The Usurper's Crown

by Sarah Zettel

  “I felt you would not want negligent ears to listen while we took council,” Yamuna was saying.

  “Thank you.” Chandra sank onto his cushion. “You are correct, as ever.”

  “Do not speak to me as if I were your mindless brother or his strumpet wife,” snapped Yamuna. “It is not seemly.”

  I am to be wed to a spy of the queen’s, and now you are come to berate me. Chandra pressed his fingertips to his brow. How did I fail to sever our bond when I had the Pearl Throne beneath me?

  “You did not think to argue with her, I suppose.” Yamuna did not sit, or bow, as he should have. He simply stood with the whole world at his back and looked down at his charge. “Or suggest an alternate choice?”

  “What choice is there? What woman could I name that she could not corrupt?”

  “Then you should have told her you had decided to take an ascetic vow,” snapped Yamuna. “In order to better purify your soul before the Mothers.”

  “Then I will do so now.”

  “Idiot!” The word slapped against Chandra. “She will know you have spoken to me, and that this is not a true vocation. She will not accept it.”

  “Then what does it profit me to speak of what I could have done? The order has been given. I am to be married and sent away, and that is the end of it.” He shook his head. “It changes nothing. The plan proceeds. Your link with Kacha is not severed.”

  “So, you do remember that we are engaged in important work, and that the farther you are sent from the throne, the fainter your power grows.” Yamuna snorted. “Your son is in truth the best of you. I am glad I did not waste my right hand on such stuff as I see before me now.”

  Which was finally too much to bear. Forgetting his robe and all his appearances, Chandra rose, meeting the sorcerer eye-to-eye. “You forget yourself, sorcerer, to chide me so.”

  Yamuna did not flinch, did not even hesitate. “All I forget is how you signed your throne over to your younger brother because you were afraid for your own skin,” said Yamuna, and his words were as cold and hard as the marble under their feet. “Rather than face him in open battle, you sneak and skulk through the palace, looking for his bare buttock like a snake in the dark, and you force me to skulk beside you.”

  “Stop!”

  “And abandon my office, as you have abandoned yours?”

  “I command you!”

  “Then do so.” Yamuna dropped into a slave’s obeisance in front of him. “I am, after all, yours to command. Tell me what to do, master. How shall we topple your brother? How shall we rule the three empires when they tumble into our laps?” Yamuna peered up at him from his mocking crouch, prepared, to all appearances, to wait all year long for his answer.

  Chandra stared down at him. I could strike your head off right now, old man. No one would question me. Not even Samudra. You are mine to do with as I will. I could rip your withered heart from your chest and hurl it into the rain.

  And what would he do if that heart, once ripped free, crawled obediently back to its master, as his hand once had crawled away from him? What would Yamuna do to him then?

  Chandra screamed inwardly at his own impotence. How much longer would he be ordered around by those who should have obeyed his least word? He gritted his teeth and stared at the ceaseless rain.

  Not long, not long, he told himself, breathing the fresh damp deeply. Soon, the three empires will be yours. Yamuna will require you to rule them. He thinks he sets a shadow on the Pearl Throne. But he will learn differently.

  “If the queen cannot be swayed, then this spy of hers must be convinced to turn. Her death would be too conspicuous.”

  “Very good, my lord.” Yamuna rose from his mocking pose and faced Chandra with the light of approval in his burning eyes, one the eye of an ancient man, the other the eye of a hale youth. “You will permit yourself to be coaxed. The slaves and the lackeys will hear you rage and soften by turns. And then you will be turned by your bride, who shall be turned toward you. I will provide the means.”

  “And if they believe I am cowed, they will pay less attention to my doings.”

  “You show the beginnings of thought at last, Chandra.”

  You, old man, will one day be stunned by the depths of my thought. I will enjoy seeing your face then.

  Yamuna bowed humbly and departed, backing from the chamber, not turning his face from a member of the imperial family, as if it was Prince Chandra who was finished with him, and not the other way around. When the slave closed the door between them, he straightened, turned silently on his heel and left, striding through the halls of ivory, coral and precious stone to his own chamber.

