Upon a Burning Throne

by Ashok K. Banker

  A wet nurse who came from the palace told a bizarre story about the princess striking her own belly in a misguided attempt to end her abnormally long gestation, and of the freakish thing that was then ejected from her womb.

  “It was . . . not human,” she said, before leaving the city for good, taking her belongings and her family with her. Her face was still aghast with the memory of the horror she had seen. She did not wish to remain in a city where such supernatural things occurred in the ruling family’s house. She was never seen or heard from again.

  People heard strange cries and shouts of terror from inside the palace. Strange lights were seen to glow and shine in windows usually darkened at night. They glanced up fearfully as they hurried past. Even the palace staff and sentries were on edge, nervously awaiting the ends of their shifts, praying that they would survive these last few hours.

  Inside the palace, on the highest level of the main building where the great hall was located, there was unusual activity. Those who saw all the guards and maids in that wing were puzzled: sabha sessions were never held at night except in times of war, and no ministers or other Senate staff had been seen arriving.

  Yet all the great hall doors were shut and heavily guarded, the sentries refusing to answer any questions and warning anyone who approached to move on. From inside the great hall, and from its many windows, unexpected sounds were heard by those passing by. Some sounded like the cries of wild animals, but nobody could identify which animal. Other sounds were unrecognizable, but sent chills down the spines of any who heard, encouraging them to stay away. Strange lights and flares as if from explosions were seen at the windows, bright glowing lights of different colors all through the night, some visible from miles away.

  Outside the enormous doors of the great hall, the sentries exchanged nervous glances and gripped their spears tighter. Their anxiety was caused not by the fear of anyone attempting to break in but by the thought that whatever was inside might try to break out.

  2

  Inside the vast Senate chamber, the great seer-mage Vessa stood on the throne dais. The dais was empty, as was the dreaded Burning Throne and the rest of Senate Hall. Instead of the usual gathering of ministers, aristocrats, nobles, members of the High Houses, and general public, there were dozens of rows of large earthen pots, set a yard or so apart. What lay inside these pots was obscured by the thick greenish mist seeping out, spilling over the rims of the pots. The floor of the Senate was covered with a thick layer of this greenish mist. The mist continued to thicken and rise, covering the entire floor and climbing the walls and pillars of the hall, rising to the ceiling, and finally collecting there in dense clouds.

  Within the pots, strange lights flickered and glowed. From time to time, little bolts of lightning flashed inside them, resembling lightning in monsoon clouds, but instead of flashing white, these jags of energy were greenish and reddish in hue. The lightning shot upward, bursting out of the pots and striking the ceiling. These produced the blinding flashes of light and thundering explosions that unnerved people outside the palace and the sentries outside the door.

  Vessa stood on the throne dais and held up his wildwood staff, chanting mantras that even the most learned priests would have been unable to identify. They were the Forbidden Mantras, known only to the most powerful seer-mages of the Burnt Empire, handed down directly from guru to acolyte, and only given by the greatest to the greatest.

  One had only to watch the seer for a few moments to see that he was causing whatever it was that was happening in the great hall. He had commandeered it earlier that night as it was the only chamber large enough to suit his purposes, the only location secure enough. He had instructed the palace staff to bring 101 pots of a certain size and thickness and place them in a certain pattern in the hall, then leave. When all was in readiness, he had entered the hall carrying a single large object roughly the size and shape of a large watermelon wrapped in a black cloth. The doors had swung behind him before the sentries could touch them, slamming shut with a resounding boom. Since then, no one had seen him or entered the great hall, as were his instructions.

  Once inside the hall, Vessa had unwrapped the black cloth to reveal a grotesque lump of flesh that resembled nothing in the human or animal world. Its uneven surface was mottled, reddish in hue, and lined with veins that throbbed and pulsed. There was no doubt that it was a living thing, but what it was, even Vessa could not have said. There was no name for such a thing in any lexicon.

