by Erin Evans
The tyrant, the tyrant. Dumuzi closed his eyes and remembered for a moment the dreams that had plagued him ahead of the return of the Blue Fire: A long-lost city and a tyrant of a god. The King of Dust, the demon had called him before he died.
Gilgeam, the god’s voice said in Dumuzi’s thoughts. The Father of Victory. The god to whom Enlil had left Unther, when he first left Toril behind.
Will he come for us? Dumuzi wondered. Will he want our lands back?
Dumuzi could swear the black-scaled dragonborn stood just to his left, but he knew if he turned and looked, there would be no one there. I cannot say. He is not as he was when I left him last. He has not been so for many, many years. A change of planes, a change of worshipers. We are less permanent than you believe.
It was an odd statement—a month ago, much like any Vayemniri, Dumuzi wouldn’t have said he gave the gods much thought. A tenday ago, he wouldn’t have said he had much opinion on their permanence. But within the last two days, he suddenly saw a great deal more, because of the Untheran god who’d taken the form of a black-scaled dragonborn with lightning in his teeth.
“Has the army moved against Djerad Kethendi?” Dumuzi asked.
Narghon frowned at him, and Dumuzi nearly apologized for speaking out of turn. He held his ground—you are not just some hatchling now, he told himself. You have to speak for Enlil. You have to get them to understand.
“The army has only just been sighted,” Narghon said. “Djerad Kethendi has been warned, and as your mother said, we don’t have all the information we need. That is not why I called you here.” He looked down his snout at Dumuzi. “How far does this god business extend?”
Dumuzi shook his head. “Myself. Those who were in the Vanquisher’s Hall and saw.”
“You haven’t a little conspiracy brewing? A little …” He trailed off, searching for the word. “Cult, perhaps, that you picked up in the maunthreki lands?” He looked down his snout at Dumuzi. “Does this come from Mehen and those tieflings?”
“Narghon,” Uadjit said, her usual patience fraying from her voice. “He’s told the tale. The god came to him. He held the old kingdom, the one we supplanted.”
“The same one this King of Dust is said to come from?” Narghon’s teeth gapped in agitation. “Dumuzi, you are young. You are untested. You have no idea what you have made an alliance with.”
Dumuzi balled his hands into fists. A month ago he would have bowed his head and never even thought of talking back to the patriarch. But in a month, everything had changed.
“I have crossed the world alone,” he said calmly. “I have seen war and helped defend the wall of Suzail. I am the one who killed the maurezhi. I am the one carrying Thymara’s axe. I have listened to Enlil not as a hatchling listens to an elder, delighting in tales of bravery and cunning, but as one grown listens to the old stories, because there is sense in them still. He has offered to protect us. He has shown that he can. You can call me a fool and a child, and chastise me for disappointing Kepeshkmolik, but please, explain what I should have done. Let a tide of magic wash away the city and everyone in it? Let it drag us back to Abeir? What should I have done instead of accept the help I was offered—no, we were offered!”
Calm, the voice in his thoughts spread like a cool breeze. Narghon merely shook his head, as if dumbfounded at the change in his scion’s once-proper hatchling.
The door to the audience chamber opened a hand span. One of Dumuzi’s cousins poked his snout in. “Patriarch Narghon? The Verthisathurgiesh matriarch has come to see you. She says—”
Before he could finish, the door was yanked open another foot and Verthisathurgiesh Anala swept in, a gauzy scarf draped around her red-scaled shoulders. “Well met, Narghon,” she said. “Uadjit.” Anala turned and offered Dumuzi a polite bow. He froze, uncertain of the meaning. Verthisathurgiesh Anala was a great many things—shrewd, calculating, cunning—but of the many Vayemniri who made Djerad Thymar their home, Dumuzi would not have put her on the list of the easily converted.
“What are you doing here?” Narghon demanded. “Don’t you have your own clan to see to?”
“I thought perhaps we could discuss things,” Anala said. “Dumuzi’s sudden elevation. The need for an interim Vanquisher.”
“No one has elevated Dumuzi,” Narghon said.
