by David Hair
Kazim and Jai had been floating in an alcoholic haze by the time they got home, only to find Ispal Ankesharan waiting for them, which he normally never did. They were adults, they could do what they wanted, he always said, but this time he had waited up for them to give Kazim the news that had shattered his life.
‘Ramita is to be given to another.
‘We will all be wealthy beyond our dreams.
‘He is an old man and won’t last long.
‘No, I cannot tell you who he is.
‘Your father understands.’
Fury had turned him feral. He remembered grabbing Ispal’s throat, the man who had given him so much, and shaking him like a dog. He had struck Jai when he tried to separate them. He remembered calling for Ramita, over and over, but only men came, dozens of men, who struck him and bloodied him, who twisted his knife from his hand, who kicked and punched him and left him unconscious in the alleyway a block from the house. He had woken in a puddle of cold cow-piss, bloodied, bruised and filthy.
How could he go home after that?
‘You cannot trust these Omali,’ said Haroun. ‘They are faithless – they understand only money. They cannot be trusted.’
‘Ramita is so beautiful – more beautiful than dawn,’ he replied. ‘She loves me. She is waiting for me.’ He made to stand. ‘I must go to her.’
Haroun pulled him back down. ‘No, it isn’t safe. They won’t welcome you. They will be afraid of you disrupting things.’ He leant forward, his voice dropping. ‘Do you know who the ferang is?’
Kazim shook his head. ‘No, no name. No one told me anything.’
Haroun seemed a little disappointed and Kazim looked down sullenly, no desire to speak further. He didn’t want to tell Haroun how he had spent the three days of Eyeed, inhabiting the lowest places of the jhuggis, drinking and smoking and whoring, spending his last coins. It was too shameful.
Haroun’s eyes were knowing. ‘Come brother,’ he said gently. ‘Let us pray together.’
Outside, the Godsingers called, summoning the faithful back to the bosom of Ahm. Kazim, his body replenished but his soul empty, let his new friend guide him to a place where he could abase himself and pray, to beg Ahm that his Ramita be restored to him.
Or to be granted revenge.
A Scriptualist read from The Kalistham, from the chapter called ‘Words of Fire and Blood’. It had been written by a prophet from Gatioch, where unquestioning faith was instilled at birth. The words were a poetic torrent used since time immemorial to justify and exalt every war ever fought. The Convocation had spoken and the old red stone Dome echoed with the clarion call to arms as shihad was declared on the ferang. Kazim emerged refreshed, no longer alone: he had brothers as angry at the world as he was, though their anger seemed directed at more lofty things than stolen fiancées.
‘What did you make of that?’ asked Haroun as they shared coffee in a tiny dhaba in the Amteh-dominated Geshanti Souk, watching the rush of people churning past. Here all the men wore white and the women went about in black bekira-shrouds.
‘Death to the ferang!’ he barked, toasting Haroun with his thimble of thick black Keshi coffee. He had never really thought about the foreigners before, not seriously. Yes, his father was Keshi, and had fled his homeland because of the ferang – but their home was here in Baranasi now. Huriya didn’t even pray to Ahm these days but carried on like an Omali girl, all sarees and bindus and Lakh dances.
Haroun shook his head. ‘Listen to you, Kazim! You say “death to the ferang”, but all you’re really thinking about is your girl. Don’t you see, your tragedy is but part of a greater wrong? You are a young man of great prowess and fierce determination. Do not waste yourself in despair. Ahm is calling to you, waiting for you to prick up your ears and listen. Ahm wants you.’
‘Why me?’
‘I’ve been watching you a long time. You are a natural leader – all the young men follow you. You excel at all manly pastimes: you run like the wind and wrestle like a python. You are a prodigy, Kazim! Were you to put aside your frivolous pastimes and take up a serious pursuit, the other young men would follow you. You are searching for a star. That star is Ahm, if you would but open your heart to him.’
