by J. S. Bangs
“So maybe you’d make more friends if you talked more.”
“Friends,” Kirshta said slowly, drawing out the word as if it would hurt him. He had his sister, and he sometimes had allies. He had never thought much of having friends. “Are we friends?”
Apurta rolled his eyes. “You’re an idiot, Kirshta.”
Kirshta tied his hair behind his head with a bit of twine. “I think I’m done,” he said. “What do you think? Will Captain Dumaya kill me on sight?”
Apurta looked him up and down. “You look ridiculous,” he said. “The thikratta look suits you better. No kurta, just a strip of cotton around your groin and a look in your eyes like you want to light everything on fire.”
Kirshta laughed. “Is that what I look like most of the time?”
“You practiced the mastery of fire for so long, of course you want to show off.”
“No fire! At least, not if things go according to plan.” He took a deep breath. “Time to report to Chadram. He has copper for me, and I’m going to sell it to the Red Men to get into the Dhigvaditya. And he probably has some piece of advice he’s determined to give me. Will you be safe while I go into Majasravi?”
“You’re trying to infiltrate the Dhigvaditya while I stay in the camp, and you’re asking me if I’ll be safe?” Apurta pushed himself to his feet. “Yeah, I’ll be fine.”
Kirshta turned toward the entrance of the tent, but was startled by Apurta’s hands on his shoulders. He turned and met Apurta’s kiss on his cheek.
“What was that?” he asked.
“Don’t be an idiot,” Apurta said, and shoved him through the door of the tent.
* * *
He entered Majasravi with a thrill of danger and excitement. He was here, away from the Red Men, going to find his sister in the Ushpanditya. The great hill holding aloft the fortress and palace hulked on the horizon in the northwest, like a weight that constantly pulled his attention. His goal, his prize, his hope.
But he did try to watch the city, to see what it held and what he could report to Chadram. It was mostly unchanged: crowded streets flooded with carts pulled by slaves, merchants naming their wares from open windows, women with baskets of rice and corn, dhorsha chanting and ringing bells. Buildings two and three stories high leaned together in places, turning streets into dark canyons smelling of sewage, boiling rice, blood, and cumin. Twice he saw a group of Red Men guarding a temple or great house. He didn’t talk to them.
It took him an hour to cross the city to the Ushpanditya. By the time he arrived he was covered with dust and dung, and his pauper’s outfit seemed a lot more convincing. He had carried a sack of copper scraps through the whole city, and the weight of it had wrung a layer of sweat from his face. He walked up to the Red Men standing watch at the Bronze Gate of the Dhigvaditya and flung his sack to the ground.
“Selling scrap copper,” he said loudly. The Red Men maintained their own forge within the Dhigvaditya, and the smithy was known to buy scrap metal.
“Not buying,” the guard said dismissively.
“Oh, come on,” Kirshta said. “You need copper for helmets and spears and arrowheads. You always do. Let me talk to your smith.”
“No one goes into the Dhigvaditya,” the guard said, annoyed. “Move along.”
“Just a bit,” Kirshta cajoled. “For a pauper. It’s a long haul back to the other smiths, and no one pays as well as you.”
The other guard, who hadn’t spoken yet, leaned over to his partner. “You could call the smith. Maybe he needs something.”
“No calling,” Kirshta said. “I just want to come in.”
He realized it was a mistake as soon as he said it. Both of their faces hardened, and they studied Kirshta with sudden, fierce intensity.
“You just want to come in, eh?” the guard said. “What are you, a spy? The Prince Imperial send you?” He jerked the bag of copper scraps from Kirshta’s hand and looked inside. “Maybe you got sharp knives in there that you’re planning on using.”
“No, I just mean that I’d rather not trouble the smith,” Kirshta said.
“Trouble? You’ve got plenty of that, now.”
Time for a different tactic. They weren’t fooled; perhaps they could be intimidated. Kirshta let go of the sack of scraps and said, “You’re right. I’m not interested in copper scraps. In fact, I’m trying to speak to Dumaya, the commander of the Red Men here in the Dhigvaditya.”
