An Ill-Fated Sky

by Darrell Drake

  “Satisfactory,” said the man once the beating had concluded. “A flinch or two can be forgiven. Remember, son, the fate of our House will soon rest on your shoulders. Our people will look to you for guidance, our soldiers for courage. You must be their pillar.”

  “Yes, Father.”

  “Tirdad,” hailed the man, which gave him leave to lift his head. Chobin had his bowed, but didn’t seem all that worse for wear.

  “Bahram,” replied Tirdad. He remembered Shkarag, and a glance told him that while she hadn’t bothered with a show of respect, she was otherwise sedate.

  “It warms my heart to see you in good health, not to mention here in my city during Tirgan. How fares your family?” Bahram grimaced, likely realizing too late what he’d asked, and no doubt aware that Tirdad’s part in his House’s downfall had fashioned him an outcast.

  Tirdad fought off a grimace of his own, instead carving a smile that had no place in the conversation. “As well as can be expected. And yours?”

  “Well enough. You’ve ensured as much where my son is concerned, and for that I am grateful. It does him good to spend his time with a veteran rather than those his age. Too impulsive, and no experience to impart. Would that you’d visit more often. For what it’s worth, I’d welcome you into our family.”

  Tirdad inclined his head. “I do what I can.”

  “Friend of yours?” asked Bahram, facing Shkarag and offering his hand.

  She backed away, assuming a guarded posture with one claw hovering over her axe. Her attention darted between the two of them.

  “Strangers make her uncomfortable,” Tirdad was quick to explain. “Doesn’t mean anything by it. She’s ill.”

  Bahram retracted his hand with swift but measured grace. “All the same, it’s a pleasure to meet you,” he said. Then to Tirdad, “I’d invite you in, but we are using the citadel as a staging area for the festival. Will I see you in the wrestling tournament?”

  “I’m afraid not.”

  “Is that so? Chobin gave the impression you’d make a worthy contender. A real shame to have you here without a show of your prowess.”

  Having emerged from his subservience, the marzban cut in. “His ribs, father.”

  That drew a nod from Bahram. “Ah, my apologies. With the festival in full swing there’s a great deal to keep track of. Still, it’s a shame.”

  Tirdad shared in his disappointment. “Would that I were in better shape. Festivals and wrestling were the passions of my youth, though I’ve never had anything you’d call prowess.”

  “Indulge your youth as often as you can,” said Bahram. “Or run the risk of forgetting how.” He waved at the busy citadel to his rear. “Well, as you can see I have my hands full. To be frank, some of the more prickly citizens decried the cancellation of the tournament this year. We haven’t the space, but fuck me with a fishing rod if they care. So I sent my son out to gather contestants, and turns out some of our regular lot rode east days ago and haven’t returned. Won’t be much of a tournament if we come up short.”

  “I’ll do it,” said Shkarag.

  Tirdad turned confusion on the half-div. “Do what?”

  “. . .”

  “Shkarag?”

  “. . .” She canted, shooting the ground a dirty look.

  He blew out an exasperated sigh, and was about to address Bahram when she finally spoke up.

  “Wrestle. I’ll do the—” Where she would have made a claw of her fingers, she wrung her spear instead. Her back straightened, and she trained determination on Tirdad. “I’ll do the šo-damned thing from your glory days. And you can . . . your fall from grace and your old age will be cast away like some . . .” She wrung in earnest, white-knuckled now, and listing unsteadily but only just. “Molting. You’ll be the cuckold. Watching and vicarious.”

  Puzzled, Tirdad drew his face into a grin that joined a host of other creases. He’d grown comfortable with her overelaborate, metaphorical, oftentimes vague speech and thought patterns, then this phylactery of hers went and revived her. For that, he was more and more grateful with each passing day. But the lucidity she had gained made her speech a challenge to follow—a change that brought up the question of whether it was her unclouded mind laid bare or if she had trouble translating her train of thought to words. He would ask later.

  She drove the butt of her spear into the ground. “Fate, all those crabby stars and cranky planets, all swirling and making your decisions for you. Like some host waving you in, a cold meal primed, but he’s asking you what you want for dinner and you’re getting gruel and calling it that. This is their hallmark. Must wrestle.”

