by J. S. Bangs
Pride of Empires
The Powers of Amur, Book 3
J.S. Bangs
Pride of Empires
Pride of Empires Copyright
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Prologue: Kirshta
Navran
Sadja
Kirshta
Mandhi
Navran
Kirshta
Sadja
Navran
Mandhi
Navran
Kirshta
Mandhi
Sadja
Kirshta
Mandhi
Navran
Sadja
Mandhi
Kirshta
Sadja
Navran
Kirshta
Navran
Kirshta
Sadja
Navran
Mandhi
Vapathi
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Pride of Empires
Copyright
Pride of Empires
Copyright © 2016 by J.S. Bangs.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License. You may find a summary of the license and a link to the full license here: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
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Map by Robert Altbauer
Editing and proofreading by Stephanie Lorée
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The Wave Speaker is a novella that takes place in the world of The Powers of Amur, two hundred years before the events of this novel.
Pirates. Sharks. And a woman walking across the sea in a storm.
Patara returns from a trade voyage only to be chased by pirates and caught in a storm—where he finds a woman walking atop the waves and speaking to the sea. He and his crew pull her from the water, only to find that they’ve caught more than they bargained for. Will Patara sacrifice his cargo and livelihood to save the last member of a mystic tradition?
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Prologue: Kirshta
The entrance to the Holy was a chasm surrounded by a circle of six cairns. Snow piled in waist-high drifts, almost covering the food-filled baskets heaped around the cairns. Icicles hung on the rim of the pit like teeth. The wind hissed over the edge and sent whorls of snow descending into the Holy. Kirshta stood at the edge of the hole and looked into the darkness. He grabbed his sister’s hand.
He was terrified.
“Let go of Vapathi,” his father said. “Your sister needs to wait here.”
“I know,” Kirshta said. He licked his lips, which were dry and chapped by the winter wind. “But she…”
“I’ll be fine,” Vapathi said with a petulant toss of her head. She shook her hand free of Kirshta’s and sat down on one of the baskets stacked around the cairns. “I’ve waited here every year.”
Last year, she and Kirshta had waited together with the offerings the villagers left around the Holy that were filled with enough food to feed their family for the rest of the winter. He had not fasted then, and he had dared to laugh at Vapathi’s jokes. The time they’d spent waiting for their father had not seemed so long or so cold, and when his father had returned from the depths of the Holy, blood-splattered and shaking with weakness, Kirshta had envied him. He had looked forward to the next year when he would be of the age to enter himself.
But now the year had passed, and he was weak from many days of fasting. There was no mirth in him to laugh even if it had been permitted. He peered again into the darkness and steeled himself.
“Enough,” their father said. His foot rested on the top rung of the ladder. “I’ll go down first. Kirshta, follow me.” He began to descend.
Kirshta hesitated for a moment next to the ladder and glanced back at Vapathi. She stuck out her tongue and pulled her ears. Just like how they had made faces at each other in bed at night, trying to make each other laugh and risking their mother’s anger.
“Vapathi!” he barked. Her teasing seemed grotesque here at the mouth of the Holy, on the darkest and most fearful day of the year. Neither of them knew of the mysteries that lay within, but she would make faces above them? With a sudden surge of anger he turned his back on her, seized the wooden ladder, and began to climb.
He glanced up once and saw the stars overhead, glittering like flakes of snow in a disk of blue silk. The blackness of the pit’s walls seemed to swallow them, and the light was small and remote.
At the bottom of the chasm his father waited with a burning tallow rushlight. In the best of times his father’s face was cold and inexpressive, but today he seemed completely frozen, as if he were retreating within himself to some place from which no thought could rise. But when Kirshta reached the bottom, he put a hand on Kirshta’s shoulder and caressed it gently. He bent forward and whispered in Kirshta’s ear.
“Do you know why you are here?” he asked.
“Yes,” Kirshta said. Then he cast down his eyes and admitted, “No.”
His father peered down a tunnel dimly lit by the flickering rushlight. He walked slowly on a floor of ice and fallen rock. Kirshta followed him.
“This is the Holy,” his father said. “It is our Holy. There are many holy places in the mountains, and each of them is watched by one man and his son. My father passed the care of this place to me, and I will pass it to you when I die.”
He paused and helped Kirshta step over a heap of stone which had fallen from the roof of the cave. The tunnel gently exhaled a warm, dry wind. Kirshta hadn’t expected this. He assumed that the Holy would be colder than the icy night above.
“Are you afraid?” his father asked.
“No,” Kirshta lied.
His father stopped and knelt. His expression was still icy and unreadable, but he seized Kirshta’s chin in his hand and looked straight into his eyes. “Be afraid. We go to She Who Devours, and the day you go in without fear is the day we perish.”
Kirshta’s breath caught in his throat. He bit his lower lip and remembered to be strong.