  Chandra thought Yamuna did not see the hatred that blazed in his eyes, thought that Yamuna did not know the plans he harbored in his greedy and pathetic mind. Chandra thought he would one day humble Yamuna in truth. Perhaps he even thought to kill his Agnidh. Well, let him think it. It kept that mind occupied and let him believe he was cunning. Chandra’s vanity was as useful as his impotence.

  Yamuna’s private chamber waited at the summit of one of the palace’s tall, narrow domes. A likeness of the summer sky with the phases of the moon inlaid in mother of pearl curved overhead. All the names of the Seven Mothers had been laid in ivory in the floor, so, it was said, that they might always pay attention to what happened within the chamber.

  It was many years now since Yamuna had learned that was folly. The palace, so carefully designed and laid out to perpetuate its webwork of spells, was nothing more than a cage of lies. The gods were wily beings, extorting their worship. They were expert and immortal bargainers, no better than the demons who cowered under chains and treaties placed on them by the Ancients.

  Well, soon the world would change. Soon, all the worlds would change.

  For the moment, however, there were appearances to be maintained.

  The smallest side chamber of Yamuna’s apartment was lined with shelves, and the shelves were lined with jars of all shapes and sizes: tall, narrow jars of glass filled with smoky liquids; thick, squat alabaster jars that were impossibly cold to the touch; jars of red clay sealed in red wax; small obsidian jars the size of a child’s hand that gleamed in the light; jars of cut crystal from the far north; jars of pure white porcelain from Hung Tse.

  No slave tended these shelves. Yamuna had warned them all away years ago. No hand touched the jars save his own.

  The jar he reached for today was on the middle shelf; a graceful carafe carved of cinnabar, corked tightly and sealed with beeswax imprinted with three sigils known only to a handful of living men. Yamuna carried the jar to the center of the chamber and set it on the floor. Beside it he set a piece of blank parchment. Then, he cracked the beeswax seal, breaking the sigils, and pulled the stopper.

  Yamuna stepped back. “Your master calls you forth!”

  There was no billow of smoke, nor any flash of light or peal of thunder. Such details were for children’s tales. There was only silence, and cold, as the chill of death seeped from the jar where it had been confined. Slowly, it cocooned the room with cold. Only then did the dead man crawl forth.

  Agnidh Harshul climbed painfully from his prison, cramped and crabbed, suffering from his cold confinement and having no choice but to suffer. In life, he had been a tall man, strong in his body and comfortable in his power. Pleased with his role as Agnidh to Prince Kacha, he had sought nothing beyond his service, a loyal son of the Mothers and a loyal scion of the Pearl Throne.

  Kacha had killed him on the voyage to Isavalta, and Yamuna had supplied the poison and the locked box into which Kacha had placed his tongue, his seal, and one of his fingers to return to Yamuna so that Yamuna might conjure his soul into service, as he did now.

  The dead man shivered before Yamuna, his raw hatred plain on his pained features. It meant nothing. He was bound and he must serve Yamuna’s will. He had no choice.

  “You will give me a letter,” said Yamuna to the dead man. “A report of your activities in Isavalta. You wil
l report on Kacha’s satisfactory progress in his relations with the Imperial ministers. You will describe the coronation and how well he played his part in it.”

  Death should have severed Harshul’s bond with Kacha, but Yamuna’s sorceries had reestablished it. Even trapped as he was, Harshul touched Kacha, and he knew enough to compose what was needed, a false letter to lead the emperor to believe that Harshul was alive and keeping his watchful eye on Kacha. Emperor Samudra must have no cause to question what was happening in Isavalta. He must be kept in ignorance as long as possible. When the war finally erupted, he would have to admit to one of two things: that he had lost control of a mere boy, or that he had been party to a coup.

  Either admission would badly damage the emperor’s reputation, and make it that much harder for him to maintain his rule.

