by J. S. Bangs
Gocam shook his head. “They were brought here to Ternas for safekeeping at the dawn of the empire, generations ago.”
Mandhi glanced from Lama Jakhritu to Gocam. “I have never heard of this. Why wouldn’t I have known about it?”
Gocam shrugged. “When Aidasa first began to suppress the Uluriya and the thikratta, the rings came here, and only the Heirs and the Lamas know about them. Your father brought your aunt Uparthi’s ring here, after she married and had to give hers up. He came again for a pair of rings for his children when he married.”
Gocam paused and said with a note of sorrow, “He said he would come again if he had more than two children. He never came. I haven’t seen him in the flesh since.” Then he put his hand over Navran’s and closed the lid with a heavy click. “But Ruyam is coming. The rings are no longer safe here. Neither are we.”
Mandhi’s eyes grew wide and her jaw gaped. She hadn’t known, Navran realized. The brand on his chest grew hot, and he felt a scalding shame redden his cheeks.
“Ruyam is coming?” Mandhi said. “Where? When?”
“He’ll be here tomorrow morning, I believe. We need to be gone by then.”
She looked from Gocam to Navran and back, her eyes wide with panic. “How is this possible? I thought we had gotten cleanly away from Majasravi. How did he track us here?”
The doomed man quivered. Navran bit his lip and tried to calm the stuttering of his heart.
“We can ponder that mystery on the road,” Gocam said. “But now, we need to prepare to leave.”
“And what about the rest of the monks?”
The Lama spoke up for the first time since they had entered the Temple. “We will stay and meet our wayward brother. At least we may delay Ruyam from pursuing you.”
“When do we leave?” Navran said.
“At midnight. The moon is new, and the night is dark. We’ll carry lamps.”
Flight, again. But he had only himself to blame. He was the flame, drawing Ruyam from afar like a moth. And Navran would flee again, only because he couldn’t give himself over. But he saw the resignation in Mandhi’s face as well. She gave Navran a glance of weariness and anger, then shook her head and turned towards the exit from the temple.
“Give me the rings,” she said to Navran. “I’ll be less likely to lose them.”
She reached, and Navran fumbled it awkwardly into her hand. But Gocam reached out and seized Mandhi’s wrist as her hand closed over the box.
“Leave that with Navran,” he commanded.
“Why?”
“Because he will be the Heir. Not you. He needs to begin carrying the burdens and treasures of the office now.”
Mandhi clenched her jaw but dropped the box into Navran’s hand. It seemed heavier, now. He had been happy to give it away.
But Gocam closed Navran’s hand over the box and whispered, “They are yours. Keep them close.”
Navran nodded. The pouch around his neck carried the other ring, the one he had originally received from his father, and he opened it to drop the priceless box inside. So light, he barely felt it on his skin, even while he thought his neck would break for the weight of it.
* * *
They gathered their things into three small packs. He and Mandhi carried one change of clothes each, and Gocam none. Instead of the rags he had worn up in the mountain, the monks had dressed Gocam in a pauper’s costume of a long, undyed dhoti and a heavy woolen shirt, and they washed his hair and combed his beard. The transformation was remarkable. Where before he had been a master of the thikratta, starved by his disciplines and crackling with power, now he looked just like an old, poor man. So long as you didn’t look at his eyes.
Mandhi waited at the door of the monastery with her pack slung over her shoulder. The sun had fallen behind the mountains some hours past, and a cold wind blew down from the peaks. Lamps were lit on the pillars lining the courtyard, casting ghastly, shifting shadows as the wind bit at the flames. Navran had just emerged from the bath that the monks insisted on giving him, and he went to stand next to Mandhi.
She looked straight ahead. The lamplight illuminated her face in alternating shades of yellow.
“Ternas was supposed to be safe,” she said.
“Nothing is safe.” He had learned that lesson from Ruyam well.
“The Emperors need the thikratta for advisors. So do the other kings and nobles. They can’t risk angering the Lama.”
“But Ruyam—”
“Ruyam was from Ternas. Why would he move against it?”
“He has his own farsight.”
