Heir of Iron (The Powers of Amur Book 1)

by J. S. Bangs

  Ruyam leaned over to Navran. “Do you want one?”

  “What?”

  “The courtesans’ price is high, but not too high for a member of the imperial household.”

  His cup shook in hand. To hell with it. He finished the cup in one more swallow and motioned for Vapathi to bring him another. Bliss and oblivion.

  “You see, Navran,” Ruyam said, “there are many pleasures here. The Uluriya are bound up by their laws of purity and the demands of the Power they serve. Here, there is no such rule.”

  He thought of Taleg plunging his face into a jar of cold water to wake him from a drunken stupor. He had run away to gamble and drink—how many times? But they brought him back, to the rule and order of the Heir’s household, no matter how little he wanted it. And the doubt whispered in his ear:

  Isn’t this exactly what you wanted?

  He took a slow drink of the spiced beer. It was sweet on the tongue and burned in his throat. Just the way he liked it. He could keep drinking this forever.

  The dance ended. The dancers dispersed throughout the room to flirt with the nobles who had watched them, perhaps to find clients. He drank more. The night went on. The dancers performed again. At some point he began to lose track of time. He rested his head on one of the cushions upon the dais and watched the room as an indiscriminate swirl of color, chips of scarlet and emerald and gold mixing as nobles and dancers moved throughout the hall.

  “Take him upstairs,” Ruyam said at some point. Navran did not object. Kirshta and Vapathi pulled him to his feet and began to carry him towards the door. He pushed himself free of them.

  “I can carry myself,” he said. And he could, so long as he walked slowly. His steps only wobbled a little. Vapathi took his hand and guided him, and they ascended to the Emperor’s tower.

  She brought him to a different chamber, as Ruyam had said. It was lit with lamps and smelled like sandalwood and orange. He stood, swaying, as Vapathi stripped off his silken kurta and dhoti, leaving him in his bedclothes. She moved so quickly. Her hand clasped his again, and she took him through a curtained archway into the inner bedchamber.

  “Here,” she said. “Yours.” And she disappeared through the archway.

  Until the woman moved, he was not even aware that someone waited on his bed. He let out a short cry of alarm, followed by a gasp of recognition. One of the dancers. She moved towards him with slow, sultry steps, her legs shimmering beneath the silk of her skirt.

  “Don’t be alarmed,” she said. “I won’t hurt you. Unless you want me to.”

  She moved close and put her hands on his chest. He touched her waist. His heart thundered. “Who sent you?”

  “You’re a little drunk,” she said, “but not too much you can’t enjoy this.”

  “Who sent you?”

  “I came as a gift for the thikratta Emperor. He said to wait here. I guess that you’re his favorite.” Her hands were slick with oil and moved slowly down his chest to his stomach.

  His hand slipped from her waist to her thigh. To hell with it.

  17

  “You disgust me,” Mandhi said.

  It was a fair enough response to the story he had told. Navran said nothing, but he clenched his fists and kept walking straight ahead.

  “Let Navran speak without comment,” Gocam said.

  “Why?” Mandhi spat. “He is supposed to be the child of the Heir. The next Heir, himself. And he debauches himself with Ruyam in the Emperor’s household while Taleg and I risk our lives.”

  “I invited him to confess, and he agreed. While we walk together, we listen together.”

  His face felt hot. Gocam protected him from Mandhi’s scorn, and had been protecting him for the past three days as he slowly unspooled his memories. They walked, and he talked. Mandhi’s contempt and fury? That he deserved. She only stirred up the disgust he had in himself, and Gocam could not shield him from that.

  “Do you even realize what happened before we reached you in Majasravi?”

  “You told me,” Navran muttered.

  “Did you stop to think about it? Does it even matter to you that Taleg nearly died on the road to Davrakhanda, and then in Majasravi—”

  “Mandhi, calm yourself,” Gocam said.

  Her breath was coming furious and uncontrolled. She bit her lower lip, and her eyes closed. Not fury, now. She was holding back sobs. He closed his eyes and looked away. Her sobs were worse for him than her fury.

