450 - You are Worm-Food, Boy

AN:  Sorry for the delay today... March Break and all.  There will be another post later today, I promise.
_________________________ 

I managed to clasp my hands behind my back and put on a calm face as I watched the last of the preparations by the Ministry of Celebratory Bounty. The Presentation Platform would be far too small for counting and announcing. Everything had been set up around the amoyawa landing circle on the roof of the Marble Palace.

Four of the front turrets of the Palace had been claimed as flag markers for all of us, the poles marked out in lines designating a thousand votes each.  Our red and silver were on the left of Kallen’s green.  Mil’s blue and Kin’s orange flags were both on the outside two, probably because the Ministry liked a nice symmetry and were assuming that both those candidates would have lower counts than either Kallen or Kallijas and I.

The whole Presentation Square sparkled with gold ribbons and mixes of all the candidates' colours.  The Ministry had begun decorating the instant the water had dropped from the Washing of the Streets.  I had seen them from the Heir’s balcony, gray shadows, matte against the damp gray cobbles under the street lights.

The Mezem gong had been crated and moved to the Presentation platform where the orchestra would sit.  The crowd waiting on the results and the speeches tonight was thicker even though we weren’t at noon yet.  Various buildings around the square showed signs of people as well, Aitzas either using their friend’s connections to get the more private, high seats, or renting places for their servants to set up comfortable chairs and buffets for them while they watched.

“Serin?”  Sinimas, the writer, stood at my elbow.  He was early, but there were a number of writers already on the roof, under the sun-awning that someone sensible had realized would be necessary.  He held his lap-desk under one arm and a broad-brimmed hat, perfect for shading his page shadowed his smile.

“Ser Menden.”  I tried to smile pleasantly at him, even as I twitched in startlement, inside. Outward shows of surprise 2^nd Amitzas had trained out of me.

“Might this one ask you a question?”  When have I ever said no and when has that ever stopped you?

“Of course, Ser Menden, that one certainly might.”  I found my tongue more easily followed Kallijas’s slightly old-fashioned politeness, a certain less harsh version of one-down, rather than Chevenga’s insistence of equal to equal, though I was hearing more and more an odd version of a meld of the two. He had his wrist pad tight and shuffled his lapdesk to bring his pen to bear, to quote me.”

“If the Ser and the Serin do not win, does that one believe the new Imperator will attempt to enact fourteen-eight immediately?”

“The new Imperator, should we not win, might certainly try, however there are a number of legal questions that I would want to see answered before it came to that pass.”

“Would you stand as a pretender for the Ritual of Ascension should you not win?”  I turned and looked at him.  I had actually thought of that, wondering.  I hadn’t pursued it, thinking that it was a problem I might not have to think about. Depending on what happened tonight.  Then I’d have sixty days to figure it out.

“Should things come to pass so, I would have to ask the Fenjitzas and the Fenjitza their opinions of whether the Gods had not already expressed Their will through the vote.”

“Of course, Serin.” He took a breath to ask more

I cut in, before he could decide how to work his next question, “If you would excuse me, Ser.  I shall be available to speak later.”

I’d caught him at the right moment of inhale and I nodded at him and made my escape, downstairs, dodging around a group of servants bringing up more desks and a group of palace guard, led by my relative, Ilesias Mahid.  He looked efficient and cool but his Mahid rigid and blank look was softened to something a great deal more human, I noticed.

**

I actually tucked myself into an alcove, behind a gigantic bust of Nuninian the Feckless, just off the main kitchens for a while and eavesdropped on the staff.  They were thrilled with how much of a celebration this was turning out to be, since the Yeolis seemed determined to just suck all the drama out of this solemn and singular occasion.

“Like Jitz is goin’ another day this one time...” one said, as they hauled a sealed box of dainties over to the access ramp to the roof for later, for the dignitaries to sample.  My gut cramped solid.  I didn’t think I would eat today.  At least not until late tonight.  And not then if I lost.

“Yup.  The Thunder Master has a whole string of fire-works to set off for each candidate.  Blue fer one, Red and Silver fer another... Green... Kinda hard to get orange but s’not likely he’ll need the solid red set...” someone down the hall must have been listening because someone whinnied and another made a set of clip-clop noises that faded down the hall to laughter.  I leaned my head against the wall behind me and looked at the fine, straight hair of the back of the bust in front of me.

Might I just hide here all the rest of the day?  And consider being a pretender if I didn’t win?  Ugly thought.  The good thing was that Ailadas and Sera Eren and I had talk about this.  If it happened, and the Gods killed me for blasphemy, then they had promised me they would get Ili out, and wouldn’t tell me how or when it would happen, so I could say – if truth-drugged – that I had no plans to get my little brother out.

I pushed away from the wall and went to get a drink of water.  “Oh, Serin... your friend... the Yeoli fellow and Serina Liren were looking for you.” I couldn’t remember the man’s name but I recognized him as one of Skorsas’s top team of servants.  “They are in the presentation and counting area on the roof.”

“Thank you.” No hiding for me today.

**

All day long I was up and down... wishing the roof were smooth enough for skates, not wearing any make-up for me to get in the pool and out again without spoiling someone’s careful work.  I had talked Skorsas out of having an enhancement artist follow me around.

The crowd in the square was larger and rowdier every time I went up.  Chanting at each other, mostly between Kallen and Kallijas and I.

The Sereniteers were out in force to make sure the altercations between rival factions stayed merely verbal but the crowd was in a grand mood.  They were going to have an Arkan Imperator once more, even if they were losing a good one, one they cherished... it was like a return to some kind of normal if the Son of the Sun were actually Arkan.

There were singers and dancers and people forming in circles around them, cheering them on.  The smoke of Arkanherb rose up in wafts and waves.  I tried to make Kallijas smile by joking that we could get intoxicated if this went on, but he looked alarmed and took me seriously.  Skorsas – the master of the event -- had to reassure him.  I saw him tilt his head toward his alesinas and go bright red.  I had the feeling that if everything went well I’d hear about this kind of ‘frivolousness’ on the training ground, later.

