Anna Spark - The Court of Broken Knives

‘But the mage had promised Amrath he would destroy that which was harming His people. And he feared Amrath near as much as he did the gabeleth. So he locked himself away in his chamber with his books and his magics, and for three days he did not eat or sleep but only worked at his spells. And at the end of three days he went back to the room where he had found the girl’s body, bringing with him his staff, and his sword, and a silver ring. And there he fought the demon.

‘Three days and three nights they fought, and fire raged through the skies above Ethalden, and Serelethe herself cried out for fear. So terrible was the battle that every child birthed on those three days in all Ethalden and for thirty leagues beyond was born dead. So terrible was the battle that the sick died and healthy men went mad and ran screaming into the sea, or set themselves afire and were burnt to death where they stood.

‘But at the end of three days, the mage overcame the demon, and imprisoned it in the silver ring. He could not kill it, you see, for such things are not alive, and so cannot die. And Amrath and Serelethe rejoiced, and Amrath made him His lieutenant, and gave him command over His armies, to lead them with fire and with blood.’

The lyre-player struck a chord again with a flourish. ‘And now the tale I’ll sing you, a story great and true, so listen all fine gentles, and pay attention too.’ The piper started playing and the lyre-player began to sing, flowery and beautiful in heavy old Pernish rhythms. Not often sung, the tale of the mage lord Symeon and the gabeleth. Complex, filled with half rhymes and strange cadences, twisted, barely used words. And it didn’t show Amrath in the best light either. ‘He was Amrath, the Lord of the World, the Demon Born,’ Marith had asked his tutor after being set to study the song. ‘How could He have been defeated by a thing like a gabeleth?’

‘Amrath perhaps wondered the same thing,’ his tutor had replied after a moment’s thought. ‘Since He had Symeon executed six months later. Remember that. There’s a lesson there.’

Felt as though everyone in the room must be staring at him. The itching was painful now, stabbing fire in his face and hands. I want— I need— I don’t— Help me, Carin. Make it all go away. Please, make it all go away. Help. Help me. He had one iron penny left after last night, which would probably buy him a half-cup of weak beer. It seemed unlikely Tobias would advance him the money to drink himself unconscious, so as quickly as seemed half decent he went upstairs to his room and lay awake in the darkness, weeping uncontrollably, trying to keep from scratching his face so badly it bled.

Two young men, boys really, gallop over the crest of a hill and down towards a long stretch of pale yellow sand. One is slim and dark-haired, the other stockier and fair-blond. They are both riding expensive chestnut-coloured horses. They laugh and shout triumphantly as the horses thunder onto the beach and splash out into the cold sea.

It is still early morning, the mist coming in off the grey water. Seabirds fly overhead. They wheel up before the rushing horses. Sad, lonely, painful cries. The sky is very pale, blurring with the sea and the dark hills, almost no colour save the deep red flash of the dark-haired boy’s cloak. A strange, bleak, melancholy winter light washes over everything, sorrowful as the birds’ cries. Against this, the boys are bright and brilliant, faces radiant with laughter and the sheer joy of being alive. They spur their horses into the foam, kicking up the water, making them leap the waves. The dark-haired boy pulls on his reins and his horse rears up, hooves thrashing, treading the air. He draws his sword and brandishes it aloft, so that its blade catches the morning light.

The fair-haired boy brings his horse to a standstill, water breaking around its legs. He watches the other, smiling at him. The dark-haired boy’s horse wheels and bucks, sending its rider’s hair in a dance.

The dark-haired boy makes a gesture with his hand and they ride back onto the dry sand. For a moment they look at each other, grinning. Then together they dig in their heels and urge the horses on again, faster and faster, galloping madly along the beach. Birds scream and start up as they thunder past, the horses neck and neck, perfectly matched. On and on, like they could ride forever, crashing through the mist, splashing back into the sea and then up onto the sand.

‘Amrath! Amrath!’ the dark-haired boy shouts jubilantly as he rides.

‘Amrath!’ the fair-haired boy echoes, laughing.

You will wonder, perhaps, whether I enjoy my life. I suppose I do. And I have known no other with which to compare it. But then, we can all say as much. All us mere mortals, anyway: I suppose the Emperor must remember his previous incarnations. Although, as he is always the Emperor, there may not be much difference between them.

I am the High Priestess of the Lord of Living and Dying, the most powerful and most sacred woman in all the Sekemleth Empire, second in importance only to the Asekemlene Emperor himself. I preside over the most sacred of the great ceremonies in the Great Temple. I, and I alone, am permitted to shed blood in the Temple. I, and I alone, may touch the High Altar. I, and I alone, know the true will of the God.

But sometimes my life seems very small, and the world around me even smaller. I have never left the Temple since I was brought here, so new born I was still marked with my mother’s blood. I will never leave it, even in death. My body will be buried in the great pit beneath its precinct, and my bones lie where I lived. The confines of my life are so small, so narrow, walls and corridors and closed doors that I know so well I can walk them with my eyes closed.

The Temple itself is huge, of course. But most of it is holy rooms, or storerooms, or imposing empty space. Ten priestesses, five novices and three girls too young to have drawn their lots live here beside myself, and there are servants and guards and such to accommodate. So there are not then many places to go. I have a bedroom, small and clean with a large window and a balcony and stairs down to the gardens and the bathing house. I have a little dining room, in which I eat alone. When I can eat: often, I have to fast. Two days, before a killing. Three days, before the killing of a child.

The killing. You will wonder most about the killing, I suppose. How I can bear to do it. But it is what I was chosen to do. What I have been trained to do since I was a child. What I am and what I know. Life, and death, and the need for dying. It must be done. I must do it. As well ask a man if he enjoys the act of being alive.

Once, in the great days of Empire, a sacrifice was made to Great Tanis every evening, in the moment the light fades and the world is neither day nor night, alive nor dead. A man for the waxing moon, a man for the waning moon, a woman for the full moon, a child for when the moon is dark. How the High Priestess then did not die of hunger, I do not know. Perhaps she lived on water and the scent of blood. Or perhaps she did not have to fast. Perhaps the fasting only came later, as the Empire shrank and its people were less willing to die for their God.

Now, a sacrifice is made only every ten days. I am glad of this, I suppose, I do not think I would like to do it every day, even if I did not have to fast between times. Always the eyes look at me and beg me not to do it, always the victim realizes, at the last, that their choice was a wrong one, that they do not after all want to die. That they do not believe in the God they are dying for. Maybe it is in my eyes too, or will be, when one of the little girls draws the red lot. It has not been drawn yet: even if it were drawn tomorrow, I would have ten years of living left to me. A good while. But a while is never enough. I see that in the eyes of every sacrifice too. They would burn half the world for a few more moments of life.