by L M R Clarke
“Your Grace,” Johrann whispered, “it’s happened at last. Look at your hands.” Her shaking claws rose to touch her neck. “Look at what they’ve done. Look at the power, how it glows upon you. And your eyes, they glowed red too!”
She threw herself forward and fell at his feet. “Hand of Dorai,” she said, her voice thick with emotion, “your powers are awakening. Your true spirit is returning!”
Fear gave way to abject joy. Johrann’s words made Bandim’s heart sing. He couldn’t take his eyes from his hands. They glowed and pulsed as Dorai danced within him. At last, it had happened. At last, he could feel Dorai’s presence. She inhabited his every corner, no longer invisible but flaring and glowing with fire.
Johrann had been right.
“This is...tremendous,” he said. “I feel more powerful than I’ve ever felt before.”
“You’re not just more powerful,” Johrann said, clutching at the hem of his robes. “You are all-powerful.”
Ignoring her attempts to rise, Bandim clicked his talons. “Get me my handplate.”
Immediately, Johrann scrabbled across the floor and found the plate, unscathed from its crash. She shuffled forward on her knees. Bowing her head, she held it up. Bandim snatched it from her talons and brought it to his face.
His breath caught. His eyes did glow red.
“It’s true,” he said. “My eyes... Now I have the power of the goddess within me.” He delved back in his thoughts, tracing the journey that had awakened his powers. “It was fury,” he said. “My anger woke the goddess.”
Johrann spoke, her mouth stumbling with the speed of her words. “Of course,” she said. “‘And when Dorai struck down the unbelievers with righteous anger, her eyes shone as bright as the midsun.’ It is written! Your anger is Dorai’s anger, righteous and terrifying!”
Bandim kept his gaze in the handplate. His claws tightened on the carved wooden handle. Anger. That was the key. His lips widened in a macabre smile. He had enough of that for three goddesses.
He flicked his eyes to Johrann, still prostrate on the floor. His smile faded.
Bandim pulled her to her feet by her collar. Residual heat pulsed through him.
“The goddess lives within you, awake at last!” Johrann said.
She reached for his hands, but Bandim snatched them away, still grasping his handplate. His anger reared again as a plan formed in his mind. “No thanks to you,” he snarled.
Johrann recoiled as if struck. “Y-your Grace...”
Right she may have been, Bandim thought, but that didn’t mean he needed to give her the satisfaction of his acknowledgement. He didn’t need to be thankful to her, especially not now that he was truly more than just an ordinary male.
“Johrann Maa,” he said, his voice low and dangerous. “You have proved yourself an unreliable advisor.”
Her face fell and she shrank back. “I live only for you,” she said. “I have never, ever sought to deceive you.”
Bandim drew his eyeridges low and shook his head. “You have failed me,” he said. “It should have been you that discovered the catalyst for my powers. I should not have had to find out for myself.”
Johrann cast herself at his feet once more, and he allowed her to lavish kisses upon them. Suffer, he thought. You deserve it.
After a moment he stepped away, eyes back on his reflection. He glanced at her through the handplate. “However, you can redeem yourself,” he continued.
“Anything, Your Grace,” Johrann replied. “I’ll do anything for you.”
Bandim allowed himself a self-indulgent grin at her scrabbling before he schooled his expression into a solemn frown. As much as he wished to punish her, he couldn’t push her away. Regardless of anything else, she was the only one of her colors he knew of, and the only one with any knowledge of the secrets of the goddess. While he didn’t want to, he knew it was true. While he tried to deny it, he knew the reality. He needed her, for she was the one who’d opened the world up to Dorai. But his need didn’t make them equals, and the more in his debt she felt, the more influence he’d have upon her.
“You will help me unlock my true potential,” Bandim continued. “You know more of this power than anyone, unworthy as you are. If you prove yourself worthy by helping me harness Dorai’s greatness, you will be welcomed back into my counsel. Until then you are nothing but a servant to me, and you will be treated as such.”
Johrann smiled, an expression of complete devotion. “Yes, Your Grace,” she said. “I’ll do it. I’ll prove to you that I am loyal.”
