The Temple of Burunya was one of the few that had not been totally destroyed in the cataclysm that had leveled the rest of the Mother Temple complex. Burunya was the Goddess of Water, of oceans, lakes, rivers, waterfalls and springs, like the merry little trickle that fed the pool in her temple. She was a healing deity, nurturing the weak and the sick, and also the mother of Vharkash—his father, of course, being the Sun God Turunya—and like an elderly, much-loved matriarch she was given her own small home inside the compound of her great son’s domain.
The temple was a small, square box, twenty paces on each side, open to the sky and walled with gray volcanic stone, with a square offering block in the center, which had once supported a tiny but elaborately carved wooden house for the visiting God, now long gone, and a few tumbled-down wooden buildings around the walls, now overgrown with grass but still providing fuel for those prepared to dig for it. The walls had crumbled slightly but were mostly intact on all four sides. At the entrance, the traditional split-mountain shape on the south side, a pile of thorny brushwood had been piled up by Tenga—her last act before she, too, succumbed to sleep—to create something of a barrier.
Jun mumbled a half-remembered prayer to Burunya and knelt to drink from her pool, scooping up water again and again with his cupped hand until his stomach was full. Then he briefly washed his hands, face and neck, and went to seek his friends.
He found Semar making tea from his dried obat leaves at a small fire. Jun waved briefly at him but his eyes were drawn to Tenga, who was standing on a huge piece of cracked masonry, the uprooted foundation of a temple building beside the east wall, and looking out at the ruins of the Mother Temple. He scrambled up beside her, and stared out at the field of broken stone and bushes, of reeds, grasses and stunted trees.
“Any sign of them?” he said.
Tenga shook her head. “And I haven’t heard anything from those slave-hounds either, which is more important.”
“Do you think we lost them?”
“Maybe.”
Jun felt the beginnings of a wave of relief wash through his body.
“Or maybe they’ve just muzzled and leashed those dogs a mile or two back and are creeping up on us silently right now. They’re good at that.”
Jun’s relief was snatched away. He looked out over the terrain. He had done a certain amount of training in clandestine movement with Hardan, the old man getting him to spend all day, his body shape disguised with grasses and twigs, to advance two hundred paces unseen through landscapes not too dissimilar to this one, just so he could get close enough for a killing shot with his bow. He knew it could be done. Were the Mbaru out there? Or was Tenga taking fright at shadows?
“Semar is making obat-leaf tea,” he said. “Why don’t we join him?”
“You go. I’d rather watch.”
“I’ll bring you a cup, then,” Jun said, and slipped off the foundation stone.
He found Ketut sitting cross-legged opposite from Semar with her eyes closed. A small metal pan of water was simmering merrily on the edge of the fire. The old man, also with his legs folded up in his lap, had his right hand extended, palm flat against her chest. He was saying, “Feel my beat, girl, can you feel it? Picture my gnarled old beating heart in your mind. Watch the blood pulse in and out, in and out.”
“I can see it. I can feel it throb. Bom, bom, bom, bom.”
“Good. Now bring your heart into sequence with it. Match your pulse to mine.”
“Yes,” said Ketut. The two of them sat in silence and Jun was uncomfortably aware that they were communicating in a way in which he could never be part.
He coughed loudly, and Semar opened his eyes and looked at him. The pupils seemed to have expanded so that the black void filled the whole of his eyes.
“Tenga was wondering if there was any tea,” he said.
“All right,” said Semar. “That is enough for today, Ketut.”
Jun drank his tea with the other two and, while it took the edge off his hunger and filled his veins with a cold, thrumming energy, he was aware that his strength was massively depleted. He got up and took a bowl to Tenga, and as he passed it up to the warrior, he wondered if he had ever, ever in his life, served another living person with food or drink. He thought not. He had certainly never served a bowl of tea to a massive, scarred, foreign slave woman on the run from the authorities.
He was about to make some joking remark along these lines, when he heard a sound. It was a howl like a wolf in agony. It was the call of a slave-hound.
