Chapter Text
“So, Dee-Ann.” said Bricken Novice Master. “You are returned from the wilderness. A tested Godspeaker.”
Exhausted, filthy and scoured hollow with hunger, Dee-Ann nodded. “I am Novice Master. What should I do now? Should I clean myself and attend sacrifice, or should I go directly to the High Godspeaker as I am?”
It was a finger after Highsun, and they stood in one of the Godhouse vegetable gardens, where Bricken Novice Master supervised a fresh crop of Novices. Most of them did not know one end of a hoe from the other. As he waited for Bricken to advise him, despite his tiredness and discomfort, Dee-Ann released a rueful smile. He was tested in the wilderness, transformed by the God in its infinite mysteries. Yet part of him still felt like a novice, and could easily join these young girls and boys on their knees in the dirt. They grubbed up weeds, and wondered why the God had called them for this.
“Neither Sabbat High Godspeaker nor Bobarak are free to see you at this time. In the coming days they will ride with the Warlord on important diplomatic business to the surrounding provinces. While you were away on your testing, a call has been sent to the treated Warlords to attend a Conclave. The High Godspeakers are secluded until then, seeking the God’s guidance in the Godpool.”
Dee-Ann felt his heart thump hard. “Novice Master?”
“The God has chosen the Prince Castiel of Et-Novakar for great things, and our Warlord of Et-Bajadek and her treated sister of Et-Haravelle along with him.” Bricken said smiling fiercely. “In time you will be told what you must know of them. Until then go about your business Godspeaker. Bathe. Attend sacrifice. Eat. The God is not served if you fall stinking and starved on the Godhouse floor. Sabbat Godspeaker will see you upon her return.”
Bathe Godspeaker. Dee-Ann felt a surge of warmth bloom in his chest. He was tested. He had returned. He had earned the right to be called Godspeaker. He was one step closer to becoming a Venerable. And one day soon he would be a full Godspeaker! Aaaaaiiieeeee God. How wonderful! He did not show his pleasure, or say anything to Bricken. Such feelings of pride were forbidden. Instead he looked down at his unfortunate attire. Leggings too short for him. A threadbare vest.
“Novice Master. I have no clothing save what I was given by villagers upon the road…”
“See Ulikai Provisions Master on your way to the bathhouse.” Bricken snorted. “She will give you a Godspeaker robe and what else you may require. Once you are properly attired and not likely to collapse, report to Kariya in the Sacrifice Chamber. You must receive your sacrifice blade and make your first sacrifice under her exacting eye.”
And then? What did the God expect of him then? Dee-Ann had asked. The God had not answered him. But Bricken was no longer paying attention to him. She had noticed a sin in the vegetable garden. Leaping on the sinner, she cuffed her smartly on the back of the head.
“That is not a weed fool!” she roared. “That is a seedling! Do you desire your fellow novices to starve to death?! Ten stripes in the tasking house for not paying attention! GO now. Run! And come back when you are smitten and can tell the difference between liver-rot and carrot!”
Fighting tears, the sinning Novice ran, and Bricken continued to rant at her charges. Dee-Ann withdrew quietly, and presented himself to the Godhouse Provisioner. She made no comment on his newfound status. Only handed him a robe, new sandals he would have to massage with calf-fat to soften them, and an untied loincloth. The Bathhouse water was hot and welcome. He eased himself into the communal stone tub and let the dirt and dried blood soak free of his weathered skin. The several Godspeakers bathing alongside him nodded politely but did not address him. They did not know each other. And idle chatter was strictly discouraged. Alone with his thoughts, Dee-Ann considered what it meant that he was back in the Godhouse possessed of strange knowledge and those stranger crystals. Well, possessed of one.
He had not brought back the larger crystal. He had buried it in woodland beyond the pinnacle’s base where it would remain hidden until the God desired its unearthing. The small crystal was wrapped safely in the pocket of his gifted clothes. He would carry that with him. It seemed to him the safest. He would find the right time and bury it in the orchard, when he went to retrieve his Scorpion amulet. It could remain hidden there next to his secret until the God told him what purpose the crystal served.
