Chapter 11: Truth and Lies

They could only wonder why they were being shown to the Ortheri Baugcaun since he hardly seemed interested. They stood there in chains, with guards on all sides, and even had their feet pinned to the stone floor, while he paraded around them, looking at them and making tut-tut noises. Kumzu couldn't keep her eyes off the scepter in his hand. A crystal sphere perched at its apex, in which swirled, endlessly, a handful of sand. Each grain was tossed in an unseen wind to careen chaotically, heedless of the other grains; and yet somehow, every few heartbeats, as if by the most improbable turn of chance, these came together to make the shape of a tiny person trapped in the crystal, hands pressed against its inner surface. Just for a flicker, barely long enough for the eye to perceive; then the grains continued on their courses and all was chaos within once more, until the next such chance meeting.

For a warlord who had ruled over a tribe of conquerors for longer than Yîgeke had been alive, the Ortheri Baugcaun seemed unassuming, easily overlooked. He wore only a robe, and for all that it glimmered with golden threads, it added little gravity to the man. He was hardly taller than her. His sallow skin was wrinkled and pocked, and he'd lost most of his hair, leaving only a few tufts of incongruous white. But in his eyes was a spark of authority, or of cruelty; she could imagine, if he were arrayed in shining armor and standing tall, with those eyes he might seem like a king, like a man that men would follow. Out of fear, not loyalty, but follow all the same.

Around them he walked, studying them, and then around again. He stopped before Yîgeke. "This?" he asked, shaking his head. Behind him, the Ortheri Cowr stood, his expression lost in the shadows of a deep cowl. "She is scarcely a meal for one of my dogs. Are you sure?" The Ortheri Cowr nodded, but as the Ortheri Baugcaun was still staring into Yîgeke's eyes, he couldn't've seen this answer. "Well, do as you deem best with them, then. Just be sure the rest are put back into their place, beneath our heels."

Then they were led off, chained one to the other, down yet more hallways. The sameness of the stone was still evident here, but bedecked with so much adornment, fine silks, rich brocade, furniture carved from wood from a hundred leagues away, trophies from battles in the Westerlands, and a thousand things besides, that the hue almost was lost amongst the decadence. As they moved farther from the Ortheri Baugcaun's chambers, the halls became more and more sparse, and soon they were winding up narrow stairs.

At last, they were brought into a surprisingly spacious chamber in a high tower. The room was scarcely furnished: a desk covered in books and scrolls, a huge bed piled high with white silk sheets, and a few personal effects. The only decoration was the impressive views commanded by the narrow window-slits, showing the entire city arrayed below. Pressed close to the wall and peering through one of these windows, Yîgeke could see hundreds of homes and shops neatly arrayed in straight lines, warehouses and barracks, plazas and marketplaces, forges and stables; and girdling it all, fortified walls crested with ballistae and watch-towers. A glint of light far to the south made her wonder, was that the glass of the aviary?

Warriors were stationed around the circle of the room, a dozen at least. The six slaves stood to one side of the room, across from the desk, while the door was securely locked. "Now, then," the Ortheri Cowr purred in a voice like tainted honey, "we can dispense with these. You have much to see before the end." He moved from slave to slave, flanked by two warriors with spears at the ready, and removed their chains. Ulgî almost lunged at him once freed, despite the number of warriors that he could not hope to defeat, but Kumzu stayed his hand with a whisper.

Before the cowled man could say more, Kargöz asked, "How long have the Ortheri known of the Six Spears?" It seemed pointless to be coy about it now.

The Ortheri Cowr laughed. "Oh, my dear boy, this will be such delight. Do you know that I am the tenth to bear this title? When one of the Ortheri rise to a position so exalted as mine, we give up our old name, and are known by only the title thenceforth. In fact, I cannot even recall what my name was before. But I do know the name of the first of my title." He tapped one of the books on the desk. "Not that it matters to you. What matters is what he did. He was a most cunning man, which is from whence comes the title."

"I'm sure he knew how to tie his own shoes," Kargöz murmured dryly.

The Ortheri Cowr was undaunted and unbaited. "How long have we known of your prophecy, the secret of the Haehînbór? Why, my dear boy, we've known it longer than you have. And the reason for this is simple. We were the ones to invent it."

Amongst the stunned gasps that resulted, Oyana protested, "Invented it? Do you mean, foresaw it?"

A thin, sibilant voice like that belonging to the Ortheri Cowr is not the type suited to a booming laugh, but he made one anyway. It was a wheezing, pathetic sound, like breaking stones. "The first of my line foresaw only this: that a recently-conquered people would not accept their subjugation easily. But there is no more potent weapon than hope. He sat in this very room, at this very desk, and labored with his quill. Using words as his tools, he forged a chain out of the stuff of hope itself. He penned the words here, and then set his agents to whispering it into the ears of the Haehînbór."

"To what end?" Kargöz spat.

