Shadows of Sanctuary

THEN AZYUNA DANCED by Lynn Abbey

1

He was a handsome man, somewhat less than middle-aged, with a physique that bespoke a soldier, not a pnest. He entered the bazaar-stall of Kul the Silkseller with an authority that sent the other patrons back into the dusty afternoon and brought bright-eyed Kul out from behind his bolts of cloth.

'Your grace?' he fawned.

'I shall require a double length of your finest silk. The colour is not important - the texture is. The silk must flow like water and a candleflame must be bright through four thicknesses.'

Kul thought for a moment, then rummaged up an armload of samples. He would have displayed each, slowly, in its turn, but his customer's eyes fell on a sea-green bolt and Kul realized it would be folly to test the priest's patience.

'Your grace has a fine eye,' he said instead, unrolling a half-length and letting the priest examine the hand and transparency of the cloth.

'How much?'

'Two gold coronations for both lengths.'

'One.'

'But, your grace has only recently arrived from the capital. Surely you recall the fetching-price of such workmanship. See here, the right border is shot with silver threads. It's certainly worth one-and-seven.'

'And this is certainly not the capital. Nine Rankan soldats,' the priest growled, reducing his offer further.

Kul whisked the cloth out of the priest's hand, spinning it expertly around the bolt. 'Nine soldats ... the silver in the cloth is worth more than that! Very well. I've no choice, really. How is a bazaar-merchant to argue with Molin Torchholder, High Priest of Vashanka? Very well, very well - nine soldats it is.'

The priest snapped his fingers and an adolescent temple-mute scurried forward with the priest's purse. The youth selected nine coins, showed them to his master, then handed them to Kul who checked both sides to be certain they weren't shaved - as so much of Sanctuary's currency was. (It was not fitting that a priest handle his own money.) When Kul slipped the small handful of coins into his waist-pouch, Torchholder snapped his fingers a second time and a massively built plainsman ducked under the stall's lintel, holding the door cloth until the priest departed, then taking the bolt from the silent youth.

Molin Torchholder strode purposefully through the crowded Bazaar, confident the slaves would keep pace with him somehow. The silk was almost as good as the merchant claimed, and in the capital, where better money flowed more freely, would have brought twice what the merchant had asked. The priest had not risen so high in the Rankan bureaucracy that he failed to savour a well-finessed haggling.

His sedan-chair awaited him at the bazaar-gate. A second plainsman was there to hold his heavy robes while he stepped over the carved-wood sides. The first had already placed the silk on the seat and stood beside the rearmost poles. The mute pulled a leather-wrapped forked stick from his belt, slapped it once against his thigh and the entourage headed back to the palace.

The plainsmen went to wherever it was that they abided when Molin didn't need their services; the youth carried the cloth to the family's quarters with the strictest instructions that the esteemable Lady Rosanda, Molin's wife, was not to see it. Molin himself wandered through the palace until he came to those rooms now allotted to Vashanka's servants and slaves.

It was the latter who interested him, specifically the lithe Northern slave they called Seylalha who practised the arduous Dance of the Consort at this time each day. The dance was a mortal recreation of the divine dance Azyuna had performed before her brother, Vashanka, persuading him to make her his concubine rather than relegate her to the traitorous ranks of their ten brothers. Seylalha would perform that dance in less than a week at the annual commemoration of the Ten -Slaying.

She had reached the climax of the music when he arrived, beginning the dervish swirls that brought her calf-length honey-coloured hair out into a complete, dazzling circle. The tattered practice rags had long-since been discarded, but she was not yet twirling so fast that the priest could not appreciate the firmness other thighs, the small, upturned breasts. (Azyuna's dance must be danced by a Northern slave or the movements became grotesque.) The slave's face, Molin knew, was as beautiful as her body though it was now hidden by the swinging hair.

He watched until the music exploded in a final crescendo, then slid the spy-hole shut with an audible click. Seylalha would see no virile man until the feast night when she danced for the god himself.

2

The slave had been escorted to her quarters - more properly: returned to her cell. The beefy eunuch turned the key that slid a heavy bolt into place; he needn't have bothered. After ten years of captivity and especially now that she was in Sanctuary, Seylalha was not likely to risk her life in escape-attempts.

He had been there watching again; she knew that and more. They thought her mind was as blank as the surface of a pond on a windless day - but they were wrong. They thought she could remember nothing of her life before they had found her in a squalid slave-pen; she'd merely been too smart to reveal her memories. Neither had she ever revealed that she could understand their Rankan language - had always understood it. True, the women who taught her the dance were all mutes and could reveal nothing, but there were others who had tongues. That was how she came to learn of Sanctuary, of Azyuna and the Feast of the Ten-Slaying.

Here in Sanctuary she was the only one who knew the whole dance but had not yet performed it for the god. Seylalha guessed that this year would be her year the one fateful night in her constricted life. They thought she didn't know what the dance was. They thought she performed it out of fear for the bitter-faced women with their leather-bound clatter-sticks. But in her tribe nine-year-olds were considered of marriageable age, and a seduction was a seduction regardless of the language.