The crowd would scream and holler and yell every time a winger pilot landed with their cargo.  There were twenty-five who should come in today, the last of the hundreds who had served.  They had their honour riding on making to the city before rim sunset for that was the cut off.  If they were delayed, then their counts would not be included.  Kallen, hoping to win in the city wouldn’t try to interfere with any of these wingers, would he?

Chevenga finally came out, late enough that the sun was barely a half-fist over the Rim and the crowd made an incredible noise until he went to the front of the roof and waved, the seals flashing on his hands in the last of the light.  In the last of the sun, between the golden turrets of the Marble Palace, he looked like something out of a bard’s wet dream.

Skorsas and Kallijas, both in dark red, went to stand by him. Skorsas to hold him and Kallijas to hold him and make sure he didn’t go off the edge by accident or mischance, or the death in him that Surya had revealed.

The last winger dove down out of the clear, Haian sea blue sky, and set her feet on the Marble Palace slate just as the last of the sun disappeared over the edge of the Rim stones and the Mezem gong roared, along with two pure white fireworks rising into the sky to signal the beginning of the count.

All candidates were here.  And we all went to the front of the roof so that Chevenga, flanked by the Fenjitzas and the Fenjitza, could hear our oaths, though the crowd noise was so much we had to shout to be heard; I wondered if our oaths would be valid if they could not be heard, but the crowd, wanting to hear our words, our oaths, quieted.  A scribe stood by to transcribe what we said for our signatures afterward, to go into the archives.

I could hear Kallijas, next to me, and then it was my turn to bellow out, “I, Minis Kurkas Joras Amitzas Aan, do solemnly swear under the eyes of the Ten Gods of Arko, to submit to the true and fair count of the vote of the People of Arko.  I swear to abide by the results as I witness, this night.  I swear to obey the resultant call of the Arkan people whether it be to take up the Holy Office of the Crystal Throne In Clarity, or to prostrate myself to the One Son of the Sun, who is so called.”

Kin and Mil, didn’t give the whole oath but swore only to prostrate themselves to the One; realizing that the scandals had pulled them out of true contention.

Adamas, when he swore the full oath, glanced at me with a smile that knifed through to my guts.  You are worm-food, boy, when I am Imperator, that smile said.  It was smug with anticipation when he turned to finish his oath to Chevenga.

I kept my face still.  There was no way I was going to give that pile of Mahid war-horse leavings the satisfaction of seeing he’d affected me.

You are worm-food, boy.

449 - The Beginning of Election Day

Ili and I and Kyriala and Gannara and Farasha watched the washing of the streets from my old balcony, with Tawaen’s permission.  He had flown off to south Yeola-e to be with his mother and sibs in the middle of Jitzmitthra.

When the flood whistles died down and the waterfall slowed to its usual elegant little tendril down the cliff-face, I wished everyone a happy new year.

I dared take everyone’s hands and kissed everyone on the cheeks, even Ky’s. Her scent of roses was warm and it made me feel very upheld.  Even on the road, she had managed to smell that good.  She didn’t just smile, she grinned at me, and kissed me back, also both cheeks.   

“You’re bristly,” she whispered.

“I shaved!” I protested.  I had shaved the day before, not thinking I needed more.

“We’ll scrub him down and make him presentable for tomorrow, Ky,” Farasha said and Ky nodded.

“I’ll leave him in your hands, then.”

“I’m right here,” I complained, but not very loudly.  “You don’t need to talk about me like that; and I can clean myself up nicely thank you!  Skorsas insisted on choosing Kallijas’s suit and mine for tomorrow so you needn’t worry.”

Ili was sagging against my side, so I bent down and lifted him up onto my shoulder, where he laid his head down.  “Oof, you’re getting too big for me to lift you,” I told him.

“I don’ wanna go to bed yet,” he said.

“Let’s walk the Serina to her carry chair, then.”

We walked Ky down to the Steel Gate and Gan settled her in the chair and she settled Socks upon her lap.  “Good night, everyone.  I’ll see you in the morning.”

“Night, Kyriala.”

I put Ili to bed, though he fussed at having to wake up enough to clean his teeth, and went back to balcony to sit, looking out over the city.  The new University building, replacing the two old ones torn down to make way for the Chevenga statue, was brightly lit, and Feliras’s New Glory above and behind, shining golden light.  From this angle I couldn’t see the last of the floating candles on the lake, which must be a yearly nightmare for the filter cleaners and engineers of the outflow gates.

By this time tomorrow I would know.  The sealed voting boxes would be winging their way in from all over the Empire.  Such an innovation.  Yeolis were still exclaiming about how it used to take moons and more to do a nationwide referendum for them and Yeola-e was much smaller than the Empire.

I sipped the tea that Akminchaer had given me and watched the city gradually succumb to exhaustion.  Some people were bedded down in the square, ready for the election count.  No doubt they had their signs and banners ready.

**

Next morning I met Chevenga in the corridor.  I assumed he was heading to the office. I was coming from the Great Baths, which he’d allowed me access to.  “Good morning, Minis!” He said.  “How did you sleep?”

I shrugged.  “Some.  Perhaps.  I sat up on the Heir’s balcony with my Haian tea.”

“You may have dozed for a while without realizing,” he said.

“Well, I do feel as though I’ve leaped off the Rim moyawa training platforms without doing an enshachik.” He spun on his skates and folded me in one of his intense hugs.  I buried my face in his neck.  I was still a skinny boy but I was tall as Chevenga in his skates.  Like my people.  We tended to tall.  “I’m going to miss you when the swap over happens.  I don’t know what I’m going to do when you’ve gone home to Yeola-e.  My loyalty to you has always been a thousand times greater than any oath could cover...” He tightened his hug, even as I realized what I was saying. He was Imperator.  I had never sworn to Him.  I pulled back, appalled that I was this close to him, unsworn.

“What you’re going to do without me is what you have to, and you will do fine. Besides, I’m only as far as a letter…”  He trailed off, looking puzzled at me for pulling away.  I was light headed.  I've never sworn to Him.  “What is it?”