  “You want to compete?” asked Bahram, able to pick out the word or two that mattered. “You’re ill, are you not?”

  Shkarag finally had cause to contort a claw over her head. “Only here.”

  “Only there?”

  The half-div cocked her head, finding something in the city below to focus on. “. . .”

  Tirdad pondered the back of her scarf, and chose to let her response stand on its own rather than risk coming off as unsympathetic or undermining her will.

  Bahram, a military man himself, took stock of her as he hadn’t when they were introduced. “Caftans can be misleading,” he said at length, and approvingly. “A lean person comes off as thin and unassuming. Had me fooled. You’re—” Someone called to him from within the citadel, which drew a frown. He looked back and expelled a sigh. “Looks like we’re needed. We’ll see you at the tournament. I expect your lady friend to throw cinnamon on the fire.”

  With that, father and son grasped Tirdad’s forearm, then left to tend to House affairs.

  “You all right?” he asked Shkarag.

  A cant. “Maybe.”

  He ran his fingers through his hair, sweaty and unkempt, thinking he could do with a bath and she could do with a reprieve. “We can avoid the crowd for a time if you need a break,” he said. “Grab something to eat and find some shade away from the bustle.”

  Shkarag responded with a hiss. Though she faced the city, her agitation was made plain by the tautness that gripped her. Most telling, the hiss prevailed. “Not an incorrect . . . an invalid. Don’t need your šo-righteous pity.”

  Tirdad eyed her blood-red caftan, her muscles straining against its confines as she strangled her spear. There, in the still between city and citadel, hedged by the arch of the gate, he waited. It occurred to him that he still hadn’t learned to navigate her eggshells, that she’d returned uncharted, as if a cyclone had wreaked havoc on the half-div he’d grown fond of, leaving the lay the same but the scenery out of sorts. So he waited.

  It seemed like longer than it was—only a few minutes—but when her caftan lost its tension, it threatened to move to his tunic. She made for the stairs, and he for her.

  “I’m sorry,” he said, leaving room for her to walk by if she pleased, but drawing close enough to get her attention. “I meant nothing by it.”

  She passed by as if to ignore him, and perhaps she had meant to at first, but upon reaching the first step she about-faced. “Why?” she asked, curt as a deathblow.

  Tirdad parted his lips to reply, then closed them. He had an explanation, but she’d caught him off guard. He’d expected her to ignore him when she continued without offering a response. He should’ve known better. After getting his thoughts in order, he tried again.

  “For making you feel pitied. I only meant to be considerate. You’ve recovered a part of yourself—for the better, I think. That much is certain. But your illness, it seems to hound you more where before you took it in stride.” He lifted his hand as if to stop her from leaving, though she made no move to do so. “What you said to him just now caught me by surprise.” Tirdad mimicked her hand-turned-claw. “You said, ‘Only here.’”

  Shkarag set her head askew, but only that, so he went on.

  “I don’t think it really hit me until then that you’re aware of it—of its nature. I . . .” He trailed off, snorting and shak
ing his head at his foolishness. “I should’ve known. I should’ve been more sympathetic. If nothing else, I should’ve asked.”

  “. . .” The look she gave him was as inscrutable as ever, but it was a meaningful look all the same. She shifted to favour her thigh, which threw the glare of the sun on her face and narrowed her pupils to slits. “Why’d you mean nothing by it?” she asked.

  Leave it to her to take issue with the unexpected.

  “Well . . .” His hand found the comfort of the ram’s head pommel. So perplexed by the question, he never got around to racking his brain for an answer. What could she possibly be asking, and was the risk worth venturing a guess? More eggshells and uncharted waters. By contrast, pranks had been a walk in the hunting park, pheasants the quarry. These eccentricities of hers were the lions and tigers.

  She remained unreadable. “We should go,” he said, hoping she’d drop it. “I’m starving, and Tirgan only comes once a year.”

  When he made to leave, she stepped aside, that stare of hers trained on him as he passed, and likely kept there as they covered the way down. They’d nearly reached the bottom when she posed a more mundane question.

  “You grappled?” she asked. “You wrestled?”