“I see,” said the lead guard, shoving Kirshta rudely back. “He won’t talk to you. If you keep trying, I’ll just put my spear through your belly.”
“I was a disciple of Ruyam,” Kirshta said, in a low, calm voice. “I can command fire.”
“So you’re also crazy,” the man said. “Get gone. This is your last chance.”
Kirshta took a step backward. He closed his eyes and stilled his mind. The place of stillness came easily to him. Finding the flame was a little more difficult, since fire was not bound as deeply into the nature of cotton as it was into a clay lamp, but it was there. Fire and breath, and the flame leaped into being.
The soldier screamed. Kirshta opened his eyes. The hem of the guard’s kurta was on fire, and he swatted at it and scampered back in a panic.
His partner grabbed his shoulders and threw the man to the ground, smothering half the flames. The other half he quickly extinguished with a rapid batting of his hands, until only hot ash was left. The cloth had burned halfway to the man’s groin, leaving smears of ash and a red welt on the man’s leg.
The uninjured soldier lunged forward and grabbed Kirshta’s kurta. “Very cute, boy,” the man said. “Now you are coming in, but you won’t like where we keep you.”
A shout passed back to the gatekeeper, and the Red Men shoved Kirshta forward through the gate. He fell and caught himself on his hands, scraping them against the stones. One of the soldiers grabbed the hair on the back of his head and pushed his face into the ground.
“What is this mongrel pup?” asked a new voice, evidently the gatekeeper. “You got me opening the gate for this piece of street trash?”
“Fancies himself a thikratta,” one of the men responded. “Says he knew Ruyam, and damn near burned me alive. We’re taking him to Dumaya.”
“You’ll take him to the prison, is what you’ll do,” said the gatekeeper. “I’ll send the message up and let Dumaya decide if he cares.”
The man jerked Kirshta to his feet by his hair. Kirshta bit back a yowl of pain. With one hand on each of Kirshta’s shoulders they dragged him forward, across the stone-paved courtyard where the Red Men drilled, and into a windowless room on the far side of the Dhigvaditya. They hurled him to the pitted stone floor.
“You wait here,” one of them said. “Dumaya will decide if we kill you before or after he talks to you.”
The heavy wooden door slammed shut, closing Kirshta into total darkness. He rose gingerly to his feet, felt the bruises on his knees and shoulders with his fingertips, and prodded at the aching back of his head where they’d pulled his hair. Then he smiled to himself.
He was in the Dhigvaditya. And somewhere very near, just on the other side of the Horned Gate, was Vapathi.
He settled himself into the Lotus posture and began to meditate while he waited for Dumaya to appear. He made no effort to practice farsight or fire-mastery, but merely let his inner silence still his pain and discomfort. He lost himself in timelessness.
The door opened and a shard of light fell across his eyes. He was awake and alert, but did not rise from the Lotus position. Let Dumaya see him posed as a thikratta in the darkness.
Three men entered. Two wore the ordinary uniform of the Red Men, a simple white dhoti with a red belt and red sash across their bare chests, with bronze swords at their waists. The third wore a brilliant red silk kurta in place of the simple sash, and he had no weapon. His face was gaunt, and old white scars nicked the edges of his mustache and beard. Captain Dumaya.
The two soldiers threw the door open wide to flood
the cell with light. Dumaya walked forward until his knees nearly touched Kirshta’s chin.
“So,” he said. “I recognize you. You were Ruyam’s boy. And now you’re calling yourself a thikratta.”
“Yes, sir,” Kirshta said. “That’s what I told the men at the gates, though they would not believe me.”
“And so you set one of them on fire.”
“A demonstration never hurts,” Kirshta said. He looked Dumaya directly in the eye, purging every hint of fear from his expression.
Dumaya’s mouth twisted into a scowl. He walked back to the door. “Strike him,” he said imperiously.
One of the soldiers gave Kirshta a fierce kick to the side of the head. Kirshta sprawled across the floor.