  The dead man fought Yamuna’s order, of course, but his struggle was as meaningless as his hatred. In the end, he knelt, as he must, and he shuddered with the effort of reaching across the veil that separated the solid and the ethereal. He breathed, if a dead man could be said to have breath, across the parchment, and the parchment filled with tight lines of words written in a precise hand the emperor would recognize as Harshul’s.

  The ghost straightened, trembling. Yamuna retrieved the parchment, glancing over it to be sure the missive seemed complete enough.

  “You may speak,” he told the ghost as he examined the missive. In life, Harshul had been gregarious. It pleased Yamuna to allow him speech now and again.

  In death, Harshul’s voice was as thick and cold as mist over the water. “When you die, the Mothers will give you to me. I will be a demon and I will feast on your soul for eternity.”

  Yamuna folded the false missive with care and let himself smile at his slave. “When I die you will be a shade, as impotent as you are now. You will never touch me. For I will never die.”

  “You are mad, old man.” The bound spirit lacked the power to even name Yamuna’s name. “All men return to the Mothers.”

  “But I shall not remain a man.” Yamuna savored the words that he had so seldom spoken aloud. There was none to whom he could trust them. None but shades and slaves who could not utter a word unless it be by his own will. “When Chandra is bound to the Northern Empire, so will I be bound, and its earth will know me, and the creatures of that earth will know me, and they will reveal to me the secrets of that land’s wild heart, and how those barbarians can rise to divinity on their own wings when we must remain in the mud and dust, groveling at the feet of the sluts who call themselves the Seven Mothers.”

  The shade said nothing, for Yamuna did not wish it to. But even dead and bound as it was, it recoiled from him, and Yamuna took pleasure in the sight. It was a foolish pleasure, he knew, like a little boy tormenting insects, but it was there all the same. He would have to retreat for a series of days and do sacrifice to worm this petty pride from his heart. It was unworthy of one who would soon become a god, and as an impurity it hampered his power and must be done away with.

  But there were other matters to attend to first.

  “Return to your prison, slave,” said Yamuna. “I have no more need of you.”

  The dead man would have screamed if he could, but Yamuna held him silent. So, he turned, shaking violently, and crawled back into the jar. Yamuna returned the stopper to its place and, in his workroom, applied fresh beeswax and remade the sigils before returning the jar to its place on the shelf. There also, he sealed the missive with red wax and Harshul’s own seal.

  According to the most ancient sagas, the Seven Mothers bound together the souls of sorcerers so that they might preserve the life and order of the lands in their care. In exchange for power, place, and extended life, sorcerers were guardians, protectors, and advisers to all who might have need of them. Their very footsteps would weave spells of protection across Hastinapura. Still, they must forever remember they were servants, not rulers. They might strive for any earthly power they could reach in service of their magic, but power beyond that was forbidden. Royalty was forbidden them. Immortality, divinity, these were never to be theirs.

  Most sages said that such a transference was impossible. It was outside the order of nature.

  But, reasoned Yamuna, if it was impossible, why was it forbidden? Why forbid a thing that could not be done?

  Did not the Nine Elders of Hung-Tse work transformations of their own, turning their members into spirit powers? Did not the barbarians of the north have ones of divided souls who could turn themselves into gods through sacrifice?

  No, it could not be impossible, only difficult. Perhaps it could not be done here in Hastinapura where all powers were catalogued and treated with and for. But in the wild north, where the powers did as they would, where disorder and chaos swirled together, what power might he not harness? What might he not become? Worlds would come within his compass and not even the Mothers could forbid him anything his heart desired.

  He smiled and tapped his fingers against his false letter. After dark, he would give the missive to one of his slaves, who would in turn go down to the city and find some Isavaltan captain or sailor who could be bribed to give the missive to one of the palace servants and say it had come from Vyshtavos for the emperor. It would be delivered to the mountains where the Emperor Samudra waged his latest war, and Samudra would read the words and believe all was well in Isavalta.

