Thrones of Ash (Kingdoms of Sand Book 3)

by Daniel Arenson

  "Burn her in the cage!" shouted the priest. "Sacrifice her to Dagon!"

  Maya stared ahead. There she saw it—the gibbet hanging from the post. A man climbed, opened the cage door, and pulled out the charred bones. The skeleton clattered to the ground and fell apart. A single amulet remained in the ash, half-melted, vaguely shaped as a four-branched candelabrum.

  As the men dragged her toward the cage, Maya drew from her reserves of lume, and her hands shone and light filled her eyes.

  "Unhand me!" she called, and her voice boomed, deep as thunder. "Unhand me now, or it will be your bones upon the ground."

  She could not burn them, of course. Luminosity was a force for healing. If she cast her light upon them, she would only give them vigor, not pain. But Luminosity was also the art of creation, suggestion, of music and song. Maya was not a lumer, and she had never used the Muse, but right now she tried to find that creative light, to give her voice the power of a great orator or prophet.

  "Stand back now!" She turned her glowing eyes from man to man. "Release me or I will wilt your fields, and even your god Dagon will weep to see the desolation."

  There. Now the men stepped away from her. But their sickles were still raised, and Maya didn't think she could cow them for long. Soon enough they would see through the ruse, realize she was nothing but a sixteen-year-old girl, unarmed. Holding her glowing hands before her, Maya stepped backward. Her bare feet pressed into the ashes and bones of the dead, and she grimaced but kept retreating.

  "The girl is a blasphemer!" shouted Saentek, pointing at her. "Slay her! Slay her, cowards!"

  Her light scared the men, but so did the gangly priest. They advanced toward Maya, swords swinging. Maya turned and ran.

  She should run into the desert, she knew. She should escape this town, try to find a way back home. But she found herself running toward the sea. The men chased, and a sickle swung. Maya screamed as the blade grazed her back, tearing her tunic, cutting the skin. She kept running, not knowing how badly she was wounded. Ahead she saw it: the house of Luminosity behind the olive trees. She ran down the road, through the garden, and pounded on the door.

  "I know you don't want to teach me!" Maya shouted. "Give me shelter then, if not wisdom!"

  The men howled behind her. Maya spun around, her back to the door, and grimaced. So much fear filled her that the luminescence fled her like wine from a cracked jug. She stood before them, a mere girl again, panting, her back blazing where the sickle had cut her, the door locked behind her.

  "Stand back!" she warned, but without the Muse, her voice came out weak. Afraid. They advanced toward her, faces lurid masks, blades raised. Maya winced. She had come here all this way—just to die, just to fall so close to wisdom.

  She spoke again, but this time she spoke to another.

  "So this is the Luminosity you teach?" she said as a priest grabbed her arm. "To forsake a sister of the light?" Another man grabbed her, pulling her away from the house. "No wonder your former pupil burned! You abandoned her!"

  The men dragged Maya between the olive trees, smirking, speaking of what they would do to her before the burning. One man shoved her down. Another kicked her in the ribs. Maya grabbed a stone, prepared to go down fighting, when the door swung open behind her.

  Light flared, and a voice rolled across the garden.

  "Be gone, snakes! Slither back to your holes, or I will stomp on your heads." Maya turned to see the old woman walk forward, leaning on a gnarled staff. "Leave now, dogs of Dagon, lest you wish me to turn you into curs." The old woman raised her staff, and luminescence shone around her fist. "Leave now, or soon you will bark as dogs and piss on walls."

  The men cursed. They turned to flee—grown men, bearded, armed with blades, fleeing from a frail old woman with nothing but a staff.

  Maya winced and reached across her back. Her hand came back bloody, and finally the pain hit her—searing, a line of fire running down from her shoulder blade. She struggled to her feet and walked toward the old woman. Bleeding, covered in dust, still salty from the sea, she faced the old lumer.

  "Will you teach me?" Maya said.

  Maya was a short woman, shortest in her family, even smaller than Ofeer, but this elder stood even shorter. Her dark eyes peered at Maya from nests of wrinkles.

  "I have nothing to teach you. Luminosity brings nothing but pain, nothing but danger. Did you not see the bones in the gibbet?" She spat and turned away. "Leave."