  Tirdad paused to aim a furrowed brow at her. The stare had persisted. Coming from the half-div, mundane was more eccentric than eccentric. Still, no change. He started forward again, and figured at least this one was clear enough to answer. “I did,” he said, imagining the thrill of the competition, the calculating give and take that would be lost on outsiders, the testing of defenses for the slightest lapse, the camaraderie. “Truthfully, I was never good at it. I wrestled for sport. I wrestled because I enjoyed it. I wrestled because tradition should be observed. Wrestling develops character.”

  The stairs emptied them into the main thoroughfare, which still wore the trappings of the festival: smiles, music, and food. From ahead, the metre of poetry joined in.

  “Sholezard,” Tirdad thought aloud. “I haven’t had it in ages.” He faced Shkarag, whose eyes darted suspiciously over the bustle. “Do you see any?”

  “. . .” More darting.

  “Well, let’s look then.”

  The bulk of the festival was traditionally held outside the walls, and for good reason. For all its energy, Ray was far from sprawling. With that in mind, Tirdad snatched up the first wine ewer and sholezard he came across, then abandoned the main thoroughfare for the side streets. Other festival-goers had the same idea, but the closer he got to the residential area, the fewer there were. He set a course for the wall, where a sentry let him pass without a second glance. The nearest tower threw ample shade, so he figured its shadow was as favourable a spot as any.

  Shkarag was quick to claim a patch, sitting leg out and alternating between a ewer of her own and a fistful of sweetmeats. “Who’d you pantomime?” she asked, mouth full.

  “Don’t—” Tirdad shook his head and took a seat by her side. Half div, and his elder by magnitudes. Who was he to tell her not to talk while eating? It made him cringe to recall all the times he’d took it upon himself to remonstrate her. “Pantomime?”

  Tirdad ate in respectful silence, savouring the saffron that gave sholezard its yellow colour and honey-hay aroma. Meanwhile, Shkarag explained.

  “Who’d you pantomime?” she reiterated as if it were obvious. “Who had his arms crossed? Who went through the motions like some . . . like the spark when it dwindles, like a life without your—” She ceased her chewing, and spat out her sweetmeat as if disgusted by it. Her chin puckered so briefly Tirdad would’ve missed it if he weren’t watching. She sucked in a breath as shaky as it was steadying, and continued as if nothing had happened. “And you’re doing your utmost, really doing your utmost to fill in the hollows with the flair they deserve. Because you think . . . you think those šo-sweaty sweeps and throws and grapples should remember the theatrics they once loved. And you’re not unkind. Even if everyone thinks you are. Even if all creation conspires to inter you like some—”

  “I get it,” Tirdad interrupted before her explanation could turn into a tale of recursion. “Ashtadukht’s father taught me. He could’ve hired a tutor, but he strove for a close relationship with his children, and though he was my uncle, he treated me like his own.”

  “Oh.”

  “And who’d you pantomime? I assume you did since you volunteered.”

  Shkarag shrugged, then set to massaging her thigh. “Wrestling belongs to cubs. Being edged is frustrating something fierce. Would rather—” She stopped massaging long enough to shoot him a glance. “I won’t.” She turned her attention back to her thigh. “Maybe.”

  More kneading followed before she resumed. “Learned on an island. Before the sea swallowed it up. Dourboat might’ve been behind it. The vizier behind the boom.”

  Tirdad took a pull from his ewer, and the pair shared a silence limned by the distant festival until the shadow cast by their tower stretched well over the wall. They would’ve stayed like that until the tournament if a familiar voice hadn’t risen from below.

  “All right, all right,” said Adur-mah. “You young ones are like baby goats with all your hopping and carrying-on. Maybe I should shear your hair and put it on this head of mine.”

  “No!” a chorus of children cried. “Do not shear us!”

  “Tell us a story!”

  “A story!”

  “You are the story-reckoner!”

  “Only if you keep quiet,” said Adur-mah. “One interruption and you will spend the next few months in mystery, because I will stop right there. Now gather round and get comfortable, because have I got a tale for you.”

  Tirdad approached the parapets and looked down to see the children, still soaked from their water games, following instructions and fidgeting in doing so, but generally well-mannered in respecting their elders—and in feeding their curiosity.