Bandim shook his head, still staring at himself in the polished plate. His red eyes shimmered and shone. “It’s not your loyalty that is at fault,” he said, “but rather your arrogance.”
Johrann’s expression crumpled as if she had been stung. But she nodded and licked her lips, bringing her hands together. “Yes,” she said. “I’ve been arrogant, and I’ve failed you. But I’ll prove you can trust me. I will be nothing but a humble servant for your means.”
“Good,” Bandim said, staring at her through the plate. “The Althemerians won’t be able to stand up to my powers once the goddess is strong within me. I will decimate them, just as my father wanted. I will prove to him, as he watches from the afterlife, that I was the true heir. It should have been me. I will raze the entire world, be the greatest emperor that ever lived, to show him that he and Mother were wrong!” Bandim’s heart sang, his flesh tingled, and victory burned through him. “I will be all-powerful. I will crush the world. Nothing will stand in my way.”
His mouth was a savage slash as he delivered his next words.
“I am the goddess incarnate.”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Emmy
Why am I rocking?
Emmy turned and tried to cuddle her blanket, but there was no blanket. The soft flesh of her unarmored cheek scraped against rough wood. A sudden reek of stale bodies and detritus invaded. Bile rose in her throat as realization flooded in.
She jerked up, only to be toppled by the pitch of a wave. Gulping and retching, Emmy blinked in the gloom. Where was she? Surrounded on all sides by metal bars, her throat tightened. We’re on a Masvam ship!
All around her were Metakalans in cages. Faces blinked in the gloom. Her old neighbors, those who had tormented her. They were all the same now, she thought, locked up like animals. She snorted, wondering if they still felt superior.
The sea dipped, eliciting a mournful chorus. It was followed by splashing and an unbearable stink. Emmy’s memory came back in flashes. The terror of the explosions. The mania of the streets. The capture, the apothecary, the destruction...
Krodge and Bose. Dead.
And Zecha! Emmy jerked forward, scanning the cages through the darkness. He had to be all right. Tears beaded. He just had to be all right.
“Emmy, are you awake now? Emmy! Emmy!”
Emmy turned in the tiny space, cursing her thick tail, and pressed her face to the front bars. They were locked tight. Many sets of eyes blinked through the darkness, but none belonged to the voice she sought.
“Down here!”
Emmy squinted, her head swimming. A familiar face shone in the darkness. “Charo!” she cried. “Are you all right?”
But their conversation was cut short, for their words uncorked terror.
“We’ve been captured!” someone wailed.
“We’re going to die!” said another.
Emmy gulped against another wave.
Charo stared from a low cage. The details of her face were obscured by shadow, but fear shone bright in her eyes.
“Where’s Zecha?” Emmy asked.
Before Charo could answer, another familiar voice sounded through the blackness.
“I’m here,” said Zecha.
Unsure where the voice came from, Emmy’s ears fought for the sound. He was close. “Zecha?” she called.
“Yes, it’s me,” came the weak reply.
“Where are you?”
“
Right below you, I think. Can you feel this?”
A claw poked through a crack in her cell floor. Emmy snatched it. “Yes, I can,” she said, the twist in her gut abating.
Their touch lingered for a moment. The moment of joy was torn by a terrified wail.
“We’re doomed,” one of the voices from before said. “Nunako is punishing us. We’re doomed!”
The comfort of Zecha’s touch disappeared. “How long have we been in here?” he asked.
“About a day, I think,” Charo replied. “It’s hard to tell when there’s no sun or moons to guide you.”
“We need to do something,” Zecha said. “We can’t just sit here.”
He grunted and twisted, pressing his eye to the crack in the floor.
“These must be slave ships,” Emmy replied. “Why else would there be cages? But the Masvams don’t take slaves.”
Charo grunted. When she spoke, her tone was bitter. “Not until now.”
“Maybe they got the ships from the Valtat,” Zecha offered. “The slavers wouldn’t sell their ships, but the Masvams would certainly take them.”
