DragonThrone02 The Empire of the Stars

by Alison Baird

  Jomar stared. “You say your Jemosa loved this woman? He used her—she was just a slave in his household. And you say he married other women.” But he remembered the sorrow in his mother’s face, the tears that would slip silently down her cheeks when she thought he was not watching. The weary, daily anguish of a slave? Or something more?

  “He married only because his father had forced him to: they were the daughters of rich and influential men, and he felt nothing for any of them. He used a slave, you say? At the risk of arrest and execution? He must have loved her, and she him. It’s the only explanation. Your father was a good man, Jomar, whatever you may think,” said Jariss. “If you hate him, then you hate a part of yourself.”

  “I do,” said Jomar shortly. “The Zimbouran part.”

  “That is a pity. For the city people would love you, too, if they knew that you were his son. Jemosa is remembered with increasing fondness as the times worsen.”

  “Tell us what is happening in the city now,” said Damion, seeing that Jomar’s face was working.

  Kiran Jariss answered at length, and they listened with keen interest. Many Arainians had been taken prisoner by Gemala’s troops. They were alive, but were being held in the dungeons of Yanuvan. Others were not so fortunate. Some Zimbouran conscripts who had tried to escape from the army were to be executed at the great temple of Valdur that very night. The youngest was a boy of fourteen who had been hidden by his mother from the recruiting officers, but who had been betrayed by a neighbor in exchange for money. The young farmer’s voice shook with anger as he spoke. “The prisoners are being sent to the Temple to receive the formal condemnation of the high priest, and be executed in the paved forecourt that fronts it. Khalazar does not yet dare to kill human victims on the sacrificial altar, but we all know this must soon come to pass. He must be toppled from power.”

  “We have to save them!” exclaimed Lorelyn. They all stared at her, Jariss included.

  “Save those prisoners? You’re not serious. What could we do?” returned Jomar. “They’re being held in the dungeons.”

  “They are now. But they’ll have to be taken through the streets to get to the Temple, won’t they? There are only half a dozen of them, he says. Why couldn’t we snatch them away from their guards?”

  Unguru looked incredulous. “Rescue Zimbourans! Madness!”

  “No,” said Damion. “These people are dying because of us, and the invasion of our army. Ailia would want us to save them if we could.”

  Jariss was watching them closely. “It would be a good thing,” he said, “if you were to do this. It would get the citizens of Zimboura on your side. God-kings have been overthrown before, and it can happen again. People do not resist Khalazar now because he seems all-powerful and they have lost their courage. Save those prisoners and you will be loved for it, and they will remember that they too have the power to act.”

  Damion went to the ruin where Wakunga was meditating alone, as was his wont at day’s end. The old man appeared to be deep in a trance, but at the sound of Damion’s footfalls he looked up, then nodded as if at the confirmation of something he had long suspected. “Come,” he said, his manner succinct as always. “Tell me.”

  Damion sat down in the alcove beside him and told him about the farmer and his news. The shaman was thoughtful. “All that you say is true. To go to the aid of the helpless is a noble thing, and will win you admiration. But I fear this wizard, this one you call Mandrake.” He gazed up through the carved frame of the alcove at the darkening sky. “There was once a Mohara shaman—what you would call a Nemerei—who long ago became adept at shifting his shape. He took the form of a black leopard most often, for it was the beast he most admired, owing to its beauty and agility; and before long he came to scorn his own human body, with all its weaknesses and imperfections. Eventually he would take no shape other than the leopard’s, and his disdain for the human form became disdain for all human beings. He saw himself as superior to the villagers, and as the years passed by he grew to hate them, and preyed upon them as a beast would—but with a cruelty and malice no beast ever showed. The people did not know what to make of this leopard that slew, but never consumed, his prey; this strange black leopard that hunted only by night, and was somehow too cunning to fall for any trap or ambush they could devise. They began to fear that he was an evil spirit, unleashed by some curse to make war on all men. But one young warrior of the tribe was wise as well as brave. He journeyed to this old city, where he knew a great treasure lay: a black stone, larger than a man, that fell from the sky.”

