The Skyfall Era Trilogy: Books 1-3

by Matt Larkin

  Naresh snickered. As far as he knew the Buaya Jadian hadn’t even existed until a few decades ago. Rahu had created both Jadian bloodlines, Chandi had said. The Harimau Jadian, or weretigers, who became the Macan Gadungan, and the Buaya Jadian—werecrocodiles who served as spies and assassins. But the Buaya Jadian had refused Rangguwani’s attempts to bring them into the fold of his Skyfall Empire. Perhaps they would have accepted, if Pohaci had urged it. But she had left to find Malin, and unless she had found him and gone to unknown lands with her lover, sought him still.

  And so Rangguwani had vilified the werecrocodiles. Not those living now, of course, for he must still hope to draw them in, as he had drawn in some of the Macan Gadungan. No, he merely painted them as that great, nebulous common evil defeated by the Ratu Adil of the past. Clever. A not-so-subtle reminder the Ratu Adil overshadowed the Jadian.

  The puppetry continued as expected: Aji Saka went to each dynasty and earned their trust. He himself stood face to face with the massive crocodile, Dewata.

  “Dewata was no ordinary werecrocodile,” the narrator said. “He was the fabled white crocodile, and he had in him the blood of a dragon, one of the great legends of Old Tianxia.”

  Naresh rolled his eyes.

  “All through the night Aji Saka battled Dewata. From the jungles to the clifftop. And as the sun began to rise, draining Dewata’s moon-given powers, Aji Saka cast him from the cliff of the Astral Temple, into the sea far below. Dewata fell screaming his foul curses, but none heeded him. For Saka’s alliance soon overcame the werecrocodiles, driving them into hiding for centuries.”

  The shadow puppets hefted Aji Saka into the air and carried him to a shadow throne. “And thus the Ratu Adil was born.”

  The drums rumbled, and the shadow puppets danced around the mock throne hall, until at last the torches went out and screen turned dark.

  Naresh stretched while the audience clapped. Those lacking Academy educations might accept the tale without question. But Naresh knew Rangguwani too well, by now. He’d have no problem creating legends to suit his needs—all the man cared for was power. And he tolerated no rival.

  The Lunar had been asking him to find Kertajaya for months, and had grown increasingly abrupt with Naresh’s continued failure. Maybe if Rangguwani had the Buaya Jadian with him, they could have found the man. It was what they did, after all.

  As the crowd rose, Naresh glanced at Chandi. She still had her arms on her knees, but now her head was bowed. He rubbed her back until she stirred. “Chandi?”

  She looked up at him, her eyes glassy. “Let’s go home.”

  Naresh nodded and helped her up, cradling her in his arms. Something had happened to her, and he’d missed it. But he’d never let her face anything alone. Whatever was happening with his wife, he was going to find out.

  CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED FORTY

  Cradled in her husband’s arms, Chandi feigned sleep. It was easier than trying to explain. What had she done? She was such a fool. Just one more sip, one more sip would soothe the burning ache running through her skull. At least for a few days.

  Why was he carrying her home? She’d stumbled, hadn’t she? She snuggled deeper against his chest. So warm, so strong. And he needed her. She couldn’t let him down. Not again. Never again.

  Sweet Chandra, why had she taken the Amrita again? Gods, she’d sworn it would be the last time. But now, a week without it was driving her beyond the edge. She bit her lip. Pain to cut through the lunacy. Was she a lunatic? She wasn’t using her Blessings as much … was she? Would she know? But they were becoming stronger. They seemed stronger.

  Rahu had killed her at the Astral Temple. Rahu, wearing poor Little Mahesa’s body. Chandi had felt herself growing cold, felt her life seeping out through the wound in her stomach. Funny, she didn’t remember that much fear. But Pohaci had … The werecrocodile had pulled one of the vials of Amrita from Chandi’s sarong, had made her drink. Damn her. It saved her life, but wasn’t death better than lunacy? But then, she would have lost Naresh.

  “Shh,” he said, squeezing her tighter.

