In the blazing afternoon sunshine the Emperor’s litter arrived at the Temple. It floated in the heavy light, a great black box reminding Orhan of the black entranceway of the Great Chamber so obscenely exposed. Carved of bone that was said to be dragon bone, dug out of the sands of the eastern desert barely a day’s walk beyond the city walls. Hard and dry and silvery, knotted ends like tumours, cold to the hand like thick cracked ice. Blue flames licked the curtains of the litter. Raced over the cold cold metallic bones. Basins of ammalene resin, dried lavender, dried mint, copperstem flowers preserved like sugared roses, a servant in gold and silver net like fish scales scattering them before the litter, the lumps of incense smouldering on the stones. Let the feet of those who carry the Emperor never touch the city’s ground.
“All kneel! All kneel for the Ever Living Emperor! The Emperor comes!”
The litter bearers wore hoods and masks so that one never saw their faces. Embroidered all over with pure white pearls. They walked with a slow, heavy, rolling, tripping gait. The God alone knew if they were even human. Demons summoned up from the bones of the litter, yoked to it by the power of the God. Immortal and ageless and mindless and formless, inhuman things of light and shadow, curling teeth and curling horns. Or servants in padded costumes. Sworn to silence for cheap effect.
From out of the litter a man emerged. A thick black cloak covering his face. So great his grief for his city that he could not bear to let the light touch his skin. He was carried up the steps of the Great Temple in a golden chair canopied with simiseren feathers, in which, it was noted, he sat awkwardly twitching and hunched. So great his grief for his city that he boiled with pain in his chair. In black-gloved hands he carried a single white candle, as offering for the God. His life, Orhan told the soldiers closest to him in an awed whisper. His life he would pledge, to die when the candle died, to purchase the lives of all in the city, to suffer in exchange for his people’s salvation all the agonies of death and rebirth.
What exactly transpired in the Great Temple no one but the God and the man in the black cloak would ever know. Except that it didn’t last very long. After what seemed to Orhan no time at all the golden chair was carried out again and the black-cloaked man placed back in his litter. “All kneel! All kneel for the Ever Living Emperor! The Emperor comes!” The soldiers shouted a cheer as the litter departed swaying and rolling.
Lady Amdelle, robed in cloth of silver with a headdress of red glass, came to the Temple a little later in the first lengthening evening shadows, bringing her son and half of her household in her train. They lit a hundred beeswax candles. Lady Amdelle dedicated a moonstone the size of a serving plate and a rope of green pearls as long as a man’s body and a statuette of a magnolia tree in flower cut from a white striped ruby, only as tall as a child’s finger but so perfectly carved that every flower had petals and stamen and pollen grains. Lord Aviced followed her, weighed down in a coat encrusted with jewels, half his household following in torn clothing with bowed heads. He lit a hundred candles, dedicated a golden bowl of hens’ teeth and an emerald the size of his clasped fists. Both, it was noted, threw gifts of gemstones and coins to the soldiers tending the fires. Lady Amdelle, it was noted, bent her head before one of the pyres and wept. To Orhan’s astonishment, Eloise Verneth followed, all in white and yellow, mirrors on her gown reflecting his puzzled eyes. She stopped her litter and looked at Orhan. A long look he could not understand. She brought the petals of a cetalasophrase preserved in rose oil, a wreath of clear ice that was enchanted against melting, a vine of amethyst grapes with gold and emerald leaves. Her servants gave out bread and cold roast meat to the soldiers. Another couple of lesser nobles, one of them some distant cousin of Darath’s, his face near enough to Darath’s face that the line in the set of his mouth stabbed at Orhan’s heart. A handful of the richest of the merchant families, just about a measurable proportion of those still left alive.
A kind of calm descended on the city. The desire for violence choked out, smothered like the flames. Sanity returning, people waking to stare at each other, curse themselves and look away, grieving shame for themselves and their city, unaccountable, frightened, sick at heart but also purged and calmed in themselves. It was announced shortly after dawn that the Emperor had died peacefully, His last words a prayer for His people and a thanks to the God for granting His only wish. In the eastern desert, it was rumoured, dragons danced red and green and silver on the wind. The air grew hot and stifling. The city was plagued by clouds of great fat black flies. The House of Flowers stood sealed and silent. Orhan sat outside Bilale’s bedroom, listening to her croon to his son behind layers of locked doors.