Soleri

by Michael Johnston

  The riders drew close enough that he recognized their Harkan uniforms—black leather emblazoned with silver horns. The third was a stranger. A young boy. When they came close enough the soldiers dismounted, one of them helped the boy slide from the horse’s back and come unsteadily to his feet. “Sir,” they said, and bowed, their chins touching their chests. “We found him.”

  The stranger with his father’s face.

  He was the right age, though nothing about the boy seemed Harkan. He was too slender, scrawny even, with an expression of suspicion and arrogance that made Arko feel a stab of contempt. His tunic too was thin, impractical for horseback and hunting, made not of the heavy weaves worn by Harkan tradesmen nor even the leather of Harkan soldiers but a flimsy silken texture. The clothes were plenty dirty, though, and it seemed they’d been recently torn. Spots of blood stained the front of the gray cloth, and his skin was red.

  “So, this is my son,” Arko said, studying the boy, who was almost as tall as he.

  “We found him in the border towns looking for a drink. He’s lucky we arrived first.”

  Lucky indeed. Arko had sent out his soldiers as soon as he had heard reports of Ren’s imminent return. He gave the boy another look.

  His son.

  The one he had given up.

  So this is my heir. The boy who will lead Harkana. He hadn’t seen Ren since he was a child, fair and unsteady and sweetly charming, still a baby in many ways. He had clung to Arko that morning when they sent him to Solus, and he had been forced to pry his son’s arms from his neck. He recalled how the boy had held out his arms and called, “Mama! Papa!” as the imperial soldiers had taken him away. How Merit, then fifteen years old, had glared at Arko as if he had sent the boy to die—as if he were a failure as a father and a king. She looked at him that way still, sometimes.

  This boy was nothing like the child he remembered, with none of his son’s easy smiles and sunny looks. Darker now, sullen with fear, the boy in front of him was doing his best to pretend to be brave. If Arko had raised him, he would have taught the boy to mask his feelings. The stronger the emotion, Arko would have said, the stronger the need to hide it, or risk giving your enemy too much power over you. But he had not raised this boy. He had not had a chance to teach him anything yet. He has no father, thought Arko. No one has ever cared for this boy.

  “Why are you here?” His voice was louder than he meant it to be, more brusque than he had intended. He took a heavy step forward. “Who sent you?”

  Ren did not reply. He did not move, did not flinch. Arko saw the ring upon his finger.

  “Do you remember your family at all? Do you remember your mother, or your sisters? Your home?”

  Foolish questions. The boy had been only three years old. He had spent most of his life locked up belowground. God knows what had happened to him there. He had heard the same stories about the Priory that everyone had—the beatings and abuse. Pain makes the man—that was the rule of the Priory. But only the ransoms knew what it meant and even Koren never spoke of his time in the emperor’s house. He said the hardships he’d suffered there had taught him a bit of humility, nothing more.

  The king’s shoulders slouched when he looked at his son. If only I could have been a father to you, if I had raised you.

  “You remember nothing of your kingdom?” he asked again, but his questions seemed to embarrass his son, so Arko let it go. The boy carried a pair of scrolls in his hand. “Is that for me?” the king asked.

  “Yes, sir,” Ren spoke at last. The boy looked down at the scroll as if he had forgotten what he carried. It was sealed with the insignia of the Ray of the Sun, the emperor’s mouthpiece.

  “Suten gave this to you?” Arko took it from him and broke the yellow seal carefully, with more respect than he felt. Inside was the parchment that Arko signed ten years ago when he agreed to send Ren to the Priory. The signature was faded, and the blood and wax he had sealed it with had dried and flaked away, but this was the paper that had shamed him for almost a decade, that had led to the end of his marriage, such as it was. He resisted the urge to crumple it.

  I should not have signed this parchment.

  The second scroll was not as weathered as the first; it bore a newer seal with a slightly different design. This seal showed only a ring with a star shape at its center. He cracked the wax, studied the brief text, suppressing a bit of rage as he read.

  When he finished, Arko looked up at the boy and asked, “What about me? Do you remember anything at all about your father?”

