Upon a Burning Throne

by Ashok K. Banker

  The first time Pasha’ar spoke that morning, she thought she had misheard.

  Karni stared blankly at the sage, not wanting to commit the sacrilege of asking him to repeat himself, yet not able to believe she had heard him correctly.

  He gazed up at her patiently. He had been in a relatively less intense mood these past days. Less intense for Pasha’ar, of course, was like saying a hawk was less intense after he had eaten a full rabbit. It was not something that was easily evident to a casual observer, but Karni had learned to tell a great deal from his most minor gestures, vocal patterns, body language. One might even say that she could read Pasha’ar almost as well as she could read Krushan. Though Krushan rarely lost its temper and flew into a flaming rage if your tapioca cakes were a tad less crisp. Right now, though, he was calm, and he proved her right by doing something he rarely ever did: he repeated his request without a trace of irritation.

  “I require an item fetched from Dirda.”

  She stared at him without response for several heartbeats. She was too taken aback to simply bow as usual and acquiesce.

  “From Dirda, Great One?” she said.

  He named an item. Something so trivial that it could be found in any marketplace anywhere, or even right here in the palace itself, perhaps in this very guest wing. A paper fan, the kind that visitors from the Far Eastern kingdoms brought with them and traded for local spices or silks, the kind that Eastern women apparently held before their painted faces and smiled coyly behind.

  What in the world could a celibate guru want with an Eastern woman’s paper fan? Surely not to gift to a lover! Which was what those exotic items were rumored to be most commonly used for: as gifts from rich men to their concubines. Obviously, the sage had no women in his life, so that could not be its purpose.

  She dared not ask the next question, but he read it in her eyes anyway and answered it aloud. Apparently, he had learned to read Karni almost as well as she had learned to read Pasha’ar.

  “It must be from Dirda, specifically,” he said, “from the shop of the merchant Gutap. It will be easy enough to find. It is the largest store in the town market, with a substantial stock of fans decorated with baby elephants and lion cubs on display at all times.”

  He glanced at the window. “If you leave right now, you should be back here before the full moon.”

  She was dumbstruck. She had no words. Did he realize that Dirda lay beyond the hill ranges? That this was winter, and one of the coldest winters in recent memory—the coldest since before she had been born, apparently? Even the royal couriers and courtiers ferrying information to and fro between the two neighboring kingdoms had reduced their biweekly trips to once a fortnight, and then only if the news was urgent. Wars had been postponed to avoid crossing the Dirda ranges in winter. Marriages called off. And he expected her to go all the way to Dirda now, at the start of the coldest winter in memory, to fetch a paper fan?

  He was still looking at her, as if reading every thought that passed through her mind.

  “Tell Merchant Gutap I send my blessings and tell him that he may send his eldest son-in-law to Hastinaga next spring, as I shall be present at the Krushan court by then, and the imperial permit he desires will be issued. I have spoken to the appropriate authorities, and they have assured me it will be done.”

  She stood there, simply staring at him in utter disbelief.

  He added mildly, “The message must be delivered in person by you alone. No one else must accompany you, or he will suspect betrayal. Once you deliver the message successfully, he will give you the fan. Bring it directly to me.”

  Delivered in person and by her alone? And no one else must accompany her? Asking one to travel over the Dirda hills in winter, during the season of hailstorms, when the bandit gangs, the bears, and the predators virtually ruled those hills, was insanity. Even the most seasoned courtiers went with a cortege of at least eight armed guards, and no woman, princess or not, went without a full company as well as a team of elephants. Yet Pasha’ar expected Karni to ride alone, risk death by exposure, by hail, by bandits, by predators, riding day and night without halting for food or shelter, just to fetch him a paper fan? She had suspected it all along, but now she knew for certain: he was a torturer. An assassin. A murderer. A ruthless barbaric killer who cared nothing for the lives of the daughters of his hosts. He had probably left a trail of dead princesses and noblemen’s daughters in his wake, scattered across the thousand and eight kingdoms like chaff from grain.

