Children of the Dragon

by Frank Robinson

  The Leopard, Nattahnam Ubuvasakh, was once again presiding, but he was not alone at the dais. This trial was attended by Jehan Henghmani in person. Sitting nearby was his daughter, with her son in her lap. All the other leaders were present too: Yahu, Kawaras, Ontondra.

  Kirdahi brought the prisoner before the bar of the court. At once, Qapuriah raised his voice in protest against the trial’s illegality. But he was silenced by an explosion of hoots from the crowd as well as by the judge’s gavel. Unable to make himself heard, Qapuriah closed his mouth and stood with his arms folded, a defiant lour on his face.

  Ubuvasakh recited the charges; there was no written indictment. Nemir Alatassi Qapuriah was accused of perpetrating the sale of watered milk and wine, of stale meats colored with dyes to make them appear wholesome, as well as further unscrupulous adulterations of his wares; of lending money at exorbitant rates of interest; of bribing Tnemghadi officials; of participating in the slave trade; and a few other crimes of similar nature.

  “Does the prisoner wish to enter a plea?”

  “You are only play-acting at conducting a court. No one is fooled by this charade. I will not dignify this illegal proceeding by entering a plea. I will not allow you to imagine that you are doing anything other than committing murder.”

  Ubuvasakh rapped his gavel sharply. “You will be silent,” he admonished.

  “That’s right, silence me! That’s easier than to hear the truth.”

  “We will indeed hear the truth, but not from a lying scoundrel like you. We will hear it from the witnesses. Let the first witness come forward.”

  A grubby-looking laborer wearing greasy clothes and a disheveled beard came, on unsteady feet, to the dais.

  “What is your name?” asked the Magistrate.

  “I am Sahyid Neskalo.”

  “Do you know the defendant?” Ubuvasakh continued, assuming the role of prosecutor as well as judge.

  Clearly nervous before the large crowd, Sahyid Neskalo spoke haltingly and in a low voice. Prompted by questions from the bench, he told of how, at the illness of his wife, he had wanted to borrow some money, and had been referred to Nemir Qapuriah. After inquiring about the ages of Neskalo’s children, Qapuriah had lent him fifteen tayel, and made him sign a document.

  “What repayment was called for?” Ubuvasakh asked.

  “I was to pay thirty tayel in two months.”

  “That would mean an interest rate of six hundred percent a year?”

  “I don’t know; I guess so.”

  “Did you pay the money back?”

  “No, I couldn’t pay it. My woman didn’t get well; in fact, she died.”

  “What happened when the two months were up?”

  “Some policemen came to where I lived. They had the paper I’d signed,” Neskalo said. “When I told them I didn’t have the money, they pointed out some writing in the paper. They said it gave them the right to take away my little girl. So they took her.”

  “What did the writing say?”

  “I don’t know. I can’t read.”

  “How old was your child?”

  “Six, your honor.”

  “And what became of her?”

  “I don’t know. I never saw her again.”

  “Thank you for your testimony, Sahyid Neskalo. You may go.”

  At that point, Nemir Qapuriah thrust himself forward, fist smacking palm. “What is this, don’t I have the right to question him? This man is lying! I insist upon my right to question him.”

  “You have no rights here, you stinking swine!” shot back the Leopard, and the crowd snarled at Qapuriah. They had listened in rapt silence to the testimony of Sahyid Neskalo, and were incensed by it. Often before they had heard such grim stories, and they’d been powerless to do anything about it. Now they were thirsty for the blood of the villain.

  There were more witnesses; each of them tersely recited his story of Qapuriah’s venality, touching upon all of the points in the indictment. The defendant made no further attempt to inject himself into the proceedings; instead he stood with his nose in the air, looking down contemptuously at his prosecutors. He was surrounded now by a cordon of Kirdahi’s men. This was not to restrain Qapuriah, but rather to protect him from the crowd, whose outrage was being whipped to a higher pitch by each successive witness.

  Finally, all of the witnesses against Qapuriah had been heard; there were none in his defense. The time for pronouncing judgment had arrived, and Leopard Ubuvasakh rose behind the dais, cocking his handsome head with all the air of judicial dignity he could muster. Jehan looked on approvingly, as the Leopard delivered his rehearsed speech.

