Soleri

by Michael Johnston

  “We are nearly there.” He broke the quiet.

  Kepi pressed her lips shut. She knew as much.

  “Can I get you anything? You must be hungry after so much time on the road. Some amber, or bread?”

  “A fast horse.” She put her hand on the window. “I can ride, there is no need to lock me in this carriage.”

  He shook his head as if she did not grasp her situation. “You’ll soon be the queen of the Ferens and the roads between our kingdoms are unsafe. I’ve lost three riders to stray arrows so far. The outlanders are following your caravan. They’re everywhere in the border region between our kingdoms. Mount a horse and you might also catch an arrow. Their bolts are as thick as your thumb and one arrow can fell a man twice your size.”

  “I can fight.”

  “Yes,” he said, glancing at the cut his sword left on her neck, the bruise on her shoulder. “You have skill, but there is no pointing in testing it against the outlanders.”

  Kepi put a hand on her shoulder. “It was a lucky blow.”

  He grunted. “In a fight, it doesn’t matter if you win with luck or with skill. Dead is dead. I’m not going to risk your life.” He took her wrist in his hand. “I am protecting you—nothing more.” His touch made her recoil. Seeing her displeasure, he withdrew his hand. “I am not the man you think, Kepi. To the empire, Feren is a mystery, a puzzle, and I exploit those fictions. I play the rebel, or the blackthorn thief, when it suits me. But you will find I am not the man those stories tell.”

  “Maybe so,” she said, flattening her shoulders against the carriage wall. “I want my waiting women.”

  “They are here.”

  “And my clothes.” When she’d asked for a fresh set of clothes, Dagrun’s soldiers had offered her a brightly colored gown of the king’s choosing. She’d put it on, but the dress made her feel awkward and ladylike.

  “My soldiers have your wardrobe. Anything else?”

  “My freedom,” she said, and from beneath her she slid out the knife she had concealed all the way from Harwen, one of the curved blades she kept stashed beneath her saddle. It was nearly as long as her forearm, double-edged and sharp.

  “Right now,” she said as she pressed the knife to the soft spot under Dagrun’s jaw.

  But quicker than she anticipated, he took her wrist, crushing the skin against the bone. “You mistake my intentions. Kill me”—he pushed the blade deeper into to his skin, daring her to do it—“and my men will cut you down. I am trying to protect you, but you’re acting like a child. I don’t expect gratitude, but I could do without your threats.”

  A loud knock on the carriage made them both start, and Kepi’s hand jumped, and the blade slid farther into his skin. Dagrun put his hand to the wound and came away with a smear of bright blood.

  Outside there was the sound of shouts and running, and the thunk, thunk of projectiles striking the carriage. “Arrows?” she asked.

  Dagrun flung open the carriage door. War cries thundered outside. Spears whistling through the air, the sound of horses.

  “You’ll be safe here,” he said as he locked her inside.

  I’d be safer if you lent me a sword and some armor, she thought as she peeked through a crack in the shutter. Outside, a band of pale-skinned warriors covered in white ash from head to toe threw themselves at Feren and Harkan both, cutting throats and making guttural cries of pain and pleasure. Like ghosts running through the twilight, their banshee noises raised the hair on the back of her neck.

  The San warriors, outlanders from the High Desert, answered to tribal warlords and fought with a terrifying brutality. Her father had twice driven their tribes from Harkana. She had stood with Arko on the field years before and watched as the Harkan Army routed them, sending them screaming back to their lands. Kepi had no wish to meet them here, trapped as she was inside the carriage like a dog in its cage.

  The door opened again and Kepi brandished her blade, but instead of Dagrun or a ghostly outlander, she saw Seth in front of her, his face covered with dust and streaked with sweat. He must have accompanied her waiting women; he must have told the Ferens he was her servant. Clever Seth.

  She nearly fell on him in relief.

  “We should hurry,” he said as he handed her a Feren sword and told her the San were overrunning the Ferens, that it was only a matter of time.

  “Run to the stones,” he panted. He meant the monumental rock circle, a well-known place where the stone trunks of the nearby Cragwood parted and a ring of standing stones kept watch for the sunrise. “They’re just across the rope bridge. I’ll join you there.” He embraced her quickly, ran a hand down her hair.

