The Skyfall Era Trilogy: Books 1-3

by Matt Larkin

  But Landi did owe her, more than she liked to owe anyone. She would have drowned if the dragon hadn’t found her after … Rangda. She brushed her hair from her face and trudged down the beach. Tioman had said the city was near. If she followed the beach, she’d find Daha sooner or later. And Ben. She had to find him. If nothing else, she was sure of that much.

  She glanced again at the Sun Brand. Despite walking in the sunlight for half a phase, it did not glitter. Had the spirit taken that from her when it fled her body? The spirit of the sea had ridden her like a ship … The Queen of the South Sea. Nyai Loro Kidul. The pain started again, this time forming behind her eyes, inviting dizziness in its wake.

  Her legs ached, too. She’d spent too much time cramped up and recovering from her injuries. Injuries that should have killed her—would have killed most people. But in regaining her strength, she’d lost her endurance. And something more, if the Sun Brand never recharged. If it had become only a tattoo, empty of its power, was she still Arun Guard at all? Did the power that had once made her like a war god among common soldiers make her Arun Guard, or was it something else? Perhaps she was still Arun Guard, and if so, still First of the Arun Guard. In all her studies, she’d never heard of anyone losing the Sun Brand, but then, she’d never heard of women turning into mermaids, either. At least not in stories she’d taken seriously.

  Water fell on her head, and she glanced up at the sky. The rainy season had come again. And she’d only just begun to dry out. Her clothes were torn and ragged, but she couldn’t well remove them and stroll into town naked. Tioman had given her this sword and couldn’t bother getting her new clothes? Of course, Landi had no idea where the dragon had gotten hold of such a blade in the first place.

  She ran her fingers along it. This was Ken Arok’s sword, as Tioman had claimed. The glorious keris he’d led the Solar Empire to countless victories with, the representation of the honor and wrath of the greatest emperor in memory. He’d been murdered with it, so everyone had thought it lost. The Arun Guard had speculated, right after the war ended, that Lunars might have the sword, but it never turned up. Some said the sword carried in it the power of Surya himself. Now, Landi knew better. It was not Surya’s power in this blade, but Tioman’s. She had taught Mpu Gandring how to forge it, had infused it with her own blood in the hopes the Solars would win the war. All so that they might be united against the Witch-Queen.

  Though her arm had grown tired from carrying the blade, she did feel power. She felt strength beneath the fatigue. The strength to avenge the wrongs done to her. To make herself again worthy of the title of First, even if the Sun Brand was lost to her. And if it was, perhaps she would hunt down whichever spirit was responsible and show them the power of this keris.

  And who was responsible? Loro, for possessing her, or Rangda for driving the other spirit out like that? Or maybe they were both dead, already. The memories were leaking through, at last. Being here, it was pulling them free. Landi stumbled, clutching her head.

  It had all been like a dream. She’d felt Loro there, crawling through her mind, crawling through her soul, while Landi watched her body doing things on its own. It was power and terror and awe wrapped in a moment, then washed away like … like a dream. It was the only way to think of what had happened to her. What had been done to her, even had she volunteered for it.

  In the distance, Daha rose up. But the pain in her head was so great, she hadn’t seen these three men approaching. One caught her as she stumbled again.

  “Are you well, my lady?” the man asked. They all wore black-and-crimson bajus, the uniforms of the king of Daha. Kertajaya’s men.

  “Take me to King Kertajaya,” she said.

  One of the others scoffed. “He’s no king, anymore. And friends of his are not welcome here.”

  Landi pushed away from the man holding her, suddenly aware he was looking through the holes in her baju. Leering at her. And Kertajaya was no longer king here?

  “Surya!” one of the others behind her said. “She’s Arun Guard, look at that tattoo.”

  “It’s not glittering now. She’s out of sunlight.”

  “Then we’d best get her inside before she recharges it, huh?” the man who had caught her said. “Rangguwani will want to see her.”

  Landi shook her head, backing away and raising the keris. “I’m not going anywhere with you. Who is Rangguwani?”

  The man in the front snickered. “Without your Sun Brand you’re just another woman. What do you think you can do, girl? Cooperate and it’ll be easier on you.”