  “A shooting star?” said Damion.

  “Yes. A great sorcerer of the Mohara saw it fall, long and long ago. His tribe feared to go near it, and when he did so he found that his powers waned the closer he came to the sky-stone. Then he knew it was a potent thing, a gift from the gods, and he had it buried deep in the earth and this city built over it. And that is why no magic can be done here, and no evil genie or wizard can come near.”

  “Cold iron,” said Damion. “The stone is iron, and that overpowers all sorcery.”

  “Even so. I can still receive my visions, for they are sent me from the high gods of the stars, those you call the Elyra, who fear no iron. But to continue my tale: this warrior knew of the buried sky-stone, and he found where it lay and broke off a piece of it to forge into a weapon. With this he was able to force the leopard-shaman back into his own shape, and slay him.”

  There was a silence, broken only by the sound of a few raised voices in the village below. Another argument had broken out, it seemed. But Damion’s mind was still bound up in the old man’s tale. “What a terrible story,” he said. “Is it true?”

  “Yes, it is true. Every shaman is told that tale when he is young, to caution him.” Wakunga’s face was solemn. “That is the danger in becoming an animal: the spirit follows the body, and in the end one combines in oneself the worst of both man and beast. This Mandrake, you say, is often in a dragon’s shape: that is bad, very bad indeed.”

  “Why? Dragons are not beasts, nor are they evil.”

  “That is so: I have often heard it said that they are both wise and good. But dragons are also accustomed to their large and strong bodies, and think nothing of them. For a man to be suddenly gifted, through magic, with such a mighty form is perilous: like the shaman, he will come to despise his humanity and believe he has become a superior being. A dragon does not see itself as large, any more than you see yourself as a giant—although you are, in comparison to lesser creatures. But a man who takes a dragon’s form glories in its unaccustomed size and power. Therein lies the difference. I think Mandrake desires not the wisdom of the dragon, but only its greater strength and size: he wishes not to be an enlightened being, but only a bigger and better animal. That is the false path, and others have trod it before him to their ruin.”

  “How do you know these things?” Damion asked, fascinated.

  “My totem tells me, and he is never wrong.”

  “Your what?”

  “My spirit-helper. Those who enter the Great Dreaming usually encounter their totem there: a spirit who will lead them through their life’s quest. Mine comes to me in the shape of a desert fox. I have met him many times in my visions, and he has shared much wisdom with me over the years. I have learned to listen well to what he has to say. He is a wise old fox.” The shaman smiled. “If you would be a true Nemerei you must re-enter the Dreaming, and have speech with your totem.”

  Damion looked up and saw Jomar approaching. He could still hear distant voices raised in an uproar. “What is it, Jo? What’s happened?”

  “That girl is a menace,” observed Jomar, coming up to them. But there was an odd note to his voice, as though annoyance struggled with amusement. “We were discussing how to free the prisoners. Lorelyn insisted on putting her word in, as usual, and some of the men started taunting her, saying no woman could ever be a warrior. She said she’d prove it by taking them on—all of them, at once. Three accepted the
challenge.”

  “And—?”

  “Two are still unconscious. The other can’t walk on his right foot.” Jomar flung up his hands. “Three men down, and the raid’s tonight!”

  “If she can do that, she’s worth three men. Let her come with us, Jomar.”

  “I just hate the thought of a woman in battle.” Jomar flung himself down beside Damion, resting his arms on his knees.

  “So do I. It goes against all I have ever been taught. I can’t bear the thought of any woman being hurt. But wherever did we men get the idea that we can bear pain, and women can’t? Women give birth, after all, and that must be more painful than we can imagine. Yet they seem to come through it all right. They’re not made out of spun glass, you know.”

  Jomar nodded reluctantly. “In the camp, it was often the women who endured the most suffering, and lived longest.”

  “So have you come up with a plan?”

  Jomar looked glum. “Of a sort. We’re talking it over now.”

