by J. S. Bangs
“You have less in your hand than you imagine. And I have more.” He opened his right palm, the one which bore the mark he had taken from Navran, and showed it to Ruyam.
A shadow of fury darkened Ruyam’s face. “That will not hinder me long.”
“Turn back, Ruyam. It is not too late.”
Ruyam seized Gocam’s hand by the wrist. He leaned forward and whispered something in Gocam’s ear. Gocam whispered back, the movement of his lips barely visible to Navran’s eyes. Ruyam straightened, hatred curling his lips into a snarl.
“What was once bound together can be torn apart,” Gocam said. “Beware.”
“Do you know what that brand does?” Ruyam asked.
Navran could not hear Gocam’s response, if Gocam said anything at all.
“Then know now.” Ruyam touched his hand to Gocam’s palm.
A bolt of fire bloomed where their hands touched. Flames blasted up and away from Gocam’s hand, then curled back with invidious hunger and swallowed Gocam, fire running down his arms like blood to turn his clothes and flesh to ash. Navran screamed. Gocam was burned, consumed just as the woman in Majasravi. He couldn’t help. There was nothing he could do. Black smoke billowed into the sky. But—
But Gocam was not burned. The flame around him flickered, and suddenly Navran saw Gocam in the heart of the fire. Transformed, not destroyed. He became the fire, he wore the flames as a cloak, and the ember which burned in its core was Gocam’s heart.
Fire climbed up Ruyam’s arm from the hand that touched Gocam’s, and flames swallowed Ruyam’s torso. For a moment the two of them were twin effigies, burning with clasped hands.
Ruyam staggered backwards and fell. Gocam raised his hands and clapped them together above his head.
A scream of thunder knocked Navran backwards, shaking with the sound of a voice speaking incomprehensible words. A flash of vermilion light blinded him. He opened his eyes onto an impossible holocaust.
The Emperor’s Bridge burned.
Flames licked up the stones like straw. They blackened and crumbled and fell into the water, releasing clouds of hissing steam. The temple of Am was a reed torch, its domes dissolving into freshets of molten slag and sending up towers of black bilious smoke. A rumble of thunder shook the causeway. The first arch of the bridge collapsed, shooting up a curtain of steam that hid the rest of the bridge in shadows of roaring red and yellow. The gurgle of the boiling river and the hiss of steam mingled with the crashing of falling stone, while the shifting clouds of steam cast the scene in vague, infernal light. For a long moment nothing could be seen except a red glow in the scalding mist.
And then there was silence.
A quiet hiss rose from the waters of the river. The wind out of the east began to beat apart the pillars of mist. Navran regained his feet and looked across the wreckage which had once been the Emperor’s Bridge. The arches of the bridge were reduced to burned stumps, cracked and blackened stones littering the shallow water. The temple island was a molten crater, still glowing in places with dull red heat.
Gocam was gone, and a pillar of black smoke moved on the far bank of the river.
Part III: Demon
Mandhi
There was fire, and there was smoke, and there was noise. She couldn’t see through the mist, and her thoughts tumbled like flakes of ash in the chaos of flame and the crackling thunder of the stones. Navran stood like a charred tree, mute horror drawn on his face. A dusting of soot blackened his cheeks.
The noise around them resolved itself into screaming. And she realized that the crush of people behind them was disappearing, draining away like a tide down the causeway, as the crowd fled the holocaust. Her thoughts snapped together all at once. She seized Navran’s hand.
“We have to go,” she said. Her voice was hoarse. Had she been screaming?
His gaze didn’t leave the river. She pulled him back. He stumbled, his knee hit the ground, and he blinked as if waking from a dream.
“He was fire,” he mumbled. “He was all flame.”
“I saw,” she said. Gocam burning but not burned. The image was fixed in her eyes as if she had stared at the sun, but she blinked it away. “Let’s go. I don’t want the Jaitha militia to find us here.”
He lurched forward. She pulled at his hands, and they ran together after the fleeing crowd, away from the causeway, and lost themselves in the city.
