“The magistrate had two sons,” continued Amalia. “Kalbi, the elder, is a decent boy, but Hunabi was a wastrel and a womanizer. He learned which of the affected farming families had a young, virginal daughter among their children. He went to each of those families and told them that if they let him sleep with the daughter, he would make sure that the case was decided in their favor. Some of the families agreed to this. Hunabi slept with the girls, but the magistrate ruled against the farmers anyway.
“So yes, I killed him.” Amalia’s head bobbed self-consciously. “The magistrate wasn’t going to punish his own son for what he did to those girls, and he wasn’t going to rule against Bodhan, either. The farmers needed help, so I helped them. I sent a tablet to the magistrate saying I had killed Hunabi and I would kill Kalbi as well if he did not reverse the decision on all the farmers’ court cases.”
“Really?” Taya blinked in astonishment. “Does he still have that tablet?” It was important evidence. Why had the magistrate withheld it from her, when it clearly identified who the jackal was, as well as her motive for killing Hunabi, and information about her next intended victim? Clearly he did not want her or Mandir to know about his involvement in the dirty contracts.
“I have no idea if he still has it,” said Amalia.
“Did he reply?”
“In a way. He summoned you and your partner.”
Now Taya understood. The farmers had accused her of doing the magistrate’s dirty work, and at the time she had been indignant. She was not here to do anyone’s dirty work except the Coalition’s. But the farmers had been right. The magistrate was trying to use the Coalition to rid Hrappa of the one person who stood in the way of his alliance with Bodhan.
The villains here, as far as she could see, were the magistrate and Bodhan, not to mention Zash. But this did not alter the fact that Amalia had committed two crimes, the first in using magic illegally, and the second in killing Hunabi. “What of Bodhan’s daughter Narat? If you didn’t kill her, what happened?”
“Are you sure she’s even dead?”
Taya blinked. “Isn’t she?”
Amalia shrugged. “Bodhan says she died in a flood. I didn’t summon a flood.”
“Could a flood have risen naturally?” Or perhaps there was a second jackal in Hrappa. It didn’t seem likely, since jackals were rare, but somebody had healed those banana plants in town. Maybe it was the same person who had raised the flood.
“Not at that time of year,” said Amalia. “I think Narat just ran away. It was well known that she was not in harmony with her father.”
“Why were they not in harmony?”
“Because she was in love with the baker’s son,” said Amalia. “Bodhan didn’t approve of the match. The baker’s son disappeared the same day Narat did, but nobody’s saying he died in a flood. Nobody says anything about him. It’s like he never existed.”
She remembered the baker woman’s evasions when she’d asked about that boy’s whereabouts. No wonder she and Mandir had gotten nowhere on this case. They’d been lied to by everybody in Hrappa, from farmers and bakers to textile merchants and magistrates. “But you did summon the flood that nearly drowned me.”
Amalia lowered her head. “I’m sorry for that. It was a mistake.”
“Why did you come to my guesthouse? What do you expect me to do about all this?” Clearly the girl hoped for mercy or understanding. The understanding Taya could provide, but there was no such thing as mercy from the Coalition.
“I know where your partner is,” said Amalia. “I’ll help you get him out—if you promise to help me in return.”
“Help you in what way?”
“Force Bodhan to forgive the farmers’ debts,” said Amalia. “And grant me absolution for my crimes. I want what my brother denied me years ago. I want to join the Coalition.”
Taya swallowed. What an ambitious list of demands that was. The first part, forcing Bodhan to forgive the farmers’ debts, was something Zash had demanded as well, but she had no idea how to accomplish it. Yes, she could walk into his house and threaten to kill him if he didn’t forgive the debts, but that was against Coalition law. As for granting Amalia absolution, it was impossible. The Coalition would never forgive her crimes, and they certainly wouldn’t let her join the organization.
