Linnet and the Prince

by Alydia Rackham

  Then, I lifted my eyes to the vast painting that straddled the door ahead of us. On the left side of the door, the towering man with the point of white on his head stretched out his hand over the top of the door—and on the right side of the door, the dead king stood, stretched out his hand and clasped the one of the living man. The dead king’s shroud was tumbling off him, and his entire head shone like the sun.

  “Rajak,” I whispered, goose bumps rising on my skin. “What is this place?”

  He did not answer. He stopped in front of the great door, which was locked with seven locks. He took out his key and threw each bolt, from the top to the bottom. Then, he heaved on the door.

  It took most of his strength. The door was black wood, and two feet thick. It groaned and grunted on its hinges. Stale air hit me. And then Rajak took the torch into the room beyond. The sight stole my breath.

  Rows and rows of man-shaped boxes heading off into the darkness filled this room. The boxes glittered and glimmered with gold paint and inlaid jewels. They sat upon marble blocks so that one could reach out his hand at waist level and lay it upon the chest of a dead man.

  Rajak turned to me.

  “Come,” He beckoned. I stayed where I was. He lowered his head and gave me a pointed look.

  “Come. They will not grab you.”

  “Are you sure?” I eyed the large coffin near me. “That picture in the corridor says otherwise.”

  He nodded heavily.

  “I am sure.” He glanced at the same coffin. “No one can come back from the dead.”

  I looked at him. His sad eyes gazed at the casket a moment longer, then met mine. I stepped into the room and to his side.

  “Then what does that picture mean?” I asked as we began treading slowly between the dead kings.

  “My father believes—as have his fathers—that the last two lines of the inscription you saw first are a prophecy that the first son of a third son will bring the greatest Badi king back from the dead,” Rajak said, his voice low and pensive as he studied each sarcophagus we passed. “And so each king has ordered himself embalmed and kept entirely whole after his death, and laid with his fathers. Each king is dressed in his finest robes and jewelry, with boots on his feet and a sword in his hand, ready to rise to the aid of his people in a moment’s notice.” Rajak put out his hand and brushed the dust off of one coffin, revealing a painted face of a bright-eyed man. “This is King Namir, who built the aqueduct system within the Caverns of Nazre.” He stepped to the next, which bore a huge scorpion on his chest. “This is King Resheph, who discovered an oil that would burn for weeks on end, allowing the depths of Nazre to banish the darkness. The scorpion was his favorite animal.”

  “That is why all the torches are held by metal scorpions,” I realized. Rajak nodded, his attention on the next coffin.

  “This is King Amir, who forged a bond with the other three kings, establishing an era of peace that lasted a hundred years.”

  “Is he considered your greatest king, then?” I asked, for his coffin was much more lavishly decorated than Resheph’s or Namir’s. Rajak shook his head.

  “No. At least not by my father or his father or his father. The greatest Badi king is this one. King Akhtar Arim-Akhel.”

  My mouth slowly fell open. At the end of the crypt, a huge casket sat, resting upon the shoulders of four massive marble slaves. It glittered almost blindingly in Rajak’s torchlight. The casket was covered in a mosaic—a mosaic made of jewels.

  Every detail of the king—his hands, feet, face, belt, uniform, sword—was outlined in precious stones. The wall behind him bore hundreds of inscriptions in Badi, and paintings of rejoicing people standing upon the heads of crushed members of the other kingdoms.

  “What…What was he like?” I stammered.

  “He came back from exile, after his entire family had been killed,” Rajak said, drawing nearer to Akhtar. “He re-conquered Nazre, and all of the surrounding desert, and the wine country. He then began a campaign to make the Badi the greatest people on earth. He drove the other peoples back into the corners with the massive army he raised. He expanded the Caverns of Nazre and mined—that is where all these jewels came from.” Rajak waved his arm over the casket. “He also created many of our festivals and traditions. He married eighty wives and had forty concubines and two-hundred children.” Rajak glanced at me. “He knew of the prophecy—knew where it had been carved into the wall. He wanted to be the king who was brought back from the dead—the ‘Shining One.’ The fact that his name means ‘star’ made him certain he would be. And so he began the tradition of embalming our kings. And each king began doing great things in order to become the one that would be resurrected. To try to secure immortality.” Rajak looked back at Akhtar. “My father had a different plan.”

