by J. S. Bangs
Daladham pushed away from Caupana’s chest. He didn’t bother to wipe his cheeks. He would weep openly on the road as they walked. What did he care if anyone saw him? What else could they do to him? He started down the road with wobbling steps.
“And here I am,” Daladham said. “Probably the only dhorsha who survived the Mouth of the Devourer’s arrival, because I’m a coward and a thief. They threw down Am and cursed Kushma, and here I am walking away with the silver stolen from the temple.”
Amabhu walked next to Daladham, his hands clasped behind his back, studying the old dhorsha’s face with pity. “We know about running,” he said. “We ran away from Ternas.”
“Bah,” Daladham said. “You were sent away.”
“Nonetheless. All of our brothers are dead.”
“Bah,” Daladham repeated. “What do you know about the responsibilities of a dhorsha? You don’t even worship the Powers.”
Caupana spoke up. “We don’t?”
“I never held aloof from the worship of the Powers,” Amabhu said quizzically. “We aren’t Uluriya.”
“But,” Daladham objected. “I always heard that the thikratta would not bow to the Powers. Some of you even denied they existed. You can’t deny it—if there’s one thing I have read, it’s the histories, and the histories are very clear.”
“You’re speaking of Acakta,” Amabhu corrected. “The Way of Power. There is more than one path among the thikratta, you know. And Acakta… I’ll say only that it wasn’t the path which the elder Gocam taught.”
“But the Emperor Aidasa-daridarya suppressed the thikratta for that reason,” Daladham said. “The thikratta called Lord Am a fiction, denied honor to the dhorsha—”
“And where did you learn that?” Amabhu asked.
“From Uradha, of course, everyone—”
“Uradha was Aidasa-daridarya’s historian,” Amabhu broke in. “Weren’t we talking earlier about the differences between the history of Audjam in Rajunda and Panuna in Sravi? Uradha tells the story that Aidasa-daridarya wanted to record, but we thikratta remember another.”
“Ah? So why did the Emperor suppress the thikratta?”
“We have a book,” Caupana said.
“Of course you have a book,” Daladham muttered. “That’s the only thing you have.”
“We have two books. One which describes the rise of Aidasa-daridarya as the thikratta recorded it, and another which describes the Powers—”
“Caupana!” Amabhu said in alarm. He stopped in mid-stride and pierced Caupana with a horrified gaze.
“It’s good to tell him,” Caupana said.
“Tell me what?” Daladham demanded.
“I hope you know what you’re doing,” Amabhu grumbled.
Caupana nodded serenely.
“Tell me what?” Daladham repeated.
Amabhu shook his head and looked at Caupana with fearful eyes. Caupana folded his hands together and looked at Amabhu calmly. “Why did Lama Padnir choose to send me away from Ternas with the books?”
Amabhu drew his lips together. He stopped walking in a bare spot between the trees and shaded his eyes from the fierce white sun overhead. “You were the strongest farseer we had. And I had to come because there were too many books for us to carry alone. And so I’ve been traipsing along following your word ever since, even when you don’t make any sense, and even when you want to give away the secrets of Ternas to some lecherous dhorsha.”
“Yes,” Caupana said, smiling slightly. He lay a hand on Amabhu’s shoulder, then bent and kissed the shorter man on the top of his head. “Keep walking.” He ambled down the yellow clay road and gestured for them to follow.
“A lecherous dhorsha,” Daladham muttered. He pattered after the tall thikratta. “Wonderful.”
“You said it,” Amabhu snapped.
“We have a book…” Caupana began again, a few paces ahead of them.
Amabhu sighed and fell into stride beside his fellow thikratta. “Yes, we have a book. Lama Padnir gave it to us specially. The most important one we have. It has no author. I don’t know if it has a name, but Padnir called it The Book of the Powers of Amur.
Daladham waited for Amabhu to continue. The thikratta looked at him with his eyebrows perched in an expectant arch.
“Is that all?” Daladham asked. “Should I be impressed?”
“Well, you said a moment ago you thought the thikratta didn’t honor the Powers.”
Daladham snorted. “Writing a book about the Powers is not the same as honoring them.”