  “You two should not be fighting,” Gocam said. “You need each other.”

  Mandhi wiped the corners of her eyes with her fists. “I know. But I can’t trust him. That’s the problem.”

  It would be better for all of them if they didn’t need Navran. But it was too late for that. He had tried to escape from them and only made things worse. “I’m done for now. Won’t talk any more to bother you.”

  “It’s not the talking that bothers me.”

  “Be kind,” Gocam said.

  * * *

  They were fourteen days out from Ternas, on the south road that followed the skirts of the mountains. It was the nearest thing to a thoroughfare this far west, and it limped through a series of miserable little shepherding and cotton-growing villages which consisted of half-collapsed mud-brick houses cowering under the height of the mountains. They slept in the open. The rains had not started yet, and the dry season was burning towards its conclusion, cracking the mud in the bottoms of the river beds and smothering the air with a harsh, muggy heat. The moon was bright, tending towards its fullest, and they walked far into the night, letting the cool of the evening salve the misery of the day.

  The sun was touching the peaks of the mountains when they approached a village on their fourth evening. The day had been a grim, silent march, and Navran was looking forward to the evening cool and sleep. Gocam stopped abruptly in the path and raised his hand.

  “Do you see them?” he asked.

  Navran squinted. Far ahead he could make out some number of red-clad figures moving between the mud-brick buildings.

  “You two get off the road,” Gocam said. “Hide in the brush. I’ll go ask them.”

  He and Mandhi did as commanded. About ten yards off of the road, Mandhi found a place in the dry, late-summer scrub where they could see the road but would be invisible to casual watchers.

  Navran whispered to her, “Why is Gocam going alone?”

  “If there are Red Men, and they’re looking for us, they’ll be looking for a group of three. Not for an old man traveling alone.” She shrugged. “And I trust that Gocam can take care of himself.”

  Navran grunted and lowered himself to the ground, resting his head between his knees. A wrenching anxiety twisted in his gut, muted only by his exhaustion. There was no way the Red Men could be here looking for them. They couldn’t have gotten here so fast. They would have come from the north. But what else would Red Men be doing in a village this far from anything?

  Mandhi’s lips moved, pronouncing words just barely loud enough for him to hear. “I bow my head to Ulaur at the setting of the sun. Now the souls of the pure ones are revealed as stars. I bow down even as the sun bows down in the west, for fearsome is the Power of the heavens…”

  Prayer. He didn’t know the words, and Mandhi didn’t want him to join anyway. He listened as she recited the evening rite, words tripping off of her tongue with practiced carelessness. He did not recall her praying every night before now.

  When she finished he asked, “Are you praying today because you’re nervous?

  “Leave me alone, Navran.”

  He grunted. It wasn’t meant as an attack, but nothing he said would save the conversation now.

  Mandhi shifted her weight where she crouched. “Yes,” she said after a moment. “I’m nervous.”

  “Gocam will be fine. You said so.”

  “Even if Gocam returns to us fine, I’m not sure how we’ll pass through the village, all three of us.”

  Navran shrugged. “We’ll figure
it out.”

  “Is that how you think things work? Figure them out when they happen? Truly, it’s been a winning strategy for you so far.”

  “Will your worrying save us?”

  “It’s better than the alternative.”

  What he did was, presumably, the alternative. He had no energy to fight her. He rested his head in his hands again and waited.

  He could really use a drink.

  The sun was swallowed behind the western peaks, and the sky purpled. Someone approached on the path, and Mandhi stirred. “It’s Gocam,” she said.

  “Come, children,” Gocam shouted from the road. “You may come safely.”

  “What happened?” Mandhi asked as soon as they reached him on the road.

  “They are looking for us, as we feared,” Gocam said. “I pretended to be a local, and they didn’t question me. But they asked after an Uluriya man and woman.”

  “So then how are we safe?” Mandhi asked, irritation showing in her voice.

  “Because they’re waiting for us to go through town. We’ll just go a different way.”