  She was crying against him, wasn’t she? She had to get control. Just one sip and she’d be well. She’d control this. By Chandra, she wouldn’t let this thing win. She’d come through too much to be with Naresh. She’d turned her back on her father, on her people, on Malin, on everything she’d known. Because all of it paled in the fire of love. She’d thought she loved Anusapati, but that love seemed a mere cook fire next to the blazing sun that was Naresh.

  So did she owe Pohaci? Drinking that Amrita had both saved and destroyed her life. She was still going to die, wasn’t she? Except now she would die a lunatic. A madwoman, grasping at the strands of grandeur, just as Rahu had done. And maybe it was worth it, just for a few more months with Naresh.

  She felt a slight shift, a change in the air. Had Naresh Sun Strode? Chandi cracked her eyes to see him shouldering open the door to their little house. Obviously he hadn’t been able to carry her in his arms and climb a ladder. How many girls had husbands who could instantly transport them upstairs? Not a bad way to travel.

  Naresh set her down on the cot, but she let her arms linger around his neck, then pulled him down beside her. She tried to speak, but her throat was so dry. Naresh put a finger on her lips and rose. He drifted over to a barrel of water, filled a goblet, and offered it to her.

  After a few sips, she looked up at him. He had sat on the edge of the shelf in the back of the hut, beside her cot, and was staring at her. Had his eyes grown more serious over the last couple of years? Darker?

  “Tell me what’s going on, love,” he said, his face a mask of worry.

  Chandi shook her head. How could she tell him this? Would he ever look at her the same, if he knew she’d trod—and knowingly trod—down the same path as Rahu? Chandra had granted her the mercy to escape lunacy once …

  Cold sweat trickled down her back. She had to get a grip. Just a drop would be enough, just so she could think clearly. She had to make the pieces of her life fit together the way she knew they should.

  Naresh scooted closer and put a hand on her forehead. “You’re feverish.” He hesitated, and looked away for a moment. “Chandi, I’m worried you might have caught malaria. Have you been out in the wetlands recently? Where do you go while I work at the palace?”

  Chandi snickered and pulled his hand from her head so she could clasp it close to her heart. “It’s not malaria.”

  “You can’t be sure of that.”

  Chandi tried to pull him down beside her, but he resisted, staring right into her eyes, as though he could pull all her secrets out that way. Maybe he could. Damn, he was doing it, wasn’t he? “I was given Amrita as a child to help me survive malaria. I think that makes me very resistant to it.”

  “You are sick, and we need to know what it is so we can treat it.”

  Oh, yes, she was sick. Tormented by her own weaknesses and the failings of her mind. Why had she let it come to this? Hadn’t she learned her lesson on the price? Chandi shut her eyes to staunch the building tears and ground her jaw. Pohaci had done this to her. She’d taken the choice from her. The Amrita gave her no choice. She would always crave it. If she was honest, she found a reason to use her Blessings every day, and she craved Amrita even more than them.

  Maybe she wanted to be able to heft the goods she bought up the ladder without waiting for help from Naresh. Maybe she wanted to pass unseen through unsavory areas, collecting rumors for her husband. Or maybe, some nights, she just wanted to feel the wind as she ran faster than a human could dream. Faster than she’d ever run, either.

  Always a reason.

  Warm blood seeped into her mouth. She’d bit her lip too hard. Naresh sucked in a sharp breath and grabbed her face, turning her toward him. “What’s happening, Chandi? Please, don’t shut me out.”

  Chandi trembled as she grabbed his face in her own hands, too. Those eyes could hold her. They could keep her safe. Protect her. If he never left agai
n … But he had to. And she’d be left alone with those damn vials calling to her.

  She tried to swallow, but it caught in her throat. No matter. She pulled the vials from her sarong, earning a frown from Naresh. The frown deepened when she offered them to him.

  “I already told you, I’m not taking that. I won’t turn my back on Surya. Nothing good ever came from the Amrita, Chandi.” His face softened. “Nothing excepting saving your life.”

  She pushed the vials toward him. “Please, Naresh, please take them while I still have the strength to offer. It’s not for you. I’ve been … After Pohaci gave me more, I … I want it so much. Too much.”

