They did not need to speak, Mahaavar and she. Their bodies had expressed everything in the ciphers of touch and sensation. The earthly manifestations of their eternal spirits. The complimentary nature of their bodies was their most effective communication. Mahaavar kissed her lips once again before leaving the garden; his were still hot and tasted of cinnamon.
Along the Path of Contemplation they walked, two silver-robes strolling in the unhurried way common to those in power. Slaves tending the nightflowers scurried from the path, prostrating themselves; the clacking of shears resumed as they passed. Guards in hawk-faced visors stiffened as the two High Seraphim walked by their stations upon garden walls and bridges. A nightingale sang sweetly among the clustered vines that hemmed the pathway. Sungui’s bare feet on the polished marble made no sound; Mahaavar moved as quietly as she.
They passed through an arch of jade carved into a parade of winged children, and so came into the Grotto of Sighing Flowers. A breeze stirred the hems of their garments, the naked breath of great, pulsing blossoms. At the nearest of the Inner Walls, they paused while an alabaster gate rose to admit them. They entered the courtyard of the Thirty-Ninth Tower and crossed a lawn where white-barked trees harbored flocks of nesting doves. Only here, away from the ears of passing slaves and functionaries, did Mahaavar speak to her.
“How many do you expect?” he whispered.
“It does not matter,” she said.
“Will they listen?”
“They have always listened,” she said.
He said nothing, stifling his confusion.
“Yet they never—”
“Not yet,” she said. “Such things take time. Longer than you could guess.” She stopped in the middle of the courtyard, where the sound of cooing birds filled the branches. “Do you even remember how long it took to build the Holy Mountain? Do you remember–truly remember–how old you are?”
Mahaavar looked at the shadows swimming about the tree roots. A holy viper crawled through the grass, its white scales speckled with a pattern of scarlet diamonds.
“Sometimes,” he said. “Sometimes I recall… another life… or lives.”
She smiled and caressed his cheek. “They were all you, Beautiful Mahaavar.”
Sungui turned and the pace resumed. Through a second gate of whitewashed oak and iron they entered a narrow corridor with recessed candles lining the walls. A slave carrying a bundle of cloth paused before them, lying flat upon the floor so that they might walk upon his back. Sungui and Mahaavar stepped across the man’s bony frame one at a time. He neither groaned nor complained, although she did hear the complaint of his brittle bones. As they proceeded down the corridor, the slave was up again and carrying his burden in the direction from which they had come.
“Why here, in this mean place crawling with slaves?” Mahaavar asked. “It stinks of sweat and fear.”
She breathed deeply the close air of the Slave Quarters. She smelled only sweat, soap, and the exhalations of simple cuisine. Slaves’ cooking. Mahaavar was her spoiled lover, unaccustomed to walking in the lower precincts of the Holy Mountain. He was much like a boy, and she loved him for that as much as for their ancient and bloodless kinship. She allowed herself a lingering glance at his handsome face: high-set cheekbones, ebony hair, eyes blue as sapphire, the petulant mouth of a princeling. A lost and doddering God of the ancient world might look as fetching, were there ever any such beings. Adoring the beauty of his face, recalling the hot embrace of his body, she could understand why humans had created this notion of Gods.
Yet that was long ago, and all those imaginary deities had been slain, forgotten, or suffused into the essence of the High Lord Celestial himself. Zyung was their only God now. The one God they could believe in because he walked among them working miracles, casting dooms, spreading his gifts of pain and death. For thousands of years it had been so. And it might be so for thousands more.
Might be.
“Relax, my love,” she told Mahaavar as they descended granite stairs. “Do you predict the Almighty’s eyes will turn from dreams of western conquest to search out the catacombs where his slaves dwell?”
Mahaavar grinned. “Your cleverness amuses me. His Holiness would never expect to find a single one of his High Seraphim in such a place.” Sungui nodded, strands of her dark hair whispering against the flared shoulders of her vestment.
Curtains of steam wafted in the damp air. A corridor of unadorned stone led them into an underground gallery dominated by a great, square pool of murky water. Young slaves tended two hearths where flames licked about hot stones. As the two High Seraphim entered, a terrified boy dropped a burning rock he was lifting with a pair of iron tongs. It fell steaming to the floor between his feet, glowing like a miniature red sun.