Heir of Iron (The Powers of Amur Book 1) (22 page)

When Navran knocked at the man’s door accompanied by Mandhi and Gocam, the surprise on his face was palpable. But he held to his word. His wife set them out dishes of lentil stew and soft cheese, while the man introduced his two sons and inquired about their journey. Navran answered, skirting as close to the truth as possible without giving themselves away, and parried with queries of his own interest.

Had Red Men visited the village? Yes, looking for escaped criminals of some kind. Had anybody seen where the criminals went? Oh, there were bandits in the hills often, but no one that would interest the Emperor.

But the man was most interested in the cut of their hair, and after a moment he asked, “Are you worshippers of Ulaur?”

Navran balked a moment. Did they know that the “criminals” which the Red Men pursued were Uluriya? There were so few Uluriya in the mountain hinterlands that anyone passing through would attract attention. But Navran’s beard was cut in the prescribed style, and Mandhi kept her hair tied in a bun atop her head, so anyone who knew the Uluriya customs would recognize them.

But Mandhi saved him from having to answer. “Yes,” she said. “Are there any others nearby?”

The man and his wife gawked at them as if they were talking sheep. “No, none at all,” the man said. “I have heard of you, but up here by the mountains I’ve never seen one. You’d have to go all the way to Jaitha—”

“Not quite as far as that,” Navran broke in.

“But certainly
far
. Peshliti, have you ever seen one of the Ulaur-worshippers in the village?” The man’s wife shook her head.

“Once you get near to the Amsadhu, you come to an area where there are many Uluriya,” Navran said. “Even whole villages of them.”

“Ah, but the Amsadhu is very far away. I have never made the journey. One of the boys who sells wool in Ghatmi could tell you. My brother, the khadir, he sends them in spring after the shearing, and they return in mid-summer. Ghatmi is nearer than Jaitha. But of course you know, since you came from that direction.”

“We’ve gone slowly and taken a long time,” Navran said. “I don’t know how long it would take if you went directly. Honestly, I’ve lost track of the days.”

The man looked at them with pity. “You should rest here a day. No debt collectors will find you while you’re under my roof.”

“We can’t,” Mandhi said firmly. “We’ve come too far north already, and I think we’ll turn back south. We have friends near Jaitha who will help us, so long as we can get to them without being caught.”

“Ah,” the man said, nodding. “Wise. If you go through Ghatmi on your way back, speak to the majakhadir there and tell him that you were sent by Sujaur-kha. That’s my brother. He’ll help you get the rest of the way back to Jaitha.”

Mandhi raised an eyebrow and glanced at Navran. “Can we go through Ghatmi? We want to stay off of main roads.”

“Perhaps if you covered your hair,” the woman offered. “So no one would see you as Uluriya. Does it offend your god to do so?”

“There are degrees of offense,” Mandhi said. “This food, for example—”

“The food is wonderful,” Navran cut her off. “Thank you.”

Mandhi shot him a sharp glance. “I was going to say,
Navran
, that the Law of Ghuptashya has several allowances for travel. I don’t know if there is an allowance for covering the head, and we have no saghada to help us, but in any case we can beg forbearance when we’re back in Jaitha.”

“Perhaps we should go to bed soon,” Gocam said, the first words he had spoken since they had sat down to eat. The man and his wife looked at Gocam with surprise, but they too exclaimed that it was late and that of course they should rest.

“Are you sure you won’t stay with us an extra day?” the woman asked plaintively when they went to bed. Mandhi declined, but at the woman’s insistence said that they should see in the morning.

They laid out blankets and straw mats for the three of them in the front room of the household, where a cool breeze ruffled through the front door and stirred the air on the floor. When they were done they left a small oil lamp hanging on a hook by the door and bid them good night.

Sleep did not come to Navran easily. He turned over several times while listening to the creaking of crickets and birds outside the door. Mandhi breathed quietly and regularly. Finally, he said, “Gocam, are you awake?”

“Yes.”

Of course Gocam was awake. He did seem to sleep, sometimes, but he was instantly and completely awake as soon as anybody stirred. He asked, “Why has this man been kind to us?”

“If a poor stranger comes to your door, will you not help him?”

He had never considered that. He had never been rich enough that anyone would ask him for help. “Maybe. But I was going to steal from him. He knows we are Uluriya. We don’t worship his gods, and we barely suffer his food.”

“He had pity on you.”

“I don’t deserve pity.”

“The nature of pity is that it goes to those who do not deserve it.”

