Gates of Stone

by Angus Macallan

  “She’s dangerous. We have to get rid of her. She might kill us in our beds.”

  “I don’t think that is likely—she can sometimes become caught up in a little religious frenzy. So what? We each worship in our own way, as we see fit. She seems fine today.”

  “You don’t know what happened, Semar. I followed her to the Vharkashta Temple last night and watched as she became possessed by Dargan—Dargan! Queen of the Witches, the embodiment of all that is evil in the female of the race, she was standing right there before me in the Temple. She tried to kill me! And some other poor fellow, she nearly had him impale himself with his own kris. She is extremely dangerous, I tell you.”

  “Don’t tell me you’re scared of her, too—a little Dewa fisher girl?” said Semar.

  The question flattened Jun. He felt like he’d been gut-punched, all the air driven out of him. For his ear caught on the old man’s word “too” and suddenly he was back in the Watergarden that terrible night when he had showed himself a coward and run in terror from the sorcerer Mangku.

  He muttered, “Not scared. I’m not frightened of her—as herself. But you weren’t there. She was inhabited by the Queen of the Witches. She became Dargan.”

  Semar took pity on him. “I have come across a few Vessels in my time and they are almost all completely harmless—they become possessed in the Vharkashta Temples on Hallowed Day, dance the night away, enjoy a spiritual experience that is denied to most, and then carry on with their lives as if nothing at all has happened. I tell you what, my prince, I shall watch her with particular care and attention. But if she tells us she wants to slip off to a temple from time to time, well, we allow her to, and we stay out of her way when the Goddess is in her. How does that sound?”

  Jun made a disgusted noise in his throat. He realized that in this little band of three, despite his rank and lineage, he was the one with the least sway over the others. All that would soon change, or so he hoped, when they went to see his cousin. All would be well then, and Ketut could be dismissed; given a small reward, a little money, for transporting him here and quietly banished from his company, if not from the whole of Sukatan.

  “I give you my solemn word that I will do everything in my power to ensure that no unnecessary harm comes to you, my prince,” said Semar. “Not from our young friend the Vessel, nor from any other source. Truly, your life is precious to me.”

  And, surprisingly, Jun did feel a little happier when he heard that.

  However, when Ketut returned to the small room, damp and clean, the air between the two young Tamani travelers was still as thick as curd—with neither wishing to look fully at the other. It was as if they had engaged in some disastrous sexual congress the night before and were now trying to pretend it had not happened. Semar broke the tense silence and suggested that they go up to the palace and try to get an audience with the Raja. He also said he had some news to impart.

  “The sorcerer Mangku has been to see the Raja already, I am afraid,” Semar said. “I had reports of their meeting last night. The evil one has successfully imposed himself on Raja Widojo and persuaded him to refit his ship, replenish her water and stores. And he has demanded a public viewing of the Eye of the Dragon at noon today in the Grand Courtyard. I think we should join the throng who will attend and take another discreet look at this fellow. We should be safe as long as we don’t draw any undue attention to ourselves.”

  “What is the Eye of the Dragon?” asked Ketut.

  “Why don’t you tell her, Jun, while we walk up to the palace,” said Semar. “I’m sure you know the story as well as I do. And when he has told you all about it, Ketut, I will tell you both about the Seven Keys of the Earth, which are also called by some vulgar historians the Seven Talismans of Power, of which the Dragon’s Eye is almost certainly one—and your ancestral kris, Jun, the Khodam, is another.”

  * * *

  • • •

  As they walked up the hill toward the palace, the rich boy, in his precise diction and irritatingly lordly accent, began to expound on the object that he and Semar called the Eye of the Dragon. It was, Ketut realized early in his tedious prattle, just a big rock. That was it. While the three of them trudged onward, up through the winding streets toward the palace, and the princeling banged on about the Eye, its magical properties and the bizarre legends surrounding it, Ketut was able to focus her mind elsewhere. The day was irksome. Her skin itched. She felt sickly and weak, and a little bit ashamed of herself, as she always did after she had been used as a Vessel by the Goddess. But there was also that afterglow, the feeling of immense searing power that had been in her and was now no more than a raw memory.