  And he asked this of her even though, as Karni herself had witnessed, he had the ability to travel from place to place through magical means, the way he had simply appeared from a maelstrom in the lake, a season and a half ago.

  She wished that he had drowned in that lake, in that maelstrom of his own creation, drowned and choked and been washed up on the shore of the lake, pale, bloated, and half eaten by fishes.

  She saw by his face that he had read her thoughts, or divined the gist of them at least. He read it in her pauses, her stance, her wider eyes, her clasped hands, her slightly furrowed brow. Just as she could read his every change of mood and direction of thought in the way he breathed, inclined his head, or sat.

  That was when she thought, I can’t do this anymore. I can’t go on.

  But then she remembered her foster father, King Stonecastle. How sad and desolate he had been when she first came to live here, broken by the loss of his wife and son in childbirth. How entranced he had been by her every word, gesture, and action—not just in those early days, which she barely remembered, but as she grew and got older as well. How he had doted on her every deed. How he lived and breathed by her. She could not bear the thought of doing him wrong.

  He had spoiled her more than her birth father ever would have, or even her real grandparents. Although they had loved her dearly, King Karna Sura and Queen Padmeen were both preoccupied with matters of governance. Whatever attention Karni had received in her birth father’s house had come mostly from her brother, Vasurava. But a brother’s love was different. Vasurava was kind and gentle, but he was also mischievous and prone to teasing: he was but a boy too back then, after all, and she was his sister—and if there was one universal familial truth, it was that a brother will tease a sister.

  Nothing and nobody came close to providing Karni with the warmth and affection, the lavish helpings of love and care and tenderness that King Stonecastle had showered upon her. She had quickly come to realize how precious she was to him, how much he regarded her as a gift from the gods themselves, a ray of hope in the darkness of his soul. Unlike many kings, he did not seem to care that she was a girl rather than a boy, that he had no son, that she was not actually of his blood and therefore his line would only continue through her in the most indirect way possible.

  He had encouraged her every wish, however unusual, be it learning to master the sword, or learning battle strategy from the most expert general of his kingdom—and even allowed her to choose her friends without regard for class, ethnicity, caste, or social level. Karni was her own woman, and unlike many fathers, especially rajas and maharajas, he had never sought to clip her wings or make her feel that her freedom was anything less than a natural birthright. Likewise, he had been completely accepting of the old Krushan tradition of matriarchal governance, a tradition that had been mostly abandoned these days by those whom it did not benefit. No one in Stonecastle had any doubt that it was Karni who would inherit the throne and kingdom if anything were to befall her adoptive father; nor did anyone doubt her ability to rule as effectively as Stonecastle himself.

  Asking Karni to attend Pasha’ar was the one and only time King Stonecastle had asked her to perform the duties of a modern, fashionable girl of high birth. She had not feared the stories she had heard of Pasha’ar’s legendary temper and terrible curses, or the power he had displayed when emerging from the maelstrom in the lake. She only knew she could not bear to break her adoptive father’s heart, or to cause distress to the people and kingdo
m she cared for so greatly. She loved them too much to let this awful, self-centered man throw a temper tantrum and use his powerful gifts to cause misery to innocent souls.

  It was that love and concern that made her grit her teeth, bite back any reluctance, and bow as gracefully as she could manage under the circumstances.

  “As you say, Great One.”

  12

  People stared at Karni when she returned from Dirda three weeks later. Nobody could believe she was Princess Karni. She looked like a ragged forest hermit, emerging from the deep woods to ask for alms.

  When she paused for a moment to catch her breath, relieved to be breathing the spice-scented air of the marketplace again, a passing noble on a horse even tossed her a copper coin.

  She let it lie where it fell and made her way wearily but with growing enthusiasm toward the palace.