Seylalha had reasoned, as well, that if she did not want to become one of those mutilated women who had trained and taught her she'd best get a child from her bedding with the god. Legend said Vashanka's unfulfilled desire was to have a child by his sister; Seylalha would oblige the god in exchange for her freedom. The Ten-Slaying was a new-moon feast; she bled at the full-moon. If the god were man-like after the fashion of her clan-brothers, she would conceive.

She knelt on the soft bed-cushions they provided her, rocking back and forth until tears flowed down her face; silent tears lest her guardians hear and force a drugged potion down her throat. Calling on the sungod, the moongod, the god who tended the herds in the night and every other shadowy demon she could remember from the days before the slave-pens, Seylalha repeated her prayers: 'Let me conceive. Let me bear the god's child. Let me live! K-eep me from becoming one of themF

In the distance, beyond walls and locked door, she could hear her less fortunate sisters speaking to each other on their tambours, lyres, pipes and clatter sticks. They'd danced their dance and lost their tongues; their wombs were filled with bile. Their music was a mournful, bitter dirge - it told her fate if she did not bear a child.

As the tears dried she arched her back until her forehead rested on the soft mass of her hair beneath her. Then, in rhythm to the distant conversation, she began her dance again.

3

Molin paced around the marble-topped table he had brought with him from the capital. The mute who always attended him hid in the far corners of the room. Molin's wrath had touched him three times and it was not yet high-noon.

The injustice, the indignity of being the supreme priest of Vashanka in a sink hole like Sanctuary. Construction lagged on the temple: inept crews, unforeseen accidents, horrendous omens. The old Ilsig hierarchy gloated and collected the citizenry's irregular tithes. The Imperial entourage was cramped into inadequate quarters that shoved his household together. He was actually sharing rooms with his wife - a situation neither of them had ever desired and could no longer tolerate. The Prince was an idealist, an unmarried idealist, whose belief in the bliss of that inconvenient state was exceeded only by his nai'vety with regard to statecraft. It was difficult not to enjoy the Prince's company, however, despite his manifold shortcomings. He had the proper breeding for a useless younger son, and only the worst of fates had brought him so perilously close to the throne that he must be sent so depressingly far from it.

In Ranke, Molin had a fine house - as well as rooms within the temple. Rare flowers bloomed in his heated gardens; a waterfall coursed down one interior wall of the temple drowning out the street-noises and casting rainbows across this very table when it had resided in his audience chambers. Where had he gone wrong? Now he had a tiny room with one window looking out to an air shaft that must have sunk in the cesspools of hell itself and another one, the larger of the two, overlooking the gallows. Moreover, the Hounds were elsewhere this morning and yesterday's corpses still creaked in the breeze.

Injustice! Indignity! And so, of course, he must clothe himself in the majesty of his position as Vashanka's loyal and duly initiated priest. Kadakithis must find his way to these forsaken quarters and endure them as the priests did if Molin was to acquire better lodgings. The Prince was late - no doubt he'd got lost.

'My Lord Molin?' a cheerful voice called from the antechamber. 'My Lord Molin? Are you here?'

'I am, my Prince.'

Molin gestured to the mute who poured two goblets of fruit tea as the Prince entered the room.

'My Lord Molin, your messenger said you wished to see me urgently on matters concerning Vashanka? This must be true, isn't it, or you wouldn't have called me all the way out here. Where are we? No matter. Are there problems with the temple again? I've told Zaibar to see to it that the conscripts perform their duties...'

'No, my Prince, there are no new problems with the temple, and I have turned all those matters over to the Hounds, as you suggested. We are, by the way, in the outer wall of your palace -just upwind of the gallows. You can see them through the window - if you'd like.'

The Prince preferred to sip his tea.

'My purpose in summoning you, my Prince, has to do with the upcoming commemoration of the Ten-Slaying to take place at the new-moon. I wished certain privacy and discretion which, frankly, is not available in your own quarters.'

If the Prince was offended by Molin's insinuations he did not reveal it. 'Do I have special duties then?' he asked eagerly.

Molin, sensing the lad's excitement, pressed his case all the harder. 'Extremely special ones, my Prince; ones not even your distinguished late Father, the Emperor, was honoured to perform. As you are no doubt aware, Vashanka mayHisnamebe-praised - has concerned Himself rather personally in the affairs of this city of late. My augurists report that on no less than three separate occasions since your arrival in this accursed place His power has been successfully invoked by one not of the temple hierarchy.'

The Prince set down his goblet. 'You know of these things?' he asked with open -faced incredulity. 'You can tell when the god's used His power?'

'Yes, my Prince,' Molin answered calmly. 'That is the general purpose of our hierarchy. Working through the mandated rituals and in partnership with our God we incline Vashanka's blessings towards the loyal, righteous upholders of tradition, and direct His wrath towards those who would deny or harm the Empire.'

'I know of no traitors ...'

