Fire of Ages (The Powers of Amur Book 6)

by J. S. Bangs

  Jhumitu wrapped his arms around Mandhi’s neck and cried, “Mama!” She covered her son’s face with kisses, then set him on his feet. He wrapped his arms around Mandhi’s waist. Hrenge put a hand on Mandhi’s wrist.

  “Kest?” she asked.

  Mandhi fumbled with the few Kaleksha words she knew. “Here,” she said, pointing into the city. “Coming.”

  The men on the shore were frantically loading a number of other rowboats. The man who had rowed Mandhi over directed the crew to prepare the sails and pull up the anchor, and the deck of the dhow scrambled into action as frantic as that on the docks. Mandhi looked around: none of the other ships in the harbor seemed to be anywhere close to casting off.

  Another familiar face pushed itself through the chaos. Kidri, Nakhur’s wife and Aryaji’s aunt.

  “Mandhi?” she cried. “Where are Nakhur and Aryaji?”

  Mandhi’s throat tightened. She clasped Kidri’s hand. “They aren’t coming,” she said.

  “Not coming? I don’t….” But she couldn’t finish. Her eyes became watery with tears. She collapsed onto the deck and hid her face behind her arms.

  Mandhi wrapped the Uluriya woman in an embrace. “They are heroes,” she whispered in her ear. She pressed her cheek against Kidri’s and tasted her salty tears. “You will see how brightly Ulaur makes them burn in the heavens.”

  But a bellow of fear and urgency distracted her. She looked up. The sailors pointed at the shore.

  “They are coming,” one said.

  The Devoured poured through the streets of Uskhanda, and the defenders fled before them.

  Daladham

  Come Kushma, come destroyer.

  Daladham chanted the words over and over, his chest vibrating with the hum and the drone. Time slipped by. He had no idea how many hours had passed, how many times he had repeated the chants, how much incense had burned. The chamber they had dedicated for the sacrifice was hazy with smoke. The lamps dimmed. The floor trembled. The Powers listened.

  The moment came when Navran would bleed the ram. He repeated the hymn. The blood came out steaming and dribbled into the sacrificial bowl. Navran mingled the blood with the water and the milk in a silver vessel.

  Come Kushma, come destroyer.

  Navran sipped the tincture. His eyes grew wide, and for a moment it seemed to Daladham that the whole chamber grew dark, save a ghastly light which emanated from the blessed tincture. Navran set the bowl atop the altar.

  And he collapsed to the ground.

  Bhudman fell silent. Daladham stopped chanting. They both stared. The slow dripping of the ram’s blood into the bowl beneath the altar was the only sound.

  “What do we do?” Bhudman asked.

  “We… I don’t know.”

  Bhudman stepped forward and looked into the bowl that held the tincture. He reached out and touched it.

  “It’s hot.”

  “Don’t drink it,” Daladham said. He crawled forward and put a hand on Navran’s forehead then felt his neck. “He is alive. He breathes normally.”

  “Then what?”

  Daladham drew away. “Make him comfortable. He speaks for us with the Powers.”

  He tugged on Navran’s legs to arrange the man before the altar, and Bhudman brought a cushion from the side of the room and set it beneath Navran’s head. Then he and Bhudman stepped back and watched.

  Bhudman looked at Navran and then at the bowl, and the ram whose blood slowly drained out and dripped down the channel cut into the rock.

  A line from the Uluriya book came to Daladham’s mind. He whispered, “But Manjur remembered the worship of Ulaur, and he went up to mountaintop and offered the sacrifice of blood and milk, and Ulaur came to him.”

  Bhudman trembled. “And Ulaur said, ‘Arise and make sacrifice, most pure of the kings of men, and by your hand I small smite the serpent with the iron of heaven. Be not afraid, for the earth and the seas and the sky will shake, and mankind will perish from the face of the earth, but not utterly, for you and your children shall be spared.’”

  They were both silent. “Will we be spared?” Daladham asked. “I am not one of Manjur’s children.”

  “We can only hope.”

  They sat down on either side of the still Navran. He was as silent as a corpse, with no twitch of movement in his arms or legs. If it weren’t for the slow, shallow rise and fall of his chest Daladham would have taken him for dead.

