A STAR-RECKONER’S LOT
Darrell Drake
A STAR-RECKONER’S LOT
ISBN 978-0-9919681-4-5
Copyright © Darrell Drake 2016
All rights reserved worldwide.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and events either are the product of the author’s runaway imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, events, or locales is purely coincidental.
Edited by Alice Leiper.
Cover art by John Anthony Di Giovanni.
Cover design by Shawn King.
Acknowledgements
Through research, writing, and everything in between, I could count on my wife’s unwavering support. The many downs would have been suffocating without her. Pina has carved out her place as someone I can always depend on.
Merill has been both company and consolation. Every nap, every chase, every headbutt, every grunt: not a one has gone unappreciated. Merill the sailor cat, she wears a sailor hat. Between you and me, when she’s on the sea, Merill the sailor cat.
Thanks to Michael S., Alicja D., and John M. for going above and beyond in championing a comrade. Special thanks to Michael S. for taking part in the Tugboat Project. Numerous others have helped in their own way. I’d name you all, but my memory would no doubt fail miserably. Instead, I’ll extend my sincerest gratitude.
Alice Leiper’s expertise in ancient history brought a welcome perspective to her role as editor, and the book is decidedly better for having her keen eye and critical mind.
A Star-Reckoner’s Lot was shored up by backers on Kickstarter—patrons who saw its value, supported a pal, or both. Your pledges and your faith have not been lost on me. You threw in your lot with an obscure indie author, and for that I thank you.
I
There comes a time in every child’s life when even the disappointed stare of a much-loved, much-respected father is not enough to smother the stupidity of youth. This was Ashtadukht’s time.
She’d wandered off some time prior, her brother reluctantly in tow, as she was wont to do. It had occurred to her that doing so during a royal hunt would be dangerous; it had also occurred to her that it’d be thrilling. Caution had lost that battle, squashed beneath the tenacious curiosity of childhood.
So it was that this day found the siblings mired in an especially precarious situation, one of the sort that threatened the course of history.
“I think we’re lost,” said Ashtadukht. She gripped her brother’s arm and leaned into him. Having an illness that made physical exertion bothersome on the best of days never really stopped her. If anything, it only made her more intent on finding trouble—to challenge her handicap and overcome it. And the presence of her brother meant she benefitted from the reassurance of his carrying her back if she overexerted herself, as he’d done many times in the past.
“We are not lost,” contested Gushnasp. He accepted her weight without realizing it; it’d become second nature for the boy. “We are right where you want us to be. You are not fooling anyone.” He’d been dragged on these adventures often enough to know her aim, and more than anything it irritated him that she persisted in her lie. It was insulting. He wasn’t dull, and he didn’t need convincing to take care of his little sister. “You are—”
“Oh!”
“What?”
“Shhh! There’s something up ahead.” Ashtadukht hunkered down behind an old yew and peered around, eyes gleaming with excitement. A feeling had led her to this spot, had expressed in what were unspoken but very clear words that she wanted to be here. The why never mattered; she never even bothered asking herself why.
Because he wanted to indulge her, and because he was the more circumspect of the pair, Gushnasp followed suit and squatted behind the trunk.
The thicket they’d been exploring gave way to a small clearing just ahead. The far edge was lined with low-hanging branches and dense shrubbery that stirred in the wake of some hoarsely grunting creature. Ashtadukht leaned forward. Her brother’s hand came to rest gently but firmly on her shoulder, a preemptory tether.
Out charged what Ashtadukht believed to be the largest boar anyone had ever seen, raking at the earth and shaking its head. The beast had shoulders higher than Gushnasp, with a fine sheen to its coat that had a peculiar white pattern like it’d trampled its rump—the pattern! Ashtadukht shot up straight.
At that same moment a man stepped into the clearing opposite the boar. There are men, then there are men who will invariably become more than men: legends in the making. And this man was clearly forging his own legend. Broad-chested, tall and steady as a cypress, with wise eyes, and divine glory emanating from his features: this was the King of Kings. He hefted a spear in one hand and readied a throw at the boar.
Ashtadukht would have stood there marvelling at the splendour of her king—the most just king her glorious nation would ever know—if she knew what was good for her. Instead, she rushed out between him and his prey, hands waving. “Stop! Stop!” she yelled. “Don’t kill it!”
Half remembering herself, she had the presence of mind to swiftly hide her hands in her sleeves and cover her mouth. Still, she had gone as far as inserting herself between the King of Kings and the boar. Against his better judgment, Gushnasp followed her into the clearing to keep watch over the boar, which seemed to realize what was going on and made no move to intervene.
The King of Kings commanded the silence that followed, and used it to take stock of the situation. With a nod, he lowered his spear. “Move away from the boar, child. It is a dangerous animal. We can discuss this matter once you are safe.”
Ashtadukht pulled herself behind her brother and talked through his back. “M-may you live forever, but I can’t let this animal die. I made a promise. Promises are important.”
“That they are,” replied the King of Kings. “But what a wicked promise it must be to place you between your king and his quarry.” Even as he parlayed, he was focused on the boar, ready to skewer it if it started on the girl.
