Dirge of the Dormant, page 29
part #5 of The Mindstream Chronicles Series
“Oh, that I can’t tell you, Maga. My family has kept the god’s secret for over six hundred years. I’m not about to start blabbing it now. Suffice it to say, it keeps the body young for one’s entire life. Such a person might still die of lung blight or red fever, of course, but he won’t die of old age. His heart will not wear out, his mind will stay sharp and his bones strong.”
A god’s secret. The very notion of it was enough to drive Ibsa mad with desire to know it. She practically drooled like a dog before a meal.
“My uncle was one hundred seventeen years old at the time of his death, and he looked no older than I do now.”
She’d heard of the former grand duke’s sudden death and assumed he’d been murdered, but she didn’t voice those suspicions. “That’s amazing, Your Grace. What I wouldn’t do—what the entire world wouldn’t do—to know this secret.”
“If you entertain thoughts of murdering me and manipulating my children, you’d be disappointed to learn they don’t yet know the secret. They are too young. I released my first wife after twenty years of marriage and didn’t marry again until ten years ago. My sons from my first marriage took the secret to their graves. If I die, the secret dies with me.”
“Oh, no, Your Grace,” Ibsa said. “I would never resort to such a vile act.” She dropped her hand to the side, out of the grand duke’s view. If she could twirl a small inscription, she might ease the secret from the grand duke’s lips.
He chuckled, swirling his glass. It seemed he preferred to play with his liquor rather than drink it. “Murder is beneath you, but stabbing a rival in the eye with a hairpin is not?” Before she could think of a proper retort, one that was witty and yet respectful, he offered her a piece of paper. “Which brings me to this.”
She took it, the inscription unfinished. The paper had an embossed seal of a triangle at the top and something in the center that looked like a sword. In bold lettering, it declared that the Prime Maga was Ibsa Bervoets, and the duties and honors that accompanied the title were now hers. His florid signature followed.
“Your Grace,” she said, her voice soft in reverence. “I’m deeply honored. Thank you most sincerely, but I thought you’d already named Ithek.”
“Shhh!” he hissed. “Do not speak the name of the dead.”
She put a hand to her chest and gasped. “He’s dead? God’s Challenger. I didn’t know he’d been ill.”
“He was murdered with his throat slit. Whoever did it had to have been a larger man. The Interim Prime Magus was not slight by any means.”
“Not at all.” Ibsa breathed her relief that Natan had dismissed her from suspicion. “I’m sorry for his family’s loss. I’m sure the news came as a devastating blow.”
“But as the beneficiary of the title I’d planned to confer upon him, you’re not too grief-stricken to perform the duties of the office, I trust?”
As she opened her mouth to reply, someone knocked at the door. Natan beckoned to the guards to open it.
“Palo,” he said, “what news have you?”
Ibsa resented the intrusion, for she wasn’t finished reveling in her new title and position, and yet she was interested to hear what he had to say.
Palo strode forward and bowed deeply to the grand duke but merely inclined his head to Ibsa. “Your Grace, I met with the Gatekeeper, as you instructed.”
Natan’s eyes were alight and eager. “And? Did she believe you’re her cousin?”
“Brother,” he said.
“Better still. She trusts you?”
“Indeed. She’s completely convinced I’m her dead brother come back to life. I concocted a story about angering my march commander. I told her a Mangendan was returned to her home town—Kale, I think she said—”
“It’s Kaild,” Ibsa said. “You must remember the details or she’ll grow suspicious.”
“Kaild, yes,” Palo said. “This man’s body was disguised as Tosh’s by an inscription shoved deep up the ass.”
Natan cackled and slapped his knee. “I love your creativity. Go on. What else?”
“And I was sent here to act as a Serocian spy.”
“Did you tell her Gerad and Adriel are still alive?”
Palo shook his head. “There was no need. She seemed to want me to be her brother even more than I wanted to convince her of it. She told me my wife and son were slain. I couldn’t muster a tear, but I hope I played a convincingly grief-stricken husband and father.” He looked at Ibsa, his gaze flat and emotionless. “She also said you murdered our brother, Finn.”
