34 - We'll do what we have to

Sitting where I was on the floor, when Shefenkas turned toward me I could see, in the bruising around one of his eyes a dimpled needlemark. I put out a finger and almost touched, just feeling the tickle of his brow on my finger. He closed his eyes for a moment and I pulled my hand away and put it back in my lap.


“I have a question for you, Minis,” he said. “Though you might not know.” I looked attentive, or tried to. “Have you ever… watched someone… who had the germ? And saw what it did to him?”


I looked down at my tangled together fingers. “No. I haven’t.


“It’s occurring to me that they might be making the whole thing up. If I believe it, it’s just as good as if it’s real, right?”


“Did you want me to find out what happens? I’ll bet there’s books in the Pharmacist’s library.” He looked thoughtful.


“I could research some myself, though not in that library.”


“I don’t normally read out of there, but I could.”


He adjusted the pillow under his head. “But… I’m not sure I’d even trust that.”


Manas spoke up again. “We aren’t going to take that chance, Cheng.”


“Kurkas is counting on me taking that chance, Mana. I’m interested in a Haian’s opinion, actually.”


“You could write to Haiu Menshir and see if the stuff I find out matches what they tell you,” I said.


“All right. But your father hasn’t forbidden you to associate with me? I’m surprised, to tell the truth.” Manas said something in Yeoli again, looking grim and Shefenkas just signed ‘no’ at him without looking away from me.


“No. He’s going to make you dance attendance on me, like I said.”


“And if I refuse?”


I went back to worrying at my ornaments, this time picking at the gold thread and gold sequins. “He… He’ll make it public who you are, to shame you,” I said.


His lips twitched. “Kahara, maybe I’ll lose all my fans.” Mana snorted laughter and I couldn’t help giggling. “My people already know I’m here, because of my letter. They wouldn’t see the shame as mine, because it was your father who broke his word, his safe conducts.” He sighed. “They’d be worried about me, but they are already worried about me. If anything it will make Yeolis angrier.”


Manas pressed his lips together and signed their palm-up yes sign, hard.


“You know, Minis, about my state visit? The precaution I took of having copies of a safe conduct from Kurkas sent to other heads of state?”


“Yeah. The record of them is in the Marble Palace Archives. He laughed and said a safe conduct wasn’t worth the paper it was printed on.” I dropped the squished and torn sequin and started pulling the end of the thread.


“There were plenty to people at home who told me I was crazy, I was walking into the eagle’s claws. But Astalaz, Kranaj and Ivahn all got copies as well as the one sitting at home in the gramaesa kenakerala in Vae Arahi. It will cause the ambassadors some problems.”


I sighed as he went on. “My people are laying blame where it belongs. On him. I was doing something honorable, entrusting myself to his hospitality, to his protection, to try to avert war. Even if my people though it was unwise, no one thought it wrong.”


“Father doesn’t care. He wants to eat your country.”


He looked up at the ceiling, then down at me again. “Have I lost you with my point? Its not a disaster. You could drag me around on a leash for ten years, and it would be less shame at home for me than these.” He ran a thumb under his fight chains.


I looked up, the knot in my chest beginning to loosen. “And if father tries to make it uglier – you and I will know better. That makes it bearable. Like a tactic.”


Shefenkas shrugged. “Right. It’s as I say. We’ll do what we have to.” I took a deep breath.


“Yes.”


Manas stood up abruptly. “Pardon me… I’ve got to relieve myself.” He was out the door so fast neither Shefenkas or I said anything before it closed behind him. Shefenkas stared after him, a puzzled expression on his face.


“I hope he’s not offended.”


“No, I don’t think so. I think he’s upset, and doesn’t want me to see it.”


“Probably because you’re looking after me – and it's you that needs looking after.”


“Well. The whole thing is upsetting. I don’t blame him,” he said. I dropped the frayed edge of my robe and got up. I knew there was one thing I could say, that might, one day, make it better. I put my hand out to him and he took it.


“You know I love you. In my way, not the bad way. I told you that before.” He held onto my hand firmly.


“I know. In my way I love you too, lad.” I reached out my hand to touch his bruised eye socket gently. He took a deep breath and closed both eyes. I stood for a second and on the next breath he shook, his breath quivering. I could feel tears on my hand. I took a deep breath myself and sent a prayer to Muunas.


“If… if it all goes bad. And you and Yeola-e don’t beat off the Rejins…” I had tears standing in my own eyes. “I swear. I promise on my hope of Selestialis… I’ll set Yeola-e free when I’m on the Crystal Throne.”


Shefenkas’s eyes popped open as I took my hand away to raise it to my one temple in a partial prayer sign. He stared at me, unbelieving, completely still, even holding his breath. “I swear, may I go to Hayel if I forswear. I’d give you some token but they can’t take my word away from you.”


He drew in a shuddering gasp, his hand clenching on mine hard enough to hurt. “Minis…” He clenched his eyes shut, tears pouring down his cheeks and pulled in a gasping sob, weeping hard enough to shake his whole body, curled around my hand. Then he pulled me into a hug that was harder than any he’d given me before. A hug for me but it seemed as though he clung to me like a falling man will cling to the edge of the Rim. My tears were silent as I held onto him.


“Min…ni…is…” He turned his face away from me, down into the pillow.


“It’s all right, Shefenkas. I didn’t mean to hurt you by it.”


His voice was broken, ragged. “I know… it’s all right. It’s the pain…of… I don’t know if I… can explain… Minis…there’s nothing enough…” I squeezed him back.


“You give me you… That’s more than enough.”


“Aigh!” He shuddered. “Thank you. Thank you. It can never be enough but thank you.”


I tried to shake him out of it, appalled that my promise had made him lose his composure so badly. “You’re welcome. Um… its only a child’s promise, Shefenkas. I’m trying to swear it like a man, but you can’t know. Because I’m not even at second threshold.”


“I… will… take it… to heart…” He said more quietly, still with his face turned down. “… nonetheless.” And he said something in Yeoli that I didn’t understand. “Semana meresi. That means thanks… on behalf of my people.”


“I need to go soon… um… for your sake… and thus theirs… you’re welcome. Muunas hear me.”


“Go with the Divine, Minis.” But he didn’t let me go immediately. He wanted to hang onto me? I hugged him again and he finally, slowly, let me go so I could get up. I brushed his hair away from his forehead.


“You need to rest. I’ll send Manas back, okay?” He dragged a shuddering breath in.


“If you can find him. Or else – let him be. Leave it his choice.” I didn’t want to just walk out so I tried to kiss the top of his head and just caught the edge of his hair on my lips as he raised his head, nearly clipping his nose. He caught my face in his hand, in time to save us both from bumping. “Here… let me.”


I stopped, and Shefenkas put a kiss on the middle of my forehead. I could feel my face flush. My heart was full of so much I didn’t know how to say. I looked into his face and wondered how long before father destroyed this unseemly emotion.


-- this whole scene, post 35 and 36 from Chevenga's point of view --

33 - After the Germ of the Head

I couldn’t go down to the Mahid quarters while Shefenkas was still there. I had every servant it seemed having to serve me. I had to wait and wait and wait… then I had to finish the work I’d told my tutor I would because I found myself suddenly concerned that my word be good… even just because Shefenkas… my Raikas… Shefenkas would want me to hold my word good.

It was a full day after they’d been torturing him in the White Corridor, where all the darkest things happened, before I could get away and go down to the Mezem to see him. Late at night, far past when any child should be asleep I headed down and thought I saw a flicker of motion through the glass doors when I came into the Main Gate.

I stopped at Iska’s desk, somehow surprised to see he wasn’t there, looked around and headed straight upstairs.

I knocked on Raikas… um… Shefenkas’s door. “It is I, Minis Aan. Might I come in?”

A hoarse voice came from inside. “You may.” When the door opened I found myself face to face with Iskanzas. He stepped to the left just as I did. Then to the right. Then to the left again. “Oh. Pardon. This humble one --- oops – sorry.” I took in a deep breath and stood still, biting on my lip so I said nothing, and let the fessas slide around me. I could hear his apologies fading down the corridor. “I cower in shame… a thousand pardons from this clumsy one, Spark of the Sun’s Ray…”

I stood until his cringing apologies had faded down the stairs before I looked in at Shefenkas and… oh. Manas the Wolf sat on the one chair, with one of Shefenkas’s arms stretched across his lap. He had his hand on Shefenkas’s head, the palm over one eye. I nodded at him and looked at Shefenkas. “Now may I come in?”

“Yes,” Shefenkas said quietly.

They must have truth-drug scraped Manas too. But he wasn’t the Yeoli Durakis -- or Semanakraseye – He didn’t look as though they – we -- had kept him as long. And I was certain we hadn’t given him the germ of the head; but the red haired Yeoli still had the hollow eye’d look that a scraping gives and he bit his lip as he looked down at Shefenkas. He sat, wanting to be near him… A close friend, at the very least. The way he looked at Shefenkas, now that there were no more secrets, was like they were family, brothers. But they didn’t look at all like each other.

“Thank you.” I shut the door behind myself. I wanted to sit near… so I sat down on the floor, legs crossed. That would put my face closer to his. “They did it, didn’t they.”

Manas looked grim and said “Yes.” At the same time as Shefenkas said, “Germed me, yes. I make fifty fights, they give me the antidote.”

