Children of Sun and Moon

by Matt Larkin

  Growing up, he had heard that Lunars were violent monsters, addicted to sugar, in love with bloodshed, and lacking any honor. And then he met Chandi. Perhaps her sense of honor needed work. Perhaps he should have turned her in. But she wasn’t violent, wasn’t a monster. He had heard the Ignis were docile workers who preferred their simple life to the burdens of politics and government. He wondered if those rumors were as accurate as the ones about the Lunars.

  The Lunar envoy would arrive in the morning. Perhaps the empress convinced Kakudmi to allow it. Or perhaps the emperor’s new fair-skinned confidant had done so. Naresh couldn’t guess what faraway land a man with sun-colored hair and green eyes might come from. No one seemed to know who the foreigner was, even his name. The Guard had taken to calling him the Stranger.

  Bendurana had brought him to the palace. A witness, he said. Next they knew, Kakudmi had taken the man on as an advisor. Except he gave no advice, at least not where any of the Guard saw it. Kakudmi made no retaliation against the Lunars. When his own father was murdered, Kakudmi made peace. And now Empu Baradah was dead, the Astral Temple fallen. Empu Baradah’s warnings about Kakudmi remained. “A man of peace,” he’d said.

  The emperor and his advisor would decide their actions, but Naresh would find his own answers. He had to know how this really began. Only then could he guess its end.

  A burning brazier outside a windowless stone building among a block of windowless stone buildings identified the Shrine of Sacred Flame, as the Ignis called it.

  Ignis whispered to themselves as Naresh stepped through the entranceway. Unlike Solar architecture, the fire shrine featured no atrium. The place was cast in oppressive darkness. Naresh had to fight to keep walking forward and not hunch against the shadows. He could see men moving off to the sides on the edge of his vision, but couldn’t make them out. He kept his fists clenched at his sides to keep his hand from wandering to his newly wedded keris sword.

  “Welcome, Guardsman,” the priest at the back of the shrine called. The man sat on a pillow some distance beyond the fire pit. Even while he sat, his surprising height was apparent. “Come and sit for a while.”

  Naresh inclined his head and then sat across from the Igni priest. “You are Semar?”

  “Yes, Pak Naresh, I am.”

  The seat Semar had offered him positioned him between the fire pit and the priest, so it became even harder to read the man’s face. “How do you know my name?”

  “I’ve followed your career, Guardsman. Son of the Radiant Queen. Asked to join the Arun Guard at a younger age than anyone in memory. Some say the finest swordsman in the Skyfall Isles, perhaps all of the South Sea.”

  “You have a reputation yourself. They say you’ve studied the ancient histories. The four wars, even before, in the times of myth. Before the breaking of the Pact.”

  “Why not ask your mother? She would surely have the answers you seek.”

  Naresh hesitated, yet he could not ask for honest answers if he would not give them. “The Children of the Sun would tell me the history they recorded, the history they believe. I wanted an unbiased account.”

  “And you believe such a thing exists? An objective history, free from influence by the teller?”

  Naresh spread his hands. If not, if no one could tell them the unbiased truth, there was nothing he could do. Maybe that was the point, maybe they should all have let the past lie in the past. “Who started the war?”

  “The Pact broke when the Lunars murdered the Solar high priestess. In retaliation the Solars drove the Lunars and Ignis from the Astral Temple.”

  Naresh nodded. That was how the Children of the Sun told it. Of course, the Ignis were their allies, so perhaps their histories would agree. The Lunars claimed the Solars driving them from the Temple was an unprovoked attack. Maybe they even believed it now.

  “But don’t you think the Lunars must have had a reason for such a heinous act?” Semar asked. “After so many years, holding the Astral Temple in trust with the other two dynasties, why take action certain to ignite a war?”

  “What do you mean?” Never once had the Solar histories questioned the Lunars’ reasons. They had taken it as a given that Lunars were just violent, dangerous. “Are you saying you know why they did it?”

  Semar leaned closer, held him with an intense gaze that seemed to bore into him. “The Solar high priestess learned something, something the Lunars wanted to keep secret at any cost.”

  “Tell me.” Whatever had started all this, he needed to know. It was the gulf that separated him and Chandi.

