Heir of Iron (The Powers of Amur Book 1)

by J. S. Bangs

  “What is this?” the man asked, taking in Navran with a contemptuous glance. “If you have a prisoner, take him to the dungeon.”

  “This is the one that the Emperor’s Hand requested,” said the man to Navran’s left. “We were told to bring him to the Horned Gate.”

  “Oh.” The man scowled, making the sign to ward off evil. Navran wondered darkly whether he or the Emperor’s Hand was the evil so abjured. “Then take him through. I’ll send someone to address the Hand.”

  The copper doors creaked open, and the Red Men marched Navran under the arch, which must have been the Horned Gate that the soldiers mentioned. The other side of the door was markedly different. It was a small antechamber with a polished marble floor, high windows on the east and west walls, and perfumed cushions stacked against the walls. A cool wind breathed through the windows. The Red Men did not take the cushions, though, but sat themselves down cross-legged on the floor. Navran started to sit, but the nearest soldier grunted at him.

  “You stand over there,” he said, pointing at a place underneath the window. “Wait until we tell you to move.”

  His feet ached. The wait dragged on. Dice appeared from someone’s pocket, and a desultory game of sacchu with nothing at stake dribbled along. Navran watched their progress with interest. When had he last cast dice? Before leaving Virnas, which now seemed to be an emperor’s lifetime in the past, though when he counted the days it was only a few weeks.

  Another member of the imperial guard appeared from the direction of the palace. “Take him to the servants’ bath at the end of the hall,” he said with a gesture towards Navran. “The Emperor’s Hand is sending his manservant down.”

  A brief march down the hall from the barracks brought him to the baths. He caught glimpses of others in the imperial palace other than the Red Men: maids in modest white saris and a distant cluster of noblemen shimmering with silk and gold. A diversion from the main passage brought them into a dark, dim corner of the palace crowded with baskets and gourds. A few maids scattered when they saw them coming. The first door opened into a small, hot room lit in dying red by a bank of coals in the corner.

  The guards shoved him into the room. “Wait,” one said and yanked the curtain over the door shut.

  The room was lit only by the faint glow of the coals. He waited. He was getting tired of waiting. When the Red Men first pulled him out of the guest-house in Jaitha, he thought he might have been saved from the burden that Mandhi had laid on him. He didn’t know why the Red Men had taken him, and he didn’t ask. Perhaps he had inadvertently scorned a member of the nobility here or someone from the imperial household. It wouldn’t be the first time he had incurred a debt he couldn’t pay against people too powerful to hide from.

  But the cruel march from Jaitha to Majasravi had extinguished his relief. He barely managed to stay on his feet with the crusts of roti and nearly-dry gourds of water they threw at him, and still they gave him no clue of their intent. Now he had given up guessing, and merely hoped to live out the hour.

  A boy came through the curtain carrying a bundle of sticks and a large pot of water. He dropped them both on the floor and examined Navran for a moment in the dim.

  “What do you want?” Navran asked.

  The boy didn’t answer at first, taking his time to examine Navran. He was tall and handsome, with the reddish skin and the large nose of the mountain people, and he wore nothing but a slave’s dhoti. Then, without a word, he bent and began breathing on the banked coals and feeding them with sticks.

  “Will you answer me? What’s going on here?”

  The boy kept blowing until the first of the sticks burst into yellow flame. The room was bathed in pale light. The boy looked up at Navran and said, “This is the servants’ bath. I’m here to clean you before you are presented to the Hand. Stand next to the coals.”

  Navran stood where the boy pointed. The boy put the rest of the sticks onto the fire, which began to crackle with heat, then raked out the hottest of the coals next to Navran. He started to sweat from the heat and leaned against the wall. Then, to his surprise, the boy sloshed half of the water in his pot across the coals, enveloping Navran in a robe of mist. Navran coughed and jumped away.

  The boy caught his hand. “I told you to stand here.”

  “What kind of bath is this?”

  “You’ve never had a steam bath before?” The boy looked at him with amusement. “Have you ever had a bath at all?”

  “Shut up.”

  “My name is Kirshta. And we may be allies, if you aren’t a fool. Take off your clothes so I don’t have to touch them.”