I managed to unglue my tongue from the roof of my mouth. “Gods… Muu… nas… all this time, I’ve been here… Ch’venga… I’ve never sworn to you. The loyalty oath that my mother is being so perfect about...” You trust me so much. He smiled, dismissing the idea, then even laughed.

“A little late,” he said chuckling. “I hope you didn’t coat your sleeves with skin-poison so that I am now dead without knowing it.”  What an appalling thought.  It was possible.  Imperators and Heirs had been killed that way before.

I fell to my knees hard and put my hands up to my temples.  Better late than never.  “I, Minis Kurkas Joras Amitzas Aan, am loyal entirely to the rightful Imperator of Arko, Ivaen Shefen—I mean, Ch’venga Shae-Arano-e, in thought, word and deed, and I so swear in the witness of Muunas the God of my station, on my hope of Selestialis, may the second Fire come if I am forsworn.” I backed on my knees to give myself enough room and went down on my face.  My letting go of him moving him back on his wheels just a trifle, making it easier to get the full prostration, stretching my fingers almost to the tips of his skates.   

“There. Done. Even if only for a few beads.”

“For the love of all the Ten, gehit.” He sounded partly exasperated, partly amused, and more than a little appalled at me for doing what was proper.  Yeolis.  It was funny, I felt more settled, more proper, just better all around, about my future, having just cleared up that little detail, of my present. I got up and grinned at him before going up to the roof to watch my future landing. The wingers would be coming in all day, with their sealed voting boxes from all over the Empire.

448 - Self Convicted Sinner

Uncle Gan made sure that Min didn’t coil up into a little ball in the back of a Marble Palace closet for Jitzmitthra. My brother is really twisted into a little ball about winning the throne.  I’m not scared of him and me getting fourteen-eighted, because I just know he and Kallijas are going to win.  I just know it.

For our costumes Uncle Gan rented somebody’s express chair and he and Minis wore licenses and whistles and their faib skates and loincloths and that was all, just like real chair-bearers.

For me, Min pulled me into a closet and loaded me up with some really heavy, really flashy clothes... added a pillow to make me look fat... and put lots of jewels on me so I could pretend to be a fat, spoiled little Spark of the Sun’s Ray in his chair.  I kept Jiaklem with me though, and Kyriala’s Socks was willing to sleep in one of my sleeves after I fed him some treats.

And we went tearing through the street with Gan in front and Min behind, whistles blasting and me pouting and telling them to go faster, faster until we came to one of Minis’s favourite places to eat.  I ordered them inside with me and made them sit on the floor.

The guy serving us was dressed like some kind of exotic eastern fellow with gold beads strung on his moustache.  The old guy behind the bar looked startled but Min winked at him and he just sat down and started laughing.

Then he came over and started doing all kinds of silly things like going down in the Heir’s prostration to me and calling me Spark of the Sun’s Ray and Reflection of the Effulgent Light and fawning all over me and Min was finally laughing, finally relaxed. Gan poked him until he poked back and then whispered to me that I should order a Tat 153 and I didn’t understand why everybody was laughing at that.

I really liked the beef rolls and the finger dumplings they had and I ate too much.  I let Gan and Min skate slower all around the city after that.  I like Jitz in the city.  Everybody’s doing so many silly things.  Singing, dancing, throwing candy and flowers. 

I hang on the edge of the chair and throw ‘gold’ chains to people... they’re really mostly copper so they’re for show but Min said put one in every ten as real silver and one in every hundred as real gold.  That way people would be really surprised.  I have a couple hundred.  Min and Gan are both going slow.  They aren’t real chair bearers so I’m pretty heavy with all this stuff on.

I like seeing all the adults acting like kids.  The big guy with an Aitzas paunch and hair tied up real tight under a sweat cloth as if he were an okas bricklayer.  The okas girl, with skin paint and pretend armour and a spear with wrinkled bits of meat on it wiggling over her head, like a Hyerne wildwoman.  She looked like she was having fun.

All these people doing shocking, wild, crazy things.  I wrap my arms around my pillow middle and watch, suddenly glad I’m sitting safe between Min and Gan.  It’s almost scary. And this year people are going to do sex things too.

Nuni and I are going to watch from a balcony from the Marble Palace because kids weren’t really supposed to go out on the sexy day.  When we’re a little older I’ll bet we will anyway, but it only comes once every four years.

I drew another picture for Minis’s birthday.  He likes them a lot more than anything I could buy.  I don’t know why, because they aren’t that good.

“Bearers!”  I shouted because Minis said I should shout.  “Back to the Marble Palace!”

“Oh yes, Spark of the Sun’s Ray,” Minis said.  I could hear the grin in his voice.  He really needed to maybe go swim now.  If he stayed in the Baths all Jitz Grandfather said he’d turn into a raisin, not an Imperator.

The Imperator was dressed like a Fang lion... real enough to be scary and I didn’t go near him.  Min said he’d introduce me to him, after the election got counted.  After he won, I thought to myself but didn’t say.  The Imperator  was maybe the only guy not taking Jitzmitthra as a holiday, busy with Empire stuff and went inside early.  And the Imperatrix was dressed as a fat Aitzas man I didn’t know. 

Grandfather was wearing black robes today and looked really creepy because he was smiling a lot.  Minis’s mama was wearing white and colours today... and dressed like a dancing lady... showing lots of skin.  Her hair... all loose... went all the way onto the floor and she had to keep it up, looped over her arm.  But she didn’t go out of the Mahid part of the Marble Palace even if she did have a costume.  I guess she was still being a bit Mahid.  She’s supposed to not go out until she swears, Min says, so we had to go visit with her, in her rooms.

I liked Tawaen’s costume -- an old Chevenga -- pretending to be a really old man waving his cane at people.  Nuni was wearing a gryphon costume and kept getting his wings caught on things and his sister was a fishwife, waving a dead fish out of her basket, trying to sell it.

Minis went to talk to the Imperator about that guy who is accusing him of being an evil boy and came back looking upset but got calmed down after talking to Grandfather and to Uncle Gan.  I don’t like that guy.  He might have cause to not like my brother but he doesn’t have to be so mean about it.  After all, Min was just a kid, Nuni explained it to me.  Just around second threshold and he did something bad because his dad, my dad, our dead dad, wanted him to be evil.  