Kazim had heard Scriptualists say things like this before, and always he’d told himself, ‘Yes, maybe, but I am going to marry an Omali girl and breed hundreds of children.’ That was still his dream – more than a dream: it was destiny. A fortune-teller, an ancient woman who looked older than time, had told him his destiny was to marry Ramita, so how could she be taken away? He was going to be at the wedding, oh yes! And he would look her in the eye and ask her if she loved him and she would say yes. Then he would smite down this stranger and claim his rightful bride. He had come to this decision during the prayers this morning. Love would triumph. He was convinced of it.
Something of this must have conveyed itself because Haroun gave a wry sigh and shook his head. ‘Brother, you must join the shihad. You must learn the ways of the sword. You must help us inspire the local boys to march to war. Say you will join us, brother.’
Kazim returned the young Amteh youth’s intense gaze. I should agree to this – but my destiny is Ramita … He bowed his head. ‘Let me think about this. My sister – my father – I do not know where they are. I’ve neglected my duties to them. And Ramita, she still loves me, I know it!’
Haroun’s eyes clouded over, but then he shrugged. ‘Then let me help you, my friend, and if all works out as you say, well and good. And if not … will you then join the shihad, brother?’
Kazim swallowed. If it came to that, where else could I go?
Kazim and Haroun searched the ghats, the riverbank steps, seeking Raz Makani. In Baranasi, all life and death flowed from the banks of the Imuna river. The city stood on the west bank of the wide, shallow river flowing north to south, the dark water already filthy from untold uses made of it upstream. In the morning almost the entire city came to the river to pray, to wash, to purify themselves for the coming day. Small coracles took out the wealthier people onto the water to watch the dawn and escape the press of commoners. The prince of the city had a barge upon which he performed the dawn chant on holy occasions, even though he was Amteh, to appease his people who were mostly Omali.
By midmorning the worshippers and bathers were replaced by washerwomen, soaking the clothes, then slapping them against stone slabs before spreading them in the sun to dry. Dung-women rolled cow droppings into patties to dry for fuel. People came and went from the Omali temples all day, chiming the heavy temple bells. Downstream, at the southern end, the funeral fires burned all day, cremating the dead. The ashes were scattered for Imuna to bear away.
The sun beat down hotter and hotter as Kazim and Haroun sought Raz in all his favourite places, but no one had seen his father or sister since before Eyeed. It was Haroun who suggested the temple of Devanshri, where the healer-priests ran an infirmary. He waited outside while Kazim went in, though not a believer inclining his head respectfully to the serene statue of the physician-god. The low moan of the patients droned eerily. He took a deep breath of clean air and pulled his scarf around his mouth before entering the hospital.
The air was incense-laden to chase away noxious vapours and demons of the air. Orange-robed priests and priestesses came and went, and young servants carried water from Imuna to bathe those in their charge. The halls were lined with the sick and injured, the dying, the old. Hands clutched at him as he passed. Two men bore an old woman past as he pressed against the wall, her body arched in rigor, her open eyes gazing sightlessly on the hereafter. He felt nauseous and turned to go.
‘Kazim! Kazim!’ Huriya raced to his side, hugged him hard, then slapped him. He just stared, his cheek smarting but his mind numb. ‘Where have you been, you lazy prick?’ she cried. ‘I found Father in the sands on the far side of the river. He tried to walk in and drown himself, but the water wasn’t deep enough and the opium had him so befuddled he didn’t think to lie down.�
� She wrapped herself around him. ‘He’s dying! You have to do something!’
He held her close and let her sob, then she drew him towards the silent figure on the pallet in the corner. His father was sleeping, his war-helm cradled in his arms, the one he had brought back from Hebusalim. It was rounded and pointed and had a jackal monogram on the crest. Chain-mail links guarded the cheeks. ‘It is yours when you are old enough for it to fit,’ Raz had told him when he was a child, but he hadn’t pulled it out for years.
‘Huriya, there is a Scriptualist outside called Haroun. Tell him I have found my father. Tell him I will seek him when I have done what is needful.’
Huriya looked curious, but bowed her head. She came back shortly afterward to find Kazim stroking his father’s face, tears running down his cheeks. ‘Did you find Haroun?’ he asked without looking up.