“No. Listen. It’s not just food and lodging. The ring of Manjur here on my chest feels like an anchor-stone. I don’t deserve it. And you didn’t give it to me out of
pity
. Pity would be to let me go.”

“Perhaps pity is not the right word for what you have received. We should call these things gifts.”

“How is that different?”

“A gift is not earned, yet the man who receives a gift is not free to return it.”

“So I’m tied down by these gifts? This is pity? You don’t know—” He cut himself off.

“What don’t I know?”

His words came slowly to his tongue, which felt like clay in his mouth. A long stretch of silence passed. Gocam waited.

“I should tell you the rest of what happened in Majasravi.”

“You should. You stopped speaking for fear of Mandhi.”

“A good reason.”

“But now she sleeps. I promise you.”

He drew a shallow breath. “If she hears, she will never forgive me.”

Kirshta had brought the jaha board from Ruyam’s chamber into Navran’s, and they played every morning after Vapathi dressed him, before he got drunk. Navran was surprised to lose. He never lost at jaha—normally when he played for money, those whom he challenged would soon insist that they switch to sacchu, where the dice would wreck him. But his games with Kirshta were long and tense, and he lost as much as he won. If they could play all day, he might not even need to drink.

But alas, Ruyam would call Kirshta and Navran into his chamber in mid-morning, and they would eat, and Navran wouldn’t see Kirshta again until the next day.

Weeks passed in a drunken stupor. He dined with Ruyam every morning, returned to his chamber to find new jars of rice beer, drank up his courage, and then asked for a sack of coins from Vapathi. He had discovered that the Red Men liked to play dice games at the Horned Gate which joined the fortress to the palace. He passed the day drinking, gaming, and carousing with his jailers until their discipline sent them down for sleep. He staggered bleary-eyed back to his chamber. Vapathi washed his face, changed his clothes, and laid him down in bed. The next day he did it again.

Where Vapathi got the coins, he never discovered. He assumed that Ruyam supplied her.

“Today,” Ruyam declared one morning over breakfast, “we are going to the Majavaru Lurchatiya. You will come with me. Don’t be too drunk.”

“Why?”

“Vapathi and Kirshta will bring you,” he said, giving no indication that he had heard Navran’s question. “They can direct you as required.”

A vague unease stirred in his stomach. When he returned to his chamber, the jar of rice beer had been refilled as every day. He dipped his mug in and went to the window. Across the moat he could see the corner of the Majavaru Lurchatiya, its east-most outer temple crouching like a stone turtle beneath the gaze of the Ushpanditya. He heard footsteps enter the chamber behind him.

“Vapathi,” he said.

“Yes, Navran,” she said.

“What are we going to do at the temple?”

She let out a little laugh. “Is this the first you heard of it? The whole Ushpanditya has been preparing for this for days. But I don’t know what you and Ruyam will do.”

For days? Had he been too drunk to notice? But the activity of the Ushpanditya rushed about him, and he had no way to know if it had changed in tone or intensity. “Will Ruyam make offerings to the Powers?”

“He is not a dhorsha. I don’t think he will.”

“Have you been to the temple yourself?”

“Of course.” A note of gentle mockery entered into her voice. “Are you nervous?”

He grunted and cast his eyes down. He pushed away from the window and refilled his mug from the jar of beer. “I have never worshipped in a shrine of Am. I’m Uluriya.”

It was Vapathi’s turn to cast down her eyes in embarrassment. “I have heard the word
Uluriya
, but I don’t know what it means.”

“It means….” He swallowed the mug of beer and slammed it down on the table. “In my case it means precious little. It means that I don’t know what to do in a temple.”

“Then let me explain,” Vapathi said with a gentle, indulgent tone. “You go into the shrine, where the dhorsha perform the rituals of dhaur for Powers. There are three altars in this shrine, to Am, to Ashti, and to Kushma. I always go to venerate Kushma, but Ruyam will doubtlessly worship at Am’s altar. The dhorsha will sprinkle you with blessed water and smudge your forehead with the ash of the altar. Then you present your offering—”

“I won’t bring an offering.”

“Is that what it means to be Uluriya? Then just watch. Ruyam will bring a ram for an offering, and those of the household will give their dhaur to it. Then the dhorsha will accept it, slaughter it on the altar, and burn it with holy fire so the
dhaur
of those who worship is given to the Powers. That’s all.”

“I am not supposed to give my dhaur to the ram. That is what it means to be Uluriya.”