The platforms and walkways of inner Jaitha were chaos. Screams and shouted rumors echoed down the narrow wood-covered alleys and across the flooded streets. The bridge is burning. The bridge is burning. They ran past reed boats overturned and careless people thrown into the water. Curtains were drawn shut as they passed, and men crouched in the doors of their homes with hostile expressions, their posture declaring their readiness to defend themselves against the threat of a riot. The thikratta called down Chaludra’s fire. Ruyam blasted the bridge to strike against the king. Arguments spilled out of windows and clattered onto the slatted wood. They ran and elbowed aside anyone that got in their way.
Navran had a dazed, lost expression, and followed Mandhi without any indication that he understood where they were going. It had been a while since Mandhi was in Jaitha during the flood season, but she was able to remember the way along the platforms well enough. As soon as Paidacha’s guest-house appeared ahead of them she shouted, “Paidacha!”
He appeared in the door with a fierce expression, wielding a bent and blackened knife. When he made out Mandhi and Navran his eyes grew wide, and with a panicked note in his voice he said, “Come in! Quickly!”
They ran through the door, and the curtain dropped behind them. Paidacha stayed a moment longer, pulling the curtain aside enough to watch the walkway that passed before his door, then turned to them in shock. “Mandhi! Navran!” He grabbed Mandhi’s face in his hands and kissed her fervently on both cheeks, then fell onto Navran’s chest kissing his hands and cheeks. “You’re safe. You’re alive. Forgive me, Navran. I’ve prayed for your return every day since—”
Paidacha paused for a moment then looked at Mandhi. “Where is Taleg?”
Her heart twisted. An awkward silence stretched for a breath before she made herself say, “He fell in Majasravi.”
“Mandhi! Tell me, no, that it wasn’t—oh, but it was.” He began to weep, then knelt and kissed her hands.
She rested her hands on his head and said, “You’re not the only one to blame. What’s happened here?”
The guest-house was radically changed. Before the common room had clean floors and a long table full of food, but now it was filled with dirty people sitting in clusters, with lean, nervous faces. All of them wore hair and beards in the Uluriya style. Sacks and piles of unwashed clothes were piled against the walls. The room smelled of traveling bodies and boiled rice.
Paidacha rose and wiped the tears out of his red eyes. “Yes, the people. Fleeing the north, from Ruyam and the Red Men. From Majasravi, Jasundi, Krdnas, Bhiratu. You know about Ruyam, don’t you?”
“We know.”
Paidacha nodded. “They have been coming for weeks. I have been putting them up, giving them food, and sending them to Virnas or Ahunas or Patakshar. Mostly Virnas. When I heard the shouting, I assumed the Red Men had finally crossed the bridge. Others said the bridge was destroyed, but that must be a mistake—”
“It’s not a mistake,” Navran said. He stood by the window and looked to the northeast. Steam still lingered above the river, and black smoke billowed from the distant bank of the Amsadhu.
“How?” Paidacha said. Murmurs of surprise pattered through the room. All of the gathered refugees were watching them now, and the scraps of other conversation withered away.
Mandhi balked for a moment. It was hard to explain Gocam to a room full of Uluriya who had not heard of him before. “We were traveling with a thikratta. An ally of the Uluriya. He had known Ruyam many years ago, and he went to confront him on the bridge. And then he burned the bridge with fire.”
“But
the bridge is stone.”
“It was not an ordinary fire.”
Paidacha gaped at her and Navran. “And this man was your companion? How on earth?”
“That may be more than I can explain right now. What were the Red Men doing here?”
He made a noise of irritation. “About a week ago they marched from the north, but Gauhala-dar, the king of Jaitha, didn’t want to let them cross. He said he wouldn’t let anyone other than the Emperor of Amur cross the Emperor’s Bridge with the imperial guard. And since Ruyam has not officially called himself the Emperor—or so the rumor reached us—he did not give them the right to pass. They’ve been camped on the north wall of the valley since the rains began.”
“Ruyam will punish him,” Navran said quietly.
“I don’t think that Ruyam will be bothering anyone now,” Mandhi said. She added to Paidacha, “Ruyam was on the temple island when Gocam burned the bridge. He did not survive. We are free from him again.”