  His mouth hung open a bit, but his hands closed around hers, his rough fingers stroking the backs of her hands before he took the vials. “One of these is heavier than the other.”

  Chandi closed her eyes before she nodded. How could she stand to see the disappointment that must paint his face? “I tried to stop myself, Naresh. I swear, I tried.”

  “Why? It’s been half a year. Why did it take you so long to come to me?”

  Chandi chanced a peek at him. Hurt, confusion, doubt. Not things she ever wanted to see on his features. “I lasted a month after the Astral Temple. I don’t know, I just couldn’t stop myself anymore. It kept calling me. Every moment, screaming at me, Naresh.”

  He rose and took a step back. “And you waited this long to tell me?”

  “But I did tell you!” She rose and tried to step after him, but stumbled over her legs and fell to her knees. Had she become this weak? “Please, try to understand what this does to your mind.”

  “I do understand,” he said, tucking the vials into his sarong. “What I don’t understand is why my wife couldn’t tell me what was happening to her sooner. I thought I had earned more trust than that.”

  That wasn’t fair. Was it? Rangda damn … Chandi’s breath caught. She’d thought she’d trained herself to stop thinking that. None of them would ever think of Rangda the same way again. “Just keep it somewhere I can’t find it.”

  “Maybe it should be destroyed.”

  Chandi almost sprang to her feet. “No! This is Chandra’s legacy. This might be the last Amrita in the world. You can’t destroy something like that—”

  “The secret of the Sun Brand has been lost. Maybe all these secrets of the Astral Temple should fade into myth.”

  Chandi shook her head. “No. Besides, someday we might need this.”

  Naresh glowered at her, then grunted. “You already need it too much.” He spun on his heel and fled out the front door.

  Chandi sank back down on the cot. That had not gone the way she planned.

  Another shiver ran through her.

  CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED FORTY-ONE

  Mountains, bogs, and rainforests covered much of Puradvipa. The heart of the island had rarely, if ever, heard a human voice. And Pohaci had trod across it all. Malin was not here.

  Perhaps that was how she found herself climbing the slopes that led up to the Astral Temple. She hadn’t fought at Astral Shore—few of the Buaya Jadian had—so this place didn’t hold the old nightmares for her it did for the Macan Gadungan. But still, after so much blood had been shed here for so little gain, she could almost feel the angry ghosts crying out for vengeance. Souls trapped between the human world and Kahyangan, the Spirit Realm. Never sent on, never returned to the Wheel of Life to be born again.

  But this was the place she’d lost Malin. She’d sworn never to fail him, but she’d let Rahu defeat her. The man—or ghost, she supposed—was a demon, and Pohaci prayed Malin had sent it back to Rangda’s frozen underworld.

  She took each step with care, avoiding the dry leaves and twigs that would announce her presence. Even when she crested the rise, to crouch at the edge of the rainforest, none of the Solar guards noticed her. They smelled relaxed, bored even. A wide archway led through the white crenellated wall that surrounded the Astral Temple—really, it was a complex of temples arranged in a mandala. The concentric circles were supposed to represent the shape of the universe, or something. Probably nonsense.

  For a phase, she sat watching the guards. Few came here, though Tohjaya, the Spice King, had supposedly named this the seat of his kingdom. Fool. He thought the prestige of holding the Temple outweighed what he gave up in abandoning the Spice Islands that supported him. But sooner or later, someone would come and take this place away from him.

  At last, as the sun set, she rose from her crouch. As Buaya Jadian her muscles didn’t cramp even if she remained motionless for phases. Others found that stillness unnatural. But werecrocodiles knew the key to success was timing. Act before the prey was in position, and you give it time to escape. Wait until the right moment, until your targets have all but forgotten you, and you could seize them unawares.

  She slipped forward toward the guards, hands out to her sides to show she bore no weapon. Of course, she did have a weapon. The ekor pari wrapped around her waist would look like a rope belt without close inspection, but she could open a man’s throat with the bladed whip. The oblivious Solars still didn’t notice her until she was almost right on top of them.

  “Surya’s welts!” one shouted as she stepped in front of him. Both men stumbled to ready arbirs. Pointless really, since if she’d meant them harm, they’d have been dead before they even reached for the polearms.

