An Ill-Fated Sky

by Darrell Drake

  When the King of Kings ushered them out of the camp on foot, rather than retrieving their mounts from the keeper of horses, Tirdad couldn’t help but wonder what he had in mind. They stopped about an arrow’s distance out—not an accurate shot, but one belonging to a salvo—and the King of Kings turned to address them. The moonlight was dim at best, but his divine blessing helped Tirdad to see the calm countenance he wore.

  “You must hate me,” he began. “I would. It pained me to do what I did to your family. I still lose sleep over it. Of all the Houses, yours was far and above the most loyal. Sadly, matters are never so simple, and your cousin forced my hand. I was fond of her, you know. She was one of a kind. Troubled as she was, it made me respect her all the more keenly.”

  Tirdad said nothing. It wasn’t that there weren’t a thousand responses all ready to cut. It was that they were all ready to cut; none were kind. Instead, he fidgeted with the ram’s head pommel.

  The King of Kings leveled his gaze on Shkarag. “Are we the only ones you see in the vicinity?”

  “. . .”

  “Do you see anyone besides us around?” asked Tirdad.

  “Maybe.”

  “Who?”

  Shkarag indicated the King of Kings with a tip of her spear and a subdued hiss.

  “It’s just us,” said Tirdad.

  The King of Kings inclined his head. “Many thanks, Shkarag.” He stroked his beard thoughtfully before continuing. “You have been busy these last few months, Tirdad. I have had a hard time balancing your actions, but I know you to be an honourable man.”

  Demonstrably, he turned his back to the pair. “You were the one to put your cousin’s war path to an end. Then you cut down a rogue star-reckoner, a div, a yazata, saved Ray by killing another div. And today I discover you are enamoured with an infamous half-div. In all honesty, I cannot see any rhyme or reason to your actions.”

  That drew a grunt from Tirdad.

  The King of Kings shook his head, and turned back around. “That being the case, I have brought you here to offer a chance to make your motives clear. What do you say to that?”

  “Well . . .” Tirdad glanced to his side. Shkarag wasn’t bristling, but her temper had flared. “Truth be told,” he said, “I’m only here at the request of a friend. Otherwise, my motivations aren’t as complicated as they may seem. I’m travelling with my companion, who happens to be half human. Making up for lost time.”

  “Hmm.” The King of Kings looked between them in the direction of Dara. “The night before your forces rendezvoused with mine, my royal star-reckoners were found dead. All of them. Poisoned. I assume Hrom wanted to blunt my ability to lay siege to their fortress. They succeeded.”

  Shkarag had leaned into Tirdad the moment star-reckoners were mentioned. Ostensibly, she favoured her leg. But before the news hit him she’d already begun to rub placation into his back. He did his utmost to keep a straight face, to control his breathing. He was beginning to suspect the stars were actively working against him—that his pursuit of an unseemly truth mattered more than their favoured few. He gave the pommel a white-knuckled squeeze.

  “You need not worry,” said the King of Kings, seeing through him. “Hrom does not have the resources I do. Not in this. They would have no way of knowing what you have become.”

  While Tirdad did visibly relax, and while that seemed to convince the King of Kings, it was because the man did not suspect him. The news was disheartening, to say the least. How many star-reckoners were left? Ashtadukht had dispatched a great many in her time after all. The King of Kings answered that for him.

  “Only a few star-reckoners remain, and it will take them weeks to arrive. So I ask this of you, Tirdad: show me your loyalty, use your planet-reckoning for the good of the realm.”

  Tirdad stared at the ground. It was thanks to Shkarag’s timely ministrations that he was only crestfallen. She read him well. He would have been worse off without her around. Setback after setback, he thought. All he wanted was the truth. To know with certainty whether his cousin been a pawn in their plan—one that had backfired on them to devastating effect.

  Now, here he was with another setback, and an offer he literally could not refuse. You simply did not say no to the King of Kings. To make matters worse, he was not in a position to bargain. Someone had been feeding the man information on his whereabouts and all he’d been up to. “I guess I don’t have much of a choice,” said Tirdad. “I’ll do what I can, but to be honest, my lots are . . . unpredictable at best. I try to avoid using them. It’s all very new to me.”