  He had uttered a mantra and released his grip on the lump of flesh: at once it rose from his hands, hanging suspended in the center of the chamber. As he continued to chant the Forbidden Mantras, thunder boomed and lightning flashed from the ceiling and mist began to ooze from the levitating lump, bleeding from its surface and seeping down to the floor. Vessa reached a peak in his chanting and raised his staff to touch the monstrosity. Lightning crackled and a flare of light exploded at the point of contact. The resulting boom was deafening, booming like a stormcloud over Hastinaga itself: it was heard all across the city, people looking up from their beds to wonder what new calamity had befallen the City of Elephants and Snakes.

  Mist boiled and hissed in the great hall.

  The lump of flesh could be seen to have separated into 101 smaller lumps. Each of these lumps floated over one of the 101 earthen pots in the chamber. Slowly, as Vessa continued chanting and lowered his raised staff, the lumps of flesh descended into the empty vessels. They settled at the base of each pot, and at once began to hiss and boil, seething and moving. They now resembled sacs of flesh within which something moved, kicked, fought, clawed, and struggled to escape its cage of flesh. Each of the lumps screamed, shrieked, cried out, and made its struggle audible to everyone within hearing.

  The more each lump fought and screamed, the greater the mist and steam exuded from the pots. The clouds of mist continued to pour out of the pots, filling the chamber, producing dense clouds that then darkened and flashed with lightning. Thunder and rain followed, a treacly greenish-black downpour that did not resemble natural earthly rain in the slightest. Some of the rain fell on the floor of the great hall, flooding it rapidly, but most of it fell into the large pots, filling them to the brim.

  Lightning flashed, shooting in all directions, and the storm increased in intensity as Vessa hastened the rhythm of his chanting. He had to raise his voice too, to make himself heard over the sounds of the downpour, the thunder, the explosions, and the screams and shrieks from the vessels. He was shouting now, his powerful voice booming, the acoustics of the great hall carrying it perfectly to all corners. The Senate mascots had been evicted earlier by the palace staff who brought in the pots, and until now they had stayed outside, mewling and whining to be let into their daily abode. Now, hearing the unnatural sounds and smelling the strange noxious fumes issuing from under the cracks in the great doors, they bolted, barking and screeching in terror. They never returned again, forsaking their home for other safer residences still unpolluted by the presence of such evil doings.

  The interior of the great hall now resembled a storm-riddled field at night. The pillars were shrouded in mist, the ceiling, walls, and floor obscured by mist and clouds. Steam hissed and shot out of the pots, interspersed with gouts of fire, bubbling lava that boiled out and spilled over the edges of several of the pots. Others produced disgusting swampy green exudations like the vilest vomit. All manner of foulness bubbled out from the pots, spilling over onto the floor of the hall, turning it into a dense swamp. The stench was unbearable, the air unbreathable, the sounds and light impossible to view without being blinded and disoriented.

  Vessa stood unaffected by it all, chanting his mantras for hours on end without a pause. He had mastered the art of perfect breath control, able to breathe in, chant, and breathe out, all without pausing for rest even once in hours, days, weeks, months, years . . . even decades and centuries, some believed.

  Tonight, it was not his stamina that was being tested. It was his mastery o
f stonefire . . . but the Forbidden Mantras enabled him to do what needed to be done.

  All night he continued to incubate the offspring of Geldry in this manner. All night the city tossed and turned in restless unease, wondering what strange sorcery was being worked in the House of the Krushan. All night the pots seethed and bubbled over like cauldrons of vile broth.

  Finally, as day was breaking, the sentries heard an unexpected sound from inside the great hall.

  Silence.

  3

  As the sentries waited in tense anticipation, the giant doors of the great hall swung open slowly of their own accord. No hand had touched them, no one stood anywhere in sight, yet the thirty-foot-high doors swung all the way open and remained that way. Vile-smelling green mist seeped out, causing the sentries to stir uncomfortably. They glanced at each other, then turned to look into the chamber with much trepidation. At first they could see nothing except the swirling mist that seemed to choke the entire room from floor to ceiling. The ceiling was still seething with clouds that boiled angrily and spat out occasional flickers of lightning. Disgusting green slime spilled out and oozed across the floor, bubbling and popping with heat.