“The point is that we thikratta know about the Powers, and we may know them better than the dhorsha whose knowledge is bound up in dhaur—”
“And you wonder why the dhorsha opposed the thikratta,” Daladham said dryly.
“—but we are carrying the book away, hoping to find someone who will read it. And since we are now fleeing the Mouth of the Devourer, perhaps something which will contribute to his downfall.”
A twist of pain and loneliness in Daladham’s chest. He had forgotten about Jairatu for a few minutes, arguing with the thikratta about history and the Powers. But it flooded back. The anguished cries of his nephew, and the grim face of the Mouth of the Devourer.
“So what does it say?” he said hoarsely. “If we’re trying to confront the Mouth of the Devourer.”
Amabhu swallowed. “We don’t know.”
“You don’t know?”
“Neither of us had been initiated to that level.”
Daladham groaned. He walked to the side of the road and sat himself down on the trunk of a fallen anjili tree. “We’re stopping. It’s nearly noon, and I’m not about to walk through the hottest part of the day.” He lifted the corner of his kurta and wiped the sweat from his forehead and hands. “Now show me the book.”
Amabhu grimaced. But Caupana sat next to Daladham on the log and began undoing the laces of his pack.
“Is this wise?” Amabhu asked.
Caupana nodded. He opened the mouth of the leather pouch and began pulling out the glossy wooden book-cases, stacking them neatly beside him.
“Here,” he said. He gave Daladham a large, heavy case, one of the largest in the pack. The wood was polished ebony, oily, smooth, and featureless, as black as obsidian. A hasp of gold held it closed. A hint of the scent of sandalwood and incense rose from it, mixed with the musk of the leather. It seemed very heavy in his hand, heavier than a book should be. Daladham felt a twist of anxiety when he touched it.
“It’s very old,” Daladham whispered. He pulled the heavy gold pin from the hasp. The hinges opened silently, and Daladham looked at the first page. Ornate, swirling script, the ends of the letters bound into tight curls, with a fine sketch of the night sky in one corner.
He bent close and examined the letters. After a moment of confusion he laughed. “I can’t read this.”
Amabhu looked at him curiously. “Why not?”
“This isn’t the script of Amur. Perhaps it’s an ancient variant or some secret script used by the thikratta.”
“The thikratta have no secret script,” Amabhu said.
“That you know. You said that you hadn’t been initiated to that level.” He raised the page close to his face and peered at the palm leaf.
“If the elders of the thikratta had a secret script, then no one knows it anymore,” Amabhu said. Disappointment was heavy in his voice.
“Someone knows it,” Caupana said. “Lama Padnir would not have given it to us if he thought that everyone capable of reading it had perished.”
“Look,” Daladham said. The tip of his little finger brushed against the page. “Here, this might be ka, and that one could be ji—but as for the rest, I haven’t a clue. There’s a certain affinity to some of the old books I’ve seen in the temple’s library.”
“That doesn’t help.”
“Yes it does,” Daladham said. “It tells me that we should go to Majasravi.”
“Majasravi!” Amabhu said in alarm. “On foot it
’ll take us weeks to get there.”
“Do you have some other urgent errand?”
Amabhu scowled. “Anyway, why Majasravi?”
Daladham folded the book together and pinned the hasp closed. After tucking the book back into Caupana’s leather pack, he began to arrange some dry palm leaves on the ground. “Because the Emperor is there, and if there is anyone in Amur with enough learning to read your book, they’ll be in the imperial court. Or they’ll know someone.”
With the palm-leaves made into a neat bedroll, Daladham stretched himself out on the ground. “In any case, I’m going to sleep until the heat passes.”
Amabhu’s face crumpled in anxiety. “Majasravi, with the chief dhorsha and the Emperor.”
“We’ll be safe,” Caupana said. He swung his legs over the log and began to arrange a nest for himself next to Daladham.
“Well then, I suppose I’ll keep watch,” said Amabhu sullenly. He folded his arms and turned his back to Caupana and Daladham.