  He fumed but began to strip. He had been abused by Red Men all the way from Jaitha and didn’t need it to continue from a slave boy. “What do you know about me?”

  “I know that the Emperor’s Hand wants you. That’s enough.”

  “Then what makes you think we’re allies?”

  Kirshta looked Navran over with a sly grin. “You’ll see.”

  He dipped a cloth into the pot and wiped away the dust and grime loosened by sweat and steam. He cleaned Navran’s arms, chest, and legs then had Navran kneel to wash his face and head. When he was done, he wet the rag and threw it at Navran. “Clean your genitals. I’ll be back in a moment with clothes.”

  Navran washed himself and cursed silently. He dropped the rag into the pot of water and shook his arms, scattering drops into the fire where they hissed like snakes. Kirshta appeared a moment later with a folded yellow dhoti and kurta.

  “This isn’t a slave’s garment,” Navran said.

  “It’s the garment the Emperor’s Hand sent down for you. Put it on.”

  Navran dressed without another word. When he and Kirshta emerged from the room, the guards had disappeared. “Follow me,” Kirshta said, and started off into the palace.

  “Where are the guards?”

  “We don’t need them.”

  “What if I run away?”

  “I’ll be curious to see how far you get.”

  Navran followed. Perhaps Kirshta was not a slave—he certainly didn’t behave like one. Perhaps he was a catamite of the Emperor, or of the Emperor’s Hand that the Red Men had spoken of. Or perhaps he was just insolent and relished the chance to abuse a prisoner. In any case, the boy was right: he would never find his way out of the palace alive. Though he had no guards, he was still a prisoner.

  Kirshta led him through a series of wide corridors paved with marble and lit by lamps burning a sweet-smelling oil. They came to a broad marble stair and ascended a curving staircase. Niches along the wall held images of Am and Ashti in silver and glazed ceramics. Landings along the stairs opened onto apartments and balconies hidden behind translucent curtains of silk.

  Finally, they came to a landing that smelled of cinnamon and orange rind, lit in pale gold light. A pair of Red Men carrying spears guarded the door from the stairs to the interior of the tower, but upon seeing Kirshta they bowed and parted. Beyond them was a long foyer, opening onto a small balcony with a marble bannister. A series of lamps in the shape of tigers’ heads hung from the ceiling on golden chains, giving off the dim perfumed light. The south wall of the foyer had a door wide enough for three men. It was hung with heavy curtains embroidered in blue and purple, showing the fanged, skull-adorned Kushma in battle with the serpent. Statues of Am and Ashti as tall as a man flanked the door. Kirshta stopped directly in front of them.

  “You will bow here, and enter crawling on your knees with your face to the ground,” he whispered. “Don’t speak until you’re spoken to. Don’t look up until I tell you to. Do you understand?”

  “What if I don’t obey?”

  “You’re already under the wrath of the Emperor’s Hand. Don’t make it worse for yourself.” He put his hand on Navran’s shoulder and whispered insistently. “I want to help you. Listen to me.”

  So Navran knelt before the curtain. Did all who saw the Emperor enter this way, or was this another act to remind him he was a pris
oner? Kirshta dropped to his knees before the curtain, bowed three times with his face to the ground, then called out, “Great Emperor of Am, King of Kings, we cry out to you in terror and plead for mercy. As you have called, we have come. Thrice we beg you: May we enter? May we enter? May we enter?”

  A thick baritone voice answered through the curtain. “The Emperor’s Hand bids you enter with fear and trembling.”

  “Follow,” Kirshta whispered. He bowed his face to the ground and crawled forward.

  Navran bowed his head and followed. The silk curtains enfolded his head and flowed over his shoulders, and he emerged from their grasp into a heavy, stifling darkness. The same voice that had spoken through the curtain spoke again, and it filled the chamber like a monsoon-swollen river rushing on its banks. But its tone, rather than being cruel, was kind and indulgent.

  “Stand, Kirshta.” He heard the rustle of Kirshta’s movement. “You’ve made him presentable after the hardships of the road?”

  “Yes, master.”

