The yellow-turbaned man stepped forward again, closer. ‘There will be a new Sizhad. You don’t understand, Dev. I was not the first, just the first to make the Faithful into an army. Others will come after me. We will grow ever stronger. Empires will quake and fall and the past will be forgotten. The demons we all worshipped as gods will fade. The sun will shine upon a new world.’
‘Not here,’ Dev said emphatically.
‘You have to come. I travelled so far to bring you back. To teach you.’
‘Your new world is not for us,’ Dev shouted at him and stepped forward. The two men were mere paces apart now and Jai, the general and their men moved up a little closer just as the soot-blackened Faithful did the same.
‘Will you kill me, Dev?’
Jai frowned, nodding urgently, willing his brother to do just that.
‘I have to. No one else can, and I cannot let you go.’
‘Then you will have to do it in cold blood, Dev.’
The Sizhad cast his sword out into the water and stood before Dev, and Jai found himself stepping forward urgently. The white-clad zealot sank to his knees before Dev, hands opened like a flower to welcome the sunshine into his palms.
‘Do it,’ bellowed Jai.
‘Do it and you forever open your heart to the demons driving you,’ the Sizhad said calmly.
Dev bent, placing a hand on the Sizhad’s shoulder and leaning in to whisper. He said something inaudible into the Sizhad’s left ear and then straightened again. Jai felt a moment of panic lurch through him at the contact, but then stared in shock. As Dev stepped back, the Sizhad remained kneeling on the sand, the hilt of Dev’s knife jutting from his throat. He coughed, once, and a gobbet of blood burst forth. Then, slowly, exhaling pink bubbles, he toppled backwards into the sand.
The Faithful stared in shock for a long moment and then suddenly burst into life with a furious roar, running at Dev. But Jai and the others had been edging closer and closer throughout, and as the white-garbed lunatics ran at Dev, the Crimson Guard intercepted and began to butcher them as neatly and swiftly as possible. Several of the red-masked men fell into the sand, but it was a quick job. Jai and the general stood next to Dev as he looked down at the dead zealot in the sand, blood pooling out around the neck and head.
‘Burn him,’ Dev said quietly.
‘What?’
‘Burn them all. And have those monks say the rites.’
Jai shook his head. ‘He is a heretic who denies the gods. He does not deserve…’
His voice trailed off as Dev turned, tears carving a clean track through the muck on his face. ‘He was misguided and driven by grief. It could have happened to any one of us. And he is dead. He will never harm another. I will not deny him another attempt at life, and I will pray that his next one is happier.’
Jai nodded, his defiance shattered by the odd sense of loss in his brother’s face.
He looked down at the Sizhad. The man was younger than Jai had expected. And even charred and in death there was something forlorn about his face. In the presence of that expression, somehow even Jai could not hate him.
‘The guard will do it,’ Jiang said. ‘Come. To the boats. There are many things to learn, I suspect.’
Epilogue
Deep in the Isle of the Dead, in a temple abandoned for many centuries, they learned their answers. The paintings on the wall of the circular vault were crude and faded, but still clear enough to follow without even the need for the ancient words scrawled beneath and which the monks faithfully repeated for them. Moreover, some of the paintings were clearly newer than others, the story having been continued long after the temple fell into disuse.
Here, on this isle, once known as Elam, the first Inda had lived. Here they had walked with the gods and prospered. To the north, the lands now known as the Inda Diamond had been a world of primitive tribes and barbarians. The Inda, encouraged by their gods, had set forth across the water and begun to change the world, bringing art and religion, engineering and writing to the mainland. But in the eastern realms they had encountered a jealous enemy. For the first time, the Inda had learned of true war. And they were not strong enough for it. Gradually their power was pushed further back until they were once more trapped on Elam. And then the enemy came on ships.
The ancient Inda were destroyed utterly.
Here the painting began to change as new hands took up the brush on the Isle of the Dead following the harrowing of the ship-borne invaders.
The enemy left, and the island became a world of the dead. Indeed the southern lands, where the true Inda had been strongest, were systematically annihilated and depopulated as the enemy withdrew, and only those more northern lands where the people were still tribal and had their little kings were they left in peace. Even they should have fallen, but the easterners suddenly returned home, facing a new threat there. And so the modern Inda were born, an offshoot of their tribe, with a different tongue and a meld of cultural influences.
The gods did not desert the people. Those same gods who guided the true Inda began to nurture their children. The gods sent teachers to instruct them, in the form of gurus, and all the while they began to prepare the Inda for another cataclysm. Because like this circular vault, the Inda who had lived here knew that all things are circles. The world itself. The heavens. The life cycle of a man. Even time itself. And as those early empires had destroyed the Inda and then themselves fallen to outside aggressors, so too would time come full circle, such that the Inda faced the same fate once more.