  Semar watched him without wavering, but Naresh found himself glancing around to make sure no one would overhear. “Some say,” the fire priest said, “that the high priestess learned the secret of the Moon Scions. According to those rumors, she may have uncovered the source of their bloodline, and thus their power.”

  Naresh rocked back on his heels. And that secret, the secret to wield the god-like power of the Moon Scions, would be worth killing for.

  “And you, son of the Radiant Queen, what will you do with this knowledge? Try to find the beginning, reach back through the ages to find the place to lay the blame for all that has gone wrong?”

  If the emperor had seen all this before him, perhaps Naresh had underestimated him. Easy for him to say they had to let go of the distant past.

  “I know where the blame lies. Malin.” Chandi might not be a monster. But the Macan Gadungan were.

  “And if Malin has done what you think? Why would he do so? Have you ever wondered how he got to where he is?”

  No. Naresh had always assumed the Macan Gadungan were born monsters. Was Malin once a man? But Semar meant that the distant past had guided Malin’s path. Which meant to let go of ancient history, he’d have to let go of recent history.

  Kakudmi never avenged Ken Arok. Naresh couldn’t avenge Empu Baradah.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  The Solars had confined the Lunars to their chambers on the fourth floor. Naresh had informed Chandi that Malin was banned from the city, and gave the weretiger’s infrequently-used room to her father. Rahu they gave a more elaborate room around the corner.

  The Solars had agreed to allow the Lunars to meet in a conference room nearby, under guard. And they might have, if Chandi hadn’t long ago learned the room’s secret. The careful acoustics of the room allowed sound to travel one-way, to the opposite wing. If they met in the conference room, Kakudmi could overhear every conversation.

  Chandi huddled in the corner of Ratna’s room. Rahu and Ketu had used the Glamour to disguise themselves as servants, then snuck past the guards to her cousin’s room. They whispered nearby, while Malin watched the door. The weretiger had swum across the sea to the palace and climbed in the window. Marvelous in its audacity. Impossible for a human, so the Solars never guarded against it.

  If they caught him, they’d burn him. And he’d deserve it for what he’d done. She tried to keep from glaring at him. But whatever he’d done, Malin had raised her. When she was seven, playing on the rocks with Ratna, she had slipped and fallen into the sea. It had been Malin to dive in and save her while her father was off serving as a priest. Funny, but it was one of her earliest memories. When her mother died, Malin taught her the stick fighting techniques he’d brought from Mait, as well as Silat.

  And when Anusapati might have killed her? Malin saved her life. She wanted to hate him for costing her Naresh. But could she hate him for avenging her mother or Calon?

  From the look on her uncle’s face, his talks with Kakudmi and Aji Bidara had not gone well. Rahu wore a carefully trimmed goatee, darker in color than his sun-bleached brown hair. Elaborate songket embroidered his black baju, a symbol the Lunar Empire had come to associate with the greatest Moon Scion of their time.

  Rahu poured himself a cup of tea before sitting in front of Chandi. Ketu sat beside him, sharing a plate of coconut slices. Ratna remained on her bed. “Assuming we can trust the tiger’s sense—”

 
“It’s never failed you before,” Malin said.

  Rahu did not turn at the interruption, but his back stiffened, and his dark eyes grew wider, his mouth tighter. “Assuming he has not failed us,” he began again, “the Solars cannot spy on us now.”

  Chandi shook her head. They didn’t build personal chambers with acoustic technology, only semi-public places. Dishonorable, they’d say. And Naresh would never accept dishonor.

  “We must get my daughter before we escape the palace,” Ratna said.

  “Silence, child,” Rahu said.

  “We cannot abandon her here,” Ratna said, fire in her eyes. “She’s our family.”

  Rahu tapped a finger to his lips. “Lower your voice.”

  “Let them come,” Malin said from the door.

  Chandi scowled. “Naresh knows you were responsible. If he learns you’re here—”

  She could hear Malin stalk closer. “Does he?”

  “I wouldn’t want to be you if Naresh finds you.” Malin must be growing even more furious that she didn’t turn to face him. She suppressed a snicker.

  “I’ll rip out his heart and eat it before his eyes!” The weretiger smacked a bedpost, snapping it.