  Bhudman began to chant a long, slow song, as soft and gentle as a lullaby. Daladham didn’t recognize it, and he couldn’t quite make out the words. The tune rose and fell with slow, ponderous movements, like the shoulders of hills rising from the sea and sinking back again, the words stretched out over the long turns of the melody like thread across a loom. The tune filled the silence of the room to its edges.

  The incense in the bowl ended. Daladham added another pinch to the coals, and the sweet, heavy smoke billowed up in white curls.

  There was shouting in the hallway.

  Daladham glanced at Bhudman. Bhudman’s eyes opened, but he didn’t move, nor did his song falter.

  Feet pounding on stone halls. Screams of agony. Daladham didn’t stir. His eyes darted to the heavy curtain over the doorway.

  Grinding and pounding. A sharp voice giving orders. The curtain over the door parted.

  Bidhra entered the room with the crunch of boots on the stone floor. His face was splattered with blood that shone black in the dim lamplight of the sacrificial chamber, and he carried a bronze sword in his fist. The sword trembled slightly. He took in the scene with a glance, Bhudman and Daladham sitting next to the motionless Navran, the bleeding ram still atop the altar with its blood in the silver bowl.

  His voice dropped to a whisper. “What happened here? Did we—”

  “The sacrifice is complete,” Daladham said. He approached the king with a bow. “Navran-dar tasted the sacred tincture. And when he did so, he fell into a trance and has not woken.”

  “So we are doomed,” Bidhra whispered. His eyes sunk, and his jaw slackened into an expression of despair.

  “Perhaps not, Bidhra-dar. He speaks with the Powers. He is not dead, and Kushma Ulaur has not rejected the sacrifice.”

  “Well.” The king looked at Bhudman, who was still chanting softly. The volume of the king’s voice dropped even lower. “They drove us off the walls. The inner city is lost. Me and a few others made it to the palace. We have barricaded the doors to this hall. We may hold them off for a little while.”

  Dread stirred in Daladham’s stomach, and his hands felt cold. “The ships?”

  “Most have set sail already. As the Devoured came over the wall, men fell back toward the docks. There was fighting for the last spots. My men and I kept a little discipline, retreated into the palace. But listen…”

  He bowed his head and gripped Daladham by his shoulder. He gave Daladham a serious, grim glare.

  “There is no way we will reach the docks from here. The whole inner city is filled with the Devoured. And I doubt there are any boats left.”

  Daladham glanced at Navran. He put his hand over his face.

  “Now promise me, Daladham-dhu,” Bidhra said. “If we defend this place to the last, if we give Navran enough time… will he do it?”

  “He has tasted the tincture,” Daladham said. “He must. He knows what he has to do.”

  Bidhra nodded. “You and Bhudman stay here with him. Me and my men will hold the door. How much time do you need?”

  “I don’t know. As much as you can give us.”

  Bidhra’s hand tightened around the sword at his waist. “It may not be long.”

  “As long as you can.”

  Bhudman’s song cut off, and he looked up at the desperate king. “The stars upon you,” he said. “The Heir of Manjur knows his duty. We wait for the light of heaven.”

  Vapathi

  Vapathi hurtled down the stairs as fast as her feet would carry her. The passage was dark. She had no lamp. Her foot throbbed w
here the serpent had bitten her.

  At the bottom of the stairs her feet splashed into a warm, muddy puddle as deep as her ankles. There was no light here either, but far ahead a yellow glow reflected on the surface of the walls. She stumbled toward it.

  The liquid around her ankles was warm and sticky, clinging to her skin and the hem of her sari. The ground underfoot was a sucking mire. Her feet struck fleshy limbs and bony edges as she struggled forward.

  The arms and legs of the dead, she realized.

  The tunnel was ankle-deep with their blood.

  Behind her, she heard a shriek, and for a moment the stones glowed with reflected light from the opened door above. A cackle that sounded like Basadi. Vapathi quickened her pace. Get to Kirshta before the Empress.

  She clutched the jar with the sacred tincture to her chest. The blood and muck on the floor of the Ruin sucked at her feet. The stench of rot, organs, and decay was overwhelming. A hoarse murmur sounded in the passage ahead of her.