His aching body eased a little, and Dee-Ann found a brush to scrub himself to respectability. Clean and refreshed, he rose from the bath and dressed like a Godspeaker. He would find time later to have his Godbraids redone. It would not serve to see Kariya in the Sacrifice Chamber with his hair so heretically unbound. His gifted clothes he bundled for burning. They could not be salvaged even by the best seamstress in all of Mijak.
“I will make a sacrifice for the family who gifted them to me.” He said out loud. “I could have walked naked all the way here. But I am glad I did not have to. I will gladly suffer in the tasking house so you might bless them God. See them in your bountiful eye. And may their harvest be a rich one.”
He had no choice in that. Godspeakers did not possess money. He could not purchase a Godhouse sacrifice with coin. All he possessed in this life was his body. All he could offer the God in thanks for that family’s kindness was his pain,
They had fed him too. That poor family in their crumbling farmhouse, the poor, naked Godspeaker who had come stumbling out of the wilderness. He had lost his strikestone and could not start a fire. After highsuns of raw meat and bird eggs and gnawed sour roots, their repast of dry bread and hard cheese and salted goat meat had seemed a feast worthy of a warlord.
Warlord.
His mind turned sharply to C….him.
Great things? What important business drove the Godspeakers to isolation. Aaiieee God. Dee-Ann breathed, closing his eyes as he muttered his familiar prayer:
“Keep him safe.”
Was it chance that the God has tested him at this time? Sent him into the wilderness to find those crystals just as Et-Haravelle and Et-Bajadek warlords were bent upon some secret and important business? He did not think so. What did Conclave mean? He did not know why. But he felt certain that he was part of the God’s plan as they were. As he was. That he had a role to play in the coming days and in the God’s plan for…him. He thought great change was upon them. He could feel its wind blowing. His heart was racing. It was a fearsome thing to be so deeply enmeshed in the God’s great workings.
After gorging himself on Godhouse goat stew and freshly baked bread drowned in as much honey as he could scoop from the pot placed before him, Dee-Ann hurried to have his hair properly braided and to meet Kariya Godspeaker in the Sacrifice Chamber. It was different than the city alcoves that littered the Godhouse where citizens could purchase a blessing or a sacrifice or an answer to an urgent question. Where supplicants washed away their sins with purchased blood. The God’s presence was strong here. It silenced the sacrifices and the novices and slaves and supplicants alike. The altar of black stone at the center of the chamber was carved with lizards and snakes and spiders and scorpions and centipedes. And the floor under his still-stiff sandals was slick with blood. The God’s work was done here in profound awareness of its might.
Kariya Godspeaker glanced once at Dee-Ann as he entered the chamber but did not acknowledge him as she plunger her knife in the throat of a Goat kid, expertly slicing through the large vessels under its throat. A novice caught the gushing blood in a sacred basin. As the sacrifice died, Kariya held a snake eye amulet over its warm body, guiding its godspark to the God. Emptied, the goat kid’s carcass shrank, it shriveled, it fell to dust.
Kariya wiped her bloodstained blade on her red-stained robe, and turned to face him. “You are Dee-Ann returned from the Wilderness, tested by the God and seen in its eye. I remember you from your Novice time.” He bowed to her, glorying in the musical swing of his fresh godbraids with their beautiful new amulets singing the God’s glory.
“I remember your of course also Godspeaker. I learned much here in your service.” Dee-Ann said straightening.
She snorted. “In the God’s service!” she chided. “I am merely its servant. We are all of us the God’s servants. You are sent to me to learn the way of proper sacrifice.”
“I am.” Dee-Ann said bowing again, feeling the lash of her words as true as any taskmaster’s whip.
“You will learn quickly I think. We sacrifice as fast as animals can be brought from the farms here. Do you know why?”
“Et-Bajadek Warlord and Sabbat High Godspeaker ride out on grave matters.” He answered her without thinking. “In the coming days they ride to meet sister Warlords for Conclave.”
Kariya’s thick eyebrows lifted. “That is true. You know of these matters?”
He shook his head. “I do not Kariya Godspeaker, save that they go.”
To his disappointment she did not enlighten him further. “So tell me Dee-Ann Godspeaker. You are pleased to learn my business? Not all Godspeakers have the knack for sacrifice. They served better in other parts of the Godhouse.”
