by J. S. Bangs
Navran barely kept himself from crying.
* * *
People kept telling Navran that Paidacha had outdone himself with the feast for the betrothal, but he couldn’t taste any of it. His nausea had not abated, and the endless stream of congratulations and well-meant blessings ruined his mood. He barely saw his betrothed. She was seated directly across from him at the far end of the table, veiled, a quaint callback to the days when bride and groom were actually supposed to not see each other before the wedding.
He had seen Utalni unveiled at Yavada’s estate and would certainly see her unveiled again before the actual wedding. There was no mystery about her face. The only mystery was whether she was as miserable as he was. They said nothing to each other all night.
When the feast was concluded the revelers dispersed throughout the courtyard and the gardens, giving him a respite from their attentions. Navran took Dastha with him and sulked into the deepest shadows of the garden, looking for solitude.
Navran sat down on a stone bench and dropped his face into his hands. For a long time he didn’t move.
“Not the betrothal you were hoping for,” Dastha said gently.
“No.”
Dastha was quiet. After a long while he said, “I think you did the right thing.”
Navran groaned. “So do I. That’s the problem.”
Dastha laughed joylessly. “Yes. That’s the problem.” He glanced off toward the courtyard. “Someone’s coming. Veshta and Srithi, it appears.”
Navran considered retreating or having Dastha send them away. But being alone wasn’t making him feel better. He lifted his head and sat up straight, so at least he would look a little less like a weeping drunk.
“Navran-dar, my lord and king,” Veshta called out as he approached. Dastha stepped back and took a silent position at Navran’s shoulder. Veshta and Srithi bowed, and Navran accepted them with a nod.
“Congratulations to you,” Veshta said. “Your betrothal to Utalni-kha seems wise and effective.”
Navran nodded without a word. He had heard plenty of this already.
“I wanted to tell you….” Veshta paused. Srithi patted his forearm. “I hope you understand this is meant to be good news. Josi will also be betrothed.”
“What?” Navran said, suddenly sitting up straight.
“To a wonderful man,” Srithi said, looking at Navran with an earnest, imploring expression. “To Peshdana, the man who is managing the salt monopoly. The two of them worked together with the salt merchants.”
“I met him,” Navran said. To his surprise, the dreadful nauseous feeling in his stomach lightened a little. “When?”
“He spoke to me this morning,” Veshta said. “We’ll hold the formal betrothal in a few weeks, the wedding perhaps a month after that. I get the impression he has been waiting for a while to approach me.”
Srithi broke in. “He knew about you and Josi. So when your betrothal to Utalni-kha was announced, he came to Veshta.”
Navran hesitated. “And how does Josi feel?” As if he had any further right to inquire after Josi’s feelings.
“She is quite satisfied,” Veshta said.
Navran looked at Srithi. She nodded, her eyes wide with sincerity, pleading him to believe it wasn’t merely Veshta’s politeness.
“He is rather old to be unmarried,” Srithi said, “as is Josi, but neither of them are too old to have trouble bearing children. He has a trade in dyes, aside from his position in your salt office.”
“Just the sort of pairing you hoped for her,” Navran said.
Veshta winced. “Yes.”
“Believe us, Navran-dar,” Srithi said. “None of us forced her into this. She was quite relieved, and begged Veshta to accept Peshdana’s offer.”
“I believe you,” Navran said. His voice cracked. “Seems good for both of them. Will… did she come today?”
Veshta shook his head. “None of us thought that was a good idea.”
“Oh.” Navran lowered his head into his hands again. “So I lost the King’s Purse for good.”
“Better your purse than your kingdom, my lord and king.”
Better my kingdom than my heart, Navran thought. But he didn’t say it. He didn’t know if it was really true. Ah, the most sickening thought of all: that perhaps he had actually done the right thing, and all this suffering was the best he could hope for.
“Thank you,” he said quietly. “For telling me.”
“It was for the best,” Veshta said. “For the good of the kingdom and the Heirs. And even for Josi.”
“I know.”
