Alas, my mind was not like water, as the Dragon Temple acolytes had encouraged. Almost as soon as the illusion had been drawn away, it fell over my eyes again, and the filthy, smoke-filled room became clean and bright again, and its occupants were once more dressed in fine white silk and showed no evidence of their long starvation.
I had seen enough in my brief moment of clarity. This place—the whole of Svilsara, as Fenin had acquired health and beauty upon entering the city—was under the sway of a powerful magic-worker, for whom the whole city was a ritual chamber. Such a feat was beyond my experience of magic, but I did not doubt it could be done. It had been done, one way or another, and here were four wizened men ruling Svilsara from their secret throne room underground. I looked around, searching for sigils on the walls, but there were none to be seen.
“Please, wise elders,” Fenin said. “Help me to understand. I saw the serpent, but it vanished. I swear I did only as I was instructed.”
She knelt at the feet of the men, upon the rich rug that I now knew was only a faded, moth-eaten scrap. If the stone beneath it hurt her knees, she made no indication. Her rich hair fell over her shoulder, catching the torchlight like volcanic glass, and it looked perfectly real.
The old man on the far left side of the room stroked his beard with one hand, his long fingers bedecked in dark jewels. “The serpent has never refused a sacrifice before,” he said.
His neighbor, similarly dressed in riches, nodded with a ponderous motion. “Never in all our history,” he agreed.
“I’ve brought you this man,” Fenin continued, sitting up and bringing her hands to her lap. She gestured to me with a sharp motion of her head. “He is an outsider; an unbeliever. He was present before the serpent appeared. I fear he has displeased our benefactor, and the serpent will not return until he is dealt with.”
I could not help but sigh. I had rescued the girl—though from what, I wasn’t exactly certain—fed her, and brought her home safely, and this is how she was to repay me. Her attendants, each as pale and starving as she was, had not taken my harpoon, so the task of offering me up as a sacrifice was to be a challenging one.
Still, I preferred not to slay these poor people, if the choice would be mine to make. Except for the elders, they were victims to the same illusion that clouded my eyes. I lifted a hand to the strap that held my harpoon over my shoulder, and no one moved to seize me. If they were going to be reasonable, I decided, so would I.
“You were correct to bring him to us, Lady Fenin,” the third elder said.
The fourth narrowed his eyes at me, and I wondered if the illusion changed my appearance as well. Looking down at my hands, as dirty and calloused as they had been outside the city, I could not tell.
“Who are you, stranger?” he demanded.
In Salmacha, I had introduced myself as a champion, and it had only encouraged the high priest to spill my blood. I would not make that mistake a second time. “I am Eske, a traveler from the north,” I said. “I’m on my way to the coast. I found Fenin in the desert, and she appeared to be in some distress, so I escorted her here.”
“Did you see the serpent?” the first elder asked.
“I’m not sure,” I replied. “I thought I did, but the desert has a way of confusing the senses.”
It was an honest answer, but I hoped that an oblique mention of mirages and illusions might spark some recognition in the eyes of the elders. I was disappointed. They nodded, in the slow way that men do when they wish to appear wise, and conferred quietly amongst themselves for several minutes.
At last, the fourth elder declared, “We will summon the serpent.”
“Take Lady Fenin to the Sky House,” the second elder said, “and this man to the house in the garden. We will send for them at a later time.”
The attendants flanked Fenin and me once more and marched us back through the narrow corridor and into the temple proper. I thought to ask her what was to become of me, but I could not expect an honest answer. She yet blamed me for what she saw as the serpent’s disfavor, and made it obvious by refusing to look at me. Even if she were to be forthcoming, it was becoming clear that she knew as little as I did about the truth of this strange place.
In any case, I’d be receiving no thanks as her rescuer. I was given over to the custody of the armed watchmen, while the robed attendants took Fenin away to her secluded residence, a home to which she was never meant to return.
Bran remained with the guard outside the temple, who held on to his tether with both hands and watched him with wide, fearful eyes. Evidently, my threats about Bran’s well-being had been taken well to heart, or he had simply never seen a horse before and did not know whether they were, as a species, carnivorous. Bran ignored him, pawing at the grass with one hoof. When I came near, he stuck his nose under my arms and inside my robe, looking for food.
Was all this greenery an illusion as well? How cruel, I thought, to create the image of a shimmering pond and a bounty of trees gleaming with ruby-red fruit, here in the middle of the sea of dust, and surround it with emaciated people who could only look and never enjoy them.
The watchman gave Bran over to my custody and led me across the garden. I saw the enormous fish once more as I walked by, wondering if they, too, were starving, or if they were only light and trickery.