  When she reached the altar, she stopped. For a moment she could not speak.

  The stone altar was completely covered with blood. The dead body of one of the captured Uluriya lay atop it, its throat slashed, its body split open from chest to navel by a long knife wound. Blood dripped down the sides of the altar and into the red pool which surrounded the stone, dribbling away into the mire of blood. Bodies were stacked against the walls in grisly heaps, dead faces smeared with blood, organs sliding out of them into reeking piles. Two of the Devoured lifted the body off of the altar and carried it down one of the side passages. Two more stood as silent attendants flanking the altar.

  “Kirshta,” Vapathi said.

  He stood before the altar. His arms were red with gore up to his shoulders, his face smeared with blood, his garment dripping with the spray of hundreds of sacrifices. At hearing his name, he turned slowly and stared at Vapathi. The flickering light of the lamps glittered in the shining blood on his face.

  “Sister,” he rasped. “You’re here.”

  “I’m here to help you, Kirshta.”

  He blinked. “You say that word. Why do you say that word?”

  “It is your name. I want to deliver you.”

  He was quiet for a while, staring at Vapathi with his eyes wide, no sign of comprehension on his face. Then his gaze slipped past Vapathi and he looked down the passage. “The Empress brings me the next sacrifice. It is nearly done. Her garment is nearly full-knit.” He motioned to the blood and the bodies.

  “Listen to me.” She loosened the stopper on the top of the jar. “I’m sorry, but I’m going to hurt you. I want you to stop, Kirshta.”

  “You keep saying that word which was once my name. Don’t you know it’s been entirely eaten?”

  Vapathi’s heart twisted. “Not entirely,” she whispered. “I remember it. She Who Devours cannot eat the memory of you which I carry.”

  He stared at Vapathi for a while, his eyes as cold and mindless as a viper’s, and he slowly shook his head. “I have woven the garment of flesh for She Who Devours. When she walks the earth again, none of this will matter. Even now, she begins to stir.”

  He waved his arm toward the piles of bloody bodies around the altar. Vapathi choked on a scream. The flesh began to move. Not individually, but as a mass, as if the bodies were linked together as the joints of a single monstrous limb. The blood stirred and bubbled around her feet. A grotesque rasp sounded, the beginning of a word, dribbling out of the dead tongues of Kirshta’s victims.

  “No,” Vapathi said. She opened the jar. Kirshta looked at her curiously.

  She cupped her hand, poured a little of the tincture into her palm, and flung it at him.

  The liquid hissed where it touched his face. He howled and leaped back, then he spun and crouched behind the altar. A scream like a raven’s caw gurgled from his mouth.

  “Grab her,” a new voice said.

  Vapathi whirled. Basadi stood there, and a Devoured man held a struggling Aryaji beside her. Hands suddenly grabbed Vapathi from behind—the Devoured at the altar, heeding the command of the Empress. Vapathi kicked and twisted, but the Devoured dragged her back.

  “Keep her behind the altar,” Basadi commanded. “Let her watch as the Mouth of the Devourer finishes what he has planned.”

  The Devoured guards pinned Vapathi to the wall behind the altar. She clutched the jar to her chest. They didn’t attempt to take it from her. Perhaps they didn’t realize what it was, or perhaps their minds were too dulled to act without an explicit order.

  Basadi bowed to Kirshta. “I have brought you your next sacrifice, Mouth of the Devourer. Put her on the altar.”

  The Devoured man pulled the small, whimpering figure forward. Aryaji.

  Kirshta rose. “Yes,” he said, his voice suddenly greedy and alive. “Yes, this one. She is close to the Powers. She may be the last one we need. Thank you, my Empress.”

  Aryaji screamed and thrashed, but the Devoured man holding her was large and strong. He pulled her forward and dropped her onto the altar. Basadi grabbed the girl’s wrists while the Devoured man grabbed her ankles.

  “Vapathi!” Aryaji shrieked. “Help me!”

  Vapathi kicked, but strong, implacable arms pinned her shoulders to the wall. “Aryaji,” she whispered. “I’m sorry.”