She raised her eyebrows. “I did no such thing. I may have suggested Retar ignify him, but his death was the god’s doing, not mine.”
“I must be appropriately angry toward you, Maga,” Palo said. “If my ruse is to continue.”
“In Jora’s presence, of course.” She smiled at him. Yes, the grand duke was satisfied he was Palo Melkachyk, born and raised in Mangend, and the Prime Witness had verified his life’s history, but Ibsa found his story a little too perfect. “How did you know the names of her other family members?” she asked.
“I didn’t,” Palo said. “She named them both for me, first her sister Cacie and then her—our brother Finn.”
“She didn’t mention the other?” Ibsa asked. She was certain Jora had a third brother, but she hadn’t cared enough to learn the boy’s name.
“No,” Palo said in a contemplative tone. “Does she have another sibling? I’ve heard Serocian men often take multiple wives.”
“Perhaps the prime witness could Observe Jora. We can verify—”
“That’s enough, Maga,” Natan said, his voice hard. “We’ve already confirmed Palo’s not a spy. I thought I made myself clear that I don’t want to hear your accusations and innuendo.”
“Yes, Your Grace,” she said. “Of course. I—I apologize. I didn’t mean to imply that I disbelieve him. I only thought we might find out the younger brother’s name.” But she couldn’t shake her suspicions. She’d seen Palo’s eyes widen at her suggestion that the Prime Witness Observe Jora. Had something happened in that cell to worry him? Perhaps she should ask Vilma herself under the guise of finding out what lies Jora had told him.
“You’ll learn, Maga,” Natan said, “that I always have matters well in hand. As for the Gatekeeper, I have plans for her.”
“What plans?” Ibsa asked, her throat tightening in nervous fear around the words. He didn’t know Jora Lanseri like she did. He didn’t know how determined she was. How resourceful.
“Come sit by the fire, Maga, and I’ll explain.” He turned to Palo. “You’ve done well, Palo. Go home and relax with your wife. I’ll see you in the morning.”
He opened his mouth and took in a breath as if he wanted to say something. Whatever was on his mind, he seemed to dismiss, bowing instead. “Good evening, Your Grace.” He nodded toward Ibsa. “Maga.”
“Goodnight, Palo,” she said. Or is it Tosh?
Chapter 21
Jora sat in stunned silence. Cyprianus of Labrygg was here. Alive. So many questions ran through her mind, they began to jumble into a single, incoherent thought.
“I’m sure you’re wondering how I could still be alive after so many years,” he said, his voice echoing down the brick corridor between their cells, “and what I must look like, all withered and frail.”
“You don’t sound like an eighty-year-old man, let alone one who’s over five hundred. And your speech is far more modern than I would expect for someone born in the thirtieth century.”
Cyprianus chuckled. “Twenty-eighth. I was born in the year two thousand nine hundred fifty-six, making me five hundred fifty-eight years old, but you won’t hear a warble in my voice, no. The grand dukes have been torturing me in many ways over the past five centuries, but they’ve also done me a service by allowing me to drink the Water of Eternal Springs so that I don’t use up the rest of my deaths in old age. I suppose that’s due to selfishness on their part more than magnanimity.”
Jora’s head spun. Every word he said was more ludicrous than the one before. “What does that mean, the rest of your deaths? How many do you have?”
“Many. Long ago, the King of Dekonin Kryk condemned me to one thousand deaths as punishment for my crimes. I have one hundred sixty-nine remaining on my sentence.”
“How is it possible to die so many times?” Jora asked.
“You know of godfruit? A gift from Hibsar that forgives one death?”
Jora snorted softly. Serocians considered it a gift from Retar, the victor, rather than Hibsar, the defeated god. “Yes. The Tree of the Fallen God grows in his spilled blood on the Isle of Shess in Serocia. It’s essentially the reason I’m here.”
“According to the Mangendans, it was a plum tree that took on magical properties when it absorbed his blood, infusing the tree and its fruit with the magic of Hibsar’s life. He’d been the god for, what? Nine hundred years, give or take a decade or two?”