'... And neither do I, my Prince,' Molin said, though he had his suspicions, 'but I do know that our God, Vashanka - may-Hisnamebepraised - is showing His face with increasing fre-• quency and devastating effect in this town.'

'Isn't that what he's supposed to do?'

It was difficult to believe that the vigorous Imperial household had produced so dense an heir; at such times as this Molin almost believed the rumours that circulated around the Prince. Some said that he was at least as clever and ambitious as his brother's advisers feared; Kadakithis was deliberately botching this gubernatorial appointment so he would have to be returned to the capital before the Empire faced rebellion. Unfortunately, Sanctuary was more than equal to the most artfully contrived incompetence.

'My Prince,' Molin began again, snapping his fingers to the mute who immediately pushed a great-chair forward for the Prince to sit in. This was going to take longer than anticipated. 'My Prince - a god, shall we say any god but most especially our own god Vashanka - mayHisnamebepraised - is an awesomely powerful being who, even though He may beget mortal children on willing or unwilling women, is quite unlike a mortal man.

'A mere man who runs rampant in the streets with his sword drawn and shouting sedition would be an easy matter for the Hounds to control - assuming, of course, they even noticed him in this town ...'

'Are you saying, my Lord Molin, that such a vagrant is ploughing through my city? Is that why you've called me here, really? Does my suite harbour a viperous traitor?'

It must be an act, Molin decided. No one could attain physical maturity with only Kadakithis's apparent intelligence to guide him. He had attained maturity, hadn't he? Molin's plans demanded it. He was known to have concubines, but perhaps he merely talked them to sleep? It was time for a change of tactics.

'My Dear Prince, as hierarchical superior here in Sanctuary I can flatly state that the repeated incidents of divine intervention, unguided as they are by the rituals performed according to tradition by myself and my acolytes, constitute a severe threat to the well-being of your people and your mission to Sanctuary. They must be stopped by whatever means are necessary!'

'Oh... oh!' the Prince's face brightened. 'I believe I understand. I'm to do something at next week's festival that will help you get control again. Do I get to bed Azyuna?'

The light in the young man's eyes reassured Molin that the Prince did understand the purpose of a concubine. 'Indeed, my Prince! But that is only a small part of what we shall do next week. The Dance of Azyuna and the Divine Seduction are performed at the festival each year. Many children are born of such unions, many serve their ersatz-father with great dignity - I myself am a son of the Consort. But, under extreme circumstances the Dance of Azyuna will be preceded by the most sacred recreation of the Ten-Slaying itself. Vashanka - mayHisnamebepraised - rediscovers His traitorous brothers plotting to overthrow the divine authority of Savankala, their father. He slays them on the spot and takes Azyuna, at her insistence, to bed at once as his consort. The child of such a union - if there were any - would be well-omened indeed.

'My Prince, the auguries indicate that such a child will be born here in Sanctuary - of all places - and our God's activity here would lend belief to this. It is imperative that such a child be born within the strictures of the temple; it would be fitting if the child's natural father were you ...'

The Prince turned the colour of the fruit tea, though his complexion quickly levelled off at a unique shade of green. 'But Molin, that's general's work killing surrendered officers of the enemy. Molin, you don't expect me to kill ten men, do you? Why, there aren't more than ten Vashankan priests in this whole city.' I'd have to kill you. I couldn't do it, Molin - you mean too much to me.'

'My Dear Prince,' Molin poured another goblet of fruit tea and signalled the mute to bring a stronger libation for the next round. 'My Dear Prince, while I would never hesitate to lay down my life for you or the Empire should, gods forfend, the need ever arise -none the less, I assure you, I am not about to make the supreme sacrifice at this time. There is nothing in the most sacred tomes of ritual dictating the nature or rank of the ten who must be slain -save that they must be undeformed and alive at the start.'

At that moment there were shouts outside Molin's larger window and the all-too familiar sound of the gallow's rope snapping another neck.

'Very simply, my Prince, cancel these daily executions and by the Ten-Slaying I'm sure we'll have our quota.'

The Prince blanched at the thought of Sanctuary denizens whose activities so exceeded the norms of this none-too-civilized place that his judges would condemn them to death.

'They would be bound and drugged, of course,' Molin consoled his Prince, 'as is part of custom, if not tradition. Our hierarchy has suffered the discomfort of having the wrong man survive,' Molin added quickly, without mentioning that they had also suffered the inconvenience of losing all eleven to their wounds before the ritual could be completed. The hierarchy had acquired an immense practicality over the generations when its own interests were concerned.

Kadakithis stared blankly into the corners of the room; he had stared briefly out the window but the busy gallows had not brought the peace of mind he sought. Molin entertained hopes of getting new quarters in the near future. The mute offered them a fresh goblet of the local wine - a surprisingly potable beverage, given its origins. But then the priorities of the populace were such that the wine should be far better than their cheese or bread. Molin himself offered the strong drink to the Prince.

'Molin -I cannot. If it were just the Dance... well, no, not even then.' The Prince squared his shoulders and simulated a stance of firm resolve. 'Molin, you are wrong - it would not be fitting for a Prince of the blood. I mean no slurs, but I cannot be seen consorting with a temple slave at a public festival.'

