Soleri

by Michael Johnston

  “My father—your king,” she tried again. “He’s left for Solus. This is a forgery.”

  Sevin bared his teeth, his sword trembling in his hand. “I only do what I’m told, my lady. I’ve been plenty patient, but now you’re starting to try my nerves. Drop the blade and we’ll all ride back to the Hornring. We can have a swig of amber and a nice ride.”

  Kepi was finished with talking. She crumpled the letter, but the Wadi man tore it from her grip before she could wreck the scroll. Not hesitating, she drew the knife she concealed beneath her saddle.

  “You can have a swig of whatever you like, but I’m going to find my father,” she said, her blade glistening in the moonlight, black and wicked. She reached for the second knife, but Sevin was faster. He pinned the saddle flap closed with the point of his sword. “How dare you, Sevin.” She glared at him, spit on her lip, fire in her eyes. Anger clouded her vision.

  “You have no right to detain me—you are my subjects—I am the second born of the king,” she said. Her father would have their heads.

  But my father is gone. Kepi knew it and Merit’s soldiers knew it as well.

  “Draw swords,” she said to the kingsguard, but the men were already drawing their blades. They were two against five and they held their swords uneasily. Their eyes darted, uncertain of how to proceed.

  “Remember your oaths,” Kepi chided her father’s men. Sevin’s bluffing, she thought, his men will not harm me. Kepi tightened her grip on the black knife. She was still smarting from her defeat in the ring, still eager to prove her worth with a sword. So she hurled the curving blade at Sevin’s throat, making him cower as he fumbled to block her attack. She missed his neck, but the blade tore a swath of leather from his armor. He dropped his sword, giving Kepi a moment to draw the other knife. The iron was heavy, the blade felt good in her grip.

  “Clear a path,” she told the black shields. Perhaps she could escape while the kingsguard delayed Merit’s soldiers. Iron rang in the cool desert air as the swords of her father’s men met the spears of the Wadi soldiers. There were shouts from both sides. A man in black leather, one of the kingsguard, tumbled from his horse. He struggled to stand, but the Wadi men drove their spears into his black leather before he could right himself. The second kingsguard struck the nearest Wadi spearman, knocking him from his mount. He swung his sword in a wide arc, driving back his attackers, but he was outnumbered three to one and the Wadi men held spears, not swords—they could strike from a distance. They drove their points into his armor. A wet thump rang across the desert hills as the last man fell to the sand.

  In the span of a few heartbeats it was done.

  Kepi was alone.

  She kicked her mount and tried to ride off, but the Wadi men made a ring with their horses, sealing her in.

  “Move or I’ll cut you down,” she cried, but the men would not move. “Fight me,” she said, but they would not strike her.

  Instead, one drove his blade into Ash’s withers. The horse issued a strangled whinny. Kepi—who had ridden Ash since she was a child, who had loved her horse as a friend—screamed as the gray-haired rouncy fell to her knees. She tumbled with her horse to the sand.

  The Wadi men, with their jade-beaded hair, brushed the dust from their cloaks and dismounted. Kepi lay on her back, knife in hand. She feigned injury and clutched at her thigh while she searched for the man who had struck Ash. When he came close, when he bent to look down at her, she drove her blade into the place where the neck met the body—into the place he had struck Ash. Her knife entered at the collarbone and exited just below the neck. She held it for a heartbeat before withdrawing the blade. Much like the horse, the Wadi man fell to his knees, alive, pained, crying as her horse now cried. The two of them made a terrible sound.

  “Ash was my horse, and a better servant than any of you,” Kepi said as she stood. She took notice of all the men, their armor and their weapons. She composed her stance, bending her knees and readying herself for the fight, the blade feeling light in her hand. For a moment she was back in the ring, driven by the awful crying of her horse, she was ready to fight again. She motioned to strike, but a loud pounding interrupted her attack, the clop of horses coming up the road. More of Merit’s soldiers, perhaps ten in all, crowded the Plague Road. The odds had turned against her.