  Even the gate sentries stared with astonishment as she greeted them and passed through. She went through the kitchen and maids’ quarters to avoid causing a scandal among the courtiers. The maids and serving girls who caught sight of her gasped.

  “Princess!” one exclaimed. “How—” She broke off, eyes filling with tears as she looked Karni up and down with knowing eyes. “My dear, shall I fetch the royal healer?”

  Karni shook her head, throat filled with an emotion she could not name. “It is not my blood. I am well.”

  That last was not entirely true. She was far from well. But it was no sickness or ailment she suffered from, nothing that Aravidic herbs and ointments could cure or treat. It was a fever of the soul. There were things in the world that could affect a young woman in ways more damaging than a physical assault or a disease contracted.

  She felt a great deal better once she had bathed, partaken of some nourishment, spent some time drying out and combing her hair over a scented sandalwood brazier. She was humming to herself as she finished, unaware that she was doing so, or that the tune she was humming was the same one her mother, Padmeen, would sing to her and her brother Vasurava to put them to sleep. It put her in mind of the gentle, comforting caress of her mother, of that warm maternal embrace, the softness of her cheek upon Karni’s, the scent of her. It was hard living apart from one’s family, to be separated as a child, knowing that every one of those people—father, mother, brother, cousins, uncles, aunts, grandparents—all still existed, that whole enormous circle of warmth, comfort and filial affection, but that she was now outside the circle, a satellite moon destined to live in her own lonely orbit. What did it mean? Why did such things happen? She had brought comfort, warmth, and joy to her foster father, Stonecastle. But what of her own comfort, warmth, and joy? Did she not deserve as much also?

  She put these thoughts out of her mind as she finished her toilet, shook them off and breezed out of her chambers and all the way to the rishi’s apartment. Sentries, courtiers, maids, running boys, everyone who passed her by could not help but look at her twice—and some stared, others whispered—but she ignored them all. She walked tall and strong, and did not stop for any distraction.

  “Gurudev,” she said, bowing to Pasha’ar.

  He looked up absently from the scroll he was perusing.

  She offered him the paper fan, presented upon her open palms.

  He glanced at it with a frown, as if about to ask her what this object might be and why she was troubling him with it. Then he shook his head irritably and said, “Put it anywhere.”

  She placed it beside other items she had fetched for him during his long stay, each of which represented some arduous effort or sacrifice on her part. None of them had been touched or moved from their original position as far as she could tell. She did not dwell on this fact but simply turned back to him and stood politely waiting until he looked up again, questioning.

  “Merchant Gutap of Dirda sends his gratitude and says he will surely send his eldest son-in-law to Gajapura next spring as instructed, and will ensure that the boy does not squander this priceless opportunity.”

  It was clear the sage had stopped listening halfway through her recitation. She waited for some acknowledgment, some response. Anything.

  There was none.

  That night, her friends came to see her, eyes wide and hands clasped to their chests with concern.

  “Your face!” they said, taking her chin gently and turning her face this way and that, and then exclaiming in dismay. “Your arms, your legs, such bruises! These are purple and fresh. How did you come by them?”

  Karni was silent for a long moment, emotion choking her. “Hailstorm,” she said at last. “On the road to Dirda.” She added after a moment, “And on the way back.”

  They asked her a thousand questions, fussed and fretted about her like mother hens around a solitary chick. She smiled wanly at their fussing, allowed them to redo her hair, to beautify her as best as was possible with a bruise-covered appearance. They then insisted on bringing Karni her favorite savories and invited her to go to the son of the grain minister’s wedding the following evening.

  She went along with everything except the last.

  “I must remain here, to serve our guest.”

  They made pooh-pooh noises, waving their hands in disgust. They tried their best to convince her to sneak away for a few hours at least. The handsome son of the Jamadgura war minister was expected to attend, stoking gossip about his former steamy romance with the bride-to-be. Scandal and fireworks were expected.

