The Usurper's Crown

by Sarah Zettel

  Now, as Medeoan stood before the Portrait, watching its intricate dance, she forced herself to consider, dispassionately, as Avanasy had always urged, the nature of her will, and how it might best be shaped. The sharpest knife was useless in a clumsy hand, he had always said.

  Damn the man for all his words, for her being unable to set them aside no matter how hard she tried. Damn him for not staying beside her, especially now when she needed him.

  Medeoan took a deep breath and pushed her anger aside. She must think now, and not waste her energies with useless curses or regret.

  She would need something of Kacha’s. That much was simple enough. She wore his ring on her hand. She would need a mirror in which to see the vision she hoped to call up. She would need something to represent Hastinapura. Ideally, it should represent the Pearl Throne itself, as that palace was where the wrong had been inflicted. She would also need something to stand for the wound that was made and something to bind all these parts into a whole.

  Tightening her jaw, Medeoan set to work.

  In less than an hour, Medeoan stood again before the Portrait of Worlds. At its base she had laid out a scarf of precious scarlet cloth from Hastinapura, its weave so fine the scarf was translucent. On the cloth she had laid a silver mirror, and at the quarter points of the mirror she had placed a pearl from one of her pendants, a china hand broken from an ancient childhood toy, a brass dish of blood from the slaughtering shed, and, last of all, slipped from her middle finger, Kacha’s ring. Beside the mirror waited a small bag she had filled with fine earth from the gardens.

  The worlds of the Portrait swung over the mirror, the brass, copper and jewels reflected in its depths. Medeoan closed her eyes, making herself breathe deeply and struggling to clear her mind. This was the true test of power, Avanasy had always said. It was one thing to perform a working that had been handed down the years, and carefully inscribed in books. It was quite another to meet the needs of the moment with only the materials on hand. There were those who never managed the strength or the discipline.

  As ready as she could be, Medeoan opened her eyes. She shook a small pile of the black, damp-scented earth into her palm and began sprinkling it in a circle around her mirror.

  “I stand before all the worlds,” she said, drawing her magic from within and without. “I am rooted in earth, in blood, in flesh and love. My eyes are open and my heart is open to the turning of the worlds. This is my word and my word is firm. The turning worlds will show me how Kacha tya Achin Ejulinjapad was wounded by Yamuna dva Ikshu Chitranipad. This is my word and my word is firm. The turning worlds will show me how Kacha tya Achin Ejulinjapad was wounded by Yamuna dva Ikshu Chitranipad.” She repeated the words again, and again, pouring her circle of earth through her fingers and pouring her working through her spirit, weaving it into the required shape with earth and breath and the dance of all the worlds in front of her. She stared into the silver mirror, and watched the worlds swing and dip, turn and turn again, rest, and turn, anti-clockwise, forward, backward, up when they should have been down, turn and turn, and turn …

  For a moment, shadows swirled in the silver mirror, then those shadows reached up to meet the turning worlds and draw them close. The vision swallowed all of Medeoan’s senses, until the present world vanished and she was wholly and completely part of the past.

  It was hot here, unbearably, oppressively hot. Medeoan struggled to breathe. It was as if she had suddenly been wrapped in a wet woolen blanket at the height of a summer’s day. She stood with three men in a circular chamber, inlaid with ivory and decorated in the elaborate Hastinapuran fashion. Despite the heat, a fire burned brightly on a carved altar at the center of the chamber. The first man was wizened, skeletally thin and dressed only in a white robe. The second man was soft of face and body, but his dark eyes were harsh and hard. His hands shook slightly. He’s afraid, Medeoan realized.

  The third man was barely a man at all. It was Kacha, young and fierce and proud, just as he had been when he had first arrived in Isavalta.

  No, not just. His face was unscarred, and his hands — Medeoan swallowed against some emotion she could not yet name — his hands were perfect; the strong, unmarked hands of a prince.