  She remembered vividly the first time it had happened to her, the first time the Queen had possessed her body. She had found herself at the little seafront temple in the village outside the Watergarden in Taman when the Rice Ceremony was taking place. As a Dewa, she was not encouraged to participate in the Vharkashta rituals; there was a feeling that her uncleanliness might pollute the sacred space of the temple. But she was not actually forbidden to enter: the Harvester was the God of all peoples in the Laut Besar, or so the priests claimed, and all might bask in the warmth of his bounty and love. She was hungry, which was not unusual, and was hanging around the temple so that she might have a chance of grabbing a handful of the cooked saffron rice that was offered up to the God on that day.

  She crouched just outside the courtyard and looked in through the split gate, watching the people making their obeisances to the altar, the wizened priests conducting the ceremony, the pretty servant-maids bringing forward the big platters of rice in golden pyramids. She caught the burned-lemon scent of the drifting clouds of obat, and heard the small gong orchestra beating out their lambent melodies . . . and she felt it. A spot of intense heat in her lower abdomen, deep in her loins. It was as if a burning coal had sprung to life inside her and soon the heat was spreading to her belly and up into her chest. The gongs were suddenly loud in her ears, louder than thunder. Her limbs felt as if they were filled with a fiery power, seeming longer, stronger. Her whole body seemed to uncurl like a swift-growing fern, her spine straightening, her chin held high. She was on her feet and dancing, her body moving to the slow beat of the gongs. She breathed deeply of the obat fumes and it seemed to her that her exhaled breath was a thicker plume of black smoke. She found herself in the center of the temple, dancing, strutting, twitching in time to the beat. Other dancers all around her—all distinctions of rank dissolved in the frenzy of the God. She heard the voice of Dargan, Queen of the Gods, consort of mighty Vharkash himself, speak inside her head as clear and cold as a mountain stream. “You belong to me now, girl. You are mine from this day forth. You are my Vessel, my Chosen One. All shall fear your righteous wrath. Which is my righteous wrath incarnate.”

  And then it was gone. And once more she was just a skinny Dewa fisher girl in a temple courtyard full of her betters, covered in sweat, feeling dizzy and weak.

  Yet the joyful memory of the sheer strength and power of that brief moment would haunt her for months. The next time it occurred, her soul rushed to embrace the possession. She began to pray to Dargan, leaving offerings to her at the feet of her statue inside the temple courtyard, just a few flower petals, a grain or two of rice, a smoldering stick of incense, if she could afford one. She attended the temple ceremonies every chance she got, hoping that the Goddess would favor her again.

  And it was there that she had met Semar.

  She looked over now to the little old man with the carefree smile on his wrinkled old face striding beside her listening intently as Jun related one of the more preposterous myths about the Dragon’s Eye. She wondered what her life would have become if she had not met him. She wondered if she would even be alive.

  She was not the only Vessel on Taman. There were scores of others scattered around the island, men and women of all classes and occupations, selected by the G
ods themselves for this service. She was not even the only Vessel in the Watergarden village. There was a boy she knew slightly, a slender and rather girlish fellow called Madi who was a Vessel for Larung, the Lion God. When the gongs sounded and the obat smoke rolled across the temple courtyard, Madi became deeply possessed, and on this occasion the Goddess was absent from her body so she witnessed the whole event.