Not his fault.  I remember a lot of our dad’s crazy stuff and I’m glad Minis was there or I'd probably be a weirder kid. I remember my donkey.  I don’t want to think about that any more.  I’d rather play with the Imperial kids and be with Min and Gan and everybody.  It’s not a sad time so I won’t think of that right now.

We went back out to the Square mostly, mixing with the crowds.  A lot of real foreigners were there, just kind of watching... some people were drawing the costumes... a lot of music was happening too.

It was hard to dance in the heavy clothes and the jewellery so I went to take it off and we spent a lot of time at a circle of musicians from Farasha’s people and I danced and danced and danced. Somebody gave Min a little harp and he was silly and pretended it was a Great Harp, playing strings that weren’t there and looking confused when his fingers ran off into the air.  People started giggling and he kept groping for strings that weren’t there.  He even got up once and looked under the little harp as if the missing strings might be hiding under his seat.

Then he did play a dancing tune for the fishwife sitting next to him and Farasha, who wasn’t in costume but dressed in her best, the really bright embroidered stuff, grabbed my hands and showed me how to dance with her.

I was sort of sleepy by the time we went inside and I took off the rest of the fancy stuff and got clean and we all had sandwiches and cold meat cut off roasts and things that had been made yesterday.  I fell asleep just after then... it was late... and somebody carried me to bed with the other kids ‘cause that’s where I woke up next morning; inna big, big bed with moons painted on the ceiling and so big there were steps up to it.

It was Minis’s bed, I remembered.  But the picture I painted for him a long time ago wasn’t pinned up to the headboard anymore.  It was fun with all of us in it, though, and we ended up giggling and making fart noises with our hands.  Kima is better at it than me so I stick my tongue out at her alot.

Tawaen is old enough to sleep like a second thresholder and growled at us all to go away, putting a pillow over his head, so we went into the Lesser Baths. Today I’m gonna see if my big toy ride is still in the Marble Palace... and my old swing, and if they are, I’ll show everybody.

**

I am in the Imperial Chapel.  Chevenga ordered me to come here.  I remember the uncanny door with the metal flames on it in every metal on earth, swinging away from me.

I’m terrified.

I don’t remember what happened last time.  Am I dreaming? Am I awake?  I don’t know.  The polished wood under my feet seems real.  I swallow hard.  I... why am I here?  I am accused of sin.  I am self-convicted of sin.

Something snatches me up and holds me, dangling.  I am suspended in a writhing nest of hair. It is wrapped firmly around my wrists and ankles, binding them, yet holding me spread as far as I can stretch.  A coil of hair loops around my neck and around my waist and... I want to pass out... around my penis.

It is living. It is warm.  It holds me up without strangling me, wide swaths of hair, muscular as a snake. I am shaken. Once, twice. A massive thunder all around me.  I realize it is a voice but I cannot make it out, it is too big.  Another shake.  The voice drops to something I can hear rather than something that shivers my bones.  “My stubborn one.  Do you truly think We are limited in our caring?  We have the capability to care for the individual as much as the whole of creation.  At the same time."

“We are Gods.” I can do nothing but relax into the net of hair.  It holds me close.  It holds me together.  “We care as much for the least hair on your head.  It is not a matter of limits with Us.”

I am weeping, howling like a child, like a little baby, feeling ashamed but is not everyone an infant before Gods? I am being rocked.  I feel so small. I am being rocked.  “Gods... Goddesses... I don’t know what to do.”

“Wait.  And do not fear. Let us in, so We may speak to you.  Fear blocks the greater voices.”

I do not know if I am truly in the Imperial chapel, or dreaming.  It doesn’t matter.  I am wrapped snugly in warm silver hair and rocked until I fall into a deeper sleep.

I wake, naked on the floor of the Imperial Chapel, face first before the altar. I turn my hands up to accept the God’s blessings and go downstairs, half asleep, staggering to the bed.

447 - Muunas. Sun Rising

I lay, staring vaguely in the direction of the ceiling.  The orator who had relayed my truth-drugging bowed and left the room. Gannara and Kyriala were both in the room with me… Farasha and Ili were with Atzana in the main library with Ailadas and Sera Eren and Ribbons.

Chevenga had invited us all to the Marble Palace for Jitzmitthra. Sera Eren and Ribbons were going to be here.  Ailadas had promised he would come too.  I thought I’d just hide in the Lesser Baths during Jitz.  The water would keep me sane and I wouldn’t have to eat anything.  I could just hide in this gigantic stone pile.

I’d be able to show Tawaen and Kima and Vriah and Ili my secret passages and get them to bring things up from my treasure trove.  After all, I was too big to fit down that column staircase comfortably anymore anyway.

My thoughts were wandering still.  Not black not jagged edged any longer.  I was exhausted.  Beaten flat it felt like.  Gray.  That was what I felt.  Gray.  I managed to sit up and clasp my arms around my raised knees, put my head on them.

I could hear Gan and Kyriala talking quietly.  This would be the first she would have heard about this ugliness and I couldn’t face her.  Gan… I really wanted him.  But I couldn’t pull myself together enough to ask.

The hand on my shoulder was unfamiliar.  I raised my face to see it was my mother.  I couldn’t stand it.  She was so perfect a Mahid that she was unsworn yet so she would not have to swear to a barbarian… “Minis,” she said.

“Yes, honoured mother?” I said, to my knees.

“You have done your best.  If you continue this, you will be impairing your function.  Now what you must do, what is demanded of you, is that you wait, and rest.  The votes… the voice of the masses will be gathered and counted in their own good time.”

“They must all be gathered in, from across the Empire, by First Muunas, or they will not be accepted in the count…”  I managed a shuddering breath. “I need to speak to the young okas man.  See if I can somehow apologize or make it right.  He’s probably in Kallen’s campaign offices, giving interviews.”

“He and his brother served you, as Spark.”

“And that makes my demanding one of their lives… and demanding that one kill the other… somehow right?”  I was sick again but there was nothing left in my stomach.