  The heat had hidden it from her at first, but now that she became more accustomed to it, she could feel that the room throbbed with magic. This was no mere prickling of some random spell. It thrummed through Medeoan’s blood, making her stagger. She had never felt so much power. She would have thought a dozen sorcerers could not draw so much through themselves, and there was only one such here, and he held a black knife in his skinny hand.

  “Are you ready, my prince?” he asked. His voice was soft but strong, like the first wind that hints at a storm.

  Kacha squared his shoulders. Medeoan’s heart melted to see him so strong, so proud, but at the same time fear chilled her. What was happening here, in this room as filled with magic as it was filled with air?

  Kacha lifted his right hand and laid it on the altar. The sorcerer, whom Medeoan was sure must be Yamuna, laid his own right hand beside Kacha’s.

  “Hold your son, my lord,” said Yamuna.

  The second man, who must have been Chandra, Kacha’s father, stepped hesitantly forward. He took his son’s shoulders in his hands, but even Medeoan could see he gripped without strength. He had gone pale, and the perspiration that stood out on his forehead did not come entirely from the heat.

  Yamuna raised the black knife, and he spoke again. This time the words were in some mellifluous tongue that Medeoan could not understand. She could, however, understand their effect full well. The magic that pressed so hard against her senses flared like the flames on the altar, brightening, intensifying, becoming so impossibly strong that Medeoan felt certain the stone walls must burst because they could not contain it all.

  The knife came down.

  Yamuna did not scream. He did not even seem to flinch, not at the torrent of blood, not at the severed hand that had been his own lying curled and spasming like a dying insect on the altar.

  Yamuna raised the knife again. Kacha lifted his chin.

  Medeoan screamed, a high, hysterical, unbelieving scream, torn from her throat without thought of stopping. The shrill, wordless noise shattered her working, dropping the present and true world around her like a shroud.

  “Mistress?” called a quavering voice. “Mistress? Are you well?”

  Medeoan’s breath left her and she could scream no more. Her eyes opened of their own accord and she gasped for more air. She had fallen to her knees, she realized, and she now groveled at the base of the Portrait like some serf before their icon. The voice had been Chekhania, who could not enter this room without permission, and who must stand and fret outside.

  “Mistress?”

  Medeoan could not answer. She could not even pick herself up. She could only remain as she was, huddled on the floor, tears streaming down at the memory of what she had just seen.

  But what had she seen? She didn’t know. Not clearly. She had some vague intuitions, but she did not know. Could there be some benign explanation? Some reason, some oath extracted by his father that kept Kacha from telling her the truth of what had happened to his hand.

  His father, Chandra, who had trembled during the working, as his son had not. Medeoan hid her face in her hands. Blood, power and blood. The vision had been so filled with both. There had to be some explanation. There had to be some way this came out right.

  “Mistress? Please! …”

  She had to get up. She had to pull herself together and to think, to think of the way that made what she had seen come out right. But she could not. Her strength was gone, drained by her working and by what she had seen.

  “Help me,” she croaked. “Chekhania. Help me.”

  The waiting lady rushed into the Portrait room and lifted Medeoan to her feet. Medeoan had to put her hand on Checkhania’s shoulder to steady herself. She had no strength in her legs at all.

  “
My bed,” she whispered. “Get me to my bed.”

  “Yes, mistress.” The lady’s voice was breathy with her concern. “Shall I send for a surgeon, your sorcerer …?”

  Medeoan shook her head violently. “Just get me to my bed.”

  Chekhania supported her from the room to where Vladka waited. Together, they laid Medeoan on her bed. They loosened her laces and brought a cloth for her head. Medeoan waved them away.

  “Let me sleep,” she murmured. “Just let me sleep.”

  Unable to keep her eyes open a moment longer, Medeoan encased herself in a private darkness. She did not want to see her ladies, or her chamber, or anything but the answer she needed to understand what Kacha had done.

  Help me, she prayed as her mind spiraled down into sleep. Vyshemir, help me see what is true.