I looked down at the edge of my over-robe that had pendant sapphires alternating with gold sequins and diamonds all along the edge. I picked up the fringe and began twirling one of the sapphires back and forth in my fingers. Shefenkas went on. “And it’s only the Marble Palace that knows what the antidote is, they told me.”

“I don’t know what the antidote is. I didn’t even know about the Germ of the Head until father explained it to me. The Pharmacist would know.”

“Your father, too.” The sapphire came off in my hand. I dropped it and went on to the next one, skipping over the sequin.

Manas said, “You’re ripping up your clothes, lad.” I glanced up at him and then down at the dangle again.

“Yes.” The second one came off and I began on the third. “I have to rip up something. Better it can’t feel anything.”

“There’s that,” he said, flipping the hand that he had on Shefenkas’s chest up and then down again.

“My father… he… he likes… um…he likes… this.” I rolled my chin to take in the whole room, not sure how to explain.

“Your father likes what, lad?”

I looked down and started on the larger diamond dangle next. “This knowing…having you and getting to make you fight… He wants me to…”

“Minis,” Manas interrupted. “We’re not thinking that.”

“No,” I answered him, thinking he was talking about sex or rape. “I’m not talking about that.”

“Not talking about what?” Shefenkas asked.

Manas stroked his friend’s hair back off his face. “Not talking about something we’re not talking about.”

“Father wants me to wave you around the city on MY leash.” Shefenkas looked over at me as I spoke.

He waved his hand. “Oh. Is that all? I guess it would only be fair.” I looked up at him, distressed. That wasn’t what I meant. Manas said something to Shefenkas in rapid, liquid Yeoli that started with something that sounded like ‘Sheng but the first sound much harder and more clipped. “I don’t want to, Shefenkas.”

“He told you who I am,” Shefenkas said. I nodded. “Will you forgive me for not telling you? I thought it was safest. For the both of us.” I blinked at him. What?

“I should forgive you?” Manas said something else in Yeoli. I thought it sounded disbelieving and Shefenkas ignored him as he had before. “There is nothing to forgive. If you need it yeah, sure, but you shouldn’t ask me that.” I ripped at the diamond I was worrying and hurled it across the room where it clattered into the corner with a bright, shimmering sound. “It’s not going to be pretty… father is going to make it ugly… uglier.”

He sighed and put a hand up to cover Manas’s hand on his head as if drawing strength from it

“Minis,” Shefenkas said. “You’re going to do what you have to. So am I and we have to live with it. That’s all.” I looked down away from his brown eyes and started ripping the next dangle off my robe. “And I’ll get the antidote sooner if I’m ransomed.” He rolled over, up on one elbow, letting Manas go as he did. “Unless you have some way of getting the antidote for me?”

I stared at him and let the sapphire in my fingers go with a clink. I thought of how I could look for it in 1st Amitzas’s locked cabinet, knowing he carried the key buttoned into his glove pocket. But if I could somehow get the key I wouldn’t know which of the carefully labelled bottles was the right one. Not only did Amitzas use his own private code on his malices, toxins and anti-malices but he kept none of his notes with them. Even if I could get the key and figure out which was the right bottle I wouldn’t know how to administer it… or tell Shefenkas how to take it, ingest it, inject it. For all I knew he’d have to snuff it up his nose to get it into his head.

Shefenkas must have seen my confusion. I shook my head. “I don’t think I can do it.”

“If you can’t, you can’t.” He lay back down. “We’ll go on. How are things with you? How are your studies going?” I stopped twisting my fringe. He wanted to talk about me and my studies?

“Um. I’ve been kind of not studying as much...” I trailed off. How did I explain? “My tutor is kind of annoyed…”

He tucked an arm up behind his head. “You shouldn’t let anything distract you.”

“I suppose.”

“Well, listen to him. Think of how much work he puts into teaching you.” I nodded and looked down at my fringe and started working on the second row.

“I should go.”

“You don’t have to. Sorry if I sound too scolding.”

“No, not you.”

“Not me? No one but me has the nerve to scold you, except on Jitzmitthra. I should have tried harder.” He lifted his lips in a slight grin, a little lopsided. I smiled back at him.

“This is crazy. This is so totally crazy… I’m sitting here with you two and you’re scolding me for not studying, just like a dad.”

“It’s a dirty job, but somebody has to do it.” I looked up at Manas where he sat, with his one hand on Shefenkas’s shoulder now.

“Have you ever told this man he’s nuts?”

He and Shefenkas both snorted a little but Manas said, “Are you kidding? Thousands of times. He never listens.”

I nodded. “If I were writing a song about this… I couldn’t. I bet it’ll take another few thousand times.”

Manas said “Ehh… I don’t think even that would do it.” Shefenkas chuckled a little.

“No,” he said. “I don’t think so, either. Look, if the germ works the way Haian remedies do… It’ll drive me sane.”

“Kahara forfend,” Manas answered him. “How would I know you if you were sane?” I sat with my hands on my chin now, watching them. I wished I had a friend, one of my companions, someone who would tease me like that. Someone who liked me like that.

“You wouldn’t,” I dared add. Shefenka smiled a little wider.

“Where’s my leash?” He turned his head to look at me as he said it.

I grinned at him. “Woof,” I said. “It would be Jitz every day.”

“I wonder if the Haians have a remedy like Jitzmitthra?” Shefenkas asked.

“Jitzmitthra in a bottle,” Manas answered him. Shefenkas reached toward the glass on the bedside table and his hand shook slightly. Manas reached and gave it to him.

“Thank you, Mana,” he said. “I believe the Benai Saekrberk does have that.”

“That is something I could get,” I said.

Mana looked thoughtful and teasing both. “I wonder if having a brain permanently pickled in Saekrberk would slow down the germ?”

Shefenkas snorted. “It would certainly slow down my Mezem career, that’s for sure. But I’d die happy.”

“I’ll keep that in mind.”

-- this scene, posts 35 and 36, from Chevenga's point of view

32 - Anger

The rest of that day I was in and out of the Mahid quarters… just bothering people. 1st Amitzas’s lightning snake never got tired of striking at the glass, though the Pharmacist chided me – “If I might remind the Spark of the Sun’s Ray, the snake will exhaust itself and perhaps die if you do not leave it alone. And it is possible that I might need some of the venom streaking the glass for a more useful purpose. I suggest you seek out some other amusement, Spark.” As harsh a criticism as he was allowed. Much more and he would just lock me out.

I wanted to get them all thinking that I was down there because I wanted to be, not because I needed to visit Rai…um Shefenkas when I could. I saw General Triadas go down the steps again, from two floors up. They weren’t quite finished with Shefenkas, though the General was dressed for travel, so perhaps it was the last time.

“There you are, Spark of the Sun’s Ray!” It was my tutor. I turned my back on the railing, putting my elbows back on it.

“I’m not late to my lessons, Koren.” I flicked an imaginary speck of dust off my shirt, looking down away from him.

“Ahem, of course, Spark of the Sun’s Ray. Your, ahem, Esteemed Father wished me to give you extra lessons. I was to inform you.”

“Dog crap on the Ten.” I didn’t yell, but he flinched at the obscenity.

“Ahem.” He stood, looking both determined and uncomfortable, his gloved hands tucked into his sleeves.

“Fine.” I stamped past him. “Quit looking like I killed your cat, Koren. You can give me the new reading list. And assign me more presentations and essays. Just don’t expect me to sit and listen to another lecture for several days.”

“Ahem. Spark of the Sun’s Ray… ahem.”

I stopped in the middle of the hall, clenching my fists. I turned around to look at him and he paused. I took two steps to the left, picked up a priceless glass vase, hefted it once and hurled it over his head. He reached up as though he could catch it but it arched over his reaching hand, over the railing behind him and after a frozen moment smashed into the marble floor two stories below. “Don’t. Push. Me.”

I walked into the schoolroom ahead of him. He was mercifully quiet and handed me a list and another he wrote out right then… I waited for the ink to dry and took them, looked them over. “I will have the first for you tomorrow. The next the day after. And tomorrow you stated you wished me to recite on the Tyrianas famine. I intend to. You may inform my father I am being diligent in my studies. I must attend father tomorrow during the presentation from South Kurkania so my lessons must, perforce, be pushed further back into the day. I will attend after the noon meal.” I turned my back on him and left.

31 - Drawing in Wine, Milk and Cold

I knew which cell he was in. I knew who he was and why they had him in a cell. To truth-drug scrape every last scrap of military information out of him – that was why Triadas had been recalled from actually launching the attack. Though I couldn’t imagine why he was just talking to Raikas… um… it was really Shefenkas. I supposed I should start thinking of him like that.

I had a pile of books and records, pertaining to Yeoli, on my favourite ebony and silver desk, in the Electrum Chamber. My father had, indeed, sent personal safe conducts to Shefenkas, and the other rulers as well. The copies were in the book under my left elbow. It made me sick. The other countries would know… they must realize how little father cared for their opinions. His word would not be worth the gold ink or wax used to seal an agreement.

I held open ‘Lives of Notables’ folded open on the other side, onion-skin paper soft under my fingers. This was the most recent edition but there was no etched image of the Yeoli Semanakraseye. My finger traced the odd, blocky symbols of their language, each one a separate syllable… or close. Then the translation. Ivaen Chevenga Shae-Arano-e. Semanakraseye. No wonder he knew so much about taxes and how to be a ruler; though he’d argued with me when I called him a king.

I had to shut the book, and pull the top of the desk closed and locked it. It was time to join father on the balcony again, to nurse with him. It explained why He was so happy.