Anala smiled. “I think Dumuzi has elevated Dumuzi. There’s no denying what happened in the Vanquisher’s Hall—we are none of us fools. As he is of Verthisathurgiesh on his father’s side, and since I have known him to be a most well-brought-up young man, I am here to tell you that I stand behind him and his …” She waved her hand vaguely at Dumuzi. “Ally.”
The presence of Enlil eased forward in Dumuzi’s thoughts, giving him the impression that the god was leaning into the conversation with some interest. Narghon’s nostrils flared. “To what end?”
Anala tilted her head. “To the betterment of all the Vayemniri and the safety of our cities, of course.”
You cannot trust her, Dumuzi thought for Enlil’s sake. She says one thing, she means another.
Enlil’s faint amusement flowed through Dumuzi. Most everything is that way. It is a boon to know so.
“Are you planning on building a … chapel”—Narghon spat the unfamiliar word—“in Verthisathurgiesh’s enclave? Taking up a rattle and a torch and playing priestess?”
“It’s not as if I don’t have room for a chapel.” Anala smiled at Dumuzi. “Such a thing would require some further discussion about concessions and accommodations for the clan. In the meantime though, I’m sure I could convince some of the others of this … new development’s merits.”
“And in exchange?” Narghon asked flatly.
Anala shook her head, as if she didn’t understand the question. “There is no exchange. As I said”—she turned to Dumuzi, as though he were an equal—“I only want the betterment and safety of the city.”
Dumuzi glanced toward his mother. For all his life, Uadjit had served as a diplomat in far-off cities, legendary for her silver tongue and iron fist. She watched Anala, implacably, without any sign of the suspicion Dumuzi knew stormed within her.
“We … We need to convince others,” Dumuzi said, trying to make Uadjit proud. “He … the god, he needs worshipers in order to gain the power for such things as the lightning wall. I hardly know where to begin.”
“Begin with finding a way to dip in honey asking us to yoke ourselves to a new tyrant.” Frost edged Narghon’s teeth, the scales along his lips, anger building the breath of cold up in his throat. “Clearly I am no longer needed in this. Anala.” He turned to go.
“There is one other matter,” Anala called. Narghon stopped, halfway to the exit. “The Vanquisher,” she said. “I intend to press for a vote at the conclave.”
Narghon scowled back at her. “The man died yesterday.”
“And we are beset by enemies.”
“Exactly. There are more important matters to deal with at the moment.”
“And all of them would be better addressed if we had a Vanquisher to direct the many voices shouting about them.”
Realization sank into Dumuzi. The Vanquisher was elected every ten years—the next election would have taken place in about a year, with each clan putting forth a candidate of their own, and each clan elder voting for another’s selection.
But Vanquisher Tarhun was dead. And no one had announced their candidates yet—not officially. Everyone with any sense knew Uadjit would be Kepeshkmolik’s choice.
Uadjit, whose son had called down a god in the middle of the Vanquisher’s Hall.
“I assume you’re putting up Pandjed’s boy,” the patriarch said.
Anala tilted her head again, as if Narghon had said something amusing. “Mehen? Why would I do that?”
The breath from Narghon’s nostrils clouded cold on the air. Uadjit stepped forward. “Vanquisher aside,” she said, “this King of Dust should be our primary concern, and that can’t wait for conclaves. I think we can a
ll agree with that—Vayemniri, gods, and otherwise. I’ll go to Fenkenkabradon Dokaan and say that Kepeshkmolik—and Verthisathurgiesh, if I have your leave, Matriarch Anala—offer up their private forces for the Lance Defenders’ command.”
Narghon’s brow ridge shifted skeptically. “I have no love of that man’s sense of tactics.”
“He won’t be in charge,” Uadjit pointed out. “He’s still injured. It will be one of his subordinates.”
“Arjhani?” Narghon said.
Uadjit’s expression tightened at her mate’s name, Dumuzi’s Verthisathurgiesh father. “We shall see. But Arjhani is a known quantity at least.”
“Dokaan sounds more promising by the moment, doesn’t he?” Anala said.
Narghon muttered something to himself, catching Uadjit’s eye. “Then I shall see you when that conclave is called. Your pardon.” He stormed from the audience chamber without waiting for Anala’s response. At least he hadn’t demanded Dumuzi’s piercings. At least Dumuzi wasn’t exiled.
