The Serpent and the Crown

by Sam Puma

  Soldiers followed them out of the arena, taking up spears and bows in case something went wrong.

  “Down there!” Jankaro called and tried to steer the Ashtari’s attention. “The gate! Do you see it?!” Finally, the beast made a grunt of recognition. Jankaro nearly fell off as he sprung forward and bounded down the steps of the pyramid.

  He snarled as he passed the tense soldiers clutching their spears, but he continued forward out the front gate and across the wooden bridge. Once they were outside the city, Jankaro felt the tension lift as the Ashtari bound forward and put Caladon far behind them.

  He was calming down and Jankaro was elated to feel the link developing between himself and the most powerful creature he had ever seen. More powerful than a Juruga? He did not know, but he imagined the two of them clad in yanigo armor and taking on the worst the Cruxai had to offer. He was intoxicated by the most powerful feeling of his life, while the Ashtari gushed forth a feeling of triumphant liberation. He stopped suddenly, tipped his head back, and erupted in a bellowing roar up to the skies. Jankaro fed his own voice to the roar and together they were one creature.

  The Ashtari sniffed the air and took off in a northern direction, up and over the hills. A faint feeling of having run off and abandoned his duties pulsed through Jankaro. On top of that it was late in the afternoon and he was outside the fortress with no weapons or armor, only the Ashtari to protect him. What would happen if he were to dismount and they stood face to face with no one around?

  When a group of sheep came into view up ahead of them, all thoughts fled from his mind as he felt the hunter below him hungrily target his prey. The Ashtari charged and the sheep bolted in unison, but it was too late. He was too long and too fast. One leap and a pounce and there were two dead sheep bleeding beneath his two front paws.

  While the Ashtari leaned down and tore at the sheep’s flesh, Jankaro climbed down, took a few steps away and watched him. After he devoured the first sheep, he looked up at Jankaro with blood all over his face and dripping off his chin. They were both calm as they looked into each other. Jankaro stepped closer and they continued to share a moment of peaceful connection. It felt right to Jankaro, and he could sense that it felt right to the Ashtari, that an alliance was forming between them. Jankaro could sense the message that was coming through the Ashtari’s feelings. He was suffering with the confinement that the Galdeans put him through. Bereft of his territory and his mate, he had become frustrated and sad. He was grateful to Jankaro for setting him free, and he knew that Jankaro did not want to bind him, only to appreciate and discover him. He knew Jankaro was fighting for his survival and for his own territory, and he wanted to help him.

  He tipped his head back and a low bellow came from his throat, and he moved his jaws almost as if to speak. Jankaro’s ears couldn’t make out any more than a garbled sound, but inside his mind he heard quite clearly that the Ashtari had offered his name. “Ixtlayo is your name,” Jankaro said aloud. He then placed his hand on his chest. “I am Jankaro of Olaya.”

  Ixtlayo grunted an acknowledgment and bent his head down to feast on the other sheep. Jankaro sat down on the grassy slope and did what Orion bade him do back at the arena; he relaxed, and felt the sun and the caress of the breeze. He felt safe with his new companion. When Ixtlayo finished his meal, he lay down on the grassy hillside next to Jankaro, and together they breathed deep and watched the drifting clouds and soaring condors as the sun dipped toward the horizon.

  After a while, Ixtlayo suddenly jerked to his feet and looked around, sniffing the air. Jankaro got up and looked around. A lone rider emerged on the top of a hillside to the south, paused and looked at them. She was about a hundred feet away, but he recognized that it was Janesa. Ixtlayo started to growl and Jankaro turned to him.

  “Wait here for a minute while I talk to her. They are not going to take you back. You are free now.”

  He looked into Ixtlayo’s eyes as he spoke. The Ashtari didn’t seem to recognize words, but they were communicating with their emotions and intentions through a connection that grew with every passing moment that they shared. Ixtlayo calmed himself, expressed some trust in Jankaro, but held on to the feeling of mistrust towards all other humans.