“However they got them,” Emmy continued, “there must be locks on the doors. But there might be rust, or weak patches, or something might come loose.”
“Are there guards down here?” Zecha asked.
“Not that I’ve seen,” Charo replied. “No one’s come in or out since we were shoved in here.”
Emmy leaned forward and edged her claws through the gaps in the bars. The hinges were cool under the pads of her talons, but they felt strong. She moved on to the lock, pulling and twisting it, but to no avail. She sat back, shaking her head. “I’m locked in tight,” she said.
“Me too,” Charo replied.
Zecha’s voice was hopeful when he spoke. “My lock is rusty. If I keep working at it, who knows? It might come loose.”
Emmy smiled and poked her talon through the crack in the floor. That was Zecha, always hopeful. “If anyone can do it, you can,” she said.
Zecha touched her claw, wrapping one of his around it. “I hope so,” he replied.
Time passed. From below her came the tap tap tap of Zecha working at his lock. There were times when it stopped, and he was asleep. But more often than not, he kept working at it.
Darkness swirled like inky tendrils. It closed around Emmy’s throat like claws. She rubbed her skin, a meager fight against the gathering cold. Glancing at the other cages, she swallowed. Metakalans lay bloodied and beaten and unconscious. She knew them all. Charber was there, as was Leeve.
Kain wasn’t.
Emmy shuddered. Kain was probably dead. She couldn’t see any younglings on the boat.
That thought spurred her into working at her lock again. She knew it was futile, but she had to do something to help.
There was little conversation as another day passed. The only sounds were of despair and hopelessness, the bitter crashing of the wind, and the battering of waves against the ship’s dark hold. Emmy flexed her legs in a feeble attempt to soothe the agonizing cramps brought on by her hours of working at the lock. But the action brought little comfort, in the same way that poking and prodding the lock brought little joy.
The ship dipped and rose on tumultuous waves, bringing fresh nausea to the cargo. The stench caked Emmy’s mouth and lined her nostrils. Charo swore as the ship leaned to and fro, filling her low enclosure with a flood of rottenness.
Emmy put her face in her filthy hands. She wished it was a dream, but it wasn’t. It was worse than any nightmare. It was as if the goddess had heard her Middlemerish prayer and warped it. She’d asked for freedom, but received capture instead. Emmy would have given anything to go back to the way things were, even with Krodge and Bose. At least in Bellim there was the possibility of freedom. At least there, had she gathered the courage and determination, she could have left. But the hard reality of the stench and the screams kept gnawing at her.
Fear steered her claws back to the lock. Then there was a new sound, metallic and moaning, right below her.
Emmy stared down as a miracle from the goddess unfolded.
One leg stretched from the cell beneath her, then another. Zecha stumbled to his feet, limbs and tail flailing. His delight lit the darkness. “I’m out!” he said, patting his front. “I’m actually out!”
Emmy’s grin was so wide it hurt her cheeks. “How did you do it?”
Zecha pressed his face to her bars for a moment, his smile matching hers. “The lock was rusted,” he said. “I knew if I kept working at it, eventually it would pop.”
The sight of a Metakalan standing outside the bars spread hope like wildfire.
“Oh, Nunako be praised!” said a voice. “Someone’s out!”
“Free us! Free us!”
The hold filled with a cacophony of elation.
“Oh, I knew the goddess would save us!”
“We can be free again!”
“Hush!” Zecha cried. “They can’t know one of us is free!”
His voice struggled to rise above the clamor. Emmy threaded her claws through the bars.
“Shut up!” she hissed. “He’s right!”
The noise only grew louder, rising in a harried crescendo. Why weren’t they listening? Another thought fought back. They’re not listening because they don’t respect you. Why should they? You’re just a Moon Rogue. Anger swirled within Emmy and she clenched her claws around the bars until they bit into her skin. That was her old life. That was when she was crushed underneath Krodge’s boot heel. That was when she was stuck in the apothecary, too scared to leave, too scared of what might happen to her.