“I am pleased if it pleases the God. That is all that matters to me.” He bowed from the neck.
“You mean that.” She said approvingly. “I can feel it. The God’s power whispers in you.”
As two of the attending Novices began the arduous task of cleaning the altar, Dee-Ann followed her through a narrow passage to an antechamber where fresh robes and sharpstones and cleaning tools and blood basins were kept. She went to a cupboard at the rear of the chamber and withdrew from it a long wooden box. Jutting from its top were the hilt of thirty blades. Each one was fashioned with different grip and patterning. She put the box on the bench in the middle of the chamber and stood back.
“One of those knives is the Sacrificial Blade the God wishes you to take for your own.” She said. “Open your heart Dee-Ann. Let the God guide your choice.”
Dee-Ann stepped forward. He held out his hand, fingers spread above the jutting knife hilts. Not one of them called to him. Frowning, he tried again, moving his splayed fingers from left to right over each one. But no. Instead, his Godsense tugged him to a small, unremarkable cupboard in the corner of the room behind baskets of sponges and a bolt of cloth. Inside he found a leatherbound case wrapped in a square of red wool. He withdrew it and looked at Kariya. Her face was set in a puzzled frown.
“This is unusual.” Her eyebrows pulled low. “This knife is one of two that were offered to Bobarak after the God chose him as the next High Godspeaker. He did not take it. The knife did not call to him. Even though it was forged from the same block of ore. The knife handle was carved bone from the same beast. Even the cloth binding was woven from the same bolt of silk.”
Dee-Ann dropped the case onto the bench. “Forgive me Kariya, I did not know. I will choose again. I…”
“No!” she interrupted and held up her hand. “The God is here. It guided you to the knife it wants you to wield.”
She picked up the case, unwrapped its wool covering, unlaced its ties and lifted its wooden lid. Shivering with uncertainty, Dee-Ann stepped forward so he might look inside. It was beautiful. As he took the knife hilt in his hands – bone carved into a Scorpion and blackened with age; its blue sheened blade the shape of a snake’s flickering tongue – a jolt of power washed over him. It was not unlike the power he’d felt in the strange red crystal.
Kariya must have caught its echo, for she dropped the case and gasped. “This is strange! The God stirs in that knife!”
Dee-Ann looked at her. “What can you tell me of it?”
“It is old.” Kariya began. “Perhaps as old as Mijak. It was forged in the dead past, before the Anvil swallowed what was once a bountiful province.”
“In the Savage East?” Dee-Ann reaffirmed. So it was from the same part of the world as he was.
“There are many rumors surrounding it, and its twin. Some say they are cursed. Others that they once belonged to the first High Godspeaker. To Uma herself” Kariya sputtered.
“And you keep it in a cupboard?” Dee-Ann scrunched up his face in disbelief.
“Things are things Dee-Ann. We are the voice of the living God in the world, yet we dress in plain robes. We keep knives in boxes. And those boxes in cupboards. This knife is offered to High Godspeakers and then put away.”
He felt his heart hammer against his ribs. “Offered only to High Godspeakers?”
“So I was told.”
And yet the God his guided him to it. The hilt fit his hand like his own flesh. He loved this knife. It belonged to him. But if Bobarak discovered this knife had chosen him he would be in danger. No one could tell him.
“Who was the last person to use it?” he asked as the knife’s power caressed his bones.
“I do not know. A Godspeaker long dead I can tell you that much,” she answered. “I will think on this Dee-Ann. I will open my heart. This choosing disturbs me. I think it an omen. A portent. But of what I cannot tell you.”
“Godspeaker. Are you sworn to tell of this choosing?” Dee-Ann asked. “Must others know what has happened here?”
She stared in surprise. “Other Godspeakers? No but…”
“Then please! Let it be our secret.” Dee-Ann begged. “When the God is ready, it will reveal its purpose in guiding me to this blade. Until then, I do not wish anyone else to know what has happened here. I am newly tested. I was not born in Et-Bajadek. After what happened when I was tested with the Godstones, I have no desire for others to know this blade and treat me differently…or to invite Bobarak High Godspeaker’s wrath.”