  “While I appreciate your honesty, I have been made aware of your limitations. All I ask is that you try. Dara must fall. We cannot let Hrom think they can walk away from this relatively unscathed. A message must be sent.”

  Tirdad nodded his subservience. “As you wish.”

  “Shkarag,” addressed the King of Kings. Tirdad looked up at that, cursing himself for thinking she could travel unchallenged in such prestigious company. “You are a menace.”

  “. . .” Though she ceased her rubbing, she gave no other indication of having acknowledged what he said.

  “You are fortunate, then, that I have no star-reckoners to deal with you. I would have you put down by normal means, but how many would you take with you? That is operating under the assumption that we could find and deal with your phylactery. As a consequence, I would be faced with an angered planet-reckoner.” The King of Kings shook his head, though it was becoming more and more apparent that he was being coy: that he was grateful circumstances stayed his hand. “I suppose I have no choice but to endure your presence.” He looked at Tirdad. “See me tomorrow at dusk. No later.” Then he walked past and toward the camp, and would have kept walking if Shkarag didn’t speak up.

  “You wear, you put on—” She drove the butt of her spear into the ground and pivoted to face him. “You šo-wretched kings slip into your airs as if they’re more than garments, and you don’t know, you’re none the wiser that you were swindled in. You’re making fools of—” She parted her lips, and though her fangs lowered, they weren’t quite bared. A hiss escaped between them. “Embarrassing yourselves sauntering around huffing like some, like some šo-draughty cavern, but the most anyone will ever think of you is why won’t someone do something about that breeze before we catch a chill.”

  Tirdad laid a hand on her shoulder, but it was already relaxed. Knowing her, she seemed remarkably controlled given how pissed she sounded. Maybe that was the point.

  The King of Kings opened his mouth. “Shk—”

  That she’d berated him wasn’t enough. Shkarag had to interrupt him, too. Tirdad was growing more worried by the second, but he dare not do the same to her. “I’ve seen kings shit their trousers. Cleaved them like so many draughts. Cracked empires. Ride on their rickety litters and pretend, say they’re—” She drew a claw over her scalp. “Think they’re conquerors or chosen or . . . All you ever become is some statue to be toppled or coin to be flipped.

  “I’m worthless. I’m worthless. I’m worthless, but all those, all you, you fucking kings who think you aren’t, you’re more delusional than I am. Could bury my axe in your skull and the world wouldn’t care.”

  The King of Kings smiled. “You speak the truth. About all of it.” He started off again. “You could, but I know you will not.”

  Only once the man had disappeared into the night did Tirdad stop holding his breath. “What in the—” He sucked in a few gulps of air before continuing. “What were you thinking?”

  “. . .”

  “Shkarag?”

  “. . .” This time, the silence was anything but measured. She trembled beneath his touch. A hiss was gathering somewhere in her throat and chest, one that was soon expelled as she snapped her spear in half. She threw it to the ground, still shaking.

  “What’s gotten into you?”

  “Don’t like them,” she said, almost too softly for him to make out. “They’re the reason why . . .” She
trailed off, a hiss seeping between her lips. “Because of them she’s . . .” Shkarag turned to him, and pulled her scarf over her head. “I want to leave. You do this šo-damned task, then we leave.”

  Tirdad nodded. “As you wish.”

  • • • • •

  “Think the skink-slicker will pull it off?” asked Chobin.

  Tirdad pondered the way she’d left. He wasn’t sure whether his lack of anxiety was due to her phylactery or a confidence in her being capable of doing what she set out to. “She will.”

  “Been two nights,” said Chobin. “She promised one. Those grates are sturdy, meant to stave off intruders. She isn’t the first person to think to enter via the water supply.”

  Tirdad eyed the fortress city where it herded three hills into its walls, an artificial terrace sharing their intersection, and the shadow that rose behind it. There, a river cut through a ravine, and had been dammed to bring water to the city. Being early autumn, the river was likely beginning to swell. “I believe in her,” he said.