Molin considered the refusal; considered taking Vashanka's role himself- he'd seen the temple slave in question. But he had been honest with the Prince; it was of the utmost importance that the child be properly conceived.

'My Prince, I do not ask this lightly, any more lightly than I informed my brethren in Ranke of my decision in this matter. The slave is of the best Northern stock; the rite is held in strictest mystery.

'The Hand of Vashanka rests heavily on your prefecture, my Prince. You cannot have failed to notice His presence. The daily auguries show it plainly. Your own Hell Hounds, the very guardians of Imperial Order, are not immune to the dangers of Vashanka's unbridled presence!'

The High Priest paused, staring hard into Kadakithis's eyes, forcing the young governor to acknowledge the rumours that flew freely and were never disputed. Molin could trace his ancestry to the god in the time-honoured way, but what about Tempus? The Hell Hound bore Vashanka's mark, but had been whelped far beyond the ken of the priesthood.

'Who are we to channel the powers of the gods?' the Prince responded, his gaze unfocused, his manner uncomfortably evasive.

Molin drew himself up to his full height, some finger-widths taller than the Prince. His back straightened as if the beaten gold headdress of his office balanced on his brow. 'My Prince, we are the channels, the only true channels. Without the mediation of a duly consecrated hierarchy the bonds of tradition which make Vashanka - mayHisnamebepraised - our God and us His worshippers would be irreparably sundered. The rituals of the temple, whose origins are one with the God Himself, are the balance between mortal and immortal. Anyone who circumvents the rituals, for any reason however well-intentioned ... anyone who does not hearken to the call of the hierarchy in its needs subverts the proper relationship of god and worshipper to the damning harm of both!'

Again the experienced Imperial Hierarch stared down on the young, awestruck Prince. Molin was only half-conscious of overstating the case for stringent observation of the rituals. Vashanka's displeasure when He was not properly appeased was extensively documented. The rituals were all intended to bind a capricious and hungry deity.

The crowd outside Molin's window raised its voice and shut down their conversation; the day's verdicts were being proclaimed. There would be two more hangings on the morrow. Kadakithis started when his name was used to justify the awful punishments the Empire meted out to its criminals. He shrank back from the window as a huge black crow landed on the sill, swivelling its head in a lopsided start of dark-curiosity. The Prince shooed it back to the gallows.

'I will do what I can, Molin. I will speak with my advisers.'

'My Dear Prince, in matters regarding the spiritual well-being of the Imperial Presence in Sanctuary, I am your only trusted adviser.'

Molin regretted his burst of temper at once; though the Prince gave him smooth verbal assurances, the Vashankan priest was now certain that the Hound Tempus would know by sundown.

Tempus: a plague, a thorn, a malignancy to the proper order of things. A son of Vashanka, a true-son no doubt, and utterly unfettered by the constraints of ritual and hierarchy. If even a fraction of the rumours about him were to be believed; if he had survived dissection on Kurd's tables ... It could not be believed. Tempus could not be so far beyond the hierarchy's reach.

Well, Molin thought after a moment, I'm a true-son too. Let the Prince run to him in sweating anxiety. Let him consult with Tempus; let them conspire against me - I'll still succeed.

Generations of priests had bred generations of true-sons to Vashanka. The god was not quite the blood-drinker he once was.

Vashanka could be constrained and, after all, Molin's side of the family was far bigger than Tempus's.

He watched the Prince leave without feeling panic. The crow returned to the window-ledge as was its daily custom. The bird cawed impatiently while Molin and the mute prepared its feast: live mouse dipped in wine. The priest watched the bird disappear back to the Maze rooftops, staring after its flight long after his wife had begun to shout his name.

4

Seylalha stood perfectly still while the dourfaced women draped the sea-green froth around her. The women would not hesitate to prick her sharply with their bodkins and needles, though they took the greatest of care with the silk. They stepped back and signalled that she should spin on her toes for them.

Deep folds of material billowed out into delicate clouds at her slightest movement. The texture of the cloth against her skin was so unlike the heavy tatters of her usual attire that for once she forgot to watch the intricate dance-language other instructors a; they discussed their creation.

The time must be drawing near; they would not dress her like this unless it was almost time for her marriage to the god. The moon above her cell was a thin crescent fading to blackness.

They got their instruments and began to play. Without waiting for the sharp report of the clatter-sticks, Seylalha began to dance, letting the unhemmed ends of the silk swirl out to accompany her as she moved through the hundreds of poses - each painfully inured in her muscles. She flowed with the atonal music, throwing her soul into each leap and turn, keenly aware that this meaningless collection of movements would become her only, exquisite plea for freedom.

When she settled into the final frantic moments of the dance the sea-green silk was caught in her flying hair and lifted away from her body until it was restrained only by the brooches at her neck and waist. As she fell into the prostrate bow, the silk floated down, hiding the rhythmic heaving of her exhausted lungs. The clatter-sticks were silent, without nagging corrections.