  I narrowed my eyes, standing closer to him. He went on.

  “He decided he would be the one to resurrect the Shining One. He made this decision when he was twenty years old, heard the prophecy, and realized he was the third son.”

  I frowned.

  “What did he do?”

  Rajak’s gaze fell upon me. It was hard and fierce and cold.

  “Akhtar’s paintings outside this crypt portray the resurrector as a king—he knew that he would have to be the king, and his son the heir apparent, if he was the one to bring back the Shining One. So he murdered his father, then framed his two older brothers for the crime, and had them beheaded.”

  I went cold. I did not want him to keep going, but he did. He lifted his torch high over the blinding coffin of Akhtar and spoke.

  “Then, he married every eligible, healthy young woman that he knew, starting with his cousins, so that he could be assured of having a son. Then, when I was born, he began grooming me to become the prince on the wall.” He gestured back toward the corridor. He lowered his hand, and his eyes wandered through the crypt. His voice was quiet. “I wonder sometimes what my uncles were like. And how it would have been to grow up among my cousins, rather than alone.”

  I almost asked where his father’s other wives were, and Rajak’s brothers and sisters. But I stopped myself cold. I did not want to know. I shifted my weight, cleared my throat, and managed to ask a different question.

  “Your father wants Akhtar to be king?”

  Rajak’s eyes flashed to me.

  “What? No.” He shook his head. “No, he wants to divide the kingdom into three parts—Seshem and half of the Marshes for himself, the Highlands and half of the Marshes for me, and Nazre for Akhtar.”

  “And he believes Akhtar would want to…share?” I wondered. Rajak chuckled, his eyes dark.

  “I do not know why he would. But my father is convinced Akhtar will owe him a debt of gratitude.”

  I shifted my weight, casting my gaze over Akhtar—a king who had been found by the first son of a third son and was still, very obviously, dead. What of my mother’s fears, then?

  “So…if you are supposed to bring Akhtar back to life…how would you do that?” I wondered. Rajak barked out a laugh that sent me back a step.

  “Ah, the question of questions.” He shook his head “I have never believed in this. Not for one moment. But my father is just certain—especially after we knocked down the prison wall and smashed right into this crypt.” He pointed ahead of him. I looked. I could barely see a crumbled wall and a hole that led into another room. Rajak lowered the torch.

  “He never considered that Akhtar was trying to make the prophecy come true,” he muttered. “He built the prison right next to the crypt on purpose.”

  My chest tightened as I studied him.

  “What are you going to do?”

  For a long while, Rajak stared at the hole, brow tight. Then, he met my eyes. He took a short breath.

  “I don’t know,” he murmured. His gaze drifted back to Akhtar. “I know I do not have the power to raise the dead.” His voice lowered. “Which makes me believe that the prophecy meant something else. What, I do not know.” His mouth tigh
tened. “But my father will not be convinced otherwise.”

  “You have tried convincing him?” I supposed. He looked at me.

  “You have not met my father.”

  I swallowed. Rajak considered the room once more, then turned and headed back the way we had come. I followed him, not looking back at Akhtar.

  We left the crypt, Rajak closed and locked it, and we stood once more in the painted corridor. I frowned as I studied the painting of the king being embalmed.

  “Strange,” I murmured. “Your people think so much about death.”

  “What do yours think about?” Rajak asked, heading toward the next door. I stayed where I was.

  “Birth,” I answered. He stopped and turned to me.

  “How so?” he asked. I shrugged.

  “Our biggest celebrations have to do with birthdays.”

  His expression intensified.

  “What birthdays?”