“To value lives? It is the new way,” she said quietly.  “Your father’s way was to send anyone to the afterlife without thought, at his whim.  Most Arkans are only beginning to understand that.”

“Yes, mother.  I just hope that whoever wins the Crystal Throne understands that.  From my studies, it seems obvious to me that any Imperator who valued people as more than commodities, achieved greater prosperity for the whole Empire, and greater prosperity for the individual.”

“You make your argument for yourself.”

Her hand had not moved.  She was still and calm as if she were one of the Marble Palace statues, as close to the perfect Mahid as human could be... except that she didn’t seem to be drawn to, nor excited by pain.  Either other people’s or her own, which was odd for a Mahid.

“Come on, Minis,” Gannara said.  Ever the voice of sense for me.  He was so good to me.  What would I do without him if he ever decided to leave me?  Should he leave me?  For his own sake?  “Let’s get you cleaned up.  You want to try and talk to this Miksas fellow and then you will have done all you can.  You’ll be able to swim or rest or help me put together our Jitzmitthra costumes.”  Mother moved to one side, the warmth of her glove vanishing away from my shoulder as if I’d imagined it.

I nodded and managed to raise my head.  Next step, next step, next step.

**

I took my security and went by carry chair to see if I could speak to Miksas.  He was at Kallen’s offices and I asked to speak to him privately but his face was red and he certainly didn’t care to keep things quiet.  “YOU JUST WANNA SUCK UP TAH ME ‘N MAKE IT LOOK GOOD!”

His face, thrust directly into mine as I stood before him, was red and wild.  I was so sorry I could not make this right.  “PEOPLE’RE VOTIN’ NOW AND YEH WANNNA SAVE YOUR OWN STINKIN’ HIDE AND WIN THE STINKIN’ THRONE!”  He spat full in his hand and struck me with his palm full of the goo in the face and all I did was flinch.  All around I could see or feel people’s eyes flickering to Joras behind me and then back to see what I would do.

I raised my hand as Joras exclaimed “That’s fearfully rude, Serin!”

“Peace, Joras.  He has a right to his opinion and I abrogated the right to have him not touch me, years ago.  I owe the man more than a little humiliation.  Perhaps we can be reconciled once the election is over.  If I lose... we might not need to be reconciled.”  I did wipe my face with a kerchief as he stood, trembling between amazement at his own temerity and a flash or two of fear.  Joras still looked Mahid even if he were no longer moving or dressing like one.

“Ser Asas,” I said as calmly as I could, even as I ripped myself up inside.  “If I win, let us speak again, that I might make this right with you and your family.  If I lose, I can only ask that you speak to me quickly, before the new Imperator decides my fate.  I owe you.  I admit it.”

This time he spat upon the ground and turned away from me.  I contented myself with stepping away from the gobbet of spit, trying not to hear the mutters and murmurs around me, certain I would hear nothing good. My skin felt tight where the spit had dried and I wanted to wash all over but that would have to wait.

“Chair-bearer?  I should like to go to the Presentation Square, if you would be so kind.”

**

The Temple was full of people, each praying to the Ten in their own way, on their own levels.  I looked out over the square from the top step, before I stepped in, and saw the Square polling booths had lines all the way down to Golden Rings Avenue and perhaps all the way to the Boardwalk at the lake.  Perhaps further, I could not see.

People were voluntarily showing their colour stained gloves to the line to show they’d voted... a cripple with no hands showed off his colour stained toes.

I turned and looked into the sanctuary through the wide-open doors.  Inside there was a massed choir singing.  A hundred or more voices... perhaps the half choir of five hundred.  I closed my eyes and let the sound of five hundred voices wash over me.  It was soothing.

I walked up between rows of praying Arkans.  Most of whom had voted I could see from their stained gloves.  The kahara circle, in the exact centre of the Temple, with tiles from all the levels of the Ten woven into the spiral into it, lay under all the Gods’ eyes.

I stepped carefully along one long, delicate spiral with gold and silver tiles from Muunas and Selinae.  Electrum and quicksilver from Aras and Dimae.  Cobalt and Actinine from Mikas and Risae.  Iron and copper from Oas and Mella.  Earthen tiles in two kinds of red from Imbas and Anae.

I stood in the centre and raised my face to the sky-lit ceiling so far above.  I am here.  Gods.  I tried.  The rest is in your hands. Whatever you wish for me... I accept.  I thank you that I could attempt this.  I am grateful for all opportunities.  I am grateful.

Praise You oh Holy Ones.  Praise you.  I can do no less than my best.  And if you wish... afterwards. I shall give my blood to the young man who I owe.  To Miksas Asas.  The Empire will have call upon me, but my grandfather will be able to help me expiate my sins as a child, I am sure.  I offer that wish up to you Ten.

Joras touched my elbow, bringing me down to reality.  This was the Temple.  It was too open and vulnerable for his taste. I lowered my gaze and turned, following him out of the Temple back across the square to the Marble Palace.

I cast my own vote... an abstention because I could not bear to vote for anyone else and it was just nasty -- somewhat like shenning into one's own hands -- to vote for one’s self.  I wrote in, ‘Muunas.  Sun Rising.’

446 - Judge of Arkans on Earth

“Then…” He said slowly.  “Why?”  I fought not to go on my knees again.  Perhaps I should. He was Son of the Sun, Ultimate Judge of Arkans on earth.

“I keep telling you I’m evil,” I said to the darkness behind my closed eyes. “I keep trying to warn you about me.  I’m not lying.” I could feel the tears force themselves out along the edges of my eyelids and I tried to call them back, to forbid them.  One or two caught in my lashes.

“No. I know you better. There had to be a reason, Minis. What was it?”

I opened my eyes again, his intense look swimming in my barely suppressed tears.  If I’d ever thought his gaze was intense before, that was nothing compared to this.   “I thought... I was lost... corrupt, forzak beyond all saving after... after...” I had to lick my dry lips.  “Nothing mattered... I would go to Hayel no matter what I did. So I didn’t care.”

“No matter whether they went to Hayel? On the Earthsphere or beyond?” I flinched and buried my face in my hands.  “Minis… after what?”