“You don’t offer your dhaur?”

“Not to the Powers.”

Vapathi looked thoughtful. “Then how do you make peace with the Powers?”

“The ram’s blood…. I don’t really know.” His grasp of the doctrines of the saghada was weak, and the sacrifice in the Ruin in Virnas was the first time he had been blessed by the ram’s blood in years. But he was forbidden to offer dhaur to the Powers—that much he knew, even if he had little idea what
dhaur
meant to the dhorsha and the saghada.

“Perhaps you can choose merely to be smudged with the ash of the altar?” Vapathi shrugged. “I won’t be there. You’ll have to figure it out.”

He wasn’t sure whether entering the shrine and accepting the sacred ash on his forehead would taint him for the Uluriya, but he doubted it was worse than his drinking and gambling and everything else he did here in Majasravi.

The hall that preceded the Rice Gate was full to the brim of Red Men, courtiers, servants, dhorsha, and others whom Navran couldn’t identify. The dhorsha were already ringing bells, chanting, and weaving through the crowd blessing the gathered with incense. The courtiers ignored them once they had received their waft of smoke. Vapathi pushed through towards the front with Navran following after her, until they reached Ruyam and Kirshta standing in a little circle of isolation. To Navran’s shock, a little ram with horn buds sprouting from its head stood between them, bleating and scratching nervously at the stone.

Ruyam smiled when he saw Navran approach. “You are here, and not a moment too late. You’re the last one to assemble.”

“Who are these?” Navran motioned to the rest of the crowd.

“The imperial household. Did you think that the imperial ram offering was going to be a
small
affair?”

Navran shrugged. It would not be a small affair, obviously, but he was doing his best to put the matter out of mind.

“There is an additional element to today’s offering,” Ruyam went on. “In truth, it’s the only reason I’m going through with this, as I have no need of Am and his dhorsha. But it will be of interest to you. Pay attention.”

Pay attention. A shiver of dread passed through Navran.

At a gesture from Ruyam, a gong sounded and the front doors of the Ushpanditya opened. Before them, a long marble-paved staircase descended from the doors of the Ushpanditya to the Rice Gate, shaded by guard towers manned with archers, with red imperial banners fluttering from ropes between the towers. The Rice Gate itself was an arch of stone with massive bronze-clad doors beneath it, and crossed stalks of rice were emblazoned in high relief upon the bronze. Two lines of Red Men proceeded through the doors before them, then the entire multicolored panoply of silk and servants streamed down the stairs and through the gate. Ruyam rested his hand on the ram’s head, and they walked together. The little sheep’s hooves clopped against the stones; he bleated obliviously. Kirshta nudged Navran forward. He felt as doomed as the ram.

The procession to the Majavaru Lurchatiya wound through the nearer streets of Majasravi, attracting a great many watchers and groups of children running after the solders and shouting. Navran felt uneasy at all of the eyes. Old habits made him nervous in public with soldiers nearby. And his beard was still cut in the Uluriya style, an awkward reminder of his peculiar place in the procession.

The entrance to the temple was a broad stone bridge over one of the sacred tanks. They crossed between two towers capped with gold-hammered emblems of the sun, covered top to bottom with carved images: fish, trees, serpents, tigers, birds, vines, men, maidens, and gods. The outer courtyard of the temple was a vast plaza paved with stone, checkered with pools filled with lotus flowers where worshippers bathed. The procession marched through the outer courtyard and into the inner plaza, which was fenced by the five satellite temples and the empty scar of stone where the sixth temple had once lain. The central temple loomed before them, casting a shadow like a mountain, a multi-colored array of figures winding around its surface to the brilliant pyramidal peak that shone with dazzling gold. The Red Men had cleared out the normal worshippers from the inner plaza, and they waited in the center with a small army of dhorsha.

As the procession approached, Navran caught glimpses of a bound man in the middle of the Red Men. Curious.

When Ruyam and the ram reached the line of Red Men he shouted, “Where is the man?”

They pushed the bound man forward. Navran’s breath caught in his throat. It was a young man, bearded, with his lip shaved.
Uluriya.

A dhorsha brought a burning censer and a bowl of water to Ruyam. He sprinkled Ruyam’s head and hands with the water, then handed him the censer. A pair of Red Men bound the ram’s feet together and lifted it to lie on its side on a raised stone platform. Ruyam put his right hand on the ram’s head and waved the censer above it three times, scattering the fragrant smoke in every direction.

“What’s going on?” Navran asked Kirshta.