“My beloved adjunct! I have some incredible news for you!” He let go the nipple of the black woman He’d been nursing on as I was taken onto the lap of another. The thin bluish milk from her wet nipple drooled down shining on her dark skin, brighter than the momentary gleam of it on His lip before he licked it away.

“Illustrious Father?” I laid my cheek against my pale blond woman’s full breast and looked at father over the curve of it, like looking out from behind the breast of a statue. She smelled warm and sweet and her touch was comforting and careful as it would have to be… but I could feel how impersonal it was. I even imagined I could feel despite and hatred and fear in it. Surely I had a good imagination.

“You have impeccable taste in fighters as pets! Just as I, of course, but your fighting-dog, Raikas is actually the missing Yeoli Durakis, can you imagine My Mahid actually failing so spectacularly? It must have been partly his animal skill that saved him. Well, they’re all dead, so I won’t have to worry about appropriate punishments for failing Me.”

I sat up, pushing myself upright against the woman’s body, as though startled. “He IS?”

That amused him and he waved an expansive hand at me, actually beckoning me to join him on the black woman. His enveloping hand grasped my elbow in what I was sure was supposed to be a loving pinch. He never knew or cared what bruises He left. “Try this one. Her vintage is very sweet. My Chamberlain has had the most marvellous idea to feed them all differently, so their milk tastes of it!” Another slave poured a stream of wine over the woman’s breasts for the two of us, to spice latching on.

I took in the wine and milk, closing my eyes because looking across to see father’s intent gaze, so close, as his mouth worked on suckling was somehow too much. Her nipple against my tongue was textured almost rough but felt good. I only had to suck a time or two because my father clamped down on his nipple, making the woman quiver, and pushed me off. “Go on. Go back to yours.”

“Yes, father.”

A moment later he decided he’d had enough and let go of her, so he could keep talking to me. I rolled my eyes over at him and let go rather more gladly, I think, than father. “We scraped every Yeoli in the city, my son. We have one of his escort as well, the Wolf. Yes.” A slave came in and carefully cleaned my father’s face with a cool, scented towel. And then his hands. “I decided that General Triadas needed to hear Shefenkas’s information so called him back to help scrape him dry. But I’m not sure I like the idea of ransom… I could bleed their treasury dry right at the beginning of the war and that would be good tactics, but I'm entranced with the idea of owning him first, before I own his country.”

He planted a hand between the nurse’s breasts and pushed off her to get up. She held steady though I think the grayish cast to her darker skin was her paling. Why was I noticing all these things? Seeing them just made my life ugly and I didn’t want it to be ugly. It was supposed to be beautiful. I blinked my eyes and tried to look at the stone and gold all around me and it all looked flat and worthless, the people all around me like painted paper cutouts. I didn’t feel real. Father headed back into the Imperial Chambers, to settle down in the sitting area, the gossamer silk curtains billowing as He passed through them, like smoke from a burning city.

I could still feel my heart beating, and the stretch of my lungs as I climbed to my feet and followed Him, but I didn’t even want that. What I wanted was a hug from someone who wasn’t creating piles of dung painted gold all around Him. He was still talking. “…dose him with it so he doesn’t try such errant nonsense as trying to escape. He’s obviously not the sort that would be put off by a little thing like a flogging, or watching some okas fool die for him.”

“I beg your pardon, illustrious father? Forgive my wandering attention…”

“Hmph. I SAID, I have ordered 1st Amitzas to administer a deterent to Shefenka’s escaping, the Germ of the Head. He gets the antidote when he wins fifty fights. As you saw, son, he’s an excellent fighting-dog. He was fun to watch fight before. It will be MUCH more fun to watch now.”

“Ah. Yes. What’s the Germ of the Head, father? I’ve never heard of it.” My gut was clenched tight and I could hardly swallow. How could He? How could He just say such things and not think it touched anyone around Him? It was as if all of us, all around Him, weren’t real. As if what He said and did to us all didn’t matter. I couldn’t help thinking of something out of Aras’s Holy Book. “Command thy men as I command thee. Understand their pains and pleasures and lives as I do. I judge as thou actest. Treat thy command as expendable and I will treat thee likewise.” And a whisper in the back of my head… “If you are good to them, they won’t hate you.”

Father stopped at a small table, to admire the new glass sculpture He’d just had made, of the singer, who wasn’t here today. He ran a fingertip over the smooth, clear glass face, the finger almost covering it completely. I wondered for a moment if the boy had fallen out of favour yet, but it was only a flash of thought. “The Germ of the Head. Let me instruct you my addendum. It is a substance injected into the head of the chosen bearer, you’d have to ask the Pharmacist exactly how he manages that without just making idiots of the recipients… and there it sits and grows. I understand it can take up space the size of a fist before it kills someone. Usually a pair of years, so I understand… it depends on the recipient. The antidote is supposed to kill it, though in that time it won’t be important any longer.”

“I am instructed, father. I am most grateful for your attention.” I stood as He sat down in His favourite chair.

He set his chins on his hand, gazing at me. “I have heard no complaints from your tutor, my son, but if you attend with as little attention as you did to Me just now, there will be trouble. You will, one day, when I ascend, be Imperator and my duty to the Empire is to ensure you are properly prepared.”

I tucked my hands behind, knotting my fingers together. I desperately wanted to chew on my hair or set those fingers picking at my clothing or jewellery but could not. Not under his direct gaze like that. “Yes, Illustrious father.”

A decisive nod. “Make sure you do, my addendum. You are too old for baby things, coming up on your second threshold. I will have to take more attention to your education.”
I wanted to swallow the wash of saliva in my mouth but managed to look eager. “I am at your disposal, father!”

He waved me away. “Yes, yes. I will think of this again, one day soon. Run along and play for now.”

“Yes, father. As You say.”

I was cold. The whole building was cold. My friend was locked to a Mahid table in the coldest part of the palace in one of the darkest, dimmest pits dug into the stone, all alone. Even as I walked through hot bars of sunlight flooding along the corridors I had the shivers and gooseflesh all along my arms. My soul was cold.

Author's Note

Just to let everyone know... I will be posting later on today and it will be more from Minis's point of view. I am, however, getting interested in doing a quick story on what is happening 'Below Stairs', with Minis starting to act like a real human being instead of an ignorant, dangerous annoyance. Let me know if you'd like to see that.

30 - My emotions make me a traitor

When I got back to my rooms, my desk, I sat chewing on the end of my pen wondering what I could write Raikas without it being treason. I finally wrote that the tiles in the Marble Palace Throne room were being ripped up because my father had big plans. And that he was looking forward to lots and lots more Yeoli wines and wools coming into the Empire soon.

If he could figure it out he’d have a warning of some kind. And I wouldn’t be able to send any more letters for him. I sealed the note and tucked it into one of the romance novels I had just gotten from the Pages. I wrapped it in paper and called a servant to deliver it down to the Mezem.

Then I sat for a time, doodling on the next blank page down. I kept drawing eyes and swords and Mahid needles dripping things. “Chip of the Effulgent Light.” Tafis stood in the door with a pair of skates in his hands. “Did you want to play a game?” He meant a full game of faibalitz in the steel bowl. They’d sent him to draw me out, but I didn’t feel like watching them play ‘Who is best friends with Minis today’ while playing faib.

“No. I’m busy.” I paused a moment. “Go play with yourselves.” He bowed and took himself off. I hooded my pen and tossed it onto the desk. I didn’t want to be nice to any of them, but I realized I should try. I couldn’t bear Ilian. Tafis wasn’t much better. Tomeas I wasn’t sure.

I didn’t expect to see the servant again the same day that I had sent down to the Mezem with the book for Raikas but he presented himself to me not a full bead later.

“Spark of the Sun’s Ray,” he said from the door. I looked up from the textbook I was reading.

“Yes? What is it?”

The man’s voice was soft. “This lowly one was unable to place the parcel into the gladiator’s hands, Spark of the Sun’s Ray, and this miserable worm believed the intelligence as to why might be of some interest to the Son of the Sun.”

I beckoned him over. “Tell me why you could not.”

“This simple one was informed, exalted personage, that the gladiator in question was unable to receive the gift because he had been removed from the Mezem by an escort of Mahid.”

“Oh?” My stomach clenched. My warning, such as it was, was too late. “And did they say where he’d been taken?”

He ducked his head slightly as though I had raised a hand to hit him. “This one does not know for certain, Spark of the Sun’s Ray. But…” He took a breath. “…speculation was made that the Mezem dog in question was brought to the Marble Palace.”

Of course. I really looked at the man, seeing him for the first time, rather than a flash of uniform. The Marble Palace livery, unchanged from the garish, ancient Piinanian style was mostly red with stylized wings on the over-tabard, the dark blue belt tipped and banded with gold, silver, copper, white or red in the various combinations denoting which floors of the Palace they were assigned to. I had never paid attention before, just accepting the fact that Binshala wore her belt banded with gold, tipped with silver, that gave her access to all parts of the palace except my father’s rooms. All of the highest Imperial servants’ belts were plain gold.

“What’s your name?” He had taken a risk coming back to me, to actually report that he had not succeeded in fulfilling his task for me. He was a young man, unfortunately balding young, a fessas length fringe all around the back of his head.

“Antras Rioras, fessas, Spark of the Sun’s Ray.” He was paling, slowly, under my gaze, though his perfect palace demeanor didn’t change by so much as a hair. I could almost see him wonder if he’d made a serious mistake.

