Fire of Ages (The Powers of Amur Book 6)

by J. S. Bangs

  “They’re Uluriya,” one of the Devoured said. “Look at their clothes. You know what the Mouth of the Devourer said.”

  “You know what the Queen of Slaves says,” Vapathi repeated. “Let them go or you won’t have me.”

  Vapathi could make out the boats on the waves of the shore, approaching the dhows in the deep water. There were other shapes, probably Devoured, moving through the abandoned tents of the camp, and plenty of refugees huddled along the shore.

  “Let everyone go,” Vapathi repeated. “If the Empress of the Devoured, wants me, she can have me, but my condition is the freedom of this settlement.”

  “We’ll just get them after you leave,” one of the Devoured men mocked.

  “No!” Vapathi commanded. “They’re already fleeing. We watch them sail away. And then you can do what you want with me.”

  “Here’s what we’ll do,” the Devoured man said. “The Mouth of the Devourer says to show no mercy to the Uluriya, but the Empress wants this one alive. So we’ll take all of you alive to the Empress. Let her decide what to do with you.”

  Aryaji, Mandhi, and Kest looked at Vapathi. She felt the weight of their stares on her. They had shown her pity, as much as they could. She hoped she didn’t let them down.

  “Fine,” she said. “Take all of us to the Empress. But don’t harm them.”

  “The Empress will decide that.”

  Vapathi grimaced. “I’ll talk to the Empress about that.”

  She marched through the Devoured, shouldering them aside until she reached Aryaji. She pulled Aryaji to her feet, then pulled Mandhi up.

  “Who are you?” Mandhi asked. She looked Vapathi in the face. “What have you done to us?”

  Vapathi looked at her with her eyes wide, her lips pressed together in fury and determination. “You mean you haven’t figured it out yet? I’m the Queen of Slaves. The Mouth of the Devourer is my brother.”

  * * *

  Nightfall came. There was a little village on the road ahead, abandoned by all appearances, devoid of any movement or light. The fields around it were empty and parched. Vapathi heard the distant bleat of a sheep from somewhere to the north, but no answer of any shepherd.

  One of the men called out, “Hold ’em in there. Lock ’em inside for the night.”

  Vapathi marched shoulder-to-shoulder with the other three captives, though she tried not to look at them. She didn’t imagine they were terribly eager to look at her. The ring of Devoured around them had contracted to a narrow band three people thick, giving them little chance to escape.

  Perhaps the big Kaleksha could get through if he bolted. Vapathi certainly wouldn’t.

  The Devoured herded them toward the village with lazy familiarity. Crumbled whitewash peeled away from the mud bricks of the houses. The thatch overhead was ratty and scarred with fire. “This way,” the man at the head of the formation said, and their captors guided them toward a larger house on the outskirts of the village. Vapathi stumbled through the door first. No furniture inside, but there were some intact carpets on the floor. She went to the far wall and slumped to the ground.

  The second night alone with them. The Devoured had marched them all day, and Vapathi had avoided talking to any of the others. Once they got to Basadi, she could maybe convince the Empress to let them go, and they would never have to bother her again.

  Go and… could they make it back to their ships? Would their comrades wait for them?

  She leaned against the wall and dropped her head into her hands. Maybe the Devoured would remember to give them food tonight.

  The other three shuffled into the room. She heard the chatter of the Devoured outside the door, brash laughter and blunted responses. Whispering. Vapathi looked up. Mandhi and Aryaji were talking to each other. When they saw Vapathi looking at them, they quieted.

  “Here,” a rail-thin Devoured man said pushing through the door. He threw a handful of dry roti crusts into the center of the room. “Don’t want the Queen to die before she gets to the Empress. Eat up.” A woman set down a pitcher of water. They left without saying another word.

  Vapathi reached for one of the roti. Aryaji reached at the same time, and their hands touched. Vapathi pulled back.

  “Sorry,” she whispered.

  Aryaji looked at her. She blinked, then smiled.

  “You shouldn’t apologize,” she said. “Take one of the roti.”

  Vapathi hesitated but took one. She chewed it: dry, crumbly, stale. But it was better than nothing.

  “I think—” Aryaji began to say.