  Yamuna smiled out at the rain. In truth, all was well, but not in the manner which the emperor believed.

  “And where are the Mothers in all their power to tell you otherwise?” he asked the rain. When the rain had no answer, Yamuna laughed softly, and set about his other works.

  “I am beginning to believe,” said Medeoan, rubbing her eyes, “that either all my lords master are idiots, or they think I’m one.” She looked across the wide desk to Kacha who sat behind a pile of his own letters and papers. “Listen to this.” She adjusted her voice to a fair imitation of an eastern accent. “And I must further beg to inform Your Majesty Imperial that due to the unusual number of spring lambs born this year, additional pasturage has been allotted to nineteen shepherding families.” She lowered the paper and sighed in exasperation. “Now why would I possibly need to know that?”

  “Does Your Majesty Imperial wish to make any reply?” inquired Senoi, her fussy, officious, but very efficient first secretary. Even Kacha, who took such care in the appointment of her staff, agreed he was the very man for the job.

  Medeoan opened her mouth, but Kacha spoke first. “Her Majesty Imperial will answer that one in the morning,” he said, before he smiled across their desk at her. “You’re exhausted, Medeoan. Why do you not retire? I will finish what is needful here.”

  She shouldn’t, she knew. Attention to detail was important, and she could not pay attention to details if she did not know what they were. But even as she thought that, an enormous and undignified yawn forced its way out of her throat.

  She stared at the mounds of paper still to be worked through. “Perhaps I will retire,” she said sheepishly. “But I’ll expect you to review the remaining business with me thoroughly in the morning,” she added as she stood up.

  “That I gladly will.” Kacha gave a half-bow.

  Medeoan rounded the desk and bent to kiss her husband good night. “And I expect you to attend me in my bed when you are finished,” she whispered into his ear.

  “That I gladly will,” he replied just as softly and Medeoan smiled again at the mischievous light in his eyes.

  Ladies and house guard behind her and pages scurrying before with lamps to light the way and herald her arrival, Medeoan traversed the corridors from her private study to her private apartments. She was tired, but cheerful. Another day successfully negotiated, thanks to Kacha’s unflagging support and energy. As he promised, together they were the autocrat of Isavalta.

  She had been so frightened! Medeoan smiled now to think of her dread. Before her, the page girls opened her chamber doors and her ladies hurried in to
light the lamps and coax the fire into more vigorous life. Had it not been for Kacha, she was certain she would not have even managed the coronation. Hours of ceremony, hours of standing and sitting and bowing and having the heavy golden regalia handed to her, taken away, blessed, anointed, kissed and handed back, and all the time she could think of nothing except her parents watching her from the Land of Death and Shadows and frowning at their reluctant, trembling child. But there was Kacha, beside her, more solid and more real than her fears. Kacha to attend with grave dignity, and to breathe such salacious comments in her ears about the ceremony’s other participants that she could barely keep her countenance. That night, he had held her close and whispered reassurances to her, stroking her hair until her fears eased and she could sleep in peace.

  In the weeks that had followed, all continued as it had begun. Kacha remained always at her side, ever ready to help her plow through the endless petty work of empire. His counsel was always sober, and there was no point of her comfort, ease or service that he was not ready to oversee.

  Medeoan sighed contentedly as she and her two head ladies moved behind the bed screens so that they could undress her for the night. She was happy. She had never imagined she would be happy as empress, but so it was, and it was because of Kacha.

  Chekhania and Ragneda divested her of her outer coat and set to work on the laces of her dress and the catches of her jewels. They were competent, if inclined too much to giggle. She did miss Prathad and Vladka some days, but Prathad had been found in the hay barn with a sergeant of the house guard and had to be dismissed in disgrace, and Vladka had been found taking bribes from one of the court lords to bear him tales of Medeoan’s doings. How could she keep such a one with her, no matter how many years she had served? Vladka did not even have the strength of character to own her guilt in the end. She had just cried and begged and tried to say it was not so, even when she knew Kacha and Chekhania had brought Medeoan all the proof.