10,000 Suns

by Michelle L. Levigne

  "You read this language?” He stared at the writing, which looked like nothing more than oddly tipped half and quarter circles arranged in long columns up and down the parchment.

  "Not very well. O'klan had to tutor me half a moon before I caught on.” Challen rolled her eyes in smiling frustration.

  Elzan had the distinct impression she had expected to conquer the language problem in only a few days.

  "Who is O'klan?” The name was familiar. He had heard it just recently.

  "Oh, he's a eunuch in the Sanctum who assists the scribes. This is his native language. Now, listen, Elzan."

  "Yes, Lady,” he quipped, as he had to his first tutor.

  "According to their legends, Maquaos conquered their demi-gods a century before Bainevah conquered them. Maquaos came from another land, do you see? Exiled by Mother Matrika for disobedience, or a runaway. Worship gives power to the demi-gods. He took worshippers, gathered power, and then attacked. It wasn't enough to defeat the Mother even at the moon dark when her powers ebbed."

  "But what does this have to do with the fall of the Three?"

  "Other than Cowanloh, who tried to seduce Weaver Girl, Maquaos is the only minor power who hates the Three."

  "Ah. Makes sense."

  "Lady?” A huge, black-skinned man approached. “Your father is searching for you."

  "Oh, I'm sorry!” Challen jumped up and scrambled to gather her scrolls. “I only planned to spend a few minutes here."

  "Let me, Lady.” He bowed to her and Challen scurried away.

  "In three days, Elzan!” she called before she vanished.

  "Highness.” The big man watched Elzan while his hands worked to roll up the scrolls and neatly stow everything away.

  "You're O'klan?” Now Elzan remembered. He had heard several noblemen with daughters in the Sanctum tried to have simpering, whining Agrat replaced with O'klan. Elzan had thought at the time it was one of those struggles for prestige more than any concern for their daughters’ safety. By taking Agrat from his authority over the Sanctum, those fathers could strike the nobles who supported Agrat. They had lost their argument because O'klan came from a foreign land and had only recently become part of the Sanctum staff.

  "Yes, Highness.” The man bowed to him. “The Lady—"

  "Thinks I'm only a scribe. We seek knowledge about the Three.” Elzan stood and held out his hand, palm up in friendship to the eunuch. “I hear you are a historian also."

  "Yes, Highness. A scribe, like you and the Lady.” O'klan grinned, eyes sparkling. “So you are her other friend, who finds such fascinating information. Between the three of us, I think we learn more than all the scribes dedicated to the search."

  "Mother bless us all!” Elzan feigned horror. He and O'klan laughed together.

  CHAPTER 12

  Meeting O'klan returned young Kena'Shazzur to Elzan's thoughts, and what he had recently learned about the Sanctum and the changes in the ritual of the Sacred Marriage.

  His mother had let him read the scrolls she borrowed from the Mother's temple and what he had learned confused him. The Sacred Marriage began in a time when only women served the Mother. At that time, the High Priestess ruled jointly with the king and only her son could be the next king. Elzan wished it were that way now. The problem of nasty half-brothers and concubines conniving to become Queen Mother would never exist.

  He thought the information fascinating enough to distract the King from more pressing concerns, and he planned to bring it up in conversation when he joined Shazzur and the King for the noon meal. Elzan knew Shazzur would probably laugh and accuse him yet again of trying to free his daughter from her protective prison. He laughed at himself as he walked the passageway to the private entrance to the King's Council chamber.

  When he reached the doorway, Elzan paused to straighten his kilt. He looked around and grew concerned. The entryway was deserted. No brothers or cousins lounging about, waiting for a quick audience with the King. Or, in the case of some nastier relatives, waiting to discourage those who had legitimate business or pry information from them. Why wasn't anyone here? Elzan shook his head and decided to be grateful for the reprieve as he lifted his hand to knock and ask admittance.

  Something thumped against the other side of the thick wooden panel inlaid with ivory and mahogany diamonds. Elzan slapped his hand on the latch to open the door.

  The latch didn't move. Another thump sounded on the other side. With his hand on the wood panel, he felt the vibration.