  The old woman hobbled into her house and slammed the door behind her.

  Maya could not believe this. Why had Avinasi ever sent her here? For what—to be hunted by a group of madmen as cruel as the Empire, with this crone unwilling to even let her indoors? Anger filled Maya. She marched down the path and banged on the door with her fist.

  "I won't leave!" she said. "Do you hear me? I will not. Do you think I fear a pack of rabid dogs? I faced the legions of Aelar and did not fear them! Do you think I fear death? Death is nothing to the eternal life of Luminosity. I will study this art even if I burn, even if my only legacy is bones on the street."

  Maya lowered her head, leaning against the door, panting. She wanted to heal her wound, but she felt too weak, unable to draw more lume. This place was not like Zohar, overflowing with lume like a pomegranate overflowing with seeds. Here in the east, the lume was too thin, too fine, fleeing from her grasp, watered down. She should never have come here. She should never have left her family, her mother.

  I'm sorry, Mother, she thought, tears stinging her eyes. I miss you and I love you so much.

  The lock clanked, the door opened, and the old woman stood there. No more anger filled her eyes, only sadness. Yes, there was sadness in those dark eyes, so powerful that Maya felt it flow into her, an iciness, a despair that seemed worse than any cut of a blade.

  The old woman spoke softly. "The Sisterhood of Luminosity demands that I turn aside each pupil three times. Three times I refused you, and three times you returned to me. Yet now I plead with you, child. Do not come to me a fourth time. Do not step through this door. The path of Luminosity is a path of light, but many shadows loom along its sides, and many tears wet its soil. If you step through this door, I can show you light, but every light casts shadows." Her eyes dampened, and she stroked Maya's hair. "You're an innocent child, and so I ask you. I plead with you. Leave this place. Leave and forget the light."

  Maya stared at the old woman, wondering if she had used Foresight, if she had foreseen tears and shadows along Maya's own path through Luminosity. She thought, too, of the shadow she had seen in the desert. The man in black robes. The man with the furrowed gray skin. The man who had raised the dragons to stop her from coming here. Did he wait along this path? If she walked down it, would she encounter him upon this road?

  Then I will meet you again, Maya thought. Then I will face you, fight you if I must.

  "Then I will suffer the shadows," Maya whispered, tasting her tears. "I will shed tears. For a life without Luminosity is a life without color, without taste, a life blind. I will suffer the shadows for the sake of the light."

  The woman nodded, a sad smile on her face, a bittersweet understanding in her eyes—perhaps already seeing the path ahead, perhaps willing to walk it with Maya. The lumer took Maya's hand and guided her into the house, into a new life of wisdom, of learning, and of fear.

  SHILOH

  My son is alive.

  As Shiloh watched the six hundred nailed to the crosses, as she heard them scream, as she smelled their blood, she hated that thought, hated that relief, that joy that filled her.

  My son is alive.

  Across the hills of Beth Eloh, the crosses rose one by one, forming a dripping forest. Legionaries laughed as they swung their hammers, nailing hands and feet, as men, women, and children screamed. Two legionaries guffawed as a baby died on a cross between her parents. Thousands of people cried out in the streets, trying to reach their beloveds, only to encounter a wall of shields, the sting of swords. One man i
n the crowd roared and tossed a stone, trying to barrel his way through, only for a spear to pierce his chest. Shiloh watched from the palace courtyard, and she loathed the happiness inside her.

  Epher lives. My firstborn lives.

  The screams rolled across the city, and the blood spilled, and Shiloh wondered if her own heart, her compassion, had died within her.

  "Do you see what happens, Shiloh?" Remus stood beside her, gazing down upon the city. "Do you see how the rats that bite die?"

  Shiloh saw. She saw the cruelty of Aelar. She saw the death of her people, six hundred innocents slain. She saw a city, a kingdom, a world crying out under the yoke of the Empire.

  My son wanted to give his life for them, Shiloh thought. He was willing to die for his people, and his people said no. They freed him. He lives, yet I'll never see him again.