  The boy shook his head.

  “No. I suppose you wouldn’t. I suppose there isn’t much you’d care to remember, about any of us…” Arko dropped the scroll into the dust and picked up the reins of his horse. “It appears the emperor has made a trade. He has returned my heir so I must take your place, but not in the Priory. The emperor demands an audience with me.” He nodded at his son, his boy. Years had been stolen from them, and years would be stolen from them still.

  The king addressed his men. “Take the buck, I must leave immediately.”

  16

  Harwen’s silhouette jutted from the horizon like a sheaf of barley, tall and jagged. Through the day’s first light, Ren saw a line of badgir protruding from the wall, trying to catch any small breeze. The badgir. The flags of Harwen. The wind scoops rose and fell, swaying beneath the spires of the Hornring, Harwen’s fortress. High and spindly and punctuated by stakes, the towers were older and stranger than he had imagined back in the Priory.

  I’m home at last, but this wasn’t the homecoming I imagined.

  Ren and his father, Arko, had ridden almost without stop from the Shambles. The men were tired, the horses spent. Arko raised a black gauntlet and the procession halted. The horses bent their heads and searched for grass, shook their tails and whinnied. A lone goat bleated from some distant corral. There was a hollow loneliness to the air. Ren had returned to the city of his birth, but this place was not his home, not yet. In Solus they called the lower kingdoms the barbarian lands, and for a guilty moment, he thought they might be right. Still, he could not tear his eyes from the man. This is my father, my blood at last.

  The king was on foot now. People were streaming out from the city gates and down the Plague Road, the last of the crowds leaving Harwen after the games the Harkans staged each year to coincide with the Devouring, the king explained. Soldiers in bloodstained coats of black, boiled leather called after young girls, servants held highborn men up on litters, white-robed priests smelling of oil shuffled by, while dregs—beggars and outcasts he could smell before they approached—shifted between the carts, their faces caked with dust and dirt wiped clean at the mouth from too much drink. They emerged in a long, tired stream from the heart of the city, eyeing the soldiers and Ren himself, bowing respectfully to the king. Some stole glances or sideward stares, but no one lingered.

  Ren ignored the crowd. His father had been called to an audience with Tolemy. To gaze upon the Soleri was to gaze upon the sun, and no man could survive that light. Once the king stepped before Tolemy, Ren would not see his father again. Only the Ray could pass through the Shroud Wall of the Soleri and live. Like it or not, he had brought his father’s death with him. This was the sacrifice the people required. They want my father, but I want him too. Have I no right?

  In the distance, soldiers in ornamental bronze armor, the Alehkar, gathered at the gates of Harwen. A few mounted their steeds and made for the king’s caravan. This would have been Ren’s entourage back to Harkana and now it was his father’s back to Solus.

  “Walk with me,” his father said. “We haven’t long. The Alehkar will soon take me to Solus.”

  Ren nodded but was paralyzed, too overwhelmed to move. For years I’ve dreamed of this moment. For a decade he had filled his head with questions. Would the king have the same slender nose, the same crooked teeth as his own? Would his father know his face? He peered into the king’s eyes and searched for himself, for something he could re
cognize or latch onto. This is my father? He saw nothing—no recognizable similarity. The king had a face like one of the city’s soldiers, hard and expressionless.

  What had he expected? Affection? Approval?

  Yes, that’s what I want. I want my father to see the man I’ve become and approve.

  Ren waited, searching for some hint of acceptance. But it was clear Arko did not have time for that. Instead the king rested his hand on the pommel of his sword. “I want you to listen carefully, my son. I won’t be here”—his voice caught—“what I mean is, I have only a little time to teach you what I know about Harkana. About being a king.”

  “Father, I—” The words did not come. “Must we start with formalities?” he asked. Ren had no interest. He wanted a father. He wanted to be part of a family. Even if he had to cram an entire childhood into a single moment, he would take that moment.

  One memory would be enough.

  So let it be a good memory, he thought. Ren wanted the king to speak to him about something other than politics. Tell me about hunting and skinning oryx. Tell me how to get drunk on amber—not how you rule. He’d had enough of that in the Priory.