“Listen,” his father said, “because your life depends on it. We go into the Holy to awaken She Who Devours, and we feed her the draughts which ensure she returns to sleep. The wives who spill milk and the shepherds who sprinkle rams’ blood do their small part to maintain her slumber, but we keepers of the Holy who go into the depths on this night are the final guard. The people of the village stack their offerings around the Holy in recognition of our burden.”
“And mother?”
The ice of his father’s face cracked for a moment. “What about your mother?”
“Why does she leave the house for a month and only return after tonight?”
“Women are not allowed to enter the Holy, and your mother… does not wish to be present at this time. I must keep myself clean. Your mother may not approach me until I have finished my duty tonight.”
“But Vapathi?”
“Vapathi is not yet a woman. And she is where she must be for the moment.”
He let go of Kirshta’s chin and straightened to his full height. Kirshta rubbed the place where his father’s thumb had pressed into his jaw and wiped away the tears which had gathered at the corners of his eyes. Strangely, his father’s words had made him less afraid. Now he knew, and with that
knowledge came the courage and determination to do his duty.
“What do I need to do?” he asked.
His father resumed walking down the tunnel. The ceiling was sloped, and the walls grew narrower, showing long striations on their sides and scars of black smoke above. The air warmed, and Kirshta heard the sound of dripping water somewhere ahead of them.
“Today,” his father said, “you only watch. Next year I’ll begin to teach you the rites. There is only one rule you must learn today: once the rite has begun and She Who Devours stirs, the one performing the rite must not stop until the act is completed. You must not interrupt me. Regardless of any danger or necessity, even if the walls of the cave collapse around us, I must not stop before the end. Do you understand?”
“Yes,” Kirshta said. An ember of pride burned in his chest. This was an easy task, and he was prepared to do it.
Suddenly the floor dropped, and Kirshta nearly fell forward into his father’s back. The walls spread wide and could not be seen in the feeble glow of the rushlight. The scrape of their feet against the stone echoed, the sound suggesting a vast unseen hall whose ceiling and circumference were lost in the gloom.
Kirshta’s father handed him the rushlight. “Be careful with your light here. The great hall is full of gusts. Once, my light went out in the middle of the rite and I had to finish in the darkness, and find my way back by feel.”
Kirshta took the light with a sense of solemn duty. His father’s pace slowed as their path descended a series of stone steps in the cavern floor. The steps had molten edges and lumpy surfaces, like cataracts of wax which had turned to stone in ages past. Ahead of them something glinted in the glow of the rushlight, and Kirshta’s father drew in his breath.
“Here,” he whispered. “Kirshta, you wait here.”
“What should I do?” His heart beat rapidly in his chest. His fear was gone, replaced by a heavy sense of obligation and responsibility. The dry, ageless smell of the cavern seemed thick with holiness.
“Just watch. And don’t interrupt.”
His father walked forward a few more paces and knelt before a stone table which appeared out of the gloom. Kirshta took a step closer to see better but dared not take another. Six stone cups were arranged atop the table. Kirshta’s father drew the bronze knife which hung from his belt and laid it atop the table, then he bowed his head until it touched the stone. He began to chant, slowly and mournfully, with words Kirshta could not understand. A sacred language. Every now and then Kirshta heard a word which resembled everyday speech in a corrupted form, but only bits. He stood straight and paid close attention to the rhythm and tune of the chant. It went on and on.
Abruptly his father stopped. He took one of the stone cups and placed it in front of him. He raised the knife, and with a barely audible gasp, he slashed his palm.
Kirshta flinched and drew in a breath. His father lowered his fingers into the cup so the blood trickled and fell into the cup with an audible drip. And then he said in the ordinary tongue:
For your slumber, for your sleep Now and forever, you drink, you thirst Be satisfied, be filled Awake no more forever
A moment of silence followed. And in that silence Kirshta heard Vapathi’s voice echoing faintly through the tunnel: “Kirshta! Help!”
His first thought was: This is a test. But no, if this were a test his father would have warned him. He had warned him so clearly of so many other things, wouldn’t he have heard if She Who Devours tempted him with his sister’s voice? And he had never heard of She Who Devours tempting anyone. She slept, and she dreamt of the day when she would swallow the world, but she did not tempt.
His father gave no indication that he had heard anything. His blood continued to trickle into the cup, and he said again, more quietly, For your slumber, for your sleep….
This time Kirshta heard a scream. It came from behind him, where his sister was waiting, not from the darkness beyond the altar. Something was wrong. It was clearly Vapathi’s voice, and her screams were a genuine panic, not one of his sister’s pranks. He could not interrupt his father, not even to ask a question.
But could he leave him?