Exhaustion settled over Daladham as soon as he closed his eyes. He hadn’t slept well since Jairatu had died. Too many nightmares. But today the letters of the secret book danced in his head, and thoughts of the Powers and the Emperor chased the nightmares from his mind. The shade of the palms above protected him from the brutal sun, and the whispering of the breeze through their leaves lulled him to sleep.
Mandhi
The valley in which the os Dramab made their homes was, from a distance, almost indistinguishable from the valley of the os Tastl. A long green valley between two mountainous ridges, a little brown river meandering through a green meadow, clusters of conical huts and herds of sheep strung along the river, with a palisade and peaked clanhome lodge at the head of the valley. The valley was steeper and rockier, though, and in two places the river tumbled down short falls of red stone. The palisade at the head of the valley was built atop an outcropping of rock, with a cliff guarding the side that faced the river.
“Good fort,” Nakhur said, watching the clanhome. They sat in a blind about two miles above the palisade, hidden in the forest. Jauda’s mercenaries moved through the forest toward the fortification. “Hope our mercenaries don’t have too much trouble taking it.”
“Jauda said he had a plan,” Mandhi said. She squeezed Aryaji’s hand, then dropped it and started pacing again in the little space where she waited with Aryaji and Nakhur.
Today, she would see Jhumitu.
“Are you ready, Aryaji?” she asked.
“Me?” the maid said. “Yes, Mandhi. Why wouldn’t I be?”
“Because…” She forgot what she was going to say. “Oh, never mind.”
Aryaji watched Mandhi with fierce concern. “Are you ready, Mandhi?”
Mandhi laughed, too loudly. “I’m fine. I mean…” She rubbed her wrist, then touched her breast. Was he safe? Would he remember her?
Aryaji grabbed Mandhi’s hand as Mandhi passed her while pacing. Mandhi paused for a moment, clasping Aryaji’s hands in hers, then she shook loose the girl’s grip and resumed. Too much energy to stand still. Nothing she could do but watch the men fight for her.
The sun slowly sank in the sky. Mandhi neither saw nor heard the mercenaries and the os Tastl in the forest below her. As it should be—if she couldn’t see them, then neither could the os Dramab.
When the sun was a finger above the horizon, they finally moved.
Four men streaked across the strip of meadow between the forest and the palisade. From Mandhi’s perch they were the size and swiftness of bees. They blew past the shepherds and sheep on the hillside, closing toward the palisade gate. The reaction of the men in the clanhome was slow. She saw men gesturing and shouting. Confusion. Then, slowly, they tried to close the gate.
Too late. Jauda’s runners reached the palisade before the gate was closed. In a blink they had stabbed the gate-guards and began pushing the gate fully open.
Mandhi let out her breath. Her nails were pressed into her palms, and she nearly bit her lip in half. The battle had only just begun.
Arrows began to fall, a swarm of them. The shepherds on the hillside covered their heads and ran, while the os Dramab on the palisade wall ducked down and hid beneath animal-hide shields. The main mass of the mercenaries charged out of the forest: two full lines of men with spears in their hands and swords at their waists, mingled with the men of the os Tastl, running in a wedge toward the open gate. Within the clanhome Mandhi saw movement, women and children stirred up like ants, tall red-headed men coming out with cudgels and bronze swords.
But they were few. The head of Jauda’s wedge pierced the palisade gate, meeting the first of the os Dramab defenders. For a few moments there was a muddled melee around the gate. Then the red-headed os Dramab fell back, and the rest of the mercenaries and the os Tastl pushed through.
The palisade wall and the lodge cast long shadows through the clanhome. Bodies swarmed through it, fighting and pushing, pulsing through the narrow paths between huts. From their post on the hill, Mandhi saw it all in strange silence, bodies surging forward and back. At this distance she couldn’t distinguish friend from foe. She prayed.
The movement slowed. There was no more running within the palisade, only the stiff marching of men with swords drawn.
“I can’t tell who won,” Mandhi said.
Nakhur stood as straight and stiff as a pine, watching the battle from atop a basalt boulder. “Wait for the signal.”
“And if it doesn’t come?”
Aryaji shivered. Mandhi resumed pacing.
The blast of a ram’s horn rose from the clanhome below.
