Upon a Burning Throne

by Ashok K. Banker

  She sighed and adjusted her garment to cover her head again: it had slipped down to her shoulders during the descent. Her bangles tinkled softly, sounding very loud in the silence of the temple, echoing in the emptiness. Usually there was a priest or two around, or at least an acolyte, but thus far, she hadn’t seen a soul since she had entered the temple. Perhaps there will be someone at the main deity’s altar, she thought, and continued walking.

  The floor and ceiling sloped gradually downward, leading to the main shrine. The stone felt cold to her bare feet, but at least it wasn’t wet, just a little damp. She ducked her head below the overhang before entering the main shrine, then passed through.

  She blinked, her eyes adjusting to the much brighter light. The chamber felt larger and seemed better lit than on her previous visits. There were clay lamps on every surface. On the floor, the ledge that ran along the floor, the little nooks where smaller effigies were placed, on the raised stone square around the sacred fire, behind the sacred fire, and on the floor of the alcove inside which the main deity was placed. There must be hundreds of clay lamps in this one chamber, she thought, awed by the spectacle. It was quite beautiful, and inspiring too. She wondered if there was a reason for the lights. Was there a local festival that she had forgotten? Then she recalled the blood moon and wondered if perhaps that had something to do with it.

  There was no priest here that she could ask. Not a single priest, not even an acolyte was present. Where had they all gone? It was quite unusual for the sacred fire to be untended, and even the main deity itself to be unwatched.

  Whatever the reason, she was here now. The only option she had was to traverse the corridor, climb all the way up the spiral stone staircase, walk up the steps to the surface level and then search for a priest. She had seen nobody there when she began her descent, so returning that way might be all for naught. And it would be rude—even inauspicious—to leave here without praying. Since she had come all this way, she may as well perform her prayer and worship.

  The items in her thali had been jostled a little during the long descent. She adjusted them, adjusted her head covering as well, then moved around the shrine, offering prayers to each deity in the correct order.

  She reached the carving representing Goddess Jeel and knelt down, putting the steel plate on the floor so she could genuflect. Her forehead touched the stone floor just hard enough that she could feel her skull make contact. The stone felt oddly warm to her skin despite the overall chill of the underground shrine. Perhaps it was because of the clay lamps, she thought. It had felt cold the last time she was here. But now, as she kept her forehead in contact with the floor and recited the sacred syllable, her head began to burn from contact, fever hot.

  “Auma . . .”

  She forced herself to keep her head on the floor till the last vibrations dissipated from her chest.

  “Karni . . .”

  She started. Her head rose an inch before striking the floor again. The impact jarred her head, making her eyes water.

  She raised her head and looked around. Except for the clay lamps and the deities, there was nothing else there.

  She rose to her feet in a single motion, leaving the pooja thali on the floor where she had set it down. She turned around in a complete circle, still remaining in place before the deity. It was a relatively small chamber, only about five yards by five yards, a perfect square. She could see every corner of the chamber, even the nooks in which the deities were placed.

  There was no question: she was alone in the shrine.

  “Karni . . .”

  She gasped, the sound very loud to her ears.

  “Who . . . ?” she asked uncertainly. “Who said that?”

  The silence grew, looming around her like a living thing. She was suddenly aware that she was deep within the earth, at least twenty or thirty yards underground, maybe more. If the shrine was indeed empty, as it seemed, then there was no one here to call to, to ask for help. The closest person aware of her presence was the charioteer Adran, and he was all the way up there by the gates with his chariot, almost fifty yards from the shrine itself. There was not the slightest chance that he would hear her if she were to call for help, or even if a hundred Karnis were to call for help from down here. She felt the weight of the stone around her, above her, pressing down with its tons of weight, pressing in from all sides, closing in. She was alone underground in a stone cave, and no one to help within hearing distance. She felt the cold, wet stone chill in her bones and shivered. A scream began to grow inside her throat, threatening to burst loose, but instead—

  “Enough.” The sound of her own voice in this sacred empty space was unexpectedly loud. “Enough, Karni,” she said. “Get a hold of yourself.”

