Slowly, the Great Tower of Resu began to emerge from behind the mountainous ramparts of earth that surrounded it. Now the spectators came not to jeer at the slave-king of Dythbeth but rather to peer up in awe at the successful completion of the greatest engineering feat ever undertaken by human hands. Kwasin only glowered. He knew that the tower’s completion only speeded him on the way toward his impending doom. He had long ago given up on receiving help from the priestesses. Since Bhako first informed him of the secret language of Awines, they had received no further coded transmissions. He could only assume that the conspiring priestesses had been rooted out and put to death.

  Then, just as he finally determined he had nothing to lose and would attack barehanded and hobbled the forty spear-, sword-, and sling-armed guardsmen who routinely escorted him to and from his pit each day, a message arrived at last.

  Kwasin had been shoveling dirt into a wagon from the shallow remains of the tower’s last rampart when suddenly, carried to him on the wind, a musical voice rang out.

  ""Sisaweth-ken-keth-qa-sin-kwa!”

  He stopped what he was doing and cocked an ear toward the observation platform that rested on top of the stone wall enclosing the work area. In the distance he could see the tiny figure of a woman gesturing obscenely at him, doubtless hoping that her vulgarism would serve as a decoy to distract the guards from the secret message she imparted.

  “Phekwakwo-dy-komumim-wona-namosi-wapoebi!”

  Silently, Kwasin cursed. Bahko had just taken ill with the most recent plague to sweep through the slave district and had been excused from the day’s labors while he recovered in the pit. Kwasin would have to hope he could memorize the priestess’s message and recite it to the bard later for translation.

  “Roqaqa-dy-wona-wenti-wokomkul”

  While Kwasin stood before his wagon intently listening, one of his keepers approached from behind. Kwasin ignored the man and concentrated on the woman’s words.

  Suddenly a whip cracked loudly. Blistering pain lashed across Kwasin’s naked back. Raging, although not vocally because he was still trying to listen to the priestess, Kwasin reached out with lightning speed, grabbed hold of the slave driver’s whip, and yanked it from his tormentor’s hand.

  “Kekete-ti-gati-gar-terisiivuwu!”

  The driver, seeing the seven-foot-tall giant now armed, blanched and hightailed it back to the large contingent of guards overseeing Kwasin’s work gang. When Kwasin turned back to the observation deck, the priestess was gone.

  He dropped the whip and resumed his shoveling, running the priestess’s words over and over in his head. The guards, relieved to see their dangerous charge surrender his weapon with no struggle, retrieved the fallen whip and left Kwasin to his toiling.

  Kwasin was nearly exploding with anticipation by the time the sun set and the soldiers returned him to the enclosure at the bottom of the pit. Still, he waited to make sure his guards had ascended to the surface by means of the crane elevator before calling out to the bard in the adjoining cell.

  Silence met him. “Bard, do you hear me?” he shouted again. “I bear what must surely be urgent news from the priestesses, if only I could understand the message! Wake up!”

  A great fear seized Kwasin. What if Bhako had died, or was so sick that he had been moved to the surface? Now Kwasin berated himself for not taking up the bard’s offer to teach him the secret language of the priestesses.

  A strangled moan arose from the darkness, and a moment later came a feeble cough.

  Hope leaped in Kwasin’s heart. “Bhako, my friend!” Kwasin cried out, using the bard’s given name for the first time since they had met. “You are still alive!” But no matter how Kwasin tried to engage the ailing troubadour, Bhako would not—or could not—reply.

  Finally, tired of hearing his own voice echoing hollowly from stone, Kwasin slumped against the side of his cell and once again began diligently grating his fetters against the granite wall. Only another week, he judged, and he would have weakened a single link on each of his bronze chains just enough that with great effort he might break them with his oxlike strength. He was being careful this time to keep the worn-away areas of the links as modest and unnoticeable as possible. Three times before, just as he all but sanded down his chains to the point of escape, his guards had detected his handiwork and replaced his fetters.