Jora nodded. She didn’t know the exact number, only that his reign was third longest of the gods’, behind Pushar’s and Fenzar’s.
“After Binkar was defeated, Hibsar tasked someone with burying his bones.”
“Don’t you mean her bones? Binkar was a goddess,” Jora said.
“Yes, a woman named Binka challenged Pushar, the god before her, and won, becoming Binkar the goddess. Four hundred twenty-nine years later, a man named Hibsath challenged her. Without a body of her own, Binkar had the right to choose one to meet her challenger, and she chose a male. Anyway, Binkar was defeated, and her bones—those of the body she used—were burned in a pit and buried. Many years later, someone or something dug up the charred remains.”
“Why? They were human bones, nothing more.”
“Ah, but they were essentially the god’s bones. You know the expression ‘as eternal as god’s bones?’“
Jora shook her head, even though he couldn’t see her. “No, but I like it. As eternal as god’s bones.”
“In any case, the bones were dug up and someone found a piece that was fairly well preserved. He sold it to someone who sold it to someone and so forth until it landed in the hands of a sculptor who fashioned it into an idol. Those things can sell for quite a bit of gold, as you can imagine. What fat, rich man sitting on his pile of money wouldn’t want an idol carved from the bone of a god?”
“It would make for a fair conversation piece,” Jora said. “But what else is it good for?”
“That, my dear, is what no one knew. No one except, of course, the few individuals who’d read the Tomes of Erachin.”
“Tomes of what?”
“Erachin. Don’t tell me they’ve been destroyed.”
“I’ve never heard of them. What are they?”
“Why, they contain all the information about the magic in the world. If you’ve never read them, how did you learn to become Gatekeeper?”
Jora didn’t want to go into her story yet. There would be time for that later. “Might they be in Labrygg?”
“Labrygg is no more, if my captors are to be believed. I knew what it was the minute I touched it, for I was mater-bent at the time.”
Jora blinked hard. “But legend says you were the Gatekeeper. Only preter-bent can become Gatekeeper.”
“Yes, that came later. As a mater-bent, I could sense the god’s residual power within the bone idol, and I had to have it. Of course, the price was much too steep for my meager wallet, and so I stole it.”
Jora rolled her eyes. He was a thief and murderer. She shouldn’t have been surprised.
“Of course, the merchant issued a bounty on me, and every mercenary in the city was searching for me and the idol. They could find me, but they would never find the bone. I did what any mater-bent in my position would have done.”
“Hid it?”
“No, I ground it up and ate it.”
She barked a laugh of surprise. “Why?”
“Did I mention I’d read the Tomes of Erachin? All thirty-six of them?”
“And the tomes told you to eat it?”
“They described what happened to those who consumed the bones of a god. You’re looking at the result. If a piece of fruit containing the magic from one drop of godblood can forgive one death, imagine how many a bone would forgive—one new life for every day the god reigned.”
Jora’s mouth dropped open. That was like an entire tree’s worth of godfruit. “That’s a lot of reliving.”
“Four hundred twenty-nine years’ worth. Since you probably don’t have an abacus, I’ll do the mathematics for you. Consuming the god’s bone granted me one hundred fifty-six thousand five hundred eighty-five deaths, plus the one I was born with. I used twelve of them before I became preter-bent. That was when I became the Gatekeeper. The Mangendans have killed me eight hundred thirty-one times since my capture, leaving me”—he sighed heavily—”far more deaths than the average person can even count.”
Her mind went blank. She couldn’t fathom reliving more than once, let alone so many thousands of times. “Don’t you get tired of it?”
He laughed. “You have no idea. I’ve had time to reflect, that’s for sure.”
“Why hasn’t anyone beheaded you? Surely that would keep you from reliving.”
“Yes, as would cutting out my heart or lungs. They want me to relive so they can kill me again. I’ve done some terrible things, Jora. I’m quite possibly the worst person ever to have lived. Five hundred twenty-four years in prison gives a man time to reflect not only on what he’s done but what he hasn’t. What sort of world would it have been today if I’d used my power and accumulated wealth to help people instead of destroy them to feed the monster growing inside me?”