The house in the garden stood under two trees that bent under the weight of thousands of strands of purple flowers. I walked over fallen petals as the watchmen led me to my lodgings. Much like the rest of the city, it was painted a soft sky blue, with a low, rounded doorway and two circular windows facing the garden’s green expanse. Ceramic pots stood like sentries atop the flat roof, holding leafy ferns and flowers in spotless white and vibrant yellow. It was far too fine a place for a filthy traveler such as myself. I could not begin to imagine what it actually looked like.
Inside, I found a central fireplace of white stone, an iron cooking pot on a stand, and an assortment of ceramic dishes glazed in intricate patterns of tessellating triangles and squares, all deep blue and gold. A large basin of water stood beside the door, and a woven curtain separated a small, low bed from the rest of the room.
“What a beautiful house,” I said, determined to at least appear like a grateful guest, “and such fine craftsmanship. Who makes the pottery?”
My escort’s eyes went wide, and he looked at me as though I had spoken a language he didn’t understand. After a moment, he said, “The serpent provides all we need.”
“It must be difficult for him to operate a potter’s wheel without hands,” I said.
My attempt at a jest was met with the same bewilderment. “You must stay here,” the watchman said, “until the elders send for you. Do not wander the garden.”
I promised him I would remain within a stone’s throw of the house, though I suspected time would soon prove that promise a lie. Should the elders require my blood, I fully intended to take Bran and flee the city, even if I had to open the gate with my own strength.
For now, I would wait. My guard left, and I bathed in the basin as best I could, washing days of sand from my skin and hair. I washed my clothing, as well, and watched in wonder as the water in the basin remained clear and unsullied. I could not say what degree of cleanliness I had actually achieved, but the sand no longer itched. I hung up my robe to dry in the sun and went to investigate the rest of the house.
I found that several of the covered dishes contained food—spiced meat, rice, and fresh vegetables. After weeks of the same dry barley cakes and jerky, I devoured it all, and it was the best thing I had tasted in recent memory.
I found some minutes later that the meal had done nothing to sate my hunger. No wonder Fenin and her people were malnourished. Surely, they must eat something underneath the illusory smells and textures, or they would never have reached adulthood, but I could not say what it was. All I knew was that it was far from sufficient. I fed myself and Bran from our dwindling stores, and tried not to think of how many days were between us and the next waystation.
Whatever magic lay over this place, it did not work on Bran. He refused the green leaves all around us, and had no interest in the garden’s water. I wished he could speak and tell me what he saw, both here and in the desert, where the strange man had turned into the serpent and then disappeared. His ears flattened as he turned his head to look around the garden. This was not a safe place to rest, but for the moment, we had no choice.
I considered asking the elders to let me go. It was unlikely they would agree, given their distrust of outsiders, but there was a chance they would rather be rid of me. According to Fenin, they risked the serpent’s wrath, whatever that might entail, merely by associating with me.
I resolved to depart in the morning, barring any attempt at sacrificing Bran or me to assuage the serpent’s foul mood. I had not slept the night before, and though the bed in the garden house might have been an illusion, it had been many days since I had laid my head anywhere but the ground.
I slept through the afternoon and into the evening, waking after nightfall. Outside the house’s small windows, hundreds of tiny lights bedecked the garden and marked out the city’s main roads, a mirror image of the starry sky above. Light poured out of the temple’s windows, pooling on its steps. The ritual to summon the serpent was under way.
It was only a short distance between my lodgings and the temple. I could avoid the garden’s constellations of flickering lanterns and cross the grounds unseen. With some luck, I could observe the ritual and determine exactly what sort of evil held sway over the city of Svilsara. It must be evil, I thought, to demand blood and give only the image of safety and sustenance in return. I would learn the name of the god they worshiped.
I dressed and slung my harpoon over my shoulder, and I promised Bran that I would soon return. He snorted and tossed his head in doubt. To offer him and myself some comfort, I put his bridle over his head and his saddle about his girth, in case we needed to make a swift departure.
Keeping to the shadows beneath the trees, I crept past the pond, where the long, smooth sides of the fish drifted gently near the bottom, limned in soft, pale light. A song began inside the temple as I approached, drifting over the garden: several deep, male voices accompanying Fenin’s clear, high tones.
I reached the temple and positioned myself beneath one window, well out of sight of the open door. As long as none of the celebrants looked at me directly, I would remain hidden.
The song continued, growing louder and louder. It was not in a language I could understand. Slowly, I peered over the casement, and the light of what must have been hundreds of torches seared my eyes. If I squinted into the impossibly bright room, I could make out the silhouettes of Fenin and the elders, and a dozen or more attendants beside them.
“Beautiful, isn’t it?” said a voice from behind me.
Back to Chapter XXXIII: The Temple of the Elders
Forward to Chapter XXXV: Outside the Temple
Thanks for reading! You and Eske will both get some answers next chapter, I promise.
Space Whales Press 
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