by J. S. Bangs
“He’s not—” Vapathi began, but she stopped. She didn’t know what to call Apurta. They weren’t really anything. They hadn’t come together for more than a month, and even before that, what name would she had given him? “It doesn’t matter. Leave the named to the named.”
“Don’t see why I should,” Basadi said, stripping the leaves off of the tree without looking at Vapathi. The Devoured around her watched their argument with silent interest. “Apurta has more vigor in him than most of the Devoured.”
“What’s wrong with the Devoured?”
Basadi reached over and grabbed the wrist of one of the men stripping the tree. She pulled him close, pressed her chest against his, and said, “Do you want me?”
“Sure, Empress,” the man said indifferently.
Basadi sneered and pushed him away. Without any other reaction, the man went back to denuding the tree and piling broken branches around the base.
“Too easy,” Basadi said, “No desire in them. The freshly eaten ones have a little more kick, but they tend to be half-starved peasants.” Her face warped into a dry sneer. “Also, they’re terribly afraid of me.”
“I don’t care,” Vapathi said. “The Mouth of the Devourer is my brother, and Apurta is his friend. Leave us alone.”
Basadi crushed a leaf in her hand and scattered the dust in the wind. “How about you let Apurta choose for himself what he wants.”
Vapathi stepped close to Basadi. She grabbed the collar of Basadi’s choli and pulled her close. “You have had lots of men,” Vapathi said. “Apurta was mine. Now leave him alone.”
“As I hear it, you were hardly a virgin before Apurta,” Basadi hissed. Her fingers closed over Vapathi’s wrist. She dug her nails into Vapathi’s flesh.
“You know what I mean. The khadir that I served as concubine don’t count.”
“You should ask Apurta if they count.”
Vapathi shoved Basadi to the ground. The Empress tried to rise, but Vapathi stamped down with her foot and pinned Basadi’s wrist to the ground.
“First I’ll get you out of the tower. We’ll see if you even return.”
“You can’t kick me out of the Emperor’s Tower,” Basadi said. “And you can’t forbid me from going to Apurta if I want to. If you want Apurta for yourself, convince him of it.”
“Maybe I’ll talk to my brother,” Vapathi hissed. “Maybe he’ll vomit back your name, Basadi.”
Basadi shrieked and writhed. That had hurt her, if nothing else had. Vapathi grinned, showing teeth.
“Don’t say that,” Basadi hissed. She thrashed on the ground but couldn’t get herself free.
“Can’t stand to remember who you really are, Basadi?”
Basadi scratched at Vapathi’s calf. Vapathi ground her wrist into the dirt. Basadi curled and bit Vapathi’s calf. Vapathi cursed. She drew her foot back, spotting a trickle of blood running down to her ankle.
Basadi scrambled away on all fours, looking at Vapathi with a feral, bestial snarl. “Get away from me, or I’ll tell the Mouth of the Devourer—”
“You mean Kirshta?”
All five of the Devoured winced as if struck. Their hands went to their ears, and a growl sounded in their throats. Vapathi advanced a pace toward the cowering Basadi.
“What’s the matter, Basadi-daridarya?” Vapathi spat. “Are you afraid of your own name? I heard you worked quite hard to get that title.”
The Empress backed up against the base of the tree. “Get away from me,” she snarled.
“Basadi—” Vapathi began.
A voice boomed at the top of the stairs to the Green Hall. “Sister.”
The Devoured looked up. Basadi sighed and collapsed. Kirshta stood at the top of the stairs, lit in bloody orange by the setting sun, the pillars and peaks of the Ushpanditya gleaming in dying sunlight behind him.
“Come here, sister,” he said wearily.
Hatred burned in Vapathi’s nostrils. Basadi suddenly regained her haughtiness. She calmly stood and brushed her sari clean. In Vapathi’s mind a vision glowed of Basadi bound to the orange tree and burning like a torch. But Kirshta called.
Not tonight.
Vapathi turned away and started up the stairs. She heard Basadi’s cackle and the muttered command, “That’s enough leaves. Let’s light it.”
Snakes slithered gently down the topmost steps where Kirshta was waiting. Vapathi nodded to him as she approached.
