Upon a Burning Throne

by Ashok K. Banker

  Mayla came forward, taking Karni’s hand. She saw the cuts and bruises on the hand and the arm attached to it, and handled it tenderly. “My sister, I am so sorry for what you had to go through last night. I am glad you are well and that you survived the dark challenge of those terrible hours.”

  Karni did not meet her eyes. “Thank you.”

  Mayla searched her mind for a way to soften what she had to say next, but she could not find any. “I must tell you something.”

  Karni glanced at her now. “Must you?” She sighed. “Can it wait?”

  Mayla swallowed, feeling terrible for pressing Karni at such a time. She was obviously exhausted. “Forgive me, but I must. It cannot wait.”

  Karni was silent, sat on a divan without saying anything further. Mayla took it as an invitation to sit beside her and speak. She sat next to Karni, still searching for the right words. Finally she decided that the only way to say it was to say it plainly and quickly.

  “Last night something happened to Shvate and me in the forest.”

  Karni looked at Mayla squarely for the first time, genuine concern in her eyes. “Is Shvate well? Are you all right?”

  “We are fine. Well. Physically unharmed. But what happened in the forest . . . it has changed things.”

  Karni looked puzzled.

  “Changed things? What things?”

  “Everything.”

  Karni stared at her. “I don’t understand.”

  Mayla nodded. “I’m no good at explaining, you know that. I’m no storyteller, but I have to tell you a story now, and you have to listen very carefully. It’s very, very important, perhaps the most important thing that has ever happened in our lives until now.”

  A strange look came over Karni’s face. “The most important thing in our lives until now . . .”

  “Yes. You have to believe me, Karni. I will tell you exactly what happened, and you must prepare yourself. Our lives are about to change completely from this day onward, but there was nothing we could have done to prevent it. We had no idea this was going to happen. If we had known . . .”

  Karni stared at her. “You’re speaking of Shvate and yourself?”

  “Yes, yes, about what happened last night in the forest.”

  Karni nodded slowly. “Tell me what happened.”

  “I don’t have your gift with words. If I’d spent more time with scrolls than with swords growing up . . .”

  Karni shook her head slowly, frowning. “Never mind. Just tell me as best as you can. Start at the beginning and go through to the end. I’m listening.”

  Mayla nodded, relieved. This sounded more like the Karni she knew, the Karni she needed right now. “Thank you, sister. I’m so very fortunate to have you as my sister queen. You have been such a treasure in my life since I came to Hastinaga. I don’t know how I ever managed without you. Your wisdom, your grace, your elegance—”

  “Mayla,” Karni said gently but firmly, “Stop rambling and tell me what happened in the forest.”

  Mayla nodded, breathing again, regaining control. “We had been hunting all day as we always do. We had a good hunt, a very good hunt. More carcasses than we could carry back in the chariot. More than enough for a full feast. We should have left it at that. My grandfather always used to say it’s bad luck to hunt more than you can eat before the meat spoils. But Shvate and I were drinking all evening after the hunt and then we made love and then we drank and ate some more. Round about the time that you would have told us both to shut our gobs and go to bed, we got it into our heads that we should hunt more still.”

  “At night, after feasting and drinking all evening?”

  “Yes, yes, it was stupid, I know. We both knew it even then. But we couldn’t help it. It was as if the forest was different somehow. I thought it was because we had been drinking. But after we came back to the city this morning and heard about all that had happened, I started to think that maybe it wasn’t just our imagination. I think there was something in the forest last night. An evil force. And it was hunting us.”

  Karni was gripping Mayla’s hand so tightly, Mayla could feel the bones in her knuckles creak. Karni’s lips were pursed tightly, white with pressure. “Go on.”

  “We were too drunk to hunt, but we were also too drunk to know better. Shvate had this bright notion that he could hunt by sound alone. Every hunter can, of course, but only in the right circumstances, and these were definitely not the right circumstances. He was talking about Adri and about how amazing Adri had been during that battle they fought together.”