She could not do what Amalia asked. Perhaps she could negotiate a more reasonable set of demands. Or would it be better just to play along and cooperate with the girl long enough to rescue Mandir? Getting her partner out of Zash’s clutches was her first priority. If she could convince Amalia to help her with that, she’d deal with the other problems later. “Where is Zash hiding Mandir?”
Amalia set her jaw. “I’ll tell you, but only after you fulfill your part of the bargain.”
Taya blew out an exasperated breath. “I’m not sure how much of that bargain I have the ability to fulfill.”
“If you don’t help me, your partner will die,” said Amalia. “Zash will never let him live. He’ll kill anyone who stands in his way. He killed our parents.”
“Your parents? Why?”
“They wanted to send me to the Coalition, and he wanted to keep me at home. He poisoned them and told everyone they died of fever.”
Taya sighed. She felt sorry for this girl, but she simply didn’t have the power to right all these wrongs. “What you ask is impossible. I cannot negotiate with the Coalition on your behalf because the nearest temple is five days’ ride from here, and I’ll be dead before then. Your only hope is to get Mandir out. Perhaps he can help you, if Zash doesn’t kill him first.”
Amalia’s brow wrinkled. “Why will you be dead before then?”
She fetched the tablet that Zash had given her yesterday in the banana fields, and handed it to Amalia. “Read this.”
Amalia’s lips moved as she read. When she reached the bottom of the tablet, she began to laugh.
Taya snatched the tablet out of her hand. “There’s nothing funny in there.”
“But it’s a lie,” said Amalia. “There’s no such thing as a three-day poison.”
“I was very sick last night,” said Taya.
“And how do you feel this morning?”
“Better,” Taya admitted. “I think it comes and goes.”
“You were sick last night because he drugged you with shydra. That’s his favorite drug; it’s fast-acting and it makes people unconscious. After it wears off, you throw up for a while. He used it on me many times before I escaped him.”
Taya hardly dared hope this could be true. “You don’t know for certain there’s no three-day poison.”
“Yes, I do,” said Amalia. “Zash made it up to scare you. He does that.”
Taya wanted very much to believe her, and she had to admit the idea of a poison that took three days to work seemed implausible. But what did she know? She’d spent her entire life on a farm and in a Coalition temple. “There’s another problem. I can’t walk into Bodhan’s house and demand he forgive the debts.”
“You’re Coalition,” said Amalia. “Of course you can.”
“I can’t,” said Taya. “My authority as a Coalition representative is limited to a few very specific areas. Remember the Accords of Let? Your ruling caste has dominion over the cities and their people, while the Coalition holds a monopoly on magic and all laws relating to magic. We have no authority whatsoever over nonmagical crimes.”
“All you have to do is walk in there and threaten to burn him.”
Taya shook her head. “I’d be breaking the law myself.”
“You’ve broken it before.”
She hadn’t, but she couldn’t tell Amalia that. “No one can prove that my partner and I healed any banana plants, but if I march into Bodhan’s house and threaten him with magic, the Coalition will hear about it. They’ll punish me, and once I’m gone, Bodhan and the magistrate will just reinstate the loans.”
Amalia winced. “There must be a way.”
“I’ll do what I can for you,” s
aid Taya. “But first you’ve got to help me get my partner out.”
A muscle bulged along Amalia’s jawline. “Not until you do as I asked.”
“Look, I just explained—”
“So don’t do it the way I suggested,” said Amalia. “Find another way.”
Taya clenched her fists in her lap. What other way? She could not use force, and she could not apply legal pressure on Bodhan, because that was the magistrate’s bailiwick. As a Coalition representative, she could only enforce crimes related to magic.
Had Bodhan committed any sort of crime related to magic? He didn’t possess any magic, so that seemed unlikely.
Did it count that he had blamed his daughter’s disappearance on an illegally summoned flood? Taya considered. That was a possibility. “Who reported to the authorities that Narat was killed by a magically-raised flood? Was it Bodhan?”
“I think so,” said Amalia.