  “Ours!” I laughed. “I celebrated my sixteenth not two months ago. My sister organized the festivities—it was all kept a surprise from me.”

  This clearly puzzled and intrigued Rajak.

  “Tell me,” he said, motioning for me to walk with him. He opened the next door, but waited for me to speak. I tried to think as I walked.

  “Well, the person being celebrated is usually kept away from his or her house all day long by someone meant to distract them—usually a sibling or best friend. My friend Elb did that this time. He took me out to an orchard—”

  “Elb is a boy?” Rajak interrupted as we began to descend the stairs.

  “He is older than I am,” I said. “I’ve known him since I was very little.”

  Rajak watched me a moment, then he looked down, mouth hard. I blinked at him. What was that?

  “Keep going,” he said.

  “Um,” I tried to re-gather my thoughts. “We went out to an orchard and climbed trees and played a game, and then when we came back I changed clothes and went into the dining hall. Aeleth had decorated it all with my favorite colors—”

  “Which are?” Rajak asked.

  “Blue and green,” I said warily, wondering why he kept interrupting. “And we ate roasted duck and potatoes, and had pudding for dessert—”

  “Dessert…” Rajak repeated, arching an eyebrow at me. I stopped.

  “You don’t know what dessert is?”

  He waited, eyebrows raised. I rolled my eyes.

  “Oh, for the Bones of Rathpot!” I cried. “You can’t tell me you don’t know what dessert is.”

  “I don’t,” he confessed.

  “It’s something sweet you eat after dinner...” I prompted, trying to jog his memory.

  “Like what?” He pressed.

  “Like…like…” I tried, increasingly baffled. “Like glazed fruits or…sugared breads or pastries or…chocolate?”

  He shook his head.

  “I have never heard of chocolate.”

  “Ah,” I nodded slowly.

  “What?”

  “Well, that explains it,” I stated. His brow furrowed.

  “What?”

  “Why all of you think so much about death,” I said. “Life isn’t worth living without chocolate.”

  His bright eyes searched my face, very concerned. I held my serious expression for as long as I could, but his earnestness made me stifle a smile. And then he grinned.

  It flashed through the darkness like a light in a tunnel. I had never seen him truly smile; not once. But it transformed his features and made his eyes shine like stars, just for an instant. He was always striking—but his smile made him handsome.

  I beamed back at him before I knew what I was doing—I could not help it. But the alarming nature of that thought sent butterflies through my stomach.

  “I will endeavor to acquire some of this chocolate,” Rajak decided, beginning the descent again. “And find out what I have been missing my whole life.”

  I swallowed hard, but the flutters in my stomach and chest did not go away—they got worse.

  But I had no time to think about it—Rajak kept trotting down the stairs, and the light was going with him. I hurried after.

  “Do we have to go through that narrow hall again?” I asked, my raised voice echoing.

  “No,” he answered back, reaching the floor and stopping to wait for me. “There is another way up and out.”

  “Good,” I muttered, arriving at the floor myself.

  “But before we get to the common floors, you will want to wash your feet.”

  “My feet? Why, what—” I looked down to see that my feet were dirty and muddy all the way up to my ankles. I scowled.

  “Come on,” Rajak urged, and started off in a new direction. I hurried to keep up.

  We traipsed through a very large room, seeing almost none of it, for Rajak’s torch remained the only light. Then we came to a low door to the right, stepped through it and up a short flight of stairs, through another door that he locked behind us, and finally entered a corridor where lamps hung on the walls. Rajak paused, apparently thinking, then kept going.

  “What?” I asked.

  “I am trying to remember…” He murmured, then pushed against a door and swung it open. “Ah. Here it is.”

  I heard the gurgle of water before I saw anything. Through the door was a small tiled room, lit all around with bright lamps, and a small hole in the ceiling let down a little bit of light. Beneath the hole was a wide pool with a short wall around it, and in the center of the pool, a little stream of water shot straight up and sprinkled down just around it. I stepped in and glanced to my left to see a long hallway that led upward.