  “The Battle of the Rebels.”

  “Yes, that one. And he was describing how Adri shot down, I don’t know, thirty, forty, fifty, a hundred enemies? All just by following the sounds they made. In the thick of battle, with chariots, horses, elephants, all around! I have to say, that does sound amazing.”

  “So Shvate began to hunt blind last night,” Karni prompted.

  “Yes. He made me bind his eyes. I couldn’t find a strip of cloth that was the right length, so I tore off a strip of my undergarment and used that. He made some cracks about how nice it smelt and the softness of the fabric and . . . Anyway, finally we were in the woods, both with our eyes bound tightly—”

  “You bound your eyes too?”

  “Yes, we were both hunting together, but Shvate was going to shoot first, because I didn’t feel right killing more animals when we already had so many carcasses.”

  Karni looked as if she was about to say something but then seemed to think better of it. “And then what happened?”

  “And then we both heard an animal moving in the bushes. We began to track it.”

  “You both heard it?”

  “Yes. But, Karni, you have to remember that we were both very, very drunk.”

  “I’ve seen you two get very, very drunk very many times before.”

  Mayla nodded and looked down for a moment, feeling her eyes tearing up now. “Yes, yes, I know what you’re going to say. We drink too much, and we don’t know when to stop. But it’s how I was raised, how I grew up. Everyone around me, my father, my uncles, my brothers, even my aunts and sisters and grandfather, they all drank heavily. We were raised to be warriors, and warriors eat and drink.”

  “Until they pass out, vomit, or fall sick,” Karni added. “Is that what makes them warriors?”

  Mayla sighed. “I suppose not. I know it’s wrong. I know we shouldn’t have done it. I know all that. I swear I’ll never drink again as long as I live. I know I’ve said that before, but I mean it this time, I really do, Karni.”

  “Don’t make the promise unless you’re willing to undergo the penance,” Karni said. “Go on, finish your story.”

  Mayla sniffed and nodded. “So we tracked this noise through the bushes, and then Shvate said he had the prey, and I was giggling and making some stupid comment about how it sounded like the prey was mating or something because we could hear this strange snuffling and some other sounds. And then, and then”—she passed a hand over her face—“and then he loosed the arrow. And it struck its mark of course—you know Shvate never misses.”

  “He never misses,” Karni agreed.

  “I heard the sound of it striking home, and I laughed out loud, and I clapped my hands, I couldn’t help myself. And I put my arms around his neck and kissed him and said he was the greatest warrior I had ever known and my grandfather would have been proud I had married such a man. And then Shvate and I went over to the prey, and when we went behind the bush, we saw, we saw—”

  Mayla stopped, unable to continue. She was hitching in her breath, tears rolling down her face now.

  “Easy, easy,” Karni said softly, putting her arm around her and bracing her. “Here, drink some juice. Calm down.” She held the cup up, but Mayla didn’t take it.

  “I have to finish,” Mayla said. “I have to tell you the whole story.”

  Karni put the cup back down. “Go on.”

  “We went around the bush, and we saw that the prey
he had hit with the arrow, what we both had thought was a stag and a deer in copulation, was actually not a stag and a deer at all. It was—” Mayla shook her head, her face twisting and distorting with pain. “Oh, Karni, it was a man and a woman, naked. They had been making love!”

  Karni looked shocked. She sat still.

  Mayla saw the look on Karni’s face—the color had drained from it, and she was simply staring at Mayla. “I know what you’re thinking. You think that we made a mistake. That we were so drunk that we mistook a man and a woman for a stag and a deer. But that wasn’t what happened, Karni. I swear it wasn’t.”

  “Then what did happen?” Karni asked.

  “It was a sage and his wife. They had the power to transform themselves into deer. They had turned into a stag and a deer, and they were copulating at the time. That was how we heard them so clearly. And Shvate’s arrow had gone through both of them, pinning them together—it was a fatal wound, because, as you know, Shvate always shoots to kill.”

  “ ‘A quick and merciful death,’ he always says,” Karni said.

