by David Hair
‘Your “Zlateyr” – he is Zillitiya of the Uffrykai, this is clear to me,’ Thraan rumbled. ‘We are kin to the mountain folk from long ago.’
‘We are one people to the other tribes of the steppes,’ Missef sniffed, ‘yet still they make war on us.’
‘Missef is right,’ Hajya put in. ‘Would we aid a clan of the Jergathai, or the Kolvahani? They too are our kin, and more recently than the time of Zillitiya.’
‘If it advantaged us,’ Thraan rumbled. ‘I would hear more, friend Kyrik.’
Kyrik raised a cup to Thraan. ‘Thank you, Nacelnik. I have explained the plight of my people, but when I was last here, you spoke of your own problems. And now I find you well west of where I understood your customary trails to be – do you need men to defend your territories? When my people secure our lands, I would be in a position to aid you.’
‘Promises,’ Missef sneered, earning another nod from Hajya.
Thraan silenced them both with a scowl, then his face turned rueful. ‘The Vlpa are not in the habit of seeking aid, any more than a Mollach prince,’ he told Kyrik. ‘But the Uffrykai, the great people of which we are but a part, are also being pressed: the larger eastern tribes are steadily constricting our traditional hunting and grazing lands. A bloodletting is coming. We are sharpening our blades, readying for a clan war.’
Kyrik watched Thraan’s face carefully, but he also kept his eye on the others. He knew Missef and Hajya didn’t like each other, though they were apparently united against him, but their expressions during Thraan’s narrative became bleak, which told him that while both rejected change, change was coming for them. It gave him hope.
‘Last month,’ Thraan went on, ‘we were betrayed: the High Chief of the Uffrykai bent the knee to the High Chief of the Jergathai and gave tribute. Many of his clan chiefs followed his lead – but we Vlpa do not placate thieves, and there is bad blood between ourselves and the Jergathai. Extra tribute was demanded of me, and I refused. We are now cast adrift. We are thirty thousand souls, barred from our pastures to the north. Our migration routes have been severed. We must seek new pastures.’
Kyrik stared into the crackling fire and in his mind’s eye, the tribal dance of seasons on the plains of Sydia turned into a bloody waltz.
Unexpectedly, because he’d been so silent Kyrik had almost forgotten he was there, Paruq spoke up. ‘My mission here has fallen on receptive ears, in part through the plight of the clan, I know this. But Keshi steel can’t preserve this tribe.’
Kyrik shot his mentor a glance; there was a message in his words.
‘We must pay the tribute,’ Missef intoned in a defeated voice. ‘We cannot stand alone. To wander south into Verelon or west into the Kedron or the Brekaellen is to provoke the Rondian Empire. Our only hope lies in a return to our traditional place on the Wheel of Seasons.’ He fixed Kyrik with an unfriendly eye. ‘We don’t need pleaders who will weaken us further.’
Kyrik took that without flinching. He glanced sideways at Hajya. Her dark eyes were more reserved than the shaman’s. She’d clearly supported Thraan’s refusal to bend the knee.
Everyone here needs something. There has to be a solution that suits us all.
He’d intended to simply ask for Vlpa warriors in return for the promise of silver from the mines, but there was a bigger offer available, if he had the courage to make it. He looked at Paruq, who give him a tiny nod.
‘Nacelnik Thraan,’ Kyrik began, ‘I am a king, yet a pauper. But there is wealth in Mollachia. We have silver mines, large forests and rare furs. We have some pasture too, much of it underused.’ He looked the clan chief in the eye. ‘We could offer refuge to even so great a people as the Vlpa.’
He heard the intake of breath from Missef and Hajya, but he kept his eyes on Thraan. The man wasn’t, as he liked to project, a bluff, hearty barbarian. He was a strong, thoughtful leader of a proud, independent tribe. And though Hajya was a mage and Missef spoke for their gods, Thraan was the leader here.
Though the big nacelnik gave little away, there was something in his face that suggested interest. ‘But you told us you don’t control your lands?’ he replied.
‘Not currently,’ Kyrik admitted. ‘But a large warband of Vlpa horsemen could do much to redress that.’
‘Ah,’ Thraan mused, ‘this takes shape to me now.’
