Queen of Slaves (The Powers of Amur Book 4)
Page 29
“My sister,” Kirshta said, “did she have anything with her when you took her?”
Vapathi shook her head. “Neither I nor the Devoured saw anything other than a little food and silver.”
“I’m looking for a book,” Kirshta said. “I book that I heard some dhorsha saw. Do you know about it?”
Teguri hesitated. Vapathi put her hand on the woman’s shoulder, but the old woman stiffened and brushed Vapathi’s hand away.
“I saw the book,” she said. “I don’t know where it is.”
“Ah,” Kirshta said. He leaned back against the cushioned throne and let his hand fall across one of the serpents coiled on the armrest. “You’re the first person who’s actually seen it, though many had heard of it. Tell me what was in it.”
The woman glanced at Vapathi, then began to spoke slowly. “There were two thikratta, survivors of Ternas, who brought it in with a number of other books from the monastery’s treasury.”
“Survivors of Ternas,” Kirshta said contemptuously.
“Like we were looking for,” Vapathi said. “If we had caught them—”
“We went into the mountains instead,” Kirshta cut her off sharply. His glare turned back to Teguri. “What was in the book?”
Teguri bowed her head. “I don’t know.”
“Don’t lie to me.”
The woman sighed heavily. “The book was written in a script that none in the palace could read. Neither me, nor anyone else among the dhorsha, nor the thikratta who brought the book in.”
Vapathi laughed. “Should I believe that? Two thikratta escape from Ternas carrying a priceless book, which neither of them can read?”
“Believe it,” Teguri said bitterly, “or refuse to believe it. I saw the book, turned the pages myself, and understood not a word.”
Kirshta groaned deep in his throat. The Red Men and Devoured scattered throughout the throne hall were watching them now, the whole hall gone silent.
“Where are they now?”
“I don’t know,” the woman said. “I escaped the Ushpanditya while they were still inside.”
“What did they look like?” Kirshta demanded.
The woman hesitated. “One tall, lanky, head shaven. Spoke seldom and softly. The other small, younger, big-nosed, garrulous. Both always wore the orange of the novice thikratta of Ternas.”
Kirshta looked at Vapathi. She shook her head. “I don’t think we found anyone like that in the Ushpanditya. They could have left with the Emperor.”
“They could,” Kirshta said.
“The Emperor was eager to know what they found,” Teguri agreed. “If he escaped, he might have taken them—”
“He escaped,” Kirshta agreed. “And he hides in Davrakhanda.” He closed his eyes and rested his head in his hand, the other hand scratching slowly at the surface of the armrest.
The woman fell silent. The expression on her face suggested that she, too, would rather have been in Davrakhanda.
“You’ve been helpful, Teguri-dhu,” Vapathi said. “We’ll give you pity.”
“Pity?” the woman asked incredulously. “You know of such a thing as pity?”
“Everything I do is for pity,” Kirshta growled. “Pity for the peasants, servants, and slaves that you and your type abused. I’ve chased off the khadir, kings, dhorsha, and emperors so that they can be free.”
The woman resumed her stoic silence, but a shadow of fear crept across her face.
“But as for you,” Kirshta went on, “you’ll get the pity of a choice. Will you be Devoured?”
“What does that mean?” Teguri said. “To join you and your army of peasants?”
“Deathless peasants,” Kirshta corrected. “I will eat your name, and your death with it. You will not die as long as She Who Devours still hungers. But I expect you to serve me.”
The woman was quiet for a long time. Her hands folded before her played with the fabric of her sari. “And otherwise?”
Kirshta waved dismissively towards the south. “You can run away, if you insist. I’ll tell the Devoured not to pursue you. But you will take your own chances with the famine. And the roads, I hear, are treacherous. Full of bandits, desperate, starving men, whom I don’t control.”
“I’ll go,” the woman said. “Let me go.”
“Fine. My sister, give the word.”
Vapathi nodded. She took the woman by the elbow and turned her with a gentle nudge towards the entrance of the Green Hall. An entourage of Devoured formed up around them. Vapathi waved them away, and gestured for one of the living Red Men to come and follow her.
The red-clad captain approached. “Give her an escort as far as the south gates of Majasravi,” Vapathi whispered. “Let any Devoured that you see know that she’s supposed to be unharmed. After that, it’s her own skin.”
The captain nodded. He barked an order and a few of the other soldiers rose and fell in behind him. The woman gave Vapathi a nervous, desperate glance.
“Are you actually going to let me go?”
“Yes, Teguri-dhu,” Vapathi said. “Do you think that the Mouth of the Devourer doesn’t keep his promises?”
Teguri pinched her hands together, and took a long look at the throne in the front of the hall. “Am curse him,” she hissed.
“You tried the power of Am,” Vapathi said sweetly. “It didn’t work.”
Teguri shuddered. She left the chamber in the escort of the Red Men.
Vapathi turned back towards the throne and saw Kirshta standing on the steps, his hands on his temples. She approached him as he descended the steps. At the bottom of the dais he fell into her arms.
“My sister,” he muttered. “Bring me to the tower.”
His skin felt clammy and cold. The growing feeling of dread that Vapathi had battled over the last weeks stirred again in Vapathi’s stomach. “My brother,” she said. “You aren’t well.”