  “Was he as dirty as you expected?”

  “The dust on his body was easily cleaned away. The filth of his soul I didn’t touch.”

  “And what did you perceive of that filth?”

  “He is bent inward. He loathes himself, and his loathing is justified, but he is also prideful and resents the scorn that others show him. He drinks, seeking oblivion. He gambles, knowing he will lose, hoping he will lose, because losing confirms who he is.”

  The booming voice chuckled. Hatred for both of them flared in Navran’s chest. “How long were you with him, Kirshta?”

  “Fifteen minutes since I started to wash him.”

  “Well done. Do you think he’ll suffice for our purposes?”

  “I think he will.”

  “Good. Now, you there. Look at me.”

  Navran’s palms began to sweat. The bilious tastes of hatred and terror mixed on his tongue. “Me?”

  “Yes, you.”

  Navran lifted his head. The room was very dark, lit only by a single oil lamp. A man sat in the Moon posture atop a red cushion. He was bald, with a skin worn smooth by age like an old stone. His long white beard glistened with oil. Rings glittered on all of his fingers.

  “Come closer,” the man said.

  Navran crept forward until his face nearly touched the man’s knees. With a movement like a cobra striking, the man bent and seized Navran’s face between his hands and brought it close to his own. His breath smelled of anise and onion.

  “What do you think of my apprentice’s evaluation?” the man said. “Has he judged you rightly?”

  Navran said nothing. Kirshta’s words bit like a burr, but he couldn’t say they were false. The man examined Navran for several moments, turning his head from one side to another to look into each eye separately, then he pushed Navran’s head back with a disinterested flick.

  “You don’t wish to answer. Very well. Do you know who I am?”

  “The Emperor’s Hand,” Navran said.

  “So you heard in the Dhigvaditya. Do you know my name?”

  “No.”

  The man pressed the palms of his hands together again. “My name is Ruyam. Perhaps you have heard of me.”

  A dark chill went over Navran. A rumor from his childhood, a curse spoken in whispers. And yet, until Cauratha had explained it to him in Virnas, he had only known the vaguest idea of what Ruyam had done.

  Ruyam was looking at Navran with a haughty, expectant expression. Navran needed to answer. He said only, “Perhaps.”

  “If the ring-wearers have forgotten the fear of me, I will have to work more violently to teach it to them again. Do you know why you’re here?”

  “No.”

  The man looked at Kirshta. “Leave now. I’ll call for you when we’re done.” The boy bowed and retreated through the curtain with his head down. Then Ruyam resumed speaking in a quieter voice.

  “You may have barely heard my name, Navran, but I have known yours for a long time. I have spent years looking for you, tainted child of the Uluriya. Do you know why?”

  “No.”

  “You are going to give me what I couldn’t have twenty-five years ago.” Ruyam bent forward and ran his fingers over Navran’s cheek. “You are going to deliver the Heir of Manjur to me.”

  Navran thought instantly of ancient Cauratha in Virnas then hurled away the mental image. Could Ruyam hear his thoughts? Had he given Cauratha away just by thinking of him? But Ruyam went on as if nothing had happened.

  “You are close to the Heir, aren’t you, Navran?”

  Could he lie? He decided to say nothing.

  “Are you protecting him?” Ruyam asked. He straightened and assumed the Moon posture again. “Do you actually feel loyalty to him?”

  “He is the head of the Uluriya.”

  “But you are a miserable specimen of your little cult. I know you, Navran. My search for you, even from this distance, taught me much about how you’ve spent your life. Most of your time has been among unclean people, working unclean jobs, and drowning yourself in drinking and debauchery. Tell me, how often have you been sanctified by ram’s blood in your life? How often have you prayed? Do you cleanse yourself as your law requires? Do you even know the requirements of your law?” He gave Navran a contemptuous glare. “You were born to the cult of Ulaur, but that’s all. You have no claim to it, and it has no claim on you. So why should you suffer rather than give me the name and place of the Heir?”

  It was all true, and for a moment he considered answering. But—no. Cauratha was an innocent old man. Navran had taken his money and abused his hospitality, but he couldn’t betray him to the Emperor. He wasn’t as far gone as that.