A commotion started in the courtyard. The crowds stirred as if cobras had been dropped in their midst, shouting and running. Hands pointed into the sky.
“What is it?” Navran said. “I can’t hear them.”
“Veshta…” Srithi said, her voice distant. She pointed into the sky in the west. “Look.”
Navran and Veshta looked.
The Serpent hung low over the western horizon, a bright line of stars coiling above the walls of the palace compound. And one by one, the stars were turning red. Brilliant, blood red. They seemed to drip, as if they were pricks in skin welling with fresh blood.
“What by the five-winged amashi—” Veshta began, but he was cut off by a scream from Srithi.
Srithi spasmed and fell to the ground. For a moment she thrashed like an epileptic. Veshta bent and tried to seize her hands, but she swatted him away, then lurched onto her stomach and crawled to the west. She stood, shaking as if palsied, and raised both her hands to the sky.
“Srithi—” Veshta started.
His voice was cut off by Srithi’s. She spoke in a low, resonant tone, a voice that seemed not to be her own, which rang over the stones like a trumpet blast.
“She wakes. Woe to the silver and the night. Woe to the tiger and the flame.”
Veshta wrapped his arms around Srithi’s waist. “Stop it,” he muttered. “Srithi, what are you doing?”
She shook herself free again and resumed speaking. Her voice was deep and terrible.
“The devourer wakes. Woe to the moon and the sun. Woe to the fire and the scale. The curse and the promise are renewed. Burn the fields, scatter the seed. Weep for your salvation and bless the hour of your death.”
She stood for a moment longer with her hands raised, her eyes regarding the blood-stained stars in the west. Her hands began to shake.
“She wakes,” she said.
She fainted. Her limp head struck the stones of the path, and a gash opened on her forehead.
“Srithi!” Veshta cried out. He clutched her hand to his chest, kneading her cheeks and calling out her name.
Navran knelt next to Veshta. He shouted to Dastha, “Go get help. Find the surgeon. And find a saghada.”
“A saghada?” Dastha asked.
“Or anyone who might know what this means!” Navran said.
Dastha dashed away. Screams and babble reached them from the crowds in the courtyard. Veshta gripped Srithi with terrible urgency. He wiped away the blood from her forehead.
“Srithi,” he muttered. “Srithi!”
He laid his head on his wife’s chest and wept. Navran watched him, impotent and uncomprehending, then lifted his head to study the blood-stained stars.
Mandhi
The spray of the ocean sprinkled Mandhi’s cheek. She brushed it away and tried to roll over, until the creak of the rope hammock reminded her she couldn’t. She groaned.
Someday the voyage would be over. Until then she wished she could sleep.
She heard someone shouting on the deck. She closed her eyes and ignored it. Someone was always shouting on the ship in the sailors’ dense, clipped jargon. They would quiet down soon.
But they didn’t. The shouting grew, turning to weeping and screams.
The hammock at Mandhi’s feet creaked, and small feet pattered on the beams of the dhow below them. “Mandhi?” Aryaji called out.
“I’m here,” Mandhi
said.
“Oh. I was worried you were…. Did someone go overboard?”
That was the most likely reason for the shouting. “I don’t know,” Mandhi said. “But I hope they quiet down. There’s nothing I can do to help them in any case.”
“I’m going to go see,” Aryaji said.
For a moment Mandhi glimpsed her silhouette in the dim light of the stars and the lamps on the main deck. Her footsteps ran away.
There was silence, then Aryaji screamed as well. A short, panicked noise, cut off a moment later.
That roused Mandhi. The hammock at her head creak as Nakhur jumped to the floor. The beams beneath Mandhi’s feet swayed for a moment with the ocean swell, then her balance returned and she ducked out from beneath the decking of the prow onto the main deck.
Aryaji stood near the rail, looking into the west. She stood as rigid as if she were carved from stone. The shouts and screams of the sailors sounded from all parts of the boat, and the mercenaries poured out from the stern deck where they slept. All eyes turned to the west. Mandhi ran to Aryaji’s side and looked to see what she saw.
