The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms - By N. K. Jemisin Page 0,138
meant three days on our knees, weeping, begging, hoping against all hope that Our Lord prevailed in the conflict tearing apart the world. We took it in shifts, all of us, full ordinates and acolytes and Order-Keepers and common folk. We pushed aside the exhausted bodies of our comrades when they sagged from weariness, so that we could pray in their place. In between, when we dared look outside, we saw nightmares. Giggling black things, like cats but also monstrous children, flowed through the streets a-hunting. Red columns of fire, wide as mountains, fell in the distance; we saw the entire city of Dix immolated. We saw the shining bodies of the gods children falling from the sky, screaming and vanishing into aether before they hit the ground.
Through this all, my mother remained in her tower room, gazing unflinchingly at the nightmare sky. When I went to check on hermany of our number had begun killing themselves in despairI found her sitting on the floor with her legs crossed, the white sphere in her lap. She was growing old; that position must have hurt her. But she was waiting, she said, and when I asked her what for, she gave me her cold, white smile.
For the right moment to strike, she said.
I knew then that she meant to die. But what could I do? I am only a priestess, and she was my superior. Family meant nothing to her. It is the way of our order to marry and raise children in the ways of light, but my mother declared that Our Lord was the only husband she would accept. She got herself with child by some priest or another just to satisfy the elders. I and my twin brother were the result, and she never loved us. I say that without rancor; I have had thirty years to come to terms with it. But because of this, I knew my words would fall on deaf ears if I tried to talk her out of her chosen course.
So instead I closed the door and went back to my prayers. The next morning there was an awful thunderclap of sound and force that seemed likely to blow apart the very stones of the Temple of Daylight Sky. When we picked ourselves up from this, amazed to find that we were still alive, my mother was dead.
I was the one that found her. I, and the Dayfather (HR), who was there beside her body when I opened the door.
I fell to my knees, of course, and mumbled something about being honored by His presence. But in truth? My eyes were only for my mother, who lay sprawled on the floor where I had last seen her. The white sphere was shattered beside her, and in her hands was something gray and glimmering. There was sorrow in Lord Itempass eyes when He touched my mothers face to shut her eyes. I was glad to see that sorrow, because it meant my mother had achieved her fondest wish: pleasing her lord.
My true one, He said. All the others have betrayed me, save you.
Only later did I learn what He meantthat Lady Enefa (HR) and Lord Nahadoth (HR) had turned on Him, along with hundreds of their immortal children. Only later did Lord Itempas bring me His war prisoners, fallen gods in invisible chains, and tell me to use them to put the world to rights. It was too much for Bentr, my brother; we found him that night in the cistern chamber, his wrists slit in a barrel of wash water. There was only me to bear witness, and later to bear the burden, and right then to weep, because even if a god did honor my mother, what good did that do? She was still dead.
And that is how the High Priestess of the Bright, Shahar Arameri, passed on.
For you, Mother. I will live on, I will do as Our Lord commands, I will remake the world. I will find some husband strong enough to help me shoulder the burden, and I will raise my children to be hard and cold and ruthless, like you. That is the legacy you wanted, isnt it? In Our Lords name, it shall be yours.
Gods help us all.
Acknowledgments
So many people to thank, so little space.
Foremost thanks go to my father, who was my first editor and writing coach. Im really sorry I made you read all that crap I wrote when I was fifteen, Dad. Hopefully this