Seylalha separated her hair and stood up in one graceful movement. Her teachers were motionless as well as speechless. Never again would she be the bullied student. Clapping her own hands at the quiet women, Seylalha waited until the nearest one crept forward to unpin the twisted silk and accompany her to her bath.

5

It was inky night and even the light of two dozen torches was insufficient to guide the procession along the treacherous, rutted streets of Sanctuary in safety. Molin Torchholder and five other ranking members of the hierarchy had excused themselves from the procession and waited in the relative comfort of the stone-porch of the still incomplete Temple of Vashanka. Behind the priests a great circular tent had been erected. The mute women could be heard tuning and conversing with their instruments. As the bobbing torches rounded into the plaza the women were silenced and Molin, ever-careful with his elaborate headdress, mounted a small dais on the porch.

The girl, Seylalha, shrouded in a cloak of feathers and spun gold, clutched the side-rail of the open platform as six bearers recruited from the garrison struggled with the rough-hewn steps. She lurched violently to one side, spilling the luxuriant cloth almost to the ground, but her dancer's reflexes saved her from an ill-omened tumble. Ten felons from the city dungeons, drugged into a stupor, clambered past - oblivious to the past and present as well as the limited future. Their white robes were already soiled by numerous falls in the muddy streets but none had seriously injured himself.

At the rear of the procession, wearing another mask of hammered gold and obsidian, Prince KLadakithis groped his way to the tent. He glanced at Molin as he passed though their masks made subtle communication impossible. It was enough, for Molin's purposes, that the Prince himself was entering the tent. He tied the cloth-door of the tent closed and braced three crossed spears against the lintel.

The Hell Hounds formed an outer perimeter - the Hell Hounds save for Tempus whom Molin, with self-congratulations, had had assigned to other duties in the palace; the man might not do as he was told, but he wouldn't be near this ritual. The Hounds held their drawn swords before them; they would administer the coup de grace should anyone leave or enter the tent before sunrise. Molin reminded them of their obligations in a voice that carried well beyond the unfinished walls.

'Those Ten whom Vashanka destroyed have been disgraced and remain unworshipped to this day; their very names have been unlearned. But the wraith of a god is far stronger than the spirit of a mortal man. They will feel their deaths again and converge upon this site seeking an unwitting or feeble mortal whom they can usurp and use against their brother. It is your duty to see that this does not occur!'

Zaibar, captain of the Hell Hounds, bellowed his comprehension of Molin's order.

6

The women, and they were all dressed as women though Seylalha knew some of them were the eunuchs who routinely guarded her, crept forward to remove the heavy cloak from her shoulders. She shook the cramped silk and knotted her fingers in anticipation. A partition of fine netting separated the musicians from the other participants in this drama, but their sounds were familiar and oddly soothing. The carpet on which she had always danced lay slightly to one side of the centre of the tent and behind the carpet was a mound of pillows to which the burly 'women' directed her. The white-robed men were invited to partake of a banquet laid out on a low table and fell over each other rushing to the sumptuous food. The masked figure who stood apart from the rest and seemed distinctly uncomfortable under his splendid robe was led to a separate table where only stale bread and water had been laid and an ugly, heavy short-sword awaited him.

So, that was the god, Seylalha thought, as the mask was lifted from his face. He was weak-chinned - but what civilized man did not show the stains of his rich foods and soft bed? He was, at least, a whole man. The man-god would not look at her, preferring to watch the darkest, least penetrable recesses of the tent. Seylalha knew fear for his curiously absent passions. Sliding off the cushions she struck the first position of her dance, expecting the musicians to lift their instruments.

But the musicians reached for their clatter-sticks and the eunuchs guided her rudely back to the cushions. She shook their hands away, aware that they dared not hurt her, but then her attention, and the attention of everyone in the tent, was riveted to a newcomer, a more appropriate man-god who had eased out of the darkness and held an unsheathed dagger in his left hand.

He was tall, massive, etched with the harsh lines of a rough and feral man. The one whom she had mistaken for the man-god embraced the newcomer with hearty familiarity. 'I was afraid you wouldn't show up, Tempus.'

'Both you and He had my word. Torchholder is a canny man; he distrusts me already -T could not walk in right behind you, my Prince.'

'She is beautiful...' the Prince mused, glancing to Seylalha for the first time. 'You've reconsidered? It would be for the best if you did ... even now. Her beauty means nothing to me. None of this means anything to me except that it must be done and I must do it.'

'Yes, you're the one to do it... though she is more tempting than I would have thought possible.'

The chiefmost of the gowned eunuchs moved to separate the men, giving the interloper a stiff punch on the shoulder. Seylalha, who could read the language of movement, froze in terror as the feral stranger turned, hesitated and plunged the dagger deep into the eunuch's chest all within the space of a few heartbeats. The other 'women' who saw little more than a blur of movement, wailed and groaned in terror as the dead eunuch collapsed to the rough ground. Even the white-robed feasters ceased their eating and became a frightened knot of sheep-like men.