  The star-reckoner turned merchant shielded his eyebrows to look up at him, then waved him down. “Ah, Tirdad!” he called, waving, which caused the children to all pivot at once. “Come, come!”

  Tirdad set his jaw. Should he interrogate the old man now? Would he have what it takes to subdue him? What impressive lots could such an experienced star-reckoner draw? He gave the ram’s head pommel a squeeze, drawing confidence from its place on his hip.

  “Don’t drape the lion over your horse before you’ve slain it,” Shkarag advised from his side. She pulled the scarf down to cover her face. “Cubs and daylight. Wait.”

  Checked again by the half-div. He offered her a tapered smile, grabbed his ewer, and proceeded down to the gathering. “Don’t mind us,” he said, sitting against the wall and noting that the sentry had left his post. Shkarag followed suit.

  Adur-mah gave them a nod, then directed his attention back to the children, chewing all the while. “Now, I was ready to regale you little goats with the tale of Erash and his mythical arrow shot. A fine tale, a fine tale indeed. But I believe you are ready for . . . no, you are too young.” He crossed his arms and shook his head. “Maybe in a few years.”

  The children responded exactly as goaded, shaking their heads vehemently while holding true to their quiet.

  The star-reckoner harrumphed. “I see all these heads a-shaking. Some strange little goats I have. Hmm.” He chewed thoughtfully. “Maybe you are ready.”

  Energetic nodding followed.

  “I tell you what,” he said, leaning forward and putting his hands on his knees. “How about something special this year? Something you can only hear from old Adur-mah?” He wagged his bushy eyebrows for effect. “The tale behind the tale.”

  The children somehow managed to nod more energetically.

  Adur-mah swept his gaze over them, ending it on Tirdad. When he next spoke, it was with the warp and weft of a storyteller. “From the darkest, dustiest, long-forgotten annals of legend, known only to a privileged few in my order, sworn to secrecy on punishment of death—unless of course you are entertaining prec
ocious children like yourselves—I bring you ‘The Wrath of Erash’.”

  He chewed a moment, looking from child to child, and in so doing fanned their anticipation. “You all know of Erash, heroic and selfless, who scaled the treacherous summit of Mount Damavand. How with bow and arrow blessed by Spandarmad, imbued with the wisdom and will of the planet itself, he strained—”

  Adur-mah acted as if he were pulling a bowstring and having a hard time of it. “—he strained sliver by sliver to draw that mighty bow and loose the single most important, the most spectacular shot in all history.” He pretended to release the arrow, then turned a countenance severe with mourning on his audience. “For the good of his countrymen, in service to Truth, Erash threaded his soul into the fletching, to be unraveled as it soared over Iran and into Turan. When, after days of flight, it finally lodged in a walnut tree, it would mark the border between rival nations, secure peace, and put an end to a terrible drought. All in a single shot.”

  The star-reckoner lifted a glass of wine and took his time drinking, looking over the lip as he did at the restless children, and stringing them along all the more.

  “The Wrath of Erash,” he began again after they were sufficiently teased, “is a misleading title, and cause to ban star-reckoners from naming their tales. You see, Erash wanted only to do his duty, but there were those who would use war and drought for gain. Those greedy men cared not for others, and had strayed so far into the Lie that their souls were rotten and corrupt. You hear of Erash, of his climb, of his archery, of his legend, but never of his pursuers, or of the unlikely heroes who would save him.

  “These merchants and warmongers, they would stop at nothing to slay Erash. For they knew that arrow would bring their ill-begotten profits and power to a swift end. So they hired mercenaries; they enlisted divs. They sent all so much death.”

  Adur-mah blew out a sigh, shaking his head somberly, and Tirdad could imagine each and every child had the same question bouncing on the tip of their tongues.

  “What did he do?” Adur-mah asked. “Well, with the mercenary bands and slavering divs approaching Damavand like a storm cloud, he knew his only chance was to climb. To climb and hope beyond all hope that he would reach the summit in time. As he did, death closed on him in the valley below, biting at his heels like rabid wolves. Word had gotten out of the treachery, and indeed, heroes aplenty had answered the call for good, but none would reach him in time. Erash had hardly begun his ascent when he was confronted by two half-divs.