  One line of the priestess’s melodic heckling, which Kwasin ran over and over in his head as he sawed at his chains, made him wonder if his work on the fetters would all be for naught. “That which you dread comes in seven days!” the woman had taunted. But Bhako had said the priestesses’ messages were not what they seemed on the surface, that a deeper, less obvious meaning lay within. Seven days might mean seven months, or even seven years. Or perhaps the number seven was misleading altogether, as namosi-wapoebi—which could mean both the seventh day of the week or a period of seven days—was originally named after the ancient priestess Wapoebi before being replaced a couple hundred years ago with a term more commonly employed, namosi-sahdar, which literally translated to gray-sky-day, or more commonly, cloud-day. Why had the priestess not used the more modern idiom? Or for that matter, why had she not said namosi-go, a term that translated unequivocally to a period of seven days? Was the priestess merely utilizing archaic language to make her verse more poetic, or did she mean to make subtle reference to that day of the week’s ancient namesake? Kwasin wracked his brain trying to remember anything he could about Wapoebi before finally surrendering to the fact that he knew nothing. He also reflected on the phrase “Kekete-ti-gati-gar-terisiwuwu, ” which in the vernacular meant “Gird your loins” but literally translated to the more vulgar “Witness thy strength in the great python. ’’What could it mean?

  It was no use! Kho had created him to fight, rage, and make love, not dabble in a troubadour’s poetry!

  Five agonizingly long days passed and still Bhako uttered no word from his cell. The last mighty rampart of earth had at last been cleared away from the tower, and now Kwasin sat idle in his cell, singing aloud in appalling tones the message from the priestess, praying to Qawo, goddess of healing, that it might wake Bhako from what was in all probability his deathbed. Though Kwasin could hear the guards force water into Bhako’s mouth twice each day, and once a day clink down a bowl of gruel upon the stone floor of his cell, the bard could not last much longer.

  On the evening of the sixth day after the message from the priestess, the door to Kwasin’s prison rattled open and a group of guards entered. They carried with them new, even heavier chains of bronze which they placed on Kwasin’s wrists and ankles, laughing as they observed the work that had been done to his old restraints. Kwasin thought the guards would leave him alone after this, but instead they unchained him from the wall of his cell and forced him to hobble at spearpoint out into the open pit.

  He asked the officer in charge where they were taking him.

  ^Haven’t you heard?” the guard replied. “Tomorrow morning at sunset, as the Flaming God rises in all His glory upon the eastern horizon, you are to be sacrificed at the consecration ceremony of the Great Tower.”

  26

  Early the next morning—three hours until dawn if the water clock he observed as he passed the guard station was correct—Kwasin was awakened in his cell beneath the royal palace and brought above to an antechamber. Here, surrounded by the ever-present guards who stood ready to spear him upon the least provocation, he was ordered to bathe in a great marble tub, after which he was administered ablutions by the robed and thickly bearded priests of Resu in preparation for the morning’s ceremony on top of the highest level of the Great Tower.

  Kwasin considered hurling himself at the guards, even though that would mean certain death. If he were slain now, he would thus deprive Minruth the satisfaction of seeing his great enemy die to nurture the spirit of the sungod. According to the priests attending him, Resu required for the tower’s consecration the blood sacrifice of the greatest hero of the devout Goddess worshipers. The priests claimed this would return the land to prosperity after the devastating war between arrogant Kho and Her righteous son and husband.

  The idea of cheating Minruth of this final symbolic victory did appeal to Kwasin. If he martyred himself, the cause of the Goddess might yet live on in the hearts of Her followers, and one day Minruth, or whatever tyrant assumed the throne after him, would have a bloody revolution on his hands.

