“The Temple’s clear.”

Orhan nodded wearily.

Gallus said, “I had the men put the bodies in a pile in the Temple gardens. You’re right, we don’t want people to see them being carried out.”

“Burn them,” said Orhan.

Fever and contagion. Putrefying diseased bodies. Sickness of madness and of plague. “They need to be destroyed now.”

Things you learnt. The destruction of the body by fire. The stacking of the pyre, the pouring on of the oil, the kindling of the flame. The way the fat sizzled. The smell of burning hair.

We’re all dying.

Flies flies flies eating the whole world.

Gallus nodded. Equally wearily. He ran his hands through his hair. “And the … the High Priestess, My Lord? Should we … should we bury her?”

Even you, thought Orhan, even you doubt, now, that the High Priestess Thalia is dead, that that poor child was rightfully High Priestess.

He thought: the child was an abomination before the God, indeed. A curse on me. Filth on my skin. Just not in the way you and all the rest seem to think.

“Display her body on the steps of the Temple. Don’t try to pretty her, or disguise it. And if you can, wreath her in copperstem.”

“I could put up a notice,” said Gallus. “‘So die all who blaspheme against Great Tanis the Lord of Living and Dying.’”

Orhan in turn ran his hands through his hair. “You could.”

“Have you got any rest, My Lord?”

Almost laughed. “Rest? I’ll rest soon enough when they come to kill me. Or when I kill myself. But I don’t think I can ever rest again.”

Gallus looked at him and their eyes met bleakly. Sharing something deeper even than he’d ever shared with Darath. Pain and self-loathing like no one should ever feel.

“It was necessary, My Lord,” said Gallus.

“Yes. It was.” “Kill them,” he’d ordered the soldiers, after the mob killed the High Priestess in the Great Chamber of the Temple itself. “Kill them all.” An apple, for five cimma fruit. Half the city, for something and no one could say any more what. Plague and fire and madness tore at them. But something, something must be saved. Nobody else was doing anything. Lord Tardein the Nithque of the Asekemlene Emperor of the Sekemleth Empire of the city of Sorlost was hiding in the House of Breaking Waves stuffing a scarf into his mouth to smother his screams, a table against his bedroom door. Someone had to try to bring some kind of order. Keep them all from killing themselves.

Orhan Emmereth and his wife and his son and all his household, for the last few sane people in Sorlost.

“How soon will someone come for us, then?” said Gallus.

Orhan sighed. “Soon, I should think. Cam will have to try to take some control back of something sometime, if he wants to stay alive himself.”

“His son died,” said Gallus.

“When? You should have told me.”

“Only very recently, late last night or this morning. The boy crawled from his sick room trying join the people in the street. Died as they tried to get him back to bed.”

“Go and burn the bodies,” Orhan said. “That needs doing. It has to be done. And get the girl’s body displayed.”

“Yes, My Lord.” It was raining again. Orhan watched Gallus splashing across the Grey Square. He did not look at the men accompanying him.

I hoped it would rain, Orhan thought.

One of the pyres in the square flickered. The rain, trying its best to put it out. The smell was indescribable. Far, far worse than the smell of Tam Rhyl’s house when it burned. The square was so full of smoke it made Orhan’s eyes water. The faces of the soldiers tending the pyres were blank and hard and empty. Poisoned. Ruined. Sick unto death themselves.

Shame, Orhan thought, looking at Gallus walking stiffly up the Temple steps, disappearing into the gaping dark. What it means to be a God is to live in constant grief and shame.

Just let me die of deeping fever, oh God, Great Lord Tanis, Great Lord of Living and Dying. Be merciful. Let me die of deeping fever here now.

Instead, one of the soldiers tending the nearest pyre approached him. Alyen, his name might be, one of the commanding officers in charge of these wretched men.

“The fires aren’t burning properly, My Lord,” said Alyen. There was soot and blood on his white face. “They won’t burn in the rain, My Lord.” He shifted uncomfortably. His eyes staring respectfully hatefully at the ground. “The men … The men say the rain’s an omen. Unnatural. That Great Tanis is angry. They are afraid, My Lord.”

“Pour more fuel on the bodies,” Orhan said. His voice sounded distant in his ears. Alyen looked deeply unhappy. Glanced over at the fires with pain in his eyes. Orhan sighed. “Tell the men the rain is Great Tanis weeping, that His city has come to this. The God mourns for the dead.”

