Sword of the Deceiver

by Sarah Zettel

  When she was finished, she held a girdle before her. Swiftly, she looped the black netting around her waist and tied it with the red silk band that had once pulled these braids back from her face. For an instant, she felt the prick and itch of her own hair against her skin. Then, her heart labored for three beats and stopped. She fell to the floor, stiff as wood. Pain racked her as her arms slapped against her side, and her legs squeezed together, pressing, fusing, binding, sealing. Her throat closed, sight left her, and pain and all sensation followed, and then there was only peace, and slow, slow patience.

  Yamuna strode underneath the archway when the blow of the working reached him and sent him reeling back against the wall. It was as if the whole of the palace had been shaken and turned. Servants and guards scurried past, eyes down, intent on their own errands, and trying their hardest not to notice him.

  Yamuna found his stride again and continued to his rooms. Who was doing this? It could not be Hamsa. She was not strong enough to even dream of such power.

  When he arrived in his chamber, about half the palace sorcerers were already assembled, their eyes wide with fear and confusion. They had felt it too. Even sheep could feel a windstorm, and of course they had come here to find out what it meant. They were well trained, all of them.

  “Where is this done?” he shouted at them. “Find the worker!”

  Now that they had orders, they moved quickly, forming themselves into a circle. Threads of silk were removed from pockets and satchels, and cast out onto the floor with ancient chants washing over all, as the magic was drawn in and drawn out. The air in the room went cold at once with magic and fear, catching up the threads, directing their fall, forming them into the required symbol. The threads drifted to the floor, and Yamuna stared in pure, stupefied disbelief.

  This working that shook the air around them came from the small domain. Only one sorcerer resided there, and it was Hamsa. In her own chamber. It was she who bent all the dance of the palace to her own needs.

  Without another word Yamuna turned and ran, and all the stunned sorcerers stayed where they were. Without orders from their master, not one of them dared move.

  It was truth that got Makul into the small domain. The eunuch guards crossed their pole arms to bar his way as he came tearing up the stairs, sword at his hip and bow slung across his shoulder.

  “The sorceress has escaped!” he cried. “The prince’s rooms must be secured at once!”

  Startled soldiers would frequently obey the loudest order. These four were no different. He ran ahead through the gates, and they formed up at once to follow him.

  As a boy, Makul had lived for a time in the small domain, and he still remembered its ways, so he did not have to waste time wandering the gilt and ivory maze. The prince’s rooms stood behind the queen’s suite, and the sorceress’s next to those. The door was closed, but not locked. Makul burst in. At first glance, the chambers were empty and silent, but there on the floor in front of the shrine lay the black arrow, as Hamsa had promised.

  “Search the room,” he ordered. He did not want to give them time to think they had let a whole man into this most protected of all places. “And the prince’s rooms. Hurry!”

  Still bewildered and obedient, the guards scattered. Makul scooped the arrow up from the floor. The shaft was strangely warm, almost as if it were living flesh. That idea worried him and he pushed it aside. He too had his orders and his duty.

  He stowed the arrow in the empty quiver hanging at his waist. One of the eunuchs had come back, to report, or to challenge him. He did not give the guard time to speak.

  “Alert the others. The ring must be made secure.”

  His orders held once more. Outside he could hear the babble of women’s voices, a blur of questions growing increasingly urgent and fearful. Bandhura would be down from the imperial ring in a moment and he would no longer remain unchallenged. Makul hurried through the door that connected Hamsa’s rooms with the prince’s. There was one terrace in this ring that had no lattice covering it, and that was the one that belonged to the prince’s private rooms. He could carry out Hamsa’s directive from there.

  “Makul!” a harsh voice shouted at his back. Yamuna.

  Makul did not break stride or turn. He strode through the empty rooms and out onto the balcony. The cool bulk of the mountain rose up green behind him, making a ragged living wall, but to the south there was a narrow gap through which shone a sliver of blue sky.

  Makul unslung his bow and tested the string. He had gotten no further than that when Yamuna stalked through the archway. Makul had never paid the sorcerer much attention. He was a special sort of servant — a tool, an aide, and that was all. This once, though, Makul saw the man fully. He saw the concealed menace in his lean form and the hunger and anger blazing in his eyes. Makul cursed himself for a fool. A soldier should know who the enemy was.

  “Commander Makul, give me that arrow,” said Yamuna softly, reasonably. “It is to be used for betrayal. Surely such a loyal servant of the Throne as yourself cannot now betray it.”

  “No, Agnidh.” Makul took up the black arrow.

  “Then you are a traitor, Makul.” The sorcerer stepped forward. He wound his fingers around one of the hundred braids in his hair. A hundred braids, every one a working of protection for the emperor, so Makul had heard, and his heart thudded shamefully. “Give me the arrow, and you will have an easier death than you should.”

  Makul did not waste breath on a reply. He fitted the arrow into the string.