  The sentries stepped back before the slime could touch their feet, and as they glanced down for a moment, the towering, gaunt figure of Seer-Mage Vessa appeared before them, even though an instant ago he had not been visible walking toward them.

  “Summon my mother, Dowager Empress Jilana,” he said.

  The sentries scurried away to do as he bade.

  Jilana

  Before long, Jilana arrived with Vrath in tow.

  Adri followed shortly after, taking the help of Vida to descend the lavish palace stairway, having lost much of his confidence and self-esteem since the Battle of Riverdell and the abduction of his beloved Sauvali. Before that sad day, he had navigated the corridors and stairways of the vast pal‑ace complex as well as any sighted person. Now he rarely went anywhere, even partaking of his meals in chamber, and when he did emerge, look‑ing haggard and weary, he needed the help of a servant or guard to go anywhere.

  “Geldry is still abed,” Jilana said to Vessa as she approached him. “She is still in considerable pain. The healers say they cannot find anything physically wrong with her. I beg you to look in on her and hasten her recovery.”

  “When I am done here,” her son said shortly. He did not seem to have much sympathy for Geldry. His lined face was even more deeply etched than usual, and strands of white had appeared in his long, wild black hair overnight.

  “This night has taken a toll on you.” Jilana reached out to touch one of the errant white hairs.

  Vessa did not reply. Instead, he turned and strode back into the great hall.

  Jilana took a step forward, then paused, unsure whether to follow him or wait there. He moved so quickly . . .

  A moment later, Vessa returned, carrying something in the crook of his arm.

  He handed the object to Jilana, who gasped and took it with great caution, holding it in the cradle of her arms.

  “Behold your great-grandson and future heir to the Krushan line.” Vessa stepped back and gestured with his wildwood staff. “The eldest of the one hundred and one children of Adri and Geldry.”

  Jilana stared down at the robust baby in her arms, as heavy and healthy of limb as a six-month-old rather than a newborn, fists and legs kicking and striking out fiercely. His face was mottled with blood, eyes shut tightly, and nostrils flared as if with anger. He was covered in green slime, and a last few tiny wisps of mist or smoke issued from his ears, nostrils, mouth, and eyes even now.

  “Are they all like this?” she asked. She meant the state of the child, slime-covered and overdeveloped, unlike any newborn she had ever seen before in her life.

  Vessa’s eyes met hers, then passed on to Vrath’s steadfast grey-eyed gaze. “All except one,” said the sage. “She is a beautiful young girl. I have named her Princess Duhshala.”

  “Duhshala . . .” Jilana repeated. “Beautiful name. What do you call this one, the eldest?”

  Vessa looked down at the babe in Jilana’s arms. “I name him Dhuryo.”

  “A fine, strong name, fit for a king,” she said approvingly. “If you have chosen such a name, I do not doubt that he shall grow up to be a ‘great warrior’ in deed as well.”

  Vessa’s eyes met those of Vrath. “That he most certainly shall. Whether he approves of his given name, only time will tell.”

  Before she could ask what he meant by that remark, he turned back and pointed with his staff at the interior of the great hall. “In order of their birth, I name them: Dhuryo, Dushas . . .” He recited each of the 101 names.

  Priests were summoned and the names recorded for posterity. A hundred and one wet nurses were called to duty and set about the task of bathing and nursing the Krushan children. In due course, they would be anointed and named according to all traditional rituals. From the very first, the wet nurses and attendants all reported numerous mishaps with the newborns: kicking, biting, grabbing, punching. The healthy, exceedingly strong babes appeared to have been born with a grudge toward the world and everyone they encountered. Accustomed to dealing with stubborn babes and aggressive, entitled ones, the wet nurses were nonetheless taken aback at their propensity for violence and the sheer intensity of their aggression. Over time, it became easier to think of them as a single group rather than individual children, and because they were all children of Krushan, they came to be referred to as Krushan.