  “Ren,” Arko’s voice was strong, a king’s voice. “My own father, Koren Hark-Wadi, did not send me to the Priory. I spent my childhood in Harwen. Do you know this, do you know our history?”

  “They taught us lessons, histories of the lower kingdoms.”

  “Lies.”

  “Perhaps. But I heard it was true that you were never ransomed to the emperor.”

  His father heaved a bitter sigh, his breath raspy. As he walked alongside Ren’s horse, an awkwardness grew between them. Ren knew he should dismount, but he did not act. It seemed more natural to keep his father at a distance. He was a stranger. His scent, his manners, his crudely burnt skin, it all seemed odd, foreign, barbarian. Once more, Ren felt guilty for thinking such a thing, but it was clear that life in the Priory had made him into a boy from Sola, with imperial airs.

  The sound of hooves beating on the sand interrupted his thoughts. The Alehkar approached, a yellow banner waving atop a pole. The approaching soldiers rose and fell as they climbed the low hills. His father caught him watching them. “You want revenge, I suppose. That’s what I’d want. I’d want to take revenge on the men that jailed me, the priors that stood at my door and barred the gates each night.”

  Ren nodded. Maybe he didn’t want to learn about skinning oryx, or Harkan amber.

  “We are not so different, boy.” His father’s face turned an angry color of red. Perhaps pain and resentment were what the two had in common, the only bond that existed between the newly reunited father and son. Pain makes the man, he thought bitterly.

  “Take me with you back to Solus. I want to punish them, the priors, the Ray, all of them,” Ren said, finding his voice.

  “As do I,” the king said. “But you can’t go back with me. You are needed here. That’s why they returned you to me. As soon as I’m gone you’ll take the Elden Hunt, and when you’ve claimed your horns, you’ll come back to Harwen and take the Horned Throne and the blessings of the kingdom. That’s the way it has to be. That’s the way it’s always been.”

  Not for you, he almost said.

  “We should be grateful to have this time together.” His father guided Ren’s horse. “It’s more than most kings and sons are granted.”

  Ren knew that his father was right; most kings never even met their heirs, except when they were just babes. He wanted to feel something—anger, hatred, love—for the old man next to him, but Arko Hark-Wadi did not yet feel like a father to him, and Harkana, a strange and alien land, did not yet feel like home. They shared the pain of Ren’s imprisonment, but little else.

  The imperial riders approached, their shields clanking against their armor. A shout rang out over the desert hills. His father shrank, and then his face lost its stern mask, softening into something sadder. “Ren, when I gave you up, I had no choice. If my father could not triumph against the empire, how could I?” he asked.

  Ren blinked. “I … I don’t blame you.” It was not quite the truth, but the words felt good to say. He had blamed his father for abandoning him. If Koren had resisted the empire, why had Arko not done the same? Why hadn’t he fought for his son? Isn’t that what a father and a king ought to do?

  His father exhaled. “We should be grateful you arrived safely in Harkana. The same cannot be said for Adin, Barrin’s son.”

  “What do you mean? What happened to Adin? Did he not return to Feren?”

  “No. No one knows what happened to that boy,” his father said. “I sent soldiers to find him. A tribute can be a powerful ally or a valuable prisoner. My men had no luck, though. I heard Dagrun’s men found him.”

  Ren felt as if a hammer blow had struck him. Distant memories flashed in his thoughts: the jests he’d shared with Adin, the days spent learning their lessons. He recalled how his friend had once swiped a bit of bread from the prior’s table, and how Adin had shared it with him. Ren had only two friends in the world, and now one was gone. From Ren’s earliest memory, he had dreamed of their mutual freedom. It was all he wanted, but that dream would not come to pass. “He’s dead then?” Ren asked.

  “In prison, more likely.”

  Ren exhaled.

  “A king’s blood has worth,” Arko continued. “Such a person could be made to serve one’s interest.”