  “I’m here to see Tohjaya.”

  The guards looked at each other before the second one spoke. “Do you have an appointment?”

  Pohaci turned her head to the side, as if taking in the surroundings. The Astral Temple sat atop a plateau, surrounded by rainforest on three sides and a treacherous cliff on the fourth. Beneath the cliff lay Astral Shore, the beaches said to house the ghosts of the Fourth War. “Where would I have made an appointment? Forgive me if I missed the intricacies of Solar politics, I was under the impression this was a religious monument.”

  The guard still had the damn arbir pointed at her. “You can’t see the Spice King without an appointment.”

  Pohaci sighed. “I would imagine the Spice King doesn’t need an appointment to see whomever he wishes to see?”

  “Of course not.”

  “In that case, tell him he must come to see me out here. This way we can avoid any appointment-setting difficulties and still accomplish the task.”

  The guard who spoke raised an eyebrow. “What the … You want me to tell the king to come out here to meet his subject? Who are you?”

  “I’m Pohaci.” She inched her fingers toward the grip of her ekor pari so slowly they wouldn’t notice her moving at all. “He might just remember me as the Buaya Jadian.”

  “The what?”

  She leaned in close to his face. “The werecrocodile.” The man stepped back so quickly he stumbled to the ground, dropping his weapon. Pohaci laughed. “Just take me to him.”

  The guards still hesitated. She could incapacitate them, but if Tohjaya found out, it might hurt her cause. A great deal.

  At last the speaker called to other soldiers inside the gate, and a half dozen men came to escort her inside. A large man on either side grabbed each of her arms and almost dragged her forward.

  Just like those bastards who put her in the hole. Something was shifting inside her. Cold, dark. And very, very angry. The crocodile spirit coiled against her heart and lungs, straining against the confines of her human flesh. The sun had set. She could let it out. Of course, these men would kill her before she’d even finished transforming. Her nature made her stronger than a human man, but she could never overpower six.

  She had to stay calm, to remember why she was here. Malin wasn’t just the man who had freed her from that hole. He was the one who had freed her from herself. Pohaci hadn’t trusted anyone outside her own people, if even them, since she was a child. How could she, after what Rahu and Calon had done to her? But Malin had never judged. Only accepted, only understood. And she loved him for it.

  The men dragged her up the steps of one of th
e temples. Carvings of bidadaris, dragons, and all manner of divine creatures lined the walls inside. Part of the roof had fallen in, allowing a crisscross of moonbeams to illuminate the central hall. Once the temple might have been for worship, but Tohjaya had turned the place into a throne room. Evenly spaced braziers burned along the walls, but instead of the extra light elevating the place, it turned it ominous.

  Tohjaya sat on a throne carved to look like a coiled dragon. In the back of the room, he was cast in shadows, but her eyes allowed her to see him clearly. One arm rested on the dragon’s head, the other on its tail. The thing even had rubies for eyes. And sadly, his over-embroidered purple silk robe managed to out-do the throne for ostentatiousness. Peacocks, dragons, and tigers all decorated that robe.

  Beside the throne, that big Arun Guardsman, Lembu Ampal stood, arms crossed, face expressionless. Dangerous man.

  The men deposited Pohaci a few dozen feet from the throne. They took a step away from her, but only one step, except for a single soldier who went to whisper into the Spice King’s ear.

  The king waved the man off a moment later. “I’m surrounded by idiots.”

  Pohaci surveyed the room, taking in each detail as she spoke, from the extra guards hiding in the shadows, to the concubine who must think herself unseen behind the throne. “The average person has average intelligence, merely by definition of the terms. If the people around you all seem to have less than average intelligence, perhaps it’s not them.”

  Tohjaya cocked his head a moment, then rose and clapped his hands. “At last someone understands me. So few people realize the burden of superior intellect, or the duty of leadership it demands.”

  Pohaci was quite certain that wasn’t what she’d meant. “Yes, my lord. I seek your aid. Malin has been missing since the day he slew Rahu. It would mean a great deal to me to find him. And who would know this island better than its king?”