  The priests also told Kwasin that he should be honored and filled with great joy. He would bear witness to an event unparalleled in human history, the very ceremony in which the blessed king and high priest of Resu would set the final capping stone in place atop the great ziggurat. At that moment the sungod would bestow eternal life upon the reigning king of kings. Of course, Kwasin would be dead before that part of the ritual occurred—his beating heart having been cut out and laid upon the altar—but it was an honor nonetheless to be present at this most hallowed of occasions.

  Perhaps Minruth truly was mad enough to believe he would become immortal upon the tower’s completion. But more likely, the spectacle on top of the tower was designed to bolster Minruth s image among a population rapidly turning against him. Though subdued, the followers of Kho were still many. They must have believed that the recent bout of plagues sweeping the city, as well as the tremors which still continued to rattle the island, indicated that Kho was displeased with the people’s allegiance to Minruth.

  But while Kwasin had sat in his cell beneath the palace, he discovered something which gave pause to his thoughts of martyrdom: the latest set of massive bronze chains placed upon him by the soldiers had been peculiarly fashioned. When he tapped the individual links of the chains against the stone floor of his cell, he found the link at the joining of each manacle clinked at a different pitch than the others. He could only conclude that his shackles bore hollowed-out links at the gyves! If this was true, then the network of priestesses, or someone loyal to them, might still be in a position to help him. More likely, however, the conspirators only planned for Kwasin to break free of his restraints for one last, suicidal rampage among Minruth’s soldiers. Certainly there was no way the priestesses could hope to spirit away Kwasin through their secret tunnels as they had Awineth, not when he was flanked by dozens of guards and the palace and the streets swarmed with soldiers on high alert for the tower’s consecration ceremony.

  Nevertheless, it would be pointless to throw his life away attacking the palace guards now when he could cause Minruth much more grief by breaking free during his cherished ritual on the tower. Perhaps he could actually get close enough to attack Minruth himself. But for now he would keep an eye open for the moment when he could do the most damage. He had waited two excruciatingly long years toiling in Minruth’s slave pens; he could bide his time a little longer.

  When the priests were done with their ablutions, Kwasin was given a new, but plain white linen loincloth. While he discarded his old tattered loincloth and put on the new one, Kwasin asked that, as was traditional for prisoners about to be executed, he be permitted to make a last offering to Kho in the presence of a priestess. The priests only laughed at him. Then, with their sacrificial victim now bathed and properly clothed, they turned Kwasin over to the soldiers, who escorted him through the palace, out the great bronze doors, and onto the streets, where he found the grandest of processions awaiting him.

  The darkened streets had come alive with celebrators, awakened early by Minruth’s criers to witness at long last the historic completion of the Great Tower, and to rejoice in their emperor’s symbolic ascension to the heavens. Despite the early hour, wine and beer flowed freely among the revelers and many shouted out lewd invectives at the legendary Kwasin of Dythbeth. Others in the crowd, however, refrained from the name-calling and, with expressions that might have been sullen or even embarrassed, turned their faces away and disappeared among the other spectators. These would be the citizens still loyal to the Goddess, unwilling to show dishonor to the great hero of their movement and yet afraid to exhibit their discontent. Right now Kwasin hated them more than the king’s soldiers.

  The large contingent of guards, stemming off the crowd with stern looks and raised spears, quickly positioned their famous captive behind the long line of priests in the street. Without delay the procession began moving. King Minruth, Kwasin noted, was not among the entourage. Presumably he had already been escorted under heavy guard to the Great Tower and ascended the monument so he could partake in special rites with his priests.

  The procession soon passed from the citadel, descending the steps of the acropolis and crossing over the moat into the Outer City. Tiny pinpoints of reddish-orange light bled through the black morning sky in the west, evidence that the priests’ rituals were already underway on the tower’s uppermost level. Before long Kwasin and the cavalcade of priests and soldiers began wedging their way through the vast human sea that had congregated in the open area east of the Great Tower. Many in the tremendous crowd, waiting to witness the final act of the monument’s completion, would be disappointed. Most would be too far back to see anything worthwhile, while those closer to the base of the tower would be unable to see up over the edge of the tower’s highest step.

