Blood and Iron: The Book of the Black Earth (Part One)

by Jon Sprunk

  “Ah, not exactly. I mean, it's very beautiful.”

  “It's called Nura'in Anunnaka. The Lights of Heaven. At the top is the god Endu, lord of the sky, with Enkath the Earth-lord and Temmu the Water-lady at his sides. They are the elder gods of Akeshia.”

  “And the smaller people around them?” he asked.

  “They are the children of the elder gods. That one with the golden eyes is Amur, the lord of the sun. His twin sister there is Sippa, the moon.”

  As the queen named each of the divinities and the part of the natural world they embodied, Horace couldn't believe he was actually talking to royalty. Her beauty was bewitching, making it difficult to concentrate on the conversation. “Do you know what I like most about this mural, Master Horace?” she asked.

  “No.” He added a hasty, “Your Excellence.”

  “The violence.”

  Horace looked at the painting again. It was certainly a beautiful masterpiece, but he didn't see any hint of violence. “I don't understand.”

  The queen pointed to the god of storms. “See Harutuk and the way he is turned away from Kishar, his earth-bound bride? Why does he hold his hand behind his back so? What is he hiding from her? In the legends, Harutuk poisons his wife before regretting it and questing to the depths of the underworld to find her. So is he hiding more poison, ready to repeat his crime? Or is that the antidote, held ready in case she should try to get even with him?”

  She indicated a small woman sitting in the corner by herself. “And here is Erimu, the mother of the gods.”

  Horace leaned over to get a better look at the small figure and by doing so placed himself closer to the queen. The scent of her perfume filled his head, sweet like a blend of flower blossoms and lemon. “If she's their mother, why is she alone in the corner?”

  “See the cut across her neck and the chains around her ankles? She was killed by her own children and entombed under the earth. But she has a secret. Look in her sleeve.”

  Horace saw what she meant. A thin, serpentine tail curled around the goddess's wrist and disappeared into her clothing. Near the neckline, a reptilian head emerged, sprouting sharp fangs. Another head peeked from under the hem of her gown.

  “She has other children as well,” the queen said. “And they wait for the day when they can avenge their mother.”

  Horace stepped back from the mural. He never would have seen those details if they hadn't been pointed out. The queen regarded him. “Akeshia's politics are not unlike her myths. Polite and cultured on the surface, but teeming with danger underneath.”

  He had no idea why she was telling him this, but he nodded. “I will keep that in mind, Your Excellence.”

  “That is a curious title,” she said. “Is that how the royalty of your homeland are addressed?”

  “I apologize, Your…well, I don't think so. We usually refer to our king as ‘Majesty’ or ‘Highness,’ but I was unsure how it was done here, so I just said what came to mind. I'm very sorry if I offended.”

  “Not at all. I actually enjoy it. Please, continue to use it.”

  Horace bowed his head. “As you wish, Your Excellence.”

  He noticed there were no guards in the chamber with them. That struck him as odd. He had always envisioned royalty as being surrounded at all times with underlings and courtiers and minstrels. “Pardon me, Your Excellence, but why am I here?”

  “I wanted to measure you for myself.”

  There was a look in her eyes that made him want to step back, but he held his ground. “Measure me?”

  “Yes. To evaluate you without all the prying eyes of the court. I want to know what kind of man you are, to wield such power. And yet so meek, to allow yourself to be taken as a slave.”

  He gestured around the room. “Aren't you concerned to be alone with me?”

  She showed her teeth, which were straight and white against the fullness of her red lips. “There are many in this realm, Master Horace, who would tremble to be alone with me.”

  Oh, I believe it.

  “I can't tell you much more than I did before. I don't know what happened during the storm. I don't know if I really affected it, or it just ended on its own. I'm no magician or wizard, or whatever you call it. Just a simple man.”

  The queen strolled over to a sumptuous divan and sat down. Her perfume hung in the air, beckoning him to follow. Horace had to force himself not to let his gaze linger too long on her curves.

