Upon a Burning Throne

by Ashok K. Banker

  “Vrath sees all, knows all,” he went on. “What knowledge is not gleaned from hearsay, he gains from simple observation.”

  He paused momentarily before each ruler, addressing them each in turn. The first were the Northeasterners King Anga and his brother King Vanga. “Redmist bandits waylaid your tithe due to Hastinaga last summer?” Jarsun smiled his thin smile. “Vrath knows that the bandits ply their pillage under your protection and would never touch the tithe wagon.”

  The brothers glanced at one another, eyes hot with temper, but kept themselves in check. They had the legendary swift rage of the Northeast, but also the wisdom. They cast their gazes downward, not meeting the eyes of the God-Emperor.

  Jarsun stopped before Kaurwa. The Kanungan displayed no emotion as she gazed coolly back. “A sea storm delayed the arrival of the Grekos trade ships?” he asked, then tch-tched sympathetically. “Hastinaga spies sighted them sailing homeward. They could hardly have made the hundred-day voyage only to have turned back without bartering their cargo at Kanunga port.”

  The Kanungan’s cheeks flushed the shade of rotten fruit beneath her dark skin. She looked away. Jarsun moved on.

  Sumhasana’s face was lowered as if to conceal his gaze from the Reygistani. Only his boxy bulk, flaming red beard, and bald head were visible: the bald head gleamed with perspiration. Not the flowing rivulets of Ushanas, but a light misting that suggested nervousness.

  “Sumhasana,” Jarsun said. “Are your fists missing the comfort of cold vengeance?” Without waiting for an answer, he went on. “Or are they longing for the cold weight of gold? The rich vein of old gold that Sumha unearthed almost by accident deep within an overworked mine far beneath the bowels of Great Dwarf?”

  Jarsun continued in this manner, listing the treasonous secrets of each of the conspirators. By the time he was done, every face was flushed with anger, embarrassment, shame, or guilt, some with all of the above.

  Finally, Jarsun stopped before the last guest. The quivering wobbling mountain of a man was already in motion even before the Reygistani turned his attention.

  It was remarkable to watch that prodigious bulk move with such speed. In mere moments, Ushanas of Ushati had reached the door of the chamber. He threw arms as meaty as the haunch bone on which he had gnawed earlier, striking the strong timber.

  “Let me out, let me out!” he cried in a shrill, hysterical voice. “I wish to leave at once! Open these doors!”

  The doors remained sealed.

  Ushanas turned to Belgarion, his several chins quivering with outrage. “Mountain goat! Oaf! I command you to open these doors at once! How dare you imprison us? Do you know who I am? I am Ushanas of Ushati! I have enough wealth to buy anyone in this room ten times over! I am the wealthiest merchant-king in the Burnt Empire. Open these doors at once, or I will see to it that nobody trades with the Mountain Kingdoms for the next thousand years. You inbreeding goats who call yourselves kings!”

  Belgarion’s face revealed its first trace of displeasure. The ruler of Darkfortress turned to look at Jarsun, who was standing in the center of the chamber, watching the performance with his thin head cocked to one side.

  Jarsun smiled at Belgarion, who grimaced once, in the semblance of a response. Something passed between them that did not require words to be understood. Belgarion nodded once, but kept his eyes lowered and his head averted, studiously ignoring Ushani and everything that transpired thereafter. His aspect made it clear that even though this was his aerie and his kingdom to command, he deferred to Jarsun. Had any one of those gathered in that chamber needed any confirmation, that one silent exchange between the Reygistani and the king of Darkfortress made their relationship crystal clear.

  Jarsun began walking with slow deliberate steps toward the Ushati king.

  “Ushanas of Ushati.”

  The quivering mass that was the “wealthiest merchant-king in the Burnt Empire” turned hesitantly, reluctantly, agonizingly, to look at the approaching Jarsun.

  “Had you chosen to ignore the invitation to come here and taken your chances with Vrath and the might of Hastinaga, that would have been your right.”