  But as she began to dream, it was not Vyshemir who came to her, it was her father. He appeared as she had known him in life; tall, distant, hawk-nosed and dark-bearded. His shroud draped around his shoulders like a cloak. He held out his hand to her and Medeoan took it without thought, in the manner of dreams, and without stopping to wonder how she had come again to be a little girl.

  He held a finger to his lips, indicating a need for silence, and Medeoan nodded. Her father smiled approvingly and led her from her room, which had become her nursery, and down the corridors, which became stairways leading down, which became the antechamber for the treasury rooms, which became the treasury warehouse itself, with its chests and its bags and its piles of wealth.

  Father gestured for her to stand where she was. Medeoan stood quietly with her hands folded in front of her. Father reached down a small, flat chest, and Medeoan saw the mark graven on the lock. She knew this box, and she knew what it contained. It should have been locked up tight, for what it contained was dangerous. But the box itself was not locked. Father opened it easily, and showed it to her, and it was empty.

  In the moment she perceived it was empty, she also saw Kacha with his mismatched hands holding the silver girdle that had once been contained within, and she knew that Yamuna saw what he did through Kacha’s right eye, his eye that was from Yamuna as his hand was from Yamuna, and Yamuna’s voice whispered approvingly in the back of his mind.

  With this you will be able to control your wife.

  “No,” whispered Medeoan. “No!”

  And the dream was gone, and Medeoan was awake in her bed, her heart pounding with fear.

  Calm yourself, she ordered her heart, even as she clutched at the covers. Be calm!

  A dream after a vision working was not unusual, even a clear and powerful one. It did not mean it was a true dream. It did not mean her father had been here. It did not, it did not, mean that Kacha had robbed the treasury of a powerful magical artifact.

  He did not mean to use it against her. He did not. He could not. Medeoan squeezed her eyes shut again.

  Come back. Come to me. Tell me my dream lied. Tell me!

  But all such pleading without a working was useless, and she was too tired to even begin to attempt any such. Yet, she knew she would not be able to rest anymore without an answer. Although she felt like a guilty traitor to Kacha’s love, she had to know. She had to prove to herself that it was all a lie.

  Medeoan threw back her covers and climbed to her feet. The ladies came running in a bunch to reorder her clothes and flutter anxiously about her, asking what their imperial mistress might require.

  A surge of sudden anger washed through her. Anger at her father for not being here himself and leaving her only dreams. Anger, again, hot and fresh, at Avanasy for his betrayal and leaving her alone. Anger at herself for not being able to trust Kacha absolutely and without question, which was what she desperately wanted.

  Medeoan said not a word to her ladies. She just stood impatiently while they made her decent, and then she marched out of the apartment. She would do this quickly. She would find her answer and then she would be done. Then, she would find a way to apologize to Kacha for doubting him, and for not being able to rid her mind of a dream.

  The ladies, guards and pages scrambled to keep pace with her. Fortunately, they had enough sense to keep silent. She led the entourage down the North Stairs with its pink marble and graceful pillars, down the secretary’s stairs which were plain, gray stone worn smooth by generations of feet, down into the earth where the vaults waited.

  “Mistress,” ventured Checkhania as the page girls hurried forward to announce her arrival to the soldiers guarding the treasure houses and the under-ministers of the treasury who kept count of it all. “Mistress, if you could perhaps tell us what you wanted …”

  Medeoan did not answer her. She just gripped her hems more tightly and kept her eyes straight ahead.

  She strode up to the members of the house guard who flanked the door of the main treasury. They needed no spoken command. They unbarred the door and stood back, giving her the soldier’s reverence with their hands over their hearts.

  The antechamber for the treasury was an undecorated stone room with two rows of copying desks, each manned by an under-minister with a huge ledger. As the door opened, all the servants of the storehouse leapt from their chairs and fell to their knees, properly respectful but obviously amazed at her presence.

  “I require access to the treasury,” she barked out. “Now.”