  She was in the shrine of her deity, the most sacred and blessed place in all of Hastinaga.

  No harm could come to her here, of all places.

  It didn’t matter if she was alone, if there was nobody within earshot or eyesight, if she was fifty or a hundred or a thousand yards underground, if there were a ton of stone above her or a thousand tons. She was in the shrine of her goddess, and nothing could touch her here. How could she even think that she could be harmed? She was safer here than in her own chambers in the palace, safer than anywhere else in all Hastinaga. This was the place she came to when she sought protection, where she had recited the Goddess Kavach, the ritual mantras asking the goddess for a shield of protection. The Goddess Kavach that protected her from all evil, all harm, all adversity. How could she even think that she could be harmed in this of all places, this place where the devi’s power was the strongest, when she stood within the heart of the devi’s sanctum itself. Before the goddess herself!

  Karni put her palms together. Her hands were rock steady, her breathing calm and measured.

  She turned and bowed her head low, touching it to the base of the alcove, the foot of the devi’s altar. The stone here was warm, the hard stone meeting her forehead and skull gently enough that it may as well have been made of wool, not rock. She said the requisite incantation of greeting, then raised her eyes slowly to the deity herself.

  What she saw there stopped her breath, paused her heart, silenced her voice, and stilled her very soul.

  Geldry

  The moonlight was too bright for Geldry’s dark-adapted eyes.

  She blinked and lowered her head as she stepped out onto the balcony, unable to look directly into the glare. It beamed down and seemed to her as fiercely bright as sunlight at noon, turning the edges of her vision white. Too bright. Had her vision become impaired somehow? She had never seen moonlight this bright before. It dazzled her and turned every reflective surface into a glittering spark. She actually felt the brightness searing her eyes, burning out the periphery of her view. She found it hard to keep her eyes open at all. For the first time in several years, she missed her eyeband; it would have protected her from this blinding white radiance. But the strip of silk was back in the bedchamber, lying on the bed . . . and there was danger lurking here on this verandah; she had heard the whisper coming from here, she was positive.

  “Geldry . . .”

  She spun around, sword in one hand, dagger in the other. The dagger was held point downward, the sword up and sideways in a defensive posture. She moved diagonally, taking care to keep turning a little each step, in case danger sprang from behind.

  Initially, she saw nothing, but then—there. A shadow loomed at the far end of the verandah. It was a dark shape, clothed in black flowing garb. Wind pressed the robes against its tall, slender form, outlining an unmistakably masculine body; the same wind also set the sand underfoot to dancing, rising and falling in gentle waves.

  Wind? Sand? Here, on her verandah, in Hastinaga? That was impossible. The closest desert or sandy beach was hundreds of miles from here. She blinked and squeezed her eyes shut, then opened them again.

  The figure was still there, limned by moonlight, a mysterious silhouette enveloped from head to foot in flowin
g dark robes, contrasting sharply with the white sand dunes that rolled for endless miles behind him. The wind was so strong that the corners of his garment fluttered and flapped. The wind was blowing away from her, but she could smell the desert and the striking male odor of the man.

  She looked to her left and saw the city laid out before her like an embroidered carpet. Even at this late hour, a smattering of lamps still shone across the metropolis, a few smaller ones moving through the streets, most still and illuminating crossroads, avenues, streets. Beyond them, miles away, the far high walls of the outer perimeter, marking the boundary of Hastinaga, the first defense against threats from outside. But there were no walls to guard anyone from the threats that rose inside the city. We are all vulnerable to the enemy within, no matter how, when, or where we might be. It was true of emperors, kings, and queens—it was true of all living beings.

  Geldry knew that what she was experiencing was supernatural in nature. But was it an attack, and if so, by whom?