  The transformation of Madi when the Lion God entered him was extraordinary. Through her smoke-bleared eyes he became a man-lion, his hair fluffing out into a tawny mane, his eyes filling with fire, his limbs becoming lumped with thick muscle, his skin shimmering like gold, his fingers turning into the cruel claws of a big cat. He prowled and pounced in the center of the courtyard, all around admiring him, venerating him as a sacred Vessel of mighty Larung. Then the mystical splendor of the spectacle turned to nightmare. Larung’s movements became wilder, more aggressive. He leaped onto the back of a middle-aged man, one of the priests, and began to savage him, ripping into his flesh with his claws, tearing chunks from his body with his teeth. The music was halted, the crowds cleared and a dozen priests armed with spears and krises rushed forward and hacked the man-lion apart without the slightest hesitation or mercy. It was no sacrilege to attack a Vessel if the lives of the other worshippers were at stake. The Lion God departed; the boy Madi was left dead in several bloody pieces on the temple floor. The priest who had been so brutally savaged by Larung through his Vessel, amazingly, survived as a scarred and crippled thing. His healed wounds were touched by worshippers ever afterward for luck. But it was Madi that she felt sorry for. He died horribly because the God decided to enter him and, for whatever reason, also decided to attack the priest through his Vessel.

  Semar had approached her not long after that. He revealed that he was a priest of Vharkash, and that he knew that she was a Vessel of Dargan. He promised that he would teach her—not how to control the Goddess, that would be a gross sacrilege—but how to guide her actions subtly when she took possession so that there could be no danger to any of the other worshippers. And, although this remained unsaid, that there would be no danger to her from the kris- and spear-wielding priests.

  She studied hard with Semar, at least an hour every day, learning to feel the mood and tenor of her own soul, even to change it, and now when she went to the ceremonies she almost always felt the Goddess come into her, and that surge of divine power soon became as nourishing and necessary as food and drink. But great power, great strength, is always dangerous to those who wield it, at least that is what Semar preached. And, while the old man could be intensely irritating sometimes and on some small matters distinctly foolish, she knew what he said about power to be true. The night before, in the Temple of Sukatan, she had seen Jun in the crowd and felt an overwhelming desire to command his respect, to punish him for his haughtiness, his insolence toward her. She did not know what she would have done with him if he had obeyed her summons—but she doubted that it would have ended well for the prince of Taman. That endeavor, however, had been interrupted when the man with the kris had challenged her. She had turned the whole strength of her will upon him, dominating his mind, seizing control of his feeble limbs. And had she not been stopped in time she knew that she would have forced him to impale himself on his own kris.

  And that would have been the end of him—and most probably of her.

  * * *

  • • •

  The Grand Courtyard was even more crowded than the Temple of Vharkash had been the night before. This was the largest of several courtyards in the Palace of Sukatan and the one farthest from the royal apartments. It was used for public displays by the Raja and his ministers—dances, festivals, entertainments, banquets and occasionally for the show trials of important miscreants. It was essentially a rectangular arena, with rising ranks of wooden benches on three sides shaded by white-linen awnings, for which members of the public paid a copper kupang to take their seats. Cushions were an extra kupang. There was also a broad, flat standing area between the benches and the low wooden wall, the barrier between the public and the arena, which was designated for the poor of Sukatan and required no payment to enter.

  The fourth side of the Grand Courtyard, the one at the south nearest the palace, was the royal enclosure, with a single row of rattan seats, each one piled with cushions and draped with silks. A table had been set between each chair on which a bowl of fruit and flasks of tea had been laid out. But the royal enclosure was empty so far. The big mat fans that hung above the chairs were still. The Raja, and his guest of honor, had yet to appear.

  Jun, whose store of coins was already much depleted, insisted that they go into the free standing area, and the three travelers pushed their way through the crowds and up to the wooden barrier, Semar using his staff to gently maneuver Sukatan folk out of his path, and Ketut and Jun slipping in behind him. However, since the day was hot, Jun did allow himself to be persuaded by Semar into buying three beakers of cool, creamy, mildly alcoholic palm wine from a passing vendor to quench their thirsts.

  A troupe of a dozen dwarves, Frankish types from the far side of the world, it would appear, judging by their big noses, fish-belly skins and shocking yellow, light brown and even orange hair, was entertaining the people of Sukatan—tumbling and leaping into the air, juggling with knives and axes, forming human pyramids in the center of the arena.