‘You can’t be serious, Nacelnik Thraan,’ Missef exclaimed. ‘These Mollachs are Kore-kneelers, of the same ilk as the slavers who plague our lands! They’re worse than the Amteh, if that can be believed,’ he concluded, glaring at Paruq.
‘Ysh, Mollachia is for Kore,’ Kyrik conceded, because it was fruitless to deny it. ‘That faith has deep roots in our kingdom – most of us have never met non-Kore worshippers, and may not react well. But we are also pragmatists who do not hesitate to break a scripture here and there in the name of survival.’
Paruq threw him a faintly amused smirk, but Hajya caught that look and asked, ‘What faith do you profess, Kyrik of Mollachia?’ Her light tone belied the intensity in her eyes.
Kyrik glanced again at Paruq, because his notions of faith had been shaped by his mentor, but they didn’t entirely follow his creed. ‘I have read the holy texts of both Ahm and Kore and in truth, I see little difference. The heart of both is very similar: one God, a set of near-identical virtues and sins, and a common belief in Paradise.’
‘Stone religions, city religions, divorced from the lands and the seasons,’ Missef sneered. ‘Book religions! Lawyers’ religions!’ He spat into the fire. ‘Our people are losing their True Faith—’
‘Peace, Missef,’ Thraan grunted. ‘The Old Gods will always be first among the Vlpa.’ He turned back to Kyrik. ‘Would your Mollachia refuse our aid because we are – what is your word: heathens?’
‘No,’ Kyrik replied, hoping he was right. ‘If we reach agreement, I will honour that treaty, I promise you.’
‘Western promises,’ Hajya sniffed. ‘What are they worth?’
‘Men of the Empire – vassals, I think they are called – tend to forget their promises once they have what they want,’ Missef snarled. ‘We give you men, you get what you want, then you close your fortress gates and send us away. We’re not fools. And even if we were to aid you, what if we fail? What are we left with then?’
‘A good point,’ Thraan agreed. ‘But I confess, this interests me.’ He turned to Missef and Hajya, his face becoming decisive. ‘I hear your objections, but you suffer from smallness of vision.’ He raised a hand to their objections. ‘Your minds are tied to the Wheel of Seasons still: the trek north as the snows retreat, foaling in the spring, summers among the Uffrykai, selling and buying bloodstock, then the slow retreat as the snows return until we are here in the south. For the Vlpa, that time is over: our tribe have turned their backs on this clan, and we on them. We must trust now to legends: to a hero who forsook the old ways and sought a new life! You, Missef: how do you not see it as a sign when a Son of Zillitiya comes among us? And you, Hajya, who claims to be able to see the paths before us – how can you not see that this path is the answer we have prayed for?’
Kyrik schooled himself to stillness, staring at a very satisfied-looking Paruq, as Missef and Hajya’s faces crumbled into disbelief and defeat.
Thraan turned back to Kyrik. ‘In my mind, this is decided,’ the nacelnik rumbled. ‘But you too must commit, Kyrik of Mollachia. We are putting our future in your hands. You must put your future into ours.’
‘I’ve explained that we have little, but I can have a contract drawn against future revenue, a legal commitment—’ Kyrik began.
Thraan cut him off with a gesture. ‘You have something of greater worth to us,’ he said in his gruff voice. ‘You have your sack. You have your manhood.’
Holy Kore, does everything here come back to this lust for gnostic blood? ‘Would you have me lay with every woman in the tribe?’ Kyrik asked incredulously.
Thraan guffawed, while Missef and Hajya listened with sick expressio
ns. ‘No, just one,’ the chieftain replied. ‘You must take a Vlpa bride to be your queen in Mollachia: the new homeland of Clan Vlpa.’
Kyrik sat back, his momentary sense of triumph evaporating. To commit to such a thing, to make a part-Sydian his heir, was to break all manner of unspoken expectations, more than he could enumerate. A Sydian bride! And thirty thousand at her back! He wished Valdyr was here, or Dragan. What would they think? What would his dead father think, and all his forebears?
‘Thraan, I hear you,’ he protested, ‘but I swore to my father before I left Mollachia that I would marry a mage, as he did. I’m pledged to maintain or strengthen my gnostic bloodline. The mage-blood is sacred to Kore – this is important to my people. So I must marry a mage.’ He didn’t look at Hajya. ‘I know that your Sfera magi are forbidden marriage, so we are at an impasse.’
