Upon a Burning Throne

by Ashok K. Banker

  It made Adri uncomfortable in the extreme. At times, he wanted to simply walk away from her when she was in such a mood. He couldn’t endure such violent outbursts. As it was, by virtue of being deprived of sight, his other senses were extremely sensitive, and Geldry’s emotional explosions were like an assault on his senses, reducing him to a quivering bundle of nerves whenever they erupted. It often took him days to recover from one of her outbursts.

  So it was with no guilt, no remorse, no shame that he sought now to withdraw himself from her presence, if only for a while. He would see about the future later; the present was still so placid, so beautiful, he wanted to savor the afterglow of his night with Sauvali for as long as possible.

  He was almost at the doorway when he heard a soft voice call his name.

  “Adri.”

  The voice was so soft, so unlike Geldry, that he thought that someone else had called him, someone from outside the chamber. It could not be Geldry. But it was.

  “Adri . . . are you there?”

  He stood still for a moment, weighing his options. Perhaps he could simply walk out, pretend he had not heard. Perhaps she had not actually seen him, had only heard the sound of his feet shuffling. He could walk out, go to his akasa chamber, enjoy the few hours left in the night in solitude, then when the sun rose, feel its warm embrace, bask in its warmth, relive the pleasures of the night over and over. He felt that if he did this, if he withdrew into himself and spent some time alone, he would drift naturally to a place wherefrom he could make sense of his entire existence, see the way ahead more clearly, have a better command of the future and what he wanted to do with his life. He felt more certain of this than he had ever felt about anything before.

  “Adri . . . ?”

  He sighed, turned, walked slowly back into the room.

  Later, in the days, weeks, months, and years to come . . . the decades even . . . he would always remember this moment. This turning point in his life. The one time he was walking away from what was toward what could be. The moment when he was poised on the cusp of the past and the future. When he felt as if he had some control of his own existence. When he could change things by changing himself. When he felt himself changing from within, and all he had to do was go along with it. Let it ripen and grow naturally, simply nurturing the change and letting what would be be.

  The moment when he could have changed who he was and become who he really wanted to be.

  And instead, he had stayed back with Geldry.

  “I’m here,” he said quietly.

  He stood there, closer to the doorway than to the bed, waiting.

  “Come to me,” she said.

  He shuffled forward, finding his way back to the bed, then stood beside it.

  “Sit,” she said.

  He sat.

  “Give me your hand,” she said.

  He gave her his hand.

  “Adri, what happened tonight was wonderful. It was so beautiful and incredible, I don’t have words to describe it.”

  At first he could not understand what she was talking about. He thought she was speaking of something that had happened earlier, before they had gone to bed. It made no sense at all, because he could barely remember anything before waking up in bed beside Sauvali. It was as if, for him, a curtain had divided his life: Before Sauvali and After Sauvali, a life in two acts.

  “When you made love to me, it was like nothing else I’ve felt before.”

  A strange sensation began to chill his spine. He felt his hands grow cold, the blood fleeing them to return to his heart.

  “Your passion, your strength, your virility . . . You were the man I always knew you were, the man I wanted you to be. My man. My Adri.”

  He wanted to pull his hand away, to rush from the room, to scream, to cry out, to rage. Instead, he sat there, letting her hold his hand, listening to her voice in the night-shrouded bedchamber.

  “And your virility was so masculine, so intense, I am certain that tonight, your seed flowered in my womb. I am sure that you impregnated me tonight, Adri. I can feel your child inside me. I am going to be the mother of your offspring. I am so certain of it, I cannot describe it in words. It is like a living thing already, alive and aware inside me, growing and flourishing. That is what I wanted you to know, Adri. That your seed has taken root inside my womb. Soon, I will bear you an heir. Many heirs. And together we will rule the empire.”

  He listened without saying a word. There were no words to describe what he was feeling just then. Even the most honey-tongued court bards could not compose a poem that would express the emotions roiling inside of him in that moment.

  He sat and listened as she talked and talked. Until she tired of talking. Until she fell asleep at last, breathing calmly, contentedly, leaving him the extreme opposite of calm and content.

  Karni

  Karni saw the light at the crossroads and thought it was the sun. It was bright as the dawn, honey golden in hue, and it suffused the entire street, lighting up the entire neighborhood and that part of the city. But as it came closer, she saw it surely was something else, for it was moving along the street. She saw the mob around her stop, reacting to the light, and then, as if with a single hive mind, every one of them turned to face it. This was no more eerie than anything else about their strange behavior until now, but there was something different about it. A sound rose from their open slack mouths. A sound like a groan or a sigh. An inhuman, incomprehensible sound that was like no word in any human language that she knew. But its meaning was clear. The mob was angry—and scared.