CHAPTER 30
Extract from Ethnographic Travels by Professor Tolmund K. Parehki of the University of Dhilika
The Laut Besar is a treasure trove of myths but one of the most fascinating is the legend of the Garuda birds. It is said that the God of the Wind, Shuruda, grew tired of her lonely life whistling around the top of the world and she desired to have a family. So she transformed herself into a gigantic bird, a magnificent creature of red and white and gold, who called herself Garuda and gave birth in time to thirteen eggs, which she nurtured, kept warm and hatched to create twelve sons and one daughter.
Her children grew up to be as magnificent as she, and none was more glorious than her daughter. When her sons came of age they naturally searched for their own mates and finding no creatures that could compare to themselves, they vied for the attentions of Garuda’s only female offspring. They brought her gifts of bright flowers and sang songs of love to their sister—and Garuda was jealous. She flew into a rage at her own child, who had deprived her of the love of her sons, and she slew her daughter, rending her with her great talons. And Garuda decreed that her sons should love no other female but her.
The other Gods were angered that Garuda had killed her only daughter, a great sacrilege, and the Lord of Gods, Vharkash, sought to punish her. He made a magic spell that bound her in her birdlike form, so that she would no longer be immortal but age and die in time; furthermore they decreed that her talons would forever be stained red with the blood of her child and they exiled her to the high mountains where men do not go.
So Garuda grew old, as all mortal creatures must, and yet the love of her sons never faltered. And one day she built herself a huge egg made entirely of myrrh and she hid her ancient, failing body inside the egg and sealed it from the inside. After thirteen days and nights, while her twelve sons grieved for her, the myrrh egg cracked open and Garuda emerged, young and fresh again, in her full strength and beauty, and with a golden spray of crest feathers atop her head to mark her magical rebirth.
From that day onward, the Garuda have only ever had one female in their colonies and she is their Queen. The males love her and serve her, and she mates with them and lays eggs to make more sons; and from time to time whenever she grows old and tired she renews herself in the magic myrrh egg that keeps her forever young.
The icy wind whipped through Mangku’s padded-cotton tunic as though it were made of cobwebs. But the sorcerer did not feel the cold. He was gazing up at a sight that he believed had been seen by only a handful of men in the past hundred years. There were two of them, dark red forms against the white of the clouds over the peak of Mount Barat. His heart began to beat faster. Garuda! Two living, breathing Garuda birds.
Mangku turned to his servant, a short, shaven-headed figure whose normally swarthy skin had taken on a shade of light blue.
“See them, Arif? That’s where they nest, up there, beyond the crest. That is where we will find the Queen.” He pointed with his long staff. “If we hurry, we can make it there by noon and be down again well before dark.”
The servant said nothing. He was too cold to speak. He scrambled on up the steep rocky slope behind his master, silently cursing the loyal impulse that had led him to agree to accompany the sorcerer on this freezing climb. They had left the path far behind them and now under their hands and feet was nothing more than crumbling volcanic
rock that shifted with every step they took. He was hungry, frightened, and when he looked down at the tiny Sea Serpent moored in the delta of the River Pengut, he felt dizzy.
His shipmates would be carousing today. They had declined Mangku’s invitation—all of them—to join his climb to the famous summit of Mount Barat. Instead, they informed their angry and disappointed captain, they would rather be merrily spending the silver they had taken from the small Han trading vessel they’d attacked five days previously.
It had not been much of a fight. The Sea Serpent had pretended that it was mortally wounded, blackening the sides of the ship as if it had suffered a fire, leaving the sails draped over the sides, ropes and sheets hanging loose, artistically placing a few visibly bloodied bodies on the deck . . . The Han vessel had approached cautiously, slowly inching toward the Sea Serpent, and when she was a few paces away, grappling hooks had been hurled out and hauled tight, locking the ships together and a yelling horde of Mangku’s crewmen had erupted from a hatchway and swarmed over the rail into the other ship. The crew and passengers of the captured ship had all been slaughtered, their bodies tossed into the sea for the sharks. The lone woman on board, the captain’s wife perhaps, a pretty young thing, had cut her own throat with a straight razor in the main cabin and bled to death while Mangku’s men were trying to break down the big teak door.