  He reached for her.

  Landi caught his wrist and swept his legs out from under him. The man toppled to the sand while his companions shouted at her, drawing their own blades. One swung at her. She parried, then turned to back kick the other man. Her foot impacted his chest and sent him sprawling, gasping for air. Another parry, and she twisted around behind her attacker, sliding her keris up through his armpit. The blade sank in easily, and the man dropped in an instant.

  “Sweet Chandra,” the man she’d tripped swore, scrambling away from her.

  Chandra? The man was a Lunar. Working with two Solars.

  And they’d attacked her! She took a step toward the fleeing man, then hesitated, taking in his fallen allies. Two Solars, and she’d just killed one. Killed him for trying to take her to his king. She’d murdered one of her people for doing his job.

  What was wrong with her? Had Loro done something to her, stolen her humanity when she fled?

  Landi ran from the men on the beach, ran away from the city. She needed to know what was going on before she could face this Rangguwani, or anyone else. She’d never been so quick to kill, never in anger before. Now, it had felt so natural. A rage had taken her, an anger she couldn’t believe was her own.

  And what if it wasn’t? She paused, hiding behind a hill. Tioman had said this sword had power. She had claimed it was infused with her soul, and thus with the dragon’s grief and rage. Landi leaned against the rock, panting.

  If the sword bore such a curse she should cast it aside. But Tioman had said she would need it, and neither did Landi dare leave this for someone else to find. Besides, she was going to need an edge if she’d lost the Sun Brand.

  Because she was going to find Ben, wherever he was. Surya help anyone who got in her way.

  CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED FIFTY-EIGHT

  Night had fallen when Naresh Strode into Kertajaya’s cave. The fallen king’s guard started at his approach, leaping up from the rock he’d been sitting on and reaching for an arbir.

  “Peace,” Naresh said, hoping this wasn’t one of the men he’d disabled on his last visit. The man’s glower told him he was. “I’m here to see Pak Kertajaya with urgent news.” Still the man hesitated, keeping his arbir out before him. Naresh looked down at the polearm, then back up at the guard. “You know I’m going to get past you either way.”

  The man sneered, but lowered the arbir’s head and waved Naresh on with it. From the looks of things, Kertajaya had a few more guards set up down here, but still nothing that would stand against Rangguwani if the man learned of this place. A couple of Macan Gadungan would tear through these narrow confines like a flash flood through a canyon, sweeping away these fledgling defenses with almost no effort.

  This time, Naresh found Kertajaya in the underground complex’s makeshift mess hall, a large cavern with a cook fire in the back, and several tarps spread out in place of tables. The man had once eaten in a hearty feast hall, savoring delicacies from around the Skyfall Isles. Now he seemed to make do with boiled vegetables. From the smell, they must have few spices left to season the food with.

  Naresh knelt beside Kertajaya, who licked his fingers clean after finishing the mushroom he was eating. “So, Pak Naresh,” the man said. “Can I offer you some of my famous hospitality?”

  “Tell me about Dewi Kadita.”

  Kertajaya shrugged and picked at a root in his bowl. “The name sounds familiar.” He waved at one of
his men—a boy really—and he hurried over with a goblet of water. After a swig, Kertajaya turned back to Naresh. “One of the harem girls, wasn’t it? Pak Naresh, you should have seen that harem. Beautiful women from all over the Isles, beyond even. There was a girl from Au Lac with skin so smooth—”

  “I’m not interested in your sexual extravagancies,” Naresh said. “Or the debaucheries of your palace.”

  “How dare you?” Kertajaya glanced at his men nearby, who stirred, fingering swords and knives.

  Naresh clenched his fists and leaned forward. “You think any man here, or even all of them, could stand against me, Pak Kertajaya? Tell me about Dewi Kadita.”

  The king scowled, but waved away his men. “The girl got sick. We sent her away. After that I don’t know.”

  Nor did he care, Naresh suspected. But it confirmed her story, and she’d confirmed his.

  “Why the interest in a former harem girl?”