  With a loud crack, a carriage followed the soldiers over the hill. The coach was ironwood, gray, and gleaming like stone. The curling mark of the Feren kingdom decorated its outer panels.

  So they were taking her to Gray Wood already.

  There were too many of them to fight. Gritting her teeth, Kepi took her blade and sunk the point into Ash’s skull, ending her horse’s pain.

  At least one of us ought not to suffer, she thought as she withdrew the blade and surrendered it to her captors.

  19

  Arko Hark-Wadi stood before a massive stone arch, inlaid with a circle of gold, and flanked by rows of imperial soldiers. He was here at last, in the golden city of light. The eternal city of the Soleri. The buildings, the walls, even the crowds were larger than what he had imagined. Rank upon rank of soldiers stood in lines beneath the stone archway, their bronze mail burnished and blinding. Angry commoners called out his name, tossed rocks, and spit on his cloak, but he gave no indication that he noticed. Nor did he give a moment’s thought to the stone-carved faces that stared from every building, their eyes vengeful and condemning. Only the great steles caught his eye. They covered the faces of every building, their tall carvings depicting victories both recent and remote. This city has forgotten more history than I can recall. It has witnessed the lives of more men, great and small, than I could ever hold in my head. That his own father had dared defy an empire with such great a history was almost unfathomable.

  He had been ordered to leave his soldiers behind when they reached the outer circle of Solus. Dismiss your men, the Alehkar commanded, or leave them to slaughter, as foreign armies were forbidden to enter the city. Arko had clasped the forearm of his captain, Asher Hacal, and bid him go back to Harkana and to serve his eldest daughter, the new queen regent, and if fate looked kindly on his house, the soon-to-be boy king, his son, Ren.

  “I’ll wait outside the walls, sir … until it’s over,” he said as the last of Arko’s men departed.

  When they were gone, Arko Hark-Wadi was alone among strangers. He became nothing but a civilian, with no rank or title, not even a Bartered King, nothing but a subject of the emperor, one of many. He was surprised at how easy it had been to shed the past and the last of his responsibilities. He would meet his end not as a king but as a man—flawed, human, and ready.

  As he passed beneath the stone archway he saw in the distance the Shadow Gate, the door that led through the Shroud Wall and into the Empyreal Domain. He thought of his older sisters, Eilina and Atourin, both married to Rachin lords. He had not seen either in years but he wished them well and hoped they would find a better death than him. He thought of Barden, his younger brother, who, having died at the age of four, was also spared from the Priory. He thought of his children, of Ren and his daughters. He had bid his farewell to Merit, but not to his youngest daughter, who had been out riding. He had sent two of the kingsguard to find her, but they had not returned. It bothered him deeply that he had not said his goodbye to Kepi. He hoped it would be his last regret. He touched the white stone at his neck, felt the grooves of the six letters inscribed on its back, and pictured the woman he once loved. Is there another path I could have taken in this life? Is this how it was always fated to end? He contemplated his death in much the same way as he had contemplated his life—with a potent melancholy, a pensive shrug.

  Now he stood before the Shadow Gate and the passage that led through the Shroud Wall. When he passed through the gate, he would leave this world. He would never see anyone from his life again. Never see his son become king, never hold his grandchildren in his hands. This might as well be the moment of my death.

  Legend had it that the Sha
dow Gate cast the last shadow a man would ever see. Past the gate, within the Empyreal Domain, all things were touched by Mithra-Sol and made of light. A smirk crossed his face. He doubted the legend’s veracity, but it was a good story nonetheless. Arko guessed he would see a few more shadows before the day ended.