  She glanced back at her bedchamber, saw Adri had not stirred. The room itself was vast and ornate, a mansion by any definition. Every luxury available on Arthaloka at her disposal. The power and might of Hastinaga, of the entire Burnt Empire. The bed, spacious enough for a dozen to sleep on, where she and her husband slept together. She could just make out the rumpled covers on her side of the bed, closer to the balcony. The glare of the moonlight was so harsh, it blurred out the far side of the bed. She could not see Adri’s sleeping form. But he must be there, must he not? When he awoke, the first word out of his mouth was always “Geldry?” Just so, with the question at the end. What was the question? she often wondered. She knew now. It was his way of asking if she was still there, still with him, still in his life.

  She turned again and looked straight ahead, compelling herself to see clearly now.

  You are on the verandah.

  You will see the length of the balcony in front of you, almost thirty yards long, the length of your bedchamber. The verandah runs along the eastern wall of your bedchamber, letting in the light of the rising sun each morning.

  In a few hours, it will be daybreak, and the sky will lighten in shades of vermilion, saffron, and haldi yellow. Adri will awaken and say your name. You will answer, and he will smile, reassured.

  You will slip on your eyeband and reenter the world of darkness. His world.

  And the day will pass, like a thousand days before now, with you always by his side, through the day, listening, being, existing.

  Blind loyalty, they call it. That is what your life is now, Geldry. Blind loyalty to a blind husband. See it and nothing else: see it, Geldry.

  Now she looked at the verandah and saw something else entirely. She saw a desert of white sand, rolling in waves like a vast ocean. She saw grains of sand dancing and whirling in the wind, dunes undulating and shifting like waves on that vast ocean. She saw three moons in the sky, two wholly visible, one only partially visible: one was red, the other was saffron tinged with red, the third was sickly yellow with patches of green and blue. The moons were different sizes and in different positions in the deep crimson sky.

  Closer, a tall, darkly robed man, his features obscured by a flap of his headcloth, fluttering in the wind across his face. A sense of immense strength and vast, supernatural power, the kind of strength that could not be achieved by mere muscle, bone, and sinew. A head as thin and lean as the body it rested on, a sense of a face as thin and long as a hatchet blade. And in the deep shadows beneath the headcloth and cowl, two eyes glittering like hot diamonds.

  “Geldry . . .”

  She heard the word clearly now, no longer a whisper but as distinct as if the man were standing right there on the verandah ten or twelve yards from where she herself stood.

  Except he was not on there on the verandah, not in the palace, not in Hastinaga, the Burnt Empire, or anywhere else upon the planet. He was somewhere else. Someplace where the sand was as white as driven snow, three moons hung in the sky, and strange alien beasts roamed the unpeopled world. She was certain of this as she had never been certain of anything else before.

  The figure raised a robed hand to her.

  “Come . . . see . . .”

  She drew in a deep breath, clutching her weapons tightly. They were of no use to her, she knew. She could no more fight that being standing on the white sand than she could fight an army single-handed. His power burned from those diamantine eyes, as searing and dazzling as the moonlight. But it gave her comfort to hold the weapons, feel her grandmother’s sword and her great-aunt’s dagger, to recall the stories she had heard about their exploits, the lives taken by these two blades, the hot blood spilled, the flesh torn, the bones shattered . . . It was power of its own sort, the kind of power that she understood, she owned. The power to take a life with a single thrust or slash. To end an enemy, or silence a rival.

  The being summoning her now was possessed of power far, far greater than any mortal weapon. He was capable of facing—and crushing—entire mortal armies. Of battling beings she could not even comprehend, of challenging gods and demons and holding his own against those otherworldly beings.

  He was calling to her, inviting her. Not to kill, or to harm. But to show her something. To share something with her that she had never seen before. That she could never see otherwise. All she had to do was step forward, into his world, wherever that might be.

  And see.