  The first under-minister, a little gnome of a man weighed down by his gold chain of office, sprang to his feet, but did not seem to consider it polite to stand up straight in the imperial presence. He fumbled with his bundle of keys that was almost as large as Medeoan’s own, and unlocked the inner door. He reverenced as he stood aside, and Medeoan entered the dim storehouse.

  Medeoan paused, trying to regain her composure, trying to calm her anger. She would do this swiftly. She would lay her doubts in their proper resting place. She would never again place more credence in dreams than she did in Kacha’s word.

  It was then she realized that her entire cluster of ladies had entered the storehouse behind her.

  “Out of here,” Medeoan ordered. “All of you. Out into the hallway.” They stared at her, as baffled as a flock of startled hens. “Out!”

  That got through to them. They grabbed up their skirts and scurried out the door, all their eyes wide in distress. Medeoan stared after them. How had she become surrounded by such a pack of fools?

  You don’t worry about Prathad? Beloved, you should, I’ve seen her with the guardsmen … Beloved, it grieves me to bring you this tale, but your lady, Vladka, has been carrying letters … Dismiss Chekhania? What for, beloved? She looks so well beside you …

  Medeoan shook her head violently to interrupt these unwanted memories.

  It was cold in the treasury. Guards hurried in to light the waiting lamps and braziers, but their illumination was too feeble to warm the great stone chamber. Medeoan shivered and gazed around her. Some treasures waited out in the open. Sacks of silver coins gaped between the rows of chests that ran the length of the room. Ropes of pearls hung on hooks. Slabs of precious amber were stacked as high as Medeoan’s waist in the far corners.

  These were baubles, Medeoan knew. They were there to impress visitors whom the emperors needed dazzled by the resources of Isavalta. Anything of true import waited safely locked in its chest and every chest was stacked in its appropriate place. Each chest was bound in metal, whether iron, copper, brass, or silver. Each had its separate lock, and each lock was graven with a symbol known only to the Lord Master Treasurer, or to members of the imperial family.

  “Close the door,” said Medeoan without looking behind her.

  Someone obeyed. The clang reverberated against stone and metal, making the entire chamber ring. Medeoan hesitated where she was for a moment, her hand smoothing down the bundle of keys at her waist.

  Come now, do what you must. You cannot stand here all day.

  Down the years, her ancestors had collected, confiscated, commissioned, or been given many artifacts of powerful magic. These were lock
ed in chests banded with silver and marked with Vyshemir’s cup. Avanasy had spent many hours down here with her, teaching her the uses and histories of many of the objects. But there were some things that Avanasy was not allowed to know the use of. Some things about which even the lord sorcerer was kept in ignorance.

  Medeoan paced up the left-hand aisle between the waiting boxes, each step carrying her farther from the lights. Her mind could not help but imagine that Father walked beside her. She could almost hear the rustle of his kaftan, and the heavy wheeze of his breath.

  “Reach me down that small one, Daughter,” he had said.

  She had been twelve then, and had to stand on tiptoe. Now, she had only to stretch out her arm to grasp the long, flat box on top of the pile of teakwood chests. She set it down on top of a cedar casket that was bound in iron. The box she had retrieved was bound with silver and had a lock framed with a silver braid. She had a matching silver key on her ring. Her hand shook as she inserted the key into the lock.

  “There are some things you must keep secret. You must whisper of them only in your own heart,” Father’s voice told her solemnly from memory. “This is one such. I pray you will never have to use it.”

  He took out a girdle that seemed to be woven of pure silver. A hundred tassels shimmered in the lantern light. As Medeoan peered at it, she could see a series of runes had been woven into the band, silver on silver. The power of the thing was meant to be hidden. It was made to look harmless.

  “This girdle was made with the empire,” her father said solemnly, laying the shimmering band back on its blue velvet lining. “Its magic is strong. Anyone who wears it is placed in thrall to the one who ties it onto them. Their minds are clouded for as long as they wear the girdle and they can only do as they are told.” He closed the box. “When you are empress, should there ever be one you cannot act against openly, but whom you must silence and you have no other means, this is yours to use.”