  “There is another way?

  Gocam motioned up the hill. “A quarter-mile back, there was a shepherd’s path that left the main trail. It will go up into the foothills and stay above the village. We will use that path for as long as the Red Men are on the road.”

  A shepherd’s path. That meant climbing hills and taxing their ankles on narrow tracks of dirt covered with stones and sheep manure. His body wanted to reject it out of hand. But if Red Men were the alternative…. He rose to his feat and dusted the dirt from his dhoti. “Let’s go.”

  Mandhi groaned but followed Navran and Gocam. The light was failing by the time they found the path and began to climb. It was as rocky and difficult as Navran had feared, clambering up steep hillsides and around the boulders that constituted the foothills. In the weakening dim, they had to pick every step carefully. A cool wind drifted down from the mountains, containing a hint of the snows on their peaks. The candles in the windows of the village below slowly crept into view on their left.

  “Where are the shepherds who made this path?” Mandhi asked.

  “Farther up,” Navran said. “Where it’s cool.”

  “And when will they come down?”

  “Before it rains. No sooner.”

  “How do you know?”

  He had grown up in a shepherding village. Not so close to the mountains, but he knew the shepherds’ routines, going down to the remote, shady river valleys in the heat of the dry season, and returning to the village’s shelter only days or hours ahead of the rain. “I lived near here,” was all he said.

  Mandhi looked above Navran’s head into the stones rising above the path. “I thought I saw something,” she said.

  “What?”

  Gocam stopped. “Is something the matter?”

  No sooner had Gocam spoken than rocks clattered onto the road ahead of them. Dark shapes swooped down from the overhanging stones whooping and shouting.

  “Run!” Navran shouted, but it was already too late. Gocam was bowled over, a ruffian swinging at him with a club where he fell. A pair of thieves seized both of Mandhi’s arms before she could move a pace, and then a heavy blow on the back of Navran’s skull sent him sprawling to the ground.

  The world spun, and pain splintered his sight and hearing into shards. Rough hands wrenched his arms behind his back and patted him down. Knees in his back pressed his ribs and face into the gravel. Navran was fiercely aware of the star-iron rings in the pouch around his neck, pressing into his collarbone.

  “You found anything?” one of the men shouted.

  “Here!” answered a second. “The lady’s got the money.”

  Mandhi squirmed and shouted. A smack sounded in the night, and she cried out.

  “You keep quiet,” the man with Mandhi said. “Here, what about the old man?”

  “He’s no trouble,” the farthest thief said. “I gave him two good blows on the head. He’ll be out for a while.”

  “Okay, then take the pouch.” The coins jangled in the air for a moment, ending with a flat chink in the other man’s hand. “Now we knock down these two and head out.”

  “Wait,” the man above Navran said. He continued to feel through Navran’s clothes. Don’t find it. But a moment later his hand touched the box holding the rings. “This one’s got something.”

  He flipped Navran onto his back and gave him a solid smack across the cheek. Navran tasted blood in his mouth. A moment later a cold piece of bronze pressed against his throat, and the thread holding the box was cut. The man pulled the pouch open and held it up to the moonlight.

  “What is this?” he said.

  “Doesn’t matter,” answered the thief holding Mandhi. “Take it. Let’s go.”

  But the man didn’t run. He pried the lid off, fished out one of the little black rings, and held it up. “What in the world?”

  “Amitu, forget it. Let’s go.”

  “Chaludra’s fire….” The man pinning Navran down suddenly stood up and backed away, still holding the ring at arms length. But it wasn’t a black ring any more. It had begun to glow. It gleamed now in the man’s hand like a little chip of the moon, lighting the man’s face in a ghastly silver light. The other thieves were silent.

  “What is this?” the man asked.

  Before Navran could catch a breath, the ring flared like a lightning bolt.

  For a moment the whole scene was lit in sharp black-and-white relief, the ring etching black shadows on the tumbled rocks around them and searing Navran’s eyes with its brightness. The man holding it screamed and dropped it. And then the light died.