However, despite this small disappointment, there had been a decent amount of silver—heavy canvas bags of shiny ringgu in two chests in the ship’s hold—as well as a cargo of fine Han silks worth thousands and some expensive gum and spices, too.
How Arif wished he had remained with his shipmates—there were obat dens and whorehouses aplenty in the small Federation outpost on the Pengut Delta. But when the rest of the crew had declined to spend their precious time ashore panting up this mountainside, Arif had felt that his master needed him and his place was at his side. Not that he had received the smallest thanks for his loyalty. The old bastard took his company entirely for granted.
It took another hour to scale the crest, during which they crossed the snow line, and now their boots crunched through the thick white crust, and sank more than a foot deep. Yet once they had reached the top, and stood panting together, breath pluming in the frozen air, Arif was filled with a glorious sense of exhilaration. He felt he was on top of the world. To the north was the pyramid shape of the summit of Mount Barat, bleak and white, with the Barat Cordillera, the spine of the Island of Sumbu, tailing out beyond. To the west, the earth fell away precipitously, a few hundred paces of snow, then black rock, cut with hundreds of deep ravines and gullies, and at the base the deep green of tropical jungle. The sea to the west was a placid royal blue—it was the wide Indujah Ocean, Arif realized with a start, a body of water that he had never set eyes on before despite thirty years of seafaring, a vast expanse of sea that stretched two thousand leagues westwards all the way to the Federation peninsula. He saw something moving below. “Look, lord. People!”
Mangku had his eyes fixed on the snowy crags at the bottom of the final peak, at a collection of sticks, rags, feathers and bones perched on a snowy shelf, black against the blinding white. Then the sorcerer looked to where his servant was pointing and saw three warships in a wide bay, and boats filled with men rowing in toward the beach, and more men gathering in neat formations on the sand, ant-figures at this distance, but clearly soldiers—hundreds of them. Here and there on the beach, toylike flags and banners could be seen, flapping bravely: blue and green, the colors of the Celestial Republic.
“That is interesting,” said Mangku. “What in all Seven Hells are they doing there?”
Arif had no answer but Mangku did not require one of him. The sorcerer knew after only a few moments’ consideration what he was seeing down there. It could only be an assault force. And what were they going to assault? That was obvious. They were going to march a dozen miles north and come up on the Gates of Stone by the back door. The Celestial Republic is attacking the Indujah Federation at Istana Kush, Mangku thought. How does this affect my plans? It is good news, surely. It meant war between the two greatest forces in the Laut Besar—and war meant chaos, which should make the task of obtaining the rest of the Keys of Power without interference a good deal easier.
“Ha! And they said that route was impassable!” He slapped Arif on the shoulder. “We shall see whether it is! But I salute whoever came up with this audacious plan of attack.”
But do I want it to succeed? Mangku thought. War is good, certainly, but the capture of the Gates of Stone by the Celestial Republic would not make my task easier. No, I do not think I want them to succeed. “We must make more haste, man!” he said aloud. “This news will earn us much goodwill when we report it in the Federation outpost in the delta tonight. And if there is some small reward for the information—it shall be all yours, Arif!”
“Oh, thank you, master,” said Arif. And when Mangku looked away, he rolled his eyes.
* * *
• • •
They approached the nest cautiously, Arif cradling his loaded, primed and cocked musket in his hands, now clammy despite the cold.
The last part of the climb was almost sheer, and Mangku was forced to abandon his staff and use both hands to scale the last few feet of icy rock, with Arif waiting below, looking up fearfully as his master, long-limbed as a spider, hauled his way up to the shelf. Mangku peered over the lip, nose wrinkling at the ammoniacal reek of ancient feces. He saw it. His mind glowed with joy.
Inside the large nest was an egg. The sorcerer rolled into the nest, came up onto his knees in the soft bed of feathers. He reached out his long arms and picked up the large egg in both hands—it was lighter than he expected, and warm. An egg was good, very good. It meant the Queen could not be far away.
