The Inheritance Trilogy Omnibus(115)

Then, just before the sun’s bottommost curve lifts free of the horizon, I recognize what I have seen in him. Two souls. Itempas, like both his siblings, also has a second self.

Viraine flings back his head and screams, and from his throat vomits hot, searing white light. It floods the room in an instant, blinding me. I imagine the people in the city below, and in the surrounding countryside, will see this light from miles away. They will think it is a sun come to earth, and they will be right.

In the brightness I hear the Arameri crying out, except Dekarta. He alone has witnessed this before. When the light fades, I look upon Itempas, Bright Lord of the Sky.

The library etching was surprisingly accurate, though the differences are profound. His face is even more perfect, with lines and symmetry that put mere etching to shame. His eyes are the gold of a blazing noonday sun. Though white like Viraine’s, his hair is shorter and tighter-curled than even my own. His skin is darker, too, matte-smooth and flawless. (This surprises me, though it shouldn’t. How it must gall the Amn.) I can see, in this first glance, why Naha loves him.

And there is love in Itempas’s eyes, too, as he steps around my body and its nimbus of coagulating blood. “Nahadoth,” he says, smiling and extending his hands. Even in my fleshless state, I shiver. The things his tongue does to those syllables! He has come to seduce the god of seduction, and oh, has he come prepared.

Nahadoth is abruptly free to rise to his feet, which he does. But he does not take the proffered hands. He walks past Itempas to where my body lies. My corpse is fouled with blood all along one side, but he kneels and lifts me anyhow. He holds me against himself, cradling my head so it does not flop back on my limp neck. There is no expression on his face. He simply looks at me.

If this gesture is calculated to offend, it works. Itempas lowers his hands slowly, and his smile fades.

“Father of All.” Dekarta bows with precarious dignity, unsteady without his cane. “We are honored by your presence once again.” Murmurs from the sides of the room: Relad and Scimina make their greetings as well. I do not care about them. I exclude them from my perception.

For a moment I think Itempas will not answer. Then he says, still gazing at Nahadoth’s back, “You still wear the sigil, Dekarta. Call a servant and finish the ritual.”

“At once, Father. But…”

Itempas looks at Dekarta, who trails off under that burning-desert gaze. I do not blame him. But Dekarta is Arameri; gods do not frighten him for long.

“Viraine,” he says. “You were… part of him.”

Itempas lets him flounder to silence, then says, “Since your daughter left Sky.”

Dekarta looks over at Kurue. “You knew this?”

She inclines her head, regal. “Not at first. But Viraine came to me one day and let me know I need not be damned to this earthly hell for all eternity. Our father could still forgive us, if we proved ourselves loyal.” She glances at Itempas then, and even her dignity cannot hide her anxiety. She knows how fickle his favor can be. “Even then I wasn’t certain, though I suspected. That was when I decided on my plan.”

“But… that means…” Dekarta pauses then, realization-anger-resignation flickering across his face in quick succession. I can guess his thoughts: Bright Itempas orchestrated Kinneth’s death.

My grandfather closes his eyes, perhaps mourning the death of his faith. “Why?”

“Viraine’s heart was broken.” And does the Father of All realize that his eyes turn to Nahadoth when he says this? Is he aware of what this look reveals? “He wanted Kinneth back, and offered anything if I would help him achieve that goal. I accepted his flesh in payment.”

“How predictable.” I shift to myself, lying in Nahadoth’s arms. Nahadoth speaks above me. “You used him.”

“If I could have given him what he wanted, I would have,” Itempas replies with a very human shrug. “But Enefa gave these creatures the power to make their own choices. Even we cannot change their minds when they’re set on a given course. Viraine was foolish to ask.”

The smile that curves Nahadoth’s lips is contemptuous. “No, Tempa, that isn’t what I meant, and you know it.”

And somehow, perhaps because I am no longer alive and no longer thinking with a fleshly brain, I understand. Enefa is dead. Never mind that some remnant of her flesh and soul lingers; both are mere shadows of who and what she truly was. Viraine, however, took into himself the essence of a living god. I shiver as I realize: the moment of Itempas’s manifestation was also the moment of Viraine’s death. Had he known it was coming? So much of his strangeness became clear, in retrospect.