  She heard it all as if from a great distance, viewed her friends as if she were meeting them for the first time, as if all this was strange and faraway, from another time, another Karni.

  She stayed in the palace the next day, making tapioca savories and almond buttermilk for the sage, fetching scrolls, cleaning his muddy wooden cleat slippers, and performing sundry other chores. The sound of the wedding music was faintly audible from the kitchen floor, plaintive and sad as a dirge to her ears. She wondered how people did such things as dressing up in finery, wearing jewelry, and attending weddings, when the world was such a hostile place. What was the point?

  She woke up that night and found her pillow soaked; she could not understand how. It occurred to her as she was drifting off into a restless asleep again: Could I have been crying?

  But she didn’t remember crying.

  The sage Pasha’ar left the next day. But not before he gave her a parting gift. If, that is, you could call what he gave her a “gift” at all.

  13

  “Memorize this mantra.”

  Karni looked up at Pasha’ar. They were at the egress of the guest chambers, the sage about to depart.

  King Stonecastle had come to touch the sage’s feet and ask for the customary blessings, which Pasha’ar gave freely. The king thanked him profusely, then hesitated before asking the traditional host’s question: “I trust everything was to your satisfaction?”

  Karni had felt no trepidation during the long pause before the sage responded. She had passed the point of anxiety a while ago. During that trip to Dirda, perhaps. Or even before. It did not matter. She no longer feared Pasha’ar’s curse or anything he may say. She was long past all that.

  “I have no complaints,” he said finally.

  Karni was looking at her father’s face when he heard his guest respond and observed King Stonecastle’s delayed reaction: clearly he had been expecting the sage to say more. Some small words of praise perhaps. A compliment. Maybe even a lavishing of admiration for his daughter’s impressive attentiveness and diligence.

  But there was nothing, of course.

  Sage Pasha’ar did not praise, compliment, or lavish admiration.

  That single sentence was all he had to say.

  It was enough.

  Coming from him, it was the equivalent of a thousand effusive praises. Many of his courtiers, noblemen, priests, and other seers would say as much to King Stonecastle in the months and years to come, expressing their admiration for his daughter’s extraordinary dedication to the most feared priest visitor. There woul
d be an abundance of compliments later—from others. But none from Pasha’ar. Not now, not ever.

  Karni waited at the egress with the customary earthen bowl of yogurt, which she offered to their departing guest, and which he partook of without comment. He returned the bowl to her palm, and she thought that he would then begin walking, and continue walking—out of the guest chambers, the palace, the city, the kingdom, her life. He could not walk fast enough.

  Instead, he paused.

  And said to her, “Memorize this mantra.”

  Then he recited a very brief couplet.

  The instruction, and the mantra that followed, were delivered quietly, barely loud enough for Karni to hear.

  Nobody else was close enough to hear.

  The words were intended for her ears alone.

  He spoke the words, then began walking.

  She stood there a moment, expressionless, holding the earthen bowl with the dregs of the yogurt upon her palm, as his wooden cleat slippers sounded on the steps leading down from the guest chambers, rang out as they crossed the stone floor to the archway, then grew softer, then muffled, then finally faded entirely as the sage left the palace complex and was gone, out of her life forever.

  She never saw him again.

  Her father came to her and embraced her warmly, releasing an immense sigh of relief.

  “Daughter!” he cried out. “Daughter, you have done us all proud. All Stonecastle thanks you today.”

  People crowded around them, smiling, laughing, moving about and talking normally again, abandoning the stiff, somber attitude they had assumed in the past several months of the sage’s visit. She saw her father’s gratitude and relief reflected in all their faces. King Stonecastle was only saying aloud what they all felt.

  She knew she should smile at him, so she did. But there was no mirth in her heart. She did not see what she had done that was so special. She had been given a task, and she had completed the task to the best of her ability. Whether or not the task had been appreciated and had earned her the recognition of their guest did not matter at all. She had performed her duty, as was the modern custom.