  Janesa’s guard was up. She kept her eyes fixed on the Ashtari while she struggled to keep her terrified horse from bolting. Jankaro hurried up the hill to her side. “It’s okay. He listens to me.”

  She frowned at him with a furrowed brow. “You know they eat people, right?”

  “He is going to help us. I will ride him into battle, and we will kill all the Jurugas.”

  “Just like that? With a snap of the fingers? I wonder what the king will say. Speaking of the king, he is summoning you back. He wants to acknowledge every soldier individually for the victory last night. It’s getting late, but you can ride with me and I will take you back.”

  Jankaro turned and looked back at Ixtlayo. He was stirring and getting restless; he wasn’t the kind to wait around for a conversation. Jankaro felt a burning in his chest where the ram man had placed the arrowhead. He felt the urge to leap onto Ixtlayo’s back and ride him all the way back to Olaya, to forget about the Galdeans and their war. Then he remembered it wasn’t just their war, clenched his teeth, reined in his impulse to ride off the jungle and be forgotten, and looked up into Janesa’s eyes. Her horse whimpered and reared up as Ixtlayo began to walk slowly towards them. “Wait one moment. Let me part ways with him.”

  Janesa nodded to the south. “I’ll wait for you on the next hillside.”

  Her horse didn’t need any prompting. She simply relaxed her grip on the reins and he bolted down the other side of the hill.

  Jankaro turned back to Ixtlayo, and it made his heart ache that he needed to part ways with his new companion. He walked right up to him and stood below him, looking up into his eyes. “I need your help. I need you to fight with us.” He thought about what Ixtlayo had been through and he knew that it would take some time to build the trust needed to get Ixtlayo to enter the gates of Caladon again. “But we will speak of that again later. Right now I must go. Tomorrow I will return, and we can ride together.” He saw that the Ashtari was listening to him, but he didn’t know to what extent he was able to understand. He pointed up to the sky. “When the sun is highest, I will return to this place.” He pointed down to the ground.

  Ixtlayo bent his head down and brushed his cheek against Jankaro’s head, and nearly knocked him to the ground. It felt like an acknowledgment. Either that or he still felt grateful to be set free. Their eyes met once more, then they both turned to go their separate ways.

  Jankaro stalked up the hill as the evening breeze chilled his skin. Riding to Caladon with Janesa would warm him. Oranos had wisely chosen the best way to bring him back. He reached the top of the hill and saw her waiting on the next hillside. He extended his arm and waved. She motioned for him to come to her.

  “Come on, Jankaro! It will be dark soon!” She called.

  He could barely make out her words, but he complied and trotted down the hill.

  He was nearly out of breath by the time he made it up the other hill to greet her. “It has been a full day for you. Come on up and ride behind me.” He was weary so she offered her hand and helped him up. “Hold on to my waist. We have to ride hard to make it back before dark.”

  He wanted to offer her something, to connect with her somehow. But he was so exhausted that he simply wrapped his arms around her waist, slumped forward and contented himself with inhaling the sweet smell of her soft hair as she galloped over the hills and back to Caladon. He closed his eyes and saw Ixtlayo’s face as if he were right there. He breathed a silent prayer: “Sagaya, bring us together again.”

  “Look at this guy!” One of the soldiers called out in jest as Janesa’s horse trotted through the gate. “We thought you would be Ashtari food by now!”

  Jankaro and Janesa dismounted
and Janesa turned her horse over to a stable hand. She and Jankaro walked through the front courtyard together as the gate closed behind them. Jankaro felt a faint impulse to hide from what he had done as Orion’s tone of condemnation and the outrage he had stirred rang out in his memory. He turned to Janesa with a look of worry.

  “I have offended my fellow soldiers.”

  He looked down at his feet as they walked together.

  “They were offended at the time,” said Janesa. “But they will get over it. This is wartime. Getting their soldier back with his limbs intact is more important than a spectacle with an Ashtari. Oranos and all the soldiers know that. They will be grateful to have you back. Some who love the games may be offended, but all understand what is at stake. And you have given us the gift of the yanigo armor, so surely all will be forgiven.”