His entourage emerged from the forest behind him. To Ashtadukht’s dismay, her father was among them. She had seen him angry thanks in no small part to her wanderlust. She would have preferred that anger to the look he now levelled on her. Ashtadukht shivered, but she did not back down.
“Ashta,” called her father. His voice was thick with admonition. “Gushnasp, take your sister back to the others.”
“No, let her speak,” instructed the King of Kings. “If you have raised her well, she will have good reason for this.” Her father acquiesced by taking a step back, though begrudgingly. “So,” continued the King of Kings, “go on, little one.”
Ashtadukht lowered her gaze. Much as she tried, the lump in her throat would not relent. “I made a promise.”
“Yes, of course. We have been over that.”
“To, to a div.”
“A wicked promise indeed to belong to a creature of the Lie. But go on.”
Ashtadukht nodded inwardly. The stories all painted divs as fey, fiendish beasts that conspired to bring Ahriman’s chaotic influence to the orderly domain of Ohrmazd—that of Man. That the depravity of divs was only surpassed by their many manifestations. But she was beholden to her promise.
“I was out exploring and it was foggy and I couldn’t see and—” Ashtadukht caught herself rambling. Abashedly, she peeked around her brother. The King of Kings wore the faintest of smiles, but even that was enough to inspire courage in the girl. “I fell. I was just hanging there by a cliff calling out for help when he appeared. He pulled me up and saved my life. All he w
anted in return was for me to come back to that place if I found a boar with a pattern like it’d trampled its rump. He said he’d stored his phylactery in it and lost track of it.”
The King of Kings nodded. “And you think this is your boar. It is noble of you to hold so resolutely to your promise. But would it not better serve Truth to kill this boar and in doing so rid the seven climes of a div?”
“I made a promise. Father says it’s just and right to keep one’s promises.”
“Your father is a good man. One of my best generals. You are right in putting so much stock in his lessons, and a better daughter for it. But what would you have me do? Let the royal quarry, a div’s phylactery no less, run free?”
Ashtadukht bowed her head in acknowledgement of his point. Asking him to turn a blind eye to the whole affair would be tantamount to asking him to do a div a favour. Then she recalled a story her father had told her. “What of the great Jam, who ruled divs, yazatas, and men alike? If the boar were captured instead of killed, I could show you where this div dwells and he would be forever your slave. If he disobeys, then . . .”
“You will have kept your promise,” said the King of Kings. He considered the idea, gave his marvellous, pearl-studded tunic a pat, and tightened his lips. Ashtadukht braced herself by leaning into her brother. The stress was beginning to get to her.
“Very well,” the King of Kings eventually decided. “You are a clever, honest girl—respectable qualities. I would offer you the hand of my son, but it seems you are already enamoured of someone closer to home.”
Ruddiness burned in Ashtadukht’s cheeks. A part of her knew he had said what he did because of more than his all too accurate appraisal of her feelings for her brother: her illness made her undesirable for most any man, especially a prince. But the embarrassment that overcame the girl generously drowned the truth of things. Even with her mouth covered as it was by her sleeves, her wide grin was unmistakable. If an affected smile did not reach a person’s eyes, this one was so sincere that it conquered hers. “Y-yes,” she finally managed.
Gushnasp straightened his back, but made no other indication of a response. Unlike his sister, he respected proper etiquette. All but the boon companions did not speak in the presence of the King of Kings unless spoken to.
“In that case,” replied the King of Kings, “I will have you sent to the academy at Weh-Andiok-Shabuhr. Not as punishment, dear girl, but because I salute your integrity and intelligence. It would be a folly to waste. Your brother has a promising future following in your father’s footsteps, so you should aspire to be more than a burden.”
“May you live forever,” said Ashtadukht. She wasn’t quite certain what all of this meant for her or how her father would take it, but the exchange had drained her too much for anxiety to take hold.
II
“Come, cousin,” Ashtadukht growled, slathering the familial term with rancour. She fumed so intensely that each of her four plaits writhed on her shaking frame. “Come.”
“I am not a dog to be ordered around,” replied Tirdad. “It would do you well to remember that.” His tone was even, without a trace of the hostility that marred hers.
Ashtadukht waved a hand at the shrinking fortifications on the horizon. “Really? Because you’ve been following me like a lost dog since I left Dvin.”
“Your father—”
“My father doesn’t know what’s best for me. He hasn’t seen me in years.”
“And whose fault is that?”
Ashtadukht deflated, if only slightly. “Mine.” She shook her head. “But that changes nothing. You shouldn’t be here.”
“You are right,” said Tirdad, “but I am.”
“Why?”
“It is not only because your father requested it of me, or because I would like to help you find the div who killed your brother, your husband. I came because no one else would. The names they call you, they are disrespectful at best. They think you are a div lover. I do not believe any of it.”
“So I should thank you for treating me like a decent person would? I do Iran a service that few others could stomach, let alone accomplish. If that means I’ve lost the approval of my family then so be it. And I’ve done so alone during the years since Gushnasp . . . since Gushnasp . . .” Ashtadukht grew quiet, and any remaining ire sloughed away. She gazed at the pale peak of Mount Masis, which mingled with the heavens where it dominated the southwestern horizon, and saw only an obstruction. Once, she would have seen so much more.