  “The testimony we have heard today has aroused our deepest feelings, has outraged us—but it hasn’t shocked us. We are not shocked because we have become used to these crimes; they are drearily familiar throughout the land. Always there have been rich men like this who have exploited and oppressed the poor, perpetrating countless crimes against the Urhemmedhin people.”

  “You sanctimonious fraud!” cried Qapuriah suddenly. “You hypocrite! What crimes have you committed against your own people?”

  “Be silent!”

  “How many have you robbed and raped and killed? And you dare to judge me!”

  “Silence him!” shouted Ubuvasakh. The squad surrounding Qapuriah grabbed him and jostled him roughly, but it did not squelch his tirade.

  “You’re not friends of the people, you’re murderers, and you’re proving it by murdering me! You’re the ones who should be on trial!”

  The prisoner’s words were drowned out by the savage roar of the crowd. Fists were shaking in the air, curses were shouted, and many were scrabbling to get at Qapuriah. The guards had to struggle to hold them back.

  “Let them through,” he cried, “let them at me! No more charades—let them tear me to pieces!”

  Pounding his gavel furiously, the Leopard begged for order, screaming himself hoarse. But it was futile. Overwhelmed by the push of the howling crowd, the cordon surrounding Qapuriah suddenly dissolved. The merchant was swept up by the human wave that closed in upon him. In seconds, he was covered with blood. There was one last defiant gesture, an upraised clenched fist. Then the mangled body of Nemir Qapuriah sank from view like a piece of flotsam in a roiling sea. His screams went unheard in the shrieking din of the mob.

  The blood of Qapuriah did not assuage their thirst, but only sharpened it. While the merchant was being torn limb from limb, part of the mob was already swarming out of the square, waving broomhandles and pitchforks. They were headed toward an obvious target: the edge of town where stood the mansions of the rich.

  Jehan watched this, stricken with a queasy sense that the mob was an elemental force beyond control. This was unreasoning, total havoc.

  What must happen now was clear. The mob, a thousand humans transformed into a single savage beast, would destroy the houses of Qapuriah and the other wealthy men. Everyone caught inside those houses would be slaughtered, be they Tnemghadi noblemen or Urhemmedhin slaves. The mob would make no distinctions; some of the rioters themselves would be torn apart in the tumult. The houses would be put to the torch, and not even the dogs and cats would escape the conflagration.

  All this Jehan could see as the mob surged up the street. He was jolted by the power of the forces he had unleashed and felt like a little wizard who had summoned up a great demon. It took his breath away.

  He watched and remarked, “What is happening now is that which must happen. Zidneppa has waited eight hundred years.”

  And Zidneppa, he knew, had not waited alone. Millions of Urhemmedhins had suffered grievously in those eight centuries. The retribution was at hand, and it would be terrible to behold.

  Already, the black smoke was billowing up.

  12

  ASSAF DRZHUB SCANNED the latest dispatch with angry eyes. His lips
were bloodless, his nostrils flared.

  With a curse, he crumpled the message and flung it to the floor.

  For some time, Assaf Drzhub, the Imperial Viceroy of Taroloweh, had been aware of a bandit gang coalescing in the eastern forests of his province. At first this was a minor matter eclipsed by the enormous headaches with which Drzhub was struggling to cope. In a time of famine and unrest, a bandit troop could almost be ignored; and this one kept hidden in the hills and made no nuisance of itself.

  Nevertheless, the gang had intrigued the Viceroy. He thought its leader showed an impressive flair by naming himself after Jehan Henghmani, and wondered idly what the fellow was like. He was rumored to resemble the old Jehan, except for being uglier, but Viceroy Drzhub was skeptical. He doubted anyone could surpass the old Jehan in ugliness. At any rate, there was no doubt this new Jehan would ultimately share the same fate as his predecessor.

  This casual attitude toward the new Jehan Henghmani was abruptly shattered on the fifteenth day of Nrava, in the year 1181.

