Teeth of the Gods

by Sarah K. L. Wilson

  There were whispers in the halls when my tutors thought we weren’t looking. The slaves talked of nothing else since winter, and even one of the High Tazmin’s consorts, who had been visiting her daughter here, let slip that the Lesser Tazmins were making demands. After all, was not the High Tazmin the ruler of our land to protect us from such portentous omens? But what magic could he possess that would calm the earth when she was unsettled?

  Jakinda smoothed her cuirass and touched her spatha and buckler almost automatically to be sure they were still in place. Around her, the other guards followed suit.

  “Tylira,” she said, still speaking to me like a child. I gritted my teeth. “There will be no leaving here tonight. If you run away, you will only be dragged back.”

  I blinked back tears. Why did I have to cry so easily right now? I wanted to be strong and brave like mother was. My voice was small when I spoke so that it hardly sounded like it was mine. “I don’t want her to be dead.”

  “There’s nothing that can be done about that now.” Jakinda’s voice was kind.

  Behind me was a scuffling sound of feet in straw, Jakinda’s eyes narrowed and she backed away from me, bowing. Why would she...?

  I turned and nearly gasped at the man in white holding a red scroll. The bottom of his white dhoti was muddy and stained and a tiny flag was attached to his belt, sticking up above his left shoulder. Like the others, I knew the short flagpole was affixed to the back piece of his armour. The flag was black and white—the colors of the High Tazmin himself. Had he come all the way from Azaradi—the capitol? He knelt before me, holding out the scroll and my hands began to shake.

  No, I wasn’t ready. I needed time to get used to a world without my mother. I just wanted him to go away. Mother, why did you have to leave us? If you were alive you would be in Azaradi and I’d be excited at the thought of joining you there. I bit my lip. Mother was never coming home.

  “Your whole life has built toward this moment,” Jakinda murmured. “You were not made to be a harmless dove in the Silken Gardens for all time. Embrace your destiny and glory.”

  I didn’t want to embrace anything. My palms were clammy.

  I snatched the letter out of the crier’s hand. The missive was thick red paper, bound with black ribbon and sealed with black wax. The wax contained the seal of the High Tazmin, and a smaller, yellow seal of the High Tazmin’s secretary.

  It also bore the seal of Amandera Mubaru, the High Tazmin’s favorite consort. I’d give up anything short of Alsoon if only I could live the rest of my life without seeing her again. Amandera was only a few years older than me, so why did people act like she was the perfect woman and we should all kiss her feet for the privilege of being near her? I wanted to spit just thinking of it.

  I cracked the seals, giving Amandera’s a little extra force so that it fell from the paper completely. Inside, in the perfect hand of the High Tazmin’s secretary, my doom was written:

  From the Great Keeper of the Stars, the Father of Omens, the king of Heartstones... I skipped down past a dozen titles...the High Tazmin to his ninth daughter, Tylira.

  You are hereby summoned to the city of Al’Karida where General Komorodi will bring your tether for the Great Binding. You shall be bound on the cliffs of Canderabai and from there proceed to the High Tazmin’s Halls in Azaradi there to receive training.

  The Tazminera Amandera Mubaru has agreed to accompany you on your journey and shall come to collect you on the ninth day of the fifth month, the Waterlily. Proceed with all dignity.

  I skimmed the signings and farewells. They were always written the exact same way. I sat down on the stable floor. Ouch. I should have been paying better attention.

  “My binding is to be in Al’Karida,” I said.

  “So, you will get to leave the Silken Gardens, just as you hoped,” Jakinda said, with as close to smile as she ever gave.

  “But not free! I’ll be tethered to a defeated general! I’ll have to drag his sorry, beaten hulk around with me everywhere I go! Who would want that? I won’t dance with princes or flirt in the moonlight. Or, if I do it will be with a chaperone on a silver chain.”

  “Did you want to dance with princes?” Jakinda asked, a skeptical look lining her face.

  “Well, I couldn’t now if I wanted to!” I yelled, leaping up and kicking the straw around with the soft shoes I’d worn to creep across the grounds. I stubbed my toe and didn’t manage to bite back the curse that sprang to my lips.