  “Don’t talk to her,” Mandhi said. “It’s not safe.”

  Aryaji heaved a sigh. “Honestly, Mandhi, what do you think she’s going to do?”

  “It’s not safe,” Mandhi said. “She lied to us from the moment she joined us.”

  Vapathi winced. She said nothing. Her years as a slave had taught her well. Speaking up would only get her in more trouble.

  Kest shifted. He moved to sit on the wall to Vapathi’s left, between the women and Vapathi, and he gave Vapathi a distrustful stare. They chewed their roti. It was hard to swallow and tasted slightly of mold. Vapathi finished, brushed her hands, and took a mouthful of water from the pitcher.

  “I think you’re wrong, Mandhi,” Aryaji said. “I don’t think she’s going to hurt us.”

  “Aryaji—” began Mandhi testily.

  “No, listen to me,” Aryaji said. “She’s in here with us, not out there with them. I don’t know what’s going on with her and the Mouth of the Devourer, but she doesn’t seem to be conspiring with him.”

  “She did not tell us who she was,” Kest said.

  “Would you have?” Aryaji asked.

  Vapathi closed her eyes and hung her head. “You don’t need to worry about me. I’ll do my best to spare you from the Empress.”

  All three of them stared at her, as if they didn’t believe she could speak. Finally Mandhi said, “You know the person they’re taking us to?”

  “Of course,” Vapathi said. “The Empress of the Devoured. Basadi-daridarya.”

  “I heard about her,” Kest said. “From Navran and Sadja-daridarya. She threatened the Emperor in Davrakhanda. She was the Empress?”

  Vapathi murmured in assent.

  “Wonderful,” Mandhi hissed. “Jasthi-dar mentioned the Empress as well. I suppose you know how Basadi-daridarya wound up commanding the Devoured for the Mouth of the Devourer?”

  “We found her in the Emperor’s Tower in Majasravi when we broke through,” Vapathi said. “She was dying.”

  “Dying?”

  “She had poisoned herself. The Mouth of the Devourer… my brother took her name so she wouldn’t die.”

  “And now she serves the Mouth of the Devourer out of gratitude?”

  Vapathi laughed. “I don’t think Basadi-daridarya knows what gratitude is. No, she’s Devoured, but Kirshta—”

  She stopped. Did she dare use his name anymore?

  “What’s the matter?” Aryaji asked.

  “I’m not supposed to say his name,” Vapathi said. “No one is.”

  “Why not?”

  “It hurts him.”

  “Hurts the Mouth of the Devourer,” Mandhi said mockingly. “Sorry, but that’s not something I’m terribly worried about.”

  “Kirshta,” rumbled the big Kaleksha man. “Perhaps we should work on saying it more often.”

  Vapathi shook her head. “No, it won’t kill him. I tried that once. I gave his name to Navran-dar and the Emperor, and they were supposed to kill him with it. But it didn’t work. The name injured him, but he still… he ate the Emperor and everyone with him, and the whole plan came to nothing.”

  “We know how the battle went,” Kest said. His arms were folded over his chest, and he stared at Vapathi with an intense interest. “I didn’t know you gave the Mouth of the Devourer’s name to the Emperor.”

  “Why do you think I’m out here, running away from the Devoured with you?” Vapathi asked. Her
voice hiccoughed with a sob. “I was trying to, to—maybe not save him, I think it’s too late for that—maybe just release him. Get it over with. So I told Navran-dar, and he and Sadja-daridarya had a plan, but it failed.”

  A knowing look passed between Mandhi and Kest. “That explains a lot,” Mandhi said. She looked back at Vapathi. “And what happened to you after that?”

  “He knew. He killed Apurta, my….” She trailed off. How should she remember Apurta? Did she have any right to remember Apurta? She felt painful sobs rising in her gut. “He was Kirshta’s friend. He was my lover. We had gone in together, worked together to try to—to help Kirshta.”

  “You love your brother,” Aryaji said. Her voice was quiet and filled with wonder, as if she had discovered a great treasure.

  “Well,” Vapathi said, and she broke down crying. Her shoulders shook and her eyes clouded with tears. For a moment the only thing she heard was her own weeping. Her throat ached. Her stomach hurt with the pain of it.