  “Whatever you are, Master Horace, I'm convinced that ‘simple’ is not part of the description. I believe what you say, that you have no knowledge of what you did. It is not a common occurrence in Akeshia for someone to possess the zoana unknowingly, for we test our children at an early age and cultivate those who show the signs. But it may be different in your country.”

  “I've never heard of any such tests, Your Excellence. And we have no zoanii among us. At least, we aren't ruled by witches and sorcerers.” He winced at that last statement.

  Good work. Call the woman who decides whether you live or die a witch.

  “Pardon my ill manners, Excellence,” he added quickly. “I have little experience with talking to mighty persons like yourself. I meant to say that our king is just an ordinary man. Well, not ordinary, exactly. He's royalty after all, but…”

  The queen leaned back and turned in such a way that her breasts pressed against the fabric of her dress. “I've heard that some people in your country don't believe in the zoana. But you know differently now, don't you? You've seen it. Felt it flowing through you.”

  “With all respect, Excellence, I don't know what I felt.”

  He braced himself. What would come next? Torture? The rack and red-hot pincers? Castration? He'd heard the horror stories about these people. He swore to himself that he would face it bravely, without begging or sniveling, no matter what they did to him.

  “Will you let me examine you?” she asked.

  Horace knew what she meant. The same thing Lord Isiratu had done to him, entering his mind with sorcery. He gazed into the queen's jet-black eyes. He wanted to trust her. “All right. What do I do?”

  She patted the seat next to her. “Come here.”

  As he sat down, the queen lifted her hands. She had delicate fingers, the nails painted deep crimson. She wore two rings, a huge diamond-bedecked circlet on her left middle finger and a band of plain white gold on her right forefinger. She laid her hands against the sides of his face. Horace took a deep breath. “What do you want me to d—?”

  His question was strangled as a rush of pressure clamped around his head. His lungs seized up as she stared into his eyes. Horace wanted to pull away from the vise squeezing his skull, but he couldn't move. Her eyes held him tight, and he felt himself drawn into their black depths. Pictures flashed in his head, distracting him. He stood on the deck of the Bantu Ray again as the carrack pulled out to sea, Avice dwindling in the background. Then the sky darkened and the sea turned into a boiling cauldron as the ship bucked beneath his feet. Ghostly-green lightning flashed through the storm clouds, and a sharp pain pierced Horace's chest. Suddenly, the ship vanished and he was drowning in the frothy sea. His vision grew murky. After some time, light appeared in small spots that wheeled about each other. Slowly—ever so slowly—they resolved into an image. It was Sari, his wife. She stood in the tiny yard outside their home, smiling over her shoulder as she hung their laundry on the line. Josef played at her feet with a stick. Sorrow, sharp as a razor and tinged with sweetness, sliced through Horace as he relived that memory. The day had been blustery. He could feel the cold through the oversized seaman's coat he had inherited from his father, felt the wind scuffing his face. As always, his wife and son never seemed to mind the cold. He started to turn, to walk back inside the warm house.

  Go back! Look at them one last time, just for a moment. Just a moment longer. Please!

  The image was replaced by an older memory. Horace saw his father, with a stylus behind his ear, bending over the old drafting ta
ble he kept in his workroom behind the house. The windows were dark, the room lit by a rusty oil lamp hanging from a nail. Horace stood in the doorway, afraid to disturb him while he was working. But then his father looked up and smiled through his thin gray beard and beckoned for Horace to come closer. Horace took a step, but then he remembered that this was just a dream of the past. His father was dead and buried.

  Horace felt the queen's magic sifting through his memories. He had understood that she would do something like this, but he hadn't expected it to be so intrusive. He pushed back, unwilling to let her dig deeper. The pain in his head expanded, seizing him and shaking him like a mouse caught in the jaws of a wolfhound. He pushed back harder, getting angry, and this time the pressure diminished. The parade of memories in his head stopped, catapulting Horace back into the queen's chambers. She frowned as her eyes bore into him. Horace tried to tell her to stop, that he wanted this to end, but he couldn't utter a sound. He summoned all his strength, backed by the resentment that had been building these past couple weeks. The deaths of his countrymen. His enslavement. The imprisonments. All of these humiliations welled up inside him on a tide of rage. He would have screamed if he was able. Instead, everything channeled into one great mental push.