  Her words came out so calm, like drifting down a slow stretch of river on a canoe, and he was able to lift his head and meet the passersby. Not one looked at him with scorn, but he wondered what the king would say to him.

  At the base of the pyramid she stopped and gestured for him to enter. He looked up the steps and smiled as he remembered the thrill of riding Ixtlayo in his mad scramble to the top.

  “Go on, Ashtari man,” she said. “The king is waiting for you.”

  The Palika’s Tail

  Jankaro entered the amphitheatre and like always, he felt pain course through his chest when he saw the stone carving of the ram’s head. Oranos stood on the stage congratulating the last of his men, and when he was through, just the two of them were left. He beckoned Jankaro forward and took him by the hand.

  “Thank you for your service to our country. Stay strong and courageous and we will win this together.” He released his hand. “I need to invent some new words, my tongue tires of repeating them. It has been a long day, and my body and mind are tired too. Let us sit together in my council chamber, we must talk.”

  Oranos opened a door at the back of the stage and gestured for Jankaro to enter. “Sit.” He gestured to the chairs that encircled a large rectangular stone table. Jankaro sat and Oranos sat across from him. “This pyramid was built over 400 years ago by my great grandfather Borazos, great great great, 21 generations back, and I am his direct descendent, as are many other people of Caladon. Before there ever was a nation called Galdea, we were at war with Dorfin. Borazos and three of his top generals rode Ashtari in battle. They were fierce and strong and helped us to win the war. But after it was all said and done, the Ashtari grew restless and wild. They killed their keepers and many of our citizens before they were finally slain. Since then we have never trusted them, and it has been illegal to let them roam free.” The king’s tone was grave, and Jankaro remained stoic as he listened. He worried that Oranos might forbid him to return to Ixtlayo.

  “The people of the jungle had terrible fights with the Ashtari, losing many of their own. Eventually they hunted them down to near extinction. Here we have this arena, and from time to time over the years, hunters bring in a young Ashtari and we use them for sport. I’ve never cared for the idea myself. Today was the first time I have allowed this since I have been king. I didn’t want it, but the people wanted it. The celebration was for them, so I conceded.

  “Then there you were, our new hero, the man who saved Orion in battle, saved my son in battle, and brought us the gift of the yanigo armor to protect us from the spit of the Juruga. There you were bounding into the arena to dance with the Ashtari. I was shaking my head in dismay.” He shook his head and Jankaro could see the lines on the king’s tired face by the light of the flickering fire.

  “When you jumped up on the back of that Ashtari, you put me in a bad position. By the law of my grandfathers, I should have had you executed.” He turned his head and cast an icy glare at Jankaro. “But you had no idea of our laws. And you were a hero. So for a moment I froze. I was tied up inside. There you were calling out to me to set the beast free, and my duty called out to me to bring you down. But Valera spoke to me; you remember, the macaw woman. Her people were conquered by the Cruxai before Dorfin, and she is one of the few who escaped. She was a princess there, and has brought us her amazing gift of dance, and has caught the eye of my son, Titus. She is an extraordinary woman, so I listened to her. She said to me, ‘Let him have what he wants. Just imagine him riding that Ashtari into the face of a Juruga, with his yanigo armor, he could turn the tide of war.’ I was thinking of law and order, and how to handle you, and she was putting all the pieces together right there, of how we could win the war. Was that why you went down there – to claim the beast and mount him?”

  Jankaro was dismayed to hear that he had nearly been executed. He steadied himself to answer the king’s query, and decided there would be no harm in offering him the truth. “No. I saw an Ashtari when I was young. I always wanted to see one up close. Something came over me and I needed to be in there with him. It wasn’t until I was riding him outside the walls that I got the same idea – to cover him with the yanigo armor and ride him into battle.”

  “So what happened? Why didn’t you bring him back?”

  “It’s not that simple. He hates you… all of you. He doesn’t want to be back here with the ones who imprisoned him.”

  The king’s brow wrinkled and he pried for more information with his penetrating gaze.