“Good work, Antras. Very diligent, thank you.” I had twisted a decorative topaz button off my shirt earlier without noticing and picked it out of my pen holder and handed it to him. “Here. You may have this… let us say, for taking initiative.”

I was starting to get used to the half-hidden startled looks I was getting when I was polite. The button vanished into his glove pocket as if by magic. “This lowly one thanks the exalted Heir for the kind attention lavished upon this miserable dog.”

I waved him away, already trying to figure out how I could find where Raikas was. He’d be in the Mahid cells were I was politely but firmly discouraged from visiting unless escorted. I could go to Meras’s office and see if the listening tubes there would give me a clue.

The Senior Mahid had means to listen in on any one of a dozen cells, the sound channels piped through the stone. He could listen to training sessions, interrogations, tortures, or to prisoners who thought they were alone, just by uncapping the appropriate tubes. When I was much smaller I had thought them a marvelous invention for dropping marbles until he had requested of my father that I be forbidden to do so, as close to a rage as any Mahid ever showed.

It took me some time to find out which cell held Raikas, simply by deciding to play Conquer the Rebellion with the Companions and ‘hiding’ in Meras’s office when he was reporting to father about something or other. I had to uncap four of the tubes – and had to listen long enough to what was going on, on the other end to be sure of finding Raikas -- before the Gods were kind and I overheard Raikas speaking to someone. I knew his accent, his voice.

I didn’t catch the name of the person he was talking to. “…das. What does that mean, Durakis? I’ve only heard it once before and it was not defined. First time you said it I thought it was an odd version of “Raikas.” That was him. I knew him. He was, as usual, asking questions.

I felt I should know the voice who answered him, but couldn’t make the name come to mind immediately. “It is a title. Honourable Foreign Ruler would be close.”

“I’m not a ruler,” Raikas said.

“I understand,” came the reply. They weren’t interrogating him. The person speaking to him was no Mahid. “You are counted the least of your people as opposed to the first and do what you are told.”

“You’ve been studying us?”

“Yes. But most Arkans cannot understand that kind of world and there is no Arkan word that suits. So Durakis is polite. You could translate it as ‘Honorable Foreign Representative.”

There was an edge to Raikas’s voice. He was the Durakis? The Yeoli Durakis? “You hardly need be polite, Triadas.” General Triadas. One of the ones my father was charging with the conquest of Yeola-e. And they were just talking, in a Mahid cell? I had my ear pressed to the opening of the tube, the ring pressing almost painfully into the side of my head.

“I choose to be polite when I can.”

“There’s no time you can’t.” That was Raikas to the bones. On a Mahid table informing an Arkan general that politeness was always in someone’s control. “But I don’t know that I have the strength to argue that.”

"No need to argue.” Triadas answered quietly. And for a moment they sat in silence. I heard the click of the latch and had enough time to cap the tube and move over to another one, apparently listening raptly to someone weeping.

“Spark of the Sun’s Ray.” Meras’s deadly voice.

I sat up away from the tube, playing with the cap in my hands. “First of the Mahid.”

“You recall you are required to leave off dropping objects through the sound tubes?” He came over and took the cap out of my hands, plugging it back into place more firmly than was absolutely necessary. I pouted but gave it up willingly enough, along with my story.

“I do, First Meras. Um… have you seen any of my Companions looking for me? We were playing ‘Crush the Rebellion’ but they’ve not thought to look for me, here. I am playing the Rebels and the Rejin hasn’t tracked me down yet.”

“I respectfully suggest, Spark of the Sun’s Ray, that you not play at all in the Mahid quarters, as your Companions very sensibly worked out.”

“I suppose. But I thought it made sense to come to a place they wouldn’t look.”

“About as sensible as going to the Imperial Quarters where they cannot go, Spark. It develops into a boring game.”

“I’ll keep that in mind, Meras.”

“Spark of the Effulgent Light.” He shut the door behind me, also a trifle harder than he had to. Sometimes even the Mahid slipped.

Raikas was the Durakis? He was the Yeoli Durakis? My best friend in all the world was someone my father had just launched a conquest upon, and made my friendship with him not just wrong-headed, but treason. I had said I loved the man. He was good to me. I didn’t feel like a traitor to Arko, and there was no one to ask.

Another Aside: A Different Book

Hey Folks! Today I took a sideways turn and re-created the opening for another book that starts 65 days after the Sack of Arko.

Tomorrow we will be going back to our regularly scheduled Minis as he tries not to commit treason.

Enjoy!

The Hero’s Whoreson



Chapter 1: The Day My Life Changed

The day my life changed, Sera Inneas was scolding me. I sat on our front step holding the cool cloth over my right eye. “You, young Kallijas need to listen to your mother and not get into –“

“ – any more fights.” I said with her. “Yes, Sera. But you don’t understand!” She sniffed and handed me a fresh cloth before taking the old one. Sword Street had been lucky a couple of times. During the sack of Arko this part of the solas quarter hadn’t been touched by fire. Not like the greater solas family houses closer to the aitzas quarter. Some of those had been looted and burned. And then the second lucky thing was that the water got cleaned up and fixed in the first moon after. But the air was still full of the stink of mucky smoke with no rain to knock it down.

Sera Inneas, whom I called Auntie Sisi, looked after me when my mom and Oras had to go out so mom could work. I glared down the stone street with its tiny knee-high fences and paned glass windows with newly cleaned lace curtains blowing in the breeze. Foras and Risas both capered at the end of the street slapping their behinds at me. If they called my mama names again, I’d STILL fight them even if they were bigger than me. They didn’t say anything about my da any more but my mama was there all the time.

“Sera… they said nasty things about my mom! I couldn’t let them! And Foras needed to hit me with a rock to blacken my eye!” I wasn’t going to tell her that my head hurt and one of my teeth was loose. I thought it might be one of my baby teeth so it wasn’t important. Oras sometimes loosened my teeth when he got drunk and slapped me.

I didn’t care that they yelled ‘traitor’s get’ at me. Everyone knew my dad didn’t acknowledge me… and if they were polite they didn’t say anything about the work Oras made my mom do. Those were the names that hurt and would make me fight every time.

Besides. Foras and Risas were enrolled at Indirian’s School over on Rosethorn Lane. And I would never be. Even if mama were still solas… no matter what Oras made her do… and my father was Kallijas Itrean, solas, the great champion, the great traitor depending on who you talked to… he didn’t acknowledge me, so I had no one to enroll me in a solas school. That was something only fathers or grandfathers could do.

“Well. You hold that cloth there a while longer. I have my father’s dinner to make.” She went off across the street, leaving me sitting on the stoop. Her kitchen was in the front of the house right under her window, her cook stove right there, so she could see me. Auntie Sisi had never married – she wasn’t really my aunt but I called her that -- and when her father retired, kept house for him.

I sat on the warm stone and held the cloth over my eye. I wasn’t sure if I hated my father more or wanted him to come and sweep my mother away from Oras. My father had lost the most important duels of his career and been taken prisoner by the Durakis -- or Foreign Ruler -- who had conquered Arko and was now our Imperator. The Yeoli Durakis, Shefen-kas was black-haired, a wool-headed barbarian. Everyone said my father was in love with him… Foras said my father was like my mama, spreading himself for the conqueror savage.

That was a bad fight and I knocked one of his teeth and had to apologize to him and his ma. But mama and I saw the new Imperator do the Ten Tens… and mama pointed to the shining man in armour behind him. She said that was my father. I could see he was tall and I could see his hair but we were far enough away from him that I couldn’t see if I looked like him.

I looked down at the busy line of vinegar ants all along a crack of street mortar, put out my toe and squished a few of them. My mama tried to take me to father’s family when I was a baby, but they wouldn’t take me. I took the cloth down from my face, ignoring the people going up and down the street and squished a few more ants.

I closed my eyes and dreamed of the day my father would realize he loved my mother madly and came to fetch her away from Oras, who was just her guardian anyway, and made her… um… well he lived with us and he didn’t work. But I dreamed of Kallijas Itrean riding up on a big white horse… or skating up on a fabulously expensive pair of faibalitz skates and picking her up and carrying her and me off.

I wasn’t always mad at my father. Sometimes I was just sorry. “Excuse me, lad.” I looked up at the big man standing just in front of our house. He was a solas with his hair clubbed back into a fight-queue, very blond and his eyes were very very blue. “I’m looking for Trissa Eanas. Is this the house?” He had a blue shirt that was plain but the colour was expensive and his cloak was pale gray linen.

“Yes, ser.” I looked at the sword hilt he carried and it was as plain as his clothes. Wrapped black shark-skin, with a worn brass pommel, too old and worn to show any kind of pattern.

“Could you get her, lad?” I looked back up. He had a really deep voice.

“She’s at work, ser.” I scuffed at the stone with my toe. “Oras took her to the foreign barracks, and he’s staying there to protect her.”

“Truly.” He looked angry but not at me.

“Yeah. But he doesn’t train anymore since he lives with us.” He bent his knees to bring his face closer to me, dark blue gloves crossed on his knees, feet flat on the stone, crouched in front of me. He moved like Auntie Sisi’s hooped cat. “Oras lives with you?”

“Yeah.” He nodded.

“May I ask, young ser, where you got the coloured eye?” I looked at him, trying to figure out if he was laughing at me. He was very serious. He had a tiny little scar under his right eye that looked a little like a tear. I wondered how he got it. I guessed he wasn’t going to laugh.

