68. A Lovely Sunset (Tadevi)¶
The nine separatists remained proud as they entered the Hall of Vapors, despite their chains, despite their pain. The metal woven through their lips preventing them from grimacing, but the look in their eyes was unmistakable: defiance.
Defiance was good.
Tadevi didn’t want the conspirators to inspire sympathy. He wanted to demonstrate that challenging the Helix led to annihilation, so the more determined they seemed, the better. For reasons that remained a mystery, these ordinary Cantereian kitchen servants had decided to repay the Vorkyrda for their comfortable livelihood by betraying her. Some had worked in the Hall of Vapors for years, and yet the Feiçeira had succeeded in recruiting them, the ingrates. In the end, they’d been betrayed by one of their own, a matronly woman who had been their leader. She had come to the authorities seeking a reward, willing to sell out her own compatriots. That alone made her worthy of death.
The plot, such as it was, had involved poisoning the Orumir. Their food was tightly regulated, but the conspirators had been attempting to modify the proportions of the herbs in the slurry, making the Orumir sick. It probably wouldn’t have worked, but that was irrelevant. They had attempted to strike a blow against Sarmala. An example had to be made.
There had been rumors that Cantereian sympathizers might start trouble, so Tadevi had deployed a contingent of Sihiri in plain clothes among the crowd, although he’d decided against stationing bowmen around the perimeter. The lack of visible security would make it clear that these snakes had been de-fanged. Even if they had received some training from their Feiçeira recruiters, there was little damage they could do with their lips sutured shut by iron rings. Ironically, it had been Jovadão who had suggested that precaution, back when he and Tadevi had been close. Over the years, the spectacle had acquired the weight of tradition, reserved for the greatest threats to the Helix. Funny how these things got started.
Holding the ceremony in the Hall of Vapors itself, directly above the site of the intended target, had been Tadevi’s idea. He hoped the irony would add a poetic resonance and that Dalanat would, for once, be pleased with his display of initiative. There was never any telling what she might find fault with, but he did try.
He’d been hoping the traitors would have information about the link between Belosveka and Jovadão, but his interrogations had gotten nowhere. The Dzharian “trade minister” had vanished immediately after the Commander’s escape, and there was no way the two events weren’t related. Tadevi hadn’t trusted Belosveka any further than he could throw her (which wouldn’t have been far), and he was sure the Dzharian had some link to the fugitive Anashi and her friends. But the nine captured kitchen workers were nothing more than javelin-fodder, and hadn’t known anything of interest. Their only remaining utility was as a spectacle.
Tadevi nodded to several ministers and officials in the viewing stands, noting a few absences that would need to be dealt with. An invitation from the Healer was a mark of privilege; squeamishness was no excuse to disregard it. If his sister had organized the event, no one would have dared decline.
The bell tolled. Tadevi climbed the scaffold and lifted his arms, and the crowd quieted.
“Peers of Thelenza,” he intoned. There was no such thing as too much melodrama for this kind of speech. “We are here today to bear witness to justice. Three days ago, the Sihiri caught these nine spies attempting to poison the Orumir. Their aim was to sow discord and fear among us. To spoil our hour of glory.
“This very morning, far to the north, my sister leads our army into the black heart of the Cantereian rebellion. She has journeyed there to shine the light of reason and order into the dark heart of Cantereia.” He cursed inwardly at his accidental repetition of the “heart” metaphor. But he was probably the only one who had noticed. The crowd was here for the show.
“To destroy, that we might rebuild,” he continued smoothly. “To rid Cantereia of ignorance and superstition.” He signaled to the workers below and they began hooking up the ropes and pulleys and leading the oxen into place.
“You have the rare privilege of witnessing this moment in history. These traitors sought to terrorize us, to divide us. But we will never permit their culture of ignorance to subvert our progress toward enlightenment, to tear apart the fabric of our peace and stability. Instead, it is they who shall be rent asunder!” He’d spent a fair amount of time working on that line, and was gratified to see it land.