“No,” Navran said. He pointed to the north. “Black smoke from the Red Men’s camp. Ruyam is there.”
“Navran,” Mandhi said, making no attempt to hide the contempt in her voice. “You saw better than I did what happened on the bridge. There’s no way that Ruyam is alive.”
A twitch of fear passed through Navran’s face. “You’ll see.”
“By the way,” Paidacha said, “a letter arrived from Virnas a few days ago. The bearer hoped you would pass through soon to receive it.”
“A letter? Let me see it,” Mandhi said.
“Not for you. For him.” Paidacha pointed at Navran. “Let me go get it.”
A moment later he appeared with a folded palm leaf tied with twine and pressed with a wax seal. He handed it to Navran, who took it with awkward reluctance and broke the seal. Unfolding it, he looked at it for a moment then handed it to Mandhi. “I can’t read,” he said quietly.
The seal was Veshta’s, and the crooked handwriting suggested that Veshta had written it himself, rather than use a scribe. She began to read: Manjur Navran, forgive me for speaking directly. Your father Cauratha has been kindled as a star in the heavens. The stars upon his memory.
Her hand tightened as if to crush the leaf. The letter began to quiver in her hand. Paidacha shuffled forward. “Do you want me to read the rest?” he asked.
“No,” she said, brushing aside his outstretched palm. She blinked away the tears at the corners of her eyes and steadied her throat. “Let me finish.”
And she continued. Before he passed away he named you as the Heir, in accordance with the Law of Ghuptashya. Come quickly to Virnas, where you will be acclaimed. Srithi’s child has been born, and she sends her regards and condolences to Mandhi.
* * *
She sat in the kitchen with a bowl of rice beer beside her, which Sumi, Paidacha’s wife, kept refilling. She was slightly dizzy from the beer. It didn’t help. The ache was as strong as ever, and as her head kept slipping into her hands silent tears ran down her face and gathered on her chin.
“Just a little while longer and we would have returned to Virnas,” she said. “I could have said goodbye.”
At the far end of the table Navran sat silently. His bowl of rice beer was so far untouched, but he stared at it intently as if waging a silent war with it in his thoughts. Sumi squeezed Mandhi’s hand and stroked the back of her arm.
“He rests among the amashi of the heavens,” she said. “His grave will be with his forefathers in the catacombs of the Ruin, no?”
Mandhi nodded. “But we could’ve come more quickly.”
“He was well when you left, no?” Sumi said. “And you were gone for only a season. You couldn’t have known—”
“A season?” Surely they had been gone less time than that. But she cast her memory back over the interminable journey from Ternas to Jaitha with Gocam, and before that their extended stay with Sadja in Davrakhanda, and she realized that indeed, it had been nearly six months since they had left Virnas. And three since Taleg had died. The memory made her heart tighten. But the thought of three months lingered in her mind, and a rill of terror and hope passed through her.
Three months since they had left Majasravi. Three months since her last impurity.
She had forgotten about it in the horror of Taleg’s death and the days of flight with Gocam. And it had happened before that hard travel and hard eating had dried up her flow for a month or two, so her thoughts hadn’t dwelt on the strangeness of the timing. But now the thought wouldn’t leave her. She remembered her last nights approaching Majasravi with Taleg, the heat of his embrace and the weight of his kisses. The thought had lain dormant like a flower beneath a stone during the days of her sorrow. But now freed, it bloomed all at once, and a heavy certainty settled into her blood. Her heart began to race.
Her hand trembled a little on the bowl of rice beer. “Bring me some real food,” she said to Sumi. “I’m feeling hungry now.”
“Of course,” Sumi said with an expression of pity, misjudging Mandhi’s motive. She rose to bring the pot of salted rice from the far corner of the kitchen.
Navran whispered to Mandhi, “What are we going to do?”
“What do you mean?”
Navran rubbed his brows and stared into his bowl of rice beer with an expression of desperation. “Gocam said that if I brought you to Virnas, I wouldn’t have to be the Heir. But now?”
A chill stirred in her gut. If her father were still alive, she would convince him of Navran’s unworthiness. But now…
Well. The saghada could also be convinced. And a better candidate for Heir now rested within her.