  She gazed beyond the hills of death toward the warren of Beth Eloh, countless streets snaking between limestone homes, and beyond them the walls of the city, golden in the sunset. Somewhere here, among a hundred thousand souls, her son hid. Shiloh did not know if he'd ever emerge from darkness, if she would ever hold him again, ever see any of her children again.

  Epher is in hiding. Koren and Atalia were taken captive. Ofeer has joined the eagles, and Maya fled into the desert. My husband is dead. Shiloh lowered her head, and suddenly that joy, that horrible joy, left her, replaced with grief.

  "They are innocents," she said, voice barely more than a whisper. "They did not sin, Prefect Remus. You will not crush Zohar's Blade by slaying six hundred randomly culled from the city." She dared turn toward the prefect, to meet his eyes. "You will only drive more men into their ranks. You will only inspire them to strike again, to strike harder."

  He smiled down at her, a towering man; his shoulders rose above her head. "Good. Very good. Let these rats of Zohar's Blade emerge from their holes. Let them strike me with their rage. I will be there to crush their skulls."

  Shiloh glanced down at the prefect's arm. A bandage wrapped around it, hiding the wound the bladesmen had given him—perhaps a wound Epher himself had dealt. Remus was tall, powerful, clad in armor, the might of an empire at his back, but he was not invincible.

  You bleed like all men, Shiloh thought. That's all you are—a man, like the thousands of men who die every day in this empire. You can bleed. You can die. You know this, and you are afraid.

  "Come, Shiloh," he said. "I'd like to show you something. A little surprise for you this fine evening."

  He turned and began to walk across the courtyard, leaving the view of the hills. Legionaries fell in behind him. Shiloh followed. She had no choice. If she resisted, they would drag her. She turned away from the crosses, from the dying, from those she had vowed to protect, and their screams echoed in her ears.

  The palace rose to their right, limestone walls soaring, sprouting several towers, the centermost capped with a ring of columns and a dome. It was here that Queen Sifora, Shiloh's sister, had reigned, and their father, King Rahamyah, before her. It was here that Shefael Elior, Sifora's son, now sat on the throne, serving his Aelarian masters, a puppet king, as obedient as a lap dog. Once Shiloh had thought this palace a great symbol of Zohar's light. Once this had been her childhood home, the place where she had been born, had been raised before marrying Jerael. Now it was a symbol of slavery, a collar of limestone and gold.

  Remus led the way, and they left the palace behind. They walked across the Mount of Cedars, the center of Beth Eloh. Fortified walls snaked around the hill, forming an inner city, a great acropolis, thousands of years old, far more ancient than the fabled Aelarian Acropolis across the sea. Here on this hill, within these walls, rose Zohar's symbols of power and antiquity. The palace. The tombs of the prophets. And ahead of Shiloh, the holiest of Zohar's monuments, the pulsing heart of her nation—the Temple of Eloh.

  There was only one true temple in Zohar, only one heart of their ancient religion, all other places of worship merely offshoots. It soared ahead on the hilltop, dwarfing even the palace. One ring of walls surrounded the city; another layer of walls surrounded the Mount of Cedars. Here rose a third circular wall, carved of ancient limestone, the bricks over a thousand years old. Battlements topped these walls, and golden gates led to a courtyard beyond.

  Remus led the way up the ancient Path of Light, a cobbled road, and through the gilded archway. The Temple's courtyard spread before them, paved with white tiles, surrounded by walls. A complex of buildings rose here: granaries, columned galleries, and living quarters for the priests. A stone altar rose in the center of the courtyard, stained with the ashes of countless bullocks and lambs sacrificed and burned here since the days of Shemesh, the ancient priest who had built the Temple and anointed King Elshalom.

  Beyond the altar rose a massive building, hundreds of feet high, the largest building in Zohar and among the largest in the world. Gilded columns framed pale white walls, rising toward a golden crest like a crown, so high Shiloh had to tilt her head all the way back to see it. A golden archway shone in this building, leading into the Holy of Holies. Beyond those gates ahead, Shiloh knew, dwelled the spirit of God himself—or so said the tales. Shiloh had never been in that building; none but the loftiest priests were allowed into the Holy of Holies, into that innermost sanctum of light. Lumers claimed that from this building flowed all the lume of the world, the great spring of magic.

