Upon a Burning Throne

by Ashok K. Banker

  But as Vida had learned over the years, growing up in Hastinaga, impossible was not a concept that applied to the world he lived in. If there was one thing he was certain about, it was that anything was possible and nothing was impossible in Hastinaga. He had learned to keep an open mind and simply adapt.

  He did so now, not turning around and gawking like most people would do, or exclaiming and calling out nervously. He simply walked down the riverbank to the riverside, where he presumed he would find the prince regent. Why there? Well, because Vrath was Vrath, son of the late Sha’ant and Jeel, the goddess of the river herself. It was only natural to expect to find Jeel’s son by the Jeel itself.

  He came around a bend in the Jeel and found what he sought.

  Vrath was standing on the edge of the riverbank, talking to someone.

  The person he was speaking to was a gigantic mass of living water, shaped and sculpted by invisible forces to form the shape and aspect of Jeel Goddess. The goddess herself stood before her son, risen from the river, its water forming to sculpt itself into a living moving being. Vida could see the water rippling and flowing through the “body” of water that stood several yards taller and larger than the flesh-and-blood man on the riverbank. He marveled at the sight for a brief instant, then, as the goddess’s eyes flashed and turned toward him, Vida dropped his gaze and knelt down in respect.

  “Forgive my intrusion, Goddess Jeel, Prince Vrath, I did not mean to interrupt.”

  Jeel’s liquid form observed Vida for a moment. Even with his eyes lowered, he could feel the power of her gaze.

  It is just as well, son of Vessa, for this concerns you as well. Come, join us.

  Vida rose to his feet again, his heart pounding, and walked toward Vrath. The prince regent looked as regal and imposing as ever, his hard, handsome face and powerful body chiseled and carved with muscle and character: he appeared as solid and marbled as his mother appeared fluid, but both shared the same aura of immense, unimaginable power. Vida swallowed hard, nervous at being in the presence of such greatness. He had expected to bring his news to Vrath, speak for a few moments, and then be dismissed. He had not expected a darshan with the Mother Goddess herself.

  “Good Vida,” Vrath said with his booming, kindly voice. “I see you have brought news of Shvate.”

  Do I even need to speak it aloud? Surely he already knows everything there is to know already. What a fool I am, to think that I could learn information that a demigod and one of the greatest goddesses of the pantheon could not glean through their supernatural abilities.

  Do not underestimate yourself. You too are a son of Vessa. You have gifts of your own that shall be revealed in time.

  Vida was startled. He stared at the towering cascade of water in the shape of a woman. The water’s movements perfectly imitated the flowing windblown garments of a woman and her open hair. He could even feel the genial breeze blowing across the river, ruffling his own hair and cooling the sudden patina of sweat that had sprung up on his brow.

  Both Vrath and Jeel were looking at him expectantly.

  “My lord, my lady,” he said, hoping he had used the proper form of address. It was his first time meeting a goddess in person, after all. “I am pleased to inform you that Shvate and his wives, Karni and Mayla, have been delivered of five children.”

  The rushing, rippling water and wind rustling the leaves of the trees nearby were the only sounds for a moment. Then both Vrath and Jeel turned back toward each other. They exchanged a look that suggested they had no need of words to communicate to each other. Vida could clearly see from the way they looked at each other that they were talking somehow, but he was not privy to their conversation.

  He waited patiently.

  When several moments had passed, he began to wonder if perhaps he ought to take his leave. After all, he had come to deliver a message and that message was delivered now. He felt completely redundant.

  He was just starting to work up the nerve to take a step backward when Vrath turned toward him again.

  “Vida.”

  Vida said nothing, waiting for the prince regent to continue.

  “There is a storm coming.”

  Vida’s first instinct was to turn and look across the river, at the open sky. He could see no storm brewing there, though some of those clouds at the far western horizon were dark and brooding. But he knew that was not what Vrath meant.