  “It may be some time before the Dragon’s Eye is brought out,” said Semar. “And if you can tear your attention—Jun, I’m talking to you—off these little buffoons for a moment, it is important for you to know about the Seven Keys.”

  Jun forced himself to listen to the old man. Ketut, he noticed, was also deigning to give Semar her full focus.

  “As I’m sure you know, your people, the Wukarta, once ruled all Yawa and many of the other islands of the Laut Besar, too. They ruled wisely, for the most part, and there was a period of peace and prosperity for hundreds of years.”

  Out of the corner of his eye, Jun saw one of the tumblers leap high in the air and land, on his head, on the head of another of the dwarves. Extraordinary! How had they ever learned to do that? How could you even practice it? He forced himself to concentrate on Semar’s words.

  “But one terrible year, the idyllic rule of the Wukarta was disrupted by a virulent plague. All the islands of the Laut Besar were afflicted; indeed it was said that the whole world was stricken with this malady. But this disease was unusual in that it seemed to attack the best born, the noblest men and women in the population. Some of the ordinary working folk died, it is true. But the vast majority of the people who suffered were the better classes, the nobles, the warrior castes, the merchants, the priests and of course the Wukarta princes and their families. And suffer they did, most terribly: once gripped, the victims vomited blood and sweated rivers, and black tumors formed in their groins and armpits. By nightfall, screaming, writhing in pain, they all died.”

  Jun shuddered as he imagined a calamity of this scale. It even made what had happened to the Watergarden and to his father seem a minor disaster. Ketut, he noticed, seemed unmoved by the tale of carnage among the better classes.

  Semar blithely continued his tale. “The ruler of Yawa, the Son of Heaven, summoned his ministers and his wise men, his doctors and his sorcerers and asked them what was the cause of this terrifying disease. And not one could answer him truly: some said it was a murrain created by the evil congress of lust between men and monkeys; others said it was a curse from the Gods for the impiety of mankind. But not one of them could offer any cure, nor could they ease the suffering of the afflicted, save by giving them an early, swift and merciful death. The Son of Heaven was in despair—his world was dying, and nothing could be done. Then a lowly priest of Vharkash, a dusty little man, humble but wise, who had traveled far, came to the Palace of Wukarta—he asked respectfully for an audience with the Son of Heaven and, in desperation, was granted it.”

  “That was
n’t you, by any chance, was it?” said Ketut.

  “What?” said Semar.

  “The dusty little man, humble but wise . . .”

  “Ketut, I am indeed both humble and wise, and well stricken with years, too, but this story took place more than a thousand years ago.”

  “Oh!”

  “So did the wise priest have a cure for the plague?” said Jun. “I assume he did or the world would surely have ended.”

  Semar looked slightly put out to have his story usurped. “He did,” he said. “The priest walked into the royal audience room, a plain wooden staff in his hand, a simple sarong around his waist, and he began to speak. ‘My brother priests and I of the Mother Temple of Vharkash have been meditating on this foul sickness, and striving to discover its true cause. At last, after forty nights and days of fasting and prayer, the Lord Vharkash himself came to us, mounted on his great buffalo Bantung, brandishing his Scythe of Power and, all praise be to him, the Seed Sower, the Rice Reaper, the Harvester, he himself revealed the cause of this disaster to us in a series of visions.’”

  Semar paused for effect. And Jun noticed that the dwarves in the arena had formed a human ladder, six of them standing on each other’s shoulders.

  “‘The origin of the pestilence is an unnatural portal that has been opened by magic which leads from this world into the realm of death,’” said Semar, in the portentous voice of the long-dead Yawa priest. “‘The seal of the Earth has been broken. The fabric of the world has been torn asunder. A mighty sorcerer, for it could only be a being of equal power and malignancy, has found a way to open a gate to the Seven Hells and what is spilling out into this good world of men is a host of demons and monsters, a bestiary of blackest evil. And, along with these unnatural, twisted creatures, has come the flood of this invisible sickness, this plague, this very essence of death.’