Yet, he thought gloomily.
“Charming as always.” Anala turned to Dumuzi. “When that little meeting of the elders comes together, I’ll send for you. We can discuss what you’ll say.” She nodded to Uadjit. “You may, of course, offer Verthisathurgiesh’s forces to the Lance Defenders, such as they are. A pleasure as always.”
Uadjit turned to watch Anala until the massive double doors to the audience chamber stilled against each other once more. “If not Mehen,” Uadjit said slowly, “then who?”
Dumuzi didn’t dare speculate. It wouldn’t be Arjhani—Dumuzi had been sent out into the wider world to find Mehen solely to make certain Arjhani wouldn’t be the only option Verthisathurgiesh had for a Vanquisher run. Verthisathurgiesh Arjhani was handsome, charming, and clever, exactly the sort of person who ought to be suggested for the Vanquisher’s seat—but those who knew Arjhani best knew his selfish and even cowardly nature. He wouldn’t be a wise choice for Vanquisher, even though he might be chosen.
“I don’t know,” Dumuzi supplied. “She hasn’t said. Not to me or anyone who would have told me.”
Uadjit turned and smiled at him, rubbed the frill of her jaw against his cheek affectionately. “It will be all right. The most Narghon will concede to is a vote for an interim Vanquisher. We can withstand anything for a year.” She considered the doors again. “Do you want to go to the elders’ conclave?”
Dumuzi cleared his throat. “He needs more worshipers. That’s … I think that’s how it works. More worshipers make him stronger, so he can keep helping to protect us. Right now it’s only me.” Mostly, he thought.
For a heartbeat, Uadjit watched him, and Dumuzi could almost see her many possible replies flicking through her dark eyes. There isn’t any hiding from it, Dumuzi wanted to tell her. There isn’t any going back.
“Well,” Uadjit finally said. “We’ll hear from Anala soon enough. I need to go up and discuss things with Dokaan and whomever he’s appointed. Perhaps it would be best if you stayed in the enclave, for the moment anyway. Just until things … well, when things are better sorted, we’ll have a sense of what can be done.”
The familiar briskness of her voice had grown so brittle by the end that Dumuzi quickly agreed, if only to take away whatever his formidable mother feared. She left. He sat down on the edge of the elder’s dais and looked up at the frieze of the Battle of the Crippled Mountain around the top of the wall. Nigh-insurmountable odds, as the bands of escaped slaves that would become the Vayemniri fought the Tyrant of Tyrants, united in the face of a powerful enemy. The red dragon had been carved over the doors, his head thrown back in pain or rage as the volcano beneath him began to erupt in jasper-studded lava.
You have done this before, the voice of the god said. It seemed as if he sat beside Dumuzi now. You can do it again.
Dumuzi considered explaining the difference between an ancestor story and real life, but stopped himself. The god probably knew. Had to know. Didn’t he?
Is this how gods are? Dumuzi wondered. Enlil seemed more like an uncle than an unknowable entity. Wide, yes, powerful, indeed. But nothing like the incarnate power gods were meant to be.
Gentle amusement flowed through him. I am what you need me to be, Ushamgal-lù, the voice said. Would you trust me if I were something too great to understand? If I were a creature as alien even as that Tyrant of Tyrants?
But you still are that, Dumuzi thought.
We are all more than one thing, Enlil said, and Dumuzi could have sworn a hand lay upon his shoulder. Mortal and god, Vayemniri and maunthreki. That much is not hard to understand.
Perhaps not—it made sense to Dumuzi when Enlil said it that way. But whether there was any way to put things into words for the clan elders was another question entirely.
• • •
NEAR TO THE peak of Djerad Thymar, the Lance Defenders, the city’s army, lived and trained and taught the next generation of warriors. Almost thirty training yards pocked the three floors, and so it wasn’t a difficulty for Mehen to find one unoccupied and out of the way.
Gods, ghosts, devils, one daughter lost, the other wounded to her very soul—these weren’t the sort of problems Mehen had any sense of how to deal with. And with Farideh busy gathering information about warlocks and pacts, needing privacy Mehen did not want to grant her, Mehen went back to where he had gone when he was young and faced with other such problems that had no solutions.