  Naresh glanced at the bowl. Hungry as he was, even bland vegetables had started to look good. He sat all the way down, folding his legs beneath him. “I suppose I’ll take you up on the offer of hospitality.”

  Kertajaya snorted, then waved to the boy again, who ran off to fill another bowl from the cook pot. The boy set it before Naresh. The vegetables—carrots, mushrooms, roots, and tubers—looked hot, if nothing else. Naresh grabbed a carrot, almost burning his fingers, before tossing it in his mouth.

  “I have a doubt about Ken Arok,” he said.

  “You’ve seen the keris, then?”

  “Yes.”

  “Can you get it for me? With that sword I could—”

  Naresh shook his head. “It’s gone.” And the world was probably better for it. “Rangguwani threw the sword into the sea. After killing the Spice King with it.”

  Kertajaya stroked his graying mustache with a faraway look on his face. “So … one contender has fallen.”

  “All contenders have fallen. Rangguwani controls the Skyfall Isles. He rules his Skyfall Empire in totality now. You’d be a fool to try to rise against him at this point.”

  A shadow fell over the fallen king’s face and he leaned forward. “Watch your tone. I am still the rightful king of this island. And Rangguwani may not have the Isles as secured as you think. Word came this morning of an invasion of Swarnadvipa, the Lunar’s very homeland. I rather expect him to be quite distracted by it. And when he diverts his attention, we have the chance to strike and unite the people under us.”

  Well that was news. Naresh set a mushroom back in the bowl. “An invasion from where?” No foreign power had attempted to invade the Skyfall Isles in centuries. Between the Arun Guard and the Moon Scions, foreigners would find these Isles far too difficult to hold.

  “Malayadvipa. The Witch-Queen there has been slowly securing the rest of the South Sea for years. It seems now she thinks she can take the Isles.”

  Witches. Wonderful. “The Jadian will likely repel the invasion.”

  “Yes. Perhaps they will. But Rangguwani will have to act. If not out of loyalty to his homeland, he has to protect the citizens of his empire.”

  Naresh sat eating for a moment. Yes, the food was bland. But cold and hungry as he’d been, anything would have been welcome. Even bland mushrooms. “It means Rangguwani is likely to be more receptive to peace entreaties, now, too. If you offer to join him, support him, maybe he’ll make you a subject king.”

  Kertajaya sneered. “You mean the way Ken Arok did.”

  Yes, that was exactly what Naresh meant, though he didn’t think he’d need to explain that, nor did he bother to answer. Ken Arok had known it was easier to set Kertajaya up as a monarch on another island so he could focus on the Lunars. Maybe Rangguwani would allow Kertajaya to retain some authority here or elsewhere. It was likely the best Naresh could do for him. He did owe him some loyalty, after all, since he was the rightful heir to the Solar Empire. Still, the man was an ass.

  “I am the rightful Ratu Adil, I will not bow before this Lunar.”

  “As near as I can tell,” Naresh said, “one becomes the Ratu Adil not through right, but through conquest. You failed at that. Maybe I can serve as a mediator between you, try to get him to allow you rulership over another island. The Spice Islands just lost their king, maybe—”

  “No. We can strike now, while the man is distracted. He won’t have had time to take the Astral Temple, yet, true?”

  Naresh grunted. Tohjaya had just fallen, so Rangguwani had probably not secured the other king’s seat of power yet. Though he’d certainly send someone there. The Astral Temple wasn’t just a weapon, it was a symbol.

  “If I took that place as my own, I could rule from there.”

  Naresh shook his head. “You might take it, but you couldn’t hold it. You don’t have enough men to defend the Temple against Rangguwani.”

  Kertajaya’s smirk, in the dim firelight, made him look like a fiend from Rangda’s underworld. “I have more support than these men hiding here, Pak Naresh. And I have you. Who could stand against the mighty Naresh, the Arun Guard?”

  “Rangguwani has an Arun Guard, too.” Lembu Ampal had sworn to serve the man, for good or ill. Naresh doubted the big man would be swayed from it. He’d taken leaving Tohjaya hard enough as it was. Lem just seemed to want someone, anyone to believe in.

  “Can you beat him?”