  Ratna shrieked, and Rahu was on his feet in an instant. The War King held Malin aloft by the throat before Chandi had turned. “If your noise brings him here, I’ll let him have you, Macan Gadungan.” He glanced at Ratna cowering on the bed. “And if that had struck my daughter, I’d make you wish the Arun Guard found you.”

  Rahu dropped Malin, who fell to his knees, gasping. The War King sat and resumed his tea, adding more milk from a small vial. He always insisted on bringing his own milk for his tea.

  Chandi shivered at the image Malin had conjured. She couldn’t bring herself to pity the tiger for how Rahu had treated him. Malin rose and returned to the door, never taking his eyes from Rahu.

  “Well, that was colorful, Malin,” Chandi’s father said. “You look pale, Chandi. Are you well?”

  Chandi nodded. Her father’s short hair had a bit more grey than when she’d last seen him. Indeed, it almost looked like he was the elder brother, rather than Rahu. Still muscular, though. Probably practiced his Silat every day. He’d done so since her mother had died.

  “We’re not leaving,” Ketu told Ratna.

  “But—”

  “Be silent, Ratna,” Rahu said, his voice low and emotionless. She wilted under his gaze, and he turned back to Chandi. “The Solars are willing to negotiate. Kakudmi fears us too much to make war now. He is not his father. So we will wait until the moment is right before we strike. If they fail to prepare, they deserve their fate.”

  “Then war is inevitable?” Chandi asked. And everyone in Kasusthali would die?

  “War is always inevitable,” Rahu said. “It is only a matter of time.”

  So everything, sending his daughter to marry the Solars, it was all a ploy for time? Did Ratna know she had been traded as a breeding slave, or was it more convincing to keep her ignorant? From the look on her cousin’s face, she knew now.

  Her cousin had believed she could be mother of peace. Knowing her father had never meant her to succeed would not make her failure easier.

  “I’m not convinced the Solars believe Malin was responsible,” Chandi’s father said. “And they won’t act without proof. If they wanted war, they wouldn’t have allowed us here. They are fools. They don’t understand that the Moon God will see his children rule the Skyfall Isles.”

  Rahu grunted. “Whether the Moon God wills or no, I will see this city burn.” Her father sputtered at her uncle’s blasphemy, but Rahu continued without pause. “The entire archipelago shall belong to me. Belong to the Moon Scions.”

  “You plan war, but you’ll leave Chandi and me here?” Ratna asked.

  “They may know, or at least suspect that I’m a spy,” Chandi said. She couldn’t look at them, just stared at the sandalwood bed. Some Solar must have paid a fortune for the crafting of it, and now Malin had ruined it. And it would burn, too.

  She had betrayed Naresh. And yet, no one came for her, no one came to burn her at dawn like she deserved.

  Naresh had trusted her. Even when her uncle hadn’t—Rahu didn’t seem to care that she had exposed herself as a spy. He wouldn’t have lost a tear if she had been burned alive. And she would have been, if not for Naresh. Did his letting her live mean he felt something for her, too?

  “Then you must deal with the consequences of your failure,” Rahu said. She ignored her father’s sharp intake of breath and kept her gaze on the broken bedpost, tracing each grain with her eyes. “And yes, Ratna, you stay here. Ketu and I will try to negotiate peace with the Solars, but one in which we keep the Astral Temple. Kakudmi is too weak to stand up to us. The coward will cave. Now that we have the temple again, we can prepare a much stronger offense.”

  Chandi did look at her uncle then. Why would a religious monument affect their tactics? She understood her father’s outrage that the Solars had held the temple—it was an affront to his beliefs. But Rahu had never expressed enough faith for her father’s liking. Yet he allowed Malin to assault the Temple.

  “What would you have us do?” Ratna asked.

  “Fulfill your wifely duties as you have, of course.”

  Ratna choked on her tea.

  Rahu continued. “Chandi will continue as Ratna’s handmaid. If you can keep from getting caught, that would be preferable. The information you’ve provided has helped us get this far. And helped us to see just how weak the Solars have become. They’ve lost their greatest fighter. More importantly, we’ve taken the Temple. Perhaps in another year or two, maybe less, we will be ready to take this city. When Kasusthali falls, the entire Solar Empire will soon follow.”

