POV: lightsong
Summary
Lightsong stands on the second-story open roof of his palace at sunset, trying not to think about the T'Telir of his recurring dreams — the city in flames, the people dying, the world ending. Below him, the Court of Gods is laid out in its perfect circle of palaces, torches and lanterns just being lit in the gods' colours. At the head sits the God King's tall black palace, throwing its long warped shadow across the back wall. Some palaces are dark — gods who have not yet Returned. The grass is manicured, the wall tapestries replaced before they fade. The mortals expend such effort on their gods. Sometimes he cannot fathom why.
Meeting with Allmother has dredged up older days he had not thought about in years. Calmseer — his mentor in his earliest weeks of being Returned. The one Returned he had ever known, he thinks now, who came closest to actually being divine. She had cared for her followers the way Allmother only pretended to; she had loved them without the courtly arrogance. And in the end even she had felt that she could not be the goddess they wanted her to be, and had answered a petition, and died. Lightsong turns the thought over: *they craft all this splendour, they give us whatever we ask, and then they push us, gently, to be a god. To prophesy. To die so they can keep believing.*
Llarimar joins him. Lightsong says that no man should be this important; Llarimar tells him a god does not get to choose. He had meant, Lightsong admits, to give his Lifeless command-phrase to Allmother and let her stand up to Blushweaver herself — but now Allmother holds his phrase as well as her own, and the first of them to change either word locks the other out of all twenty thousand. He looks down on the lit pavilions and asks himself the question he has been circling for weeks: does he sit back and let history happen, or jump in and make a mess of it?
He thinks about the girl. She is no threat, of course; the only danger she represents is whatever pawn-game someone else might be playing through her. Would Allmother see the danger in time? Would Blushweaver protect her if he withdrew? Probably not. And then, quietly, he turns to Llarimar and asks the question he has put off for two and a half decades. *The young woman in my dreams. Was she my wife?* The high priest looks away and shakes his head. *My lover?* No. *But she was important to me?* Very. *And is she still alive?* Llarimar hesitates, then nods.
Still alive. If T'Telir burns, she burns with it. He had been given one real duty in this kingdom, the command of ten thousand Lifeless; he had spent a lifetime trying to give it back. He turns and walks toward the steps.
He moves down the long covered walkway from the court plateau to the Lifeless Enclave at its base, Llarimar and the rest of his priests trailing him through guard post after guard post. Lightsong has only been here twice — once to give his original command-phrase, once on a half-curious visit since — and as the doors are opened he remembers why. The compound is built to hold forty thousand of them: four warehouses one for each god, an exercise track, a hall of weights, an infirmary where the ichor-alcohol is tested and refreshed. Twisting passages designed to confuse anyone who might try to fight their way to the troops. They keep them in the dark.
His ten thousand stand in lines on the warehouse floor, armed and armoured, silent and motionless, eyes open. Holes in the ranks where exercise details have been called away. The way they do not shuffle or cough is the part that has always made him want to leave. He clears the room — *everyone out, I will bear this phrase myself* — and Llarimar does not argue. There is no good way of holding Lifeless command-phrases. Trust no one and the kingdom loses the army when the god dies; trust priests and the kingdom loses the army to the first torturer with patience. The only real check is the God King himself: with his vast Breath, he could overwrite a Lifeless faster than any other Awakener, though even for him retaking ten thousand of them would take weeks. The choice is left to each Returned. Lightsong has always handed his phrase to Llarimar and a few others. This time he keeps it. If a chance comes to whisper it to the God King himself he will take it; no one else.
*Bottom line blue,* he says down from the viewing platform. *I give you a new Command phrase. Red panther. Red panther. Step to the right side of the room.* A block of Lifeless at the front, the ones near enough to hear, move to the side. He had hoped, briefly, that Allmother had beaten him here and made the question moot. She has not. He descends to the floor and continues, group after group of about twenty or thirty at a time — he remembers from years ago how many hours this takes. He will leave them their lesser Commands, the ones the servants use to walk them to exercise or send them out with the city guard. The Command that sends them to war, he will hold alone.
When this room is done he will move on to Allmother's ten thousand and do it again. Both armies, drawn back to one man. He has spent every day of his godhood trying to be useless. This evening, on a warehouse floor under his priests' lanterns, he stops trying.