The coiling stars of the Serpent hung over the western horizon, as red as blood. The pinprick of red which Sadja had shown her in Davrakhanda blazed as bright as the morning star, as red and jeweled as a pomegranate pip. Its color spread to every point of the constellation, the stars pulsing with a blood-tinted light. A chill ran across Mandhi’s arms.
Aryaji fell to the deck and spasmed. Mandhi cried out and dropped to her knees beside her. At Mandhi’s touch, Aryaji thrashed like a mad woman.
“Aryaji,” Mandhi said. “Listen. Can you hear me!”
Aryaji grew as rigid as bronze. Her eyes opened, and she pointed toward the blazing red star in the heart of the Serpent. She spoke, and her voice seemed to echo with the crashing of the sea swells against the prow, as if the depths themselves spoke through her.
“She wakes. Woe to the stone and the eagle. Woe to the fox and the vole.”
Mandhi shook Aryaji. The girl didn’t seem to notice. Her eyes were as white as a fish’s belly. Her lips moved with enchanted precision, shaking the timbers of the dhow.
“The devourer wakes. The wheel is broken, the cloth is torn. Their sheep will wander the hills without a shepherd, and their homesteads will be desolate. Burn the fields, scatter the seed. Weep for your salvation and bless the hour of your death.”
Nakhur knelt next to Mandhi. He put his hands on his niece’s cheek. She twisted away from his touch and shouted.
“She wakes.”
Her eyes rolled back in her head, and she collapsed.
Nakhur lifted Aryaji’s head up. “Aryaji,” he pleaded, kneading her hands in his and lightly slapping her face to wake her.
Mandhi pressed her ear to Aryaji’s chest. “She breathes,” she said. “Her heart beats. Let’s get her to her hammock.”
She looked up. They were surrounded by sailors and mercenaries with eyes wide and fear on their faces, making signs to ward off evil. They stood back, as if afraid Aryaji’s madness would pass to them. An small man with a scarred lip took half a step forward.
“Throw her over,” he said.
“What?” Nakhur shouted. He squeezed Aryaji’s limp hands in his.
“She’s a witch!” the man said. His eyes were wide with panic, and he glanced nervously around him. “She prophesied to the evil omen in the west. Throw her out as a sacrifice to Ashti and the Powers of the Deep to have mercy on us.”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Mandhi said. “Where is Captain Jauda?”
No one answered her, but an angry murmur sounded among the sailors. “We should turn back to Amur,” one of them shouted.
“Give the witch-child to the sea,” the man repeated.
“Are you completely mad?” Mandhi screamed. “No one will be thrown into the sea. If you do—” the thought came to her in a flash “—then you will have only a single woman aboard, and Ashti will be even angrier.”
“Then we throw both of you over and return to Amur!”
A cry of agreement went up from half the sailors. The other half stood with fearful expressions, hands clutching at the short knives they all wore at their waists.
Nakhur pulled Aryaji’s limp form into his chest. “You will not take my daughter. She is no witch. An amashi took her, but she has never—” He shook his head and started again. “We are the people of Ulaur. We have no connection with any of the faithless Powers.”
The shouting of the sailors did not abate.
“Fools,” Mandhi said. She stood and shouted. “Cowards! Are you so afraid of a little girl touched by the stars that you will kill her to calm your nerves?”
They quieted a little. Mandhi pointed to the blood-red stars in the west. “There is the omen from which you flee. In the west, over Amur. You wish to return there? You wish to see what it was that laid madness on little Aryaji from this distance? Too cowardly to sail across the sea but brave enough to sail toward the bloodstained stars?”
“The witch—” the man began.
“She’s not a witch, you fool,” Mandhi said. She stepped toward him. Her head only reached his chin, but she looked up and pierced him with the most contemptuous sneer she could muster. “She’s a girl afflicted, and you are too much of a coward to help her.”
The man shoved Mandhi back. But looked around to each side and saw his control of the crew had evaporated.
