by J. S. Bangs
The wife berated her husband for his poor hospitality, and she insisted that Navran spend the night. He sat listlessly in their courtyard all day, helping the man cut cloth when asked but otherwise enjoying the unusual feeling of having food in his stomach.
The man’s tailoring knives were fine, well-honed bronze with ivory handles. He couldn’t help but notice them. Worth as much as anything else in the house, he guessed.
That night he slept, but the betrayal in his blood woke him before dawn. He hated it, but he knew what he was going to do. He found the knives where the man had hidden them, under a mat in the courtyard. He hid them inside his shirt, where the bronze bit into his ribs with cold vengeance. His steps to the door were silent, and he escaped.
At dawn he sold them then he found a guest-house and drank until he passed blissfully into unawareness.
* * *
He awoke, desperate with thirst, and pressed his lips against the trickle on the side of the wall. He licked the putrid stone, getting every drop of moisture he could find, then he collapsed to the bottom of the well. The briny muck sloshed over his thighs.
How long had it been since he had tasted beer? As many days as they had marched him up from Jaitha, plus as many days as he had been in the dungeon, however many that was. This was as long as he had been sober in years. He hated it.
Time passed. He might have slept, but sleeping, waking, and remembering had all grown hard to distinguish.
Scraping and footsteps above him. Boots stamped through puddles. Voices echoed. Yellow light etched the circle of the well above him. He had already seen visions and heard voices, so at first he didn’t stir.
Wood scraped over stone. A torch appeared directly above the well. Its brightness scalded his eyes. He shouted and put his hands up. A curse echoed down the well, and a harsh voice commanded, “Grab the rope.”
A rope? He squinted and saw a cord dribbling down the green walls and drooping into the water. He leaned forward and grabbed it. The man above heaved the rope up, but the coarse fibers ripped through his hands and burned his palms. He cried and fell back into the muck.
“Wrap it around your arms, idiot,” the voice above commanded.
The rope descended again. Navran attempted to do as instructed, wrapping the rope multiple times around his forearm and clutching the mass to his chest like a monkey seizing a branch. When the rope was heaved again Navran began to rise. The skin of his shoulders scraped against the slime-covered walls of the well, and his knees banged against the stone. But he rose.
When he reached the lip of the well he squirmed over the top and collapsed onto the muddy floor of the dungeon. He gasped for air, and made no resistance as two Red Men bent over him and unwound him from the ropes.
“Let me see him,” a new voice commanded. Ruyam’s.
Navran heaved himself up to his knees. A swish of silk brought Ruyam before him, the green and turquoise of his robes dancing in the flickering torchlight. Ruyam knelt and seized Navran’s face in his long, bony fingers.
“Eat,” he said. He thrust a soggy crust of roti into Navran’s hands.
Navran stared at the food. Was it a trick? Poisoned?
He didn’t care. He shoved the roti into his mouth, chewed it once, and swallowed.
“Now watch,” Ruyam said. He held a leather flask in his hand, which he unstoppered and waved in front of Navran’s nose. The sweet, yeasty odor of rice beer came out.
“Do you want this?” Ruyam asked.
Navran watched the bottle. His tongue was suddenly parched. He wanted it more than anything. He could almost taste it now. He nodded.
“Say it. Do you want this?”
Navran swallowed saliva and attempted to speak. His throat was dry, and words came out in a rasp. “Yes. Please.”
Ruyam smiled. He tipped the flask forward and began to slowly dribble the liquid out onto the stones.
Navran leapt forward and began to lap the liquid up off the stones. It was so good. He kissed the filthy ground and sucked the beer from the dirt. He had never tasted anything so good. The stream of liquid dripped into his beard, and he soon found himself licking precious drops from the oily strands of his hair.
“Like a dog,” Ruyam said. “You at least knew to take roti like a man, but you’ll lick beer off the stones like an animal.”
He didn’t care. Let Ruyam insult him.