Missef made a chopping gesture. ‘There,’ he exclaimed, ‘this cannot happen, Thraan. It is better we die than break our sacred traditions. Send the Mollach on his way. Everything he talks of will destroy our way of life!’
Hajya chimed in on Missef’s side, ‘Tradition forbids this, Nacelnik.’
Kyrik wavered. Am I being too dogmatic here? Should I compromise on this?
But before he could speak, Thraan, who’d been glowering into the fire, looked up intently at Hajya. ‘You still suffer from smallness of vision, Sfera-leader. You are thinking of us and them. But in the act of marriage, we become they and they us. The union I propose might weaken the Sfera, but it strengthens the clan. If tradition forbids it, then tradition must bend the knee to survival.’
‘But Nacelnik, I— no – no! We are a plains-people – we can’t live in mountains! We are free as we are – better to die free than shuffle into a stone prison—’
‘Are you free?’ Paruq asked, ‘or trapped by a cycle of seasonal migration that prevents you from ever building something that lasts?’
‘We don’t need things that last,’ Hajya squalled. ‘Life is transitory—’
‘If life is transitory, then so too is tradition,’ Paruq observed.
Kyrik forestalled her retort by raising his hand. ‘I will marry one of your Sfera, if there is someone suitable.’
Hajya whirled on him. ‘Ha! He who would not dance on his last visit will now deign to buy one of us in his desperation? Well, we of the Sfera don’t want him! We know his type – the sort who despise brown skin – the sort who despise women!’
‘Not so,’ Kyrik flared, the memory of all the women of the breeding-houses in his mind. ‘That is so far from the truth I can barely express it, you ignorant kurva!’
‘Don’t call me a bitch,’ she snarled, light kindling at her fingers.
‘Enough!’ Thraan bellowed, slamming a log into the fire so that it burst into sparks. ‘Silence! I am still master of this hearth!’
Kyrik bowed his head, muttering an apology, annoyed at losing his temper. Hajya bowed her head also. ‘Nacelnik, I serve you, as ever,’ she said in a sulky voice. ‘I will abide by your decision. There are several of our young women who might be “suitable”, and—’
Kyrik raised a hand, his mind racing. ‘Wait! If I am to marry, it must be to someone who is, as much as possible, my equal: both my people and yours must feel that the union carries equal weight in both camps. A naïve young woman of weak blood will not suffice as Queen of Mollachia. If I am to marry, it must be to a woman roughly my age, whole of body and able to bear children, and a quarter-blood, no less. I must have a partner, not a handmaid.’
The men around him stared, their faces somewhere between bemusement and considering. ‘What?’ he asked. ‘Is equality such a novel idea?’ An equal marriage was something he’d debated long into the night with Paruq, and it made perfect sense in these circumstances. His mentor was smiling, and even Thraan grinned.
But Hajya climbed to her feet. ‘An “equal”?’ she growled. ‘Since when has marriage ever been of equals?’ She spat in the fire and stalked out.
‘I will agree these terms,’ Thraan called to her back.
‘Do what you damned well like,’ she snarled, then she was gone, apparently having sucked the air out with her, because Kyrik was suddenly breathless.
‘Have I missed something?’ he asked.
Thraan chuckled. ‘Friend Kyrik, the only woman in this tribe who meets your need is Hajya herself.’
21
Death to Rondelmar
The Magi
The first magi were unequivocally the spawn of Shaitan, white devils sent to plague the faithful. But now we find that magi born in part of Keshi and Dhassan stock fought for Ahmedhassa in the Third Crusade! What are we to think any more?
GODSPEAKER YAMEED UMAFI, 117TH CONVOCATION, SAGOSTABAD, 935
Sagostabad, Kesh, Ahmedhassa
Jumada (Maicin) 935
The black-robed figure standing over Waqar’s mother whirled. It was his mother’s nurse, Nakti. Her eyes were twinkling with gnosis-light as she cursed and gestured. The door behind Waqar slammed shut and she raised her other hand like a barrier. He tried to launch himself at her and found his face slamming into a wall of air. He rebounded and came up into a fighting crouch.
‘Prince Waqar,’ she whispered urgently, ‘I’m trying to help her!’
‘Get away from my mother!’
Sakita opened her eyes, raising her hand feebly. ‘Peace, son. She’s . . . friend.’