  He turned back to the prince regent, nodding once. “I understand.”

  “You must go to your brother Shvate at once. Warn him.”

  “What shall I say, my lord?”

  “Tell him to expect danger. A violent assault. Perhaps even an army.”

  “An army?” Vida was alarmed. “But Shvate is alone, with just Karni and Mayla. The only people nearby are the hermits and novices of the hermitage where they live. There is no one else to help them—not for many miles. How will they face an army?”

  Jeel regarded him, turning her head for a better look. Vida saw her in his field of vision quite clearly, even the large watery eyes in her watery face, but kept his own gaze fixed on Vrath’s reassuringly human features.

  They are strong fighters. Shvate is a son of Vessa. His wives are warrior queens. They will not yield easily.

  Vrath regarded his mother. “Perhaps Vida has a point. They are only three, with limited weapons, and they have spent a great deal of time in the forest without any active combat.”

  “And they are burdened with five infant children!” Vida said, unable to help himself. “How will they fight and care for the children of Shvate?”

  Burdened, Jeel repeated, a tone of liquid amusement in her words. Burdened, he says. A silvery tinkling sound issued from her flowing mouth.

  Vida came to the hesitant conclusion that he was being laughed at by a goddess.

  “They are babies,” he said defensively.

  Vrath’s rugged features twitched in a ghost of a smile. “Babies. Yes. But they are Krushan.”

  It is not the burdensomeinfants I am concerned for, good Vida, Jeel said. It is their parents.

  Vida blinked. “Their parents? Yes, of course, I too am concerned for my brother Shvate and my sisters-in-law Karni and Mayla. They are strong fighters all, but only three. If, as you say, an army is going to assault them, they will need help.”

  Vrath and Jeel both considered him silently. Again, he had the impression that their conversation was continuing exclusive of his participation. He waited, not wanting to speak when they were speaking.

  Finally, when they had just been staring at him for several minutes without further communication, he felt compelled to express himself.

  “We must send help,” he said at last. “Elephants, chariots, cavalry, foot soldiers, materials to enable them to fortify the position and help defend Shvate, Karni, and Mayla against any attack.”

  Vrath moved slightly. “Yes, we shall send help.”

  Indeed. It is vital that the son of Vessa be protected. His survival is the key to preventing the Great War. If he lives, then that calamity can be averted.

  Vida nodded with relief, even though he had absolutely no idea what Jeel Goddess meant by a “Great War.” He did not expect her to explain it to him, nor did he ask for details. He accepted that the gods and demigods possessed knowledge of future and past and even parallel events that mere mortals could not possibly know. “With your permission, I can muster a full akshohini. Or two, if you deem it necessary.”

  Vrath looked at him silently for a long moment. “Yes, yes, an akshohini would be adequate, that is true. Two would be even better.”

  Vida nodded, relieved. “Very well, my lord. I shall use your name to command them to assemble and march for the forest at once.”

  “No.”

  Vida stared at Vrath. The prince regent’s expression had not changed. “My lord?”

  “No.” This time there was a softer tone to the single word, an inflection of . . . sadness perhaps. “There shall be no akshohinis. None of Ha
stinaga’s armies shall be mustered to go to Shvate’s aid.”

  Vida’s head reeled. “My lord!” He struggled for appropriate words. “But you yourself said that an army was going to attack my brother in the forest!”

  A very powerful and deadly army, one without honor or regard for warrior Krushan and the rules of war.

  “Yes, an army,” Vrath acknowledged.

  “Then we must send help!”

  “We shall send help,” Vrath agreed. “But no army, no troops, no soldiers, no weapons.”

  Vida stared at him. “Then how will we help my brother and his wives? How will they overcome this army?”

  Vrath and Jeel both regarded him silently for another long moment. Just when Vida was about to break the silence, they both spoke to him almost at once.

  You.

  “You, Vida. We will send you to the forest to help them.”