  What could make the thick door vibrate like that?

  He slammed his joined fists down on the heavy iron latch and rammed his shoulder against the door. Something cracked and gave way on the other side. Elzan stumbled as the door flew open under his weight.

  Shazzur leaped at a man in the uniform of the Host of the Ram. He caught up a heavy bronze lamp stand, tall as a man, and swung it so the pomegranates in the base connected squarely with the soldier's face.

  The King knelt in a corner, protecting himself with a bronze fruit bowl like an inverted shield, using the base as a handle. Another soldier stabbed at the King with a wicked looking, double-tipped knife.

  Elzan leaped onto the man attacking the King, knocking him to the floor. Shazzur and his opponent fell, taken down by the momentum of the lamp stand.

  Holding his man between his knees, Elzan pounded the soldier's face with both fists. The man stabbed blindly at this new adversary. Elzan slammed down his elbow, catching the man's wrist. He heard bones snap and the knife clattered to the tiles. The sound was lost in the howl of pain.

  The tense body beneath him went limp. Elzan hit him twice more. Gasping, he turned, still holding his adversary flat, to look for Shazzur. The Seer knelt on his man, tying his hands with the gilded sash from his robe.

  "My son?” King Nebazz whispered. He choked and dropped the bowl.

  Elzan scrambled on his hands and knees to his father. Blood smeared the tiles and turned the King's green robes black in a spreading stain. He snatched at the mallet just beyond the King's reach and threw it at the silver gong. The reverberations threatened to deafen them. Someone had to hear it and come to help. He put an arm around the King and held him upright. He looked to Shazzur, words clogging in his throat.

  "The King wanted some time alone before we ate. I arrived early. I suspect these two planned to kill him and then make it appear I had killed him.” Shazzur slid off his outer robe and began ripping it into strips. Elzan handed him his belt knife.

  "These two shouldn't be here,” Elzan said between clenched teeth. “Moltek and Jabez were to be on duty. Only death could keep them away.” He opened the King's robes, revealing four deep stab wounds.

  The door swung open and Abendago entered. The narrow-faced scribe stopped short, his cheery smile freezing.

  "Healers,” Elzan said with a cracking voice.

  "Guards!” Abendago shouted as he spun on his heel and ran back down the public hallway.

  "The Mother sent you,” Shazzur said. “While I finished that one, your man would have killed your father."

  "Did—well,” the King whispered.

  "Please, sir, don't talk,” Elzan begged. He reached with a bloodstained hand for a bandage.

  "Best of—of all—of my sons."

  "He is indeed, Majesty,” Shazzur soothed. He sat back on his heels and nodded. “Help comes."

  Lady Mayar led the stream of courtiers and guards and healers. She paled only a moment when she saw the King on the floor, his bloody chest and the ragged bandages. Lips pressed tightly together, she gestured for her son to move aside and knelt next to the King.

  "Nebazz, do you hear me?” she said, her tone brisk, demanding an answer. The King nodded. “Listen to my voice. Follow me into the healing lands, Nebazz."

  Elzan scooted backwards to lean against the wall. Eyes half-closed, he listened to his mother describe the meadow ringed by balsam trees where the sunlight streamed down in a healing river from Mother Matrika's eyes. A faint gold
en haze sprang from Lady Mayar's skin, bleeding through her clothes. It concentrated in her hands pressed against the bloody bandages.

  Other healers stood around her, their hands on her shoulders and head. Golden light streamed from them to feed her. Soon, but not soon enough for Elzan, the light spilled over to enfold the King. When Lady Mayar removed her hands, the blood had dried and the haze enfolded the wounded king.

  "Now you may move him,” she whispered. She glanced over her shoulder at Elzan, managing a faint smile. He leaped to his feet and clasped his mother's shoulders, supporting her as she stood.

  "Elzan,” the King whispered, startling all of them.

  The new guards, Abendago, the healers and courtiers paused, amazed. No one wrapped in the healing light could move until the healers released him. Yet the King spoke.

  "Sir?” Elzan gingerly touched the King's hand.

  "My voice. You and Shazzur. Trust you. Take my ring."