“Ruyam gives his dhaur to the ram.”

He understood that. He had put his hand on ram offerings to Ulaur at least a few times in his life. “I mean with the Uluriya captive.”

“That is Ruyam’s addition. Watch carefully.”

The captive’s hands were unbound, and the Red Men pushed him towards the ram. The dhorsha sprinkled the man with water, and he flinched as if it scalded. The dhorsha extended the censer to him, the smoke curling towards the man like serpents. He shook his head.

“Tell him he must,” Ruyam said.

The Red Men prodded him with the butts of their spears. The man folded his arms and stood resolute. Navran’s heart began to beat loudly in his chest.

“One more chance,” Ruyam said quietly.

The dhorsha presented the man with the censer the third time. He shook his head again. “I am a worshipper of Ulaur,” he said. “I do not offer my dhaur to the faithless Powers.”

“Very well,” Ruyam said. “Then let Ulaur have him.”

The Red Men seized the man by the arms and yanked him backwards. Navran’s gut twisted. The man squirmed and kicked and screamed.

Ruyam spoke in a soft imperious voice, not a shout, but a whisper that hissed in Navran’s ears and seemed to vibrate in the stones under his feet. “I name you guilty of sedition against the empire, contempt of the Lord Am, and the worship of an unlawful god. Your dhaur is death, and you would not give it to the ram. Therefore let it remain with you.”

He flicked his hand towards the Red Men. Ulaur, have mercy. Bile bubbled up Navran’s throat. The Red Men wrestled the victim to the ground and pinned his arms behind his back. The man shouted incoherently. One of the Red Men knelt and pressed a bronze knife against the man’s neck.

With a single swift motion, they sliced the man’s throat open.

A spasm of nausea passed through Navran, followed by a grotesque cold, spreading out from his chest until his fingertips tingled.
Just like butchering a sheep.
That same swift cut, merciless, indifferent. The guardsman who had done the deed stepped away quickly to avoid getting blood on his sandals and accepted a rag from one of his comrades to wipe down the blade and the splatter of blood across his chest. The body spasmed once and was still.

Stars, he was just a kid.
Younger than Navran himself.

The sounds all around him seemed muted and distant, as if his ears were full of cotton. His heart thundered in his chest like a monsoon storm. Then the ram next to Ruyam bleated and kicked against its bindings, and all at once the sound returned and the temple plaza was full of movement. Navran looked around, disoriented. They were moving, they were all moving. Kirshta pulled at his hand.

“Come, Navran. Come.”

The Red Men formed a little cordon around their victim so no one would step in his blood. The imperial procession surged around them like a stone, follow Ruyam and the ram to the porch of the Great Temple itself. There was chanting and mantras, the dhorsha repeating a song as they gathered around the innocent, clueless ram:
Blessed be Bhida, Lord of the ritual order.
The censer moved from hand to hand as the dhorsha passed next to the ram and put their hand upon it, choking the air with incense.
Blessed be Bhida, who sacrifices and is sacrificed, for Lord Am and for Ashti.
Kirshta somehow was still holding Navran’s hand. They pressed forward with the rest of the imperial party, forming some kind of queue.
Blessed be Bhida, whose death renews the cosmos and whose mantras are the orbits of the stars, for Lord Am and for Ashti.

And then the censer was in Kirshta left hand, and he put his right hand onto the ram’s head and censed it with three large circular motions. The cold in Navran’s chest expanded and choked out his breath. Kirshta passed the censer into Navran’s hand.

He looked up. Ruyam stood a pace away, surrounded by the dhorsha, watching Navran with a thin, paternal smile. His eyes were like chips of charcoal, black with fire in their hearts. Blood hammered in Navran’s ears. The hand that held the censer was shaking. He glanced to where the Red Men were gathering up the body of their prisoner, then again at Ruyam. That same smile, mirthless and cruel.

He put his right hand, twitching, quivering, onto the ram’s head. Was he supposed to say something? His tongue refused to move in any case. Raise the left hand. Three big circles with the censer. One. Two. Three. And the deed was done.

He nearly dropped the censer as he passed it to the woman behind him. Then he stumbled forward chasing Kirshta’s dhoti. His shuddering conscience shouted
away, away.
But there was no away. He had lost his last chance at flight.

Kirshta stood next to Ruyam, and Navran next to Kirshta. When Navran arrived, Ruyam moved over to stand behind him. He rested his hand on Navran’s shoulder, as cold and heavy as a manacle.