Throne of Ruins (The Powers of Amur Book 5)

by J. S. Bangs

  “And who is the Mouth of the Devourer?”

  The man looked nervous. He leaned close to Mandhi and made the sign to ward off evil again, then spoke in a quiet voice. “The leader of a peasant revolt, but more than that. They say he made a pact with an evil Power from the mountains, and he uses her to eat up his enemies. He ate a whole legion of the Red Men when they tried to fight him.”

  Mandhi shook her head. “That doesn’t sound likely.”

  The man grunted. “And the monsoon is his doing.”

  “What happened with the monsoon?”

  “Why do you think that rice is so expensive? There was no harvest this year. The monsoon came weakly to the coasts and not at all inland.”

  Famine in Amur. And she had two boats full of Kaleksha. “You blame this on the peasant revolt?”

  “On the Mouth of the Devourer. He ate the monsoon. And now that the peasants are without food, they go to him and he makes them into his servants. They call them the Devoured, and they never die.”

  Mandhi pushed herself away from the counter, a sudden rush of disbelief and relief washing through her. “No. You may amuse yourself telling lies to a newly-arrived woman, but I’m not listening to your nonsense.”

  “I swear it,” the man said, raising his voice a little. “I might joke with others, but not about this.”

  “Go boil us some of your overpriced rice,” Mandhi said testily. “The Kaleksha will be here soon.”

  The man moved into the kitchen muttering and cursing. Mandhi walked into the street. For a moment she was alone. She leaned against the wall of the guesthouse, closed her eyes, and inhaled. The smell of boiling rice, dung fires, and the sea; the cawing of gulls, goats bleating on the next street, and the murmuring of Amuran voices. Amur.

  Bhurnas wasn’t quite home. It wasn’t even Davrakhanda. But it was close.

  The rocky sounds of Kaleksha shouting stirred her. She opened her eyes. Up the muddy street came the first of the Kaleksha, Hrenge and most of the Kaleksha aunts, with Aryaji in the lead.

  Mandhi met them and took Jhumitu back from Hrenge’s arms. He squirmed and squealed, and as soon as they entered the guesthouse she set him down to toddle among the low tables and carpets. The Kaleksha women took seats, talking loudly among themselves, and received leaves of cold roti from the house-master’s wife. They ate them greedily, the first food they’d had outside of the ship’s stores. For many of them it was their first taste of Amuran food. Mandhi noted appreciation and surprise on a few of their faces.

  Jhumitu crawled across the knees of Hrenge and his Kaleksha aunts. Mandhi tore off a corner of roti and gave it to him to chew with his budding teeth.

  The Kaleksha men came in next, Kest among them. He greeted Mandhi with a simple nod, then took a spot with Glanod and Adleg, his cousins. That was all the warmth she expected from him. He was her husband out of legal necessity, but there was no other love or intimacy between them. Finally the Amuran mercenaries entered with Jauda and Nakhur.

  The guesthouse was now crammed wall-to-wall with people, Kaleksha and Amurans standing shoulder to shoulder and eating uncomfortably, the crowd spilling down the hall into the bedrooms and out the front door. Relief and relaxation were visible on everyone’s face. Hot rice began coming from the kitchen, sprinkled with dry flakes of seaweed and slivers of fried eel.

  Mandhi wrestled her way through the crowd and found Jauda sitting silently in a corner of the guesthouse. A leaf of roti with a pile of hot rice sat uneaten in his palm. He nodded at her as she approached.

  “What have you heard about Amur?” she asked as she sat next to Jauda.

  He ran his fingers through his oiled beard. “What do you mean?”

  “Did you ask at the docks? Any news?”

  He took a moment to answer. “Strange stories.”

  “About the Mouth of the Devourer?”

  A flicker of relief crossed his face. “So you heard it, too.”

  “I heard that there was a peasant revolt, and its leader was said to be in league with an evil Power.”

  Jauda murmured. “I thought they might be lying—”

  “I thought the same thing.”

  Jauda nodded. “Never know what to expect when coming back from a long trip over the deep waters. The sailors on the dock always tell stories. Usually I don’t believe them, or it turns out to be nothing.”