“Foras called my mama a filthy name, so I punched him.” He took that in without his face changing, then he nodded solemnly.

“So you were fighting to defend your mama. A very brave thing to do.”

“Thank you, ser. But I have to. My da isn’t here to do it.” Auntie Sisi came bustling out with her hands under her apron.

“Ser, can I help you? I’m looking after the youngster… Kallijas… go into your house, would you?” He got up as she came up, nodded politely, but when she said my name he looked more intently at me. I flinched a little. Sometimes I wished mama hadn’t named me after my da.

“Aw, Sera…” I whined a little but got up and gave her back the nearly dry cloth. I didn’t know why but I didn’t want to look too much like a baby in front of a strange man.

“Nice to talk to you, ser,” I said. He blinked and smiled at me. I liked that smile. It didn’t show too many teeth.

“And to you, lad. I’ll speak to you again.”

He would? I went inside, looking over my shoulder, wondering why he wanted to talk to my mama, hoping he wasn’t a customer who had found the house.
Behind me I could hear the man asking Auntie Sisi. “Sera, have you any idea when she might be home?”

“I’m not sure, Ser. It could be quite late, especially on paydays, but today’s not one. You might try at the barracks.”

“I shall have to. Thank you for your time, Sera. Oh… did I hear correctly? The boy’s name is Kallijas?”

Auntie Sisi sighed sharply. “Yes it is, Ser. Kallijas… Itrean. Junior. It’s such a shame, really. I sometimes wonder if she’d done better to keep it secret. The man’s parents spurned her.”

For a moment the man didn’t answer. I peeked over our front-room windowsill. I couldn’t see his face the way he was standing, facing Auntie Sisi. “Well, she is an honest woman, is she not.” It wasn’t a question.

“That she is, Ser. Sometimes too much if you ask me. If you like, Ser, I can tell her you came by… in case you have no luck at the barracks.” She looked at him expectantly, getting a little protective of mama, I guess. Because the man hesitated again a moment before he took a deep breath.

“Yes. Please do. I need to speak to her, quite urgently it seems. She might be late but still home tonight? If I miss her on Iron Street, I will be back this evening. Please tell her that Kallijas Itrean, solas, um… Senior, it seems, called.”

That was my da? He was my da? And he wanted to speak to mama? To keep myself quiet I bit the edge of the windowsill, tasting the dusty wood in my mouth. It dried it right out and I wasn’t sure what to think. He wasn’t wearing the bright red armour or ride up on a white horse or skates. He was pretty plain but he was bigger than I thought. And I liked his eyes… and his smile. Um… And he didn’t smell bad... Oras kind of smelled like sweat and sour wine and kind of like he was sick all the time.

I was so excited I was shaking all over my body. Was he here to rescue us? Did he want us? I could hear Sera Inneas gasp as she threw a hand over her mouth. “Ohh. I didn’t mean, Ser Itrean –“

“No, please do not apologize, Sera. You could not know. I was remiss and intend to correct things… I did not know about the boy myself…”

“Ser. I will most definitely tell her you called, Sera… How may she call upon you?” Auntie Sisi was suddenly very, very polite. Her words were more carefully spoken.

“Thank you, Sera. You are most gracious.” He was treating her like she was one of the great solas… like him, completely ignoring her earlier suspicion of him. “If she and the boy come to the Marble Palace, should I miss her… then the Chamberlain there will see they are looked after. Skorsas Trinisas, his name is.”

“I will remember… Skorsas Trinisas… Thank you, Ser… Itrean, and I will most certainly tell her that, Ser.”

He nodded and turned to glance at the window where I was peeking. “I think it would be best if I spoke to Kallijas’s mother before I speak to him again. As much as I wish to.” He had a little smile on his face and I wasn’t sure what it meant. “He might – rightfully – thrash me.”

The Marble Palace? He said the Marble Palace? I peeked down to the street to see if Foras and Risas were still there fooling around but couldn’t see them.

“Kallijas!” Auntie Sisi was stern. “You know spying on grown-ups is rude!” I ducked down out of sight, blushing, giggling, wanting to laugh and dance and sing and shout to the whole world that my da was there! See! See? But I didn’t know really what was happening. Why didn’t he just call me out to him? Why didn’t we just go and get mama and leave?

“I suspect he heard us, and knows, Ser.” My da sighed.

“I’d best find his mother quickly then. Good day, Sera.”

“Good day… and good luck, Ser Itrean.” I peeked up again just in time to catch his eye as he turned to stride down our street, making it seem little and pokey, and I ducked down again, my fingertips still on the windowsill. I could feel myself start to blush having been caught looking and listening again when I shouldn’t. I waited until I couldn’t hear his boot heels on the stone any more and scrambled out the front door.

Auntie Sisi was standing, looking up toward where Sword turns onto Copper Fountain Rd. I could see Sera Klaras leaning all the way out of her third-storey window, her hand cupped to her ear trying to hear. Sera Firian had her baby in one arm, calling their cat in, looking over at us, as if she just happened to have to open the door and see what was happening.

Foras or Risas or any of the older kids weren’t anywhere in sight but a couple of the babies… only five or six… were playing along the street, with old Ser Teveas propping his stump on his front wall, keeping an eye on them. Everyone was looking without looking… except Sera Klaras who was always nosy.

Sera Inneas had both hands on her hips looking very severe. “You were being rude, young man!”

“Sera… um…Auntie Sisi, please please please… that was my da wasn’t it? That was him that was him that was him????” I wasn’t supposed to call her auntie anymore I was just past my first threshold, too old but…

She heaved a very heavy sigh. “YES.” Then she dropped her voice so the rest of the street didn’t hear us. “That was Ser Itrean.”

“And he’s my da?”

“Yes, he’s your da.”

“But but but but… he went away again.”

”He’s planning to speak with your mother… and take you to the Marble Palace which you probably overheard anyway.”

I bounced up and down where I stood. “I didn’t just dream that? I wished really hard today.” She reached out to ruffle my hair that was still loose like a kid.

“No, you did not just dream that. But it will take some time for your father to speak to your mother, once he finds her. And I don’t know what it means or what he intends to do, so I can promise you nothing.”

I wanted to go rub my father’s visit in Foras’s face and Auntie Sisi must have seen it on my face and she knew me well enough.

“You are going to stay right here with me and not say a word to a soul. You shouldn’t even have heard as much as you did.”

I held up my fist over my heart to swear. “Sera Inneas I promise solemn and to the Gods I won’t say a word to anyone!”

She sniffed. “Good. And you concern yourself too much with the opinions of small-minded scamps like Risas or Foras.” She looked where I stood, jittering on the spot, not knowing what to do with myself. “I need you to help me in the kitchen… the fuel pots need to be carried in, my water carried and once its heated poured into the basin. And I have a lot of potatoes for you to peel and chop.”

“All right.” I didn’t want to but I had no other idea of what I should do. My chest was full to bursting and I felt as though I’d been hoisted up to the Rim edge and dangled by my ankles for a while. Not sure if I was thrilled or angry or terrified.

29 - Wave of Blood

The Throne room floor was made of blue tile around the edges but the mosaic beneath the Crystal Throne showed the known world. The Presentation steps below the throne, that brought petitioners up to be heard by the Imperator was a standing wave in the Arkan sea.

I stood on the floor below the Throne as my father called down to me and pointed to where the workmen were pulling up tiles to replace them. A new conquest? He’d said he wanted me to see this, after luncheon.

“There, my Minimal! Come around here, to Roskat.” I walked over Sria, and up the length of the Peninsula, past the Presentation steps. The gold on the edges of the tiles grew thicker and thicker the closer I got to the gems set in the floor marking the city itself. I stepped around that and headed for the edges of the Empire. From above father called “More to the left my boy! Stop! Now turn and face the edge of the civilized land!”

I found myself facing the Yeoli border, or where the Yeoli border had been. The workmen were carefully pulling blue and green chips up, cleaning the old adhesive off the underlayment. Propped against the wall were the black sheets of glass to go into place marking contested land. To my left and to my right there were rejin markers set into the golden sockets in the floor. I looked up to where father sat, beaming and didn’t need to feign confusion.

“Illustrious father?”

He laughed. “Is it not brilliant? Look… look… go around to the sea coast.” In the sea were the ruby glass sails of the Naval Assault Flotilla. “The rejins along the inland coast are a feint! The true attack will be from the coast my son. They depend so on their mountains to protect their wool-haired barbarity and I will merely circumvent those primitive defenses!” He paced out along the crystal bridge, pointing. 

“See? General Triadas will be carrying out the conquest of Yeola-e, with General Larianas supporting him, and if everything goes as planned the Empire will be bringing more of your favourite kinds of fighters to the Mezem! The wines and the slaves, the wool and the wealth flowing down the sides of the mountains into Arko’s mouth! Before your next year, if all goes well! Isn’t that wonderful?”

I gulped, able to do so, from my place under him where he couldn’t see. “I see. Illustrious father… so, the conquest has begun?”

Raikas’s country, ripped out of the floor to be recovered with the glass war-plates. I thought of him, his arm across his face, weeping for a man just killed. Just killed by him. Forced to profane his training for Arko’s entertainment, to be fed into Arko’s maw and devoured. I thought of the feeling of his arm around me, even though I was the son of the man who forced him to that. I thought of the eagle’s-eye look and smile when he’d killed the slaver, someone who had hurt him bitterly and directly. And felt my belly clench.