“Stand down, men,” a stern, authoritative voice said. Captain Jauda pushed forward through the ring of sailors, his head towering over the rest of the mercenaries. He pointed to two mercenaries. “You two guard the prow while Mandhi and Nakhur take the girl and put her to bed. Everyone else go to your stations or to bed.”
A silent moment of tension followed. Gradually the sailors dispersed, returning to their bunks or their posts. Mandhi and Nakhur took Aryaji by her feet and shoulders, guarded by the two mercenaries Jauda had assigned them. The sailor who had called for their deaths stood near the rail, looking crestfallen and afraid.
The captain pointed at him. “You will be caned tomorrow. No one makes offerings to the Powers aboard this ship except for me.”
Mandhi and Nakhur got Aryaji into the prow and laid her in her hammock. Nakhur pressed Aryaji’s hands in his, then bent to listen to her breathing and her heart.
“She seems to be fine,” he said, anxiously. “Asleep. In the morning… I pray she’ll be fine.”
“The stars upon her,” Mandhi said. The stars. She ducked and glimpsed the red starlight through the door of the cabin. “Nakhur, do you know what happened?”
“How am I supposed to know?” His voice sounded distraught and feeble.
“You’re a saghada,” Mandhi said, though she knew she sounded like a fool.
“I’m a priest of Ulaur, not an interpreter of omens,” Nakhur replied. “An amashi came to her. A prophecy. What it means….”
Mandhi looked at the blood-stained stars. “I was worried this was a bad omen for us and our journey to Kalignas. But if the stars are marked, I suspect the omen is not just for us.”
“Not just for us?” Nakhur said. He stole a glance to the west. “Then I hope it leaves us alone.”
I doubt that, Mandhi thought. But she said nothing and left Nakhur to his niece and his anxious sighing.
Vapathi
The children were asleep except for one. A little girl named Pagri was awake. She was the first one the slavers had captured at the first village. She lay curled in Vapathi’s arms, sucking her thumb and staring out the door of the tent into the night beyond.
She had done this every night since she had been taken. She never spoke. Vapathi knew her name only because the other boy taken from that village had told her. Vapathi wondered if she was dumb, if her parents had given her up for that reason. She would have asked the boy, but she was not sure how to put the question in the mountain tongue.
Given her up.
Had Vapathi spoken in her first days after being capt
ured? Yes, to Kirshta. But would her captors have known that? Would they have cared? She and Kirshta had slept alone, curled in each others’ arms, surrounded by other wailing children, none of them able to offer a bit of comfort to each other. She looked over the dozen children sleeping behind her, lying close together for warmth and holding hands. Quieter, calmer, better than what she remembered. She paid the slavers for the privilege of being the captured children’s mother, but of all the exchanges she had made with her body, this seemed to her to be one of the better ones. She did not regret that she had come.
Pagri stirred. She lifted her head off of Vapathi’s chest and looked out the front door. A half-second later Vapathi heard it to: a distant roaring like a bonfire. Screaming. It lasted only a few seconds. Pagri stood rigidly upright, her thumb in her mouth.
Apurta’s head appeared briefly in the entrance of the tent. “Someone’s coming,” he said. “Stay here.” He moved away from his post and moved down the path to the village.
Noises. Loud swearing. A howl of anguish.
Vapathi glanced over the children. One of the boys had awoken and stared at her with his eyes wide, glancing from Vapathi to the open door with trepidation.
The sounds of returning slavers filtered into the tent. They were moving slowly, and their footfalls mingled with curses and groans.
“—got him good,” said Langur, their leader. “He won’t be coming back.”
“Bauram is pretty badly burned,” one of the others said with an edge of worry in his voice.
Burned? Vapathi thought.
“Then take care of him! And tell him to be glad he’s not like the others.”
Kirshta was here. She knew it with the certainty she knew the sun would rise. For all she had urged him to wait for them in Pukasra, she knew him better than to expect him to listen. She smiled to herself.
But Langur had said they “got him good.” She rocked Pagri gently and waited. It’s possible they had gotten him, but she was not going to believe them yet. She knew Kirshta better than to think he would easily fall to a pack of slavers in the mountains.