  The light continued down the street, coming toward her. Now she could see it a little more clearly. She raised one tired arm, the sword still held in her fist, dripping blood, to shield her eyes from the full glare of the light, and by doing this, she was able to make out the source. It looked like . . . a boy! A human boy, a mere child, walking down the street. Aside from his glow, he looked perfectly ordinary, unlike any of the crazed mob who had been attacking Karni and Adran these past hours. Except for the radiance—that bright, golden sunlight—emanating from every part of his body.

  Not perfectly ordinary, however, were his companions. Behind him came a group of animals—dogs. A crowd of ragtag canines of all sizes, colors, ages, breeds.

  The dogs followed the boy who glowed like sunlight, filling the street with their numbers; there were hundreds of them, perhaps a thousand or more. Many of the dogs at the rear of the pack were limping, some visibly struggling to walk, others collapsing and lying down on the street, unable to take another step, but still trying to crawl bravely, pulling themselves forward inch by inch, as if they were determined to be loyal to their little human master to the very end. Karni sensed that there had been more dogs, that many had been hurt or killed and had fallen along the way, and these were now all that remained.

  It was one of the strangest sights she had ever seen—a boy who shone like sunshine walking down a city street with a thousand dogs following loyally at his heel. But then stranger yet, the mob, as one, began shambling toward the boy.

  Slowly, by degrees, they picked up speed, eventually breaking into a loping run, their limbs still flailing, their mouths open, heads jerking in every direction, bodies spasming. The sound from their throats grew louder, too, becoming an angry growl.

  She was startled when the dogs began to shout.

  “Protect! Protect!”

  She gasped and covered her mouth. She had seen it with her own eyes and heard it with her own ears, but she couldn’t believe it. Dogs shouting! While humans growled incoherently.

  She turned to Adran. He was staring at the street with a peculiar expression on his face—not the surprise or shock that she knew must be visible on her own face.

  It was pride.

  “Kern . . .” he said softly.

  The word pierced her heart.

  “Protect! Protect!” the dogs called out again, and she saw them swarm forward, tails raised and stiff, eyes shining and alert, muzz
les parted to reveal their fangs. Many of them were bloody from earlier fights, and she realized that the boy and his pack must have fought their way across the city to reach this place.

  Karni thought, then, of Jeel Ma’s words: If he were my son, I would not think twice, but he is not my son . . .

  Just as it seemed the mob and the pack of dogs would meet in a bloodbath, the boy stopped in the middle of the street. The maniacs were charging toward him, murder in their eyes, while he was unarmed and defenseless; yet still he stood there calmly, gazing at them without fear.

  That is what it means to be a god or a demigod, Jeel Ma had said. All this power, and yet when the time comes, we must use it in service of our devotees; otherwise, what use are we as gods?

  “Kern,” said Adran proudly. “My son.”

  The dogs began surging forward, snapping their jaws, waving their tails, ready to attack the oncoming mob, to fight tooth and claw, to lay down their lives to protect their beloved leader. But the boy raised his arms, and they suddenly went still. He raised his head, and they fell back, retreating behind him.

  Karni saw the dogs slink down till their bellies touched the street, lowering their heads till their muzzles touched their forepaws. They lay flat on the street, like dogs who had been commanded by their master. Their tails went down, their jaws closed, and they obediently waited and stared at the oncoming mob.

  The maniacs roared with fury, running full tilt now at the boy. From Karni’s point of view, it was like watching a tidal wave about to wash over a tiny snail. In another moment or two, they would reach him and surely engulf him with their fury, tearing him apart with their hands and teeth, ripping his little body to shreds, devouring him.

  The boy spoke a single word.

  “Enough!”

  The word echoed like the voice of thunder, booming not only through the street, but throughout the city, the entire valley, resonating off the Krushan hills yojanas away. It reverberated in Karni’s chest, striking the center of her pain, her guilt, her shame. It brought a smile across Adran’s face. It made the woman standing far behind the pack of dogs and watching gasp with awe and grin with amazement. It made every single person in that great metropolis stop whatever they were doing and look in the direction from where the sound had come.

  More powerful than the word and the voice was the light from the boy. Now it was bursting forth in an unrestrained explosion brighter than the flare of the brightest sunlight on the hottest summer day.

  It blazed forth from the boy’s every pore like the purest power itself, the power that created and destroyed universes, that made and rebuilt worlds, that ended and began creation. Like the flames of the sun. The destructive power of an exploding star. The brilliance of a solar flare.

  For an instant, all Hastinaga was as bright as day.

  Karni and Adran and the woman trailing behind the dogs were all forced to shut their eyes to protect themselves from the glare. Even the dogs lying in the street shut their eyes.

  Only the ones afflicted by the devil’s poison dared to stare, transfixed, gazing at the boy exploding with radiance like a sun in fury. They stared and felt the pure, intrusive energy of the light filling the cells of their bodies, purging them of the poison that they had been infected with, cleansing them.

  Then the light faded—

  And the boy returned to being a boy again.

  The dogs rose to their feet, wagged their tails once, and became mere dogs again.

  And the infected blinked and became human once more.