  Damion went with him to the village’s central space, where the Mohara warriors were deep in discussion. Lorelyn was there too, kneeling apart and praying in silent penance. The men, Damion noticed, now kept a respectful distance from her. He had a feeling that there would be no more trouble from that quarter: it was in their own best interests, now, to acknowledge her as an angel. They would rather admit to being beaten by a spirit than by a woman.

  After some heated debate the warriors had rejected several possible plans of action. The only plan not to be shot down was also the most outrageous: it was, simply, to send a number of fighters into the city with Kiran Jariss, disguised as his wives. They could throw off their disguises as the prisoners were led past, fell the guards, and free the captives. With the guards out of the way no one would stop them from fleeing the city: certainly the Zimbouran citizens would not intervene, if anger at the proposed executions were running as high as Jariss claimed.

  Unguru objected to this. “I will not slink about disguised in woman’s clothing! It would dishonor me.”

  “I agree,” said Lorelyn, who was also disappointed in the plan. “I won’t do it either.”

  Jomar stared at her in exasperation. “But you are a woman!”

  “I am no coward to conceal my face from my foe,” snapped Unguru. “That is not the warrior’s way.”

  “All right,” said Jomar throwing up his hands. “Please yourselves. Gallop up to the Zimbourans on your desert stallions giving heroic war cries. You’ll be stuck full of arrows, but at least you’ll have died honorably.”

  The old shaman, on learning of the plan, raised no objections. He merely presented them all with some little bone charms and scraps of hide. “These are sacred gifts, Mohara luck charms,” the tribal chief explained to Damion and Lorelyn as they looked in puzzlement at the bits of skin they were given. Some were rodent or lizard pelts, others were taken from larger animals. “The spirit of an animal lingers with its bones and pelt, or so we believe, and will enter into anyone who possesses them. A man who wears a lion’s skin next to his own will become strong and fearless, and one who wears a gazelle’s hide will become fleet of foot. The asp strikes with the speed of lightning; and the lizard always escapes his foe, for he leaves his tail in his enemy’s grasp and runs free.”

  Jomar held up one tiny pelt by its tail, looking at it with distaste. “The skin of a jumping mouse,” the shaman said. “These mice are very difficult to catch, so they are a potent luck charm.”

  “I don’t think I want this one’s luck,” remarked Jomar, putting the pelt down again.

  Unguru glared. “You speak like a Zimbouran, mocking our ways.”

  “He is the Zayim.” The shaman spoke in his quiet voice, stepping forward.

  His look of serene trust only made Jomar feel irritable. “You don’t really believe that, do you? That I’m fated to do this?” he growled when Unguru and the others had moved off.

  Wakunga smiled. “I do not say you are predestined to lead, Jomar. Perhaps this tale of the Zayim is but a dream of our people, as you have said. What of it? You have the power to make that dream become reality.”

  “All right, then! Now let’s get going, or all the luck in the world won’t help those prisoners.”

  “One more thing,” Wakunga said, holding out a bundle of leopard hide.

  “What is it now? I’m not supposed to wear that, too, am I?”

  “Not this—no.” The old shaman unfolded the hide from around the object it had concealed. Damion and Lorelyn leaned close, and gasped as one.

  It was a sword: a plain unadorned scimitar of gray metal. In its very simplicity there was a harsh beauty. “This is the Star Sword,” Wakunga told them. “Forged from the star that fell into the desert. Its power will turn back any sorcery: even a genie cannot stand before it, and it has already been the bane of one evil shaman. I give it to you, Zayim, to use against the dragon wizard and his sorcerers. It is the only weapon that can prevail against them.”

  “It’s iron!” exclaimed Lorelyn. “Pure iron. He’s right, Jo: no magic can touch you when you wield that blade!”

  Jomar silently took the scimitar and held it up. A weapon to banish magic! For the first time his heart swelled with a fierce hope.