  Karni

  In the tiny hut in the hermitage in the middle of the great forest for which Hastinaga was named, Karni, Shvate, and Mayla gazed down in pride at the newborn babe. Shvate was happier than he had been in a long time, his pale face glowing with new energy and joy. “Our firstborn son,” he said proudly, clasping Karni tightly with one arm, while keeping the other arm around Mayla. They were one family.

  Karni kept her eyes averted from his, focusing them on the babe. She felt Mayla’s eyes on her. Mayla’s fascination with the God Mantra and the mechanics of calling up gods and having them father children on oneself was too intense for Karni. She had successfully managed to avoid all Mayla’s probing questions, but she knew that her sister wife suspected something. Karni was sorely tempted to confess to her, but she knew she could not. To admit that she had used the mantra once before, as a young girl, and given birth to a child of the god Sharra would lead inevitably to the admission that that child now lived in Hastinaga itself, as the adopted son of charioteer Adran and his wife, Reeda. Due to the complexity of personal Krushan and inheritance laws dating back to the earliest matriarchal origins of the Krushan tribe, that meant her true firstborn was that boy, Kern. And Kern was therefore the eldest heir to the Krushan line and the rightful claimant to the Burning Throne.

  On the one hand, she thought that perhaps this news might gratify Shvate. After all, he had himself pressured her to use the Mantra of Summoning to birth an heir, since he was prohibited by the rishi Kundaka’s curse. On the other hand, she reminded herself sternly, that birth had occurred when she was still a kanya, an unmarried girl. She had not even met Shvate then. By law, Kern would still be accepted as Shvate’s son, but what if Shvate himself rejected Kern? That would complicate the matter considerably.

  Karni had a precedent for this case. Mother Jilana had herself done something very similar, lying with a sage while still an unmarried young girl and birthing a son, Vessa. That same Vessa was then accepted as a legitimate son, and went on to father surrogate sons on the princesses Umber and Ember, one of whom was Shvate himself. So it could be argued that Shvate was the son of such a surrogate born out of wedlock. But this was all legal wrangling and nitpicking. None of this would matter in the least if Shvate himself were to reject the argument and refuse to accept Kern as his son. Whatever his grounds, if he did so, then Karni would be in a mess. Instead of helping salvage the situation, she would worsen it. In his emotionally imbalanced state, she couldn’t predict how Shvate
might take the news.

  And now, with this beautiful baby boy, she felt the point was irrelevant. She had birthed a son by using the God Mantra. Shima had been true to his word, as gods were expected to be, and had fathered a perfect child.

  “A son with all the qualities of an emperor. Righteous, fearless, powerful, indomitable, a master of weapons and warcraft, a leader of armies and people, a master of strategy, a wise soul, a perfect, ideal man.” Shvate beamed at her as he finished the recitation. “You have done us all proud, Karni of Stonecastle. You have given birth to a great emperor of Hastinaga. Shima is the god of both duty and death—and so our son too shall be as righteous as Shima and as dangerous as Death.”

  Karni looked up at her husband’s shining face. “I’m sure he shall be, one day. But at present he appears to possess neither of those qualities, and quite definitely possesses a third, totally different quality altogether.”

  Shvate frowned. “What is that?”

  “Fearlessness!” Mayla said.

  Karni shook her head.

  “Power?” Shvate asked.

  Karni smiled and shook her head once more.

  “Indomitability? A master of strategy? Of warcraft? Weaponry? A wise soul? A perfect, ideal man?” Mayla rattled off in a rush, eyes shining.

  Karni shook her head a final time, then gestured to the kicking babe. “Hunger.”

  As if in agreement with her assessment, the little one began to wail plaintively but timidly, as if too polite to make a real ruckus. Both Shvate and Mayla looked at him, then at Karni, then suddenly burst out laughing. The little tyke stopped crying at once and stared at them in surprise, still for a moment.

  Karni laughed as well. “He is a baby now,” she said. “In time he will be all of those great things and more, but right now, he needs what any baby needs, mother’s milk.”