  "Sir.” He swallowed a moan and slid the massive onyx ram's head ring from the King's thumb onto his own hand. He raised his fist in salute to the wounded king.

  King Nebazz smiled faintly as the healers carried him away. Lady Mayar held his hand.

  "Lady Mother?” Elzan blurted, just before she vanished through the door.

  "Only a few days. You are regent for his illness. He will not die,” she assured him, black eyes bright with tears, wine-colored lips trembling as she tried to smile.

  Then suddenly, he and Shazzur were alone. The assailants were gone, hauled out by the guards. Elzan sank into the only chair still upright. He raised his clenched fist to his face, until the ring almost touched his nose.

  "I didn't want this,” he muttered, even as something inside him exulted.

  The King had called him by name before witnesses. The King had given him his ring and made him his voice before witnesses. The King had called him “my son,” and said he was the best of them all.

  "That is doubly good for the land,” Shazzur said in a remarkably steady, dry voice. “You will not take advantage of your father's temporary weakness."

  Elzan didn't know whether to laugh or empty his stomach. He reached for the wineskin on the floor. A chair leg rested squarely in the middle of it, but the skin hadn't punctured.

  * * * *

  The man Shazzur took down died of his broken skull, bleeding inside his brain. The man who stabbed the King woke and startled his jailers by gibbering like a madman. His eyes were pure black, no pupil or white. Before Vandan could come from the Healers Temple to examine the man and break through the magic to learn who had taken him over, the prisoner hung himself with a rope made from his own clothes.

  * * * *

  "Senyet,” Challen muttered. “Mother curse him and shrivel his—” She stopped with a muffled giggle. She couldn't exactly wish the mincing little eunuch's privates shriveled when they had already been removed. “Bloat his nose,” she amended, and scurried to find a hiding place.

  Senyet was exceedingly vain and she had caught him dabbing powder on his nose to keep it from shining.

  This late at night, all the Brides should have been asleep. Challen had a particularly vivid dream that stayed with her on waking. She dreamed she ran through the Sanctum's gardens in the cool rain that had misted the city all day. The ground began to shake and the walls trembled and brutish, hairy men in iron armor leaped into the Sanctum. Challen woke shuddering.

  Not from the shock of the dream, she decided, but because the men had no shadows.

  That, she decided, was a dream of ill omen if she would ever dream one. Challen knew better than to sound the alarm without checking the garden first. She had put on her darkest clothes and covered her hair with a black cloth and crept out into the damp garden, glistening under the near-full moon.

  Now, that irritating, whining little Senyet wandered through the gardens, talking with someone. Loudly.

  Arguing. Challen relaxed, knowing the arguing voices masked the slapping of her bare feet on the drenched garden paths. She ducked down behind a hedge sculpted as swans with their wings spread, and wrapped the cloth more securely around her face.

  Was that why she had the dream? To prompt her to come into the garden to witness this?

  "Don't press me,” Senyet snarled. “I told you the timing was inauspicious."

  "Inauspicious,” the other man snapped. He sounded young. His voice had a foreigner's twang. “No time is auspicious. The King was supposed to die yesterday and Doni'Mayar shamed for supporting the Seer, who should be in a traitor's grave, blamed for the King's death. Is he? No. They're both co-regents while the King recovers from a few pitiful stab wounds."

  "I told you the men were not ready and the plan was doomed. The magic is gradual and needs time to grow roots before we can fully control our puppets."

  "What about the girls here in the Sanctum? We should take them all under our control."

  "A few at a time is the only wise course of action,” Senyet snarled. It sounded odd, with his high-pitched voice. “Until we have total control, as we did with Shersia, we can't take more."

  "Then Shazzur's daughter must be next."

  Challen nearly fell backwards into more wet bushes.

  "She won't be eligible for the ritual for a year. It would be a waste of time and energy."

  "Not a waste of time. We don't need her to sabotage the ritual.” The other man laughed, and the sound sent chills up Challen's back. “If she is caught acting the whore, Shazzur will be disgraced. It's not as good as killing him and half the princes, but I'll settle for anything now."