  Could he? Maybe. He’d fought Lem in their days as potentials and defeated him. But it didn’t matter, anyway. “You don’t expect me to fight one of my brothers? We two are the last of the Arun Guard. It would take more than your ambition to get me to raise a blade against Lembu Ampal.”

  Kertajaya rose and walked down the tunnel, beckoning Naresh to follow. He did, after taking one last bite of carrot. “Why did you come here, Guardsman?” Kertajaya asked as they trod down the tunnel. “Why come to bring me any news, if not for some loyalty to me, to my cause?”

  It was a fair question, though Naresh had no good answer. Maybe he was like Lembu Ampal—searching for something to believe in. He’d lost Chandi. He’d left her alone to face her darkness, even as he’d had to fight through his. And he had fought through it. He had to believe he had. It was still there, in him, that terrible urge toward violence. A need to destroy. Maybe Chandi could face her own darkness, maybe she could find herself as he had done, left alone with no choice but to see himself. Of course, Semar had been there to help him. And even now, Naresh thought to run back to the priest, as if the man had all the answers to life.

  Perhaps Chandi had done that once, too, in Kasusthali. She’d blamed the Igni for so much, blamed him for the fall of the city and the deaths of a quarter million people. But truth was never so simple, and there was more than enough blame to go around.

  “You helped me see through a lie I had believed for years,” Naresh said at last. A lie of the glory of Ken Arok, the supposed great emperor. Because the corruption of the Solar Empire had begun long before. His brilliant, shining empire that had ruled for so many centuries had been rotting from the top down. “I suppose I felt I should at least tell you I believed you.”

  Kertajaya paused at a curtain hung across one tunnel, then pushed it aside. It opened up into another cavern, this one filled with women, children, and the elderly.

  “Surya’s glare,” Naresh whispered. “What are these people doing here?”

  “They had nowhere else to go. Their husbands, fathers, brothers, and daughters are ready to fight for us. They stood against Rangguwani and were defeated. Defeated, but not broken, Naresh. Take us to the Astral Temple, and we won’t just garrison it. We will build a city there, a new capital of a new Skyfall Empire. A proper legacy of the Solar Empire. We have supporters in Puradvipa, just waiting for a rallying cry.”

  Some of those families, huddling in the dark, looked like Ignis, based on their dress. Ignis, and Kertajaya had taken them in, sheltered them. But did they need sheltering? If they surrendered to Rangguwani, he would surely spare them. By the blinding sun, he missed the old day
s, when he needed not question who deserved his loyalty. Rangguwani might be better for the Isles, if only because he was already in control. If Naresh went with Kertajaya, they’d reignite war.

  But Kertajaya was right. The man was the heir of the Solar Empire, while Rangguwani was a reformed pirate. And Kertajaya spun a glorious tale.

  Naresh watched the children in the cave for a time before he spoke. “I will help you take the Astral Temple,” he said at last.

  Surya help them all. They were starting another war.

  CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED FIFTY-NINE

  Though some of her earliest memories were of Bangdvipa, Pohaci didn’t regard the island as home, not the way many Jadian did. And yet, returning here, after so many years, did fill her with a strange sense of rightness. She had run through this rainforest as a child, still trying to come to grips with the spirit that Calon had put inside her. She knelt by a stream, running her fingers through its waters. Small crocodiles sunned themselves on the opposite bank, as she had once done. Sometimes, when the training had become too much, Pohaci had come here and become the crocodile, hiding at the bottom of the stream. Underwater the rest of the world fell away and there was this terrifying moment of clarity, when the boundaries of the real world and the Spirit Realm began to blur.

  People like Pohaci, all the Jadian, they lived in that liminal place. She was human … almost. The spirit inside her was a kind of possession, but it was different than ordinary possession. This spirit wasn’t just riding her body, it was slowly merging its soul with her own. Or at least, that was how it felt. Sometimes, she couldn’t say where the woman ended and the beast began.

  She waded through the stream in the moonlight, unafraid. No Buaya Jadian attacked one of their own. The crocodiles on the other side turned their eyes up at her as she passed, but made no move or sound. As it should have been. Absolute stillness until the moment was right.