"In the generations since, there has never once been an uprising of your people," the Ortheri Cowr purred. "Now and then, there's a hint of one, but soon, your own people put it down for us, out of fear of sand in your breath. Even when one of your kind is merely a bit too defiant, too unruly, others will press him to accept his service, to meekly obey, to keep us lulled into our lynx's slumber. We hardly need to chain you or whip you. You do it to yourselves for us. You are the best slaves; you spare your masters even the work of enslaving you."

An hour before, Yîgeke would have thought her spirits could sink no lower. The lynx was awake, her people had a hopelessly incapable First Hand heading to the gallows, and the Haehînbór were doubly doomed to perish utterly. But this was all the worse. There never had been true hope. Her people had been their own oppressors, and she had been amongst the worst of them.

"You're lying," Qemik proclaimed. "This is a trick to break our spirits. We've seen three of the Spears, three of them, just as the prophecy foretold."

The Ortheri Cowr frowned and tapped a finger to his lips. "And this is a puzzle. I had thought you were falsifying the signs yourself. It's happened before, several times. This is why we sent people to prevent you from doing so. But it became clear you were not, yourselves, responsible. You've been being played, and I would very much like to know by whom."

Qemik was having none of it. "Pretty words make pretty lies."

Whirling to face him, the Ortheri Cowr seemed about to strike, but stopped. "It amuses me to see what this knowledge does to you. Look, there, your mewling First Hand can barely stand up. If I bared my chest and placed a knife in her hand, would it find my heart, or her own? You do not know. But you," he prodded Qemik's chest with a clawed fingertip, "require more to break your feckless spirit. Tell me this. You have been reciting this prophecy under your breath every day of your life, but has anyone ever told you who was the one to foresee it?"

His mouth wide open to offer a challenging answer, Qemik was surprised to find no words in it. In fact, it had never occurred to him to wonder. As a child, like any of the Haehînbór, he was taught the words in secret by his parents, when he was too young to understand them. By the time he knew what they said, they'd become so familiar that the moment to wonder about their source had passed. It was enough to know they'd come from his parents, and their parents, and theirs.

A heavy, dusty book, so old it required care to lift lest its covers fall apart, was now being brought before him by the Ortheri Cowr. "See, here, on this page, my predecessor writes of his plan, and how it will be carried out." One bony finger almost stabbed at a page, but held back to avoid damaging the fragile parchment. "And here, the first draft of the prophecy. You can even see where he crossed out words and changed them, to make the signs more implausible, but not so implausible that your people could not hang on their possibility. Do you see?" When he noticed the look of blank incomprehension on Qemik's face, he stepped back. "Of course you do not. You have no letters. Which of you can read?"

Kumzu hesitantly raised a hand, and the book was brought before her. She pondered it carefully. Another might have, out of spite, struck it, shattering it to dust, but Kumzu was not the sort to think of this. And if she had, she would deplore the idea of destroying such a venerated artifact, even if it were one that damned her people. At last she whispered, "It is as he says."

"The pages are false," Qemik protested. "He's created it to fool us."

"They are old," Kumzu said. "And the ink, by its hue, is made from the sap of a tree that once grew near here, but which withered when the hot winds from the southwest came. Yes, it's possible to bring in the ink, or sap, from Khand," she added to forestall the objection she anticipated from Qemik, "but why would he bother? To use a rare, costly ink just to fool us, when it was unlikely any of us would know enough of herb-lore to recognize the ink anyway? No, these pages are true, as are his hateful words."

Oyana's voice cracked as she asked, "Then why tell us?"

Turning to her, the Ortheri Cowr passed the book to one of the warriors, who returned it to the desk carefully. "I tell you because you will be dead soon, and it amuses me. From time to time, when a slave is due to be put to death, I bring them here and show them this. Most disbelieve, as that one did," he pointed to Qemik without turning to face him, "but most also eventually crumble, as she has," and now he pointed at Yîgeke. "Either way, it is theater most entertaining."

Oyana felt sick to her stomach, but she nevertheless added, "Is that the only reason you kept us alive?"

The Ortheri Cowr tapped his lip with a bony finger. "Well, now, there's something to that question," he said thoughtfully. "You see, we've had signs falsified before, but never three, and never before so many eyes. Your people may become restless if we do not put an end to this soon. Decisively. We will, of course, ensure no one can follow after you and falsify the Fourth Spear; men are already in place in and around the aviary. But that is not enough. There must be no doubt left in their minds that the day is not yet come, that it is time to lower their heads, walk softly, and obey their masters, and hope their children's children's children might one day see the Six Spears. We assume you will not willingly cooperate in this effort, so we will simply use your bodies to stage a tableau that they can discover. You'll be found amongst evidence of a scheme to falsify the signs for your own aggrandizement, and perverse pleasure. You will be shown engaging with one another in all manner of sick depravities." At this, Qemik was lunging at him, snarling, but was caught and dragged back to the wall by two of the guards. The Ortheri Cowr continued as if nothing had happened, not even missing a beat. "You will become another object lesson of the value of being peaceful and subservient, of what can go wrong to a Haehînbór who presumes too much. And your people will whisper your names to remind themselves of their need to bow and obey. In the end, you will have done almost as much to subjugate your people as the first Ortheri Cowr himself."