'It will be as I warned you, my Prince - not merely the Ten but all the others. If you've no taste for bloodshed it would be best if you depart now. My men await you. I will do my father's work.'

'What of Zaibar? I knew nothing about that until Molin addressed them.'

'They did not see me; it is unlikely they will see you.'

The one who had been called the Prince slunk into the darkness. The other retrieved his dagger from the corpse.

'Our Imperial Prince is not one for rituals of bloodshed and violence,' he said to everyone in the tent. 'He has asked me to take the role of my father in his stead. Would any here gainsay my right to act for Vashanka and my Prince?'

The question was purest rhetoric. The bloody corpse was testimony to the price of gainsaying this intruder. Seylalha wrenched a heavy tassel from one of the pillows and shredded it behind her. She clung to the belief that her life had been an arrow directed to this night, her dance would be her salvation; but that belief was shaken as the eunuchs who had ruled her for so many years cowered in fear and the feasting men made a doomed attempt to find hiding places.

With an unpleasant smile the man-god strode to the table where he ripped a mouthful of bread from the loaf, drained the beaker of salted water and lifted the crude sword. He shifted it once or twice in his hand, his fingers adjusting to its awkward balance. With the same smile still on his lips he advanced towards the terrified men in white.

Screaming, despite the drugs, they raced through the tent as he winnowed through their numbers. The wisest, least drugged, plunged through the netting into the company of musicians. The man-god stalked his ersatz-brethren as if the darkness did not exist and with a vicious determination that bespoke his acceptance of the role. He shoved the shrieking women aside with his free hand and delivered the final strokes with the bloody sword. The killing completed, he set about gathering the heads of his enemies and placing them in a gory heap on the banquet table -a task made no easier to do or watch by the edgeless sword he wielded.

Still kneeling among the pillows, Seylalha drew the sheer silk tightly around herself, twisting the loose ends about her arms until she had become a sea -green statue, for the cloth did nothing to conceal her beauty and little to conceal her pale, quivering fear. When the blood-smeared stranger who was more god than man had placed the last trophy upon the table he vented his divine violence on the woman-garbed eunuchs. Seylalha pulled the pins from her hair; the honey-brown cascade covered her eyes and hid her from the sight of the guardians lying butchered on the ground. She took fistfuls of hair and pressed them against her ears, but that was not enough to block the knowledge of how the half-men had died. As she had done so many times as a child and as a woman, she began to rock back and forth, keening softly to gods whose names she had long since forgotten.

'It is time, Azyuna.'

His voice broke into her prayers. His hand clamped over her wrist and drew her inexorably to her feet. Her legs shook and she could not remain upright except through his hold on her. When he shook her slightly she only closed her eyes tighter and swayed limply in his grasp.

'Open your eyes, girl. It is time!'

Obedient to the outside will Seylalha opened her eyes and shook back her hair. The hand that gripped her was clean. The voice that commanded her had something of that forgotten wild land of her birth in it. His hair was the same colour as her own, but he was not a man come to claim his bride. She hung from his grip as mute and fearful as the quiet women behind the torn netting.

'You are obviously the one to make Azyuna's pleas - however little you resemble her. Do not force me to hurt you more than I must already!' he whispered urgently, leaning close to her ear, his breath as warm and thick as blood. 'Or have they not told you the whole legend? I am myself, I am Vashanka - we both grow impatient, girl. Dance because your life depends on it.'

He flicked her wrist and sent her sprawling to the blood-dampened carpet. She brushed her hair away with a forearm made red from his grip. The man-god had shed the sombre clothing he had worn for the killing and stood near the pillows in a clean gold-worked tunic, but the crude sword still hung by his thigh - a rusty blush on the white tunic to mark where its cleaning had not been complete. She read the tension in his legs, the minute extension of his left hand towards the sword-hilt, the slight lowering of one eyebrow and remembered that the dance was her freedom.

Seylalha brought one hand through the tangled mane of her hair, pointed two fingers to her musicians. They struck a ragged, jarring chord to mark their own apprehensions but the tam-bourist found her throbbing drone and the dance began.

At first she felt the uneven ground beneath the rug and the damp spots upon it, just as she saw those icy eyes and the outstretched fingers. Then there were only the years of practice. the music and the desperation of the dance itself. Three times she felt herself collapse on a misplaced foot; three times the music saved her and, writhing, twisting, she caught herself with will-driven muscles that dared not feel their torture.

Her lungs were on fire, her heartbeat louder than the droning tambour and she danced. She heard only the pounding rhythms of the music and her heart; she saw Azyuna, dark and voluptuous, as she had first performed it before her long toothed, bloodstained brother.

The god Vashanka smiled and Seylalha, honey-hair and sea-green silk twined together, began the dervish finale of the dance. There was a salt-metal taste in her mouth when she doubled into a barely controlled collapse on the carpet, limbs trembling and glimmering with sweat in the torchlight.

Darkness hovered at the end of her thoughts, the total darkness of exhaustion and death; a freedom she had not anticipated, but in the still-bright centre of her thoughts she saw first the bloody god then the white-and-honey stranger, both smiling, both walking slowly towards her. The sword was gone.