“Bring me to the tower,” he repeated testily.
She pulled one of his arms over her shoulder and helped him stand, and they left through the side door of the hall. It was a short walk through the outer halls of the Ushpanditya, filled with ruined treasures, across the sun-washed courtyard and to the entrance of the Emperor’s Tower.
No Devoured entered the tower except for Basadi. None of them had fixed that rule, but by silent consensus everyone knew that the Emperor’s Tower was for the Mouth of the Devourer and his friends: Apurta, Vapathi, and Basadi.
When she shadow of the doorway fell over them, Kirshta collapsed to the ground. He put his hand on his temples and ground his teeth, and he curled into a tight ball. A groan rumbled in his throat.
Vapathi knelt and put a hand on his shoulder. If there were anything she could do for him—but there wasn’t. She sat holding his shoulder, guarding him silently.
A moment later his muscles relaxed. His breathing became more regular. His eyes opened.
“I have mastered her,” he whispered.
“My brother,” Vapathi said. “What’s wrong?”
“She Who Devours,” Kirshta says. “She stirs. It becomes… harder to resist her.” He shook as he spoke the words, and reached out his hand towards her. He crushed her hand in his grip. His teeth clenched together, and another spasm took him.
“I need to find that book,” he said when the spasm had passed.
“Why?” Vapathi brushed aside Kirshta’s hair where it had stuck to the sweat on his forehead. “How could they threaten you? You can devour anything. You broke the Dhigvaditya—”
“But I can’t,” Kirshta said. “I can’t… I can barely control She Who Devours at all. It takes so much effort of will to keep her from destroying everything I look at. You, my sister.” He smiled at Vapathi feebly, but his smile was pierced with pain. Then he bit his lip. He began to cry.
Vapathi pressed him to her chest. Tears ran silently down her face as she held Kirshta, shaking softly, his breath coming in broken jags between his tears.
After a while he stilled. She ki
ssed the top of his head. “So why do you need the book?”
“They could undo everything,” Kirshta said softly.
“How do you know?”
“I don’t,” Kirshta said. “But she does. She remembers. I have to find it. It hurts me, my sister. My wound hurts and my will is winding down and I don’t know what to do. I could feel the thikratta take the poison to Majasravi. It had a… a smell that I could follow. But now it’s not here. And I still want it. I lost it, in the fall of Majasravi, and I couldn’t tell where it went.”
“Now at least you know,” Vapathi cooed. “You can go to Davrakhanda.”
“Can I?” Kirshta asked. “Will it help?”
“You say that She Who Devours wants it.”
“She Who Devours is afraid of it. I don’t know that she wants it. I must get the book, because it’s the only thing that could ruin us.”
Vapathi considered for a moment what sort of thing could make the nameless devourer afraid, and she shivered. She took a deep breath, and said the thought which had laid just under her tongue for many days.
“What if you cast off She Who Devours?”
Kirshta jerked and pushed her away. “Cast her off? What are you saying?”
“My brother, listen. You say that your will keeps her in check, keeps her hunger directed. So couldn’t you just… dismiss her? Purge her? I don’t know how you would say it.”
“I would die,” Kirshta said, hissing with eyes wide. “She devoured my name, and her deathlessness in my veins is what keeps me alive. You want me to die?”
“No, listen—”
“Get away from me!” he roared, and with sudden burst of power he leapt to his feet and took the bottom-most stairs which climbed the Emperor’s Tower. After climbing a few stairs, he turned, shaking with anger. His hands clawed at the stone rail.
“We never, no, never will put away She Who Devours. She gave us everything we have accomplished. She keeps me alive, delivered us from our oppressors, threw down the Emperor. You want—no, get away from me.”
He stopped suddenly and covered his face with his hands.
“Get away from me,” he whispered. “Before I…”
He bolted up the stairs.
Vapathi ran into the alcove beneath the stair which entered into the imperial library, pulled aside a curtain, and threw herself onto one of the cushioned reading benches. For a moment she lay there in silence, gasping. A pain so deep she could not name it throbbed in her chest. She lay there, unable even to weep, waiting for her body or her heart to give out.
Kirshta, she thought. Her brother. And finally, the black sorrow which she had felt like a stone beneath her skin resolved itself into words.
I’ve lost him.
The Wave Speaker: Prelude to the Powers of Amur
It was an uneventful trade voyage until they ran into the woman walking across the surface of the waves. Then came the pirates, the sharks, and the imperial guard. Will Patara risk his cargo and his livelihood to save the last member of a magical lineage?
This short novel takes place in the world of The Powers of Amur.
Sign up for my mailing list to get this free epic fantasy novella.
About Me
Hi, I’m J.S. Bangs. I live in Romania with my family of four, where I work as a freelance software developer, make cheese, play video games, and write books. If you’re interested in getting announcements about future releases, contests, and giveaways, sign up for my mailing list or visit the following link in your web browser:
http://goo.gl/UjAvWN
You can also get in touch with me at any of the following places:
Website: jsbangs.com
Twitter: @jsbpax
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/jsbangswrites
If you liked this book, you can leave a review at Amazon or Goodreads:
Amazon
Goodreads