It wasn’t going to be as easy as my father thought… but then I thought of the Naval Flotilla unloading the heavy rejins, the thousands of solas, red armoured monster wave, washing in and over the Yeoli garrisons thinned by being drawn to the Roskati border. The galleys plunging up that central river like a spiked javelin thrust into a body. It would be a river of blood.

It would depend on whether Triadas and Larianas could take that wave all the way up the mountains. I stepped down onto the stripped floor and turned to look back at the Empire. For a moment it was as though the whole floor were stripped or smashed. “No, no, not yet. Soon, though. Well? Well my boy? Is it not brilliant?” Father was almost beside himself with anticipation.

I shifted, feeling the gritty floor under my feet, looking at a piece of the golden jointing twisting across the bare stone. It was like a gutted city. I could hardly tell him he was pricing the unborn foal. “It looks fool-proof, Illustrious father.”

“Yes! Yes! It will be incredible. I am looking forward to the fruits of conquest! I am convinced that General Triadas and General Larianas can do this!”

“Of course father.” He was right, but I could only hope that nothing happened to either of those Generals. I couldn’t think of a single other one that Arko had that might be able to carry off such a plan, should the Summoner reach out his claws and draw either man to Selestialis.

He actually giggled like a boy. “Especially since their young, wild hotspur Shef-en-kas or whatever mouth-garbling sheep-bleating name, went missing! Oh that was such a plan of mine, my son! I set Mahid on the young idiot with instruction that he should have a deniable accident on the road! It was the perfect set up for this war.” He was chuckling at his own brilliance, exited enough he was beginning to sweat, a round spatter appearing just next to my foot.

All I could think of was what? What? My father set Mahid on the Yeoli Durakis? I’d been interested in the first proposed state visit in hundreds of years… and Raikas and Manas had showed up after the reports of some unfortunate accident on the road… and and and… Had my father not thought of this and had them truth-drugged? And… he would. I was starting to sweat, myself. My father would know that I liked… that I loved… Raikas.

“The assault will be set shortly.” He slapped his hands together, the Seals glinting and clashing.

“Eminent father. So we have sent the declaration of war?” It was all I could think to ask. He stopped, looking down at me before settling into the Crystal Throne, the golden soles of his slippers showing clearly through the clear footrest. Then he threw his head back, belly and chins shaking and laughed and laughed and laughed.

He didn’t need to answer. A plan such as what he’d described, a deception on such a scale… to declare war would be to give them warning. And I had to be making a joke, or I was a naïve, honourable fool.

I had to join him, or he might realize I didn’t think it was a good idea and forced a giggle out of my mouth like a stream of saliva.

28 - Ritual of Ascension Practise

“Respectfully, Spark of the Sun’s Ray, Muunas’s morning to you.” I groggily blinked awake, realizing my bed curtains were opened. I rolled over and burrowed my head under my pillows, groaning. It had been cool last night and I had a feather quilt and my bed curtains closed sometime in the middle of the night when my shoulders got cold. Now they were open and the sun shone in, in a way that was positively obscene.

“Tobeas. Go away. Leave me alone.” I burrowed deeper under my covers, throwing my arms over my head, pulling feathers between myself and his officiousness standing by my bed. I pouted and held my eyes shut, holding my sweaty pillow over my head, still pretending, and thought if I could just ignore him long enough he’d go away.

But all he did was stand and wait. And wait. It was like I could feel him standing there, looking at the knot of bedcovers where he knew I was. And rank on rank behind him I could feel the servants standing, waiting on my rising. Just standing, breathing.

The servants would all be off to the left to do the dirtier work of getting me up, while the aitzas boys who were called ‘Companions of the Chamber’, whose fathers had convinced mine that they’d be good friends or good influences would all be off to the right near the windows. They had just been all changed again after Jitzmithra, the last boy having just arrived yesterday from an outer province of the Empire… hmm. That would have been Definas Mekas, the youngest of the ten that normally waited on me.

These boys could be with me for years if they pleased me and my father. I had ignored their existence this year as long as I could. 
Ilian Kallen, the eldest of my companions, was a moon faced boy who carried his aitzas bulk well except for his too-close set eyes. And I thought he had a mean look, but I knew his father, General Abatzas, assigned somewhere in Roskat. He always held my clean underclothes.

Stegis Mil Ipasen, whose father was the current governor in Sria. Tafis Lisaran, Boras Sefir, Eanas Huren, one of the Chamberlain of the Exchequer’s family, Ordas Meriden, Tomeas Manir, whose older brother had ruined their chances with father and so was his family’s last hope with me.

Next in rank would be Silasas Pasen, and Filibas Iliam, both my age and still stuck in the skinny boy stage. And then Definas, who had arrived yesterday with his entourage and settled into the Chambers of Honour over on the Fisienas level.

Looming behind them, to keep them in order, would be the Companion’s Chamberlain, this year it was Iamis.

I dug out from under my quilts and pillows, blinking all over again at the light, clawing a few fine wisps of hair out of my face that had escaped from my night braid. “Muunas’s blessing on your day, Tobeas,” I said sulkily and sat up.

“Thank you, Nurse.” I accepted the cup of kaf from her, cutting off his immediate answer. But he continued, ignoring my interruption.

“Your Imperial Father requires that your ‘Ritual of Ascension’ practise is resumed immediately, since the Jitzmitthra holiday and a certain few days after have disrupted this necessary observance.”

I drank my kaf, letting my eyes trace the elaborate gold filigree around the edge of the cup and the saucer. “Of course, my dekinas. I am prepared.” I was sulking and didn’t want to do it, but I had to. 
Ilian, Stegias and Tafis were all lined up holding my practice outfit, but I needed the servants first.

After I was clean I stepped into the underclothes and the plain cotton pants and held my arms up so Tafis could slip the shirt on for me, and tie it on. The Ritual of Ascension, or the Ten Tens as the bulk of the populace calls it, was always practiced barefoot, the only time an Imperator even came close to stepping on the ground. 
Tobeas had his book all ready and I nodded to him and he began reading as I stepped forward to lead the whole lot of them to Muunas Triumphant Hall. It was the place in the Marble Palace for this practice, one reason it was completely clear of artworks and so good for faib skates.

“And the son went forth unto a sacred space and made himself humble before the Ten and in his dreams he was raised before the Thrones of the Gods.” Tobeas read scripture as though he was bored of it. “The Ten Gods conferred and gave to the son, the gift by which men’s eyes could see Their will manifest on earth.”

The whole entourage behind me answered. “Amen.” It took me another few minutes to walk to the Hall rather than skate down and I did that in silence like I was supposed to. I imagined it was supposed to be for me to pray before this sacred practise but I was mostly thinking about my bath afterward. 
Tobeas stopped me, as he did every time, with The Warning, Exposition the First in Muunas’s Book. “Beware! Thou who would approach the Gods, do so with an open heart! Do so with diligent practice and diligent work! The Gods have given Thee life and do not bear fools. Do not approach Them lightly. Thy death and the Smotherings of Hayel await the apostate who dares approach the Ten with less than perfection! The Fire. The Will. The Destructive Anger. Approach the Gods with diligence and receive Their patient attention. Beware anything less.”
 
I stepped to one side and waited as I would, for the ritual itself. I would have to wait for any pretenders to the throne presented themselves to the Gods and attempted to open the Temple after its cleansing.  I stepped to the mark a second time.

I put my toes on the first mark that corresponded to the same mark on the outside Portico of the Temple, raised my hands and looked up, yelling the word of opening, ‘Nyuzar!’ at the ceiling. When I did this for real, I’d be shouting at the sky. It was an ancient word, part of the ancient language Arko spoke when we lived in the sky. Now, any of those words had no other meaning, no other use except in priestly chants or the Imperator’s mouth in the rituals.  Then I'd have to wait again for the pretenders to try the ritual if they would.

Four steps to the Goddess side, do a full prostration, stretching my hands out to the golden marble tile in the floor, exactly as far as I would stretch in the Temple. Then up and five steps to the Slave Goddess Anae, stretch both hands up as though holding a rod, actually the Goddess’s broom. I swept the front foot back, pivoting and cradling the invisible broom. Sweep the other way all the way around. Two smaller steps and a backwards lunge with the invisible broom over my head, as low as I could go, the imaginary broomhead back over my head. Half way. Up and swing the broom full circle and then around the other half of the dance till I could reach up and place the Sacred broom back in Anae’s invisible hands.

In Muunas’s Hall there were no God and Goddess statues, just marks in the marble and places to reach for. Tobeas explained at one point that there was only one Temple, not two. And one could practice anywhere once one knew the motions. They would change as my body grew into that of a man.

Every God and Goddess had ten formal steps and each step had a hand position that had to be done perfectly. Why people called it the Ten Ten's. Ten Gods, ten motions. There were the steps between the Gods and the timing exactly. But I had been studying since my first threshold birthday, so I had done it almost every day for four years.

I had heard The Warning every time, too, and the bloodstains of failed Heirs or pretenders could only shock so many times. I did the other Nine Gods’ motions, The only God statue truly present is Muunas of course and I had to climb up the same way I would in the Temple but had to stand instead of sitting down on Muunas’s lap at the end. I put my hands together palm to palm… climbed down and prostrated myself to the High God one more time. Done.