He shrugged out of his sword harness, leaving the falchion to the side of the training room, as he approached the wood-and-leather training dummy. In his youth, he might have imagined the dummy was his father, Pandjed, now dead in the catacombs.
Thwack! Thwack! A parade of possible faces raced through his thoughts as he struck the dummy with his bare fists. Pandjed. Anala. Narghon. The maurezhi. Lorcan. Thwack!
None were the ghost who had stolen his daughter. None were the god that had made all these terrors come down on them.
Thwack!
Enemies too distant to do anything about. Too powerful to strike down with nothing but rage and grief and a sword.
Thwack! Mehen felt his knuckles split against the leather, but he didn’t stop until his breath came too hard to catch, until blood smeared the dummy.
“You look like a man with a lot on his mind.”
Mehen turned—Yrjixtilex Kallan stood in the door, just as hollow-eyed, just as drawn, but with half a smile eased across his face. “Do you want to talk?” he asked.
Mehen turned back to the dummy. “Can’t.”
If he tried—if he tried to break this problem down into sensible bits—the whole of it would spread itself out before him, insurmountable as the vault of the sky. How did they find Havilar? How did they free her from the ghost’s grip? How did they stop the god of sin from crushing all their lives in the name of punishing a woman who’d been dead for almost a century?
“Fair enough.” Kallan came around the other side of the dummy. “You want any help punching the sawdust out of this thing?”
If he talked to Kallan, he would have to tell him that Anala intended to put Kallan forth as Verthisathurgiesh’s candidate for Vanquisher. And Kallan would laugh and say that sounded mad, but the more Mehen thought about it, the more he felt sure that Anala’s plan could scale the mountains. He’d never met a soul as easygoing and calm as Kallan—what did they need now but a leader who would convince them everything would be all right. Couple that with the fact that he’d shown uncommon bravery in hunting and stopping the maurezhi, and Kallan stood a decent chance—with the wily matriarch’s help—of gaining the gold piercings of Djerad Thymar’s ruler.
Mehen rested his bleeding hands against the dummy. “Have you heard back from the homesteads?”
That easy smile vanished. “No. Not a bleat.”
“They were farther out, though, your people,” Mehen said. “Nearly to Akanûl, you said. Maybe the Blue Fire didn’t reach that far.”
Kallan laughed once. “That doesn’t sound
like you. I’d more expect you to point out that those lands were lost to this plane a hundred years ago—what’s to point a body to the assumption that they didn’t all swap places again? What the karshoji Hells gives some Yrjixtilex sheep ranch the right to avoid that fate?”
Mehen said nothing for a long moment. “You want a turn?”
“I want some karshoji answers,” Kallan said, sounding deflated.
If you were Vanquisher, you could demand them, Mehen thought. The Vanquisher could request a special search of that area, or begin efforts in finding the magic that would reverse the passage to Abeir. The Vanquisher could order the city’s armies to march on that godsbedamned fortress the cambion hinted at and get Havilar back.
Mehen looked across the dummy at Kallan. Chaubask vur kepeshk, he thought—for once I would like to be the one who gets comforted—it was a selfish, shallow thought, but he let it sit. It wouldn’t be less true if he pushed it away. Still, Mehen was the one that pulled Kallan nearer, that rubbed his jaw frill against Kallan’s cheek. It was cruel, he thought, that this was what they got—that any chance they had for something sweet and easy, they left back in Suzail.
I left back in Suzail, he thought. It wouldn’t get simpler with Anala plotting in the elders’ conclave.
“I know a way you could get answers,” Mehen said reluctantly.
“Thrik,” Kallan said. “We’re having a moment here.”
The sound of someone clearing their throat jerked Mehen’s attention up. Kepeshkmolik Uadjit stood in the doorway, her eyes darting from Mehen to Kallan. “I see I’m not the only one looking for privacy.”
Mehen bristled. “You want privacy, the Lance Defenders barracks are hardly the place to find it.”
“Yes, well, I was hoping to distract myself by pummeling something,” Uadjit said.