Wings of Power

by Carl, Lillian Stewart

  “You made no mistake,” Gard said to his feet. The dragonet averted its face and looked with great interest at Gard’s liver.

  Rajinder made a swift gesture, whether dismissing his worry or Gard’s complicity was unclear. Even if Raj dismissed him, Gard thought wearily, he would stay. If love was different than he had anticipated, then so was honor, not bright like the glint of a sword, but as cryptic as sunlight touching only the surface of the muddy Mohan.

  Laughter stirred the searing air. Yasmine’s laughter, as bright and silvery as the bells she had worn in Apsurakand. Despite himself, Gard smiled in response, and the lines in Rajinder’s face shivered into a ghastly grin. She was beautiful, yes. But how much did beauty cost?

  Silk swished and jewelry chimed on the other side of the screen. “Yasmine-ji,” called an acerb voice.

  “Ah, my sister Srivastava,” Yasmine trilled.

  No doubt the Ferangi woman’s face curdled at such a claim of intimacy.

  Another trill. “And my sister Ladhani. Greetings.”

  Rajinder stirred at his wife’s name. His foot that had been raised to carry him away fell back to the ground. Gard stood beside him, listening with dread fascination to the women’s voices.

  Ladhani said, “Yasmine, you have a duty to your husband. Go back to Muktardagh.”

  “But Vijay is my husband, and my duty is to him.” Presumably those marvelous blue eyes widened in bafflement.

  “You were first wed to Shikar,” pointed out Srivastava, “and he is still alive.”

  “I was wed in the temple of Hurmazi. Now I am in Ferangipur, under the eye of Vaiswanara, who does not recognize the rites of Hurmazi. When you came here, Ladhani-ji, you gave yourself to your husband’s customs.”

  Listening to that soft, polite, utterly sincere voice was like being smothered in down pillows. The dragonet crouched, chin on curled paw. Rajinder’s sword moved faster, slapping his leg.

  Ladhani came about on another tack. “Shikar and Menelik will be very angry with Vijay.”

  “Pooh,” exclaimed Yasmine. “They are always angry, if not with each other, then with someone else. It is a game they play.”

  Srivastava’s words fell like stones. “They will go to war to get you back. Many people will suffer.”

  Stones disintegrated and rustled like confetti on Yasmine’s delighted giggle. “Oh, you are teasing me, Sriva-ji. There is no place for me in their games. I am only a woman.”

  Gard had to admire the Ferangis’ forbearance; he half expected to hear them plucking Yasmine’s spun gold hairs one by one from her head, pruning that maddening innocence. He had thought Deva’s serenity aggravating when her intelligence, her insight, was marvelous . . .

  “Shikar,” said Ladhani, and added, “your husband” in ringing tones, “may not care that much for you, nor may Menelik care that much for him, but together they care a great deal for their names and their prestige. And that, Yasmine, is what matters in this world.”

  “Men like to fight,” fluted Yasmine, sweetly reasonable. “It amuses them. It is no concern of ours.”

  Raj thrust his sword into its rattan sheath as if barely restraining himself from thrusting it through the screen and into Yasmine’s breast. But then she would be damaged goods, Gard’s thought burbled. Cannot give her back to Shikar dead.

  “They will use you as an excuse to fight, Yasmine!”

  “Me? Come now.” Again the silvery tinkle of laughter. A fever bird woke in the rafters and imitated the sound with uncanny accuracy. “If you will excuse me now, sisters, I must teach my maid how to dress my hair as my husband likes it.” Her garments rustled, her jewels pealed as she glided away.

  Silence. No laughter, no footsteps, no birdsong. Only a flicker of movement on the other side of the screen. Gard knew that a bolt of his mind would shatter the frangible wood and reveal Ladhani’s and Srivastava’s expressions. But he had an expression just like theirs right before him.

  Rajinder did not see Gard’s face, but another’s. “Blind fool,” he spat. “Vijay, I could tear that smug smile from your mouth . . .”

  His features smoothed, the civilized veneer settling back over them. But his manner was fissured distressingly like the sides of the great tower. Rajinder said, “You did not make the mistake, either, Gard-ji.” And paced across the sun-blasted garden, his form diminished by the force of the light.