  Eventually it passed. She wiped her eyes free of tears, and she looked up at the others. They were all watching her, the hardness on their faces softened into pity. None of them said anything.

  “We were taken as slaves together,” she explained. “We always helped each other. Kirshta took great pains to keep us together. We gathered favors for each other, got each other out of trouble, worked together to…” She sighed heavily. “I helped him break into the Dhigvaditya. Twice, actually.”

  “Twice?” asked Kest.

  “Once when Praudhu-daridarya was trying to reclaim it and once… afterward.” She shook her head.

  “Tell us the story,” Aryaji said. “If you want to.”

  Vapathi took a deep breath. She wanted to. She had never considered it before, but now that the offer was made she realized it would be such sweet release to unburden herself of the whole tale. Maybe they would listen and understand. Maybe they would help her. Did she want help? Or just sympathy?

  “Where do I begin?” she whispered. “When Ruyam was in the Ushpanditya?”

  “Wherever you want,” Aryaji said.

  They listened. Vapathi started at the beginning, cautious, talking about Kirshta’s covert apprenticeship with Ruyam, then the march to Virnas, then Kirshta’s desperate bid to return to the Ushpanditya. How she had waited for him in Majasravi, protecting herself, finding ways to help him when he returned. And then, after Praudhu had gone mad, and everything had started to go wrong. She flinched when she talked about the majakhadir Udagra who had bought her from the Ushpanditya, and even more when she spoke of the slavers, but there was no point in holding back. Let them know. Let them know how they had come down from the mountain hoping finally Kirshta would find them a safe place and let them rest—but no.

  “When he first took up She Who Devours,” she finished, “I thought we might use her, it, to find someplace safe and stay there. That’s all I wanted. But there’s no more hope for that. I just want to release Kirshta from her and then….”

  She didn’t finish. She didn’t know what else she could finish with. Delivering Kirshta from She Who Devours was the best she could hope for.

  “Why didn’t you tell us any of this at first?” Mandhi said. Her arms were crossed over her chest. Her tone was more pitying than angry.

  “Would you?” Vapathi shot Mandhi a look through bleary, bloodshot eyes.

  “I might have thought about the danger you put us in.”

  “Mandhi,” Aryaji said. “Be kind.”

  “You, Aryaji, are being too kind.”

  “Kindness is a quality we’ve all lacked.”

  Mandhi heaved a heavy sigh. She put a hand atop Aryaji’s.

  “But now we’re here,” Kest said, “and what’s going to happen? You know the Empress.”

  Vapathi nodded.

  “What does she want?”

  Vapathi snorted. “I don’t know. We never got along. She’s probably pursuing her grudge.”

  Kest growled.

  “I think she’s doing it outside Kirshta’s knowledge,” Aryaji said.

  “How would you know that?” Mandhi asked.

  “Kirshta let Vapathi go,” Aryaji said. “I think the Empress has taken the initiative.”

  “That doesn’t help us,” Mandhi said.

  “It might tell us where we’re going.”

  “We’ve been headed west and south,” Kest pointed out.

  “Toward Virnas,” Mandhi said. She laughed. “We might get to see Virnas again after all.”

  “I don’t know,” Vapathi said. She curled her knees against her chest. “I wish I could help you.”

  “We will help you,” Aryaji said. “We are here together, and there’s nothing to be gained by our fighting. Right, Mandhi?”

  Mandhi pursed her lips. She stared at Vapathi for too long. Vapathi lowered her eyes and hid her face behind her arms.

  “Consider this,” Kest said. “Jhumitu is safe with Hrenge on the boats. Whatever happens, the leadership of the os Dramab and the Uluriya is safe.”

  “We still have to save our own lives,” Mandhi said.

  “Yes,” Aryaji added brightly, “which should be quite simple compared to the problem of saving the rest of Amur.”

  * * *

  They saw the town when they crested a ridge at the far side of the valley. It was a gray crust of buildings atop a low, rising hill, overlooking a wide plain spotted with villages. Hazy brown dust hung over empty squares of unplanted rice paddies, now brittle with dry mud, segmented by the tiny strip of gray that was the road. A few figures could be seen on the road, creeping up to the city.