‘Yes. He asked me if I knew who Ramita was to marry.’ Huriya sounded peeved. ‘None of his business!’
‘He is my friend,’ Kazim retorted. ‘What do the doctors say about Father?’
Huriya sat cross-legged on the filthy floor in her stained salwar. ‘They say he has an ague from lying too long in the cold water. His lungs need to be drained constantly, so they keep turning him onto his stomach and pounding him until he vomits phlegm and blood onto the floor. Then I have to clean it up. And the sores on his back are infected again.’ Her eyes were moist. ‘I really think he is going to die this time.’
Kazim thought that likely too. ‘I’ll look after you,’ he said automatically.
‘What, like you looked after me this time? Well, thanks for nothing, big brother!’
He winced. I deserve that. ‘I will take care of you, I promise!’
‘Ha! I’ll look after myself, thank you very much.’ She stuck out her chin. ‘I’m going to ask to go north with Ramita, to be her companion. I don’t need your protection!’ She scowled. ‘Ispal has been here every day to tend Father, and so have Jai and Ramita and Tanuva. Everyone has come except you.’
He hung his head, put his face in his hands and burned with shame. Though even now, all he could think was, If I stay here, maybe I will see Ramita.
He didn’t manage even that, though – Ramita stayed away, no doubt because Huriya had reported his presence. Only Jai and Ispal, whom he could not bear even to look at, came. The physicians let Kazim sleep on the floor beside his father’s pallet, but he was woken repeatedly to help purge the lungs and change the dressings on the sores, which were purulent and stank. The whole world stank. His sleep was too broken to be any relief or gain to him, and waking and sleeping became one. His father moaned, seldom recognising anyone, and cried aloud of a ‘woman of flame’ until he had to be sedated. He called for Ispal, many times, until Kazim felt as if he were in a torture cell, never able to satisfy the questioner.
The end was a blessing. His father woke crying for Ispal again, then convulsed, gasping for breath like a fish on dry land. Before they could turn him over, he jerked and went rigid. Kazim held him and cried and sobbed as he had not since he was a child in his long-gone mother’s arms.
When he finally awoke he was in a sea of dark faces: Lakh men and women, looking at him, then averting their eyes. The Devanshri priests came, wanting him to move the body as they had other patients needing the pallet. One asked for money, to pay two bearers to take Raz Makani’s body to the burning ghats – but Raz was Amteh, so must be buried. Kazim decided that he would carry his father himself. Without a another word or glance at the priests and bearers he took up the burden in his arms. His father was both light as feathers and heavy as the holy mountain. He staggered to the entrance, swayed dazedly and nearly fell.
Haroun was there, waiting for him, looking as tired as Kazim felt: waiting to share his burden, as a true friend would.
7
Hidden Causes
The Ascent of Corineus
Without doubt, the most epoch-changing event in the history of Urte was the Ascent of Corineus. In a backwater village of the Rimoni Empire, a thousand disciples of a disaffected Sollan philosopher had gathered. A legion of Rimoni soldiers was sent to arrest them. What ensued is shrouded in legend. Did Kore himself create the ambrosia that gave Corineus’ disciples the gnosis? Or did something more earthly occur? The known truth is that the survivors of that draught, the ‘Blessed Three Hundred’, destroyed the legion with unearthly powers. Their descendants, the magi, still rule Yuros 500 years later.
ORDO COSTRUO COLLEGIATE, PONTUS
Turm Zauberin, Norostein, Noros, on the continent of Yuros
Octen 927
9 months until the Moontide
The first day of the exams had finally come: the culmination of seven years of Alaron’s life. He stared blankly at the wall before him, waiting for the bell to ring out from the old college bell-tower. The hour-long time slots were allocated by alphabetic order, starting with Andevarion; Alaron would be second-last, late in the afternoon.
The first subject was History, which he enjoyed, though his father regarded much the master taught him as dubious; Vann’s scepticism and Ramon’s acidic reinterpretations had left him somewhat confused, but at least it was interesting.
