Kings of Ash

by Richard Nell

  They followed the old butler to a marble hall, then beyond to a double mango-wood door, and into the room behind.

  There, perched on the throne, was the most beautiful woman Arun had ever seen.

  “Thank you, Hina, you may leave us,” she said, voice smooth and sure.

  Arun sensed the man’s hesitation and didn’t blame him. Whatever else the two men now in his mistress’ presence were, they were certainly dangerous. Still he left without a word, and the three of them seemed alone. Arun wondered if there were guards behind curtains or fake walls, and if he was a step away from death.

  “You have fortunate timing, Noose,” said their hostess. “The king has just welcomed another official son. He’s feeling rather generous.”

  Arun bowed low, flashing his most charming smile.

  “Then I am pleased, my lady.”

  She exposed her long, pale neck as she cocked her head.

  “Don’t be. It’s why I came instead, and I’m never feeling generous.”

  “If all I receive is the gift of your beauty, my lady, I will feel more than compensated.”

  The woman laughed, though it didn’t touch her eyes.

  “Piss on my beauty, pirate. Show me your monster.”

  Arun bowed and gestured for Ruka to remove his hood. The look in the man’s golden eyes was unreadable, but he obeyed.

  To the woman’s credit, she kept her composure as she inspected.

  “Not quite an albino, is he? Can we speak with him?”

  “No, my lady. I don’t believe so. I’ve tried several Pyu dialects and a few of the continental tongues.”

  She frowned. “Then what good is he?”

  “He’s very clever, my lady. Perhaps there are linguists that can help.”

  “Linguists cost money. You bring me useless expense.” Her gaze went up and down the huge length of thick barbarian. “He probably eats like a bull.”

  “I expect he does, my lady. But this bull has horns. I’ve seen him kill five veterans of the Halin pit, alone, using only a dull knife and his bare hands.”

  The lady shrugged her exposed, perfect shoulders, and crossed her long smooth legs.

  “So he’s dangerous and hard to control. More expense. I don’t think I want him.”

  Arun bowed, happy to play through the ritual of haggling.

  “I understand, please forgive me for wasting your time. We’ll go and see another family.”

  The woman’s dark brown, almost black eyes stared, then she laughed. The sound was harsh, and condescending.

  “Oh, I’m keeping him, pirate, I’m just not sure I want him, or that I’ll pay for him. Perhaps I’ll cleave his ugly head to ease my mind.”

  Arun’s jaw clenched and he made some effort to relax. Apparently this was a different kind of game. But pirates played such games and he was used to these, too. He stepped forward but kept his smile, waiting till she met his eyes.

  “I’ll happily kill you, and die today, before I let you rob me.”

  His words hung in the air, and Arun readied his senses to hear the first arrow whistle, ready to pounce and do exactly as he promised. The lady looked from one of his eyes to the other, and smiled.

  “I like your courage, pirate. You and your monster may stay here in the palace tonight. I’ll discuss your fee with the king. Is that acceptable?”

  Arun stepped back and bowed, knowing it would be the most dangerous night of his life.

  “More than acceptable. Bringing a smile to such lips as yours is reward enough, my lady.”

  The pleasure stayed on her face, and she nestled back in her chair, lithe as a hunting cat, though she said nothing.

  “May I have the pleasure of your name, my lady? And I should like to congratulate the king on his new son in person, if I may.”

  At this the noblewoman’s pleasure seemed to vanish, and Arun feared he’d blundered.

  “How well spoken you are for a pirate,” she said, standing to cross the room. “But I tire of the charade, ex-brother of the Ching. Oh yes, I know exactly who you are. Understand this—I am Princess Kikay, the king’s sister, and I am your master now. I am all that stands between you and death. You will meet my brother soon enough, and perhaps your politeness will save you. When you praise the infant prince’s name, you may refer to him as Ratama Kale Alaku.”

  Chapter 11

  The scene was bizarre, maybe grotesque, but Osco’s rage overcame.