  “I will stay until the end,” Gard called after him, but if Raj heard him he did not reply. The dragonet kicked Gard’s stomach like a pebble, up and down his body, so that his spine shuddered with nausea and power. Did it matter, really, whether the pet wizard stayed for the end of the play, when he had contributed so much to its plot?

  Gard stamped off in the opposite direction, searching for Deva.

  * * * * *

  Gard shifted his weight. How many durbars had there been since he and Vijay, and Vijay’s prize, had returned from the Alliance? How many rough words had spattered the opulence of the Ferangi palace while the moon waned, while the sentries paced nervously and still the monsoon did not come?

  The days had passed like meat skewered on a spit, turning slowly in the heat of the sun, basted with dread and pretty speeches. Only when time and the world were overcooked, dry and tasteless, had Jofar’s troop of Apsuri cavalry appeared at the gates of Ferangipur.

  Gard glanced toward the zenana screen. He sensed Deva and Ladhani sitting beside Yasmine, who fiddled with a long curl of her hair. He glanced toward the khaddi. Jamshid dozed under the canopy, Srivastava upon his left, Rajinder upon his right, Vijay and Bogatyl hovering nearby.

  Vijay was drawn thin, less from conscience, Gard estimated, than from feeding the ingenuous succubus Yasmine. But his face was flushed with stubborn pride. Gard heard his own distant words: The only power I have is over women.

  Bogatyl was expressionless. Whether his calm was real or cunningly faked Gard could not tell. At least the present peril had turned the rhetoric of the palace factions to a new if hardly more efficient use.

  The dragonet sat, paws neatly together, ears pricked, tail stirring his gut. The Ferangi priests and counselors and nobles were a frieze of brocades and jewels. Bhai’s saltcellar squatted upon the table, no longer so lovely now that Gard knew its origins.

  In this polished company Jofar was refreshingly rough cut, his armor dusty from his journey, his heavy face appealing in its ugliness. His stern expression was tempered by a bafflement worthy of Yasmine’s; if her role was to be beautiful, his was to fight. The intricate speeches Menelik had put in his mouth were too rich and too subtle for his stomach.

  Offer. Counteroffer. Refusal. Threat. Gard’s head turned slightly, judging the proceedings more by tone of voice, by facial wrinkle, than by actual words. Afterwards, Rajinder—trusting soul—would ask his impressions.

  The dragonet’s wings stirred. Deva’s mouth crumpled in a smile that was an uneasy mingling of exasperation and humor. What had Jofar just said?

  Into the sudden silence the warrior’s deep, slow voice rumbled again. Diffident now, yet direct, speaking his own phrases instead of Menelik’s. “I shall intercede for you, Nazib-ji, with my father.”

  Jamshid awoke and peered owlishly at Jofar. Rajinder replied, “And what reward do you seek for your intercession?”

  Jofar shuffled his massive feet and peered from beneath his brow ridge like a badger from its den. “The hand of Srivastava-ji in marriage.”

  The silence spun itself out, longer and longer, and was snapped by Jamshid’s chortling laugh. “I fought Allaudin hand to hand,” he said. “The agreement was that neither of us was to bring weapons to the parley. But Allaudin, the snake, brought his sons with him. And I saw that each of them had sharp-edged metal rosettes sewn to his tunic.”

  The courtiers glanced uncomfortably at each other; oh, that story again. With a pained smile Rajinder turned to his sister. “Lady, would you consider such a match?”

  Gard brightened. Menelik could trade a Muktari woman for a Fe
rangi and score points in the exchange, as the Ferangi was not only of higher rank but could now be made to repent of her earlier insults. And she would surely prefer Jofar to Shikar; it might work, at that.

  Srivastava’s eyes were projectile points aimed at Jofar’s genial if uncertain smile. Her voice, although muffled by the folds of the sari around her head, did not falter. “I am honored by Jofar-ji’s offer, but my place is here, in the eye of Vaiswanara.”

  Gard darkened again. Jofar’s crestfallen face struggled between regret and, oddly, relief. So the offer had been his alone, not Menelik’s, and therefore futile. The dragonet stretched and displayed its claws.

  The courtiers stirred again, approving Srivastava’s piety or disapproving her male relatives’ reluctance to simply hand her over, it did not matter. Bogatyl remained expressionless, almost as if he knew the ending of the play and no longer had to pay attention. Yasmine’s face puckered in pretty perplexity. Deva muttered some caustic epithet.