  “Yes, exactly. They were dying, and there was nothing we could do to save them. The wife was already dead, the arrow had embedded itself in her heart, her eyes wide open. The sage was also pierced through the heart, but somehow he was still alive. He was staring up at us when we found him, and—Karni, oh, Karni, I don’t know how to describe it. There was this rage in his eyes, this fury. Like he wanted to turn us into ashes right there and then. Shvate and I stopped laughing the minute we saw them, and Shvate fell to his knees and started begging his forgiveness. He wanted to do something to help them, but the sage was so angry. His name was Kundaka, and he had practiced severe austerities to achieve his level of accomplishment. Now his life and spiritual efforts were all in vain. He could barely talk, and he was already half dead, but he told Shvate that he should be ashamed to interrupt even a pair of deer when they were making love, and what we had done was a sin and that he would suffer for it. And I was feeling so embarrassed because they were both naked and still joined together and the wife was dead, and I was crying, and Shvate was sobbing, and the sage was so angry, and I didn’t know what to do, or what to say . . .”

  Mayla held her head in both her hands, tears flowing freely now. She couldn’t help it, all her self-control and discipline were gone now. She could still feel the dregs of last night’s drinking in her body, and it made her feel sick. She had meant what she said to Karni earlier: she would never drink again as long as she lived. Never.

  “Mayla, is that all?” Karni asked gently. “Is that the whole story?”

  Mayla raised her face and looked at her sister queen. “No . . . no it isn’t.”

  Karni looked at her and an expression of pure dread came over her face. “The sage said something, didn’t he? Before he died?”

  Mayla nodded. “Yes,” she managed. She looked down at the floor.

  “What did he say, Mayla?” Karni asked, her voice faltering.

  Mayla sniffed, still looking down at the floor. She couldn’t look at Karni anymore. “He cursed Shvate.”

  Karni’s hand flew to her mouth.

  “He cursed both of us. All three of us, I guess. Because he said that since Shvate had killed a pair of animals while they were making love, so Shvate and his wife would suffer the same fate.”

  Karni’s hand gripped Mayla’s shoulder, squeezing it hard. “Did he say anything else?”

  “Shvate begged him—he was crying now, we were both crying—saying sorry, begging his forgiveness. Shvate said, ‘Please don’t be so harsh. Curse me, but not my wives.’ But the sage was dying, I could see the light almost faded from his eyes. He looked at Shvate and said, “Very well, since it was your hand that pulled the arrow, it will be your fate alone. You will die as I died, in the arms of your lover at the peak of your passion.” Those were his last words. His eyes closed and then he was gone.”

  Karni sucked in a breath and shook her head. She covered her own face in her hands.

  Mayla wiped her face with the back of her sleeve. “Karni, I am so sorry. We never meant for this to happen. It was the worst night of my life.”

  Karni sat with her face in her hands, not saying anything.

  “Karni, that isn’t all. I came here to tell you something else, too.”

  Karni slowly raised her face, removing her hands. Mayla saw Karni’s face and was heartbroken. Karni was not just crying, she looked as if her world had ended.

  “Karni, Shvate asked me to come and fetch you. You have to leave with us right away.”

  Karni looked at her without reaction, as if nothing Mayla could say now would shock her any further. “Where are we going?”

  “To the forest,” Mayla said. “We will live in the forest the rest of our lives. We are going into self-exile, the three of us: Shvate, you, and myself. We leave right away.”

  Adri

  Shvate stood before Adri.

  “Brother?” Adri asked. “Can we speak later? I am . . . tired.”

  Shvate heaved in a breath and heaved it out. Adri heard everything in that single breath: the pain that was cutting Shvate’s heart to shreds, the anguish, the remorse, the guilt, the shame. He heard it, and he understood it in some small part, because his world had cracked open like an egg this past night and day, and he had come to believe that anything was possible now, anything could happen. The sky could break into pieces and fall, the earth rise up and turn into clouds, the ocean turn to solid stone, and ice boil and become lava. The world had changed overnight and nothing would be the same again. Anything was possible. Even the worst possible thing.