  “What were you thinking, father?”

  His mind flooded with memories of being chastised as a boy—being the one in the chair staring at his feet as his father paced.

  They were alone now in a side-room off the hall, a place where servants usually ate and waited while the family dined. Harcas seemed far too relaxed, considering, and his lack of fear or at least embarrassment only infuriated Osco further.

  “I was thinking I don’t want my people destroyed. I was thinking I don’t trust your miracle-worker. And even if I did—he may die before he’s useful. Or he may not be able to teach us as he claims.”

  “Then why not simply reject him? Why try to kill him?”

  Harcas showed not even the subtlest signs of shame, or regret.

  “The emperor sent birds to every city for a hundred miles—there’s a vast reward for him alive, or for his corpse. I’d planned on the former, at least until his little display. I did not think it possible to capture such a man.”

  Osco pointed a finger as calmly as possible towards the hall where Kale waited with the family.

  “Capture him? Kill him? You’re lucky he didn’t just butcher every last one of us. He still may. I certainly would have in his place.”

  His father’s face at least acknowledged that. But he shrugged.

  “How could I know he resists poison? I used ten-breath dew, and plenty of it. It should have killed an ox.”

  “He’s a damned miracle-worker! You shouldn’t have risked it.” Osco felt sick, disgusted. He wanted to say ‘and if you chose to do it, how could you fail?’ But his father’s earlier words overshadowed everything else, and he clenched his jaw before he spoke.

  “Now tell me, since when do we call that tyrant ‘emperor’, father?”

  The man rolled his eyes as if it didn’t matter. It was like a dagger to Osco’s heart.

  “What’s the difference. Tell your ‘friend’ to do whatever he intends to do, and leave. He is not welcome here. I’m still your father and lord of this house.”

  Osco stared and tried to find some trace of the man he once knew. Had he truly been away from home so long? Had the world spun and changed with him oblivious at its center?

  His father looked greyer now, and fatter, but otherwise much the same. Could all that Osco knew and hoped and dreamed be destroyed in just a few short years? Could a man’s faith be broken so quickly, so quietly?

  Earlier that morning, he would have said no. But truth was truth, and here he was.

  “No, you’re not. Not anymore.”

  The old man that was once Osco’s father scoffed.

  “You’re not my heir. And even if you were, you can’t just seize power from me.”

  Osco sneered. He dropped every shred of respect from his tone, for he had none left.

  “I can do whatever power allows, as I’ve been taught. I will go and tell my miracle-wielding ally that you and all my brothers still intend to cause him harm. He will rip you apart, and I will be lord.”

  The older man watched him intently now, still and silent.

  “A bluff.”

  Osco blinked. He couldn’t understand the man who raised him ever believing those words.

  “You will sign over all family authority to me. You will retire to the country, and you will never return to Malvey. Do this, or you will die.”

  He banished the image and memory of his father in his mind and walked from the room, then ordered his uncle to retrieve the proper documents.

  The man hesitated.

  Osco hurled a bowl across the
room, shattering the silence with a hundred shards of flying clay. He stepped forward and unsheathed his knife.

  “I see Naranian gold has softened all your spines. But please believe me, it has not softened mine. Go now uncle, or watch your sons and brothers die.”

  The old, maybe even wise and kind scribbler fled, and the rest did not move.

  Kale still looked awful. Between his pale face and the streaks of blood he resembled a walking corpse. His eyes had gone bloodshot, but when they turned on Osco they weren’t angry. He spoke with the same soft, gentle voice, pleasant even with a rasp.

  “I’d like to leave now. I understand if your soldiers can’t come with me.”

  Osco couldn’t seem to process how he felt about this strange island prince. He respected his power, sometimes his wisdom, and yet he lacked the ruthlessness required to play games of state, and perhaps to survive them.

  “They are promised. By oath of a Magda, of a Devoted.” He said this for his family’s benefit. “They will go with you.”