  “How?” she asked, but there was no time for explanations.

  “Kepi,” he said, his eyes holding hers for an extra moment—two, three, “be safe.”

  Kepi took off across the bridge, though behind her she could hear the hollow footsteps and wordless battle cries of the San following. She turned to look for Seth. He was drawing his blade, the cries of the San shattering the air. They were on him. She watched a man smeared in thick tar and hoary ash run his blade across Seth’s belly, drawing a bright spurt of blood. “Help!” he cried. “Someone help!”

  Kepi raised her sword and ran toward Seth, but a pack of outlanders blocked her path. With a stolen sword they hacked at the bridge supports, forcing her to retreat to the far side of the rope bridge before it collapsed into the rift, rattling as made its way down the rocky cliff.

  With the bridge gone, all she could do was watch as the outlanders, hundreds of them, hurtled their ash-white bodies through the camp, overrunning the Ferens. She lost track of Seth and Dagrun—the haze of battle obscuring everything.

  She was cut off from the Ferens and the fight but not safe from the outlanders. Three had crossed the bridge before it fell and they eyed her greedily, their mouths slashes of red in their ash-white faces, their teeth small and brown. One grinned wildly, his tongue rippling across his sharpened teeth. They would bludgeon her and dine on her entrails or tie her to a tree and use her as they pleased.

  She ran.

  21

  Prepared to face the divine, to look into the face of god and perish, to burn or fall to the floor with a stroke that would end his life—Arko Hark-Wadi entered the Empyreal Domain, his breath heavy in his chest. In spite of all his preparations, in spite of how ready he thought he was, it was another thing entirely to walk into the room under his own power and present himself to die. He found himself strangely aware of every muscle, every fiber of nerve, every bit of blood and bone that belonged to him. He felt his heartbeat throbbing in his ribs. He felt the coolness of the floor under his feet, the scratch of his new ceremonial garments, the wet hair curling along his neck, the pain in his muscles from the long journey. He felt how good it was to be alive, and a momentary twinge of regret that it would soon be over. All men die. Only most don’t know the day or the hour. At least I will face the sun before I go. He could not decide if that knowledge made him grateful, or bitter. Either way, he pressed forward, deep into the heart of the empire.

  Ready to face the divine and meet his death.

  But death did not come.

  Instead, there was nothing.

  No one.

  A single beam of sunlight pierced the gloom from somewhere far overhead, falling off-center, momentarily blinding him, throwing the rest of the hall into darkness. The room was filled with silence, along with the musty scent of old dust, mildew, stale air deep underground, the coppery tang of rust or blood. There was the sound of his breath and his heartbeat in his ears but nothing more.

  Arko had the sudden, distinct realization that he was completely alone. Where is the emperor? Where is the eternal light of the Soleri?

  Arko listened, but nothing stirred. No one spoke, no one moved or breathed. Not a dog barked or a flame crackled. No sound of beating drums, or the rustle of a scroll, nor the pad of bare feet on stone.

  Nothing. It was completely silent, the si
lence a blanket that smothered him.

  A loud and overwhelming quiet.

  His eyes adjusting to the dim light, ready for anything now, Arko stumbled upon a scene of a calamity. The golden throne of the emperor, twice the height of a man and covered with intricate carvings, lay crushed by the weight of a fallen beam from the ceiling above. Bits of gold glittered on its surface, showing where it had once been richly overlaid. Had thieves been here? Marauders? The rioters—could they have reached the palace, and if so, where were they now?

  Around the throne, the walls were littered with black scars that looked like the remnants of fire perhaps, or the ghastly remains of long-dried blood. Arrowheads and half-rotten spear shafts lay in piles along with broken stone blocks from the ceiling above, an overturned cup, a bit of bright-blue cloth clinging to an ax head—the remains of a battle. But the room was two, three fingers deep in dust and sand, soft and brown and undisturbed by footprints or tracks of any kind. No one had been in this room for generations. Whatever had happened in the emperor’s chamber must have occurred long ago.

  “Gods,” he sighed, “what happened here? Where is everyone? Where is the emperor?”