Jora rubbed her chest, the monster inside her stirring. “It doesn’t matter,” she said. “People will still hate and fear you and try to destroy you. Are you still preter-bent?”
“Oh, no. Every time I relive, the die are cast anew. I haven’t been preter-bent since my thirteenth life. I’ve been mater-bent once and recen-bent a few times, but the minute my captors discovered it, they killed me again. All told, I’ve spent about twelve minutes as recen-bent, my arms and hands bound as if I were the most dangerous scribe ever to walk Aerta.” He chuckled. “I couldn’t have inscribed a light ball if my life had depended on it.” He fell quiet for a time. “The worst part about being imprisoned here, spending each waking hour remembering every horrible crime I’ve committed, is having no way to atone for my transgressions. My victims are long dead, anyway. There’s absolutely nothing I can do to abye.”
Jora chewed her lip as she considered all he said. She was still reeling from the revelation that Cyprianus was alive in this Mangendan dungeon. Was he truly a good man now? Or was wickedness like a recurrent bush, always reseeding itself within the heart? Cyprianus was a regular man who’d been consumed by greed and power. What about a woman who’d absorbed the Mesitalic? Her friends and brother would be horrified if they knew the sort of dark thoughts she had. Evil was within her, infusing her blood, corrupting her heart. If Cyprianus, with all his thousands of lives, couldn’t resist the allure of ever more power, if his appetite for riches couldn’t be sated, what hope did she have with the Mesitalic’s wickedness whispering in her mind day and night?
“Can I ask you something?” Jora asked.
“Of course. Anything.”
“Did you do wrong because evil was in your heart? Or did you do it because of something else?”
“I suppose a little of both. Avarice is like a seed planted in the heart. It grows into a gnarled bush of thorns.”
“But did something make you that way?”
“Something apart from greed? No. The more we want for ourselves, the less we care about the welfare of others.”
“So there’s no hope for me,” she said, the revelation bearing down on her shoulders like a mantle of iron.
“I didn’t get the impression you’re consumed with wanting what isn’t yours, Figment,” Cyprianus said.
“No, I—” She chewed her lip, unsure she should admit what she’d done. What she’d become. “When Zivenna sent the Krykon Urielle after me, I absorbed the Mesitalic.”
“I see. And the Mesitalic’s essence whispers to you.”
She stared at the window in her door, mouth agape. “How did you know?”
“Remember the Tomes of Erachin?”
“Do the tomes say whether there’s a way to get it out of me?”
“Not without burning your corpse on the pyre, I’m afraid.”
She sighed. Perhaps it was best if she helped Gerad and Adriel get home and then disappeared for good. She could go back to what was left of Kaild, build a little hut, and live on fish and game. Everyone would assume she was dead, and the world would be safe from her. And maybe, if she was fortunate, Sundancer would return.
The door at the end of the hall opened, and two pairs of footsteps tromped down the hallway, along with two lighter pairs. Cyprianus’s cell door opened, and he expressed delight over the scents brought by his visitors. A moment later, a guard and servant woman entered Jora’s cell with a tray of food.
The delicious smells covered the stench of rot and mildew, tempting Jora’s belly to rumble in eager anticipation. She knelt like a begging dog while the servant fed her roast beef and fowl, warm bread with butter and honey, some kind of long green vegetable with a pleasant flavor, and crisp, cool water.
For once, she was grateful not to have the use of her hands, for she might have shoveled the food into her mouth too quickly to enjoy it. The servant made her chew each mouthful and swallow before feeding her the next. It was torturous and magnificent at the same time.
Once the plate was empty and the cup drained, the woman took the full waste bucket and mostly empty water bucket with her and returned shortly with fresh water and a clean pot. She then dipped a cloth into a bucket of warm water and washed Jora’s face. When she raised the kastdern to clean Jora’s neck, she paused, looking into Jora’s eyes with a question in her own.