“You should answer with more caution,” Dumaya said. “If you are a thikratta, you’re one of the last of that order. Ruyam burned Ternas because they wouldn’t give some cultist to him. Do you think I’m going to be kinder to some child that claims a remnant of their legacy?”
If Kirshta had not already stilled himself in the darkness, the pain of the blow would have knocked him out. But the throb in his temple drained into the pool of meditative peace. He arranged himself back into the Lotus posture and said quietly to Dumaya, “There will probably never be another thikratta now that Ruyam has burned Ternas. So those who have one in their care should guard them like rare jewels.”
“Again,” Dumaya said. The soldier kicked Kirshta in the gut. Kirshta sprawled backward, his breath expelled like vomit. But he regained control of his lungs, straightened, and settled himself into the meditative posture.
“You may be right,” Dumaya went on. “But you were never supposed to be a thikratta in the first place. When did you learn?”
“Yesterday. I picked it up in an afternoon.”
The soldier stepped forward, ready to deliver another blow, but Dumaya raised a finger.
“I’ll give you another chance,” he said. “After this our conversation becomes a little more urgent. When did you learn the arts of the thikratta?”
Kirshta hesitated. Should he continue in defiance or capitulate? It was foolish to refuse a fair chance when offered. “Ruyam. I studied with him and imitated him, and secretly I gained a portion of his power.”
Dumaya tapped his finger against his cheek. “That seems to be the first true answer that you’ve given me.” He stepped forward to Kirshta again, until he was looking directly down at him. “So tell me why you’re here. I would take a thikratta into my service, now that they’re as rare as rubies, but I don’t take in spies.”
“I come from Chadram and Praudhu-dar. They want to enter the Dhigvaditya, and you should allow them.”
Dumaya nodded and paced what little distance he could within the tiny cell. He glanced at one of the soldiers and said, “Cut his ear off.”
A jolt of fear disturbed Kirshta’s stillness. “I’m telling the truth,” he protested.
“I believe you,” Dumaya said. “Still.” He nodded to the soldier.
The man took a knife from his belt and advanced toward Kirshta. Kirshta scrambled back until his head hit the wall of the cell. The man grinned, leaned forward, and grabbed Kirshta’s ear at its peak. His grin was wild and fierce.
The inner silence. Kirshta closed his eyes and plunged as deep as he could go.
Still the pain reached him. His head jerked back and felt something tear free—his ear, he realized—and he opened his eyes. A half-choked howl of pain escaped his mouth, then he bit down on his tongue. Hot blood poured down his temple and soaked his clothes. His left hand flew to his ear.
The soldier in front of him laughed and held up a bit of brown flesh smeared with bright red. Kirshta felt the cut: a jagged tear from where the ear joined the head at the top, across the stiff flesh, ending a little bit above the lobe. Blood welled up around it, and the brush of his fingertips sent a shock of pain through him.
His breath came fast and panicked. His heartbeat was thunder. He choked out the word, “Why?”
“Do you think that Praudhu-dar will do less than that to me once he gets into the Dhigvaditya?” Dumaya asked.
“If you swear loyalty, he won’t harm you.”
“I value Praudhu-dar’s promises less than I value this ear,” Dumaya said.
Kirshta worked to prevent the churning of breath in his chest from becoming a sob. “What do you want?”
“There’s a chance,” Dumaya said, “that I will let you go back to Praudhu-dar. And when you go, I want him to see what I did to you so that he knows the price I want to extract from him. I hold the Dhigvaditya, and the Prince Imperial will never take it from me by force. I’ll need more than his worthless promises before I open the gates to him.”
He grabbed the bit of Kirshta’s ear from the soldier and held it up to Kirshta’s face. “I want him to pay me in something as dear as flesh.”
“Then what?” Kirshta’s voice quavered.
“I don’t know yet,” Dumaya said. “That’s why I said I might let you go.” He took a deep breath and turned to leave. “Move him down to the dungeon proper,” he said to the soldiers. “Send a slave girl to clean him up.”
Hard hands pulled him out of the cell and down the narrow stairs that descended to the dungeon. The darkness of the dungeon was like the darkness of the cell, colored only by the yellow oil lamps that the soldiers held.