  His father’s frankness surprised Ren, but his words rang true. Arko had once traded Ren to keep the peace. The empire treated the kings of the lower kingdoms as a currency. Arko was an unpaid debt, a coin Suten had come to collect.

  As the Alehkar approached, as the men dismounted, his father pointed to Harwen’s wall. One section lay blackened and crumbled like a rotted limb. “Look,” he said, “while we still have time. The Ruined Wall. It’s a kind of Harkan monument, burned into the battlements two hundred years ago during the War of the Four, the first revolt, when Nirus Wadi’s army at last fell to the Protector’s men. When the Harkans rebuilt, they created a new wall around the old. They wanted the scar to remain.”

  “Why?”

  “It’s a place where the Harkans find strength by remembering the harm the emperor has done to them.” When Arko turned to him, Ren glimpsed the naked grief in his father’s eyes. “You are not alone, you know. The entire kingdom, the entire empire, suffers the ransoms together. Some more than others, of course, but we all suffer nevertheless.”

  Arko, at last, put his arm around him. His grip was awkward and stiff, almost perfunctory at first, but as he drew Ren close, the tension fell from his limbs and Ren could feel the warmth of his skin, the dull thud of his beating heart. He had never imagined the power an embrace could have, the way it might soften, in an instant, his resolve. This was his kingdom; his family was here. He belonged to Harwen. He had trekked across the dry, sandy basin, his skin was burnt and he had nearly starved to death trying to reach this place, but it was all justified now. He was home. If only my father did not have to leave.

  The Alehkar approached, swords drawn, faces looking grim. Ren broke the king’s embrace. He reached instinctively for the shank he always kept with him, until he remembered the Prior Master had taken it away. A soldier advanced, his arm outstretched and he gripped the king’s shoulder. Abruptly, his father’s hand moved to his sword and he drew. Silver streaked through the air, metal scraped metal, and blood splattered on the sand. In a heartbeat his father had turned, drawn his blade, and nearly severed the offending soldier’s arm from his shoulder.

  “You boys should know better than to lay hands on a king,” his father said. “Keep away and I will not fight you.” The men nodded sullenly and Arko sheathed his sword, not even bothering to wipe the blood from the blade. Deep lines faded from the soldiers’ faces. Some lowered their weapons, others kept their swords raised. Though the imperial soldiers were superior in number, none were eager to engage the king. “Give me a moment,” his father said. “A moment with the
boy and a moment in the Hornring with my daughters. Give me that and I will go in peace.”

  Their captain stood in front of the others, his armor dense with ornament. He tipped his helm. “Keep that blade in its sheath and you’ll have your moment.” Behind him, the Alehkar attended to the wounded man, whose cries echoed in the cool morning air as the soldiers tried in vain to stanch the bleeding.

  Arko turned to his son, blood on his hands, the imperial soldiers surrounding his convoy, more men approaching in the distance. The Ray had sent an entire legion of Alehkar to retrieve his father. There was no way they could resist. These would be their final moments together—the first and the last coming all at once. “Don’t return to Harwen,” Arko told Ren, “not yet. Travel to the Shambles and find the old hunting grounds. Complete the hunt and prove yourself worthy, as all Harkan kings have done. My soldiers—your soldiers—will escort you there. Find the eld, make your sword, and then you can take your throne.”

  “I don’t know how.” It was not one of the lessons he had been taught at the Priory.

  “You’ll learn. Remember the wall, the scar. It’s been sitting there, without repair, for two hundred years. The wall tells us to be patient, to build our strength, to never forget. This is what it means to be Harkan. Show the kingdom your strength, return to the Hornring not as a ransom from the emperor’s Priory but as their Horned King. Be my father’s son in the way that I could not be.”

  He drew a dagger from his side and handed it to Ren. The blade had ridges on one side. “Take this, you’ll need it to claim the horns.” He pressed the iron into Ren’s palm, the blade still warm from his father’s touch. “The knife was Koren’s and now it is yours.” Arko drew his wineskin, took a long sip, and swallowed. “Now I must bid your sisters farewell. Goodbye, son. Leave Harwen. Go! I would rather you were not present when I am forced to give myself up for dead.”