The Usurper's Crown

by Sarah Zettel

  Without a word, Samudra rose from his place at the table and left the house while his generals and servants bowed around him. He followed Hamsa’s servant up to the Temple of the Mothers and through the winding corridors to the sanctuary.

  Inside, heat struck Samudra even before the light did. All seven of the dedicated fires leapt up waist high from the fire pits. The central fire burned just as fiercely. Even over the incense and sandalwood, he could smell the sweat of the priests, two for each Mother. A hump-shouldered bullock stood beside the central fire, its tether held by three acolytes in pure white tunics. In the center of it all, her skin glistening in the light and heat of the sacred fires, stood Hamsa. One hand clutched her staff. The other clutched a curved, bronze knife.

  Samudra knelt, prostrating himself to both the Mothers and Hamsa. When he rose again, Hamsa nodded once and drew back her shoulders. Samudra recognized the gesture. Hamsa was calling on her magic.

  Hamsa lifted her staff from the ground. An acolyte ran forward to take it from her. Unsupported, on legs as thin as twigs, she walked to the bullock, which bellowed nervously. Samudra saw how glassy the sorceress’s eyes were. Wherever her mind was, it was a great distance away.

  Hamsa laid her free hand of the bullock’s shoulder. With one swift, clean gesture, she slashed the knife against its neck. Blood, dark and fresh from the vein, poured freely into the great stone bowl that waited for it. The bullock bellowed and the acolytes tightened their hold, patting its neck and murmuring to it soothingly as it fell to its knees, breathing in the steam from its own swiftly draining blood.

  Hamsa gave her knife to an acolyte, and held her cupped hands under the flowing blood. She anointed herself: head, hands, and the soles of her feet. When she arose again, her face was terrible and her eyes as bright and hard as diamonds, and Samudra knew that by her working Hamsa had become an aspect of Vimala, the Mother of Destruction.

  Hamsa began to dance. Slowly, she circled the central fire, leaving bloody footprints behind her. Her arms waved high over her head, weaving new patterns in the air as if she were painting the stars with her stained hands. Gradually, her steps grew quicker, wilder. She touched each Mother, each priest, bringing them all, heartbeats, breath, pulse of life into her dance. She laid both hands on the bullock, gathering up even its death into her working. All was done in silence, with no sound but the slap of her feet against the stones, the ragged breathing of the witnesses, the dying of the bull, the crackle of the fires, and yet, as Samudra’s ears strained against the near-silence, he seemed to hear a deeper music — a rushing that was neither the wind outside, nor the blood in his veins, although he heard both. This was a deeper pulse, a rhythm more strange and more compelling, and yet more terrifying. It was too great, too strong, too wild, like Hamsa’s bloodstained dance in front of his eyes. It called to the depths of his heart, and his heart knew it would swallow him whole.

  But all at once, Hamsa stopped stock-still before him. She lifted his hands, pressing them between hers, and her eyes were wild with that rhythm they both felt to their cores.

  “Speak, Lord of Men,” she cried. “Speak, Son of the Land. I will hear your words.”

  But the voice was not Hamsa’s. Samudra knew this and dropped to his knees before the goddess. “Curse him, Mother,” he whispered. His breath did not wish to leave his body, lest it be pulled free and drowned by the rhythm pulsing through him. “Let the works of Yamuna dva Ikshu Chitranipad turn in his hand and cut him to the heart. Make his greatest weakness his only support. Blind him with his own sight, drive him out with his own folly.”

  “It is heard, and all is accepted,” said the voice that spoke through Hamsa. She let go of his hands and rose to her feet, her arms stretched over her head. “It is spoken and may not now be undone.”

  Again, the dance took her, tracing its bloody trail on the stones, around the fires, around the priests and their acolytes, and the Mothers in their watchfulness, around the dying bullock and its spilled blood. Over and over the pattern repeated, filling Samudra with its wild rhythm until he felt he must burst. It was too strange, too strong. It surrounded him, bound him, called him through the stones of the temple and the stones of the cliff beneath them. He could not move, could not think, could not breathe, there was only the rhythm and the dance and it was inside him and outside him, it was everything and all, and he was everything and all.