My entourage said ‘amen’ and trailed me back up to my rooms for my bath and then the whole formal ritual of really getting dressed before breakfast. Things were getting back to normal when everything had changed this year. I had hoped that it would last longer. I had to go down and see Raikas again soon, or I’d harden into the ugly little image of my father that was wanted.

27 - A Lesson in Speed and Printing Knuckle-Suckers

I continued avoiding Ailadas, the next day, having a servant deliver the essay I did finish rather than hand it in personally. The only kind of peace I could get was on my skates and was on some number of circuit of Muunas Triumphant’s Hall when he hailed me from the balcony from the Ilirean level side of the hall.


“Ahem. Spark of the Sun’s Ray! You are required to study….” His call faded behind me as I ducked down the corridor away from him.


He actually anticipated where I should go and I had a glimpse of his raised glove, out of the corner of my eye, as he tried to wave me to a stop. He was much slower on foot than I on my skates. “If YOU WANT TO LECTURE, YOU HAVE TO CATCH ME, FIRST!” I shouted back over my shoulder and went down the Heir’s staircase in two jumps, to the landings, and bumped down the last five stairs to put me in a different wing of the Palace.


That would show the old fool. I didn’t want to listen and wasn’t going to sit still. If he wanted to complain to my father… I shrugged mentally. If father were in a good mood – likely with all the blood shed – he’d laugh and shrug it off. If he weren’t, he’d lecture me. It wasn’t enough of a defiance for a real punishment.


I felt smug and rewarded myself by skating back around to the Heir’s Library, in my section of the Palace, to the consternation of the librarians. When I was smaller I had sometimes grabbed scrolls and trailed them behind like flags. Father had laughed at that one but I still had to sit and copy scrolls for a whole week. I didn’t ever let on that I liked that punishment.


This time I didn’t do more than do a circuit of that library and then out, leaving a wake of pent-up sighs behind myself. I circled around the two level tall statue of ‘Solas Rising’ in the Yellow Rotunda and was considering going down and back to the kitchen levels when I heard the rumble of another set of skates. This was nowhere near the steel faibalitz floor. Who would dare?


I braked and looked around to see where the sound came from, but it echoed all around, bouncing off the stone. There were eight corridors leading off the Rotunda. As I turned someone whipped past me and around behind the statue and I was backwards so only caught the edge of a robe and hair as I turned all the way around. “Hey!”


“You required me to catch up, Spark of the Sun’s Ray, so now I, ahem, require you to keep up with me to hear your next lesson.” Ailadas? I scrambled after, wheels clacking as I struggled to get up to speed.


“Koren? Koren?”


“Many scholars consider the disastrous invasion of Rahina to be laid to the responsibility of two factors…” His voice was fading fast down the Black and White corridor. The old man was fast. Where had he learned to skate like that? Dried up old fart that he was?


I pushed hard to catch up. “Koren, could you repeat that?” I could see his robe and a flash of his skates… He stopped and waited for me until I had almost reached him, pushed off at almost right angles down the spiral ramp toward the Long Gallery. “Wait!”


“As I said, Spark of the Elemental Light, the Rahina Disaster could be blamed on two things, one of which was the High General Batajas’s inability to move his forces into place quickly …”


I was nervous of the spiral ramp because it was so fast. He spun to face me, still lecturing, still accelerating. I bent both knees to gain on him. He bent his forward knee in lunge position, the back leg outstretched and the drag slowing him slightly so I could catch up. “In other words… a lack of speed.” He straightened to race down the last turn. I was going to love this lesson.


"Another factor was the weather and the miring of his entire cavalry and its supply line in mud.” He braked, and spun to face forward into the Long Gallery, skating almost sedately with his hands thoughtfully clasped behind his back.


I grinned and copied his stance until he spun on one foot to face me, skating backward, hurling questions at me as if they were faibalitz discs. “What was the name of the General’s logistics officer? And what role did he play in the rout… ahem, strategic retreat? Was the Eighth Rejin a help or a hinderance? Why?”


Thank goodness I had read ahead.


***


“IF YOU SO MUCH AS SLIP, SLAVE, YOU’LL BE AN EIGHT-DAY DYING!” Father’s voice echoed all the way up to the Filigree gallery and then cut off as a slave closed the door of the Great Baths. Father would never be less than perfectly clean, so endured His bath every eight-day, pleased to be washed in between without having to be immersed in the devil element, that He was terrified of, in any quantity greater than a hand basin. It was not the time to call attention to myself.


I, very quietly, gathered up my books and tucked myself into one of the window alcoves of the Heir’s library, hiding behind the lined red silk drapes and finished ‘The Aitzas Paramour’ in only two tenths. The Pharmacist had better taste in knuckle-sucker romances than I’d thought he would, being Mahid. The book had a lot of completely naked people and gloves being ruined and having to be removed and injured fingers soothed. Lots of sex. I liked reading about that because it started a tickly, warm feeling below my navel, but no pain or blood. I suppose Amitzas got enough of that in his work. It was good to read about sex between people that didn’t hurt or kill either one.


But I was done reading all the books he’d had on his shelf and I wanted something new. I checked the time. Father would still be recovering from his bath with a massage… so I went down to the Press to see what books they were printing.


The Press Gate was faced with the stone removed from the cliff to make it so it was impossible to see, an idea of the First Imperators as part of its security. The entrance was actually in a barn-like building in front of the cliff at the start of Ink Road.


The inner door opened letting out the heat like opening a furnace, noises and smells of the press in a wave that I was always tempted to lean into as if it were a wind. The alcohol lamps were everywhere, making the vast cavern bright where I always expected a stygian darkness, though that was ridiculous considering the necessity of what they produced. The muffled thunder of the Press itself was like a dragon in its cavern, the black iron spokes of the enormous wheel showing spidery against the cavern wall.  They'd cleaned up the red mess I'd made last time.


The man running the Press was the prestidigitator who moved his hands in arcane and odd patterns like a dance. His clothing was perfectly tight with no folds of cloth or laces, his hands bare on the black and brass levers as though on the body of a lover. His brass-rimmed spectacles laced tight onto his head to prevent any disaster of them falling into the machine. He had a dozen men all along the length of the monsterous machine, each one doing his particular motion, his particular dance.


I could stand and watch the master pressman all day, the apprentices with him watching as well, standing with rags in their hands to wipe ink or oil. I stood with my fingers pressed into my ears because of the roar of the machine, the hiss and groan of hydraulic pipes that gave it its power, still made my head tremble and my ears throb, even through the blocking flesh.


The massive trays of tiny letters were being set up for the next Pages run, typesetters’ sitting in their cages fingers flying, making the clitter-clatter noises. The flat sheets were for specialty pages to be printed in the small lever presses while the enormous cylinder of the Great Press was set up in a very different way.


Intharas Terren, the Pages editor and the fessas who ran the whole place, sat in his glass box of an office overseeing the whole room just by looking up. I bypassed him today, rather than make his life more interesting. I wasn't going to yell ‘STOP THE PRESS!” to see the whole whirring, clattering, banging monster come to a screaming halt, today.


The book editor, Janas Fridas, fessas, did not rate such an office, rather an alcove with unglassed windows in his walls, his shutters also open wide.


His purview was the bank of small presses and lever presses each with one operator, each printing their own assignments, the completed stacks of paper hustled off, to be covered and sewn, by one of the rejin of binder’s apprentices.


Janas sat with his green eye-shade pushed back on his head, feet up on his desk, squinting at the spidery writing of a manuscript. “How in ink-sucking Hayel is one to decipher such crotch-crab scribblings? The first page seized me but the handwriting suffers later!” He always talked to himself when he was picking books and nibbled on the end of his pen, which left an ink-stain on his lower lip. He took the pen out of his mouth and scrawled a note to himself in handwriting not much better, as far as I could tell.


He didn’t notice the clatter of my jewellery in all the tumult. “Hey, Janas! I want this moon’s new knuckle-sucker!” He didn’t look up from his reading, just waved a dismissive hand. “Hmm? Not out yet…go to a bookseller…” He started hard enough that his chair shifted under him and dumped him on his back, manuscript scattering all over his chest and the floor. He blinked up at me as though I’d dragged an owl out of its hollow into the light.


“S… Spark…” He gaped, trying to get enough air back into his lungs to address me. He hadn’t noticed my accent, so hard he’d been concentrating; at least not immediately.


“Yes, yes…” I sat down in his visitor’s chair, ignoring the scramble as he managed to get untangled from his chair and the loose pages of the manuscript. “Like I said, Janas… I want to see the new books for this moon.”


“Of course! Of course!” His assistant showed up to help him up, bobbing a frightened bow at me. “This moon’s releases…” Janas had recovered his wind and his composure, raised a sharp whistle and a hand of apprentices materialized. “Get the Heir a viewing of the books ready to allocate! Jump!”

26 - The Moon Broke Into Pieces

I got caught up with one of my essays for my tutor, and I’d tell him I wasn’t inclined to do the other two pieces, even though I’d done all the reading. I couldn’t make the words come, they swam in front of my eyes and I ended up doodling bloody images, swords and axes and severed limbs all along the edges of my essay, instead.

Dinner that night was a display of layers. I was supposed to be developing the Imperial bulk and did my best. The singer was in fine voice, though I noticed he moved a little stiffly. My father wasn’t usually enthusiastic enough to make his lovers sore, so his good mood was likely to last somewhat longer than just a day or two.