  Kale nodded and said nothing. Together they all waited for what felt like hours—men who had taught Osco to be a man sitting in shame, or anger. His uncle returned with the family seal, with documents transferring Magda authority to a new heir, and a glass horn of red ink. Harcas looked one last time in Osco’s eyes, and at Kale’s quiet calm. He signed.

  “I will be leaving with Prince Ratama, as planned,” Osco explained. “My wife will choose a regent to serve as Patriarch until my return.” He kept his voice matter-of-fact, but in truth his mind spun in fear.

  He asked Asna to take Kale back out of the fortress and down to the soldiers—who’d already agreed to make war in Pyu, knowing nothing of treachery—then he returned to his wife hoping she’d not yet left for the temple.

  “I have usurped power from my father,” he said to her with no other explanation. “I am now head of the Magda. You will manage all family business on my behalf until I return, and after ‘consideration’ you will choose my cousin, Duvi, as regent.”

  Liga’s face showed surprise, but otherwise remained carefully blank.

  “As you say, husband. But Duvi is six years old.”

  “For all practical purposes, you will rule in my stead.” Here he paused, unsure how to say everything that must be said—to warn her properly against treachery and violence and death, and explain how far she might have to go. “My family…they will not accept this. They may try to kill you, or destroy the documents, or any number of other things. I give you full authority to do what is necessary to maintain control. Speak to your family, tell them they will soon rise to preeminence and that the Magda are fallen. Use all the wealth of our house, kill anyone you must. It will not be easy.”

  He knew his words were insane, overwhelming, impossible. Liga stood from the desk and the documents she’d been scribbling.

  “I understand, husband. I will speak to my father and brothers. We will protect Mesan. Is there anything else?”

  Osco blinked. Is there anything else!

  “No. No. There’s nothing. May the gods protect you.”

  “And you, husband.”

  Osco found he was speechless. He was unequipped to honor such a woman. He stepped forward and took her in his arms, which seemed acceptable, given the circumstances. He used every ounce of will to hold back the tears of pride.

  “There is no greater wife in all Mesan,” he whispered. “You shame me. You shame my family.”

  Her arms gripped him correctly, holding him, but not clinging or trembling.

  “Your family perhaps, husband, but not you. Never you.”

  He allowed that praise without rebuke, just this once. Then he banished all selfish things and held her at arm’s length.

  “We will free our city, Liga, or die trying.”

  She smiled, support and comfort written over her face and eyes. He wiped a thumb across her smooth, dry cheek.

  The perfect wife.

  He strode from her chambers for what he expected to be the last time. He turned his mind to a foreign prince, a long, difficult road across an enemy empire, a foreign sea, and a foreign land. He doubted very much he would see Liga again, at least not in this world. But very quietly, and yes, very selfishly, he hoped he would.

  * * *

  “I couldn’t have killed them,” Kale admitted as his friends all but carried him through the city gates.

  “Couldn’t have, or wouldn’t have?”

  Kale glanced at his ‘friend’, and wasn’t sure.

  “Let’s say both.”

  He coughed, then considered the fact that the men being discussed for miracle-assisted death were the entirety of Osco’s family.

  “Would you have asked me to?”

  He thought he knew the answer, but still, he wanted to hear it. Osco’s brow tightened, and he looked away.

  Kale knew it meant yes, but didn’t know what to do with that knowledge, and felt too ill to consider it.

  In fact he’d never felt so weak in his life. Water was the only thing he could keep down, and drinking it made his head spin, keeping time with the waves of shivering and stomach pains. He suspected the poison hadn’t entirely gone, and he’d have to suffer through the remnants.

  He forgave Harcas Magda at once for trying to kill him. It was a mistake to come here—a mistake to allow others to take on such risk. Kale hadn’t even considered that the emperor might punish Mesan, maybe destroy them, just for helping him. It made him feel like a fool. Warriors too felt fear, he knew, especially old warriors with ruthless minds—for they knew what they themselves would do.