Though he doubted his mother would know, he paused. Nakti backed from the cot, letting Waqar approach. He didn’t take his eyes from the girl as he bent over Sakita. ‘Mother? What’s she doing?’
‘Just examining me,’ Sakita wheezed. ‘And taking messages.’
‘What messages?’ He stared at the girl, seeing her properly for the first time; normally he didn’t notice servants. Her bird-like skull was accentuated by severely tied-back hair, a long nose and deep-set eyes. ‘Take off the bekira-shroud, “Nakti”.’
She threw him a challenging, wholly un-servile look. ‘Why?’
‘To make sure you aren’t armed.’
‘Very well.’ She shrugged off the enveloping garment, revealing a twig-thin body with a high bosom, clad in a sweat-stained smock and leggings. She reeked of last week’s perspiration and had ugly boils on her face. No weapons, but there was a chain on her right wrist containing a piece of amber: a periapt, by its glow.
‘Why are you here?’ he demanded.
She considered, then said, ‘I work for people representing the Javon throne.’
‘Javon?’ The northernmost kingdom of Ahmedhassa was a curious place where an Ahmedhassan people called the Jhafi co-existed with Rimoni from Southern Yuros who had migrated after the Leviathan Bridge opened. The Rimoni had brought new crops that thrived in conditions similar to their native lands, as well as legions of well-trained fighting men. After some conflict they had assimilated passably well with the Jhafi. ‘What’s a Jhafi doing here?’
‘Javon is home to many Yurosi,’ Nakti replied. ‘We’re an easy target for an anti-Yurosi holy war.’
She was right, but she barely looked old enough to have completed Arcanum training, let alone be entrusted with a spying mission. ‘How old are you?’
‘I’m old enough to wander around your court for the whole Convocation unnoticed,’ she replied in an irritatingly superior tone.
‘You’re no courtier,’ he retorted. Her speech patterns, her dirty nails and ripe odour, her body language all betrayed a menial background.
‘I didn’t say I was disguised as a princess,’ she sniffed. ‘I was just another maid in a dirty shift, scrubbing the floor – conveniently below the notice of the likes of you.’
She had to be a mage-bastard, or maybe she gained the power bearing a mage’s child, though she looked barely old enough for that. But her tale rang true. Who better to infiltrate a palace than a mage in servant’s garb? ‘Can you prove your tale?’
‘My masters can. I can arrange a meeting?’
Is she trying to lure me to
an ambush? he wondered. But as a mystic, reading people was his forte, and though he sensed secrets, he didn’t sense malice. ‘You’ve not said why you’re in my mother’s rooms?’
‘I’m here to find out who murdered the sultan – then I heard about your mother.’
Everyone permitted into the palace was examined by Hadishah agents, even servants – if she’d circumvented that, she knew her business. And her gnostic shields were strong; he doubted he could defeat her easily. And perhaps she really was a potential ally.
‘Is Nakti your real name?’ he asked, sheathing his dagger.
‘No. You may call me Tarita.’
It was a northern name, common enough. ‘Tell me what you’ve learned.’
‘That the same people who killed the sultan attacked your mother,’ she replied, echoing his own suspicion. She was about to say more, but then they heard footsteps approaching. In a flash she’d pulled her bekira-shroud over her head. She whispered, ‘Beside the Elephant Fountain, soon as you can get away.’ Then she dropped to her haunches, grabbed her straw brush and began sweeping.
A moment later Healer Ormutz hurried in, looking exhausted, his tunic bloodstained. ‘Sal’Ahm, my Prince. I’m sorry for my appearance; a noblewoman went into labour this morning and we had to cut the baby from her womb.’ He noticed the girl on the floor and said, ‘Go home, girl. Your shift is over.’
‘Tarita’ scuttled crab-like out the door as Ormutz bent over Sakita. She opened her eyes blindly, then convulsed, back arching and limbs going rigid. Waqar ran to help, holding his mother down to stop her hurting herself, but she subsided swiftly, gurgling as she sagged into the sheets. She smelled awful, as if she was rotting from the inside.
‘What’s wrong with her?’ Waqar demanded, frightened that she was dying right now.
‘We . . . we’re still . . . we don’t know . . .’ The healer was clearly frightened for his career should his patient die. ‘We’re trying, my Prince!’