  Kirshta picked up a bloody knife from atop the table. Aryaji screamed.

  The knife cut her throat.

  Her scream ended in a gurgle. The knife turned down and traced across the top of her breastbone, then split the flesh between her lungs and tore through her stomach and belly.

  Vapathi sobbed. Aryaji’s mouth stood open, a silent scream stilled there. Her eyes were glassy and lifeless.

  Basadi laughed. She let go of Aryaji’s limp wrist and turned to Vapathi. “And now you’re the last of them. What do you think you’ll do?”

  Vapathi’s blood boiled. She struggled to escape again, but the Devoured pushed her back.

  “I might get your brother to sacrifice you next,” Basadi said. “He’d do it, too. For all that he loved you, that part of him is eaten now.”

  “And you?” Vapathi said. Her hands undid the stopper on the jar. “How long until you are eaten?”

  “She Who Devours rises in her garment of flesh. Don’t you see?” The bodies around the room convulsed. Aryaji atop the altar twitched. “Everyone joins her. They give her their names, or they are knitted into her body. She is everyone, and when everyone is a part of her, everyone will be free.”

  Vapathi spilled a little of the tincture onto her fingers and wet both of her hands. And then she moved.

  She swiped her dripping fingers across both of the Devoured holding her. They reacted as if touched with a brand, leaping back and snarling like injured dogs. She reached forward. Her fingers brushed Basadi’s cheek.

  The Empress shrieked and stepped back. She began to gibber, strange threats spilling out of her mouth, but Vapathi ignored her.

  “Kirshta,” she said. “Brother.”

  He looked at her. There was no expression on his face, no hint of humanity in his eyes. But when she put her hand on his shoulder he stiffened in pain.

  “Drink,” she said.

  She pressed the jar against his lips.

  His eyes grew wide, and for a moment he struggled. Vapathi grabbed his hair and pulled his head back, jamming the lid of the jar between his teeth. The tincture poured out, dribbling from the corner of his mouth, hissing as it ran across his skin. He twitched and swatted at her. But he was weak, his body on the brink of death.

  She tipped up the jar. He swallowed. The last of it ran into his mouth. He swallowed again.

  “You bitch,” Basadi said behind her. “I will put you on this altar now. I—”

  She fell silent.

  Kirshta had fallen to his knees. He was gasping. His breath came heavy and fast, and a little whimper escaped his mouth. He knelt with his head hanging, choking for air. His body convulsed.

  And then he began to v
omit.

  A black bile poured from his mouth, the same bile that consumed those whom She Who Devours killed, the bile Vapathi had seen once under her own nails. Oily, putrid, rotting.

  Gallons of it. An impossible amount, more than any human could possibly contain within them. It poured from his mouth like water from a broken jar, splashing into the blood around the altar. The blood bubbled and hissed as it mingled with the black liquid, angry shapes forming in the froth. A moan sounded from the mouths of the dead.

  Basadi and the other Devoured were motionless as statues. The bile continued to pour out of his mouth. Vapathi watched. Her stomach churned with revulsion. The stench made her vision swim. She covered her mouth.

  Kirshta coughed. He closed his mouth. He spat the last of the black from his lips.

  “My name,” Basadi said. She put her hand over her chest, her eyes lit with surprise and horror. “My name is…” She fell to her knees in the bloody mire. “Basadi.”

  She collapsed forward and didn’t stir.

  “My name in Amitu,” one of the Devoured said. And he fell.

  “Sujaur.”

  “Thikritu.”

  Every one of them crumpled to the ground.

  Kirshta stirred in the muck. Vapathi knelt next to him. She turned him onto his back, cradled his head on her knees.

  “Kirshta,” she said. “Kirshta, are you there?”

  He opened his eyes. She wiped his face clean of the bile and the blood. His eyes—he saw her, they were alive, they winced with pain and confusion, they blinked away tears.

  He lifted a hand and touched Vapathi’s face. “Sister,” he said.

  “Kirshta, brother. Say my name.”

  A tiny light of joy appeared in the depths of his pain. Blood began to leak from the stitches on his neck and face. Living red human blood, not the black oil of the Devourer. His own blood.

  “Vapathi,” he whispered.