  Jarsun was some twenty yards from the doors before which Ushanas stood in quivering fear.

  “Had you turned back at any time during your arduous journey up the mountains, that too would have been your choice.”

  Ten yards now, and closing.

  “Had you paid your respects to your host during the introductions being made, partaken of some refreshment, and started back before the doors were sealed, that too might have been acceptable.”

  Jarsun paused some five yards away, cocked his head, reconsidered.

  “Perhaps not then, that might have been too late, but it was still a possibility, if a dim one.”

  Jarsun looked at the Ushati king.

  “But to hear our entire plan, to listen to all I had to say, to hear me hint with sufficient detail at the secrets of your fellow conspirators gathered here to provide you with fodder enough to feed the hungry ears of Hastinaga spies, to eat our host’s feast, to guzzle his wine, to partake of his hospitality and our fine company, and then to act thus. Demanding. Abusing. Insulting.”

  Jarsun shook his head from side to side.

  “Unacceptable.”

  Ushanas appeared to be melting with terror and sweat. His face shivered as rivulets poured down. Stray morsels of food stuck to his chin and cheeks were dislodged by the streaming perspiration and fell to the floor, a tiny pile of food crumbs in a growing puddle of sweat. “I heard nothing!” he screeched. “I know nothing of your plans against Hastinaga! I have no knowledge of your stupid secrets. Let me go. I will not say a word to Vrath. I am not a fool, you idiots!”

  Jarsun tch-tched, wagging his long index finger.

  “In that case, allow me to enlighten you. We are gathered here today for one reason and one reason only. To discuss our mutual interest in ridding ourselves of the Krushan dynasty and dividing up the wealth and territories of the Burnt Empire amongst ourselves. That much was obvious from the time you received the message. Otherwise, why would any of you have come at all? Even an idiot or”—Jarsun chuckled—“a mountain goat would know that merely to respond to such an invitation would be regarded as a treasonous act against the Burning Throne.”

  Ushanas shook his head. “No. NO! I know nothing of any conspiracy. I am not part of any treason. Let me go. I will never speak of this as long as I live.”

  Jarsun smiled his slash-mouth smile. Even though the others could not see his face now, as he was standing with his back to them all, facing the door, every last one of them shuddered or reacted with something less than pleasure at the thought of that horrible smile.

  “At last, you speak the truth,” Jarsun said. “You will never speak of this as long as you live. Because you will not live long enough to speak any more.”

  And before Ushanas could speak another word, Jarsun moved.

  With a flash, his body split. Like a wood chip struck by a powerful downward axe stroke, Jarsun’s body divided down the middle. The two halves separated from each other with a sticky unguent tearing, producing a sound like that of live flesh being ripped apart. The twin sections, still living, stood momentarily, each as steady on its single foot as any man on two.

  Had Jarsun been a man cleaved by a razor-sharp axe stroke, it would have been a feat to rival the tales told by Sumhasana Longaxe’s ancestors. Had he indeed been sliced into halves, the inner part of each half would have oozed and bled, blood and flesh and inner organs visible.

  But Jarsun was no man.

  He was in fact, two men—named Jarsa and Sunna—that chose to unite and exist as one. If you could call such creatures men.

  Each half now stood individually.

  Not on feet, for these creatures, this being, had no feet in the mortal sense.

  Each stood on a base that was fluid and mutable, coiling and uncoiling as it prepared to make its next move.

  The effect was
not unlike that of two snakes, pythons perhaps, standing upright prior to a strike.

  However, it would be a mistake to term these creatures, this being, a snake, or anything allied to the snake family.

  It was far, far older than any serpent that had swum through the primordial ooze on this world.

  And far deadlier.

  The exact features and limbs of each part was not clearly visible to those gathered in the aerie, for Jarsun had his back to them all and was facing the door where Ushanas of Ushati still stood, cowering and relieving himself involuntarily of his bodily fluids, the yellow stain spreading under his massive tree-trunk-like feet.