He considered: his father said that he had completed the rite in the darkness before. And Kirshta wouldn’t be gone long. There were six cups to fill, and if Kirshta ran he could reach the mouth of the Holy and return in less time than it would take his father’s trickle of blood to fill a single cup. But what would his father say if he abandoned his place? On the other hand, what would his father say if he let his sister be harmed at the threshold of the Holy?
Then he thought: if Vapathi is in danger, she might try to enter the Holy in order to escape. With that, his decision was made.
He took up the rushlight and ran the way they had come. The passage had seemed long and fearful when they descended the first time, but now that he ran alone, the walls of the tunnel flew past him. After what seemed like a handful of strides he saw the pit open above him, and winter starlight flooded down.
They stood at the edge of the Holy. Lowlanders, dressed in heavy wool coats and leather armor, carrying bronze swords and chains. Slavers. They’d pinned Vapathi to the ground at the edge of the pit while one of the slavers tied her wrists with leather straps.
“Vapathi!” Kirshta screamed. Without thinking he put the rushlight into his mouth and seized the rungs of the ladder.
One of the slavers looked down. They had heard his cry. A moment of doubt passed through Kirshta, and he realized his mistake. There was nothing he could do for Vapathi. And now they had seen him.
The slaver grabbed the ladder and began to descend with a torch in one hand. If Kirshta ran—but where could he run? Slavers knew nothing about holiness, and they would pursue him to the altar itself. But his father was there.
He jumped off of the ladder and ran down the tunnel again. His father would help him. His father always helped him.
Behind him, he heard a grunt as the slaver landed on the ground, and then the echoes of his own feet against the stone were mingled with the heavy footfalls of pursuit.
The walls widened and the floor dropped. Kirshta fell forward. The cavern. The rushlight fell from his hand but did not go out. He regained his feet in a moment, barely feeling the scrapes on his hands and knees, and took up the light. Ahead was his father. He seemed not to have moved. The six cups were arranged in front of him, two filled with a black liquid, and Kirshta’s father held the knife again.
“Father!” Kirshta shouted. “Help!”
His father did not turn, did not seem to have heard. The knife slashed into his palm.
The pursuer’s footsteps grew suddenly louder as the man emerged into the cavern. Kirshta ran to his father and put his hand on his father’s shoulder.
“Help me,” he pleaded.
With unexpected violence Kirshta’s father pushed Kirshta back from the table. Kirshta fell to the ground and stared at his father in shock. Impossible. Even here in the Holy….
His father did not look at him. Instead he began the refrain again: For your slumber, for your sleep….
The slaver’s hands closed over Kirshta’s shoulders. “You gonna keep running?” he said, his rough voice shattering the sacred quiet of the cavern. “Or you come with, and I don’t kill you.” The man’s arm hooked around Kirshta’s chin, pinning him to the slaver’s side and choking the air from his throat.
“Father—” Kirshta gurgled.
The slaver gave no indication that he had seen Kirshta’s father. He jerked Kirshta after him, dragging him toward the tunnel with his own torch held high to light the way.
In a pause between verses of the chant, Kirshta’s father turned. The ice of his face was melted, and in its place was an expression of bottomless grief and longing. For a moment he watched Kirshta go. Then he turned back to the table, and with his voice cracking he said again, For your slumber, for your sleep….
Then the rushlight died, and the sight of his father was lost to Kirshta forever.
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Navran
The situation was dire. Half of Navran’s forces were routed, and a tower that he had taken early had fallen to the enemy’s advance. He still held two towers, but one of them was threatened, and his forces were stretched thin between his defense and his attempt at a counter-attack.
Thudra stared at him, a faint, self-satisfied smile pulling at the corner of his lips. His hands were folded and resting beneath his chin. “So?” he said. “It’s your move.”
Navran looked down at the jaha board and felt despair. He glanced at Dastha, who moved Navran’s pieces for him. Dastha shrugged. He didn’t play jaha. Navran was on his own.
“Give me a while to think,” Navran said. He rested his chin on his hand and played his fingers across the scars on his cheek.
His concentration was broken by a servant at the door of the throne room. “My lord and king,” the servant announced loudly and bowed. “The King’s Purse wishes to enter to speak with you.”
Navran’s stomach lurched. All thoughts of the jaha game fled. His hands went to his lap, and he twisted them together nervously.
“Is she here?”
The messenger nodded.
Navran croaked, “Send her in.”
The curtain behind the messenger parted, and Josi entered. She bowed to Navran with a muttered “my lord and king” that barely reached Navran’s ears. A glance of distaste passed from her to Thudra, then she pointedly walked around the jaha board and presented herself beside Navran. She looked directly at him once, then away, as if his eyes scalded her. The hot stones in Navran’s gut turned.
“Navran-dar,” she said, speaking in a quiet, even voice. “I just returned from the salt office on the docks. Since this was our first day, I thought I would give you a report.” She gestured to the jaha board and Thudra standing beside it. “But if you are occupied, I may come another time.”