Mandhi leaped down the hill, descending the rocky hillside in long leaps, vaulting fallen logs and tumbled boulders. She never looked back to see if Aryaji and Nakhur followed. Her feet slipped perilously across moss and stones, but she ran.
She burst from the pines onto the strip of meadow. Arrows littered the ground. The sheep and the shepherds had scattered. The palisade gate stood open. She panted, her chest heaving and legs burning. But she ran. Through the palisade, onto the red clay paths of the clanhome.
“Jhumitu!” she cried. “Where is he?”
And she ran into the arms of Jauda.
The mercenary leader caught her and restrained her as she gasped and struggled. “Where is he?” she repeated.
“Calm down, Mandhi,” he said. “We’re looking for him.”
“Looking?”
“The Amuran nurses hid—”
“But you sounded—”
“Here!” cried a voice.
Mandhi scrambled away from Jauda’s grasp. “Jhumitu!” she shouted. She followed the sound of the voice. Pointed gray huts blurred past her.
And then—the sound of a child’s cry. Two men stood outside a hut restraining a struggling Kaleksha woman. The woman reached for something in the soldier’s hand, but the soldier lifted it away.
Her baby.
She pushed into the middle of the group, pulled the child out of the mercenary’s arms, and threw herself onto the ground.
Jhumitu kicked and cried. Eyes wide open—had his eyes been so large and beautiful before? A strong head of coarse black hair. Oh, he had Taleg’s face. He had Taleg’s face! But her own skin and eyes, pools of ebony. He cried. He was so big. How many months since she had seen him. He wailed, showing his pink tongue inside brown lips, and two teeth on his top and bottom gums.
And she cried.
Mandhi sobbed, her whole body shaking. She pressed Jhumitu into her belly and shook with great wracking sobs, tears pouring like a river from her eyes. She kissed his head and smelled his hair. Tasted his skin. Her shoulders shook.
Jhumitu still cried. Was there any more wonderful sound in the world?
Hands pressed her shoulders. Aryaji wrapped Mandhi in an embrace. Kissed Mandhi’s cheeks and Jhumitu’s head. She pressed her forehead against Mandhi’s and wiped her cheeks clean. Mandhi felt Nakhur’s hand on her head and heard him muttering a prayer of thanks. She caress
ed Jhumitu’s limbs, pulled on his fingers, kissed his lips, squeezed his fat calves.
“He should nurse,” Aryaji said, her voice cracking into sobs nearly as heavy as Mandhi’s. “Can he nurse?”
“Oh, but I can’t,” Mandhi said. She pressed the boy against her chest.
She heard Shadle answering. “The os Dramab have a woman here with a child near his age, and she had nursed him.”
“No!” Mandhi said sharply. No way was she giving her child back into the arms of one of his kidnappers, even if he did need to eat. Not yet. She stroked his hair and kissed his forehead.
She pressed her knuckle against his lips. He bit into her skin, pressing his tongue against her skin, and then rubbing the ridge of his gums against her finger.
“He’s just teething,” Mandhi said. “He’s mine. Yes, my son. Yes! This is your mother, and I’ve been waiting for you all these months.” She broke down in sobs again.
His whining stopped. Mandhi felt a moment of pain as his teeth bit into her finger again—teeth! But the pain passed. He opened his eyes and looked at her.
And finally, finally, six months after her child was first torn from her, she felt herself whole again.
Aryaji arranged a blanket around Mandhi’s shoulders. She and Nakhur moved her to lean against the wall of one of the huts. Men with swords moved through the clanhome in the darkness, and there was muttering and arguing farther away. Mandhi barely heard any of it. She watched Jhumitu gnaw at her finger, and she ran her hands through his hair.
Finally the boy gurgled happily and twisted away from her, looking up at Mandhi with bright eyes. He reached for her with his fist. Mandhi bent her face close to his.
“Do you remember me, my boy?” she whispered. “Remember your mother?”
He cooed. His hand patted her cheeks and chin. His fingers pulled at her lips, and she opened her mouth and gently bit his knuckles back. He giggled.
“Mandhi,” a woman’s voice said.
“Yes,” Mandhi answered without looking up.
“There’s a question you need to answer.”