I caught His gaze on me a time or two and kept my eyes on my plate, looking up only through my eyelashes. He seemed satisfied with me and I thought it might be because He thought I was showing more how much like Him I was.

I was oddly disconnected from things and didn’t know what I truly was feeling. I unlocked the door and wandered through the stacks of the Imperial archives, alone because I wanted it. I pulled a leather-bound volume off the shelf, blew the dust off. It was 350 years old and I looked at the old pieces of vellum, spidery handwriting on it, the ancient old Imperial seal shining in one corner. It was hard to make out what it was about, since I wasn’t used to deciphering the handwriting, dust rising as I turned the pages. I sneezed and shut the book, thrust it back into its space. One day I would be shut up and folded away into my slot in the God’s library, I thought, and wondered if my soul would be a book they would want to read over and over or just let pile up dust. That made me smile to myself. Tobeas wouldn’t like that idea. He’d think it was disrespectful to think of the Gods as having libraries of souls.

From the Staerin floor the staircase is a semi-spiral and I slid down its banister, narrowly missing a servant who was polishing the landing. I ignored the man’s gasp and hopped onto the next banister which wasn’t as much fun, not only because it was a straight down slide with a right-angle turn but it went down to the Mahid quarters under the stern eyes of my ancestors, the largest painting, Third Ilesias, called The Great, in the Imperial Battle armour with the Battle Flag over his head. I looked up at him and then down.

One of his old titles, long ago erased from Arkan memory had been ‘Friend of Haiu Menshir’. There were old letters where he had apparently in gratitude for some healing he’d received; he’d donated a whole wing to the University on Haiu Roru.

The way the painting faced always made me think he was keeping an eye on the Mahid. Their family quarters were on the lower level and their halls weren’t white marble but gray, with black floors. Every door was the same dark red wood. They had no carpets or tapestries so the stone gave off its damp chill evenly day or night, no matter what the weather outside. The lamps were all plain alcohol, burning blue, with bluish glass shades, giving every face a grayish pallor.

All the fittings were silver or darkened silver, giving very little shine to anything. I usually only came down here to get some speed with my skates because I didn’t have to swerve around little carpets everywhere. Sometimes in the middle of the night it was too much trouble to find enough servants to move the rugs upstairs. The Mahid quarters were a place designed to mimic a tomb, an entrance to Hayel, certainly. Not a place for any feeling, living thing. I was reminded of 2nd Amitzas’s smile as he gutted the okas.

I sat on the bottom step, wondering about Mahid, wondering about myself. He was related to me, or rather I to him. Imperators were very close to their Mahid and had been interbreeding with them over the years. I was the product of the genital squeezings of my father into a Mahid concubine. Probably chosen very carefully for beauty and perfection of form and strength. I had a very strange vision of the Mahid girls being looked over like slaves or cattle in the market; or doing competitions of strength and limberness but that was the stuff of back-alley, hard core, knuckle-sucking pornography. It was probably just her appearance that had made her a concubine.

It was only chance that I was conceived instead of wasted against the sheets or into her mouth and consumed. It was only chance that He chose me as his Heir. I didn’t even know how many, if any, of the current crop of Mahid boys were my brothers.

I wandered down to 1st Amitzas’s office. The Imperial Pharmacist wasn’t there but must be very close because it was unlocked and his desk light glowed under its green shade. His cubby was dark and close because of all the wooden filing cabinets lining the walls, the dark wood polished by generations of Imperial Pharmacist’s gloves. He had all his current files locked away tight, the meticulous record of what my father had commanded over the years, carefully alphabetized. His library, locked behind clear glass shelves, looked horribly fascinating.

“Poisonous Plants of the Arkan Sea Vol. I and II. Venomous Insects. Care of Reptiles.” I pulled my finger along, smudging the glass, as I read to myself. “Studies of the Effects of Pain on Human Physiology. Breaking the Human Animal. Haian Surgeries – Effects When Anaesthetic is not Effective. Writings of the Broken.” That was certainly the most interesting shelf. My eyes stopped short on a book with a pink cover and white lettering. 1st Amitzas was reading “Passionate Nanny?” Umm. I would never have considered that he might have a vice. Next to it was a blue cover... “Enchain My Wild Heart." "The Aitzas Paramour.”

That was strange enough to make me uncomfortable. One might have been chance but three were a collection. The Imperial Pharmacist, the most feared man in all Arko next to my father and he read light romance novels? I shuddered and went over to his desk to drag his hard chair over to the lightning snake’s tank, and sat down. I put my chin on the tabletop to stare at the snake.

He kept it for its venom, and made some of his potions and decoctions from it, as well as the poison teeth for Mahid operatives, or poison pills. It was as fast as saikaid, the poison that could drop a man where he stood.

The ceramic warmer under the table, to give the snake heat, felt pleasant on my knees. It made 1st Amitzas’s office the most agreeable room in the Mahid quarters. On the branch inside, the snake was striped red and yellow along its body, and its head a triangle wedge that just looked dangerous as it stared back at me from its loops along the branch. The eye shone silver. I tapped on the glass and jumped back as it smacked its nose against the glass, leaving a smear of venom behind. I knew it would, but still jumped back. It always startled me.

“Spark of the Eternal Light.” It was the old Mahid’s dry voice. He was perfect, as any first of the Mahid would have to be, moving silently as a young man. “How may I assist you?”

“Hi, Amitzas.” I pulled myself back from the serpent and turned to look at him. “I came down to look at your snake.”

“It belongs, Spark, to your father, not to me. It is a useful creature, if misunderstood because of its nature. It is deadly because of how it was born but is, however, innocent of malice.”

I didn’t want to listen to anyone lecture me, even on something as interesting as the snake. “Have you fed it lately?”

He stood, perfectly still as one of the columns higher in the building, his faultless white robe not even trembling at the bottom, his spectacles glinting in his desk light. “Yes, Spark of the Eternal Light. Yesterday. It does not require more food until two eight days from now. Perhaps not even then.”

He was, in his way, trying to get rid of me; trying to bore me away. I got up and wandered back upstairs. It was late enough that my nurse would be hunting for me and I supposed I should at least try to sleep, though I did not want to. I never remembered my dreams but if I had them they had me in a sweat, the bedclothes unpleasant in the mornings.

I went back up to my rooms and had my skates laced on, telling my servant of chambers to tell my nurse I was skating the halls. The night lamps were lit by now, the moon not yet high enough to shine through the sky windows. The sound of my skates, a higher note than on the slightly rougher street lanes, echoed off the walls. I was moving fast enough that I had to dodge around servants. They were used to me doing this enough that they lifted trays or didn’t flinch under whatever load, raising their polishing rags on poles, and long dusters up higher, for me to duck under if I so desired.

One of the pure white, long-haired cats my father favoured lay stretched along a chaise back and I ran a high-speed stroke along its back and it flailed down onto the cushions, its hissing fading behind me. I hopped over a couple more of them lying stretched out in my way, but all they did was flatten their ears. A kitten pounced out of its hiding place at me and I left the puffball meowing its complaint at having missed me, behind. None of the dogs were allowed free run of the halls, at night, so I ran over no tails nor developed a yipping train of excited lapdogs the way sometimes happened during the day.

Why was my father, after choosing me in such an unorthodox way, after not marrying some aitzas beauty to be the mother of Heirs… why did He want me to be more traditional? When He believed I was like Him? It made no sense to me at all.

Muunas Triumphant hall was dim but open enough, with no display pedestals. I turned some long circles around the hall under the High God’s gaze. I did ten full circuits before ducking away from Muunas’s gaze through the corridor under his sword hand side. I ended up in the Hall of Ancestors for a while and skated up and down in front of Sinim’s tomb.

There were fewer and fewer servants in the halls as beads fell in the clock and I got faster and faster… I leapt up on the Red Staircase’s handrail, not particularly caring that the fall off the steep side was more than a single floor, my skates screeching and spraying sparks till I jumped off the end, just before the lion statue at the bottom, and skittered down the last three steps before going off down the Silianas level. It was all green marble from Twenty-Seventh Joras’s conquests just to the north, some of the oldest in the Palace.

I was so tired now, but I couldn’t seem to stop. Why? Why did He choose me? What thing did He see in the red, newborn blot I must have been? He saw only Himself in me. There were no answers in the faces of the statues, no comfort in the stone hands, outstretched from the deep shadows around me. Human faces as empty as those of the Gods, or the beasts.

Panting, I flung myself onto a chair covered with the long-haired elephant cushions, my skates propped up on a leather footstool shaped like an enormous sea turtle, and stared at the moon just showing now in the sky window. “Mother Selinae,” I addressed it. “I know I’m not supposed to talk to you. But I don’t know what to think anymore…”

The moon twisted and broke into pieces. I took a deep breath but couldn’t cry out because the moon was bleeding. Then it went dark and when I blinked and rubbed my eyes I thought I saw the silver ring that was the pommel of Raikas’s sword but it was only the moon shining white as it always was, my feet moving as if I were running. I knuckled my eyes again, realizing my feet were still moving.

“Wha… what?” Binshala unlaced my skates, bent over so she did not have to bend her old knees. “Spark of the Sun’s Ray, this one would suggest that the child of elemental light needs his strength and perhaps might suggest that one sleep in his own bed?” She had a scented cloth over her one arm and wiped my feet clean as she freed them from the heavy skates.

I put my bare feet down on the cool stone. “Oh. Ummm. Nurse. Was I asleep? Yes. I’m coming.”