  Even then, there still had seemed no point in sending out an expedition to recapture Zidneppa. It was presumed that, running true to form, the rascals would simply sate themselves on whatever loot and women they could get their hands on, and then would scamper back into the hills. They would probably have run off even before an expedition could reach Zidneppa, or so the official thinking went

  But according to this latest intelligence, the bandits were not fleeing at all. Instead, they were actually entrenching themselves at Zidneppa, with Jehan posturing in charge of the city as its chief constable, soliciting bribes from the barons while currying the cheers of the Urhem- medhin canaille with inflaming rhetoric and high-handed assaults upon the gentry.

  The dispatches being slow, Viceroy Drzhub was as yet unaware of Jehan’s free grain distribution, and of the trial of Nemir Qapuriah and the burning of the wealthy part of town. But it did not require this further news for the Viceroy to be convinced of the situation’s gravity.

  His lips still thin and bloodless, Assaf Drzhub rang a bell to summon a scribe.

  “I want to send an urgent dispatch to Ksiritsa.”

  “To whom shall I address it, Lord?”

  “Tnem Sarbat Satanichadh.”

  At Ksiritsa, in the dungeons deep below the Heaven Palace, Nimajneb Grebzreh still tromped ceaselessly through the muddy passageways.

  His hissing breath, through the silver pyramid that substituted for a nose, was heard now as a most sinister sound. The little dungeon warden had with the passage of years grown into a depraved fiend, and no one was safe from his violent temper, not the prisoners nor even his own corps of guards. The vehemence that had once been channeled into the torture of Jehan Henghmani now ran unchecked against everyone who crossed Grebzreh’s path.

  The warden’s disfigurement by Jenefa, and then his humiliation by Maiya, had enflamed his hatred of Jehan into a mania. And of course, when Jehan escaped, Grebzreh was thrown into a paroxysm of helpless fury. He did manage to hold his wits together sufficiently to conceal the escape, but aside from that, the warden was left a madman, a raving madman.

  And now there came to him a pageboy from the Court, bearing a summons. The boy shivered in the dank, foul dungeon air, and stammered his message: Nimajneb Grebzreh was summoned to appear before the Emperor of Bergharra.

  When the boy blurted out this news, Grebzreh gave a wild shriek, and banged on a table with his hands. Only once before in his life had Grebzreh come into the presence of his ruler-god. Now he brushed and donned his best uniform, washed his face and shaved and carefully combed his hair, singing and shrieking all the time. Grebzreh was giddy with his belief that the Emperor was summoning him to fill some important and lucrative post. Perhaps he would be made viceroy of some province, or perhaps one of the Emperor’s own ministers of state. As he pranced and capered up the stairs toward the throne-room, he composed in his head a speech of humble gratitude.

  Nimajneb Grebzreh marched exuberantly, down the red carpet toward the Tnemenghouri Throne, and then, with extravagant gestures, he prostrated himself in a bow before the Emperor. Through pink, blotched, thick-lidded eyes, Tnem Sarbat Satanichadh scowled down at him.

  “Are you the warden of the dungeon?”

  “Yes, I am indeed, Your Majesty,” Grebzreh answered, grinning and bowing his head repeatedly.

  “Stop that bouncing up and down. And why do you wear that silver nose?”

  Grebzreh purpled with embarrassment, but he managed to puff out his chest and say proudly, “I lost my nose in the service of Your Majesty.”

  “Tell me your name.”

  All at once, Grebzreh realized that his high hopes were blasted. He mumbled his name, but even his addled mind could appreciate that if his name were unknown, he could hardly have been summoned for a promotion. Why, then, had he been summoned? A chill of apprehension sliced through him.

  “How long have you been the warden down there?”

  “Thirteen years, Your Majesty.”

  The Emperor spread his lips, displaying an expanse of teeth. Grebzreh suddenly felt himself falling into that mouth. The ruler’s grin completely unnerved the man.

  “I have summoned you here so that I may ascertain the status of a certain matter.”

  “Yes, Your Majesty.”

  “Some five years ago or so, I believe, you received a certain prisoner. His name was Jehan Henghmani. Is that correct?”