  Without a sound, Hamsa stepped into the central fire, her arms raised, her face ecstatic, and the flames enfolded her in a lover’s embrace, and she was gone.

  The spell broke like a string snapping. Samudra shuddered, his strength failing, and pitched over onto his face. Gasping from pain and shock, he pushed himself upright. He saw the room, the blazing fires, the bemused priests, the dead bull, and Hamsa’s staff in the hands of a dazed acolyte.

  She was gone. Samudra passed a shaking hand in front of his eyes. Of course. He should have seen this was how it must end. How could she remain part of the mortal world once she had danced with the Mothers? She had surely known this, even though she had not told him.

  And I did not ask. Samudra pushed himself shaking to his feet. Every person in the sanctuary stared at him, none of them fully themselves yet.

  “Let the funerary rites be prepared for Agnidh Hamsa,” Samudra said to the priests, a little amazed that his voice had returned to him. “Call me when all is in readiness.”

  “Majesty.” All bowed, but Samudra did not stay to acknowledge their obeisance. He teetered around and staggered for the door.

  Out on the broad steps, he breathed deeply of the night air, his fists clenching and unclenching, trying to find something to grasp for support. But there was nothing. His support had gone, burned alive in the Mothers’ fire. Gone because his need had used her up.

  “Brother,” he whispered to the night. “Chandra, I would have let you live. I gave your son position and power. I gave you land and freedom when my advisors said I should have you trampled to death. But the Mothers say we must bear our brother’s burdens, and I tried, Brother, I tried.” He swallowed. The servants would remember their duty and be behind him in another moment. “But you would break apart the realm like a child’s toy, and for that you will pay. For that, and for Hamsa, you will pay.”

  There, in the darkness, where none could see, the emperor of Hastinapura wept for his loss.

  The Vixen sat on a wooden throne on the crest of her green hill underneath the spreading thorn tree. She was not currently a fox, but a woman of sleek and strong build, red-haired and green-eyed, wearing a garment of gray fur belted with black. A cluster of foxes, red, white and gray, lay at her feet. Thus, she prepared to greet her visitor.

  The second woman came on foot. Brown-skinned, black-eyed. She wore little besides the ropes of pearls around her neck and the sword belt at her waist. More pearls bound her black hair high on her head. Her footsteps left behind bloody prints on the grass.

  The Vixen made no move to hinder the woman as she climbed the green hill and came to stand in the shadow of the thorn tree. They looked into each other’s eyes for a moment, before the woman bowed courteously, and the Vixen nodded to receive the gesture.

  “Welcome, Mother,” said the Vixen mildly. “How is it I have come to merit a visit from so illustrious a personage?”

  “I am come with a message from my sisters.” The Vixen’s voice had held the wild tones of the green wood. This woman spoke coldly, like the winds of autumn.

  “I am most interested to hear it.” The Vixen gestured with one hand, indicating the woman might sit if she felt so inclined.

  The woman sat cross-legged upon the ground, drawing her sword from her belt and laying it across her knees. The blade was black and had an edge so keen, even the Vixen’s eyes could scarcely see it. One of the red foxes at her feet pricked up its ears and lifted its head, alert to the warning of that drawn blade.

  “It has been seen that soon the Old Witch will send an ambassador to you to reclaim that which you stol
e.”

  The corner of the Vixen’s mouth quirked up in a crooked smile. “Yet I insist I stole nothing. The Old Witch wounds me to the heart.” She laid her long white hand on her bosom. “To think that she believes I would wrong her in that fashion.”

  The woman did not blink at these words. “My sisters and I say that we would be grateful if the ambassador were able to find what she will seek.”

  “Would you?” The Vixen raised her eyebrows. “And how would this gratitude be expressed?”

  “Your help would be remembered,” said the woman, her words as solid as stones. “We would swear it so.”

  “Hmmmm …” The Vixen leaned her chin in her hand. “Gratitude from you seven. You who seek to bring permanent order to your lands being grateful to me. Tempting,” she admitted. Then she straightened and shook her head. “No. It is too much. I cannot give what I do not have.”