Strong arms parted the hair from her shoulders, lifted her effortlessly from the carpet and held her close against cool, dry skin. A leaden arm shook off its tiredness and found his shoulder to rest on. Had Azyuna loved her brother so deeply?

'Release her! I'm the proper sister for your lusts.' A voice which was not Seylalha's filled the tent with images of fire and ice.

'Cime!' the white-and-honey man said while Seylalha slid helplessly back to the carpet.

'She is a slave, a temple's pawn - their tool to capture you and Vashanka both!'

'What brought you here?' the man's voice was filled with wonder as well as anger and, perhaps, a trace of fear. 'You did not know ...' .

'The smells of sorcery, priests and the timely knowledge of intrigue. I owe you this much. They mean to bind the God.'

'They meant to fill the lily-Prince with Vashanka and gain a Prince if not a child. Their plans are sufficiently thwarted.'

Seylalha twisted slowly, raising an arm slightly to see past her hair to the tall, slender woman with the steel-streaked hair. Her breath came easier now; the dance had not killed her - only the god could give her freedom now.

'Mortal flesh is no bond - as you well know. Vashanka's children bear a special curse ...' the man-god said, taking a step towards the woman.

'Then we'll complete their sorry ritual and damn the curse. They'll kill the slut when she bleeds again and for us - who knows? A god's freedom?'

The woman, Cime, jerked the knot loose from her vest, revealing a body that belied the steel in her hair. Seylalha felt the man step further away from her. Cime's words echoed mockingly in her ears. She had envisioned Vashanka falling upon his dark sister, this man-god would do no less. And she, Seylalha, would lie unbroken until the full moon. While brother and sister advanced slowly towards each other Seylalha's toes closed over the hilt of the discarded sword and dragged it into her reach. With serpentine swiftness and silence she shot between the pair, facing the woman, breaking the spell that drew them together.

'He is mine!' she screamed in a voice so seldom used that it might have belonged to Azyuna herself. 'He is mine to bring my child, my freedom!' She held the sword to the other woman's breast.

The sister stepped back; anger, thwarted desire and more burned in her eyes, but Seylalha saw the fear in her movements and knew she had won. The man's fingers wove through her honey hair, closing on the neck brooch that held the cloth at her shoulder, ripping it from the soft silk.

'She's right, Cime. You can't lure me with His freedom; I've felt it for too long already. We'll play Torchholder's little game to the end and let the Face of Chaos laugh at us. The girl's won her child. so leave - or I'll let her use the tent-peg on you.'

Cime's face was fury unbounded, but Seylalha no longer cared. The sword dropped from her fingers as soon as his arms lifted her a second time and carried her, without interruption, to the pillows. She grasped his tunic and tore it back from his shoulders with a determination equal to his own. The mute women gathered their instruments and found a compelling harmony with which to fill the tent.

Seylalha lost herself with him until there was nothing beyond the pillows and the memory of the music. The torches were long since exhausted and in the darkness her god-lover was neither awesome nor cruel. He might have intended rape and pain, but her passion for a child and freedom consumed him and he lay asleep across her breast. Her body curved against his and though she had not meant it to happen, she fell asleep as well.

He grunted and jerked upright, leaving her puzzled and cold on the pillows. Wariness tightened the muscles of his leg. She raised herself up on one elbow without learning the source of his sudden concern.

'Cover yourself,' he instructed, thrusting his torn tunic at her.

'Why?'

'There'll be a fire here,' he spoke as if repeating words that swam in his head already. 'By Wrigglies, Cime or what... we're betrayed.'

He gripped her arm and hauled her to her feet as the tent burst into flames around them. Clutching the tunic to her breast, Seylalha moulded herself against him. He was motionless for less than a second; the fire swept through the roof cloth and raced towards the carpet and pillows where they stood. Sparks jumped towards her long hair; she screamed and flailed at the flames until he put them out with his hands and hoisted her rudely in his arms.

The firelight leeched all gentleness from his face, replacing it with pain and a glint of vengeance. One of the beams that supported the tent cracked down before them, sending a blaze of fire up past his knees. He cursed names that meant nothing to her as he walked through the inferno.

They broke through the ring of flames into the predawn moist-ness of the port city air. She coughed, realizing she had scarcely breathed since he had lifted her. With the gasps of cool air she caught the bitter scents of singed hair and charred flesh.

'Your legs?' she whispered.

'They'll mend; they always do.'

'But you're hurt now,' she. protested. 'I can walk - there's no need to carry me.'

She twisted to be free of him but his grip grew tighter and unfriendly. She began to fear him again as if their moments together in the tent had been a dream. The pinching fingers holding her arms and thighs could never have been gentle.

'I have not hurt you,' he snarled. 'Of more women than I care to remember you alone had demands that would sate me. You've got your freedom and I've got rest in a woman's arms. When it is safe I'll put you down, but not before.'