  He glanced around the packed room at the Kaleksha and mercenaries jostling shoulders and elbows. “But the price of rice…”

  Mandhi nodded. “Hard times, if there was no monsoon. Did you hear about Davrakhanda?”

  “No.”

  Mandhi gestured toward the owner of the guesthouse with her chin. “He said that Sadja-dar is now Sadja-daridarya, and is in Davrakhanda, after being driven out of Majasravi.”

  A grim murmur sounded in Jauda’s throat. “Does that change things?”

  “It changes things, but not in our favor.”

  The voices in the guest room rose. Mandhi and Jauda looked toward the center of the room. In the close press of bodies Mandhi only saw a surge of movement, then a shout and a bellow. Bodies pressed back against the walls. Mercenaries roared forward and pressed against Kaleksha bodies. Fists struck against shoulders.

  Jauda leaped to his feet and pushed forward, cursing. Mandhi pressed herself against the wall. The center of the guesthouse was a chaos of flailing limbs and angry shouts. Kaleksha voices boomed through the crowded space. Someone was shoved violently to the ground, and the violence pressed the mercenaries against the walls. Shouting battered the ceiling.

  Finally Jauda’s voice cut through the din. There was a moment’s scuffle in the center, then stillness.

  Mandhi caught a glimpse of Kest with blood trickling from his eyebrow. She pressed through the circle and found Jauda pinning one of his own men’s arms behind his back, arguing loudly with three Kaleksha.

  “He struck first,” Glanod said. “Wanted to—”

  “Liars,” the pinned mercenary said. “Stinking Kaleksha liars. Get off of this—”

  Jauda cuffed the man over the ear. “Shut up.” He turned to Kest. “Are you seriously hurt?”

  Kest touched the blood trickling down his cheek. “I don’t think so,” he muttered.

  Mandhi sidled up next to him and lifted a hand to touch the torn brow. Kest winced and pulled back.

  “It doesn’t look bad,” she said.

  “Good. Now I don’t care who started it,” Jauda said. He shoved the mercenary assailant into the arms of his comrades. “No fighting among us. We’re still in their pay, and we don’t start fights with our charges.”

  “Maybe I’ll quit,” the man snarled.

  “Then get out without your pay,” Jauda said. “I don’t need you around.”

  The man crossed his arms over his chest. He turned his back to them and moved toward the edge of the room.

  Jauda turned to Kest and Glanod. “You, as well. You pick fights with my men, and eventually I’ll stop defending you.”

  “He didn’t—” Kest began. Mandhi squeezed his forearm.

  “I don’t care,” Jauda said. “Just don’t let it happen again.” He pointed at Mandhi and Kest. “You two come with me. A word outside.”

  The air in the street was cool and clean after the steaming, stinking crowd inside the guesthouse. The sun was setting, and in the east the darkening sky echoed with the sounds of gulls and monkeys. Jauda shook his head and looked from Mandhi to Kest with a weary, care-worn expression.

  “My men want to be released,” he said. “The assignment in Kalignas was longer than we expected. They’re back in Amur, and they want to go home. Keep them here much longer, and we’ll expect worse than that.”

  “And where is home?” Mandhi said.

  “Davrakhanda, for most of us.”

  “But is it safe for us to go to Davrakhanda? Everyone in your band could be executed, depending on how unhappy Ashturma-kha and Sadja-dar—I mean, Sadja-daridarya—are.”

&nbs
p; Jauda ran his hands through his beard. “I know. That’s why I’m taking a small group to find out.”

  “Leaving us here?”

  “No one in Amur is trying to kill you,” Jauda said.

  “Except for the Emperor, maybe.”

  “He doesn’t know you’re here. You don’t really need to be guarded. And your men…” He pointed to Kest, towering above Mandhi with blood on his cheek. “You can hold your own in a fight.”

  Kest nodded. “Better off this way. We don’t need the mercenaries to sail our craft.”

  “How long will you be gone?” Mandhi asked.

  “Ten days,” Jauda said. “Enough to sail to Davrakhanda, spend a few days scouting and gathering information, then return. Look for me in ten days.”

  “Good,” Mandhi said. “And take the troublemaker with you.”

  “I will,” Jauda said. “And I’ll probably leave him in Davrakhanda.”

  “Good,” Kest said. He shoved away from Mandhi and returned inside.