There was a stirring among the rebels. Their leader, the one who had betrayed them all, shuffled forward painfully. She had fierce gray eyebrows and a notable scar on her chin, no doubt from sticking her head where it didn’t belong. With an amount of gall that Tadevi actually found impressive, she reached her bound hands up to her face, hooks dangling from the flesh of her upper arms, and stuck one of her remaining fingers in her ear, flicking something invisible onto the ground. Among the Cantereians, the gesture was a tremendous insult.
It was perfect.
Tadevi laughed and clapped his hands. The attendants pulled the ropes taut, jerking the spies forward. Two of them fell to their knees, their pathetic cries coming out as more of a hum. They were forced to stand again as the hooks pulled them away from each other, limbs straining against limbs. Tadevi clapped his hands a second time and the oxen began to move. The Cantereians screamed through their pierced lips.
Actually, Tadevi realized a moment later, they weren’t screaming. They really were humming, the notes pulsating discordantly. It was some kind of sad attempt at magic. Despite himself, Tadevi felt a brief wave of nausea, but laughed it off, making sure the crowd saw he was unfazed. The eerie sound would only make the oxen pull harder.
Soon all the Cantereians had joined in. The sound was muted, a dull throb pulsing through Tadevi’s skull like the beginning of a headache. This had gone on long enough. He signaled the handlers to whip the oxen harder.
With a sudden pop, one of the notes rang out clearly. The leader of the group had somehow managed to shatter the iron sutures. Her lips hung in bloody shreds, a line of red dribbling onto her chest, but her mouth was open wide, the note filling the room.
Tadevi stared in shock as, one by one, the other conspirators began to snap the iron rings in their lips, their voices clear and strong despite their obvious pain, their veins beginning to glow. With an increasing sense of disbelief, he noticed points of brighter light along their limbs—thorns pushed through their skin and healed over, invisible until now. If he had pinned them, he would have noticed. But they were just kitchen servants. Interrogating them was beneath him.
His head felt as though it were being pumped full of steam. It was intolerable. The ox handlers, closer to the source, dropped to their knees and started screaming, hands clutched over their ears. The oxen themselves, rather than bolting, had already collapsed and lay spasming on their sides, no longer pulling on the chains.
The chord kept swelling in Tadevi’s head, crowding out other thoughts. His vision swam, his legs like wet straw. He staggered down the scaffold, hands over his ears. Through blurred vision, he saw members of the crowd flopping around, white foam dripping from their mouths. Those closest to the exits were trampling each other to get out. None of it made any sense.
The chord swelled, echoes reflecting and interacting, an earthquake building in his skull. He had to get away. What was he even doing here? He couldn’t remember. The sound was all there was.
He jumped the rest of the way to the ground, something popping in his right ankle as he landed, and limped toward the hidden exit at the rear, which was barred by a stout oak door and blessedly devoid of people. Thick steam was billowing into the viewing chamber from the Hall below, steam that should have been channeled safely up the shaft. A deep rumbling vibrated through the ground, more felt than heard.
The chord swelled, louder than it could possibly have been, louder than any sound could ever be. It pushed out everything else in the world. His vision faded into a nonsensical patchwork of light and color. He could barely remember to stagger toward the door. The ground started to shake, mingling with the horrible sound of the chord. He forgot who he was, knowing only that he had to get to that exit.
As he reached it, he glanced back in raw, primitive terror. Through shifting gaps in the steam, the Cantereian woman was staring at him, smiling as she sang. Her companions had red tears streaming down their faces, mouths open in some kind of rapture. Their veins flickered below their patchwork skin, the whites of their eyes shining through the steam.
A word came to him, meaningless and detached from context: Feiçeira.
Tadevi opened the door just as the last of the nine ripped her lips open and began to sing. Before he could step through the doorway, he fell to the floor, limp as a wet rag, blood leaking from his sinuses.
Somewhere far away, a rumble gave way to a great crash, followed by a deafening hiss. A wall of steam exploded into the chamber. As his skin bubbled away from his flesh, the last thing Tadevi saw was the smiling Feiçeira leader, her eyes glowing through the fog like setting suns.
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