  JARISS LED THE RAIDING PARTY to an abandoned farm not far from the city walls. He kept there a decrepit wagon and a mismatched pair of dray horses, one gray and one chestnut. Both looked equally dispirited. Dismounting, the warriors left their own horses tethered in the farmyard and climbed into the wagon.

  “Here are some clothes,” he told them. “Not much, but they are the best I can find.” There were some loose shapeless robes of what looked like sacking, some thin scarves and a number of voluminous shawls in neutral colors: brown, gray, and black. From their tattered state they looked to have been gleaned from rubbish heaps, but had in fact been left by fleeing owners.

  “What dreary clothes,” commented Lorelyn, trying on a shawl. “I can’t say I think much of Zimbouran fashion!”

  “They are not meant to be attractive,” Jariss explained. “In Zimboura it is considered vulgar for a woman to draw attention to herself in public. In fact, Khalazar has decreed that no woman must ever again be seen on a public street—on pain of death. The highborn ladies get around this by having themselves transported in curtained litters, but the poorer women have to improvise. The scarves are to put over your faces: they are fine enough to see through, but not enough to show your features clearly. The shawls are to be wrapped around your heads, and you must tuck your hands inside them. So long as you obey the letter of the law, and no part of you is actually seen by anyone, you may go wherever you will.”

  “Well, it makes for a good disguise anyway,” remarked Lorelyn as she disappeared under the shawl.

  “And remember that you are wives: you must walk respectfully behind me, one after the other. The first wife leads, followed by the second and third wives and so on, with concubines coming last. Don’t clump together: you must walk in a neat line, so that passersby can count how many wives I have. It is the custom. And don’t ever get in front of me or you will be charged with unseemly conduct. Once we are mingling with the crowds at the temple you can move apart without being noticed.”

  They drove into the city by the West Gate, moving on into dreary neighborhoods that seemed not so much inhabited as haunted, by shades that peered surreptitiously from broken windows or cowered back in alleyways—the living ghosts that were the poor.

  “I thought we would take the scenic route,” said Jariss.

  Damion and Lorelyn had never seen such poverty, not even in the meanest alleys of Raimar or Jardjana. They passed through a reeking meat market, whose pens were crammed to capacity with live poultry, pigs, goats, and—to Damion and Lorelyn’s distress—rats and reptiles, and even insects of various kinds. To the vast and voracious Zimbouran population anything remotely edible was food. But after a time they noticed that the houses had become larger and more affluent in appe
arance. People thronged the inner courtyard of one house whose gate was briefly opened as they passed by. At the center of the gathering stood a little girl in a red-and-gold robe, her slight frame heavily loaded with flower garlands and jewelry.

  “What’s all that about?” Damion asked their guide.

  “It’s a wedding.”

  “Wedding! Why, she can’t be more than twelve!”

  “It’s Zimbouran law to marry young. More children that way.”

  Lorelyn looked at the crowded streets. “Why would they want more children? They’ve too many people as it is.”

  “It’s the mandate of Khalazar—we must fill all the earth, and conquer its other peoples. More people means more soldiers. A Zimbouran man may now have as many wives—and children—as he pleases.”

  “But how does he feed them all?”

  “He can’t, of course. Many families end up destitute, and the children starve. Most girl children are killed, though, before they get a chance to starve. Girls aren’t valued as much as boys here, and their dowries can beggar a family. That little girl-bride is very lucky to be alive.”

  “Why not get rid of the dowries?” asked Lorelyn. “If every man must marry by law, then he hardly needs a dowry to attract him!”

  “Dowries are traditional. As for killing girl babies,” said Jariss bleakly, “when I think of my own daughter and the life she will probably have, I wonder sometimes if she would have been better off dead.”

  “Kiran, you make me feel like an absolute pig,” said Lorelyn quietly. “Your people have suffered, too—far more than the Arainians could ever know.”

  They passed the huge arena, where statues atop towering pedestals depicted gladiators battling bulls and lions. The gates were closed, but from within the circular walls came the noises of the crowd. Jomar stiffened, remembering horrors, and Lorelyn put a hand on his shawled shoulder. He said nothing.