“He must have just made that story up. If his daughter was still alive and had simply run away, surely he knew about that. So why did he lie? What did it gain him to blame her disappearance on a jackal?”
“Well, he and the magistrate were allies,” said Amalia. “The magistrate needed the Coalition to come out here and find me. Two deaths by a jackal would be more likely to bring a team of investigators than just one.”
“That could be it,” said Taya. “He made a false accusation in order to draw out the Coalition. By Coalition law, that is a crime.” Not as serious as the ones Amalia had committed, but perhaps enough that she could frighten the man. “We need evidence.”
“Evidence of what?” asked Amalia.
“That his daughter lives and he lied about her death. I think I know where to get it.” She would have to hurry. She and Mandir were running out of time. “After I get the evidence and confront Bodhan, will you help me rescue Mandir?”
“Yes,” said Amalia.
Taya reached forward, and they touched fingers to consummate the deal.
Chapter XXXVII
Mohenjo Temple, Six Years Ago
MANDIR LEANED ON THE RAIL of the Cage to take some weight off his aching legs. The accused were not allowed to sit, and he’d been shifting his weight from one leg to the other for hours now as witness after witness had been called onto the platform to deliver testimony. Despite its name, the Cage was not a prison, but a square enclosed by four railings. Here the accused stood while the Coalition elders heard their case and decided their fates.
Testimony had concluded some time ago. The elders had left the room to confer among themselves and make a decision that would determine the direction of the rest of Mandir’s life. For now, the platform was empty, and Mandir could do nothing but wait.
Three other boys kept him company in the Cage, all of them his co-conspirators, but Mandir stood apart from them. Once, they had been friends, but since the fire maze, they’d had a falling-out. He was on his own now, and so were they.
Somewhere behind him, in the audience, sat Taya, the girl he’d tormented and nearly killed in the fire maze. Throughout the hearing, he’d been conscious of her gaze burning into his back. He knew she hoped for a death sentence.
Footsteps jostled him from his thoughts. He looked up to see the elders filing back onto the platform. This was it; he was about to learn his fate. He dragged his sweating palms from the railing and stood tall, swallowing his nerves.
The elders, barefoot and clad in the robes of illitu, moved silently to their places. Each man stood before a pillar representing one of the Mothers. The pillar on the left, representing Agu, held a clay goblet filled with the purest water. The pillar on the right held a flowering jasmine, the symbol of Lalan. And the middle pillar held a flaming torch.
How calm the elders looked as they took up their positions. Mandir tried to still his trembling.
“We have reached our decision,” said the elder who stood before the torch of Isatis.
Mandir shut his eyes. Not death or exile, he prayed.
“Initiates Cole, Mandir, Talin, and Lilit,” spoke the elder, “you are accused of drugging a fellow initiate with kimat and shydra and placing her in a construction of your devising—a ‘fire maze’ in which you intended to torment and frighten her. We find this act to be vicious and contemptible. Because of your ineptitude with magic and your recklessness, this fire maze malfunctioned, and the initiate suffered from burns and smoke inhalation. Initiates: do you acknowledge that you have committed an atrocity against the Mothers and their children?”
“Yes, elder,” said Mandir immediately. The other boys chorused agreement.
“It is the decision of this Council,” said the elder, “that Cole, Talin, and Lilit shall drink sufficient kimat to annihilate their magic and be permanently dismissed from the Coalition.”
One of the boys beside Mandir collapsed onto the floor and began to weep. So it was exile, after all. But Mandir’s name had not yet been mentioned. He waited.
“Mandir isu Sarrum,” said the elder.
Mandir raised his eyes.
“Because of extenuating circumstances, you will not be banished from the Coalition. Instead, you will serve a Year of Penance as punishment for your part in this atrocity.”
Someone in the back of the room gasped.
Mandir closed his eyes in relief. His knees trembled. He stood silently, knowing that the audience would not be aware of the extenuating circumstances. He had been sworn to secrecy on that subject. They probably believed he’d been granted this mercy because of the influence of his royal father.