“Put him back in the hole.”
“Wait,” Navran said. He would drink beer out of the dirt, but he wouldn’t go back down. “Please, anything else.”
“Put him in.”
The two Red Men grabbed him by his biceps and dragged him backwards. He batted at them and squirmed. “No, please. I beg you.”
“Enjoy the darkness,” Ruyam said. Navran spread his arms and legs and kicked, but the Red Men forced his knees to bend and lowered him into the hole. A brief drop, and he splashed back into the fetid wastewater.
“Wait,” he shouted. “Don’t leave.”
They laughed. With the scrape of wood the cover was fitted back over the well, and the light again reduced to a yellow ring. Their footsteps receded. The light died.
Darkness reigned.
15
Gocam stood abruptly, cutting off Navran’s tale. He cocked his head slightly, like a dog listening to a far-off howl, then strode to the mouth of the cave.
“What?” Navran said.
Gocam disappeared out the front of the cave. For a moment Navran heard the crunch of his footsteps in the snowy gravel. Then he reappeared and said with perfect serenity, “Ruyam is coming.”
Navran felt as if a manacle tightened around his throat. The burn on his chest flared with heat. “What? Where?”
“Here, of course. To Ternas.”
“How do you know that?”
“I heard his heart beating. From the door of the cave, I can see him approaching across the plain.”
Navran’s gut twisted. His hands curled into fists, and a delirious memory of fetid water and beer and incense washed over him. “How can you tell? How far is he?”
“He won’t arrive until tomorrow morning at the earliest. But we should go down to Ternas. We will leave before he arrives.”
“I can’t go down. Did you forget that I’m injured?”
“You were frozen but only bruised. Get up.”
“Are you serious?”
Gocam stalked over to him and extended a bony hand. “Get up.”
His bones ached, and the chill still pinched his hands and feet. Gocam couldn’t expect him to walk down the mountain.
He looked up. Gocam watched him with black eyes, inscrutable and pitiless. Navran realized that indeed, Gocam did expect him to walk down the mountain and arguing was not going to help.
Gocam’s hand was wiry with tendons and bore sharp nails, like a bird’s foot. Navran grabbed it. Gocam yanked him up with shocking force, and he came to his feet, rocking. Navran’s toes tingled as if needles pricked them, and he leaned against the wall of the cave for support. Gocam let go of his hand. He staggered back, nearly fell into the fire, and caught himself on his knees. Gocam watched him, unmoving and unblinking.
“I’m up,” he said. “Are you happy?”
“Let’s go.”
Gocam marched to the front of the cave and exited. Navran staggered after, wiggling his toes to restore the flow of blood to them and attempting to ignore the pain in his joints. When they reached the opening of the cave he saw that it was mid-morning. The sun lingered in the east, casting long shadows over the rills of the plain below. The snow-frosted pines shivered down the mountain, with wisps of snow drifting up where the wind twisted. Folded into a crease at the bottom of the mountain were the green roofs of Ternas. Beneath Ternas the hills gradually flattened into the yellow-green plain, scratched with roads and pocked here and there with brown villages.
“Where is Ruyam?” Navran said. “I don’t see anyone on the plain.”
Gocam pointed to the horizon. “Farther than you ca
n see. He comes swiftly.”
“Is this a matter of farsight? I thought you had given up that power.”
“Farsight is not a power. I have cast away my mastery, but I have not forgotten how to see.” He started down the path with impossibly nimble steps on his short, thin legs.
Navran scrambled after him. The needles were gradually withdrawing from his toes, but the soles of his feet groaned every time they slapped against the stones. His muscles felt like clay.
“And your hearing?” Navran asked. “You said you could hear his heartbeat. Is that farsight?”
“Yes. The sight of farsight may be any sense, and what is far may be distant in space or time or both.”
“Well I’m right here. Can you hear my heart?”