Mandhi murmured. “Perhaps. Perhaps that’s how he found us.”
Navran’s chest grew hot. Better she didn’t know. She would kill him in his sleep.
A square of yellow light spilled into the courtyard, and Gocam and Lama Jakhritu emerged from the Lama’s quarters. A man calling in a plaintive voice followed them, repeating a mournful summons for the monks to assemble. Shadows stirred into motion around the edges of the monastery, and the sound of many feet on stones and stairs filled the night.
“Jakhritu has convinced me to accept the farewell of the thikratta,” Gocam said when he reached Mandhi and Navran near the door. “It will only delay us a little while.”
“What does that mean?” Mandhi asked.
Gocam didn’t answer. The courtyard was filling with men in orange robes, stretching in age from boys too young to shave to men with wrinkled faces nearly as old as Gocam. They gathered silently, standing with their hands folded in front of their chests as Gocam and the Lama turned to face them. The moonlight glinted off their shaved heads.
“Father Gocam will leave us tonight,” Jakhritu said when the last of the stragglers had joined the crowd. “And after Gocam leaves, one of our own returns to us. Ruyam comes from Majasravi with an army of the Red Men.”
A subdued ripple of surprise spread through the monks. Gocam’s departure was well known, it seemed, but not the reason.
“Gocam will leave with the children of the Heir of Manjur. Some of you are initiated into this mystery and will understand. Those of you who know not may now be told, though not by me. There is not time right now. Ask your elders—I unseal the word of secrecy on this matter, so any who know may tell any who do not. But when you are told, do not make the error of our lost brother. Ruyam was an initiate of this mystery. He chose poorly and made the Uluriya his enemy. He comes now to kill the children of the Heir. Gocam leaves to protect them, and we remain to delay his pursuit.”
The gathered monks made no response. Lama Jakhritu addressed the group a little more quietly. “Most of you have been under Gocam’s tutelage. You may come and reverence him. He will not return to Ternas, and you will not see him again.”
Jakhritu nodded to two of the men nearest to him. They began to sing a dirge in the temple dialect, a slow tune which rose slowly like a hawk circling in the wind, then plunged in a mournful wail. The first few words were intelligible, but soon they fell into obscurity. Moving glacially to the tune of the song, the monks came forward to Gocam.
The first monk bowed and kissed Gocam’s feet. Gocam bent and kissed the top of his head, and then they embraced. The second one did the same.
They were going to be here all night if every monk did this. Navran glanced over at Mandhi, who shifted her weight from one foot to the other impatiently. Yet he didn’t dare intervene.
The thought occurred to him: this is what a leader of men looks like. Gocam lived on top of a mountain, but the students who had come under his care lined up gladly to kiss his feet and say a final goodbye. He was supposed to be the Heir, but who would ever come to kiss his feet?
The reverence did not take as long as he feared. Soon the last of the monks had passed, and the dirge ended. The sudden silence was cold and eerie.
“We’re going now,” Gocam said to Jakhritu. The two men embraced and kissed each others’ cheeks. Gocam turned out the door, and Mandhi and Navran followed.
The pat
h away from Ternas dropped from the hill where the monastery sat and descended between the pines. They walked with the light of a little hand lamp that Gocam carried, taking each step with care and difficulty. Navran looked to the left and saw the glittering torches of a large encampment at the edge of the horizon.
His brand flared with heat. The fires were moving—Ruyam marched at night just as they did. He knew they were fleeing.
The doomed man quivered.
Gocam’s expression was as impassive and unmoving as a stone. If he was moved by the monks’ long farewell, he didn’t show it. Before long the monastery disappeared from view behind a hill. They walked the south road now, avoiding the village that lay on the north side of the monastery, on a little footpath that kept to the skirts of the mountains and joined the villages along the foothills. Gocam led them as if he knew the way. Navran wanted to ask where they were going but dared not. The night was made for silence.
They walked all night. When dawn painted the east with orange and yellow, Gocam seemed finally to slow, and he glanced back at Navran and Mandhi following him.
“Are we going to stop soon?” Mandhi asked.