“Yes, My Lord.” Alyen went back to his fire, trying to march like a soldier man. Brisk false officer’s voice called to the man nearest him: “Fetch another couple of barrels of oil, Jal.”

He was risking all the soldiers’ lives, ordering them to clear the bodies. Their bodies were sticky with blood. Filthy, stinking, alive with flies. Contagious: the raised heat of the diseased blood warmed the blood of the healthy, made them sick in turn. “The God will keep you healthy,” he kept repeating to them. “The God will reward you, for what you do. The God will keep you healthy. The Emperor is grateful. He is praying to Great Tanis for you even now.”

“The Emperor’s dead,” someone muttered occasionally. “The God’s abandoned us.”

Another squad of soldiers was coming back into the square from the Street of Flowers. The rain washing their spears clean. Their commander presented himself to Orhan. “My Lord. We’ve cleared the streets east of the square right up past the Gold Quarter. No one’s about now. And I’m to report that the Gate of the Evening is closed and guarded by ten men.”

“Yes. Thank you.”

“If I may ask … how fares the Emperor, My Lord?”

Orhan ran his hands through his hair. “The Emperor is pleased. He is grateful for all that you have done.”

The Emperor must be a screaming mewling newborn baby, somewhere. Six, seven, eight hours old? Oh yes, he must be grateful. A newborn baby wouldn’t stand much chance if the city collapsed entirely in bloodshed and disease. It’s not lies, Orhan thought again. It’s not lies. None of this. It’s the truth, in that it’s the only way that we can go on.

Gallus returned from the Great Temple. He looked even worse than he had when he went in.

“It’s done,” said Gallus. “Or doing, anyway. I set five men to tend the fire. Another four are working with the priestesses trying to set things at least partly to rights in the Great Chamber. Another two cursed me and ran away.”

“You should get something to eat,” said Orhan. “A rest.”

“As you said, I don’t think I’ll ever rest again. Or be able to eat. I couldn’t find any copperstem in the Temple storerooms. Not the kind of thing they’d have thought they’d be likely to need.”

“Never mind, then. We need to get her body set up on the steps outside. With a sign, if you wish. As soon as the Temple’s halfway in order, we should get it open. Get some of the great families in there saying prayers. I’ll send a note to Lady Amdelle. Remind me.”

“My Lord … The Emperor’s supposed to be going to the Temple to pray for the city, My Lord.”

Ah, God’s knives. He was. Desperately eager to do so at the earliest possible moment, his corpse had told Orhan so several times. Orhan rubbed his eyes, tried to think. “Find a kitchen servant in the palace, stick them in a big black coat and bring them here. We’ll have to announce the truth at some point. But not until after he’s come here and made a dedication and said his prayers. Offered his life to the God for the lives of his people.” His voice was coming out from somewhere else, somewhere he’d never been, not even that night at the beginning of all this when the demon came into the city at his command. Heard it droning on and on, saying things he couldn’t bear it to say. It was necessary. I did it because it was necessary. I did it to save us. I wanted to make things better. I wanted to help the world. “Kill the man once he’s back in the litter. Make sure no one can recognize his face.”

Gallus looked up at Orhan, their eyes meeting. Wet with tears. It’s just the rain. Just the rain. “Yes, My Lord.”

Gallus paused, looked around the square at the bonfires. “Why did this happen, My Lord?”

Orhan said slowly, “Because people are desperate, I imagine. The same reasons people usually have for desperate things.”

“But … A woman killed her child, My Lord. And the crowd killed that … that young girl.”

“She thought she was saving the city.” Orhan almost wanted to take Gallus’s hand. “Perhaps, Gallus, she loved her own life, or another’s, more than that of the child.” What would you kill, Gallus, he thought, if it kept you a little while longer alive? Answer me honestly. Really, truly, honestly, deep down.

Gallus said, “You were about to give me back that letter. Tell me to put it back. Walk off.”

The day wore on. The rain stopped again. The mud baked back to yellow dust and dog shit. The fig tree in the corner of the Grey Square shone verdant green. Pethe birds drank from a last shadowed puddle. Dogs slunk spittle-eyed looking for scraps. Orhan sat in the shade of the loggia giving orders, sending men out, watching the pyres slowly, slowly blaze up and burn down. Days, they would take. Days, hanging over the city in a fog of rancid smoke.

The things you learnt.