Two guardsmen in polished armor escorted us into the city. I could not tell from their demeanor if they would have allowed me to leave Fenin and flee, and I decided not to test them. They stared at me, thinking I wouldn’t notice, glancing away whenever our eyes met. I was taller than they were, though not by much, and my clothing covered my tattoos—I was no stranger a sight than any other traveler in the desert. I suspected Svilsara did not receive many travelers.
I could not say why. It was remote, yes, but so was every other waystation. Blue and white walls cast off the desert’s heat, and well-watered flowers bloomed from every window. A clothesline cast across the thoroughfare held tunics of bright, patterned silk dyed blazing orange and verdant green, floating gently in a cool breeze. Our small procession passed by a woman and her three children, all dressed in silk, gold baubles dangling from their ears and hanging around their necks. They, too, stared at me.
I put on a confident swagger, pretending that I had planned to return their sacrificed priestess all along, and that I knew exactly why the serpent had not devoured her as planned. Of course, none of this was true, but I hoped that I could mask my uncertainty and deter the guards watching me from attempting to do me harm.
We passed under a carved archway and climbed a gentle slope to the center of the city, where a second wall separated the holy places from the rest of Svilsara. A wooden gate, carved with an intricate, spiraling pattern of leafy vines, opened on quiet hinges. Our guards stayed behind as I led Fenin and Bran through, and another pair left their posts on the other side to take their places. We walked a marble path through a vast, green garden, between two parallel lines of meticulously shaped trees. Small white doves sang to one another in the branches.
Our path took us out of the trees and around a shimmering, circular pond almost as wide as one of Nagara’s rice fields. Huge golden fish, as long as the span of my arms, swam in lazy circles beneath blooming lotus flowers. In the desert, this was a fortune in water; it could supply a hundred travelers like me, or maintain a hardy crop for a season. I had walked this country long enough that seeing it used only for decoration struck me as perverse, even as I could not deny its beauty. The water was clear, sunlight slanting through it to the pebbled bottom, where strands of long grass swayed in the wake of the fish.
Behind the pond stood a temple of white marble, its open doorway flanked by six towering pillars. Its peaked roof shone in the sun, so bright that I could not look at it, and the four steps from the path to the doorway had been swept clean, it seemed, only moments before. An attendant in a white robe greeted us at the bottom of the stairs.
Fenin dismounted, folding one leg up and around Bran’s neck and sliding awkwardly to the ground. Along with her silk raiment and collar of pearls, she had acquired supple leather sandals that laced up to the knee somewhere between the outer gate and the city itself. Her gown flowed from her shoulders, as spotlessly white as the marble temple, showing her rounded arms and their soft skin. Gone was the emaciated girl in a threadbare robe, filthy with dust. If I could find out what had happened to her, then perhaps all my other questions about this strange place would also be answered.
The attendant bowed to her. His garment matched hers, though his possessed voluminous sleeves and crossed modestly over the breast. His head was shaved except for a single long braid growing from the top of his head, threaded with silver and falling to his shoulder. It swung into his face as he bowed, catching the light.
“Lady Fenin,” he said. “You’ve returned. What has happened?”
Fenin straightened her dress and adopted the same imperious look that she had given the guards at the gate. “This is a matter for the elders,” she said. “I must see them at once.”
I, too, looked forward to meeting these elders. I handed Bran’s reins to the guardsman at my side. “See that no harm comes to my horse,” I said, “or I’ll ensure that the same harm befalls you.”
He accepted Bran’s lead, his eyes wide, and nodded. Assured that I had frightened him into obedience, I went to follow Fenin into the temple.
The attendant placed his slight form in my way, holding up a hand to my chest. “Outsiders are not permitted within,” he said. “You have been allowed into the inner grounds because you escorted Lady Fenin, but you must wait here.”
I was absolutely not going to wait while the old men responsible for my predicament deliberated my fate. “I’ve brought the lady this far, haven’t I? And I have news of the desert that your elders will want to hear.”
He glanced from me to Fenin and back again, bewilderment etched into his face. He wasn’t much older than she, and he too appeared not to have felt much of the desert’s torments in his young life.
“Let him pass,” Fenin said. “The elders will deal with him.”
The attendant favored me with a suspicious look, but he bowed and moved to one side of the doorway. As I entered the temple alongside Fenin, he followed behind us, sandaled feet whispering against the marble floor. Two more young men, identically dressed and with the same curious hairstyle, appeared from the shadows before my eyes had time to adjust from the blazing sun to the temple’s shade.