  The crowd surged closer as his escort approached the gate, but Arko focused only on the path ahead, one slow footstep at a time. These few moments, looking at the red sun rising over the edge of the horizon, would be his last, yet his heart was curious instead of fearful. Soon he would be privy to the hidden mysteries at the center of the empire, and he would stand face-to-face with Tolemy himself, the god who sat at the heart of the circle of power that governed Arko’s life and the life of everyone in the empire. He was looking forward to showing the emperor that Arko Hark-Wadi was no weakling, no fool, before he died. No one who entered the Empyreal Domain ever came out. All those who looked into the eyes of the god-emperor burned from within and perished within moments of gazing upon the emperor’s face. It was more than his own father had done, or his father’s father—to look into the eyes of a living god. Arko was looking forward to experiencing the divine before his death.

  They passed beneath the Shadow Gate, moved beyond the archway, down a corridor that terminated in a single door carved with an array of radiating lines. The ceremonial captain ordered the main body of the force to remain, and then taking only five Alehkar, he opened the door and stepped inside.

  Arko followed them down a passage, deep into the maze of corridors, and quickly lost track of direction, of a sense of place. Only the light of a single oil lamp illuminated those dusty corridors, and he kept his eye on it like he had the sun in the world above. The only sound was the shuffle of footsteps across stone, the only view the back of the ceremonial captain’s dark, sweaty head. There is no world other than this one, Arko thought. There is no place beyond this place. When I pass through the Shroud Wall, I leave this world. Arko would submit to his fate here, today, and be satisfied that he had done his duty and submitted his tribute, the way his father did before him, and his son after him. At last I am no better, nor worse, than they. No longer the Bartered King, but fulfilled in my allegiance.

  The passage opened up into a larger space, a surprisingly airy chamber where the stone walls and ceilings were carved in monumental relief. Arko had heard of this place. The Hall of Histories. He read the titles, but the events were often unfamiliar to him, at least until he saw an image of the second revolt, the Children’s War, etched in figures twice the height of a man. Rougher than the rest, more hastily done and plain, without the richness of gold and riot of color that adorned the older pieces, this carving illustrated the moment his father, Koren, had surrendered to Raden Saad, the former Protector and father of Amen Saad. This was the moment when Koren had agreed to end the war, if, in exchange, Raden would not collect his son. He would spare Arko from the Priory. This was the moment his father had bought him his freedom. A reprieve that had lasted until today, until the emperor had at last called Arko and summoned him to Solus.

  At the end of the passage the heavy wooden doors swung open, and the captain gestured for Arko to proceed alone. As Arko stared into the dark abyss beyond the door, it occurred to him that the captain might be the last man from the world above to whom he would ever speak. “What happens to me after I enter this room? Are the stories true?”

  “I don’t know,” the captain said as he withdrew.

  Arko Hark-Wadi stepped through the darkened doorway, and they sealed the doors behind him.

  He had heard there was only light beyond the Shadow Gate, but all he saw was darkness. He stood alone, in the black, for a moment or two before he saw a dim light approaching: oil lamps. The light grew and multiplied, splitting into two, three, four separate flames. Women filled the room, imperial handmaidens who served the royal family from birth, or so the stories went. The women lit the lamps, greeting Arko with a nod of their shaved heads—pale, silent, captive creatures, like blind mice living far underground. Female eunuchs, Arko had heard, as children they had been sacrificed by their families into imperial service. He grimaced at the sight of their mutilated fingers, the fingertips had been removed so they could not hold a weapon or a writing utensil, their tongues cut out at nine, ten years old, their breasts and feet bound tight. They walked with the shuffling movements of newborn dogs, their feet rendered useless so they couldn’t run away. He had heard their breasts were cut off as well and their genitals partially sewed shut so they could not be a temptation to any man, nor bear any children. Their sexlessness made him recoil, their gentle movements and silence masking the horror of what had been taken from them, what they had become.

  The women surrounded him and began to help him undress. He was still wearing the bloodstained tunic from the hunt, during his last morning in the Shambles, before Ren had returned. They removed everything but the white stone that hung from his neck. Arko would not allow them to touch the necklace. They took him by the shoulders and led him to a basin, where they bathed him completely, from his dark, shaggy hair to his hands and feet, and dressed him in a long white robe, similar to theirs. A sacrificial robe. So this is what I will die in.