  “When I saw the rosettes,” continued Jamshid, “I knew that Allaudin had treachery in mind. Thanks to Vaiswanara that the younger boy—what was his name?—was standing within arm’s reach. I seized his shoulder . . .”

  Rajinder’s firm voice overrode his father’s rambling. “Thank you, Jofar-ji, for your offer. But it is not to be.” Jamshid lost the thread of his story and dozed off again.

  “Such an offer is ludicrous,” interjected Vijay. “To think we would give our sister to an Apsuri!”

  Both Rajinder and Jofar looked at him as a huntsman would look at a kitten trying to run with the hounds. Vijay clamped his lips, raised his chin, and stood his ground.

  Jofar, crusted with armor and dignity, was leaving. Rajinder held a parchment in his hand, regarding it with mouth so tight his lips disappeared beneath his bristling mustache. “No,” he whispered to his father. “Tell them no, I beg you, Nazib.”

  Jamshid dozed. Raj thrust the parchment at Srivastava. She began reading it aloud, ostensibly to Jamshid, but as the tramp of the Allianzi delegation echoed and died away, her voice grew shriller and louder so that the fatal words screeched like a trumpet across the room. Jamshid awoke with a start and listened to the declaration of war.

  The dragonet wrapped its tail around its body and sat like a scaly cushion in Gard’s stomach. Deva looked at Ladhani, who buried her face in her hands. Yasmine wafted away, leaving behind the faint odor of roses. Jamshid giggled. “I fought Allaudin hand to hand. I saw that the boys wore sharpened rosettes upon their garments, so I turned his own treachery against him. I fought Allaudin and won.”

  “Do we fight now?” asked Rajinder quietly.

  “Of course, boy. What have we to fear from Allaudin’s little weasels?”

  “So be it.” Rajinder’s shoulders did not sag. They rose, squaring themselves. Slowly, ceremoniously, he lifted his turban from his head and laid it down. He drew his sword.

  The flash brought Jamshid to the edge of the khaddi. He nodded eagerly. A transparent froth of spittle gathered in the corners of his mouth.

  Rajinder’s long black hair fell from its bindings and scrolled down his back almost to his waist. Like Deva’s, Gard thought irrelevantly. A warm and safe cocoon for Ladhani—who slipped from her chair and huddled against the screen. Deva set her hands reassuringly on the woman’s shoulders.

  Rajinder gathered his hair in his hand. He knelt. With a sudden downward slice he severed the hair, laid it like a sable blanket at the foot of the khaddi, and looked gravely up into the senile face of Jamshid the Great.

  Srivastava’s face was completely concealed by the folds of silk, but Gard could swear he heard her mumbling, “No, no, do not fight them; give her back, give her back.”

  I would gladly give her back, thought Gard, grinding his teeth, but it is too late. Raj cut his hair so he can wear a battle helmet. He offers it to his father in the ceremonial acceptance of war. He does not want war, he has counseled against war all these long days. Does acquiescence make Raj honorable or stupid? Gard cursed the question and the dragonet smirked.

  The sun did not darken even now with storm clouds. The dazzling sunshine on the garden outside annihilated flower and tower and sky. Vijay, too, cut his hair, but his expression was a fierce grin, anticipating the spectacle of war—burnished armor, banners, drums and swords. The prayers of the priests were as brisk and confident as an army marching double time.

  Gard was vaguely surprised his stomach was not churning. It was numb, feeling nothing but the heavy weight of the dragonet. The faces of the Ferangi captains passed before him, but he saw the face of his Minran governess—

  Telling him a cautionary tale, of how a man strolling along a steep mountain path had amused himself by kicking a pebble, until, kicked too hard, the pebble plunged over the precipice, gathered other pebbles, dislodged rocks and became an avalanche that had swept away an entire village so that no traces of field or house or living soul remained . . .

  Apt, said Deva’s sardonic thought. Very apt.

  Gard sank his teeth deep into his lower lip. That, too, was numb. I told Rajinder, Gard said to Deva, to the dragonet, to himself, that I would stay. And I shall stay, to the end. Whatever the end will be.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Shading his eyes with his hand, Gard looked over the parapet, to the north. Nothing, no ranks of glittering spears, no cavalry churning the dust. The time between the declaration of war and the appearance of the Allianzi army was the pause between the condemned man’s laying his head upon the block and the stroke of the axe. Or the descent of the elephant’s foot.