“After... after...” I managed to drag a deep breath into my aching chest. “After Father made me…” I couldn’t say it.  I struggled to force it out. “After Father made me....r...”  My tongue locked up solid and I put my hands over my mouth.  At that moment I saw some understanding dawn in his face. “I still can’t say it to you.”

“What you wrote me the letter about.” I managed a nod and closed my eyes again. He laid and hand on my shoulder and I leapt sideways, out from under it and almost stumbled against a statue of a nymph holding a sheaf of flowers.  I grabbed onto the cold stone garlands to not fall on my face. The edges of the undying flowers cut into my grip.

“Please don’t touch me right now!” I found myself turning my head away, looking past a painted marble face, at a vein of gold in polished green.

“I’m sorry, lad. You were out of your head, weren’t you?” I heard him whisper behind me. “Remember how it was and tell me.”

“Nothing mattered,” I said at the statue, quietly. I could feel the stone, rigid and cold under my hands even through my gloves.  I was glad there were no balconies around this part of the Marble Palace. I was afraid I’d find the height too tempting.  I imagined the lovely splash of colour I would make on the white marble, like the sprays of blood flying from my father’s slippers as he kicked the Mahid to death.  “I was forzak, evil, vile, the Black Spark who burned all he touched. I was rot and gangrene wrapped in satin. Malevolent, immoral, sinful, no matter what I did.”

“That’s out of your head,” he said, firmly. “Minis, here is my question, and it’s very important. When did that end? When did you stop being out of your head? When did things start mattering again? They did sometime. The youth who came to me with the book is sane; so is Minakas Akam. Else I wouldn’t be recommending you. So: when?”

I took a deep breath and leaned my forehead against the heroically proportioned, perfect cheek. “I was... It was… Solstice Fest that year… right around then... when...I heard I may not have ruined you.  When I heard you were somehow still there... still you. I started hurting again. Things started mattering again, when I realized you were not destroyed.”

“Winter solstice? Same year?”

I nodded without looking up, breathing deeply as I could. “You were alive and free. And the Temple Ritual somehow meant more...” I coughed, spitting the words out like phlegm.  “As if the words the Gods spoke to bring the Light back… meant something again. I don’t know. It was like waking up out of a nightmare.”

He was quiet for a moment and I could turn to look at him.  His eyes were turned thoughtful and inward, considering. Then they came up to lock on my face once more, resolved. “Minis... you’ve got to tell them the truth,” he said.

I wasn’t sure what he meant.  I already had our orators admitting my fault in this.  “I didn’t remember this clearly...I don’t remember much of that part of my life. I can’t know what else I did then.”

“No matter, you’re just accused of one thing, and they don’t have time to accuse you of another, at least not with a print run of any significance. You have to tell them the true reason you did it.” I blinked at him, confused. “That it was madness, and you have to admit exactly what drove you to it.”

“What, that I thought I was already lost to Hayel?” I couldn’t tell Arko the city that.  Or what my father had made me do.

“Yes. And why.”

He truly wanted me to tell everyone what had happened in the middle of the night in the Imperial bed.  I couldn’t stop my shocked gasp. “I can’t tell them that! I can’t shame you like that!”

He threw his arms wide.  “I don’t care about that!  Arkans and everyone already knows I was raped sideways and backwards and more times than you could count; I’ve never hidden it. You can’t shame me worse.” There was a flash of sickness in his eyes, quickly suppressed.

He felt more than he was letting on but was still willing to be open, to help me win the throne, save my life... “I can’t even talk about it without breaking down... and they don’t want that for an Imperator… Gods!”

“You’re not talking... that’s what you’ve got orators for! And if you’re under truth-drug you won’t break down.” I bent forward around my gut with my hands clenched in my hair.  I heard some of the extensions tear out but I didn’t even feel the pull on my scalp.

“It would be ever so much easier just to cut my own throat now. It would save ever so many steps!” The sarcasm was the best I could do to speak.

He grabbed me by my shoulders, wrenched me upright and, nose to nose with me, said, ““Minis Kurkas Joras Amitzas Aan! Think of your fikken people! Arkans right now are voting for that overstuffed brainless turdknot on a sheep’s ass because they’ve heard this and they and their children and grandchildren and untold generations are going to pay for it with Gods only know how much of all that is sacred to them with Kallens on the Crystal fikken Throne because you—won’t—do—what—you—have—to—do!!”

When he let me go, I did sink to my knees, arms wrapped around my head.  “I’m sorry… I’m sorry for yelling, lad,” he said. He was right, of course.  If he were willing to be so exposed, how could I do any less?  And Miksas... I would have to somehow make it right with him.  “You’re...” I gasped in air again.  “...right.”  I struggled to compose myself.  “I will… I’ll write the oration… arrange the truth-drugging.”

“And I can confirm it—” he said, helping me up off the floor with a hand under one of my elbows.  “I don’t remember it at all, but I know, and they’ll still believe me.”

“All right.” I managed to look up from the floor as he raised me.  He held out his arms to me.

“You keep offering to hug me after you find out all these horrible things I’ve done.” My whole chest hurt and I looked down again, trying to hold myself together.

“And you won’t let me, because you killed one man while you were taken with madness?” he said. “While I was taken with madness, I sacked a whole city. Come here.” I unfolded as slowly as a muscle uncramping.  He tightened his arms, hard, around me and I quivered.  After all this, he still loved me, somehow.  He still managed to like me.

It was only for a moment, though. “Now move,” he snapped letting me go.  “Call in your people… do you want me to help?” I shook my head, no. “I’ll have my own missive, I’ll write it in the office and send it, in a tenth.” That was all he should do.

I managed to give him a broken shard of a smile and ran.

His note, that arrived even as I was arranging my truth-drugging, the relay oration of that truth drugging, and the new oration, was simple and to the point. “What Minis says was forced on him and on me by Kurkas, I confirm to be true. Understanding these things as I do, I credit that he did as he is accused today in the temporary derangement that comes of torture.”