  Kune

  1

  Kune worked his way through the crowd as he always did, pausing to mutter a few words here, another line or three there, moving along steadily. The important thing was to keep moving always.

  Krushan politics was stagnated after decades of politics and ingrained loyalties. Everyone came to these Council meetings and headed directly for their usual group of fellow political allies, then spent the rest of their time engaged with them in conversation, sat together with them, went to lunch and meals with them, and voted and vetoed with them as well. At most, they nodded curtly to their rivals in passing, or smiled phony smiles at the more powerful enemies in other factions, other caucuses. Everyone in their own pens, like sheep, pigs, horses, chickens, buffalo, all separated neatly and fatted for the reaping. Fools!

  These deeply etched lines were a tremendous opportunity waiting to be exploited. He had seen that the very first time he had visited Hastinaga. All these alliances and caucuses went back decades, even centuries in the case of some of the older more venerated Houses. It made things so simple, so easy. With everything laid out so neatly and clearly, he felt like a butcher walking into a breeding farm. All he had to do was choose his victims and cull them from the various pens.

  Slaughtering them was the easiest part and had been accomplished within his first several months at the palace. Whatever was required, he had done. In some cases, it involved gold changing hands. In other cases, it required subtler methods: blackmail, intimidation, late-night visits and threats, warnings delivered with hard fists and harder sticks. And in a few exceptional cases, it required something more decisive: physical violence, sexual assault, a dismembering, even an assassination or two.

  In all but the most stubborn cases, his methods had worked. He had made inroads into all the major groups and caucuses, insinuating his influence through proxies, changing the balance of power when it suited him. He did not actually use these new channels of influence very much in the early months. The point was not to take the low-hanging fruit. He was building toward much bigger things, and that required tucking away chits in his pockets and then flashing them at the right time—months, even years in the future. That was why the methods were so excessive: it was important to make sure that the person or persons understood the commitment he required. Whenever he called on them to vote or veto as he desired, he had to be sure they would deliver. The violence ensured that they would not forget and would not dare cross him.

  Publicly, he did as he was doing now: working his way through Council, seeming to spend all his time bantering genially and maintaining good relations with everyone, regardless of political affiliation or alliance. To see him like this, glad-handing everyone, smiling, moving through the crowd of important personalities, you would assume he was a good-looking and charming but naive politician. The bumpkin Geldran brother-in-law of the future queen of the realm, using his sister’s position to try to ingratiate himself with the High Houses of the capital. Perhaps he hoped to make some coin here and there—a commission on setting up a new trade route, a slice of the profit in an overseas military alliance—or even to snare the pretty daughter of a major House as his bride someday. He was everybody’s friend, the Nice Man, happily clueless about the real business of administration and the complex interwoven web of Krushan politics.

  That was exactly what he wanted them to think.

  Naturally, he was the very opposite of what he seemed.

  He finished a full circuit and paused briefly, flashing a bright smile at the middle-aged councilwoman wife of an elderly councilman, both of different, equally illustrious Houses. He acknowledged her discreet wink with a twinkle in his eyes, then met the sneer on her husband’s face with the same charming smile. He had bedded the wife three nights ago, under her husband’s own roof. The husband’s House was the more important one in terms of lineage, but he had frittered away all the family fortune due to a compulsive gambling addiction. Kune had moved in on the wife, convincing her that her best interest lay in voting with the caucus he represented when the time came and convincing her husband to do the same. The alternative plan was to buy out the husband’s gambling debts and use them as leverage, but it was much easier—and more pleasurable—to let the wife seduce him instead. Sometimes, it took honey to catch a fly rather than a flytrap.

  Kune reached the end of the Council chamber and dropped his smile for a moment.

  He had completed his full circuit, exchanging his usual pleasantries and banalities with everyone that mattered, all intended to subtly remind each one of their “deal” and that he was watching, always watching. But he was missing one crucial person.

  Vida.