  The pause had now lasted from the waning moon past the full, and Gard was ready to leap up from the block screaming.

  The valley of the Mohan was flooded bank to bank with waves of heat and light. The sun did not so much shine as strike; chances were that the Apsuri, too, were huddled exhausted in whatever shade they could find. With a sigh instead of a scream, and a tickle of the dragonet’s alert ears, Gard turned away from the parapet and the river and walked stiffly across the garden.

  The flowers were dead, dried and brittle as bones. The shadow of a portico was as abruptly dense as a pool of water. The cicadas’ song was stretched into earsplitting shrillness, waiting for rain and blood both to nourish the desiccated land. But the monsoon was late this year; the natural cycles of the world had stopped.

  Vijay and Jamshid had wanted to rush their soldiers northward to confront the Allianzi. But Rajinder had pointed out that a march in the heat and dust would tire the army and leave it open to surprise attack, that when the Mohan flooded, ships could be employed, that in any event when the rains came, Menelik would bring his own army downriver, saving Ferangipur the trouble.

  Gard scuffed the pavement. He was no military tactician. He had studiously ignored every lecture Andrion had ever given him upon past victories, present situations, future strategies.

  With twin moans of frustration Gard and daemon settled down in the portico. The ceiling stirred dimly with something—a bat? His heart gulped. No, just a trick of the light, sunshine meeting shadow in a line as precise as a pen stroke. Or a sword slash. But then, his brief tour in the legions had taught him that sword wounds were not tidy.

  Gard folded his body. In his gut the little daemon squatted, its paws upon its knees. Shakhmi, shakhmi, Kundaraja.

  His powers shrilled like the cicada. The pentacle crackled and fired against his chest. The dragonet’s luminescent wings, the gold wings on the pentacle, the imagined wings of bats all flapped in unison, bringing a quick gust of chill air to his sweaty brow. His spine lengthened, swaying like the cobra that had shaded Narayan.

  Shakhmi, shakhmi. His awareness sighed through the palace, searching. Deva? No, she was not here, she was making a pilgrimage from shrine to shrine along the maidan, at Ladhani’s behest.

  Ladhani, once an Apsuri noblewoman, kept discreetly indoors. Deva said she sat day in and day out weaving a decorative scrap of tapestry, her hands moving ritually upon the
shuttle, Yasmine’s prattle washing around her until her features were as blank as water-smoothed stone.

  Shakhmi. Kundaraja. Power, learned less in formal lessons in Dhan Bagrat than by trial and error—mostly error . . . The dragonet glanced up, its blue-gray eyes as clear as a rain-washed sky. There was Deva, reflected in their depths as though in a crystal ball. She took an overblown, slightly wilted rose from her basket, laid it at the edge of the cesspool that passed for Raman’s temple and genuflected before it. Then she trudged on up the almost deserted maidan toward the temples of Harus and Saavedra and Hurmazi, insignificant blots of brick clinging to the resplendent edifice of Vaiswanara.

  Gard’s mind saw Raman’s cesspool bubble and emit a noxious belch. The rose putrefied. A curl of dark mist rose from it and snaked toward the tiny shrine of Hurmazi.

  No. What Gard saw was not Hurmazi’s perfunctory shrine in Ferangipur but the god’s magnificent palace in Apsurakand, seat of his power. Horned helmets gathered before the doors. Spears glistened. Bright saris fluttered. Priests waved censers, making thunderclouds of a dark, heavy fragrance not unlike that of rotting roses. The smoke swirled across the scene, now shading it from Gard’s perception, now illuminating it as clearly as if caught in crystal.

  The dragonet bristled in Gard’s throat. Tarek, turban meticulously folded, jacket buttoned to the throat as if the day were autumn-cool, face carved of adamant, stood to the side of the huge doors opened against the walls of the temple. It could be that he directed the scene as subtly as a mahout directs his elephant. It could be that he was only an onlooker.

  The Apsuri were praying for rain. Nothing surprising, let alone disturbing, in that. They wanted the monsoon to come, to water their crops and flood the river so that they could attack Ferangipur. Menelik, gorgeous in silk and bronze, and Shikar beside him like a slightly distorted mirror image, offered supplications to their god.