Two rows of pillars supported the vaulted ceiling. Here, the stone was a soft yellow, and it had the texture of sand. Sunlight streamed in from a pair of high, narrow windows, one on each side of the long chamber. Besides the pillars, and the five of us casting long shadows as we walked, the room was empty. Where I had expected there to be an altar, a blank wall stood, and there were no benches or rugs upon which worshippers could rest. The purpose of this vast construction seemed only to be separating the elders from any petitioners that might come to seek their wisdom.
The first of our attendants approached the left-hand wall and lifted a hand to press against it. A door appeared from the blank expanse of sandstone and swung away on hidden hinges.
I scowled, unable to keep my disgust from my face. Fenin had described the elders as the governing body of the city, responsible for its protection by means of the great serpent. It was they who decided who was to be sacrificed and when, and they who had made this arrangement in the first place. Yet here they were, hiding behind a secret door in a temple few could visit, while a king’s bounty in water lay untouched in their honor. Even the Ascended had shown their inhuman faces to their people, walked among them, and heard their petitions—even as they planned to use their people’s blood to summon the worm under the mountain. My father, chieftain of the Bear Clan, for all his faults, would consider it his solemn duty to overthrow a fellow chieftain who hid away in this manner.
I wanted to meet these elders, and I wanted to tell them precisely what I thought of them. I resolved to hold my tongue until I had found the answers I sought.
I could have left Fenin in their care, taken Bran, and left the city to its own devices. It would have been the wiser choice. I’d have been half a day closer to the coast, to the western lands where the evil book I carried had been created—half a day closer, I thought, to the conclusion of my quest.
By now, it was too late to do anything else. The narrow doorway forced us to walk in single file: two of the attendants first, then Fenin, followed by myself and the attendant who had greeted us at the door. I glanced up as we entered the corridor, afraid the top of my head would scrape against the ceiling. We walked for what felt like an age through a cramped sandstone hallway. My eyes stung, and I tasted smoke on the air, though my vision remained clear. It was one more strange occurrence in a day filled with them.
The corridor opened into a windowless room, lit by a half-dozen torches mounted in iron brackets on the walls. Somewhere above, there must have been a chimney, or else we would all have suffocated, but I could only see an arm’s length above my head. Four tall-backed chairs, carved of white stone, sat facing the center of the room. A stone pillar stood behind each of them, disappearing into darkness above.
In each throne sat a white-bearded man. They each wore white robes with wide sleeves, layers upon layers of silk that covered their hands and feet and pooled on the floor. A rug patterned in red and violet lay under their chairs.
This room was at once an ostentatious display of wealth and a strange, bare cavern. I shivered, despite the torches providing sufficient warmth. There was something wrong about this entire city, and I found myself wishing that the guards had just thrown me in the dungeon and been done with it. Smoke stung my eyes, but I still could not see it. I rubbed at my face with the back of one hand, succeeding only in smearing dust and grit around. How could this place be so clean?
I recalled the strange man out in the desert, and how he had become Fenin’s serpent and disappeared. I could not trust my eyes.
At the temple of the dragon, during my long penitence there, the warrior Jin had warned me of wicked spirits of the world beyond, who could deceive the eyes and win over one’s confidence with falsehoods. I had not expected to encounter such a thing until I had succeeded in crossing over. Here, in the world of the living, I had steeled myself against the schemes of men and the strength of beasts, certain that the machinations of spirits would be a problem to confront later.
Perhaps I had been wrong, or perhaps I had underestimated the magics a mortal man could craft. I studied each of the bearded elders in turn, searching for a hint of what they might be plotting. Their faces were serene, unreadable, devoid even of the surprise and confusion that came upon the guards when they saw me.
I took a steadying breath and tried to clear my mind of all thoughts, as I had been instructed at the temple. I had not been quite skilled at it then, and now was no different, but I felt the weight of my harpoon on my shoulder and the stone beneath my feet, and I achieved something resembling focus.
And so, as Fenin knelt at the feet of the elders, her arms held up in supplication, I saw the room as it truly was.
Thick smoke hung in the air, foul and greasy. Darkness fell over the cramped chamber, which was now only a little taller than my head, its walls black with soot. Still, I could see Fenin, now as she always was, a dusty rag wrapped around her skeletal figure. The elders, too, were shriveled and starving, their beards faint wisps, their faces like bark, and their clothing thin and stained. Where the fine rug had lain was a moth-eaten, brownish remnant. Even the attendants, standing by the door, were thin, weathered shadows of their former selves.
This place was an illusion, all of it—and I suspected that I would find the entire city in a similar state, if I had the good fortune to escape the temple and see the light of day once more.
Back to Chapter XXXII: Svilsara
Forward to Chapter XXXIV: The Garden House
So, I know who’s responsible for the mass illusion, but what do you think? We’ll see if you’re right next chapter! Thanks for reading.
Space Whales Press 
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