  “Watch yourself,” Jakinda said, her frown deepening. “If you have been summoned for binding then the High Tazmin has decided you are grown up enough to be useful. Grown ladies at court do not curse. And they do not kick straw around like little children when they don’t get their way. Stop this immediately, or I’ll throw you over my shoulder and carry you up the stairs like a bag of turnips. Your mother isn’t here anymore to protect you from the consequences of your actions.”

  I stopped, gaping at Jakinda’s words. The indignity! To first be caught playing the fool, then called out, then scolded like a child. Maybe I should fight her after all! Instead, I took a deep breath, folded up the summons and turned to the messenger.

  “Thank you for your service. You may report that I have accepted the High Tazmin’s missive and will proceed as directed.”

  Why wait for an answer? They were all conspiring against my freedom. I was as trapped as my mother had been and I’d end up just as dead as she was. I turned and strode back to my rooms, my guards trailing behind me like lost puppies.

  After I was safely in my rooms I shredded all my feather pillows with my bare hands, and I imagined Jakinda’s face on every single one of them.

  Chapter Three: Ancestors

  My breath puffed in tiny clouds in the crisp morning air. Puff. Puff. I ran with the rhythm of the puffing and my feet thudded along the smooth dirt path as it weaved between decorative standing stones as high as a man and patterned by the gods. The trees were fragrant in the morning dew, and the hissupa trees were in blossom, their delicate purple blooms fluttered in the wind filling the path with a balmy smell. Occasionally, some broke loose to rain on me as I ran. When I was a small girl, I had stopped to pick one up to examine it and, as a consequence, I had been made to live in Scarcity for the rest of the week for my distracted heart.

  My belly grumbled as I ran, but I ignored it. Days in the Silken Gardens are divided into Three Arcs: Scarcity, Ambition, and Plenty. Mornings, from rising until Noon are the time of scarcity. We eat and drink nothing but water until Ambition. Would we be eating some of the honey Arnica collected today? My mouth watered at the thought, but my feet never strayed from the path. Up the next hill and then around the bend towards the bolin tree grove and I’d be done.

  Ahead of me, Sarin ran in silence. Would she stare at me if she looked back? I didn’t want to see that look she’d had in her eyes the morning Jakinda told me about Mother. Thank goodness that none of them were allowed to speak with me while I was in official mourning.

  I was meant to be pursuing clarity and calm of body and mind. Clarity! Pah! Things were clear enough. I was going to have to live life like a good little girl and do what I was told. Calm. Hah! I’d rather scream until my throat was raw. My pre-planned life as a daughter of the High Tazmin was about to begin. At best, I could hope for a few years of training and a useful role in lower government. It would all depend on how I was marked in the ceremony. Would I tally taxes for a Lesser Tazmin? Organize supply logistics for the Army? Or worse, was I on a course to marry a Lesser Tazmin and live a life identical to my sheltered boring existence in the Silken Gardens?

  My breaths were even and measured from long practice, and by instinct I matched my pace perfectly to the daughters ahead and behind me. A bird sang sweetly as we passed the koi pond. If only I could go to the stables where Alsoon must wait. Likely, he did not understand any better than I did why we couldn’t just run free. Was it really so terrible to want to bid my mother a final farewell? Was it really
so awful to want a life different from hers? I missed her short visits already. The last one was nearly a year ago. What would it be like to have your child raised away from you? Maybe I was going to find out.

  And I’d been told that I would be bound. Tethered to a failed general that my father had beaten. Could anything be more ridiculous? More horrible? The last person I remembered being summoned to a binding was Alshareen, my eldest sister. She was supposed to learn wisdom and self-control.

  The giving of a san’lelion was such a strange tradition. Our ancestors told us that we had much to learn from the hearts and minds of our enemies, and so they instituted the position. The san’lelion must be a general beaten in battle. He must be ready to teach wisdom. Tradition held that only the most difficult of the High Tazmin’s children were bound to a san’lelion – a last ditch effort to drill self-control and mindfulness into them.