Sumi returned with the bowl of rice for Mandhi. Mandhi thanked her then said to Navran, “We’ll speak to the elders of the saghada.”
“Will it help? If Cauratha named me—”
“There are always ways around these problems,” she said. She gave Navran a black sorrow-tainted smile. She would go to her grave sooner than let Navran become the Heir. The next Heir would be Taleg’s.
The next Heir would be hers.
Navran
Navran sat by the window and watched the moonlight on the murky water. The floodwaters of the Amsadhu gurgled and sloshed against the posts holding up the guest-house. Dung smoke and the murmur of distant gossip drifted through the window. Everyone in the guest-house slept except for him. And all he could think was: What am I going to do now?
He was supposed to be free. Gocam had given him one task, and when it was done he meant to leave behind every memory of the Heirs and their children. Ulaur forgive him, but he had failed at even being a faithful Uluriya sheep-tender. And now—“The Heir of star-damned Manjur,” he whispered to himself.
The curse tasted bitter on his tongue. The Heir of Manjur shouldn’t curse by his namesake. But there were a lot of things the Heirs of Manjur weren’t supposed to do. Like drink a third bowl of rice beer. After Mandhi had left the kitchen he had given in, and Sumi had given him two then admitted that Mandhi had commanded her not to him give any more. Which was a perfectly reasonable thing for Mandhi to do. Because she knew she couldn’t let Navran drink all he would want to. Not now. Not ever again.
And then a new thought: what was he going to do about his mother? He was supposed to return and help her. Be a son, a true son. Ulaur help him, he wanted to do it. That seemed like a goal within his reach, a chance to do something he might succeed at.
The starlight was like dust in the foam of the water. The thought occurred to him: this was still a chance. He had failed his duties as a son, but he had the chance not to fail in his duties as a son of Manjur. Odds were that he wouldn’t amount to anything. But he might try.
And then he saw the first streak of fire fall from the sky.
At first he thought he imagined it. Then he saw another, like a ball of pitch trailing a tail of flames. Where it landed a flare of hungry fire burst. Shouts echoed across the flooded canals. More streaks fell. Then a sound like thunder and a blast of heat threw him aside.<
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A red light flared through the window of Paidacha’s house, and the sudden roar of flame swallowed the other sound. He went to the window again. One of the meteors had hit, not the guest-house itself, but the building adjacent. That home was already a ruin, timbers and thatch blasted apart and drifting in the water, still afire. The flames bloomed outward. They stroked the eaves of Paidacha’s guest-house, then leapt the gap.
Navran screamed, “Fire! Awake, everyone!”
He clambered over sleeping bodies, pounded the floorboards, and continued shouting, “Fire!” Those sleeping in the common room began to stir. He pushed past them into the room where Mandhi slept, where he found her already rising. The fire licked the frame of the window of her room, and embers glowed in the thatch overhead.
“I heard you,” Mandhi shouted over the crackle of flames. She shoved the polished box that held the star-iron rings into her traveling bag, along with a few changes of clothes and other items strewn about the room. A heartbeat later she was at the door.
In the seconds they had spent in Mandhi’s room the common area had emptied. Paidacha crouched at the entrance of the guest-house and shouted for them. “Come, quickly! You two are the last!”
At the door Navran hesitated. “Are we leaving the house? Can’t we fight the fire?”
“Are you insane?” Mandhi said, pushing past him and leaping down the ladder into the reed boat that waited below. Paidacha had evidently pulled it from its moorings beneath the guest-house and packed it with dark shapes that Navran couldn’t make out.
“We just let it burn?”
Paidacha gave him a mournful look. “When you awoke us, it was already too late. Look.”
He glanced around. The north half of the guest-house’s thatch was already crowned with fire, and the flames licked down the boards and across the posts. All around them he saw flames rising from places where fireballs had fallen. Most of the guests he saw fleeing along the plank walkways to the south. He realized what the shapes in the boat were: small children huddled together, handed over by their parents in the hope they would arrive at the earthen moorings along the south wall sooner than those jostling along the walkways. And he realized what he should do.