445 - Jumble, Rubble and Ruin

I managed to keep myself stone until I got into the Marble Palace and found Kallijas already on the roof, doing that weird Yeoli exercise that looked like a dance and was sung with prayers.  I knelt there, watching, trying to let that peace sink into me but the claws in my guts wouldn’t quit.

When he stopped, face raised to the growing light as the sunlight slowly filled the sky, I had to clench my eyes shut against the joy and peacefulness there.  As he turned to me, I went forward onto my hands, touched my forehead to the sand.

“Minis?”

“Forgive me for having deceived you, Ser Itrean.” I managed to make that smooth and clear.  “I did it by deceiving myself.”  I had the tract in my hand and pushed it out in front of me.  “This is not a lie.  When I was a boy, I did this.  Forgive me for having forgotten.  Forgive me for losing this election for you.  I beg your forgiveness for having linked our names—”

“—be quiet,” he said softly.  “Let me read this.  Wait.”

I couldn’t get up while he read the pamphlet.  My head was too heavy to lift off the sand.  All I could do was breathe.

“Get up and come with me,” was all he said.  It was enough that he was my training teacher so I could just manage. My head was a complete jumble, rubble, and ruin. It was all black and gray and it was as if nothing were going to be untainted or bright, ever again.  I was going to lose for something I did.  And it was just and right that I should.

He led me to the office in the Marble Palace that he was using as his, leading me past his staff who were already busy with the final day’s work of election.  I could feel their eyes on me like brands, and imagined how that would change shortly.  The whole Empire was about to find out.  It was being bellowed on every street corner in the city.  Kall closed the door behind us and I only stood still in the middle of the room.

“Is this true?” he said.

I nodded.  “I was thirteen.  Right after... right after...” I couldn’t finish.  I wrapped my arms around my guts.

“Shen.”  I’d never heard him swear before.  I didn’t know he could.

“My apologies for having done this to you, ser. I’m sorry. My abject apologies. I... I... was... am... so... vile a boy...”

“Minis, quit... Your heaping more shen on your own head isn’t going to help anything.”

I closed my mouth and dragged Mahid stillness over me, over my face, clenched my fists in the small of my back, and stood straight.  Kallijas walked around to sit at his desk.  After sitting there grim for a while, he said, “I have no idea what to do.  We’ve got to talk to Shevenga... he’s in with Surya right now.”

“I have to admit this... and see if I can speak to the okas man... if there is something to do to make it right...”

“Minis, do not make any decisions before we speak to Shevenga!  I know you well enough now to know you cannot think clearly in a situation like this.”

“We don’t know how long he could be in there.  It could be beads.  People are voting, right now.”

“Double-shen...  you’re right... I don’t know that admitting it... but we can’t lie either... Minis., why did this happen?  You can’t have been in your right mind!  I know you well enough now to know that too.”

It was madness in my head... shrieking, flailing darkness, I couldn’t even see well.  “I... don’t... remember that well... I... should... I knew I was forzak.  There was no escaping Hayel then for me.  I knew it.  I know it.”  I could hear the man’s cries of grief echoing up from the floor below me, in my head.  I thought I might be shaking but wasn't certain.

“Well, why weren’t you in your right mind?”

Was it right that I should say it to Kallijas?  He was Chevenga’s alesinas.  “Because of what I did.  To Ch’venga.”

“What you did to Shevenga?  What do you mean?”

I did not want him to know.  I didn’t want anyone to know.  “When...” I swallowed and stood straight as if confessing a sin to 2nd Amitzas, though this was more important.  If I where him I’d want to kill me.  I was light-headed.  “When I was twelve and Ch’venga was the mind-broken slave of my father... I was required to rape him as my first sexual experience.”  I swayed and pulled myself upright by main force.  That was as clear and simple as I could confess it.

“Oh,” he said.  “He told me about that.”

I went to my knees, but kept my face turned to him. “Or he was required to rape me... I’m not really sure. I’ve had healers -- Surya -- tell me it was both.”

“Minis, you were twelve.  This was not something you did to Shevenga.  This was something that your father did to you.  And him.”

“I still believed that the act damned me to Hayel... and for the half year afterward... I lived as if that were true.  I was a devil.  A monster.  This is when I did this.”

His one hand came up to cover his red face, just thinking about this made him blush.  His fingers spread across, fingertips in his hairline and under his cheekbones. “I have to call in the head orator, give him orders what to say, if we’re going to say something to this right now... shen, shen, shen...”

“There was reason?  It was madness?  It was madness and I have been working with healers?  It will never happen again.  I must admit it… I was just a child, not even second threshold, and it was expected behaviour of me, required by my father… and that I will recompense the man.”

“Um... sure, that’s good.  Minis get up.”  He hadn’t come out from behind his hand and his tone of voice conveyed the sound of ‘I can’t think of anything else.’  He called in one of our people, sent him out with the message to our head orator.

“I... I’ll wait outside Surya’s healing room?”

“I guess so.  I’ll tell them that their orders might change... he’ll think of something we haven’t, I know.”

“Kallijas... I’m sorry...”

“Don’t apologize, lad.  This isn’t over yet.  I’ve been in battles that seemed lost, and then turned around.  It can happen.

“You... ser... don’t hate me for harming Ch’venga?

“Minis...!”  His voice was edged with exasperation.  “You have to get off this hating-yourself crap or you will fail as Imperator.  You heard what I said about it.”

“Yes, ser.”  I took up the pamphlet to show Chevenga.

**

Outside Surya’s room I tried to remember that he and Chevenga and a lot of other people didn’t think I was evil either.  I wept a silent tear or two for the two young okas men and took a deep breath.  I would do what I could.

In the sunlit early morning of Arko, the lines of voters would be forming.  This pamphlet... and the oration wouldn’t reach much outside the city. I could not despair.  And Kallijas still believed in me.  The door clicked and Chevenga came out, looking shaky.

I leapt to my feet, sorry to do this.  “Ch’venga.”  I swallowed hard and held out the pamphlet for him.  He smiled at me and took it but his face didn’t change a great deal even after he’d read it.  He even laughed a little.

“Shen,” he said.  “Where do they find the perverse enough minds to confabulate these things? I guess you’re going to have to get your people out speaking, right now… you don’t have time to print anything. And have yourself truth-drugged again, just on this, I suggest.”