  “Is that Virnas?” Vapathi asked.

  Mandhi laughed. “No, that’s not Virnas.”

  Vapathi’s face fell. “Then what is it?”

  All of them looked at Mandhi. She sighed. “I forget none of you traveled the south. That’s certainly not Virnas—Virnas is bigger, and on much higher bluffs. No, that’s probably Rignapu.”

  “How far from Virnas?”

  “Doesn’t matter!” one of the Devoured in their escort shouted. “Because we’re not going to Virnas. That’s where the Empress is staying.”

  Vapathi pressed her lips together. In the corner of her eye she saw Mandhi’s gaze darken, and her steps slowed. The Devoured prodded them from behind.

  Hopefully she would be able to handle Basadi.

  They marched through the barren rice paddies, past empty, collapsing villages, toward the gray stone town on the opposite side of the valley. The heat of the day grew fierce, blazing in the waterless paddies, wringing beads of sweat from Vapathi’s forehead. As they approached Rignapu, they started seeing people along the road. Rail-thin, with skin drawn tight across their ribs and concave bellies. Were they Devoured yet? She almost hoped they were.

  The shade of the wall passed over them, and they went through the narrow gate in the low, slumping wall. They walked among buildings of one and two stories jumbled together in crooked lines, painted in white and yellow with gray mud brick showing through the cracks in the plaster. The interior of the city was filled with people, but there was no urgency to their movement. Starving women leaned lazily out of windows, while unhurried games of sacchu proceeded in the shadow of the doorways. These men must be Devoured. Had Kirshta been here? Or were these the remnants of his army?

  She looked back and saw Mandhi, Kest, and Aryaji walking single file with grim, curious expressions. Kest was looking for a way out. But there was nothing to see.

  They approached a long, narrow estate two stories high, with a small, shriveled garden on its south side. The majakhadir’s home, Vapathi guessed. There were no guards of any kind around it, but the Devoured were thicker here, and if Basadi were in Rignapu she would have taken this place for herself.

  The Devoured herded them through the garden and into the shaded portico. One of the Devoured shouted into the center of the house, “Empress! We have them!”

  They waited. A moment later Vapathi heard the famil
iar voice. “Bring them in.”

  The interior of the house was an indistinct shadow in contrast to the summer brightness outside. From within the gloom, Basadi’s voice called to them.

  “Queen of Slaves, dearest,” she hissed. “I thought you’d come alone.”

  “Empress,” Vapathi answered. She blinked and squinted to bring the shapes of the room into focus. “What do you want?”

  “First things first. Introduce me to your friends.”

  The room was about three yards long, and Basadi was stretched out on a divan on the far wall. A haphazard group of Devoured men and women stood around her, dressed in what might have been fine clothes once. They sat in sulky postures, arms folded and eyes half-closed, leaning on the wall and watching Vapathi and the others with indolent hostility.

  “Why should I introduce you?” Vapathi coughed. “You wanted me.”

  “I went fishing for one person and caught four. I’m curious who else has been pulled into my net.”

  “These are my friends,” Vapathi said. Her tongue caught a little on the word friends. “My allies,” she corrected herself. “Your Devoured dogs wouldn’t let them go, so I brought them with. I urge you to send them back, though.”

  “Back?” Basadi smiled viciously. “Back where?”

  “To the mouths of the Amsadhu. Let them sail away to freedom.”

  “Oh, no no no.” Basadi shook her head. “The Mouth of the Devourer wouldn’t like that, and we don’t want to make him angry. Not more angry than he’s already going to be when he finds out I’ve captured you.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Your brother instructed the Devoured to leave you alone. But I had different ideas, and many of the Devoured listen to me, now.”

  Many of the Devoured. Vapathi’s mind raced. Perhaps the Devoured were divided. Had Kirshta’s support of Basadi introduced a fissure into his own ranks? Perhaps there was a way for them to exploit this.

  “But I have you, and for now the Mouth of the Devourer gives me free rein over this part of the country. Now tell me, who are these people?”

  “No one important,” Vapathi said.

  But Aryaji spoke up. “Tell the Mouth of the Devourer we come bearing the cup for him to drink.”