Finally the bell rang, the door opened and Seth Korion emerged and just stood there, glassy-eyed.
Hard, was it, Seth? Alaron thought. Perhaps you should have paid more attention, instead of just sitting in class like a zombie, safe in the knowledge no one would ever ask you anything tricky.
Seth turned around slowly, just becoming aware of Alaron. Alaron prepared himself for some insult or mockery, but to his surprise, Korion said faintly, ‘Good luck, Mercer.’ It was so unexpectedly polite that Alaron could only stare and mumble something at Korion’s receding back.
He waited for several hour-like minutes until portly Magister Hout poked his head around the corner. ‘Mercer. Come inside.’ His voice was disdainful as always.
Alaron got unsteadily to his feet and walked across the unsteady floor and through the door. In front of him was an array of faces, familiar and unfamiliar; it felt like he was being stared at by row upon row of vultures and ravens, all waiting to pick out his eyeballs. In the front was Lucien Gavius, the headmaster, the masters arrayed about him. Fyrell’s dark features looked savage in the dim lighting. He peered a little further back and stiffened. Governor Belonius Vult – what on earth? But then, why not? We’re supposed to be the future, aren’t we? There were others, uniforms he recognised rather than faces: a flat-faced Kirkegarde Grandmaster; a bearded legion centurion; a Crozier of the Kore. Alaron felt horribly exposed.
The headmaster rose. ‘The student is Alaron Mercer, son of Tesla Anborn, of Berial’s line. The father is non-magi. The student is a quarter-blood, born in Norostein.’ Alaron noticed that Governor Vult leant forward when his mother’s name was read. Perhaps he knew her, or Auntie Elena.
‘Are you ready, Mercer?’ Gavius enquired.
Alaron’s throat went dry, the banks of faces overwhelming. All those eyes … He swallowed. ‘Yes, Headmaster.’
‘Good. Then let us begin with a recitation of the Rimoni Conquests. In your own time …’
Alaron took a deep breath and began to speak. Initially he felt horribly uncomfortable, but after a while he began to relax and let his words flow. He answered questions about the Rimoni Empire, then about the spread of Kore into Sydia. He spoke confidently about the Bridge and First Crusade. He got his facts wrong a little on the Second Crusade, but nothing disastrous.
When it was over, he felt almost disappointed, but the small rattle of applause lifted him immeasurably. He’d survived. When he walked out, Ramon was in the waiting room, literally shaking in his boots. There was no time for anything but a quick thumbs-up and a: ‘Buono fortuna, Ramon!’
It felt like he was off to a good start.
Tydai was calculus, a nightmare. They had to create and solve formulae all day in a series of written tests. Malevorn was confident, but the others were as edgy, even Dorobon. Alaron f
elt he did passably, but no better than that. Seth Korion threw up outside afterwards. Watching Korion being ill was becoming an exam-week ritual. At first it was off-putting, then amusing, and finally he found himself actually feeling sorry for the wretched general’s son.
Wotendai brought Rondian, a welcome relief. At least it’s my native tongue, he reflected. Poor Ramon! The exam itself was largely the recitation of old poems and sagas – a complete waste of time, in his view. Sadly, it probably came across that way to the markers, he reflected as he shuffled out of the theatre.
Torsdai was Theology. He squirmed before the half-seen faces and came out of it absolutely hating Fyrell, who seemed determined to prove him a heretic and burn him on the spot. This was the worst day so far. But he banished it from thought quickly. Tomorrow was Freyadai – thesis day; make-or-break day, or so they were all told.
The auditorium was full. Faces loomed out at him: Governor Belonius Vult, come to run his eye over the students again; Jeris Muhren, a hero of the Noros Revolt and now Watch Captain of Norostein; representatives of all the military arms, the regular army, windship commanders, even Volsai and Kirkegarde recruiters. There were many Churchmen hovering about a jaded-looking Crozier, and clouds of grey-robed Arcanum scholars. They all looked bored – Alaron was the sixth presenter, of course. He swallowed nervously. Don’t think about the audience. It’s no worse than the other days. You can do this …