“That is all,” said the elder. He and his fellows filed out of the room.
Someone punched Mandir in the arm. He looked to see who it was.
“Mother-violator,” hissed Cole.
Mandir turned away.
As the people in the audience left their seats, he twisted his neck for one last look at Taya. After today, he would never see her again. He would serve his penance and then request a transfer to another temple. He could not control himself around her. The only solution he could think of was to stay away from her.
She had risen from her chair and was staring at him, shaking with rage. For him to receive only a Year of Penance had to infuriate her. He met her eyes, trying without words to tell her, I’m sorry. I went too far. It won’t happen again.
But he knew she would never forgive him.
Chapter XXXVIII
Hrappa
MANDIR, CURLED UP FOR WARMTH and dozing fitfully against the wall, snapped instantly awake. His half-dream, half-memory of his sentencing at Mohenjo Temple feathered away into the darkness. He heard footsteps, and whoever approached him was trying to be stealthy.
Mandir had come to understand that Zash, despite his brazen crimes, was a coward. Even with Mandir in chains, Zash would not come near his prisoner to refresh his dose of kimat. Instead he threw darts from a distance.
Mandir lay still, letting the banana farmer enjoy the illusion that his prisoner was asleep and harmless. He’d been in this hole much longer than Zash had, and his eyes were better adjusted to the darkness. Come closer, he urged silently. Let me wring your scrawny neck.
Zash stopped advancing about six feet outside of Mandir’s reach and, with a quick motion of his arm, threw the dart.
Mandir flung up his arm and knocked the dart away. It pinged off the stone wall into the dirt, and he dived for it. His fingers closed around the dart, and he snatched it up. “Missed,” he taunted, brandishing the weapon.
Zash had come without a torch this time, perhaps hoping to sneak up on Mandir in the dark. There was just a sliver of light from a distant entrance to the tunnel, enough that Mandir could see Zash’s silhouette and sense his baleful stare.
“Perhaps I should throw it back at you,” said Mandir. “What do you want to bet my aim’s better than yours?”
No response.
“Are you out of darts?” said Mandir. “How unfortunate. I’ll bet that last kimat dose you gave me wears off pretty soon.�
�
He heard movement in the darkness and saw a spark. Zash was crouched in the dirt, trying to light a torch. A second spark appeared, and a third.
“I could light that for you,” said Mandir. “Soon as the kimat wears off.”
Light pierced the darkness, impossibly bright. Mandir half-shuttered his eyes so the torch wouldn’t blind him. Zash was still on the ground, working on something with his back to Mandir. Poisoning another dart, perhaps.
With a quick motion, Zash turned and flung a new dart.
Again Mandir knocked the missile out of the air. It landed in the dirt between the two of them. After a moment’s hesitation, both he and Zash launched themselves at it.
Zash pounced on it first, and Mandir pounced on Zash. He slammed into the man’s arm so hard he heard something give way, and Zash howled in pain. The manacles bit into Mandir’s wrists as he reached the full length of his chains, but he didn’t care. This was worth it.
Zash went limp beneath him.
“Not very smart, are you?” whispered Mandir into his ear.
“I don’t have the keys to your chains,” gasped Zash. “They’re at the house. If you want to get free, you’ll have to let me go—”
Mandir grabbed Zash by the hair and slammed his head into the ground. “You think that’s why I grabbed you, zebu-brain? To get some keys? I grabbed you because I want your last hours to be as painful as I can possibly make them.” He slammed Zash’s head into the ground again.
Chapter XXXIX
Hrappa
TAYA CONSIDERED ASKING RASIK IF she could borrow a second horse, but decided against it. Amalia was lightweight, and in a pinch Pepper could carry two riders.
“She’s beautiful,” gushed Amalia, when Rasik delivered the black mare to the front of the guesthouse. “May I pet her?”
FIERCE: Sixteen Authors of Fantasy Page 207