  The woman’s dark eyes glowed. “What then, pray, can you give?”

  The Vixen considered. Her gaze lingered for a moment on the naked sword with its keen edge. A gray fox lifted its head and drew its lip back, showing a gleam of fang. She reached down idly and scratched its ears, soothing it so that it once again curled up calmly.

  “Why would you wish to do a favor for the Old Witch?” she asked. “She has no claim on you, or your sisters.”

  “Our lands are troubled by a little man who walks too tall.” The woman gripped the hilt of her sword. A dangerous light sparked in the Vixen’s green gaze, but the woman moved no further. “He has begun a chain of dangers that will crash down over that which is ours. If the ambassador returns to the Old Witch what has been lost, the little man will fall.”

  “May fall,” the Vixen corrected her. “Nothing is set. Not where I can see. Your little man is most resourceful.”

  The woman bridled at those words, but did not move to contradict them. “Will you do this thing we ask?”

  “No,” said the Vixen. The woman lifted the sword a fraction of an inch from her lap. One white fox rose to its feet, its tail bristling.

  The Vixen just smiled. “But I will give this ambassador a chance. One chance, for a price. If she succeeds, she may have what she wants. If she fails …” The Vixen shrugged. “Then you too will have to be resourceful.”

  The woman laid her sword back down. As she did, the white fox lowered its hackles, but did not sit.

  “What price?” asked the woman.

  “A favor, from your oldest sister. A favor of my choosing, to be granted without questions or restrictions.”

  “You ask a great thing.” The woman’s voice rasped in the still air.

  “As do you,” replied the Vixen calmly. “Especially for one who has come to my place of power to call me a thief.”

  The Vixen watched the woman bridle at this, and smiled as she struggled to hold back her rage. But need and, more likely, the warnings of her sisters, kept her hand from her sword.

  “Very well. A favor, without questions or restrictions. It shall be so.”

  “Then this ambassador from the Old Witch will have her one chance,” replied the Vixen. Her smile spread so that all her shining teeth showed. “Then we will see what may happen, Mother Vimala. Then we will most certainly see.”

  “Well?” said Chandra, looking up from the pile of pillows where he lounged on the balcony. “What news have you?”

  The rains poured down in solid sheets outside, obscuring the gardens with a curtain of silver and filling the world with the scent of fresh water. This was the beginning of the Second Rains. Samudra had timed Chandra’s wedding, and the beginning of his campaign, nicely. The brief respite that separated the First Rains from the Second had given the emperor enough time to march his army inland, beyond the floods. It had also given him enough time to see his elder brother sent to the far south with his new bride and household of spies.

  Chandra had never been able to wait well. Every day he summoned Yamuna to him and demanded to know how things proceeded in the north. Not even a full month had passed, and already his exile seemed to chafe at him beyond endurance.

  Yamuna looked down his nose at his master, and considered lying. No, he decided. It would be more humiliating should he have to retract his words later.

  “The quest did not succeed,” he said blandly.

  Chandra stared at him, as if he could not believe what he heard. For a time, the drumming of the rain on the balcony’s arched roof sounded very loud.

  “My servants who failed me have been punished,” said Yamuna, his memory filling with the sound of the demons’ screams as the earth pulled them down. “They will have no further opportunity to make such mistakes.”

  “In the meantime, Avanasy is still alive, and the empress is still out of our control, and has her best advisor hurrying toward her,” sneered Chandra. “Excellently managed, Agnidh Yamuna. For all your machinations, you have accomplished exactly nothing.” Disgusted, he turned back toward the rain.

  Yamuna held himself very still. They were not truly alone. Slaves still moved about the interior apartment. If any of those were ears for Samudra, they had already heard too much. It was very like Chandra to have forgotten such a salient fact at this moment.

  “Son of the Throne,” said Yamuna, slowly and deliberately, so that Chandra turned one eye to look at him. “I must beg your leave to undertake a quest of my own.” I must, for I must remain bound to you, whether I wish it or no. The gods have declared that your success is the determinant for my own.