  The only one who could have seen what the two divided beings looked like from the front was King Belgarion, and he was studiously examining at the pattern on the floor of his own aerie. Only the tenseness of his features and the tautness of his hunched shoulders suggested his own state of . . . fear?

  Terror, more likely.

  The two creatures coiled into themselves for a brief kshana, not like any snake anyone had ever seen. Their flesh seemed to grow tighter, condensing, pressing into itself. Like a muscle tightening.

  Then, with a motion as sudden as a whiplash, each half flew across the distance that separated Jarsun from Ushanas.

  Both halves of the Reygistani’s body snapped around Ushanas’s considerable bulk.

  There was nothing snakelike about this motion either.

  It was as sharply executed as the winding of a lash around its target.

  Ushanas screamed, entwined by this unthinkable thing.

  His fat, rolling face was striped diagonally in both directions by the two halves of Jarsun.

  The effect was like two thick pythons had coiled around the man’s corpulent body in a criss-cross diagonal pattern.

  And like two thick pythons, both halves now tightened themselves with unimaginable force.

  Parts of Ushanas’s flesh bulged from the gaps between the diagonal strips.

  The Ushati king made one final attempt to scream, but even the last breath had already been squeezed out of his body.

  Then, with a suddenness that was shocking to all present, despite their familiarity with the many forms in which death acted on a battlefield, the Ushati’s body simply . . .

  Exploded.

  It disintegrated into a hundred chunks of bone, flesh, organs, blood.

  Like the morsels of meat Ushanas himself had been tearing apart earlier.

  It was all over in a flash of a whipcrack and a breath.

  What lay on the ground before the doors of the aerie was no longer a man, or even a semblance of a man.

  It was a scattering of morsels and chunks of raw flesh, in a puddle of gore.

  The dismantling of the Ushati king took barely a few kshanas.

  Belgarion still kept his eyes downcast and head averted.

  Perhaps the mountain king had viewed similar actions by the Reygistani before, and had no desire to view it again.

  Like a whiplash returning to its wielder, the two sinuous halves flew back through the air to the spot where Jarsun had been standing.

  Each half merged seamlessly with the other, the joining taking place in a single motion. Like clay pressed into clay, merging to form a single piece, seemingly inseparable and unitary.

  Jarsun turned around to face the gathering, his smile slashing his face like a knife cut. Was it their imagination, or were his lips redder than before?

  “Now,” Jarsun said, “I shall tell you how I intend to destroy the Krushan dynasty and take Hastinaga.”

  He paused and looked again at each one in turn individually. “Unless anyone else has an objection?”

  There were none.

  Crow

  Crow sat upon a window.

  The window’s chamber was large by mortal standards, but by Crow standards, all chambers were small, since Crow’s home was the world entire, her roof the endless sky.

  Crow had no interest in the goings-on within the chamber.

  She knew there were mortals there, she could see them, arrayed like a murder of crows, keeping distance between them as if in anticipation of a quarrel. Had Crow been curious, Crow might have wondered if there was a pecking order among mortals, and if that mortal sitting on the larger perch at one end of the tiny chamber (tiny to Crow’s sky-accustomed eyes) might be the leader. But there was also another mortal standing near the one on the large perch, and all the other mortals seemed to be staring at this standing mortal. Perhaps the standing mortal was the leader. He looked hawkish enough to rip them to shreds should they question his leadership.

  None of this actually interested Crow.

  What did interest Crow was the thing the standing mortal had just done.

  He had pounced, hawklike, upon another much fatter mortal. And torn that mortal to shreds.

  Crow could not quite understand how the standing mortal had done this: he appeared to have no claws or beak. But Crow had seen the standing mortal split into two sinuous halves, and each half had then flown through the air to attack the fatter mortal.

  Now, that had been a sight worth seeing.

  Crow was a bird; birds feared serpents more than anything else, even other birds. Crow had seen serpents kill crows. They moved and killed in a similar manner. Some swallowed their prey whole from the beak, or whatever it was that serpents’ mouths were called in their language. But other serpents wound their slimy sinuous bodies around their prey and squeezed them to death. Crow had seen this done too, once to a field mouse and twice to rabbits. After the prey was squeezed to death, then the squeezing serpents had uncoiled themselves and swallowed them through their beaks/mouths.