  He looked around and saw hundreds of trained killers surrounding him. He saw a mercenary who murdered for sport and profit, and who earlier in the day could have betrayed him and this would not have been surprising. And he saw a young man willing to slaughter his whole family for an idea.

  All his friends were soldiers, or the allies of soldiers. And yet how could he fight violence without violence? He had no answer, and expected none. He would kill to create peace, and hope his reason mattered.

  But was this not the same reasoning Naran had used to subdue Osco’s people? Was there truly any difference? And what was the limit to such an ideal?

  Kale sighed. He did not know.

  He had followed Osco back to his wife with his spirit before they left Malvey, and he had heard their words of deadly commitment, then watched her hide away the official documents of betrayal. He had even lingered and watched her weep and wrap her arms around her chest in solitude, then mask herself in Mesanite stone before summoning guards and servants.

  He’d watched, too, the reaction of Osco’s family when they’d been left alone. They had not wished Kale dead. But they believed that the emperor would kill them all—that he’d kill their wives and children and neighbors, and grind their city into the dust.

  The emperor of Naran was perhaps a tyrant. He had likely killed his own uncle, Kale’s friend, for being a nuisance, and his people had expanded their power over neighbors and allies since men wrote records of such things.

  But Naran itself was most impressive. The Naranian people received the best education in the world; their women could rise to prominence in government; their servants could be born peasants and die aristocrats, rising on merit alone. The emperor himself could be replaced by ‘lawful revolution’, which meant simply ‘successful revolution’, and had happened two generations ago, though it had no doubt taken thousands of deaths.

  Osco’s people, on the other hand, were born to their caste. A man born a commoner died a commoner. And whether farmers or merchants, craftsmen or servants, no matter what they were seen as nothing by the warriors and all those with power. Five families ruled the Blue City with complete control, and any man who raised a spear against them lost his head. Mesanite women were wives and mothers; they served their husband’s house, or they joined a temple to serve a god. They had no other choice.

  Kale walked amongst them in body and spirit as they
left the city. He saw illiterate peasants surrounded by mountains and desert and harsh laws. He saw slaves, he saw misery—he saw people who starved during drought, who made little profit when there was rains, and lost their hands or lives when they stole something that belonged to the upper class.

  It was not a place he would live, or choose for his children. Whatever it was that made a man like Osco willing to kill or die for his people and city, it was not their greatness, nor fairness, for it seemed to lack both, save for the quality of their warriors. But then who was Kale to judge? Were his people so much better? And what was better?

  Peace was better, he had to believe that. His people, at least, were not warlike. Their greatest heroes were explorers and spiritual men, not warriors. And yet here I am, coming to sweep away men’s lives with allied soldiers and miracles. The sorcerer-prince.

  His small army of Mesanites were gathering now into lines outside their city. Each man carried a leather pack strapped to his shoulders that sagged beneath the weight. Donkeys were being latched to the front of fifty wagons, braying and honking and kicking at shins.

  The soldiers would need to march across half a continent, through hills and who knew what else avoiding roads and other travelers.

  Before the end they would no doubt need to send men in groups to towns for supplies, or raid farms or countryside. They would have to send out scouts to kill anyone who saw them just to be safe from imperial spies. And even then, it was probably hopeless.

  To take five-hundred men through Naran without notice or resistance seemed unlikely, and if successful, still they would have to cross Nong Ming Tong; they would have to bargain for ships with a king who could betray, or avoid him and attempt to hire pirates. All this just to arrive at what could be their doom.

  For whatever foreign force had taken Sri Kon had somehow overcome or bypassed the greatest navy in the world. Kale’s father controlled a thousand warships, with twenty thousand marines patrolling the seas beneath a complex system of leadership which should function without the king.

  The city itself held three-hundred thousand people, likely more, and though the army was small and inexperienced, it could muster a few thousand soldiers in less than a day.