Gocam’s face crumpled into a horror of grief and sorrow. His black eyes softened, and tears began to pour down his cheeks. He pointed behind them. “My children! My children!”
Navran turned. Behind them, lit in the stark yellow light of the morning, rose a tower of inky smoke from the place where Ternas had once stood.
The fire burns.
16
Footsteps again. Lights danced on the slick stones above. Another dream. Everything that was not dreaming was darkness.
Voices grew louder. The light strengthened and outlined the rim of the well. Then Ruyam spoke: “Bring him up.”
Navran staggered to his feet, barely able to stand even when he leaned against the walls. The rope dangled in front of him. His hands closed around it, but when it moved it slipped between his palms as if they were wet clay. The man above grunted and barked for him grab on harder. He tried. He had less strength than a child and couldn’t clasp a thing.
Finally one of the Red Men clambered down into the well and wrapped the rope around Navran’s waist, tying a loose knot into which Navran leaned like he was drunk. So they finally pulled him up, followed by the soldier who had helped him. He spilled onto the stones like an empty sack. A black shadow with a sweet smell fell over him.
“Are you ready, Navran?” Ruyam asked.
He didn’t answer. He was ready for nothing.
“Pick him up,” Ruyam said. “Bring him to my boy to be washed, then to the Emperor’s chamber. Carry him if you have to.”
He stormed off through the dungeon’s gloom, unaccompanied.
“Get up, now,” said one of the Red Men. “None of us wants to carry you.”
Navran didn’t want to be carried, but his power to choose was limited. He pushed himself up to his knees and grabbed at the hands of the soldiers. With much groaning and whimpering, he got upright and staggered forward leaning heavily into a shoulder. But he walked. He even got up the stairs and into the palace.
They led him through the garrison by the same route that he had traveled when he’d first arrived—how many days ago? There was no way to count. The same bath chamber awaited him, and Kirshta, the same slave-boy. When the soldiers dropped him into the room with the dim red light and the heavy steam, it was as if his time in the darkness had never occurred.
Kirshta offered a grave look of disappointment when he saw Navran. “So your resistance is ended so quickly?”
“What resistance?”
“If Ruyam has brought you up from the dungeon, it means that he thinks he’s won.”
Or he knew that Navran would starve if he stayed there much longer. But if Ruyam was determined not to let Navran starve, then he still wanted something from him.
“Perhaps your time in the dungeon has served its purpose. Did you tell him anything?”
Whatever he said here was sure to reach Ruyam’s ears. “No.”
“Good. Don’t. You held out through the darkness. If you keep holding out, you’ll see how much you can get from him.”
Was Kirshta telling him how to manipulate Ruyam? As if he had any leverage for that sort of thing. “What are you getting from him?”
The boy smiled mischievously. “That’s not to tell here. But what do you want from him?” He poured new water over the coals and waved the steam towards Navran. He began to scrape the grime and muck off of Navran’s legs.
“I don’t know.”
“If you don’t know what you want, then you’ll never get it.”
Peace, maybe. But even that was thinking too lofty. All he really wanted was something to eat and, by the stars, something to drink. The need for a drink hit him like a physical pain.
“I’m telling you this,” Kirshta said, “because he wants you more than I’ve seen him want anything for a long time. This could be good for both of us.”
Was Kirshta suggesting that they work together against Ruyam. It had to be a trap. “I don’t know what you mean.”
Kirshta shook his head and moved to washing Navran’s arms and torso. “You’ll see when the time has come. If you see. Perhaps I overestimated you.”
The rest of the bath was conducted in silence. At the end Kirshta dressed Navran in clothes of yellow silk with soft fabric sandals and turned him over to the Red Men again.
They marched him up the tower and left him in the anteroom of the Emperor’s chamber as before. “The Emperor’s Hand awaits you,” said the one, who left with a nervous glance at the curtain.
He was alone. Was he supposed to go through the curtain on his knees as before? He had better. Better than risking Ruyam’s ire. He wouldn’t—couldn’t—go back to the dungeon. He bowed and went through the curtain with his face to the ground.