“What do you want, brother?” She made no effort to hide her anger.
“You used my name,” Kirshta said. She could hear anger and anguish mixed in his voice. His fists were clenched, and his teeth ground together against the pain.
“I was using it against Basadi. The Devoured—”
“As much as my name might hurt the Devoured, it hurts me more,” Kirshta said. The tone of anger in his voice dissolved into sadness. “Sister, please don’t. Please don’t hurt me.”
He reached out to her. She took his hand and pressed it against her chest. “I won’t hurt you, brother,” she whispered.
Kirshta stepped down and pulled Vapathi into an embrace. He rested his head on her shoulder. “Thank you,” he said softly. “You are the most important thing to me. If you turned away from me….”
“I’ll always be at your side,” Vapathi said softly.
“I love you, sister,” Kirshta said. He straightened, turned around, and began walking back into the Green Hall. “Now what did the Empress do to anger you?”
Vapathi hesitated. She didn’t want to say anything about Apurta. “They’re burning the trees in the garden.”
Kirshta gave her a strange, weary look. “I don’t care,” he said. “I’m surprised you do.”
“I care…. I want you to send the Empress away.”
“Away where?” Kirshta asked. “She is Empress of the Devoured. She must remain at the head of my armies.”
“Is that why she retains her will and her desires?”
Kirshta gave Vapathi a strange look. “I do not eat the will of the Devoured.”
“But they fade. Surely you notice. They stop eating and sleeping. Stop having any thoughts of their own.”
They had reached the dais in the Green Hall, and Kirshta ascended toward the throne with weary steps. The serpents that coiled in heaps around the throne flicked their tongues and moved aside as he approached. He sat down on the Seven-Stepped Throne and rested his head in his hands.
“I don’t know,” he said, but there was a strange tone in his voice. “But the Empress… I have given her some of my strength. No, that’s a bad way of putting it. I’ve kept her close to me, in the distance of the Powers. I have prevented She Who Devours from taking so much of her.” He screwed up his face and sighed. “I don’t know how to explain it.”
“I think I understand,” Vapathi said. “But why?”
“The Devoured follow her.”
“Weren’t the Devoured supposed to follow me?”
“They do,” Kirshta said. “But it’s useful to me to have someone deathless and nameless that they’ll obey. Even the Red Men respect her as Empress.”
“Given how she consorts with them in the Dhigvaditya, I’m not sure that respect is what they’re giving her.”
He glanced at her with his brows arched in surprise. “Has something happened?”
“No, it’s just….” The thought struck her with sudden, inevitable clarity. “Send her to Davrakhanda.”
“Why Davrakhanda?” he asked.
“Her husband is there. Let’s see how he deals with having the Empress of the Devoured appear at the head of a nameless army. And the book that the thikratta stole is most likely there.”
Kirshta lifted his head suddenly. “The book?”
“I’m assuming,” Vapathi said. “That’s by far the most likely place for it to be.”
Kirshta murmured. He dropped his head back into his hands, then with a groan repositioned himself atop the throne. A serpent slithered across his forearm.
&
nbsp; “Why did you stop pursuing it?” Vapathi asked.
“I didn’t stop,” Kirshta said softly. “I’ve had the Red Men combing every village around Majasravi. I’ve been widening the circle, crossing all of the kingdom of Sravi….”
“But you knew it was in Davrakhanda.”
Kirshta hesitated. “I didn’t want to rouse us from here. You and Apurta were comfortable in the Ushpanditya, and the Red Men were here….” He lifted his head and gave Vapathi a grim glare that tried to be a smile. “I wanted to be kind to you. Let you enjoy the pleasures of the palace.”
Vapathi shuddered. The filthy palace, the hordes of Devoured, her poisoned intimacy with Apurta. What pleasures she had enjoyed.
Kirshta went on. “And the Emperor will die. I will not. I can wait.”
“Well, stop waiting,” Vapathi said. “Send Basadi—”
Kirshta shuddered, and the serpents around him swarmed into movement. “That name was eaten,” he whispered. “I told you—”
Vapathi swallowed. “Send the Empress to Davrakhanda. If you keep waiting, the Emperor and his servants may find a way to unmake you with its contents. And she doesn’t need any extra time to enjoy the palace. She spent her whole life in palaces.”