  Chobin rubbed his neck, cracking an uncomfortable smile. “So, uh, be that as it may. Either you do this now and at least make it look like I have some authority over you, or wait for the King of Kings to stroll over to make us both lick his boots.”

  Tirdad set his jaw. He had no desire to embarrass Chobin, and while he may not have cared what the King of Kings thought, the marzban’s future relied on currying favour. So, his palm came to rest on the ram’s head pommel, and he drew a lot.

  The words to the lot spilled over his lips, rote memorization that was at the same time his and not. A childhood of lessons hardened or invalidated by a lifetime of experience chose the phrases for him. Tirdad found himself once more on the fringe of the celestial theatre, the terrible dragon Gochihr on a collision course that acted as a rippling curtain above the cosmic battlefield.

  He trained what little remained of his soul on the expanse, first confirming what his mind had suggested: that Mercury revolved out of sight, obscured as it was by Earth. Too far removed to make out more than a glimmer, Jupiter came to blows with the Bull constellation. Formidable as the planet was, a more favourable theatre thundered a rallying call. It quaked like a thousand planets being torn asunder. It was vehement; it reached out to him with an uncommon enmity.

  Tirdad focused his soul on the constellation of the Ear of Grain, a misleading title if there ever was one. If the cosmos quaked, the Ear of Grain was the crust it threw into loathing. Embattled in the thick of those fissures, novae their eruptions, were Saturn, Venus, and Mars. The latter two, having united in a conjunction, faced off against stalwart Spica, the defender of the constellation. Venus was at a disadvantage astronomically, but not elementally; Mars was an even match. Both were weakened by the sun’s presence in a different constellation of the same element.

  Tirdad considered this in a flash. The lay of the theatre came to him as naturally as breathing. Given the factors at play, the battle would have been about even if it weren’t for the wild card, the liability in a craft in which risk was already inherent. Saturn.

  While the luminaries were locked in combat, Saturn wore the same glacier-patient scowl he remembered from their first encounter. Though it had no countenance to scowl with, the planet had a soul of its own, and what Tirdad sensed there could be fashioned a scowl, cold and calculating. It watched, storms whirring, curling into eddies in which its legions bided their time. Once the opportunity presented itself, Saturn would turn the tide.

  The six-sided die that ricocheted across the reaches of his mind did so with something runaway. Something unhinged. As with his first lot, the feeling went as quickly as it came, but during that tumble, it was as if his senses were overloaded to such extremes that it made him want to end his life just to be rid of it. The pommel tickled his palm.

  “Mercury loiters out of sight. Jupiter sets upon the Bull. Venus and Mars are at odds with the Ear of Grain, while Saturn orchestrates its demise. The lot has been drawn.”

  Tirdad exhaled, uneasy over the visit and what he’d felt upon returning. His lot had been favoured, that much was certain. He’d been lucky so far, but he had to fail eventually. Ashtadukht had failed so much her mind had scars, her soul unravelling here and there like well-worn silk. That unsettled him. Because the implications were a mystery, and not knowing made it so much worse.

  A shriek pierced the night. Not a scream—a shriek. The distinction was harrowing, as if a scream had been whetted with secrets no mortal should know before it was stropped to keenness. Another. A laugh, stropped same as the scream, to become a cackle. A host of outbursts sounded from behind the walls of Dara.

  “What did you do?” asked the King of Kings, having drawn up beside him.

  Tirdad shook his head. “I haven’t the slightest.”

  “Sure sounds nasty,” Chobin said. The host had become a din; the din, unintelligible noise.

  The King of Kings pulled in a deep breath, which exited as consternation. He swept his gaze over his camp and back to the fortress city. “Whatever it is, it seems it is not getting us in. Draw another, if you would.”

  Tirdad was preparing to oblige when the gates were flung open. Out scattered a mix of the garrison, the Hrom legion, and the city’s population. Some were aflame, lighting up the night as they tore off screaming. Others were attacking their countrymen with abandon. Yet others were rolling on the ground, clutching their sides and cackling uncontrollably. The worst of it was the shrieks, which passed through flesh and bone as if imbued with horror, and were only silenced once their owners had dashed their own skulls over the nearest wall.