Here, now, the paintings stopped. But they had come full circle, for the Inda had risen again. The rest of the great tale had been simple to fill in, especially with the aid of the monks. The last great guru had imparted to the monks their purpose: to create a haven so that the Inda could see out another end and pass on to the next circle. They had spent centuries fostering the myth of the haunted dead lands, living in them as monks to further the legends. They had learned to fight with fist and foot and to move silently through the jungle like panthers, bringing death and madness to those who sought to break the sanctity of the place, for the dead lands needed to remain sacrosanct and feared against the day sanctuary was sought there.
Then, when the empires had begun to move a year or so ago, the monks had put their longstanding divine plan into action. They had prepared the place of haven in their monastery as preordained, dealing with a few last incursions before moving south, paving the way for the refugees, preparing the island for its new inhabitants, setting what traps and tricks they needed to prevent the brutal empires of the world reaching the isle and opening up this secret place to the world.
And so secret it remained. The monks returned to their monasteries to perpetuate the myth, while the Isle of the Dead finally came back to life, another circle beginning.
Aram leaned on his stick as he hauled himself up the last few steps to the balcony where his sons sat with glasses of cold water, hiding in the shade of the awning from the glare of the midsummer sun. It was becoming more of a struggle to climb to the high places every day now, but Aram was far from ready to complain about his lot. He had it good. Better than most of the world.
The once-great imperial fortress of Vengen, home to the marshal of the northern armies for centuries, was ravaged by fire and destruction as northern warriors, fresh from their mountain fastnesses, tore through the buildings, looting and ravaging for lack of defenders, blissfully unaware that the white-clad forces of the new Sizhad approached along the next valley, bringing glorious golden fire to this far-flung world.
Ten years had passed since the refugees’ boats had landed on this shore and the monks had revealed the truth to the wide-eyed Inda. Ten years of growth and toil, but ten years of freedom and safety. Ten years that showed in every square foot of the island that the inhabitants once more knew as Elam.
Pausing at the top step under the beatific smiles of Dev and Jai, he took a deep breath and scanned the land below. The town lay lively and thrivi
ng. An Isle of the Dead no more, the ancient settlement had been reborn, the stone bones of the buildings proving still solid after all these centuries – solid enough to take new roofs and doors and floors, albeit in some cases requiring considerable repair or strengthening. What had been a monument to a lost people was now a bustling town, with smoke from cook fires rising into the hazy summer air, the noises of children and animals, smiths and carpenters ringing out across the valley and down to the port.
A ringing echoed out across Velutio also, calling the people to prayer, for it was midday and the sun was at his apex. Across the city, the Faithful flooded the streets. The former priest of Balor, god of smiths and workers, cowered in his cellar, listening to his world being swept away by the Sizhad’s new order. It was disheartening how quickly the people had adapted. And those who hadn’t… The old man shuddered, remembering the sight of the city’s high priest hanging on his cross, eyes burned out, body red-raw from the scourging and the sun. Still, even he had fared better than the mad emperor Bassianus, curse his soul for eternity. Flaying had been too good for the man who had ended the empire.
The Inda town was alive. The fields had been sown for years now and were yielding excellent crops. Animals had been re-domesticated after so long being feral. Orchards were recovered from the wilderness and gardens planted. The Inda had become ‘the people’ once more. They were a civilisation, and they were content.
But it was not all peace and comfort they created. The symphony of construction was not restricted to civic structures. Far from it. Masons worked constantly at the walls. Carpenters raised scaffolding. Smiths worked at the forges. Because never again would the Inda be a scattered people, easy prey to any booted foot that took a liking to their land. Because now everyone knew what waited in the outside world and because Aram had instilled in them all one fact he had come to believe above all. You cannot hide from the world. Eventually the world will find you.
In Germalla, the new capital of the Empire of the Golden Sun, the new Sizhad observed his council with a curled lip. Squabbling. Which land of demons was more deserving of ‘conversion’ now? The Pelasians and their old monsters, the northern Gota with their fur-clad shamans? The strange island they called Alba, which claimed independence and yet worshipped those same gods the Faithful had so soundly stamped out this past decade. Perhaps the Jade Empire, which was said to be in decline now? The Sizhad had the answer, though: all of them. The cleansing fire would be like a tide flowing across the world.
The town of Elam was now enclosed in strong walls, and every month saw them becoming stronger. Extra ramparts ran down from there to the port, which was already partially defended. Fishing boats had been built those first two years by carpenters who had only ever constructed boats for the rivers of the northern lands, but who were learning with every season. And once they had come to understand and conquer some of the difficulties with ocean-going vessels, they had begun to build other ships. Stronger ships. Ships that could carry weapons and soldiers. Because the world outside was not limited to land, and one day, perhaps, a ship would wander to their shores by chance.
And the Inda would be ready. They had brought with them to the island every skill a nation needed to expand and thrive, but more: they had brought knowledge. Dev and Cinna had spent their first year with charts and maps, plans and lists, plotting the walls and the defences of the island. As Jai and Mani had explored the length and breadth of the great island, the western general and his adjutant had planned how to defend it when the time came. Every high point and peninsula had its watchtowers, beacons and fortresses. Every cove had its sea wall and scout vessel.