  My san’lelion would report on my actions and decisions to my father. How would he feel about a wild girl who loved an elephant more than any person alive? He would advise me, and remain with me until the High Tazmin deemed me wise enough to no longer need the advice of a san’lelion. What would I have to do to make that happen quickly? Why had I never asked my tutors that? Maybe I should ask Jakinda.

  Once I was bound, I would never be alone again. Not to eat or sleep or bathe. Intolerable! My feet pounded harder than ever against the unforgiving earth.

  All the routines of the Silken Gardens felt empty today and my emotions boiled and raged under the surface. Why didn’t everyone else care about mother like I did? I fought more viciously than usual in our hand-to-hand routines so that I accidentally slipped under my sister Sarin’s block and she cried out in pain. I bowed my apology, but she turned her head away without an answering bow. Larissa and Katchemon tsked and shook their heads. I couldn’t help but remember them saying to me, ‘Your mother is the High Tazmin’s least favorite consort. You have no siblings because he didn’t like your mother enough to go back to her. It will be the same thing when you are given to a Lesser Tazmin, Tylira.’ I felt sick at the memory. How could my mother help being the least favorite? Surely someone had to be. It could have just as easily been one of their mothers. Had she been sent away to her death because the High Tazmin liked her least?

  Our peaceful life here was like a cracked glaze over a porcelain dish, where every moment seemed to be chipping away at my normal life. I splashed the cool water over my body as we bathed together in the river after sparring but all I could think of as the water flowed over me was my mother’s blood flowing away. The water washed away the sweat and weariness but none of the grief.

  Once I was bound I would not bathe without a silver chain getting in the way and someone watching, watching, always watching. Would he understand what it meant to lose someone? Sarin’s foot slipped and she muddied my clothing lying on the river bank with her feet. The sly smile she gave told me it was no mistake. I couldn’t even get angry. Anger was too far away to reach.

  Our meditations began, the last thing in Scarcity before Ambition. I sat in the lotus position, adjusting my legs until I was sitting correctly with my back to the ring of my sisters, who were doing the same. Our tutor watched us all from the center of the pagoda. Why did we sit outdoors? It was harder to concentrate with bugs and breezes tickling the ears. I removed my heartstone from my forehead where it always rested and held it in my palm. It felt heavier than normal. Everything felt heavier.

  Tanesha was sitting at my right. Her heartstone flashed the gorgeous clear fuchsia that it always did as she brought it down. Mine was cloudy and unformed as it had been since the day I received it. It was never going to flash to life and clear like all the others. I shifted in my lotus position. Ouch! A flick of my tutor’s switch reminded me to be still.

  I eased myself into meditation and then, like it always did, the world blurred and shifted to somewhere else. Standing in front of me was a cluster of women wearing outdated clothing and hairstyles.

  “Are you still moping over that silly stone?” Nana Olimpia asked. “We’ve told you a thousand times that until you learn to control your link to the Common, your stone will remain clouded.”

  “Why bother telling her at all? She doesn’t work nearly hard enough,” Oma Evereed said. She was my grandmother—or had been when she was alive.

  Could these women really have all been my ancestors? And would I be destined to join the Common and spend eternities berating my descendants for never living up? If that was the after-life, they could count me out. I didn’t ever want to be this cranky. They were supposed to be training and directing me when I meditated from directly within my consciousness—or so everyone said. Maybe they were there just to annoy the life out of me.

  “I can talk to Alsoon,” I said, hopefully.

  “You could talk to Alsoon from the beginning. The first of your generation to grasp that skill,” Oma Everdeen said. “We were so proud. And then...fsst!” She snapped her fingers. “Out like a candle. Never another spark of magic in you. Meanwhile, your sisters can light candles, send messages to dreamers, sense disease and decay. Last week Sarin even erected a small shield of air to protect herself.”

  “Should have erected one this morning,” I muttered.

  “Don’t think we didn’t hear about that!” Ada Betina said. She was the oldest of the ancestors who chose to speak to me. Only these three still bothered. The rest focussed on my more talented sisters.

  “If I’m not making any progress, then maybe it’s your fault! Aren’t you supposed to teach me?”