Kirshta nodded slowly. “Yes. You’re right.”
He smiled at her, a recognizable smile, though mingled with pain. “Thank you, Vapathi. As always, you help me with what I cannot see for myself.”
“You’ll send her away?”
“I’ll talk to the Empress and the Red Men. It shouldn’t take them long to prepare.”
“Good,” Vapathi said, a feeling of satisfaction warming her stomach. “May she bring us back what you want.”
And at least she would be delivered from Basadi for a while. And maybe the Emperor would put up enough of a fight that she would never return at all.
DALADHAM
Daladham had spent all of his life in Tulakhanda on the north coast of Amur. He had never even been to Majasravi, and he had certainly never crossed the Amsadhu into the hot, hilly regions of the south. He didn’t much care for it. In Tulakhanda there was a cool breeze off of the sea, the city was flat, and the walking was easy on his knees. Not like Virnas, perched atop a pile of rocks, muggy with heat, and full of stairs.
He grew sticky with sweat just standing in the throne room of the king of Virnas. His red bhildu stuck to his thighs, and his beard itched. This Uluriya king couldn’t appear quickly enough.
He glanced at Amabhu and Caupana standing beside him. Beardless. Caupana’s head was even shaved. Lucky fellows.
Only Nakhur seemed unaffected. He was looking around the throne room with an expression of awe on his face. A silver pentacle was affixed to the stone above the throne, and the chair itself was draped in white and silver cloth with stars and strange five-winged figures stitched into the fabric.
“I never thought I’d see it,” the saghada said. “The kingdom of Virnas. The Heir of Manjur on the throne.”
“For however long it lasts,” Amabhu said. He wiped the sweat from his brow.
“You expect it to collapse?”
Amabhu shrugged. “The red star burns in the sky, and the Mouth of the Devourer is coming.”
Daladham shivered. The Mouth of the Devourer hadn’t stirred from his nest in Majasravi since the Emperor had fled, but he didn’t believe that peace would hold much longer. Especially after Sadja and Aryaji had prophesied in Davrakhanda.
The curtain behind them parted, and a soldier in white and silver livery entered. He took a position next to the throne and called out in a loud voice, “Navran-dar, the King of Virnas and Heir of Manjur, who wears the iron of heaven on his finger, approaches. Come and make obeisance.”
Daladham bowed. Soft, shuffling steps entered the room, and he saw the edge of a white and silver silk dhoti slide past his eyes.
“Rise,” a raspy voice commanded. They looked up.
The king of Virnas was a thin man with a narrow chin and a wispy, irregular beard. He had the face of a peasant: narrow, hard, and emotionless, barely softened by the luxuries of the palace. Scars marbled his cheeks, and his hands were hidden in soft white gloves. The palace servants whispered a rumor to him that the king’s hands were shriveled, bony claws, a prize from the time when he had faced and killed the thikratta Ruyam.
He sat gingerly on the throne, his eyes roving over the four gathered before him. His hand pointed to Nakhur.
“Tell me how Mandhi and Jhumitu are.”
Nakhur smiled with a nervous mixture of relief and apprehension. “They are well, my lord and king, my Heir. Her child, the next Heir of Manjur, sleeps in the arms of his… his mother and grandmother. And Mandhi herself has taken up residence in Sadja-daridarya’s palace with her husband.”
“Her husband. I heard that she had married, but I know nothing about him.”
The saghada folded his hands together nervously. “You know about the father of Jhumitu, I hope, my lord and king.”
Navran waved aside Nakhur’s nervousness. “I knew Mandhi’s first husband Taleg. Explain how she has married again.”
“Yes, my lord and king,” Nakhur said nervously. In halting steps, with a great many circumlocutions and digressions, the saghada told the king the story of the journey to Kalignas, culminating in the marriage between Mandhi and Kest and their return to Amur with the os Dramab. The story was new to Daladham. Outrageous and fantastic, he thought; but then, who was he to say what sort of tale was too fantastic these days? He himself had been a lecherous minor dhorsha in Tulakhanda, and now he stood with the last two thikratta in Amur before an Uluriya king, hoping to destroy an enemy out of myth.