  With one swift yank, Yamuna tore the braid from his scalp and held the bloody thing up for Makul to see for a moment before he cast it to the floor, where it lay, its grey strands unraveling.

  All at once, Makul felt his heart laboring to beat, and he knew what spell of protection Yamuna had loosed on him. Sweat sprung out on his skin, and the world began to blur before his eyes.

  No. Not my eyes. I must see. He blinked hard.

  Pain. It licked at him like a flame, creeping up his shins, through his groin, into his belly and his chest. He heard sounds of struggle behind him. Weakness took his knees, and again the world blurred.

  No. He shook his head, and bent his leg under him, raising the bow high, pointing the arrow south toward Sindhu.

  His heart and breath froze. His hands shuddered.

  Mother Jalaja guide my hand.

  Yamuna snickered and lunged forward, but even though his eyes could not see, Makul’s arm remembered what to do. His fingers let go, and he felt the arrow fly. For one dazzling moment, he saw a line of fire traced across the blackness that was his world.

  With that burning image before him, and Yamuna’s screams in his ears, Makul fell to the floor and died.

  Chapter Twenty-one

  For seven nights of the waxing moon, Natharie and Samudra sailed down the sacred river. Shadows of cities gave way to farmland, which in turn gave way to the crooked shadows of trees as they passed into the deep forest. During the day, they came to shore and hid their boat as best they could and snatched some sleep beneath the sheltering arms of the banyans and mangroves. Twice, Natharie in her man’s guise went into tiny villages to barter for rice and salt. The rest of the time they relied on what Samudra could catch from the river with line and hook. He seemed confused by the fact that the ban on eating flesh did not extend to fish, and Natharie did not have the nimbleness of mind left to explain the reasoning behind it.

  In truth, they did not speak much. Both were locked in their silent sorrows. Each tried to give the other some room to grieve the betrayals that had been committed against them, as well as those they had been forced to commit. The river remained kind, and what boats they did see in the night either were benign or were also on clandestine errands and their owners had no heart to make trouble for others.

  Strangely, instead of keeping them separate, their silence seemed to be bringing them closer together. By the seventh day, Natharie found she could understand the meaning in a glance of Samudra’s, and t
hat he could do the same with her. She knew she could pick out his silhouette in the dark, and she found herself watching him more and more often. The way he sat, the way he scrubbed at his neck when he did not like the tenor of his own thoughts. Sometimes, he swam alongside the boat, to get clean or exercise himself, and he was as strong and graceful as a porpoise in the ocean. One day while they slept, her faint dreams grew restless, and when she opened her eyes, she was looking directly into Samudra’s. His breath was fast and shallow and she knew he had been watching her sleep for some long time. It was the weight of his gaze that had touched her heart and woke her.

  She did not forget that every day they drew nearer to her home, where Samudra was the enemy, or that behind them an army was advancing to attack and destroy all she knew. But for this space of time on the sacred river, it did not seem to matter as much. Sindhu and Hastinapura were elsewhere. Here were only Samudra and Natharie, and Samudra was kind and honorable and when he looked on Natharie a warmth spread from her heart into her veins, a warmth that she was less and less willing to deny.

  Dawn came on the eighth day, and as was their custom they scanned the shores for a place to beach the boat. They found a shallow, muddy bank between two great palms. The vegetation had been changing, as had the touch of the air. It was heavier here, a more comfortable garment to wear than the thin stuff up in Hastinapura’s mountains. Palms and other familiar trees grew more closely together. All these things told Natharie that if they had not yet crossed Sindhu’s borders, they would soon. Still, she could not bring herself to say this to Samudra. She did not want to face home and family and war. Not yet.

  Samudra drew the boat up onto the bank and unstepped the mast, something at which he had become quite good over the past days. While he gathered branches, leaves, and fronds with which to cover the tiny vessel and hide it from any passing boats, Natharie started inland, looking both for signs of habitation and for a place where they could spend the day in some semblance of safety.

  The forest was thick here, and the songs of insects, birds, and frogs blended into a never-ending cacophony. Ferns towered higher than her head. Green snakes hung like ripe fruits in the trees and watched her with beady, black eyes as she passed. She walked carefully, for her overly delicate sandals had broken days ago and she now went barefoot. So when one sole brushed something strange, she drew back at once. Underneath the forest litter, she saw a flat, black stone. Ahead of it was another, and there was another after that, leading in a straight line away from her.

  Natharie took the knife from her trouser sash and notched two nearby trees with arrows pointing the way back to the shore. Then, moving as cautiously as she knew how, she followed the sporadic path of stones, stopping occasionally to mark her way.