  The queen flew back against the divan, knocking two cushions to the floor. She held up her hands as if they had been burned, though nothing marred the smooth palms. Panic gripped Horace as he looked at her face. For a moment her features were stretched tight in indignation, nothing like the beautiful seductress she had been a moment ago. She looked so wild he almost expected her to attack him. Then the moment passed, and her face smoothed once again. But Horace couldn't forget what he had seen. It still lurked behind her fathomless eyes, a lethal spider waiting under its trapdoor to spring.

  Horace took a deep breath. He felt wrung out. If not for the queen's presence, he would have collapsed against the remaining pillows, but he was afraid now more than ever. He had seen the ferocity that hid behind her stately facade and felt its response within himself. He didn't know which scared him more.

  “I'm very sorry,” he mumbled as he stood up, hoping his legs were stable enough to hold him.

  But the queen reclined, wearing a lazy smile as if nothing had happened. “There is no reason for apologies, Master Horace. Your mind is quite…interesting. And now I believe you more than ever. There is no sign of esoteric teaching in your thought patterns.”

  “So you're done with me then?”

  “There is so much more to you than meets the eye. Your strength is quite phenomenal. I would like you to remain.”

  “Here?” Horace struggled to calm his breathing. “In your—?”

  “In the palace,” she finished for him. “As our guest. You represent a new factor in the growing conflict between our two nations. We would like to learn more about you. And perhaps we can show you some new things, as well. A cultural exchange. Will you do this for us?”

  Horace nodded even as he found himself taking a step backward. “All right. I suppose, if it would help matters between our countries.”

  Do I have a choice?

  “Tomorrow night there will be a small gathering here at the palace. You will accompany me.” The queen clapped her hands. “Good day, Master Horace.”

  Horace struggled to find his voice. “Of course. It would be my honor. Good day, Your Excellence.”

  The two guards from the atrium entered. After bowing to the queen, they escorted Horace out of the chamber. He looked back, but the queen was departing through an archway with her slaves. He had the impression that he had escaped the tiger's den.

  That thought followed him all the way back to his room.

  The moonlit fields outside Erugash rippled in the cool breeze coming off the plains, except for a barren strip of dark earth surrounding the city walls. The northern winds carried the scent of cactus blooms laden with the dry traces of ancient sands. Alyra pulled the hood of her cloak down low over her face as she slipped across the killing ground. Thankfully, there was no sign of a storm.

  Those hellish tempests were her greatest fear whenever she left the city. She couldn't imagine facing one out here where there was no protection. The chaos storms had been little known when she was a child, and her searches of the palace histories revealed they were an infrequent phenomenon, but that was changing. Each year they struck more often and with greater power. The largest had leveled towns and flattened buildings, leaving behind nothing but devastation. Even the zoanii were powerless to stop them.

  And yet Horace had dispelled one by himself.

  When she had first heard that this enigmatic foreign captive was being brought to Erugash, Alyra called in every favor she'd earned over the last three years to contrive her way into his service. The hardest part had been convincing the queen to release one of her handmaidens, but in the end a certain royal chamberlain had made the right appeal on her behalf. It also didn't hurt that she spoke the stranger's native tongue. Alyra had the sneaking suspicion that Her Majesty secretly approved of the move, perhaps hoping to ensnare the foreigner with something familiar. Alyra had been given as a gift to more men than she could easily count, and to no few ladies as well. It was the most repulsive part of her mission. Yet, even during the worst of these encounters, she held fast to her purpose and it got her through.