  "Beautiful, isn't it?" Remus stopped walking and gazed up at the temple of gold and limestone. "A marvelous piece of art, one to rival even the great monuments of Aelar. It's truly a wonder, Shiloh, that Zoharite rats could construct a building of such grace." He scoffed. "Your priests live in wealth while your commoners squat in filth."

  Shiloh doubted that Remus cared much for the commoners of Zohar, aside from how many he could nail to crosses, but she bit down on her words. She had been to Aelar in her youth. She had seen palaces to dwarf this temple, and she had seen Aelar's own share of commoners and filth.

  "Did you come here to show me the Temple of Eloh?" she said instead. "I've seen it many times."

  He turned toward her and raised an eyebrow. "The Temple of Eloh? No, my darling. Only docile rats may worship an invisible god. The Zoharites rebelled against me. They slew several of my men." He turned back toward the Temple and sneered. "And so they will kneel before true might." He raised his voice to a shout. "Bring them out!"

  Shiloh gasped and covered her mouth.

  Legionaries emerged from the Holy of Holies—that place forbidden even to the kings and queens of Zohar. They dragged with them the Temple's high priests—old men with long white beards, their robes dyed ultramarine and gold. Ceremonial breastplates hung from their necks, jeweled with many precious stones, symbols of their divinity. The priests struggled, cried out, only for the legionaries to beat them, to drag them out into the courtyard, their blood dripping. One priest's turban fell and rolled, the wind carrying it away.

  Four legionaries carried a wooden crate coated with peeling gilt. It was the size of a coffin. Shiloh had never seen it before, but she knew of this ark. Three thousand years old, they said it was, dating back to the age when the Zoharites had been nomads, lost in the desert without a kingdom of their own, and within it dwelled the spirit of Eloh.

  "Dominus," Shiloh said, turning toward Remus. "You cannot—"

  "I cannot?" He gripped her arm, digging his fingers into her. "I cannot? You do not tell me, Queen of Rats, what I can or cannot do. I serve Empress Porcia Octavius, a living goddess of eagles. All will serve her. All will kneel before her." He returned his gaze toward his soldiers. "Burn them on the altar! Burn them all for their insolence."

  The legionaries nodded and dragged the priests toward the great stone altar in the courtyard. The bearded men cried out, struggled, prayed, but they were old men, frail.

  "Hear us, Eloh!" one priest cried, raising his hands to the heavens. His fingers shone with rings.

  "Save your children, Lord of Light!" prayed another man, blood soak
ing his beard and dripping down his jeweled breastplate.

  Remus watched them and snorted. "Too long have these priests lived here as gods, adorning themselves with gemstones and gold while the commoners squabbled for crumbs. You will see, Zohar. You will see the justice of Aelar. The justice that burns out corruption, that will civilize the barbarians of the desert. Legionaries! Strip off their jewels and fineries. We will send them as gifts to Empress Porcia, and we will burn these heathens naked, so that the gods may see their wretchedness before claiming their souls."

  The legionaries tore off the priests' jewels—rings from fingers, golden bracelets embedded with precious stones, and their decorative breastplates, the platinum inlaid with gems. Rough hands tore the priests' turbans from their heads, ripped off embroidered sashes, and finally tore off the dyed robes of fine linen. Shiloh looked away. She would not gaze upon these priests, the holy fathers of Zohar, stripped of their vestments, their flesh naked in the light of the Temple, exposed as mere old men.

  "Dominus," she said to Remus. "Please, dominus. If you desecrate the Temple, the people will rebel. The children of Zohar are deeply pious. They—"

  "—are savages," Remus finished for her. "They will learn to kneel before true might. Legionaries! Sacrifice them to Camulus, the god of war!"

  Shiloh looked away. But she could still hear the priests' screams. She could still smell them burn. As the sun fell, the fire lit the darkness.

  Six hundred fell, Shiloh thought, eyes stinging in the smoke, clutched in Remus's grip. And now our Temple is desecrated.

  "Toss the box into the flames!" Remus cried, laughing, the firelight painting his face red. "Watch, Shiloh. Watch Eloh, your mighty god, burn in the fire." He gripped her head, spinning it around painfully, tugging her eyelids open with his thumbs. "Watch!"