  She nearly stumbled over the temple. The rains and the forest had had their way with it. The wall beams had fallen. Ferns and moss and bright white shelves of fungus had overgrown them. Leaves and old palm fronds made a carpet for the floor, which sprouted a few mushrooms of its own. The stone and clay altar had fared a little better. Moss grew here too, turning it a uniform green and obscuring any words or symbols that once might have been written there. The visage of the god or goddess was all but worn away. All that remained was a cross-legged torso with a few shreds of gilding clinging to its robes. A broken hand lay at its feet. One moss-green finger pointed at Natharie.

  Natharie made obeisance out of respect to whatever power this shrine had been made to honor. Her first thought was to leave the place, but the floor was smoother than the surrounding ground, and the branches were thinner overhead, meaning there was less danger here from either snakes or the great cats that stalked from branch to branch.

  Samudra, when she fetched him to the place, agreed.

  “I think whatever god was here must have found other worshippers now, or perhaps taken another aspect,” he said. “There are ancient temples all over Hastinapura. Some of them are carved from whole cliffs, and are a wonder to look on.” He made the salute of trust to the remains of the altar god. “We are travelers asking shelter in this place. We honor the memory of what is holy here.”

  No answer came, but neither did any sense of foreboding. This place was simply a place. Soon they were gathering dried litter, sticks, and branches to light a fire to hold back the mosquitoes and other predators so that they could sleep.

  But sleep would not come to Natharie. She could not even lie down. She hunched by their meager fire watching the flames dance and hearing the warning song of the insects that flew close enough to investigate. Samudra stretched out and she hoped he would sleep, but he did not. After only a few moments, he sat up. He was so close, she could have reached out to touch him. But of course she did not. She could not.

  “What is it, Natharie?” he asked softly.

  She sighed and tugged at the winding cloth of her cap. The thing itched. She itched. “We are nearly to my home,” she said, in a tone almost petulant, as if she were a child who did not want her outing to end.

  “I know it.”

  She should say something. She must say something. She would burst if she did not. But which of the thousand things in her could she say? “You have … you have behaved kindly toward me and with honor since we met, and I have never thanked you for these things.”

  Samudra smiled at this. It was a soft, real smile that warmed his eyes. “You did. You waited for me when I needed you to.”

  There were so many answers to that — polite, innocuous, pious answers — but somehow she could not draw breath to utter any of them. In this place, if never again, only the truth would come to her. “I wanted to.”

  “I’m glad,” he whispered.

  Their gazes met, as they had countless times on this strange, silent journey, and she saw the weariness in him. He was as tired as she was. Tired of duty, tired of trying again and again to accomplish something, anything, only to have that effort fall to ashes because of the plots and plans of others. He too had been abandoned by his family and in his loneliness had reached out to a soul that he prayed might understand.

  She did understand. In that moment by the fire, looking into his dark eyes, she understood perfectly. She leaned forward, and she kissed him.

  His response was warm and immediate and it went through her like the pure light of the sun at midday.

  It was a stupid, blind, unreasoning thing she did now, and part of her mind tried to stop her, but stronger and more urgent was the heat of his mouth, the salt taste of his skin, the warmth of that skin beneath her hands, the shape of arms and shoulders and chest. She wanted nothing else, not future, not love, not life itself. She wanted this, and this, and this and she would have it. She would have all she wanted, all they wanted, this once, and she would rejoice in it.

  And so their night passed in alternating moments of desire and sleep, and neither felt the eyes of the gods or the turn of the wheel around them.

  Thanom, the father abbot of the monks of Sindhu, lifted his head. He sat in the monastery garden beneath fronds of green bamboo, breathing in the peace of sunlight and shadow, and allowing himself a little regret for having to leave this ancient and beautiful grove. The wheel was turning. He felt it in the movement of the air, in the fall of the sunlight. He felt it in the power that hummed constantly through the air.

  It is time. The words spoke themselves calmly in his mind. They might have been his own thoughts, or those of some entity outside. To Thanom at that moment, it did not much matter. They were the truth. He could feel it in every particle of himself.

  What those such as Queen Sitara could not feel when they came here was the thousand thousand threads that wove through the ether, binding each sorcerer to the whole of Sindhu. The mandala she had seen was nothing but a way to make those threads visible, distilling and concentrating the awareness that each sorcerer here carried. This was how they lived out the Great Teacher’s edict, with constant awareness of all the land around them, of all lives and all actions. This was why their meditation
must be so deep and so profound, so that all the awareness did not overwhelm mind and soul. They were apart here, yes, but they were not isolated as most thought. For it was one of the truths of sorcery that when one knew, one was also known, wholly and completely and forever, and there was nowhere to hide, not even inside one’s own soul. As a result, they were terribly, constantly exposed.

  This was what he could not find words to explain to the queen; that it was to escape the trepidation and responsibility brought by constant awareness that might drive some of the cloistered to betray Sindhu and Anidita’s teaching and join with Hastinapura. The worship of the Mothers could lead to extremes of action, but those actions were voluntary. Here, there was no choice. A sorcerer must give all of himself, or herself, and if they broke under the strain, that was as it must be.