  Mandhi watched him go. Her husband. He had never touched her, but she was still bound to him. Not the husband she had imagined for herself, nor the homecoming she had desired.

  But she glanced around, and for a moment she saw Amur through Kaleksha eyes: crowded and hot, stinking of human and animal dung, noisy with the bleating of strange animals and the chatter of an unknown tongue. She gave Kest some pity. This wasn’t the homecoming he wanted, either.

  “The stars upon us,” she muttered to herself as she headed back into the guesthouse. Somehow they would all have to get along.

  DALADHAM

  Sunlight glittered on the waters of the central pool of the Ashtyavarunda and hurt Daladham’s eyes. The pool lapped the lowest steps of the sanctum, and on every side the worshippers of Davrakhanda descended to bathe in the Lady’s blessed waters, scrubbing themselves with the soft white sand at the bottom of the pool.

  An elderly woman walked next to him. Her hair was braided and pinned at the base of her neck, and a necklace of white shells around her neck clattered softly. Her skin was gently creased by the coastal sunlight, but a fierce, crooked scowl crossed her mouth.

  “I do not need another reason,” she said sharply. “I’m the mother of this temple, and if I see fit to close the shrine to Lord Am, then no number of Amya fleeing Majasravi can compel me to open it.”

  “But mother Lejani-dhu,” Daladham pleaded, “the Amya and the Ashtya dhorsha have never been at odds. The Amya dhorsha of your own city are mystified. The Lord and the Lady—”

  “The Ashtyavarunda is the great temple of Lady Ashti,” Lejani cut him off. “Not a common shrine to the Lord and Lady. In this temple, the Lady reigns and Lord Am remains at her suffrage.”

  “And if the Amya dhorsha were to expel the Ashtya from the Lady’s shrine in the Majavaru Lurchatiya?”

  “As I understand it,” Lejani said sourly, “you’re in no position to threaten to do anything with the Majavaru Lurchatiya.”

  Daladham fell into exasperated silence.

  Lejani gave him a look of pity. “Daladham-dhu…”

  “It’s been two months since we made offerings to Lord Am,” Daladham said, before she could finish whatever patronizing excuse was on her lips. “I mentioned it to the Emperor.”

  “You did?” Lejani said. A note of alarm crept into her voice.

  Their walking had brought them to the west end of the pool. The curtained sanctum stood before them, its white steps rising from the waters. The temple was carved in delicate curls and soft angles, like foamy waves that had leaped up from the sea and turned to stone. The smell of incense and the droning of the dhorsha mingled with the wet smell of seawater and the lapping of waves against the stones. Lejani made a sign of blessing toward the gently rippling curtains.

  “I spoke to Sadja-daridarya, whose name we say with fear and trembling,” Daladham repeated. “I brought his approval.”

  Lejani narrowed her eyes and watched Daladham fish a scrap of palm leaf from the pouch over his shoulder. The scribbling of the palace scribe was stamped at the bottom with the sea-eagle seal.

  “The sea-eagle,” Lejani said with a note of curiosity. “Not the spear and rice stalk of the Emperor, but the sea-eagle of Davrakhanda.”

  “He appeals to you as a fellow devotee of Ashti, rather than command you as Emperor of Amur.”

  “I hear that his devotion is entirely to Kushma these days.”

  Daladham hesitated. Sadja had grown singularly devoted to Kushma, but Daladham was not sorry for it. Kushma was the only one of the Powers of Amur that the Mouth of the Devourer feared, and the Emperor’s devotion could only help. But he didn’t want to upset the mother of Ashti’s temple.

  “We hope that Kushma will trample down the serpent,” he said. “But the Emperor has not ceased to revere all of the Powers.”

  Lejani sighed deeply. “I could let you in. But you only.”

  Daladham drew a sharp breath. “All the Amya of Davrakhanda would be grateful.”

  “Only you!” Lejani repeated. “Only… well, you’ll see.”

  “You must let me get the ritual implements. At least the censer and the bowls.”

  Lejani shook her head. “Follow me first. Then you choose what to do.”