Carpenters who had spent their entire lives making nothing more threatening than a chair were now producing the bolt throwers and catapults that sat silent and vigilant on artillery platforms along the walls. Better yet, Jiang had brought with him the secret of cannon. It had taken two years to locate the minerals they needed for the black powder and begin mining them, and a further year to form the great iron barrels themselves, but one thing had impressed the ageing eastern general. The Inda, a people who never did things by halves, had taken the Jade Empire’s designs and somehow smoothed out the problems. Not one of the cannon produced by their smiths had misfired. Now the black, deadly muzzles of those cannon poked out menacingly from walls around the island.
And while the artisans built a civilisation, the farmers, hunters and fishermen built a life; the craftsmen built a defence for them all; and the military among them had built an army. Dev had taught all who would serve how to defend the walls and use the artillery. Jai had trained men to fight with sword and spear. Bajaan had instructed men with bows. Mani had forged them into units. And Cinna and Jiang had assigned them all and planned the grand defence of Elam.
Because one day the world would find them and the cycle would begin again.
The monks, who had returned to their monasteries by the markers, continuing to spread the myth of the dead lands, brought news every month, and it was always bleak. The Faithful, who now had an unshakable hold on what had once been the free lands of the Inda, despised the monks, who they saw as demon-worshippers, but there were still those who remembered the old gods and risked the wrath of their overlords to travel and speak with the monks.
How the world had changed in that first year. The western empire had all but collapsed; with the swift overwhelming of its army in the Inda lands it had been defenceless against numerous enemies. The new Sizhad, who had proved to be far more the warmonger than poor Ravi, had turned west with a vengeance and carved out the new world of which his predecessor had dreamed, imposing control as far as Velutio and the Nymphaean Sea. Bassianus, the mad emperor, had died a dreadful death as the white-clad fanatics rampaged through his city, and now a former governor had claimed the imperial title, though he ruled in absentia on the island of Alba. The Gota and their barbarian neighbours had reclaimed the north and the mountains, and Pelasia had taken the opportunity to annexe several hundred miles of terrain that had long been the subject of dispute, but already they were being pressured by the Faithful.
In the east, the civil war had lasted a full year, with several claimants dead before a young man rose from the ashes and imposed control once more. The chaos of the war, though, had ruined the Jade Empire. The clans of the north had raided and conquered, while the southern lands had seceded with no military there to stop them. The Jade Empire still stood independent, able to defy the growing cult of the Faithful sun worshippers, though how long that situation would last was anyone’s guess.
The new Jade Emperor, green eyes fearful, probing the adult teeth that were just coming in as the regents, who ruled both him and the Jade Empire with an iron hand, shifted unit markers on the map of their shrunken, diminished empire in an attempt to halt the advance of the nomads from the north who had breached the wall in many places and the new steel-clad, masked demons from the islands of the east. Many said the Jade Empire would not last another generation. Only the current emperor knew how the vicious regents who treated him like a puppet had fed him a two-month strict diet of juza-xi fish and sharp onions to cause the green of his irises to come about, for the jade eyes had stopped appearing naturally.
On occasion, Jiang and Cinna, finally withdrawing from active life and sitting back to enjoy their golden years, would wax lyrical about what had been lost in their great empires, though neither shed too many tears for a world ruled by a madman or a green-eyed martinet. Life here was too good.
Elam. A world risen from the dead, forged in fire and drawn from the very best the west, the Inda and the Jade Empire had to offer.
‘Afternoon, Father,’ Dev nodded at Aram as he wandered over and dropped into a seat.
Jai poured a cup of chilled water and passed it over. Aram took it gratefully and sipped the liquid, smacking his lips. ‘How goes the temple?’ the older brother asked.
Aram smiled. The great temple that told the history of the Inda had been repaired and restored. Image
s of the gods had been touched up, and those of both eastern and western deities added, forming a great pantheon for all. The last scenes of the cycle had been added, telling the tale of the survivors of the great war and how they had come to Elam to rebuild their civilisation. And, because Aram was ever a man prepared, a new storey had been added with a plastered wall, awaiting the next cycle of the Inda.
The irony of the fact that the temple was domed, with an oculus at the centre that allowed the sun to shine down benignly on all the gods, was not lost on anyone. But for now irony was all it was. The sun worshippers would come one day, when Aram and even his sons and grandsons were long gone, but that fact no longer worried them. Somehow the knowledge that time came in cycles and that the Inda would live on had become the heart of everything they did here.
The west had fallen, as it had fallen before. It would rise again as it had risen before. The east had withdrawn into itself, but it would expand again. The Sizhad and his new world would one day be the old world.
But the Inda would go on.
Aram sipped his water happily and smiled at his sons.
Author’s note
Though there is something cyclical in the very nature of this series and the saga I have told within it, this volume in particular is intended to be something of an end point. That being said, six years ago, Dark Empress was intended to be the last volume in the Tales of the Empire, and the involvement of Canelo in the series revitalised the whole thing and led to a further three novels.
I have, for now at least, explored every angle of this fantasy world that has leapt to mind, and there are no more stories based in this land rattling around in my head and waiting to be told. Perhaps in a few years there will be, and the series will return.
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