He carried her past the scattered stones of the unfinished temple and out into the open land beyond the limits ofRankan Sanctuary towards the houses left to ruins since Ilsig abandoned the town. She shivered and shed quiet tears, but clung tightly as he assaulted the uneven, overgrown fields in the grey predawn light. He stopped by a crumbling wall and set her down upon it.

'The Hounds patrol here at dawn; they'll find you and bring you safely to the Prince and Torchholder.'

She didn't ask to go with him, holding the request firmly within herself. The One for whom she had danced was gone, probably forever, and the one who remained was not the sort a dancer slave would be wise to follow. And there was the child to consider ... Still, she could not turn away from him as he glared at her. His face softened slightly, as if her lover might live somewhere behind that grim visage.

'Tell me your name,' he demanded in a voice half-gentle, half-mocking.

'Seylalha.'

'A Northern name, isn't it? A pretty name to remember.'

And he was gone, striding back across the fallow gardens to the town. She wrapped the torn, scorched tunic around her bare shoulders and waited.

7

Molin Torchholder hurried down the polished stone corridors of the palace; his new sandals slapped the soles of his feet and echoed in the empty hallways. The sound reminded him of his slaves' leather-wrapped sticks and that reminded him of how few slaves were left in the temple since the mysterious fire had taken so many lives the night of the Ten-Slaying two weeks before.

He had sent a messenger to the capita] the next day with a full report of the events as he understood them. He'd written and sealed it himself. The Prince could not have sent word faster; no post could have returned in that time. There was no reason to think that Kadakithis or the Emperor himself would be thinking about Vashanka today. But the Prince's summons had been preemptive. so Molin hiked the long, empty corridors with a worried look on his face.

The Ten-Slaying had convinced him to take his Prince more seriously. When the charred tatters of cloth and wood had cooled enough to let the Hounds investigate the blaze, they had found a heap of blackened skulls in one place and the bodies of the ten felons scattered throughout the burned wreckage. For one who had expressed a distaste for bloodshed, Kadakithis had recreated Vashanka's vengeance to the final letter of the legends - a precision not required and which Molin could not even remember describing to the Prince.

Tempus stood beside the Prince's throne, back in town after another unexplained absence. The massive, cruel Hell Hound did not look happy - perhaps the strains of the Sacred Brotherhood's loyalty were beginning to show. Molin wished, for the last time. that he knew why he had been summoned, then nodded to the herald and heard himself announced.

*Ah, Molin, there you are. We'd been wondering what was keeping you,' the Prince said with his usual charm.

'My new quarters, while much appreciated, seem to be several leagues from here. I'd never thought there could be so much corridor in a small palace.'

'The rooms are adequate? The Lady Rosanda ...'

'The girl who danced Azyuna's Dance - what has become of her?' Tempus interrupted and Molin turned his attention at once from the Prince to the Hell Hound.

'A few burns,' he responded cautiously, seeing displeasure in Tempus's eyes. The Hound had called this interview; Molin no longer doubted it. 'Minor ones,' he added. 'What little discomfort she may have experienced seems to have passed completely.'

'You've freed her, haven't you, Molin?' the Prince chimed in nervously.

'As a matter of course, though it's too soon to tell if she'll bear a child. I thought it best to take her survival as a sign of the god's favour - in the absence of any other information. You haven't remembered anything yourself, my Prince?' Molin faced the Prince but glanced at Tempus. There was something in the Hound's face whenever the Ten-Slaying was discussed, but Molin doubted he'd ever get to the bottom of it. Kadakithis claimed the god had so completely possessed him that he remembered nothing from the moment the tent was sealed until sunrise when he found himself in his own bed.

'If she is with child?' Tempus continued.

'Then she will live out her days at the temple with the full honours of a freedwoman and the living consort of our god - as you know. Her power could become considerable - though only time will tell. It depends on her, and the child - if there is a child.'

'And if there is no child?'

Molin shrugged. 'In many respects it will be no different. It is not in the temple's power to remove the honours we have bestowed. Vashanka saw fit to remove her from the inferno.' It was easier to imagine Vashanka possessing Tempus than the Prince, but Molin had not become High Priest by speaking his mind. 'We acknowledge her as First Consort of Sanctuary. It would be best if she had conceived.'

Tempus nodded and looked away. It was the signal the Prince had been waiting for. He had been even more uncomfortable at this interview than Molin; Molin was used to hiding secrets. The Prince left the chamber without ritual, leaving the High Priest and the Hell Hound together for a moment.

'I've talked with her often these past few days. Remarkable, isn't it, to discover that a slave has a mind?' Molin said aloud to himself but for Tempus's benefit. If the Hound had an interest in Seylalha the Priesthood wished to use it. 'She is convinced she . slept with the god - in all other respects she is intelligent and not given to false beliefs, but her faith in her lover will not be shaken. She dances for him still, in silence. I've replaced the silks, but women and eunuchs must come from the capital and that will take time.

'I watch her each evening at sunset; she doesn't seem to mind. She is very beautiful, but sad and lonely as well - the dance has changed since the Ten Slaying. You must come and watch for yourself sometime.'