  Chandi slumped on the bed and let her head fall onto her palms.

  “Now, Chandi, I have a new task for you,” her uncle said. He paused until she met his gaze. “I want to know everything about the Radiant Queen. Follow her, learn her habits, her weaknesses, her secrets. Learn how she can be manipulated. If she is the strength in the Solar Empire, we will control that strength.”

  Chandi started to refuse. But when she opened her mouth, nothing came out. However much she loved Naresh, she couldn’t betray her father. She saw the concern in his eyes at the mission Rahu had set her. Concern and confidence. How could she betray that confidence? She could do nothing to win Naresh by alienating her own people.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  Naresh was near, Malin could smell him. He slipped into the shadows of a side hall. Footsteps echoed, then two men in cerulean uniforms passed. So close Malin could have reached out and ended Naresh. A single twist of the keris knife and the Butcher’s protégé would share his fate.

  Malin took a step after the Arun Guardsmen, then paused. He wanted them all dead, but even with surprise, he couldn’t fight two Guardsmen, and one was even bigger than he was. A single Sun Stride and one would escape, bring the wrath of the palace down on him.

  He cursed under his breath. Chandi was right, of course. He couldn’t let Naresh see him. Yet. But he would not hide from the man for long. One day he would taste Naresh’s hot blood.

  This time of evening the Arun Guard would be bound for their mess hall. With the Guard distracted, Malin could move about the palace with little concern. He continued down the hall. Chandi was the key to controlling what happened here. The girl was beautiful and talented, but she didn’t seem to understand the reality of their situation. And she was too fond of Naresh.

  On instinct he slipped into another dark corner when his ears picked up more footfalls. But it wasn’t Solars who passed him by, it was a foreigner, a tall man with red-gold hair and fair skin. The foreigner didn’t look at him. But Malin had caught that scent before.

  As the foreigner slipped around the corner, Malin followed, careful to keep his footfalls too silent for human hearing. The man headed into the hall leading to Kakudmi’s sitting room. An Arun Guard let the foreigner p
ass without challenge.

  So Kakudmi accepted the foreigner into his private hall. Trusted him enough that the Guard didn’t even stop to announce him. Malin quickened his pace, almost to a run. His muscles itched to release his frustration, to sprint through these halls and out into the rain. The rain he’d not even feel because he remained in this mad city beneath the sea. He hated this city, but he had to win Chandi, had to keep an eye on events.

  Now that the Astral Temple was back in Lunar hands, it fell to the Solars to decide what to do about it. Malin had already stationed many of the Macan Gadungan to protect the Temple. The Arun Guard would come for it again. He would see no repeat of Astral Shore. Ketu had ensured that Moon Scions would also be there to… Malin slowed his pace. The Astral Temple. That’s where he had smelled the foreigner before.

  He turned to look back in the direction of the emperor’s hall. What in Chandra’s name had the man been doing at the Astral Temple? If he was a spy for Kakudmi, if he had been there all along, perhaps he was witness to the slaughter. Malin grit his teeth. Rahu had ordered him to leave no survivors, had not taken it well when reports of a witness surfaced.

  Rahu would never aid the Macan Gadungan. He cared nothing for his creations. Malin slipped into Ketu’s chamber. The priest sat upon a straw mat, legs folded. The room smelled of strong incense that irritated Malin’s eyes and nose. He knelt beside Ketu, heedless of the man’s meditation. Let him commune with Chandra later. The moon hadn’t even risen yet. “I have done all you and Rahu asked,” Malin said. “Now aid me, priest.”

  Ketu snorted but didn’t crack open his eyes.

  “For two decades we served the Moon Scions. We say the strong earn the right to rule through their strength. If the Moon Scions are stronger, then so be it. But we have enough strength to deserve respect.”

  Ketu snorted again. “You are animals. Now you whine at your masters to see if we’ll reward you with scraps. Be glad for what you are given, tiger.”

  Malin rose and paced the room, struggling to keep from lashing out at the priest. So he had seized the Astral Temple, destroyed the Butcher, embarrassed the Solars all on Rahu’s command. Twenty years of loyal service hadn’t earned his people honor. Neither would this.