  “I felt like I could sense him, like we could communicate.”

  “Can you reason with him and get him to fight for us? Where is he? Can you find him again?”

  “I don’t know. He may have run off, never to return. But I told him that I would return tomorrow to the place where we parted ways today, to see if we could ride again. He seemed to understand, but I don’t know if he will be there. With your permission, my king, I would need someone to offer me transport by horseback to find him again.”

  “Yes, of course…”

  “It may take some time to… for us to come into alignment with one another. He is wild. I don’t expect him to take orders from me or anyone else. But he seemed grateful to be released, and I think he wants to return the favor.”

  “Only time will tell. It is a dream worth pursuing. Slowly but surely, we have been losing this war. Caladon is our last hope for victory. If we fail here, Calixo will surely fall. And the Cruxai will adjust to their latest defeat, they always do. So we must remain one step ahead of them. Yanigo armor is the next step. Anhael is down in the workshop right now, leading a team of workers to make new armor for all the soldiers. If you can get that Ashtari to come around, we can make armor for him too.

  “There is one more thing. My war council consists of my two sons and Orion. Tomorrow, before you ride out to find the Ashtari, you will join us. Your valor has earned you a seat among us, and I want you to be here when we discuss our plans for our next defense.”

  Jankaro didn’t like the idea of being stuck in a room with Titus, but he hid his feelings. “It would be an honor,” he said.

  Jankaro didn’t care to listen much to Orion’s coaching the next morning while they practiced fighting in the arena. His sword and sweat flew back and forth and all around, but his mind drifted with the low hanging fog as he relived all he had felt during his encounter with Ixtlayo. He was anticipating getting back out there and riding him again. On his way back to his chambers, he peered into the work room to see Anhael guiding a team in the production of the armor and taking measurements for the soldiers. He couldn’t help but smile with pride as he saw them suiting up.

  “You heard the Ashtari’s name,” a woman’s voice surprised him, and he turned to see Valera, the macaw woman, dressed in a simple blue dress, with her long brown hair hanging down around her shoulders and chest. Her skin was fair, her lips were large and her blue eyes sparkled like the wings of the moropo butterfly.

  “What?” He was taken aback, struck by her beauty, and caught off guard by her words. How could she have known that he knew Ixt
layo’s name? He looked at her, perplexed.

  “That is what my people say when you have a strong natural affinity with an animal, like you had with him; like I have with the macaws.” She began to walk slowly past him and he walked with her, up the stairs and along the south wall. Through holes in the clouds they saw the jungle far below. “I was impressed. It was like being home. The Caladonians ride their horses but they do not bond with them like us. I thought he was just a beast for their games, but you proved otherwise.”

  “Thank you for speaking on my behalf to the king. He said that by law I should have been executed. And your performance with those macaws… you should have seen the smile on my face. That was amazing! You made it look so easy!”

  “That was many years in the making. I couldn’t have done it without my mother. She taught me about deepening my kinship with the birds, and becoming like them, listening to them, to their hearts, to their will, to their expression. This dance was passed to me from her, along with the names of the birds. It’s all I have left to offer, something to give the people hope.” They stopped walking when Valera turned to face Jankaro. “After all I have lost, I sometimes don’t want to rise and see the new day. But I have something to give, and that keeps me going. I imagine you will win the next battle, and we will dance for you again.” She smiled and gazed out over the vista below them.

  A big bird flew toward them from the east, laboriously flapping its wings to keep its heavy body in flight.

  “What is that?” Jankaro asked. “One of your macaws?”

  “No. They are down in the jungle now. It’s big like a condor, but I don’t recognize it.” Valera responded.

  The bird flew over their heads and circled above them.

  “Look! It’s all blue, every feather,” said Jankaro.

  Jankaro was back in his dreamy state, reveling in the discovery of a new creature. With one hand he pointed up to the bird. Valera had that same feeling of wonder, and affinity grew between them. Without a thought, his other hand had gently taken hers. They watched together as the bird circled down and landed on the wall right in front of them.