  “Teach you manners? Yes, we’ve failed there,” Oma Evereed said with a sniff. All of them looked so much the same and sounded so much alike. Did dying destroy anything unique about you?

  Nana Olimpia sighed. “We’ve been teaching you everything you need to know, Tylira. You just aren’t doing it. If you focussed...”

  “I do focus!”

  “If you tried to control yourself just a little more—”

  “I can’t control myself any more than I already am! I have tried and tried!”

  Nana Olimpia sighed again, this time louder. She threw her hands up like she was done with me.

  “What got in the way?” Oma Evereed asked. She was the harshest of the three, but sometimes the most willing to listen.

  “I’ve been summoned for the Binding and then to the courts of the High Tazmin,” I said.

  “You aren’t ready,” Nana Olimpia said, crossing her arms. Usually she was the most compassionate, but not today.

  “I know that!” I said, “Don’t you think I know that? Now, please. Help me try again.”

  “It’s too late,” Nana Olimpia said, and as she shook her head she disappeared from my meditation.

  My mouth dropped open. Another ancestor had given up on me? Today? When I desperately needed to finally find my true connection to the source? Tears spilled from my eyes.

  “Quitter,” Ada Betina said. “Quiet yourself, Tylira. You were named Daughter of the Stars at your birth, and like all the daughters of the stars—you and your sisters—you will find your connection with the Common and your powers. You must be patient. And you must develop self-control.”

  “Your sisters have found these things in the rigorous discipline taught here at the Silken Gardens,” Oma Evereed said.

  “But that clearly is not working for her,” Ada Betina said to Oma. “Maybe leaving this place will do her some good. Maybe the Binding, harsh as it is, will help her to focus. Some souls don’t fly well when they are caged. Some people learn better in life than in study. I still have hope for her.”

  I started to smile.

  “Have you ever seen anyone who learned their connection outside of study?” Oma Evereed asked.

  “No,” Ada Betina admitted.

  My smile dissolved.

  “But Tylira might surprise us. We will see.”

  “Surprise us, Tylira,” Oma Evereed said, in her sternest tones. “If you don’t...well, you won’t ge
t to keep that stone forever.”

  My head buzzed like it was full of bees. Wouldn’t it be nice to live a life without ancestors or Bindings or meditations? Didn’t they realize that I was trying? I just couldn’t sense how things worked and effortlessly tap into the Common and help them along by instinct the way my sisters did.

  “Will you choose her, Oma Everdeen?” Ada Betina asked. “You can only choose one from this generation.”

  Oma sighed. “Perhaps one of the older ancestors will consider her. I don’t want to waste what I have left.”

  Great. Even when they were being cryptic they were giving up on me.

  A chime sounded the end of meditation and I came back to the living world and opened my eyes. In front of me was a pair of perfect golden platform shoes, wrapped around delicate feet. No. Please, no.

  The woman in them was wearing a dress so fine that she could have been married in it if she were anyone else. When she wed the High Tazmin she had worn a dress longer than four elephants and the celebrations had lasted a week. Bards had written songs about it. Anyone but her. Please!

  “Stand up, Tylira and let me look at you,” Tazminera Amandera Mubaru said.

  If I pushed her into the bushes ringing the pagoda, what would she do? Would she twist her ankles in those ridiculous shoes? I rose with all the dignity I could muster. I would act a queen, just like she did. I would make her respect me.

  “I see your heartstone is still clouded,” she said with a twist of her lips like she was tasting lemons.

  “It’s still purer than your real heart,” I said before I could stop myself.

  Chapter Four: Waiting

  If I could just learn to watch my tongue then I wouldn’t get into these jams. I wouldn’t have to spend the day sent to Scarcity or punished with slave work. At least Old Calan assigned me to the stables. The fecund smell filled the air and I was already breathing heavily as I mucked stalls and carted away the refuse. If only they’d sent anyone but Amandera to bring me to Al’Karida. Sweet Penspray, but that woman got right up my neck. Would I have to wait until I was married to go where I pleased and do what I liked like Amandera did? She’d always outrank me. I couldn’t possibly marry higher than my own father.