  The thieves shouted and scattered. Curses rang out.The sound of feet scraping across rock filled the night in all directions, then quiet.

  The air was still. After the lightning flare from the ring, the night seemed a deeper and more impenetrable darkness. Navran’s breath came slow and heavy. His head and face ached from the blows.

  Mandhi stirred. Her footsteps approached him, and her silhouette blotted out the early stars above them. She knelt next to him. “Navran, are you okay?”

  “Yes,” he said. He sat up gingerly. At his feet he could see the open box that had held the rings lying askew in the road. Four rings lay in the box undisturbed. A bit beyond the box lay the ring that the thief had touched, colored now a dim red, like a cooling ember. He gathered up the box and its lid and brushed a finger against the glowing ring. It was warm to the touch but did not harm him.

  “What was that?” he asked.

  “I have no idea,” Mandhi said behind him. “Quickly, put it in the box. We have to get Gocam.”

  Navran tipped the last ring into its box and put it back in the pouch, then retied the pouch around his neck. He got up, limping. The contents of Mandhi’s pack were strewn across the road. She stuffed her belongings back inside, then jerked her head to Navran. A few paces farther they found Gocam sprawled on the path, blood trickling from a blow to his scalp.

  Mandhi knelt next to him. “Gocam? Are you awake?”

  His eyes fluttered then he bolted upright, seizing Mandhi’s arm in his hand. He glanced rapidly from Mandhi to Navran and said, “The light of Ulaur. Which of you awoke it?”

  Mandhi glanced at Navran nervously. “No one. We have to move. Quickly, to shelter, then we can talk.”

  Gocam was on his feet in a moment, his hand still gripping Mandhi’s upper arm like a hook in her flesh. Mandhi quickly led them away from the overhanging rocks and down closer to the village. Finally they came to a place where the path ran behind a rise in the hill, cutting them off from the view of the village. A little half-cave in the stones protected them from sight.

  “We’ll wait here,” Mandhi said. She placed her pack down in a crook in the stone and set about making a fire.

  Navran knelt next to her. “Let me do this. Look after Gocam.”

  She nodded silently and crossed to where Gocam sat. She said qu
ietly, “Gocam, let me look at your head.”

  Gocam leaned back against a stone. In the darkness he was reduced to a dim, bearded silhouette, trembling in the gentle wind. “What happened on the road?”

  Mandhi quickly explained the thieves and the sudden light. Navran coaxed the sparks from the flint into a small fire. More for comfort than for anything. Ulaur knew that the night was hot enough.

  Mandhi finished her story. “Now, you tell us what happened with the ring.”

  Gocam hesitated. “I don’t know.”

  “What do you know? You’ve had the rings hidden here in Ternas for generations.”

  “It is said that none may touch it with evil intent. Still, I have never seen one do that before. But of course, they’ve never been in danger before.”

  “Would my father know something about it?”

  “Maybe. But if he does, then the Lamas of Ternas were never told of it.”

  Mandhi bit her lip and scowled at the box hanging around Navran’s neck. “So what do we do now? Hope that it goes off conveniently if we’re attacked? Throw it at Ruyam and hope that it burns him?”

  “I had my ring in Majasravi,” Navran said quietly. “Never did anything.”

  Gocam turned towards Mandhi, and even in the darkness the sharp-eyed directness of his stare made Navran shiver. “What were you going to do before this incident? I did not give the rings to Navran for a weapon, and before tonight none of us knew that it could be used that way. So we continue as before.”

  “Not quite as before,” Navran muttered.

  “What did you say?” Mandhi said.

  He had no great desire to point bad news out to Mandhi. And maybe he was wrong about this. “Did you get back our money?”

  Mandhi was quiet for a moment. “No,” she growled.

  And they hadn’t brought enough food with them to return to Jaitha. They were planning on buying more along the way, or so Mandhi had said. “How much do we have left?”

  “A few days worth, if we stretch it.” She dropped her head into her hands.

  Navran watched the fire slowly consume the sticks he fed into it. The brand.