  Or so he hoped.

  “I don’t know anything about the Heir,” he said.

  Ruyam examined Navran for a moment through half-closed eyes, his tongue flicking out between his lips like a serpent. “Do you want to see the Emperor?”

  Navran bowed his head. “I dare not lay eyes on the Emperor.”

  “You dare not. As if you’ve suddenly learned prudence and proper speech. But you do not have a choice. Follow me.”

  Ruyam rose to his feet in a single fluid motion, his silk robe rippling around him like a curtain of oil. Navran cautiously rose from his knees and followed Ruyam around the cushion and deeper into the darkness of the chamber. They passed through the thin curtain of an inner door and came at last to a wholly lightless alcove. Cinnamon and frankincense cloyed the air, masking an underlying smell of urine and an unwashed body. Somewhere in the darkness pottery scraped against stone, and Ruyam’s face appeared lit by a coal. He blew on the coal to light a lamp.

  “Here is your Emperor,” Ruyam said. He swung the lamp around until the light fell on a ghastly figure lying on a mat on the floor.

  Navran stepped back with a gasp of disgust. The man’s face was a waxy sheet of skin stretched over a skull, his lips pulled back from brown, rotting teeth. The man’s eyes were completely occluded with white. He raised a hand to paw at the air, as if trying to grab a hold of those who had disturbed his sleep. A white tongue appeared between his teeth, and a phlegmy gasp rattled in his throat. His lips pressed together with a horrible, wet, rotten smack, dribbling yellow saliva from the corners of his mouth.

  “When I first came here in disguise ten years ago, his mind was already weak,” Ruyam said. “It was simple for me to ascend to his favor, even in disguise. If he has any mind left now, it whimpers helplessly inside his rotting body. I keep him alive until I’m ready to make myself public.”

  “Why are you showing me this?” Navran said. He had backed into the edge of the door frame trying to put distance between himself and the thing struggling on the floor.

  “So you understand who I am. There is no emperor who restrains me. The Red Men have sworn their loyalty to the Hand. I have the gift of farsight and the mastery of fire that I learned at Ternas. Amur is mine more surely than it ever was the Emperor’s.”

  He leaned cl
ose to Navran and whispered in his ear. “All that remains is to find out whether I’ll destroy the Uluriya with your help or without.”

  Navran stepped back and fell through the curtain onto the floor. His stomach turned. “Why do you want to destroy us?”

  Ruyam bent and seized Navran’s arm, then yanked him to his feet. “It doesn’t matter. You can give me the Heir and reap my gratitude, or defy me and be destroyed with your kin.”

  “No. I can’t.”

  Ruyam dragged him back to the entrance of the chamber and threw him to the ground before the curtain. “Kirshta!” he shouted.

  The boy crawled on his knees through the curtain. “Yes, master?”

  “Rise and take this man away. Tell the Red Men to put him in the lower dungeon.”

  “As you wish.”

  Kirshta’s arms clasped over Navran’s shoulders. Navran shook free, but in a burst of movement Kirshta wrestled Navran to the ground and pinned his face to the floor.

  “Do I need to call the Red Men?” he hissed. “They’ll do worse to you.”

  Navran went limp. “No. I’ll go.”

  Kirshta grabbed Navran’s hand, jerked him to his feet, and led him from the Emperor’s chamber. The guards at the entrance to the foyer let the two of them pass without comment. Once they were past the guards and alone on the descending marble stairs, Kirshta leaned over and whispered in Navran’s ear.

  “Did you resist?”

  Navran couldn’t fathom what Kirshta wanted by asking this. Was the boy Ruyam’s apprentice or not? Was this some elaborate scheme to break him? At a loss, he decided to answer simply, “I’m going to the dungeon.”

  “That you are. If you can resist that as well, there may be a chance for both of us.”

  13

  Navran broke off his tale. Something was wrong with Gocam. The hermit had closed his eyes and clutched his fists to his chest, and his lips moved in a silent mantra. He exhaled slowly, a sound like a single subdued sob creaking out of his throat, and he looked at Navran.

  “My child lives,” he said. “My weakness is nearly complete.”