“Kallijas and I have orators out,” I said, in a faint voice and swallowed hard.  “But, Ch’venga.  It... it’s true.  This... young man... I did that to them.”

His face didn’t change.  “Wonderful,” he sighed, heavily. “Another thing your father made you do. Better have your people saying that; are you?”

“No, we don’t. It would be a lie.” My stomach heaved. Chevenga was finally starting to understand that this disaster... this horror... was all my fault.

“Right... he gave you his so-typical do or be disowned, right?”

“No,” I said.  It was like cutting my own throat with the truth.  Perhaps now he would understand how perfidious I was. The word was like the executioner’s axe falling on my neck. “He just gave them to me. That is the truth, Shefen-kas. He required nothing.  He said it was a free gift and went off, leaving me with them.”

That was when his face changed, when he understood, when he realized he had sponsored a monster to sit upon the Crystal Throne.  I closed my eyes.  I didn’t have to die to be in Hayel.  Seeing that look on his face, I was already there.

444 - I Am a Monster

I didn’t sleep at all the night before election day.  Farasha was down with her people and Gannara had started out the evening with her and come up to be with me.  I lay and listen to him breathing in the night, staring into darkness.  It was almost the dark of the moon and her face was too low to shine past the rim, so there was only faint starlight.

After today, it will be done.  Chevenga’s back from Yeola-e, safe, with those awful, insane people who tried to arrange his death taken care of; either dead or committed to psyche healing.

And there will be no more speaking tours, no more debates with Mil, or Kin, or Adamas.  I’ll still have to talk to the writers.  Show a brave face no matter how awful I feel. This is it.  After today, Arko will have a new Imperator.

Chevenga is going to try and talk me into coming up with a way of running... Ili and I both... if I don’t win.  My grandfather and my mother... will not run.  They’ll do their duty.  Grandfather will probably swear and mother will take the needle. But... if Adamas wins... he will try to enact 14.8 on me, and though I won’t run, I won’t just submit to beheading, for Ili’s sake.  I’ll fight him in the courts.  That could go on for years.

It was just true dawn, the city still in darkness and lamplight when I skated out to the Marble Palace, with Joras on my heels as escort. An orator was already in Presentation Square.  “Murderer!  A boy... a child filled with evil!”

I braked in front of him.  He stood on the main oration step with boys, paid to hand out pamphlets to the literate waiting below him.  “This is the kind of boy who seeks to win the Crystal Throne?  Hayel bound!”

This was very different from Adamas’s usual oration against me.  One of the boys scurried up to me and handed me a pamphlet.

On the front of it, a drawing.  A man, cradling another across his lap, obviously grieving.  A heartwound in the dead man.  A sword cast onto a floor and fighting chains clasped on their wrists.  I was going to dismiss it as an old Mezem drawing until I saw the Mahid in the background.  Obviously Mahid.  And the face... I knew it.

My hands started shaking and I felt faint.  I remembered.  When I’d made... the one okas fight the other... and... kill his own brother.  I was going to faint.  Breathe.

“I had to thrust a sword into the heart of him who came from the same womb as me, else bereave our parents of both of us. Then, once I was healed enough of my own wounds to speak, I had to tell my mother, and my father, what I had done.”

“I kept this secret from anyone but family for five years, suffering this wound in silence.  But now that Arko is free and the former Spark of the Sun’s Ray who did this to me and my brother and my family, is seeking election to the Crystal Throne, I must speak.  I must reveal my pain.”

“He forced me to kill my brother, for no reason, other than he could.  I must speak the truth so that all Arkans understand what an evil, forzak, monster, this perfidious villain, Minis Joras Kurkas Amitzas Aan is.  He is no less evil than his father before him.  Who brought the might of the world down on all of us.  He is his father’s son.  I know.  On the soul of my poor, slaughtered brother.  By my stained and shamed hand.”

“Do not vote for this boy, this demon in human flesh.  Save yourselves and do not vote for him.”

The two young men... surrounded by Mahid.  My father saying ‘Have fun!” the glorious, sickening, ugly and self-satisfied feeling of spectacular destruction roared back into my memory. I could barely remember it, the freedom of just destroying things, the nauseating and sweet ruin of every good feeling... I was drowning in it.  I was in it again.  How could I have ever thought it would let me go?  It was part of me.

How could I forget this? How could I not remember?  The dark and sensual feeling as someone else’s agony washed over me, leaving me untouched, or leaving me satiated?  That devil madness of knowing one was already forzak? That nothing mattered? That you could truly do anything no matter how disgusting or horrible because you were already lost?  That sensation could take the nightmares I had had and turn them from something fearful to something as intense as orgasm, and as satisfying.  How could I have forgotten?

I wanted to put that kind of illness, that kind of insanity, on the Crystal Throne?  Adamas had timed this perfectly.  I couldn’t win the election with this taking the city by storm.  And it knocked my own confidence out from under me, bringing me crashing down in ruins, the way my father’s statue had been pulled down in the sack, leaving me lying in the rubble.  I would lose and would end up in my nightmare.  The Gods had to be telling me that.  It had to be foreknowledge.  What else could it be?

The orator was still bellowing the story but I could barely hear him over the ringing in my ears, in my head.  My eyesight had gone dark gray.  I couldn’t see him or the boys or the square.  A hand touched my elbow.  “Serin?  Minis?”  Joras.  His voice was concerned.

I took another deep breath.  I’d forgotten how evil I was. I was a monster and had known it. I am a monster, still. How could I forget that? I had to show this to Kallijas and to Chevenga.  They had to understand why and how I had cost us the election.  And why I couldn’t fight Kallen when he won.  Why I shouldn’t. I had to somehow prepare myself for what would happen.

This was too big for tears, for hysteria, for breakdown.  I felt how much I had let myself hope, by how much the ruin of those hopes hurt.  High God, forgive me. I yanked the Mahid face up over the mess I was and tucked the pamphlet into the folder I carried.  “Thank you,” I said to the boy.  “I’m all right, Joras. Let us continue.”