  “Adri,” Shvate said in a broken voice, “Adri, you know I love you.”

  Adri was touched. It had been a long time since Shvate and he had been close enough to bare their hearts to one another. At one time, he had felt as if he could tell Shvate anything and everything. But ever since their respective marriages, and perhaps even before that, things had changed. Life was one long slide downhill from innocence to cynicism, and there was no way to climb back up again to the very top. But there were moments when he had felt willing to bare his soul to his brother, if only because he trusted Shvate, because he knew Shvate would understand, would care. He understood now that this was that same Shvate, in as vulnerable a state, about to bare his own soul to Adri. Adri understood this, and he listened.

  “I love you too, brother,” he said. And he meant it. “You are the eldest of us both. You were born before me.”

  “Barely,” Shvate replied. “But the elders declared us to have equal claim to the Burning Throne.”

  Adri was puzzled. He didn’t understand this part—what did this have to do with loving each other?

  “By Krushan law, and by tradition, we are both equal in the line of succession,” Shvate said.

  “Brother,” Adri said, thinking this was some kind of discussion about ambitions and wives and politics. He had had a similar discussion once with Shvate and was not prepared to have another one right now. He needed time to come to terms with the madness that had already spun his life upside down, the fact that his wife believed she was pregnant with his child, yet he knew that he could not possibly be the father. Too much had happened in one night. “Let us not talk politics now.”

  Shvate shook his head. His hand was on Adri’s shoulder, and Adri could feel him shake his head. He knew his brother’s every gesture, every mannerism. Shvate was deeply troubled. He was crying. What was the matter? Adri couldn’t comprehend what was really happening.

  “There is no more politics,” Shvate said. “Politics died today. Ambition died today. The line of succession ended today. All that remains now is penance and reparation.”

  Adri was very confused now, so much so he wondered if Shvate might be drunk. He could smell the drink on his brother’s breath, in his sweat, but it was not freshly consumed wine, it was the stale, rancid smell of wine consumed the night before. There were other odors on Shvate as well: the odors of
death, of shame, of something else that he could not identify. Something acrid and sour and very dark. It echoed the foul odors Adri had smelled the night before.

  “Adri, my brother, I am abdicating all rights to the throne of Hastinaga and to the line of succession. I hereby give up my right to inherit the throne forever, from this moment forward.”

  “Brother!” Adri exclaimed. But Shvate continued unabated.

  “You, Adri, and you alone are now king of Hastinaga, emperor of the Burnt Empire. I am leaving home today and taking my wives, Mayla and Karni, into the forest with me, to live out the rest of our lives in self-imposed exile. I want you to know that I am doing this of my own free will, under no duress or coercion, and that I willingly and gladly bequeath to you, your family, and your future heirs all that belongs to me. My wealth, my holdings, my titles, my share of the family property, my rights, and my options. Everything is yours from this moment henceforth. I do this because I love you, brother. I have already told Mother Jilana of my decision and asked her to convey my decision to Vrath as well. I have also conveyed it to the ministers, so that none can doubt the veracity or the legality of this succession.”

  Adri’s head whirled with the enormity of what had just happened. He tried to come to terms with the implications of this momentous event. “Brother . . .” he said again, trying to make sense of it as well as ask the question—why?—but Shvate concluded with the same single-minded determination with which he had done everything in his life.

  “Adri, I say it again so there is no doubt—you are now the king of Hastinaga and sole ruler of the Burnt Empire. I know you will be a great ruler. I wish you well, my brother. Rule long, live long, and rule wisely.”

  Vessa

  1

  Vessa materialized in the west courtyard.

  Dogs set to barking, horses reared and kicked, elephants trumpeted. Even the sentries on duty sensed the disturbance in the air and smelled the odor of fresh pinewood forest. A blast of wind swept the yard, carrying the chill of the high mountain reaches and a flurry of snowflakes.