  Chandra narrowed his eyes at Yamuna. His gaze flickered left, looking through the archways to the apartments beyond, this time noting the slaves who were there, and actually remembering which master they might truly serve. As he did, an unexpected smile flitted across his face, before his bland mask of disinterest and disdain settled back in place.

  “Yes,” he said. “Undertake your quest. You have good leave.”

  He settled himself back down to watch the steady fall of rain, and did not even look as Yamuna knelt to him and rose again to take his leave.

  That flicker of a smile haunted Yamuna’s thoughts as he returned to his own apartments. It was a strange expression, sly and unfamiliar, and indicative of hidden thoughts.

  Was it possible Chandra would attempt to plot his own coup while Yamuna was gone? It would be a disaster. It would ruin all. Chandra had no mind for subtlety. He was merely a petulant child who wanted his brother’s pretty toy. When the plot was discovered, which it would surely be, Samudra would have no choice but to execute his brother, and without Chandra, weak support that he was, Yamuna’s own plans would crumble.

  But Avanasy must be stopped. The little empress could not be allowed to regain power in Isavalta. Alone, she was helpless, she had proven that often enough. But with a powerful and subtle sorcerer to aid her … Yamuna knew full well how that could make the weakest of men an enemy to be feared.

  No. Without a servant he could trust, he himself must take care of Avanasy. There was no choice. He must go swiftly and swiftly return.

  Yamuna proceeded through his outer apartments, paying no heed to the servants there, still putting them in order for their master. The innermost door he unlocked with a key and a word. He closed the door carefully behind himself.

  This chamber was much less fine than the one where he worked in the Palace of the Pearl Throne. Arches and domes with their inlays of coral and ivory were here replaced by simple carvings of gray-and-red stone surmounted by a wooden dome with seven tiers, each tier, of course, dedicated to one of the Mothers. Yamuna did not spare them a thought.

  The only furnishings in the chamber thus far were four chests which Yamuna had carried there himself. No other hand would touch them, as no other foot would tread in this place that was his alone. For the bare moment he stopped to think on it, he did not believe those who served him were sorry to obey this order.

  Yamuna’s touch and five more words opened the first chest. There, packed in straw, were one quarter of his precious vials
and bottles. Some glinted dully in the watery daylight. The most delicate, however, had been wrapped first in white linen.

  Yamuna lifted one of the linen bundles out, brushing a few wisps of straw from the cloth. Inside lay a small faceted bottle, the color of garnet. If he peered closely through the translucent crystal, he could see the contents swirling and blurring like contained smoke.

  Despite its wrapping and despite the warmth of the day, the sides of the bottle were cold to the touch.

  A curse waited in that bottle, a curse made into a solid thing so that it did not have to be woven again, no more blood had to be shed, no detection had to be risked. The bottle simply had to be opened with the name of the one for whom the curse was intended. The closer one came, the more quickly this solid, pulsating thing would envelop them and suck away their fortunes, their good destiny, their love and, at last, their life. Applied to Avanasy, it would not kill at once. It would allow him to live, hobbled and increasingly impaired. His advice would sour, as would his commitments. If he reached Medeoan, he would do her more harm than good.

  Yamuna reached for the bottle. As his fingers came within a hairsbreadth of its surface, he paused. Was it possible he had misinterpreted the scrying he saw in the sun wheel? What if it was the road he traveled, the violation of his sworn place and purpose, that would bring about his doom? The symbol of the broken chain could be intepreted in many ways. What if …

  Yamuna sighed sharply. He had thought himself immune to such cowardly doubts. His sight was clear and his purpose was right. He knew well what he had seen, and there was no other interpretation of its meaning. It was only the old teachings of his youth that made him afraid now that he was so close to his goal.

  Yamuna laid the bottle carefully inside a pouch of soft deerskin leather that he tied firmly about his neck. The pouch hung against the hollow of his throat. Already, he could feel its intense chill seeping through the leather wrapping. It was not a thing that was healthy to hold for long, but he must endure for the present.