“The pits?” one of the soldiers asked the other. Kirshta shuddered. Ruyam had held Navran there, and had nearly broken him in that darkness and solitude.
But the other shook his head. “Manacle him to the wall. Too much trouble getting him in and out of a pit. Dumaya might want to see him again before long.”
Cold, damp bronze closed around his hands and feet. Once he was chained, the soldiers shoved him to the ground and left without another word.
Darkness, just like the cell. The pain of Kirshta’s mangled ear roared. Somewhere in the darkness was the inner stillness, a place where the agony melted away and the solitude was not a burden. He fought for it, clung to it, did everything he could to avoid losing it.
Time passed. The blood on his cheek dried. He bit his lip against the pain. Pain is nothing, he reminded himself.
Soft feet on the stone. Light brushed against his eyelids. Water splashed in a bowl, and a cool cloth touched his cheek.
“So,” said a familiar voice, “it was you after all.”
He opened his eyes, and his heart rose. He hoped—could it be?—it was.
His world was filled with light, and he let himself rise out of the stillness into pure joy.
“Vapathi,” he breathed. “You’re here.”
She smiled. His sister’s smile, the face of the one person who had always been with him, the only person that he loved. He, too, began to smile, then winced. The movement cracked the crust of blood over his mutilated ear.
“Don’t move,” she said. “Let me clean this properly, so it’ll heal.” She began to gently daub at the blood on his ear, never causing more than a spark of pain with her wet cotton rag.
“The rumor about a young thikratta who set the gate guard on fire reached the Ushpanditya in a few minutes,” she said with a mild, satisfied grin. “I immediately thought it was you.”
“I needed to get in. I promised you that we would never be separated—”
Vapathi hushed him. “I know. I promised as well, and we never break our promises. And that’s why I insisted to the housekeeper that I go to tend the dangerous thikratta prisoner. And here we are.”
Kirshta clasped Vapathi’s hand. “There’s so much I have to tell you. So much—”
“I told you not to move,” Vapathi said, putting Kirshta’s hand down. “I’m sure you have much to tell me, but I have to tell you just as much. Neither of us is safe yet.”
Sadja
Someone moved, and a light stirred the darkness of Sadja’s bedchamber. In an instant, Sadja was awake.
He sat up. Nagiri was a crescent of warm flesh next to him
, but she had not stirred. At the entrance to Sadja’s bedchamber stood a somber herald. At seeing Sadja rise, he prostrated himself to the ground.
“Sadja-dar, my lord and king,” the man said. “I dared wake you because you had previously asked—”
“Out with it,” Sadja said. There were only a few things about which his men had orders to wake him. He rubbed the sand out of his eyes and shook his head to dislodge the last shreds of sleep.
“Mandhi has gone into labor.”
The least worrisome of the possible messages. Sadja’s shoulders relaxed, and he considered that he might be able to go back to sleep after this. “Is anything wrong?”
“Not yet. The pains have only just begun. Aryaji sent for the Uluriya midwife, who has been with her.”
“And what is the hour?”
“About midnight,” the man said.
Sadja glanced through the window. The sky was inky black and foamy with stars. The still surface of the harbor reflected the gibbous moon. Plenty of night still remained. But he was awake, and the hour when his wakefulness would pay its dividends was near.
“Awaken my surgeon,” Sadja said, “but remind him not to enter. He isn’t clean by their laws, and it would be a disaster if he went in. He may enter only as a last resort to avert a greater disaster. Do you understand?”
“Yes, my lord and king,” the messenger replied with a bow.
“Then send in my valet. I’m getting dressed.”
The messenger nodded and left the room. Beside him, Nagiri stretched out a leg. She rose to one elbow, the silk sheet sliding off of her and revealing the moonlit curves of her breasts and hip. Sadja paused to admire her. This might be the last he’d see of her for a while.
“The Uluriya wench is giving birth?” Nagiri asked.
“So it seems. And that means I’m off to Gumadha.”
Nagiri stuck out her lower lip in a scowl. “I don’t understand why her birthing means that you have to leave.”