  But this mortal had not swallowed the prey.

  Crow could still see the remains of the fatter mortal, not simply choked and crushed to death like the field mouse and the rabbit had been. The fatter mortal was not merely crushed to death. It was . . .

  Destroyed. Torn apart. Shredded. Like the remains after a cat attacked a pigeon.

  Looking at the remains, Crow began salivating.

  The thought of that tasty feast was what kept her here, on this window. Waiting. Watching.

  Just a morsel. Or a chunk. That nice big juicy red chunk right there, with just a bit of white gristle and yellow fat, and oh my, Lord of Birds, a bit of broken bone with pink marrow peeking out.

  Crow wanted that chunk.

  But Crow was frightened of the standing mortal. The one who had killed the fatter one and turned him into a mess of shredded chunks.

  Oh my, Lord of Birds, that mortal was a scary one. He could split himself into two, turn from a mortal into a kind of serpent—a pair of serpents—and move like no serpent Crow had seen before, then tear his prey apart like a hawk, or a cat, or some combination of bird-snake-animal that could not possibly exist, and then simply leave the prey. Not even eat it or carry it off to eat later.

  What arrogance. What waste. What terror.

  Crow could not comprehend such behavior. Or such a creature.

  But that did not matter.

  There were many things in this world Crow did not comprehend.

  This was not something that kept Crow awake at nights.

  All that mattered was that juicy chunk of flesh.

  And how to get it without incurring the wrath of that scary man-animal-bird-thing.

  Crow saw a flock of her fellows fly past in a ragged formation, part of the murder to which she belonged.

  She would usually have cawed to attract their attention. The more crows stealing morsels, the better a chance she would have of getting her feast. Always better to steal from another bird, even another crow, than to steal from other animals or mortals. It was a challenge, and if she succeeded, as she often did, it made the food taste better.

  But this was not a crow feast.

  This was serious, a matter that required Crow to forgo a tasty opportunity and do something other than scavenge.

  So she did not caw.

&n
bsp; Instead, she waited.

  Inside the chamber, the man-animal-bird-thing continued to caw at the other mortals. Or whatever it was that mortals called cawing.

  The cawing continued.

  Crow watched as the day wore on.

  The sun reached its apex then began its downward slide.

  Crow waited.

  Crow watched.

  Crow did not caw.

  The afternoon wore on. Crow began to tire.

  Crow dozed for a bit, a kind of awake dozing that only crows did to overcome tiredness. Crow even had a term for it in Crow’s language: a crow nap.

  Crow watched with semi-interest as pigeons mated on the stone battlements of the mortal structure. The pigeons were vaguely nervous because Crow was watching, but went ahead and did it anyway. Thrice. Shameless. But they were pigeons, what did Crow expect? Not civilized, like crows.

  Then, when Crow was starting to feel the pangs of hunger gnaw her belly, the mortals all rose up suddenly and exited the chamber.

  In moments, they had all flown the coop.

  The chamber was empty.

  Only the remains of the dead mortal lay where they had lain the past few hours.

  The blood was now congealed, the flesh too, but that didn’t matter to Crow. If anything, a little time made food riper, tastier. It was seasoning for the feast.

  Crow watched as other mortals began to peer into the chamber, pointing at the remains of the dead mortal and cawing to one another. Crow knew that mortals usually liked to clean up fallen food and cart it away, to be thrown out. Such a criminal waste! But mortal waste was what supplied Crow’s feasts. Crow knew that once the mortals carted away the remains of the dead mortal, she might not find them again easily. She would have to search all over again.

  Her best chance was to snatch it now and fly.

  She saw her chance when the mortals left the room, no doubt to bring back objects suitable for carting away fallen remains.

  Crow hopped down from the window to the stone floor of the chamber.

  Crow hopped quickly across the floor, all the way to the remains.