  Her heart leaped. With guilt as well as joy. The guilt was because she was so tempted. To see. To do the one thing her husband could not do. The joy was for the same reason: to see because she could; Adri had nothing to do with it. She was her own person; her life was hers to rule. She had given him her entire existence, bound her eyes to darkness out of loyalty, accepted his every choice, concurred with his every decision, obeyed his every word. Surely she had earned the right to do this: to explore the wonders of an alien world even if only for a short while. To see things that no mortal being had seen. A place where no mortal had gone before.

  It was only seeing. And yet, it was seeing. It was both the worst betrayal of all, and no betrayal at all.

  She made her decision.

  She stepped forward. One step, then another, then another . . .

  Suddenly, the cool stone of the verandah floor vanished and her bare foot stepped onto powder-soft sand.

  She gasped and took an involuntary step back—and her foot came down on the cool verandah floor again.

  She collected herself quickly and stepped forward again, onto sand, and stood that way for a moment, between worlds, between lives, between stone and sand.

  She started to look back, turning her head to the right instinctively, to look at the bed, seeking one last glimpse of her sleeping husband—

  But stopped herself.

  No more, Geldry. This is your life, your choice. He has nothing to do with it.

  The words came from within, her own mind. The tall, dark figure before her was silent, waiting expectantly. She gritted her teeth and stepped forward.

  She walked on powder-soft sand, felt the kiss of a strangely pleasant desert wind, smelled odors she had never smelled before, under a sky with three moons and a deeply crimson hue.

  She walked toward a tall stranger clothed in dark robes waiting for her. He smiled, his eyes glinting like rubies in the darkness. She felt his power even from a distance, the sheer strength of his aura, his presence.

  “Come, Geldry, let me show you what you have been missing all your life, what you have been seeking.”

  “Yes,” she said, and walked toward him.

  Karni

  Karni stared at the goddess.

  Not an effigy of the goddess. Not a stone carving. Not a statue. Not an image or reflection.

  The goddess herself.

  Goddess Jeel stood in the alcove before her.

  She glowed so brightly that Karni could barely stand to look directly at her. The brilliance forced her to avert her eyes downward and look upon the godde
ss only peripherally, but it was sufficient: she could see the beauty of Goddess Jeel, her flawless perfection, her features like water, rippling and shimmering, diamond-sharp, crystal-bright. She shimmered and shone like a liquid sun, like the moon risen from Arthaloka, like a celestial body carved out of pure energy.

  There were no words to truly describe her: these were only weak approximations of her greatness. Anything Karni thought or said in an attempt to describe her power would be but a feeble effort, stick figures drawn to represent an image of impossible complexity. There were dimensions and shades and levels of detail to the deity’s persona that Karni’s mind could not wrap itself around. She could barely stand to glance at the goddess obliquely, through her upraised eyes, so fierce was her aura, her power, her energy; it compared to the one previous divine sighting Karni had experienced in her life—but unlike Sharra, whose effulgence was blindingly, dazzlingly bright, like the sun at noonday, Jeel Ma’s aura was cooling, soothing, and calming as the waters of the Jeel River itself.

  The difficulty that came in viewing her was not due to the intensity of the light alone, but due to the fact that Karni knew she was looking at a god, at a divine supernatural presence, and as such, the goddess was not made of mere flesh, blood, bone, and skin. She shimmered like a glacier in the highest peaks of the Coldheart Mountains, an ice sculpture with impossible definition, and layers of detail that could not be fully appreciated by human eyes.

  Karni . . . said the goddess.

  Her given name drifted like a cool mist to Karni’s ear, dissipating till it seemed like a memory rather than a spoken word.

  You are in grave danger.

  Karni kept her head lowered, her eyes cast downward, but her heart quickened.

  There is a force of evil in Hastinaga that seeks to destroy you and everything you hold dear.

  Karni’s pulse fluttered. She wanted to exclaim, to react, to ask questions. But she knew better. If the goddess willed it, Karni would ask her questions later, but for now, she understood that she was meant to listen quietly and pay heed. This was a sacred moment, a blessed opportunity. That was why the shrine was deserted, why she was alone. She had come for darshan, and she was literally being given a darshan of the goddess.