Navran sat on the throne, leaning on the arms, his gloved fingers drumming against the wood in apparent agitation. For a moment Daladham thought he was angry. Then a mild smile broke his face.
“Good for her,” he muttered. “And the os Dramab are coming with her to Virnas, you said.”
“When we left Davrakhanda, Sadja-daridarya said that he would take the os Dramab as a guard, but that once they had paid their debt to him, he would send them to Virnas. But he did not say when they would be released.”
“Hopefully the Emperor is as good as his word.” He turned his gaze to Daladham and the two thikratta. “Now who are you?”
Daladham bowed and saw Amabhu and Caupana doing the same. “I am Daladham-dhu, of the Amya dhorsha, previously attached to the temple of Lord Am in Tulakhanda, lately in the direct service to Sadja-daridarya, whose name we say with fear and trembling.”
Navran tapped his fingers on the arm of the throne in impatience.
“And these are Amabhu and Caupana, two thikratta who escaped from the burning of Ternas and met me in Tulakhanda. We escaped from that city when the Mouth of the Devourer approached it, and we fled to Majasravi with the treasures the thikratta had carried out of Ternas.”
“Treasures?” Navran said. He looked at the heavy wooden book in Amabhu’s arms.
Amabhu bowed. “Treasures, Navran-dar. The Lama Padnir entrusted us with as much of the library of Ternas as we could carry, and we carried it on our backs, first to Pukasra, then to Tulakhanda.”
“But you were in Ternas,” Navran said. A strange, hopeful tone appeared in his voice. “You knew the elder Gocam?”
A stunned expression crossed Amabhu’s face. Caupana was as impassive as a stone.
“You knew the elder Gocam?” Amabhu said.
“Yes,” Navran said. “I came to Ternas when I fled from Ruyam in Majasravi. Gocam led me and Mandhi out of Ternas before Ruyam came. Perhaps you saw me.”
Amabhu stared at him with a mixture of terror and wonder. “Yes… you were the one that Gocam left with. You and that woman. You stayed in the shadows—I glimpsed you only briefly—and Lama Padnir had given us the care of the books, so we were busy. But you….”
He trailed off, his jaw hanging open in surprise and wonder.
“Were you there when Gocam died?” Caupana asked quietly.
His hands were folded over his stomach, and he regarded Navran with patient attention.
“Yes,” Navran said. He looked down, as if abashed. “What do you know about it?”
“Rumor,” Caupana said. “A confrontation between Ruyam and another thikratta on the Emperor’s Bridge. Only Gocam could have taken on Ruyam openly.”
“Yes,” Navran whispered. “He took Ruyam’s curse from me. Went to find him on the bridge. Mandhi and I watched him melt it, turning the stone into slag and ash. Ruyam survived, but changed.”
“We heard that rumor, too,” Caupana said. “You were the one who finally destroyed him.”
“Yes,” Navran said, his fingers going absently to the dark-veined scars on his cheeks.
Caupana knelt and pressed his forehead against the ground. For a moment he waited, then rose to a kneeling position. “Honor to you, Navran-dar, last disciple of Gocam, destroyer of the wicked. You are worthy to receive our gift.”
Navran shifted uncomfortably on the throne. He seemed as surprised as Daladham by Caupana’s act of obeisance. Caupana remained on his knees and gestured to Amabhu.
“Give him the book,” he said.
“If you say so,” Amabhu said, puzzlement evident in his voice. He brought the book forward and knelt on the first step of the dais, presenting the heavy wooden case to Navran.
“I cannot touch it,” Navran said. He glanced over at his guard. “Dastha?”
The guard came, picked up the book, and set it on the table next to Navran. He pulled the cover off. Navran leaned over and looked at the pages. For a while he simply stared, his lips pursed and twitching with half-pronounced words. Then he turned and looked at Nakhur.
“I can barely understand this,” Navran said.
“Is there a problem?” Nakhur asked. He took a step closer to the throne. “It’s the saghada script—”
“I see that,” Navran said. “But the script is… different.”
“It’s an older style. But you should have—”
The king gave Nakhur a sharp look. “I know less than many saghada, Nakhur.”