Gocam stopped for a moment and studied Navran, and a slight smile appeared beneath the white bristles of his beard. “When I perceive you with the inner sight, your heart is not what leaps out at me.”
“What is that supposed to mean?”
Gocam started back down the hill, his pace even faster, if that was possible. “I am not here to teach you the arts of the thikratta. When you are ready, you will understand.”
He was walking so fast that Navran nearly had to run while watching the snowy path to ensure he didn’t slip. When will I be ready? he wanted to ask, but his breath came hard, and he soon forgot the question entirely.
* * *
A novice clad in saffron waited before the copper-green doors of the monastery. The doors were propped open, and from the courtyard the faint sound of chanting echoed. A small drift of snow had gathered around the novice’s ankles, but he stood at rigid attention, his hands worrying the beads of a prayer rope. Gocam’s bare feet made no sound on the stone porch, but the slap of Navran’s sandals attracted the novice’s attention. His eyes widened.
“Master Gocam!” He fell to his knees and prostrated.
Navran hung back. Was this how Gocam was used to being greeted? No surprise that Navran had made a fool of himself.
“Rise, child,” Gocam said with a flick of his hand. “Where is the Lama?”
“Lama Jakhritu is meditating. Shall I rouse him?”
“Stay here. We’ll go to him ourselves.”
Only then did the novice seem to notice Navran. He nodded and waved the two of them in, but he drew a breath and asked, “Master, why did you descend the mountain?”
Gocam looked at the young man with a heavy stare. “I am leaving.”
The young man seemed to waver on the verge of asking another question, then nodded and let them in. As they passed, Navran gave him a sympathetic nod. The novice was a boy, barely old enough to shave, and rightfully terrified of Gocam. He grinned and bowed quickly to Navran.
When they entered the monastery courtyard, gasps and shouts of Gocam followed them. Gocam raised his hands in acknowledgement but didn’t slow his pace. The center of the courtyard was a path paved with worn white stones, flanked on either side by wide areas of packed earth where monks stood in esoteric variations of the Lotus posture. Their practice stopped when Gocam came into view. Navran saw their eyes darting from Gocam to himself, though no one called his name. Where was Mandhi? She wouldn’t be with the monks, but he didn’t spy her along the balconies of the upper chambers where she and Navran’s rooms had been. Just as well. She didn’t want to see him. She would probably blame him for bringing Ruyam to them, and she would be right.
Straight ahead was the inner temple, a small square building painted red and blue with a steep, peaked roof. It was covered with images of the ram and ewe, moon-disks and pentacles, and other mystical symbols. Navran had not been inside it during the few days before Mandhi and the Lama had sent him up to Gocam, and neither had he seen anyone else go into it but the Lama. Gocam walked up to the door without hesitation, lifted the oak bar holding the door shut, and pulled it open.
Navran stopped a few paces short of entering. The reek of incense, charcoal, sweat, and blood poured through the open door. It smelled familiar. That smell—
The Emperor’s blind eyes and senile pawing. Ruyam’s robes, heavy with myrrh. Smooth skin, glistening with oil. The Majavaru. A ram bleated. The doomed man quivered. The brand.
“I don’t want to go in there,” he said.
“This is where the Lama is. Follow me.”
Navran shook his head. “I’ll wait out here.”
Gocam turned towards him. He studied Navran for a long moment, his black eyes peering into Navran’s chest as if he could see Navran’s story written there in ink. “This temple is safe,” he said.
“I have been in enough temples. I’ll wait here.”
Gocam studied him closely then nodded. The door closed behind him.
Navran leaned against the wall of the temple and slid to the ground. All of the monks in the courtyard were watching him. What kind of a fool had he made of himself? Not that it mattered. Better they learned he was a fool now than be disappointed later. He hung his head between his knees.
The fire burns.
He put his hand on his chest. The brand was hot even through the fabric of his shirt. It would get hotter and hotter as Ruyam approached. And perhaps, when Ruyam caught them, it would consume him entirely, burning him to ash, starting with his heart.