“Get up,” Ruyam said as soon as he passed through the door. “There’s no need to maintain the Grass posture here.”
Navran looked up. The room was well-lit this time, a series of lamps showing a long, narrow chamber that let out onto a balcony, heavily curtained, at one end. Ruyam sat on a pillow a little to the right of the entrance curtain, reclining before a cluster of heavily laden trays. Food. Dates piled into little pyramids, mangos split open and dripping juice, steamed rice smelling of saffron, cold roast duck, and heaps of roti. Navran’s breath caught in his throat.
Ruyam smiled at him. “Come and eat. This is all for you.”
His hands trembled. He crawled to the platter slowly. Was there a trick? He took a fig and pushed it into his mouth while keeping his eyes on Ruyam. He bit. The sweetness of heaven. The rest of the fig he swallowed in another bite, and he lost any attempt at restraint. Rice, roti, slivers of duck, and half a mango.
Ruyam picked up clay jar and poured a little liquid into a cup. “This is palm toddy,” he said. “Better for you on an empty stomach than rice beer. Milder.”
Navran took the cup and drank. It was creamy and sour, but it burned in his throat. He drank it in two gulps then set the cup down. He wanted more.
“I also have rice beer,” Ruyam said. He opened a different jar and refilled Navran’s cup. “Don’t drink too much, now. You could get sick after so many days without.”
He seized the cup from Ruyam’s hand and emptied it in two swallows. The old friend, the familiar yeasty smell, the pleasant burn in his throat. He paused for a moment to savor it. Then, another mouthful of roti and mango.
He ate and drank without saying a word. Ruyam refilled his cup several times, maintaining a serene, blissful attention to Navran at all times. Navran wondered what the purpose of this was, but he didn’t think on it too hard. Hunger sated and longing fulfilled drove out all other thoughts. When his feast finally ended, Ruyam smiled at him and rose to his feet, offering Navran his hand.
“Get up,” he said.
When Navran attempted to rise, he got the first clue that something was wrong. His food shifted uncomf
ortably in his stomach. His head swelled with blood. The room spun. He groped forward and caught himself on Ruyam’s robe, but his gut was in full revolt.
He vomited on the ground and fell hacking into the bile.
“What did you do to me?” he rasped.
“Nothing,” Ruyam said. “This is what happens when you eat too much after a time of deprivation.” He picked up a towel that had lain on the tray of food and began to wipe the vomit from Navran’s hands and face. “I had hoped that you would know to moderate yourself. But moderation is not among your skills, it seems.”
Navran rose to his knees, his head still thundering with the beating of blood against his skull. Ruyam finished wiping him off and pulled him aside.
“What are you doing now?” Navran asked.
“Bringing you to bed. I’ll call Kirshta to bring water and clean up the rest. Here, lie down.”
Beneath him was something soft and pliable. He stretched himself out on a mat of silk and cushions. Ruyam rubbed his shoulders and spread a blanket over him. In the corner of his mind, where he wasn’t overwhelmed by nausea and delirium, he wondered what Ruyam was doing, why he was here, sleeping in the Emperor’s chamber, whether this was another dream conjured up from the darkness.
Ruyam moved to the entrance of the chamber, calling Kirshta’s name. Navran closed his eyes. He didn’t sleep easily, but he slept.
* * *
Morning broke—an actual morning, with sunlight crashing through the curtains and lapping at his eyelids. He was awake. He was alive.
Navran sat up suddenly and immediately regretted it. His stomach was still bloated and pained, stretched too tight after too many days of starvation. The tide of nausea receded though, and his head regained a measure of clarity. He rubbed his eyes and stood.
Ruyam was gone. In the daylight the chamber seemed wider, with the curtained entrance set far against the north wall, and the seat of the Emperor’s Hand facing it. The little rug where he had eaten with Ruyam last night was tucked to one side of the seat, but beyond it stretched a spacious marble-floored apartment. A basin of water waited against one wall, and next to them open chests of clothing. In the far corner was the walled respite where, presumably, the Emperor still lay. Navran shivered and looked away.