Things were different now. She’d had been taken from that life. Krodge would never crush her again. And under the rule of the Masvams, they’d all be the same. None of them would have freedom or respect. Emmy’s whole body trembled, and she bit her lower lip, squeezing her eyes shut. What did she have to lose?
Her voice struck like lightning. “QUIET!”
The power of the sound stunned her. Never before had she yelled so loudly. There had never been the opportunity, except alone in the woods. Even then, Emmy had been too scared to scream in case she drew attention from a hidden hunter, who would tell the story, which would get back to Krodge, and then Emmy would receive a beating. Now the sense of strange liberation outweighed even the fear of her shout summoning a Masvam.
There was absolute silence in the hold. Zecha froze in front of her, half-poised to attack, half-ready to run. “Emmy,” he said, a slow smile creeping onto his face. “I didn’t know you could yell so loud.”
“Neither did I,” she replied.
“Wow,” Charo said, grinning up from her lower cage.
Emmy grinned back, but the elation of finding her voice ebbed away. They were still in the ship’s hold. Only one of them was free. It wasn’t enough. There needed to be a next step. Her friends seemed to follow her unspoken train of thought as their faces fell too.
“What do we do now?” Zecha asked.
He clung to the cage bars, desperately keeping balance on the pitching deck.
“We need to keep the noise as normal,” Emmy said. “They can’t suspect. They haven’t been down yet, but that doesn’t mean they won’t—”
A rolling wave interrupted her. Zecha was saved from a face-first introduction to the deck only by the tight winding of his claws in the bars.
Once the ship was stable again, Emmy continued.
“Zecha, try and free some of us first,” she said. “Any rusty lock is easy game. Once a few of us are out, we’ll get everyone freed, and—”
Something scraped against the hold door. Keys jangled. Zecha paled.
With a crash, light and fresh air flooded in, blinding them. Emmy’s gaze flicked between Zecha and the gaping hole—and the thick silhouettes standing in it.
“What happens here, filth?” a Masvam yelled. “You make noise and—”
At the sight of Zecha, the sailor stilled. His eyes narrowed and h
is tail twitched.
Horror descended on Zecha’s face.
The Masvam walked forward, teeth glinting. “You to die, filth,” he snarled.
Then he bolted towards Zecha, blade drawn.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Emmy
Zecha screeched and took a long slash to the head, then found himself pinned against the cages.
“No!” Emmy cried.
Blood poured from a fresh wound, rivulets of red running down Zecha’s face. The Masvam pressed his forearm to his victim’s neck, allowing only a sliver of air to pass through Zecha’s throat.
“Think you that you escape?” he snarled. “Think you that you save your friends can?” He laughed again. The sound sent an icy shudder down Emmy’s spine, right to the tip of her tail. “Pshala,” he spat. “Metakalan make me laugh. Could I snap your neck now and—”
“Yamor, cease.”
As Yamor released his throat, Zecha breathed in sweet life. Still pinned, he couldn’t double over to scrabble for breath. Emmy silenced her sigh of relief and pressed herself tight against the bars.
Three more Masvams strode up the deck, trailing the tang of salt and beer. Two of them, Emmy knew. Mamusan and Kelom. The other, three torques of gold on his upper arm, was unknown.
“But Ysmas Pesmam,” Yamor said, his words petulant, “he deserves die.”
“By not your word or hand,” Pesmam snapped.
Pesmam shoved Yamor aside. Freed at last, Zecha gasped for breath.
“Your name, what is?” Pesmam asked. His orange eyes glinted.
Zecha gulped more air and shook his head. Pesmam grabbed his chin, jerking his head up, crumpling his face.
“Your name, what is?” Pesmam said again.
Still Zecha didn’t reply. Pesmam wrenched him up by his half-crushed throat.
“I let not Yamor your life take,” he snarled, “but will I if—”
“Zecha!” a voice cried. “His name is Zecha!”
Emmy’s eyes snapped to Charo, whose face was lined with despair. Pesmam dropped Zecha and clicked his tongue.
“You, Zecha,” he said, his tongue stumbling on the unknown name, “is fool. Need you punishment.”