She admitted to herself that she was wrong in treating her cousin so scornfully. He had sacrificed much in agreeing to be her guardian. And women roaming alone, well, that was just unseemly. Never mind the dirty details of her office. Ashtadukht did not agree with any of it, but she had come to understand that whether or not she agreed did not always matter. Or often matter.
For his part, Tirdad respected her silence.
The pair spent most of the day and next morning pushing their horses at a canter along a course toward Lazica. When noon arrived, the high sun and dry summer air of the Masis plain forced them to rest their mounts.
Ashtadukht had spent the ride reflecting on her behavior the day before, and figured now was a favourable time to break the hush that had followed. “We’re headed to Lazica,” she said.
Tirdad came to stand beside her, where she sat on the bank of the Aras River. “I gathered as much from our direction.”
“The area will be rife with the symptoms of war, if not war itself. I thought you should be prepared.” Ashtadukht squinted up at her cousin. The sun was unbearably bright, so much so that she could only make out his hooked nose. “Expect bandits.”
Tirdad sniffed. “Bandits, huh? That is all you have to offer?”
“The time will come when you’ll hope for bandits. Star-reckoners often find the trouble you can’t simply slice your way out of.”
She reckoned he could defend himself well enough where slicing was effective. If his training was anything like others of his social strata, the sword at his hip and bow case secured to his horse were instruments he knew intimately. Her father would not have chosen him otherwise.
It must have been the war in Lazica that had prompted her father’s sudden interest in the safety of her travels. Sure, there were always bandits, but she had never been called into the heart of a conflict before. He always had a soft spot for her. Ashtadukht felt genuinely insulted by the order to allow Tirdad to join her, but she appreciated it nonetheless.
She stood and patted down her tunic and trousers—not that the dust was so complaisant as to evacuate, comfortable as it was in the dull roundels and faded viridian. “To Petra then.”
• • • • •
The approach to Petra was as eventless as the trip there: not a single confrontation with bandits or deserters. Ashtadukht would not admit it openly, but she would have liked to see Tirdad fend off a thug or two just to break the monotony.
“It seems we just missed the siege,” observed Tirdad. “They have not even had time to dismantle the engines or remove the dead.”
The scene was decidedly more grim than battle would have been. Battle is gruesome, but it is vigorous, alive. The aftermath is the worst of it: adrenaline fades, quiet sweeps in, and there’s nothing to distract you from the mess of bodies and disturbed earth.
Riding in the midst of death and destruction surrounding Petra, Ashtadukht looked every bit the woman of enormity she’d long been accused of being. She urged her horse toward the cluster of pavilions that had been erected well beyond the city’s walls. “Better this than getting caught up in it,” she replied at length. “Or worse, an audience during a siege against an obstinate enemy. The King of Kings will be in better spirits now.”
They dismounted upon nearing the main tent, and were challenged by a pair of guards, each with a pomegranate-shaped mace resting on his shoulder.
“We’re to see the King of Kings—may he live forever,” said Ashtadukht. “By request. Tell him his
star-reckoner has arrived.” She pulled the stamp seal from around her neck and handed it to the man.
He disappeared into the tent and returned soon after to wave them in. The other guard stopped Tirdad with an outstretched mace. “Only the star-reckoner.”
Tirdad gave Ashtadukht an inquiring look, who responded with a nod. “I shouldn’t be long. Mingle with . . .” She glanced at the guards: tight of lip and stern of face, neither seemed the talking sort. “Well, I shouldn’t be long.”
Inside, the pavilion smelled of musk and ambergris—pleasant enough to mask the stench of warfare, but not so strong as to be stifling. Ashtadukht stepped in, hid her hands in her sleeves and immediately prostrated.
“Stand,” ordered the King of Kings as he walked over to help her to her feet. “What sort of leader asks an ill woman to throw herself to the dirt before him? Moreover, we are alone, and this is a war room not a throne room.”
Ashtadukht accepted his assistance, but kept her hands hidden. She craned her neck to smile up at him, and it seemed to draw all the life from her eyes just to creep up her cheeks. She had not seen him since that fateful day when her carefree childhood was extirpated and replaced with something . . . less. “May you live forever,” she said.
“Some cultures consider that an insult, you know.”
“I—there—I didn’t mean—” Ashtadukht averted her eyes.
The King of Kings waved away her worry. “I jest, of course. It is good to see you well.” He spread an arm wrapped in golden brocade toward an assortment of rhytons. “Have something to drink.”
Ashtadukht did as she was told. The wine was rich, a welcome departure from the watered-down provisions she had bought in Dvin. Meanwhile, the King of Kings took a seat.
“Such a tragedy what happened to your brother. The two of you would have prospered as husband and wife. He served his nation as fully as anyone can ask of a man, and I personally witnessed his valour. I trust you are still searching for the div responsible?”
A Star-Reckoner's Lot (A Star-Reckoner's Legacy Book 1) Page 1