  “Where does that go?” I asked.

  “That leads to the back of one of the common rooms near the feast hall,” Rajak answered, coming in after me and hanging the torch on the wall. “Go ahead and wash. I do not want your muddy footprints all through my court.”

  I glowered at him, but approached the pool, sat on the short wall and swung my legs over and put them in the water.

  I sat up straight. I had not yet gotten used to the idea that all the water here was warm.

  Splashes to my left brought my head up. Rajak had pulled off his boots and sat down several paces away. The water was deeper than my feet could reach—I supposed it would be about thigh deep if I stood in it.

  I reached down and scrubbed my ankles, getting the grit off while admiring the mosaic bottom of the pool. Thinking back on it, I decided that King Namir was actually the greatest king—anyone who could give an entire city access to warm water inside was a genius. I could not count how many times I had cursed at the ice and the cold while trying to break the surface of the frozen well-water at home. But where was the source of the Nazre fountains? How did it—

  Water hit the side of my face. I gasped and whipped around. Rajak sat still, placidly studying the surface. Water dripped down my chin and my hair. My eyes went wide.

  “Did you…?” I sputtered. He glanced at me.

  “Did I what?” he asked. He hid a smile. Oh, but he was bad at it.

  I plunged my hand in the water and dredged up a huge wave, and flung it so it struck his whole head and chest. He shied away and held up a hand, but he got soaked. He stared at me through the curtain of water that ran down his face. He wiped it away.

  “You splashed me.”

  “Oh, no, no, no,” I shook my head. “You splashed me.”

  He stood up. He towered over my head, his hair dripping. And so I kicked down and drenched his trousers. His eyes flashed, and he answered by kicking up and dousing me from my head down to my knees.

  “Ah!” I yelped, water streaming down my face and shoulders. I swiped it out of my eyes and got up, now thigh deep in water. I sloshed around to the other side of the fountain, keeping the little vertical stream of water between us. I pointed at him.

  “You deserved that. You deserved that and I shouldn’t be wetter than you. You have to…No, don’t you dare…aaaahh!” I screeched as he gave m
e a wolfish grin and dove straight through the fountain, raking up water with both hands and heaving it at me. I dodged out of the way as the water crashed out of the pool, but I could not move fast enough. I spun and struck the surface with my palm, spraying water back into his face. He flinched, squeezing his eyes shut, but lashed out and took hold of the back of my tunic. I twisted around to try and free myself, laughing. But then my foot hit a slick piece of mosaic.

  I slipped. My heart suspended as I pitched backward.

  Rajak lunged forward and caught me under the arms, though his own feet slid dangerously on the stones. I grabbed his shoulders. His arms latched around my waist.

  Suddenly, nothing was funny. I stopped fighting and just stood there, my eyes locked with his. My heart stopped, then began pounding. Rajak’s brow furrowed intensely. The torchlight glimmered in his eyes. I swallowed.

  Finally, my mind caught up with me, and words sprang to my lips.

  “You have made a tactical error, Prince.”

  His eyes narrowed.

  “What is that?”

  I returned his wolfish grin.

  “You are going under.”

  His expression flickered, but it was too late. I swung my right leg around behind his and kicked back toward myself, knocking his knee and sending him tumbling backward. He plunged into the water, submerging, then shot back up, gasping. His eyes found me. I shrieked and lunged for the edge of the pool, scrabbled over the side and out of it. My feet had just hit the floor when I heard Rajak gain the pool’s side. I broke into a run, tearing down the corridor, hearing him pound after me. I let out another wild scream, just as I always had when my sister or Elb or any of my cousins had chased me in a game of snap-and-snatch. Except my heart had not raced then like it did now.

  We flew past the lit torches, leaving a trail of water behind us. My wet hair slapped my face and my clothes got heavy and cold. I laughed harder. Rajak gained on me. I turned a corner, blasting into the feasting hall. Rajak came right after.

  Suddenly, he took hold of my arm and yanked me back.