  While only a councilman, and not actually a scion or head of any major House, Vida was far more important than his administrative status indicated. He was half brother to Adri and Shvate, which made him a part of House Krushan. Even though he was illegitimate in birth and incapable of ever ascending to the throne, he still wielded influence within the family. Indeed, more influence than even he knew. The man’s naiveté had shocked Kune at first. How could someone so well placed not realize what opportunities lay before him? He had been sure that Vida’s bumbling, self-effacing personality was an act, a front to cover up his true sinister motives. It was only after weeks of study that he had finally, reluctantly, concluded that it was no act. Vida was in fact a bumbling self-effacing personality. He was that most nauseating of types: a good man.

  Kune hated such people.

  The world was a cold, cruel, unforgiving place, much like the high plains and mountains of his native homeland. There was no room for kindness, gentility, sensitivity, consideration, humanity, or self-sacrifice.

  Yet Vida embodied all these qualities and worse.

  He was the one kind of person on whom none of Kune’s usual methods were effective. An honest, incorruptible politician.

  In earlier instances, other places where Kune had encountered such individuals, he had dealt with them very simply: murder. It was the only way to eliminate a good, honest person. Blackmail led to outrage. Assault, abduction, intimidation, even harming family members, all led only to the good person becoming more stubborn, righteous, determined to bring the “evil man” to “justice.” As if such a thing existed in the world of politics! Only murder silenced the threat and removed that piece cleanly from the chaupat board.

  Kune loved chaupat; it was the perfect game to exercise one’s political talents. Chariots, elephants, horses, foot soldiers—four cadres corresponding to the four cadres of the army in reality. Through an infinite combination of moves between two equally numbered sets of pieces moving across a checkered board shaped like a cross, chaupat was an endlessly challenging sport. It was also the game of choice for all the biggest gamblers, most of whom also happened to be the biggest aristocrats, nobles, and politicians.

  Evenings typically found Kune engrossed in a succession of chaupat games at various High Houses. He had an endless series of invitations from all the Houses to visit and play, and had gained a reputation for being the most desirable player in Hastinaga. This was partly
because he was always great company: cracking jokes, telling entertaining stories, and sharing spicy gossip.

  But mostly it was because he was a profitable loser. That is to say, he played reasonably well—up to a point. Then he lost. And because he always bet large sums, he always lost big. This was what capped his desirability as a chaupat player. Who wouldn’t love a devilishly handsome, charming, entertaining, good-natured, and rich bumpkin who always bet huge sums, and always lost. And lost graciously!

  Kune had dropped a small fortune on his chaupat games alone. Perhaps even a large fortune, by Geldran standards. But it was all in pursuit of a good cause. He was studying his opponents and learning their techniques and moves. By making himself so popular, he was able to play all the best players in the city, which meant the best players in the world, and in doing so amass a great store of useful knowledge about each one. The variations of game technique were always useful, but the information about the players was invaluable.

  Kune had spent much of his youth gambling, and while he had not played chaupat till he came to Hastinaga, his gambling technique was the same: lose, lose, lose . . . then win it all back and then some.

  When the time was right, he would start winning. Not just gold, not just a few fistfuls of coin; he was after much more than mere wealth. He wanted everything there was to have. He would often stop at random villages while traveling, find out what their favorite pastime was, then lay odds on whatever excited people the most. He followed the same technique, losing lavishly to lure them in, then suddenly turning the table with one massive win, shocking everyone. He had once walked away with the entire grain harvest of a village, leaving the villagers with nothing to see them through the cold, harsh winter. When the villagers “disagreed” with his win and accused him of cheating, taking up their weapons and challenging him to a fight, he had backed off and walked away with his usual handsome grin. That night, while they slept, he had crept back into the village and set their houses on fire. The next time he passed that way, there was nothing left but charred timbers and a lot of skeletons, buried by the heavy snowfall. “You play, you pay,” he spat at the burned timbers as he rode by. It was his maxim, his words to live by.