  As for Horace, she wasn't sure what to make of him. The queen's court was convinced he had to be a spy, but he didn't act like any operative she'd ever met. He wasn't coy or mysterious. He was…confused, was the best way she could put it. She almost believed his tale of being shipwrecked, but she had long ago given up trusting in coincidence. Part of Alyra was glad the queen had conscripted Horace into her entourage because it made it easier for her to spy on them both. Yet she couldn't help feeling bad for Horace. He was out of his depth.

  Alyra hurried past a divot of suspicious sand—watchful for trapdoor spiders, which could grow as large as housecats out here—and slipped into the shadow of a tall boulder. The rendezvous was just over the next rise. She couldn't take the road from the city for fear of being seen; getting caught outside the walls alone at this hour would raise too many questions she didn't want to answer. Her mission made it necessary for her to associate with all walks of life, from the street-cleaners who reported to her the daily activities of certain zoanii, to the temple prostitutes who revealed their clients’ secrets in exchange for Nemedian gold. Last year she made contact with a group of rebellious slaves operating from the queen's training camp outside the city. They were natural allies to her cause. Fearless and fanatical, and their goal—to disrupt the plans of the Akeshian ruling class—suited her. Their leader had impressive resources for a slave. She hoped tonight's meeting would bring her important news, especially considering the risk she was taking.

  Alyra hefted the satchel hung over her shoulder. Her back was tired from lugging the load all this way, but she comforted herself with the knowledge that she was almost at her destination. With silent footsteps, she stole down a weathered footpath. She bent down as she climbed a long mound, not wanting to make a conspicuous silhouette in the moonlight. Three hundred paces away, a guard tower watched over the city's northern approach. Alyra had come this way enough times to know what to look for as she scanned the tower's catwalk. It was empty at the moment, but she didn't move. Fifty heartbeats later, light bloomed and a dark figure appeared. The sentry walked a circuit around the tower's battlements before disappearing again. Alyra scrambled down the hill. She had five minutes, on average, before the guard made another round.

  She ran past. If there were any sentries patrolling the area between the towers, things could go bad for her. However, she got to the edge of the canyon without attracting attention.

  The site of the camp was a stroke of malevolent genius. Nestled at the bottom of an old stone quarry just north of the city, it was hidden from prying eyes. Yet Alyra suspected the real reason for its placement was to keep its inmates inside. The crucible where Que
en Byleth's armies were forged was more like a prison than a training ground. Its denizens struggled just to survive. However, the troops who did survive were among the most feared in the empire, able to endure conditions that could cripple other soldiers, even hardened veterans.

  The canyon walls dropped more than a hundred yards below her. Climbing it would have taken her half the night, assuming she didn't misstep and get herself killed. Fortunately, she didn't have to.

  Alyra put two fingers in her mouth and gave a whistle that mimicked the cry of a milk-hawk. Not two heartbeats later, the cry returned to her as several forms rose from the sand dunes. She breathed easier when she saw a familiar face. Emanon had clipped his hair short in the military fashion. She was accustomed to seeing him with longer, almost curly brown locks. He smiled when she handed him the satchel. Then he beckoned for her to follow to the lip of the canyon where a rope had been fixed around the trunk of a sturdy cactus tree. One by one, the men went over the side and down the rope. Emanon motioned for Alyra to go before him. She took the rope and shimmied down. It was only twenty feet or so to the mouth of a narrow cave.

  As Alyra's feet touched down on solid stone, she released the breath she'd been holding. The cave was deeper than it appeared. Emanon lowered a blanket over the cave entrance as he ducked inside after her, blocking out the moonlight and plunging the cave into total darkness. Stone scratched against steel, and a spark bloomed. A small lamp ignited in the hands of a slave-soldier. Most of the men waited at the cave entrance. Each carried a crude weapon—daggers made from tools, spikes, an iron mallet.

  “It is good to see you, Lady Alyra,” Jerkul said with a shy smile. Every time they met, he never failed to be courteous.

  She placed a hand on his corded forearm. “Have you had any word from your family?”

  “Erma wrote me. Says my son is growing fast. He's almost up to her hips.”

  “I'll be glad for the day when you can return to them,” Alyra said.