  The women pointed the way, down a dim space that Arko had not seen. What else could their eyes see that his could not? One of them took him by the hand and led him through the dark, like a dead man being taken into the underworld. The space was not narrow but great, cool and open and echoing with the sound of their footsteps, a far more disorienting feeling than being in a tight space. Without the eunuch to guide him, he would not know which way to turn.

  In the distance a dim light grew—brighter, and then brighter, the hall now flickered with oil lamps high above, illuminating a hall of statues, each as tall as a desert palm, with toes as big as Arko’s head. He saw the statue of Re, the first emperor of the Old Kingdom, his effigy a smoothly abstracted figure, the features rounded and bulbous, like a figure billowing out of smoke. His children and their descendants ruled for three centuries. The Soleri were a family, five boys and five girls, always interbred. After Re came the rule of Nejeb, fourteen emperors in all, their round features—puffy cheeks, round eyes—fading into the black sandstone. Djet and Horan followed, fifteen in one line, twenty in the next. The statue of Khaba was the first to be carved in the buttery stone of Solus, its form still glistening, its features more realistic, more familiar than the older carvings. Polished stones sat within eye sockets, the pearls followed Arko as he passed. The emperors of the Middle and the New Kingdoms followed the emperors of the old. Sekhem Den was the last. There were no statues after his line. Nothing to mark the reign of the Tolemys—the hidden emperors, the gods that lived and died behind the wall. Looking back at the long hall of finely chiseled figures, Arko could not help but feel a stab of envy. Ulfer’s statue back home is made of carved olive wood. The statue of Harkana’s first king was old and cracked, the face chipped in spots and stained with water. One day, the termites will chew through Ulfer’s face, but all of this will still be here.

  Beyond the statue of Den stood a final pair of doors located at the apse end of the gallery, and behind the doors, just underneath the sill and at the cracks, was a gleam of pure yellow light. Even this far belowground he recognized it not as the dim flicker of torches or oil lamps but the steady white light of the sun. The light of the god-emperor. The emperor himself lay beyond those doors. This was where Arko would face his fate at last, to serve his tribute, to face the divine.

  Arko was alone. No soldiers accompanied him now, no women.

  To meet the emperor is to forfeit one’s life. No man, save the Ray, may see the face of the god-emperor and live.

  He forced the great doors open and entered.

  20

  Kepi didn’t have to look out the window to know where her carriage was headed. Since the moment they set out from Harkana she had felt the Feren border creeping toward her like some kind of sickness. She only slid the sh
utter open when the convoy stopped. Outside, green forest grew tall against gray mountains, and the smell of blackthorn drifted like smoke through the window. It smells like Roghan. Kepi thought it stunk like the cage she had slept in for a year.

  Sandals sloshed in the mud, the sound drawing closer. The clank of the lock coming undone rang through the carriage wall. Someone had unlocked the door.

  “Who’s there?” she asked, but there was no reply. She pressed her face to the window to try to see what was happening, but the door flung open instead.

  “Expecting someone else?” said Dagrun, sitting so close she could feel the warmth from his body. Kepi pressed herself to the wall, her breath quickening. She had never been alone with the king of the Ferens and did not trust him, especially since she had made the first portion of her trip from Harwen to Rifka in almost complete isolation. For days, as they rode toward the Rift valley, she ate with the soldiers and slept on the hard bench of her carriage like nothing so much as a prisoner.

  But now her soon-to-be-husband had come to sit with her. His very presence in such close quarters made her fingers shake, her eyes itch. But she noticed that he seemed nervous as well, as he looked her up and down, possibly uncertain himself. His teeth were white, whiter than any Harkan’s, perhaps the rumors of his wealth were true. His eyes were big and dark and never blinked. They radiated a strength she found at once intimidating and disquietingly appealing.