“Master! There’s one of them!”
A huge shadow blocked out the sun and Mangku ducked. There was a rush of wind and an outraged maternal cry. The Garuda slashed with its long red talons as it passed, the needle-points catching on the warm sheepskin hat Mangku wore and tearing it free, but doing no more damage.
“It’s the Queen. Shoot it, Arif. Kill her now!”
The Queen of the Garuda was circling, red-gold wings spread wide. She was shrieking in fury. She turned and came in for another pass, scarlet talons reaching for Mangku’s unprotected head. She slashed at the sorcerer’s bowed back as he curled over the egg, ripping through the cotton robe, her cries deafening. A fury of beating wings and wind. And then she was past him, hovering in the air twenty paces away, spitting her hatred. Mangku could clearly make out the spray of golden feathers on her white head.
His prize. The Key of Air.
The musket barked, a spear of red flame, and the ball smashed into the center of the chest of the enormous bird, knocking her back. The Garuda hovered in the air for a moment, long wings still flapping and Mangku could see the punctured flesh and blood oozing on the white breast feathers. The Queen dropped like a bag of sand, giving one last heartrending cry as she plunged and crashed on the rocky slopes below.
“A fine shot, Arif. You took her like a marksman.”
The sorcerer tossed the egg aside and stood peering down at the creature, still tumbling slowly down the mountain, rolling over and over, wings flopping loose. It came to rest in a loose bundle of red-gold and white feathers near the tracks in the snow that they had made on their ascent, blood spilling brilliantly red out onto the frozen ground.
Then he began the task of climbing down the sheer face of the rock shelf.
The male Garuda attacked from below. He came up over the crest unseen and, still rising, struck Arif with both talons full in the chest as the man was in the act of reloading his musket. The bird’s long claws sank into Arif’s chest, punching all the air from his lungs, and with one lazy sweep of its wings the male bore his captive away, Arif’s legs kicking uselessly, the musket tumbling into the void, terrified scr
eams bouncing off the mountainside. The bird carried Arif a hundred paces out into the thin air, heading westwards, its talons locked in his rib cage, high over the rocky slope—and then released him. Arif fell for three heartbeats before his body smashed against a spur of stone a thousand feet below.
Mangku wasted no time grieving for his servant. He gathered up his long staff and began to hurry, stumbling a little down the trail of footsteps that he and Arif had left in the snow on their ascent. He had to get to the Queen before anything happened to the corpse.
The male Garuda came at him, swooping from almost directly above, screaming his rage. Mangku lunged up with his staff, the pointed end slamming up into the soft white feathers of the bird’s chest, and the creature retreated, flapping away toward the peak, cawing angrily. And suddenly there were more of them, five, six, seven huge, flapping monsters, wheeling overhead and swooping to slice at Mangku with their razor talons.
He ducked, ducked again, tripped and found himself flat on his face in the drift. He rolled as a huge, screaming bird came sweeping in, the long claws scraping the snow like the tines of an enormous rake where he had lain just moments before. He scrambled to his knees, cuddling the staff to his chest. There was a flapping whoosh and a searing pain in his left shoulder as another attacking bird slashed through the padded-cotton tunic and ripped deep into the meat. He was knocked on his face in the snow by the force of the strike, the blood pulsing hot and wet, soaking the cotton material and the pure white bank around him.
Another bird slashed across his vision and he was burrowing down, tunneling into the snowdrift, like a mouse beneath a kestrel. His mind was all red panic; terror filled his soul. This was no way to die—his great task of liberation not even half-completed. Torn apart by flapping monstrosities on a frozen mountainside. He rolled on his back in the snow. His shoulder was screaming in pain. He pressed the metal blade at the top of his staff into the wound, felt it sink into the already deeply lacerated flesh. He sensed the staff almost gulping, sucking at his flesh, drinking down his lifeblood, filling itself with his magical essence.
Gates of Stone Page 33