  And with an explosion of emotion in her breast, Karni learned for the first time in years that the child she had placed in a basket and put into the loving arms of Goddess Jeel was still alive. Still alive and right here, in the very city where she herself lived.

  Vessa

  Vessa materialized in the forest. He arrived striding with his usual long-limbed pace, not slowing an instant. A pair of foxes feeding on a rabbit they had hunted down were startled by his appearance and fled barking, but otherwise the jungle absorbed his presence without a flutter. He was as much a part of the jungle as the foxes, the rabbit, the trees, and the insects. In a sense, he was the forest.

  He was also angry. His tall, lean body shook with rage. It took him several miles of brisk walking before he was able to calm himself.

  He’d failed. He’d been unable to apprehend the Reygistani when he chased him through the portal on the verandah of Jilana’s bedchamber. It had led him on a journey through time and space, taking him to other dimensions, strange alien worlds, to the future and back again. It had taken him decades before he finally realized he was being led on a wild, aimless chase. Jarsun had anticipated that Jilana would summon her son and that Vessa would then come after him, and thus he had laid down false trails for this very purpose—created not just one or two, but an infinite number of false trails, all in the hopes of keeping Vessa infinitely occupied with his pursuit. Vessa could have spent eons chasing after Jarsun without ever finding him. But he could not afford to spend an eon hunting the Reygistani—there was mischief abroad here on Arthaloka, in this age and time, and if good would prevail, he would need to be present to prevent further damage.

  Vessa was not easily tricked, and he had come within finger’s breadth of apprehending Jarsun, but still the Reygistani had eluded him somehow. It did not matter how. What mattered was that the Reygistani had outwitted him by anticipating his actions, and Vessa must not allow that to happen again.

  The next time he went after the devil, he must find a way to get the upper hand. He would meditate on it. All solutions presented themselves through meditation.

  He started toward his hermitage. Before he could reach it, he felt a ripple in the wind. The grass shirred. The leaves rustled. The insects chittered. The animals called out. The jungle was telling him something, passing on a message.

  He listened.

  It was not good news.

  Mayla

  Mayla came to Karni’s chambers, trembling and on the verge of tears. She forced herself to breathe deeply and regain control of herself before entering. The sentry at the door tried hard to remain stoic and stare ahead as always, but he could see her distress and could not help but be moved.

  “Princess . . .” he began, sounding concerned.

  She raised a hand, cutting him off.

  She shook her head once, firmly. She was not willing to bandy words with a sentry right now. With anyone.

  He shut his mouth and returned to attention.

  She breathed in again, counting to ten slowly, then released the breath. She repeated this twice more, slower each time, until she felt her pulse steady. She was a warrior. A warrior had to remain calm and in control at all times. It could make the difference between life and death: not just one’s own life, but the lives of one’s fighting comrades as well. She was a warrior; she knew how to regain control.

  Her breathing calm now, her face composed, she shot a glance at the sentry. He looked straight ahead, avoiding her, but his lip trembled slightly. Her temper was notorious, as was the strength of her arm. She nodded and passed him by, entering her sister queen’s bedchamber.

  Karni was standing by the verandah, staring at the risen sun. The morning was hours old, and the city was slowly limping back to normal. Mayla had seen the aftereffects of the rioting and destruction that had taken place the night before as she rode into the city. It must have been quite a night. But it was what had happened to her and Shvate that she was here to talk about.

  “Karni,” she said, softly but clearly.

  Karni did not respond at once. She remained standing as she was, staring out at the late morning sky. She looked as if she had been crying, though her eyes were now dry, her face clean—as if she had wept and then freshened her appearance. She was bathed and dressed in clean clothes, as beautiful and regal as always. Whatever was troubling her, she remained the image of queenly perfection. That was one of the many qualities Mayla admired about Karni.

 
; Mayla herself had been raised as a fighter, by brothers and father and uncles, all of whom had been fighters as well. To her, keeping her sword spotless, sharp-edged, and shining was more important than what she wore or how she looked. Besides, she had never had a problem turning men’s heads, even when she was at her most scruffy or soiled with the dust of the field. Shvate had even commented more than once that he preferred her that way; it made her more desirable than if she were all dolled up and prettified.

  But that didn’t stop Mayla admiring women like Karni, who were beautiful in that exquisitely feminine way, immaculate in their appearance, their toilet, and their accoutrement. They reminded her of her mother, whom she had lost much too soon, when Mayla herself was barely eight years old. Her mother had died fighting of course, like almost all the women of their clan died, but she had been one of those rare women who could walk both roads: the one of feminine beauty as well as the one of warrior queen. Mayla had heard that Karni had fought for her life last night, and fought as bravely as any warrior in the field. She had no doubt about it: Karni was the complete woman, beautiful wife and warrior queen. She was the sister that Mayla had always desired, the mother she had lost too soon.

  “Sister,” she said now, still keeping her distance till Karni responded. Finally Karni seemed to realize someone else was in the room and turned her head slightly. “Mayla.”