  As they forged ahead, Kwasin looked up. The outline of the enormous monument angled down, black and ominous, against the dark morning sky. A great sense of dread now enveloped Kwasin. He knew his ultimate fate lay at the tower’s apex, that he had lived his entire life—fighting and drinking and bragging and lovemaking—to arrive at this very moment. But what would any of it matter when his heart no longer thrummed with the exuberant joys and the agonizing trials of life? Perhaps Minruth was not so mad after all to seek immortality. In the face of death, did anything but life hold any meaning? Alas, in a short time Kwasin would be in the shadowy presence of Sisisken, who would perhaps be able to answer his question.

  Suddenly Kwasin’s great frame trembled and he shook free of the dark foreboding. In his thirty years of life he had cheated death more times than he could remember. He would not surrender to destiny just yet. Warm blood still coursed through his veins, and as long as it did, the fire raging inside him would roar with the will to live.

  Eventually Kwasin and the others left the clamoring multitude behind, passing through an opening in the base of the tower and descending a staircase until they stood in a chamber walled by huge granite blocks. Many of the priests darted wide-eyed glances at Kwasin. They must have been fearful ol being trapped in the enclosed space with the terrible giant, the bringer of death and woe to so many of the followers of Resu.

  A number of the guards filed into a low, narrow passageway at the back of the chamber, and then one of the priests placed a black linen hood over Kwasin’s head. The priests must have still held great fear that he would escape; otherwise they would not have been concerned about him seeing the secret tunnels that wormed throughout the enormous ziggurat. He wondered if the soldiers knew they would also be considered a risk and that their king would probably order them killed after the morning’s ceremony. Kwasin himself had witnessed the execution of the slaves who had worked on the tunnels.

  Sharp spearpoints jabbed at Kwasin’s back as the soldiers forced him into the passageway. He swore loudly as his forehead smacked hard against the doorway’s decorative epistyle. The tunnels were not built for a seven-foot-tall, extremely broad-shouldered, big-boned man.

  The passage proceeded only a short distance before it jogged to the left and its previously level floor rose to an angle of twenty-five degrees. Before long, the soldiers in front of and behind Kwasin began puffing loudly. Kwasin, however, did not become short-winded, having become used to such steep ascents while hauling mammoth loads of bricks up the tower.

  The higher they climbed, the quicker came the tunnel’s turns and the steeper became its incline, until the shaft slanted at a frightful thirty-five degree angle. Now, in addition to his back and shoulders scraping painfully against the ceiling and sides of the constricting corridor, after every few steps he tripped over his hobbled ankles and slid two or three feet back down the shaft. The soldier following at his heels cursed each time this happened, as Kwasin’s flailing feet would strike him and knock his own footing out from under him. Though the tunnel was cool, Kwasin began to sweat. He did not want to slip and accidentally be skewered by the spear of the man behind him. But soon the soldier, tired of repeatedly being kicked in the face, backed off and widened the distance between them.

  Finally the hellish climb ended and Kwasin’s hood was removed. Before him was a small, brightly painted, stone-walled chamber, the size and shape of which indicated that he likely stood directly beneath the tower’s twenty-seventh and highest level. In one corner of the room a staircase rose to an opening in the ceiling, through which the chanting of priests could be heard. A man in his midfifties, a beautiful middle-aged woman, and three boys ranging in age from five to twelve years old were already in the room when Kwasin and the others entered. Standing with their hands manacled behind their backs, and adorned in nothing but plain, white linen loincloths, the five huddled together in a corner as the teary-eyed woman whispered in falsely reassuring tones to the obviously terrified children. The man’s expression, however, looked proud and unyielding. His hazel eyes and long, hawk-beaked nose hinted at his Klemsaasa ancestry. Because of this, and also the man’s regal bearing, Kwasin guessed this must be old King Qanaketh of Mukha. The woman would be his wife, the high priestess of Mukha, with the children being the couple’s offspring.