  Grebzreh nodded jerkily. Nothing could have unhinged him more than this mention of Jehan. Could it be that somehow the great monster had returned to dog him again? In confusion, Grebzreh struggled to think of something to say, some lie that might satisfy the Emperor.

  “Well, tell me, Warden: What became of the prisoner Jehan Henghmani?”

  “Oh, Your Majesty, your orders were carried out. I swear they were carried out to the letter. But Jehan—well, he—that is, he died, yes, that’s right, he died two years ago. Not from the tortures, mind you! No, he died from a disease, from a cancerous disease. You see, there was nothing we could do; he had a cancer in his belly the size of a melon.”

  The Emperor’s grin mellowed into an enigmatic smile. “A cancer the size of a melon? Tell me, what kind of melon?”

  “Oh, it was like a big melon, Your Majesty. Like a Lahamese melon.”

  “A Lahamese melon, eh? That sounds like quite a cancer. How pathetic!”

  “Yes, Your Majesty, quite pathetic and ironic.”

  “Ironies abound. Now tell me something, Warden: Do you remember the day I came down into your dungeon to have a look at this Jehan Henghmani?”

  Grebzreh was not breathing, he was tingling. Was it just possible, after all, that his outlandish lie would pass muster? “Of course I remember,” he said. “I remember most clearly, Your Majesty. It isn’t every day that we are honored by your exalted presence.”

  “I should say not—what a stinking place down there! But tell me, Warden, do you remember my exact decree about this prisoner?”

  “Of course, Your—”

  “Did I not decree that this Jehan Henghmani never be allowed to die?”

  Grebzreh’s face went white. “But Your Majesty, he died of a cancer—”

  “Can you prove that?”

  “Yes!” the little man said emphatically, but he knew this desperate lie would not save him.

  “But you should not even have permitted him to die of a cancer. You should have notified the Throne, or summoned doctors. You knew my will.” The Emperor was thundering now, the thunder of a god from atop a mountain.

  “But Your Majesty, we tried—”

  “And failed! You worthless, incompetent idiot. I don’t know how you have the gall to tell me that. For deliberate disobedience there might be some reason, but you are guilty of the worse sin of just plain bungling. What do you suppose should be done with you now?”
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  “Your Majesty, this abject worm begs your mercy. I have served faithfully and long—”

  “And now you’re finished. You, Warden Nimajneb Grebzreh, are guilty of having violated a decree of the Emperor, by permitting the prisoner Jehan Henghmani to die. And according to that decree, you are condemned to death yourself.”

  “Wait, Your Majesty,” Grebzreh cried out, throwing all caution to the winds. “It isn’t true! He didn’t die—”

  “Hold your insolent tongue! You’ve, had your say and heard your sentence. Be thankful for my mercy in sparing you a death by torture.” The Emperor clapped his pudgy hands together twice. “Take him away.”

  A pair of soldiers collared Grebzreh. He squirmed helplessly, and they dragged the little man away, his heels leaving dark trails upon the red velvet carpet. But while still within sight of the throne, he screamed out a few words:

  ‘‘Jehan is alive, Emperor Sahyid Sarvadakhush!”

  They stifled him and removed him from the throneroom. The Emperor sat coldly as he watched the poor madman dragged away.

  “Your Majesty,” whispered Hassim Baraka-Hatu, the new Grand Chamberlain. “What did he mean, calling you Sahyid Sarvadakhush?”

  “There is a parable in the sacred parchments about an emperor of that name. He dies in chains at the feet of a man whom he first saw in chains and at his own feet.”

  “And this Jehan Henghmani. . . ?”

  “No, he cannot be the one prophesied. I made sure that I did not first see him in chains at my feet.”

  “But what about this cancer story?” asked Baraka-Hatu.

  “That fool was lying,” said Sarbat, handing his chief minister the letter from Viceroy Drzhub. And the Emperor was wondering whether, despite his precautions, by some unfathomed secret in the parable, he ought to fear Jehan Henghmani.

  In the depths of his own foul-aired dungeon, Nimajneb Grebzreh’s head was shoved against the wooden block, black with the blood of countless other victims.