He should be so lucky.
A moment later Gocam emerged from the temple, followed by Lama Jakhritu. Gocam extended a hand to Navran and helped him to his feet, while the Lama called for one of the monks and gave a command that Navran couldn’t hear.
“What’s going on?” Navran asked.
“We have to get something before we leave. Your sister is joining us.”
“Now?” She wouldn’t want to see him. Her scorn burned on his cheeks already.
“Both of you should be present when we bring out the rings.”
“The rings?”
Gocam shook his head. “Not here.”
A moment later Mandhi appeared through one of the doors on the balcony and descended the wooden stairs to the courtyard. The blue wrap around her shoulders rippled in the wind behind her. She wasn’t making much effort to hide the white color of her choli. On the road she had been so fastidious about it, to forestall the questions about why a woman was traveling while wearing mourner’s white. Here, she might be flaunting it. Perhaps she felt guilty about having covered it too well on the road, as if Taleg were shamed by the fact that she had hidden it.
The stormy, contemptuous look in her eyes cut short his ruminations. She bowed to Gocam and the Lama with her hands together.
“I didn’t expect to see you, Gocam,” she said. She glanced sidelong at Navran. “Was there a problem?”
“We must go into the temple to take the rings. Then we will prepare to leave.” Gocam’s hand tightened over Navran’s. He whispered calmly, “You will come in with us. Nothing will burn you here.”
Navran’s heart was beating so strongly that he thought Mandhi might hear it, to say nothing of Gocam. But he nodded and followed.
The interior of the temple was lit with lamps that cast glittering reflections off the oiled wood and golden fixtures. To one side was a deep niche with a reed mat and a collection of palm-leaf books on a table. Deeper in the temple was a set of small arches painted not with images of the Powers, but with elemental symbols and ornate filigrees of script.
As soon as the door closed behind them, the Lama said, “They will want to know why you descended, Gocam.”
“If I tell them, will they stay?”
“You saw most of them while they were still novices, some of them many times. What do you think?”
Gocam lowered his eyes. “My children.” Then he shook his head as if casting off a cobweb of sleep. “But this is not the time. Have the rings been moved?”
“I haven’t touched them.”
Gocam nodded to Mandhi and Navran. “You two watch. The rings belong to you.”
He stepped forward and knelt before an arch painted with a pentacle. The pentacle had been
repainted recently in bright red, but beneath it Navran could make out the faded image of Manjur and the serpent. Or was it Kushma and the serpent? The image was so faint that he couldn’t distinguish between the two.
Gocam’s hands sought something in the brick beneath the arch. The rug was lifted, masonry scraped against stone, and a moment later Gocam withdrew a small wooden box from its hiding place. He replaced the brick, blew the dust from atop the box, and placed it into Navran’s hand. It was just large enough to fill his palm.
“The rings of Manjur. They are yours.”
The box was of red sandalwood, nearly black in the dim light of the temple, and as glossy as a pool of oil. The fragrance of the wood mingled with the scent of brick dust and mortar. The top was etched with a very fine carving of the pentacle, with every blank space filled with vines and careful geometric designs in low relief. It was heavy in his hand. He brushed his hand over the lid and blew at the layer of grit that had settled on it.
“Open it,” Gocam said.
The lid slid off in his hand. A set of four black rings rested inside, glossy and untouched by tarnish, their surfaces etched with pentacles. Star iron. Every one of them was worth half a kingdom. Navran’s hand twitched, and the rings rattled against each other with a dull, heavy sound.
“What are those?” Mandhi demanded.
“Don’t you recognize them? You wear one on your hand, Mandhi, and Navran wears another. The original is with your father.”
Mandhi gasped and peered into the box. Then she looked at Gocam with her eyes narrowed. “I thought my father had all of the copies of Manjur’s ring.”