  Whore? Challen felt her face burn. Just see if she ever went anywhere without O'klan now.

  Maybe she should curtail her visits to the Scribes Hall. Would they try to get to her in the Healers Temple? What about her stolen moments with Elzan? Would they accuse her of violating the Sanctum's restrictions? Despite what her father and Lady Mayar said, would the blurring exercise be deemed inadequate to her modesty?

  If Senyet and his co-conspirator caught her here, they wouldn't need to infect her with magic to destroy her. They could claim they caught her meeting a lover. It would be easy to say the man escaped. Helping a man enter the Sanctum was punishable by death. Challen was virgin and could prove them wrong about the lover part of the story—but she had the sudden, nauseating certainty it wouldn't take much to remove that little obstacle. Then where would she be, with her maidenhead torn, likely by the very person who was supposed to examine her and prove her guilt or innocence?

  Holding her breath, she listened to them bounce plans back and forth. She waited until they finally wandered out of earshot, counted to fifty and listened for the slightest scuffling of sand, the faintest plopping of raindrops, the most minute rustling of branches. When all was silent so even the wind seemed to hold its breath, she slipped out between the bushes and back down the path to the door inside and her rooms.

  She tried not to think of her danger. She had warning, so she could prepare. What mattered was that someone had tried to kill Shazzur and the King, and blame the King's death on her father. Someone had indeed managed to send evil magic with Shersia into the Sacred Marriage. Someone planned to do the same, and worse, with the other maidens living in the Sanctum. She had to do something. But what?

  O'klan knocked on her door at dawn to wake her so they could finish copying two passages from the scrolls before returning them. He found Challen awake and dressed, pale and red-eyed from lack of sleep. When she announced quietly that she needed to see her father, immediately, the eunuch obeyed.

  The guard at the door of Shazzur's house didn't believe the lady in the sedan chair was the Seer's daughter. Challen listened to him argue with O'klan for nearly five minutes before she acted. She didn't want to give the palace servants matter for gossip. She had hoped to go to her father quietly, apprise him of the danger quietly, and return to the Sanctum quietly.

  "I am Kena'Shazzur'Challa'Naya,” she said, stepping from the chair. Her voice was a blade
of ice, cutting the argument between armored guard and muscled eunuch. She began to raise her veil. “Look at my hair, my eyes, and you will see my Father."

  "No, Lady!” the guard and O'klan blurted together, aghast.

  "Forgive me, Lady.” The guard shuddered. “It is worth my life to see your face. Forgive me, but—"

  "Challen?” Shazzur stood in the open doorway, blinking sleepily. “What a pleasant surprise. I dreamed you needed me, and when I woke I heard your voice.” He wrapped his arm around her and led her into the house.

  She managed to retain her dignity until they were alone in her father's study room. Then Challen burst into tears. Once again, despite the nuisance of the ridiculous thing, she was glad she wore a veil. It soaked up her tears admirably.

  "If only you had the other man's name, or you had seen him,” Shazzur said, after Challen finished her tale. He sat back in his chair of carved oak and gripped the ram horns armrests. “Without that, we dare not move against Senyet."

  "But—” The protest died as understanding came. Challen nodded. “Better to leave him there and watch him, than to remove half the problem and not know who will appear to replace him."

  "Indeed. I'm glad to see you think clearly despite lack of sleep.” He reached across the space between their chairs and patted her hand. “I am most proud of you."

  "I wish I could return the compliment, Father.” She swallowed another sob and rubbed at her burning, bleary eyes.

  "I?” He affected shock.

  "Why did I have to hear from Senyet that you were nearly killed?” She stood and glared down at him, her fists jammed into her hips. Challen wanted to pound her father and work out her frustration, thumping his chest as she had done when she was a child, terrified of the howling desert winds, unable to understand why her mother had vanished and she couldn't go back to her nurse and dogs and pretty home.

  "I meant to tell you today, when we met with Cho'Mat. By then, the worst of it would be over and I knew you would handle it calmly.” Shazzur eyed her, frowning. Usually that expression of surprised distaste could make her laugh. It was so unlike him, she always found it ridiculous. Not today.