“I understand. But you must know…I cannot keep secrets from Bobarak. He can smell lies and see deceit. He will read the truth in my mind in time.” She stammered.
“Kariya Godspeaker, I agree that he must be told. But will you agree to let me be the one to tell him?” Dee-Ann breathed through his rising frustration.
“That is not proper. I am Master of the Sacrifice Chamber. I am charged with the sacrificial blades.” Her plain features pulled into a hard, stubborn line.
“I understand that. But I feel I am guided by the God. I must be the one to tell him in the God’s time.” Dee-Ann said.
It was no small thing to invoke the God like that. And Kariya’s face morphed into an appropriate mask of awe. “You say so?”
“I do. I feel the God whispering in my heart. Night and day it burns within me like a red hot coal.” Dee-Ann admitted. There was not lie. “Please. Let me tell him.”
“Very well Dee-Ann. You have my silence.” She nodded. But she did not seem happy. Her nostrils flared and her lips twitched. He did not think she was a sour woman. But he could see the war within her.
“If I could ask one more favor…” he began.
“Tcha! You are very bold for one so newly tested!” she chided him
“You have my word Kariya Godspeaker. Before lowsun I will kneed before the Taskmaster that I might be purged of all sin.”
“What is this other thing you desire then?” she sneered.
He looked down at the ancient blade in his hand. “This blade will attract attention whenever I wield it. Until I have spoken with High Godspeaker Bobarak, and he has given me leave to use it….I think I am better served with something plainer. Can I choose another to learn the art of Sacrifice with you?”
She shoved the knife box across the table at him. “It would be wiser. Choose quickly Dee-Ann. You take much of my time.”
“Thank you Kariya. The God see you for your understanding” he bowed low to her. Shadows lurked within her eyes. He could see she was not comfortable with her decision.
He chose a random knife from the box. The God did not care which one he chose. He felt no surge of power. It was a plain tool that would help him to serve the God. Kariya gave him the sheath that fit his working blade. This he strapped to his belt. His true blade, he returned to its wooden box and rewrapped in its red wool. He would take it with him when he went to retrieve his scorpion amulet. It could keep company in the buried orchard with the small red crystal and his secret.
Eith this true blade tucked into his loincloth, and his working blade at his side, he followed Kariya Godspeaker into the Sacrifice Chamber. The Novices had by then finished scrubbing the altar, and under her watchful eye Dee-Ann fed the God a seemingly endless array of white and black lambs, goat kids, golden cockerels and doves and pigeons…
The more he fed it, the hungrier the God seemed.
He did not know why or when Kariya stilled his hand. Only that he had finished for the day and was to return at Newsun. He walked through the Godhouse until he found the kitchens, and there indulged in a bowl of thick soup and a round of bread. He had only eaten three spoonfuls of soup and two bites of bread when he heard Bricken Novice Master call his name.
“Dee-Ann. Come. My last duty as your Novice Master is to assign you a Godspeaker’s sleeping quarters.” She said rapping her knuckles on the wooden table. Dee-Ann pushed his bowl away and followed without a word. She led him up many stairs and down a long stone corridor.
“A pallet, a candle, a pish-pot and a blanket.” Bricken said opening a creaking wooden door. “For as long as your remain in this Godhouse, this will be your place.”
Dee-Ann looked around the small room. It was three by three paces in any direction, with only a slit in the stone wall as an excuse for a window. “And do you know how long that will be Novice Master?” he asked softly.
“Only the High Godspeaker can determine this.” Bricken said gravely.
“Bricken Novice Master.” Dee-Ann said when she turned to leave. “Am I bound to remain here for the rest of the night?” he asked. “Or am I allowed a moment of contemplation and prayer in the shrine garden in the Orchard?”
Bricken’s face warmed with something like approval. “You were always a devout Novice. I know you love the God. I see its glory in you. If you wish to pray in the orchard I say go to it. Should anyone protest your presence there, send them to see me.”
She tapped her fingertips to his elbow and was gone. Dee-Ann waited until he could no longer hear her shuffling footsteps, before retrieving the crystal and the ancient blade, and making his way to the orchard to retrieve his scorpion amulet and bury these new secrets along with his old one.