  Her pace quickened away from the glittering waters of the pool. They passed the long, stony body of the sanctum and the gaudily painted shrines to Peshali, Cakthi, and Sathirvan. Behind the sanctum rose an annex with red-painted pillars and gold finials. The copper-clad doors over its entrance were firmly shut.

  Lejani approached the doors and sighed heavily. She fished the key from a pouch in her green cotton sari and put it into the lock.

  “Only us,” she repeated.

  The door creaked open. A spear of light split the dusty darkness within. In the light pouring through the door Lejani found a lamp, but the slow-burning ember in the niche beside it had long since cooled.

  “Bring us fire from one of the other shrines,” Lejani said. “I’ll wait here.”

  Daladham returned a moment later with a lamp borrowed from Sathirvan’s shrine. Lejani lit her lamp and closed the door behind them.

  For a moment they were alone, and the only light was the twin points of fire in their hands. Slowly Daladham’s eyes adjusted to the darkness, and he made out the inner pillars holding up the roof, the gold hammered on their bases and caps, and the crossed spear and rice stalk painted on their faces. The frieze of Lord Am on the far wall appeared as a half-formed shape in the darkness.

  Lejani approached. A bed of cold, ashy coals spread before the frieze, and soot-blackened braziers waited on each side. The light of their lamps brought the contours of the relief into focus.

  “So you see,” she said.

  The image of Lord Am was broken in half. A crack as wide as Daladham’s palm split it from the top to the bottom, with fractures splitting off to each side and fissuring the holy image into a maze of crumbling stone. At the bottom of the fissure was a black stain. The blackness had spread on the pitted stones beneath the fissure, as if the image had spilled its rotten blood on the floor.

  “When did this happen?” he asked.

  “A little over three months ago,” Lejani said. “Before the Emperor came to Davrakhanda.”

  “Do you know the day?”

  “I could look at a calendar stone—”

  Daladham shook his head. “I know. I was in the Majavaru Lurchatiya on that day. In the sanctum I and a host of my brothers made an offering to Lord Am. The day that the Mouth of the Devourer dispersed the Red Men.”

  Lejani was quiet. They both watched the ruined image.

  “Was there an earthquake?” Daladham asked. “Any other sign?”

  “No,” Lejani said. “Just the image of Am, split from top to bottom as if struck by a chisel, leaking a black, rotten oil onto the floor. I didn’t even attempt to clean it.”

  “Who else saw?”

  “Two of the Amya dhorsha were here. They told me. They we
re sworn to secrecy.”

  Daladham thought of the dhorsha whom he had met here in Davrakhanda. It wouldn’t be hard to find out.

  “You were right to close it,” Daladham said. “There’s no need to have this spread throughout the city.”

  “There are rumors nonetheless,” Lejani said, “but less troubling than the truth. I have not been able to hide what happened to Ashti.”

  “Ashti?”

  Lejani was quiet for a while. “Salt water runs off of the face of the image in the Ashtyavarunda. All of the dhorsha have seen it, though we have not spoken of it in the city. She… weeps.”

  Daladham breathed heavily. “Her consort is broken. Of course she weeps.”

  A heaviness settled into his chest. He bent forward, breathing hard, and put a hand on one of the temple pillars to steady himself. Slowly he lowered himself to the ground and lay his head on his knees.

  “We should all weep,” he said.

  Lejani looked at him with pity. Daladham closed his eyes. Tears burned under his eyelids.

  “I have nothing else,” he said. His voice cracked. “My nephew, the last of my family… one of the first. The Mouth of the Devourer took him in Tulakhanda. Nothing is left to me except the service of Lord Am, and yet when I fled to Majasravi the Mouth of the Devourer followed. Everything I have is dead. The Power of Am is dead.”

  Lejani drew in her breath sharply. “Don’t speak blasphemy.”

  “Blasphemy? Read the signs, Lejani-dhu. Black blood flowed from the sacrifice in the Majavaru Lurchatiya. The Red Men were dispersed, the Dhigvaditya broken, the Emperor chased from the Seven-Stepped Throne. The image of Am is broken, and Ashti weeps.”

  Lejani stood very still. The oil in the lamps hissed, and light danced over the broken face of Am.

  Daladham took a laborious breath. “We are approaching the day when secrecy is no more help.”

  “I won’t be opening this shrine,” Lejani said imperiously.