  From the shadows, a voice answered him. “This is all there is, all that is left,” it said. “What you are looking at is the great secret at the heart of the empire.”

  Arko shaded his eyes and squinted through the gloom. At the periphery of the chamber, he could see the outlines of a man take form, as if from the dust itself—an old man, from the look of him, white-haired and rangy, dressed simply in a robe. But in the middle of his forehead a great yellow jewel gleamed in the single beam of light.

  “Who are you?” Arko asked, even though he had an inkling.

  “You know who I am, Arko Hark-Wadi. I am Suten Anu. I am—or I have been—the First Ray of the Sun, right hand of Tolemy Five, the living god among men. Or I would have been, if such a person had ever existed.”

  Arko nearly choked. “You’re speaking treason. Or you’re mad, one or the other. What have you done with the emperor?” he asked, though the answer hung on his lips.

  The old man gave a mirthless laugh and set an overturned chair upright. He sat down on it and sighed with gratitude. “There have been many days when I wished I were mad, when I wished I could believe as everyone else does. Madness seems to be our national occupation in Sola. Sanity, on the other hand, is a tremendous weight. It’s a relief even to tell you this much: there is no emperor. There hasn’t been, not for centuries. Den was the last.” He took another deep breath and blew it out again. “You can imagine how long I’ve waited to say those words. Since my father said them to me, really.”

  Arko considered the chamber, wondering if this were all some terrible joke, a diversion meant to entertain before he went to see the emperor. But no one was there—only stones, and dust, and decay.

  “No one knows what happened or why the Soleri vanished,” Suten said. “There are no records or witnesses. There is only this shattered throne room. A scene of destruction preserved for each Ray to witness. We don’t know who destroyed the chamber, or how the destruction was achieved. There are no bodies, and no bones. We have only the testimony of the first Ray, Ined Anu. He was the Father Protector of the Dromus during the War of the Four, the first great revolt, when the lower kingdoms banded together and rebelled against us.

  “Two hundred years ago, when Ined’s armies routed the Harkan rebels and liberated Solus at the end of the war, when the Empyreal Domain was liberated, they waited for the Soleri to return. A month passed, then another, but there was no sign of the emperor. Ined waited, but it was soon apparent that the emperor’s family was not returning, and since Ined did not know where the Soleri had gone, he could not seek them. No one knew where they hid except the Soleri themselves, and their servants, and none of them ever returned. The gods had abandoned him. But Ined Anu knew the empire needed stability after decades of war, that we needed our gods back, and so he reinstated the rule of Mithra’s children. He sealed the Shroud Wall, closed off the Empyreal Domain, and established the Ray of the Sun as a conduit to the Soleri and named himself to the post. We do not know who destroyed this chamber, perhaps it was the Harkans—it may have been burnt when the rebels arrived in Solus, but what evidence we have is conflicting and lost to time. My predecessors searched for answers, I searched for answers, but found none. Whatever secrets the Soleri had, they took with them. They are gone.”

  He pushed himself up and beckoned Arko to follow him out of the throne room. “I’ll show you what is left.”

  Through the centuries of dust they went, crossing through a set of double doors into a long set of rooms where lavish feasts must have once taken place, where ladies would have paraded in their richest clothing. The rooms were still full of tables where no one sat, hung with alabaster lamps that gave off no light. As he made his way, Arko stumbled over a broken sword, an upturned bowl. They passed an ancient well with its rope rotted, its handle rusted, a distant repository where scrolls rotted on aging racks.

  They took a passage up a set of blackened treacherous stairs, leading to a long gallery that must have once been richly lined with carved wood. Now the panels lay on the floor in pieces, eaten by termites, by rats. They passed through bedrooms where the beds had turned to dust, the heavy woolen tapestries still hanging to warm spaces where no one slept, no one dreamed, no one made love. No sound except their own footsteps, their own breathing. The old man chortling to himself as if it were all a great joke. Perhaps it was.

  But the realization hit him with the force of truth: the old man was not lying.

  There was nothing here. No center to the empire. No authority. No emperor. There hadn’t been an emperor in centuries.

  It was a lie, all of it. The emperor, the royal family, the empire itself … A lie.

