Kushiel's Avatar - Jacqueline Carey [143]
It is said that La Dolorosa, the fortress on the black isle of La Serenissima, is one of the most foreboding places on earth. Well, and I should know, having been a prisoner there. This was worse. La Dolorosa, for all its ills, is steeped in grief and madness. Folly was committed, terrible horrors, but it was the eternal mourning of Asherat-of-the-Sea that drove men to madness. Mortals are not made to bear the grief of gods.
The palace of Daršanga stank of deliberate human cruelty.
And it had invoked something worse.
I felt it on my skin, a crawling darkness, filling my mouth with the taste of foulness. I had not reckoned, before this, what it would be like to enter the stronghold of Angra Mainyu, enemy of life, Lord of Darkness. D'Angeline though I am, I have stood in the presence of other gods and known no such terror. Respect, yes; and fear. Never had I felt myself so utterly despised. It was ... it was like nothing I can describe.
There are a thousand gods in the world; angry gods, vengeful gods, jealous gods. There are gods who delight in cruelty and mischief, gods who demand tribute in blood, gods who punish the weak and reward the tyrannical. Gods, yes; and goddesses, too. I know this to be true. There are gods who devour their young, gods whose followers sing as they slaughter, gods who raise the seas and shake the earth in their wrath, heedless of the count of mortal lives.
This presence was different.
It was all of these things at once; wrath, retribution, jealousy and hunger—Elua, the hunger! Demanding, unthinking, a bloodlust that could never be slaked, no, not if it devoured a thousand lives, a hundred thousand, for the fulfillment lay in the destroying and not the consuming. If the world itself lay desolate and barren, still it would howl for more, its maw agape, yearning and ravening. It was destruction, pure and simple, almost beautiful in its absoluteness.
And if it had been mindless, it would have been terrifying enough . . . but it was not. It was a presence that thought, cunning and aware.
"Angra Mainyu," I whispered.
"Ah." The Skotophagotis halted outside the doors to the great hall of the palace and looked at me with eyes slitted with thoughtful pleasure. "The lady senses his presence. Come, then, and meet his greatest servant, who shall become your Master.”
We entered the hall.
It was dark, of course, and draughty. A sullen fire burned in the hearth at the near end and a few hanging lamps made pools of light in the air. The hall was vast, and mostly empty. A carved frieze ran the length of the walls depicting a tribute procession, but the faces were chipped and smashed. There were holes and blank spaces on the walls and furnishings where gilt trim had been stripped away.
A dais and throne stood at the far end of the hall, but no one was seated on it. Guards idled nearby, and a handful of men stood conversing. One was clad all in furs; the others wore long brocade coats over trousers and tunics. They fell silent as the Skotophagotis entered, and the guards straightened to attention, a giant of a man among them, with a chest like a bull, towering over the Drujani lord beside him.
They all bowed as the Skotophagotis approached.
All except the one standing next to the giant.
"Daeva Gashtaham," he said with interest. "What have you brought me?"
And this time, it was the priest who bowed, lowing his skull-helmed head, finger-bones rattling at his waist. "Mahrkagir," he said smoothly. "This lord of Terre d'Ange seeks an audience."
The Mahrkagir of Drujan wore no crown, no diadem, no badge of office; only black, unalleviated save for the worn silver