the water hanging out of reach. The cool of swimming with open eyes, seeing another world.

There, a face, a mouth opening in the gold, sinking up through the gold towards her. Help me.

A man beside her jostled her, bending awkwardly forward to press his own forehead to the coffin.

Broken. Landra backed away. Dead old bones.

The man who had jostled her was garlanded in flowers, he took them off and threw them in offering. ‘A son, Amrath, World Conqueror, Lord of Irlast, grant me a son.’ His voice was sad and cracked.

Voices, echoing around the black walls, babbling.

‘My wife is sick,’ another man said, ‘let her be healed.’

‘Let him marry me. Let him love me again.’

‘Heal the pain in my leg, the wound there, Amrath, World Conqueror, I was wounded fighting for our king, heal me.’ Smell of flesh rotting. Swirl of incense smoke.

A woman stood silent, staring at the coffin, her face rigid. A man beside her stared not at the coffin but at the people praying there. A man beside him wept.

Mourning?

Rejoicing?

The woman cut off a lock of her hair, laid it before the tomb. ‘Amrath, Amrath, World Conqueror, keep the king safe. That is all I pray. All that any of us pray.’

A note of sorrow then, Landra thought, in the air, in the gold of the tomb.

The red pain in her hand felt no different, if she had hoped that coming here would help it. Touching the bones had caused it, could not now cure it. Dead old yellow bones without power for anything. ‘Tear it down,’ she whispered. And a pain stirring inside her. Itching like lice across her heart. Grief. Pain. Rage. Hope.

Such ordinary things, they wanted, these people, that they must be punished for.

Outside the tomb the city was churning with people. Thalia’s temple was empty, almost ignored; the doorway of Marith’s temple was crowded with soldiers making dedications and prayers.

‘A strong right arm, my Lord Marith Ansikanderakesis Amrakane .’

‘A strong right arm and my sword coated in blood.’

In the temple forecourt, a horse’s head had been raised up on a pole of bleached white wood. It grinned through skeletal jaws. Sinews drying curling back its lips. Its eyes were almost still alive. Its mane moved in the wind. Landra found herself staring at this, also. Disgusting thing. A sacrifice. To Amrath. To Marith. Imagine it, making a sacrifice to yourself.

‘The luck horse,’ a woman said, seeing her staring.

Landra nodded. ‘Yes. I know.’

‘The king killed it,’ the woman said, ‘on the day he rode out to rebuild Amrath’s empire. Jet black, it was, with a blaze of white on its forehead like a star. The most beautiful horse I’ve ever seen.’

The woman was dressed in tatters, her hair matted and filthy. She had a strip of rotting horsehide wrapped around her right arm. A bone that might have been a part of a horse’s backbone hanging on a chain around her neck.

‘You saw it?’ Landra asked her.

‘I held the horse’s bridle,’ the woman said, ‘while he killed it.’

Landra thought: she’s mad.

‘It was a wild horse,’ the woman said. ‘Running loose on the shore out to the north, where the land is dead. Left over from the army that fought him here, the traitors, the blind ones who did not follow him. His enemy’s horse, that fled when the battle was lost, its rider dead. On the day the army was to march my husband found it, out on the shore there where the traitors’ bones lie. He brought it to the king and the king sacrificed it for luck. To bless his army as they marched. Four years ago. Now I sit here beside his temple. To guard it.’

A horror of something gripped Landra. She said, ‘And your husband?’ But before she had finished speaking, she guessed.

‘The horse killed him,’ the woman said. ‘When the king drew his sword it reared up, its hooves shattered my husband’s skull. He lay there dying while the sacrifice was made: his blood and his life, as well as the horse’s, they marched through, to bless the army and the king. Now I sit here. Guarding it.’ She looked at Landra keenly. ‘They say that if you give me a coin, any prayer you made in the king’s temple will be more likely to come true.’

‘I haven’t been into the king’s temple,’ Landra said. She reached into her pocket to hand over a coin. The horse woman raised her hand to thank her. Stepped back. Grimy eyes blinked at Landra.

‘Any prayer,’ the horse woman said. ‘Any prayer, and it will be granted. Think on that.’