  It seemed like hours had passed before they saw daylight, but there it was up ahead—a bright ball of sunlight streaming in through an open door. The two men shaded their eyes and stepped out of the inner sanctum, back into the world above, and shut the door behind them.

  Outside the inner palace, in the Empyreal Domain, there was no evidence of the emperor’s absence. The stony yards were swept clean, the trees trimmed, the flowers pruned. A gleaming temple sat hard upon the inner wall, and near it a warren of workers’ homes, and guardhouses. Everything was well kept and in order. Suten explained that the Empyreal Domain was populated entirely by men and women of the Kiltet—a service cult, one that had existed for centuries. Suten’s acolytes culled servants from the villages of Sola. It was an honor and privilege to be chosen for the role, to live behind the Shroud Wall, within the domain of the god-emperors. Like the women who had bathed Arko, the citizens of the domain were all deaf, dumb, and mute. Their tongues were cut out and they were taught neither to read or write.

  The cult considered its sacrifice a divine offering, but Suten admitted outwardly that it was nothing short of barbarism. Another necessary evil, he called it. The Kiltet maintained the gardens and trails, the high walls and temple exteriors. Stable boys mucked the stalls while gardeners trimmed the hedges and gathered grain and leeks, endive and onions.

  “Dear gods,” Arko murmured. “They don’t know, do they?” The sun was high in the sky. The air was quiet, the Shroud Wall blocking out the noise and chaos of the rest of the city.

  “Perhaps they suspect,” Suten said, “but whom could they tell? No one can leave the domain.”

  “But there must have been thieves or spies—men who scaled the wall?”

  “Of course no wall is impenetrable. Over the centuries, many have tried to enter the domain, most failed, but a few have succeeded. When they crossed the boundary, they saw nothing but date palms and rye grass. One spent the night hidden among the goats before the Kiltet found them. None have found the emperor’s true domain. It is buried beneath us and the inner chambers are forbidden to the cult.”

  “But they do not wait on anyone, so they must suspect something?�
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  “The men and women of the Kiltet believe that only ethereal servants, creatures that can bear the light of the Mithra-Sol, serve the Soleri. When your life is predicated on a series of lies, one more mistruth is easy enough to accept. I’ve lived the better part of my life propping up one lie or another.”

  “So no one knows the truth.” It was a statement more than a question.

  “No one. Only the Ray of the Sun is allowed to pass in and out of the Empyreal Domain. My longtime adviser—Khalden Wat, the servant of the Ray—cannot enter the domain, but he will assist and serve you as best he can.”

  Arko was confused. “Serve me?” he asked. A dim, nagging feeling at the back of his head told him there was something more happening here, something monumental—something that would be far more important to him personally than the revelation about the emperor.

  “Why yes, isn’t it clear, Arko Hark-Wadi? You are to be the new Ray of the Sun. Only the Ray of the Sun can survive the divine light. Once the people discover you have survived the audience with the emperor, they will acknowledge you as his holy conduit.”

  “This is folly,” Arko said. “You mock me. I am no Ray. My father could have been Ray, but not me. Kill me or send me back to Harwen, but leave off this nonsense now, before you make a mess of everything.” Arko shook his head. He had been expecting to meet the emperor, to gaze into the face of a god and perish. Instead he would live, and Suten expected him to serve the empire as the next Ray of the Sun. It was impossible. He was Harkan. He was the enemy.

  Suten’s hand on Arko’s forearm was dry and cold, too cold for the warm day, but soothing. “Perhaps this will make you understand,” he said, and Suten led Arko to a chamber deep beneath the earth. He left Arko at the door and moved to the center of the room, picking up a burning torch and throwing it into a round iron receptacle. A dim light filled the chamber, a circular space with a domed roof and curling symbols carved into the walls. Two spheres hung from the dome, one large and one small. Suten stoked the brazier, the flames brightened, and the spheres rotated about the center of the room. One represented the Earth, the other its moon. The fire was the sun, Suten explained. As the spheres spun about the dome, the moon continued to pass between the sun and the Earth, but with each revolution the moon went slightly out of sync with the planet. Finally, it missed the yearly alignment that caused the sky to darken. “The failed eclipse,” Suten said, stoking the brazier as the spheres continued their silent revolutions.