  The King of Kings raised a hand ridden with trepidation. His disgust was plain. Tirdad took some satisfaction in that, even as he balked at what he’d wrought.

  “You drove them mad,” observed Chobin. “They’re fucking sturgeon-loving mad. Look at them down there.”

  The King of Kings finished his gesture by extending his hand, which signalled the attack. Horns sounded to either side, and a stampede teeming with standards and pikes spilled down the hill, throwing up chunks of earth in its wake. Tirdad made to join when an outstretched palm halted his advance. He tried to hide his frustration with the King of Kings as Chobin rode off at the head of a charge, cavalry thundering behind and close enough to upset Tirdad’s tunic.

  He waited, staring straight ahead and doing his utmost to control his temper. Below, the Iranian forces converged on the gate, and the massacre began. The screams of the dying were somehow less disconcerting than those of the mad. Only those Hrom legionnaires who were already on a killing spree fought back, and while they fought like rabid dogs, they were put down all the same.

  “This is not what I expected,” said the King of Kings. His tone was one of introspection, not accusation. He lowered his hand, but did not grant permission to leave. “I should not have resorted to such means, and I apologize for ordering you to do something so heinous. You are right to avoid lots that draw upon the planets, and would do well to stay that course.” The King of Kings fished around in his tunic before retrieving a small pouch, which he offered. “A token of my gratitude. It is no brocade or belt, but those are honours you have not earned.”

  Tirdad accepted with a respectful nod, the contents explained by a slight jingle.

  “You have done as I asked, so you have my blessing. See to it that it stays that way, Tirdad. Do not tangle with star-reckoners, keep your div on a short leash, and do what you can to enjoy what years you have left. If that involves throwing your lot in with Chobin, so be it, but you will need to make yourself scarce in the company of star-reckoners. The same goes for your half-div.”

  With that, the King of Kings turned his mount about and returned to his retinue, many of whom belonged to the great Houses of the land. More than a few scowls were aimed Tirdad’s way. He mocked them with a smile; their approval meant nothing to him. He slipped the pouch into his tunic and was off, charger galloping down the slope to join the fray, already h
eady with the thrill of battle and seeking out a cuirass through which to run his pike. Sadly, the opportunity had come and gone. It was an absolute slaughter. His planet-reckoning had seen to that.

  Tirdad wanted to think it meant fewer lives lost, but as he eased his charger to a walk, there was no mistaking the reality of it. Civilians outnumbered combatants by a wide margin. As he led his horse under the low gate, it was forced to pick a path through the host of bodies that had fallen there in seeking to escape the city. He grimaced as he passed, tears welling in his eyes at what he’d been forced to do. This was his doing, all of it.

  Tirdad advanced through the sobering city, past buildings cut from stone and the gore that befouled them. The blood-curdling shrieks and cries of those in thrall to his lot broke out in pockets between hills, to be summarily truncated. He did happen upon a few who were alive, their eyes the same breed of wild he’d seen in Shkarag, but rather than end their suffering, he urged his charger to hurry by. He hadn’t the stomach to do more harm.

  With nothing to plot a course for, he followed the thoroughfare that squeezed between two of the three hills that marked the corners of Dara’s triangular plan. The sounds of discord still rang out from all around of the city, but they were never joined by the sounds of war. There was no battle to be had, only lives to end. The King of Kings would have leashed his forces, limited them to pillaging so that the citizens could be deported to the mainland where they would settle, bringing with them their crafts and the economic boon that came with an increase in population. Planet-reckoning had seen to ruining that option.

  Tirdad passed more storefronts, more homes carved into the stone at the foot of the hills. These, too, were dashed with gore. It’s a wonder how zealous humans become when you amplify their emotions to cosmic proportions. How effective at savagery. There was, he mused, an analogue to be found there between humans and divs. Perhaps divs were all that remained of humans once you stripped away pretenses and civilization. It was, he thought, at the same time heretical yet not without a morsel of truth. Heresies oftentimes operated as such.