Mage's Blood

6

Words of Fire and Blood

Religion: Amteh

Ahm made the Urte and all things virtuous and good and set man to rule it. All things flow from Ahm. Let these words always be upon our lips: ‘All praise to Ahm!’

THE KALISTHAM, HOLY BOOK OF AMTEH

Every evil you perform on this world will be inflicted upon you a thousand times in Hel. But every kindness will be returned one hundred times one thousand in Paradise. And he who dies fighting for Ahm will dwell for ever with Him for ever.

THE KALISTHAM, HOLY BOOK OF AMTEH

Aruna Nagar, Baranasi, Northern Lakh,

on the continent of Antiopia

Shawwal 1381 (Octen 927 in Yuros)

9 months until the Moontide

There was a red-brick Dom-al’Ahm near the edge of Baranasi, deep in the slums, the jhuggis where most Amteh dwelt. How the mughal could be Amteh while his Amteh subjects were mostly impoverished was one of life’s riddles to Kazim – but he had bigger problems to deal with: like how and why his life had been turned on its head.

He had spent the last four days at the Dom-al’Ahm for lack of anywhere else to go. He was far from the only one: many homeless came here for a dry place to sleep and some hand-out food. His purse was empty from three days of desperately trying to forget what had happened, to pretend he didn’t care. Dancing and singing, and yes, screwing whores. Now he burned with shame. How could he go home now? Not after all those bitter words that had spilled hot from his mouth. How could he look Jai in the face? And how could he face Ispal? And what if he saw Ramita? What could he say to her, after what he’d been doing?

Ispal Ankesharan had been beside his father in battle; he had pulled Raz Makani from the field and kept him alive. He and Huriya would not be alive without him. He owed Ispal his very existence. Ispal had opened his house to them though they were refugees. He had welcomed the birth of Kazim and Huriya, mourned at Mother’s funeral. Kazim had come to love him as another father.

And he had come to love Ispal’s soft-faced, stubborn, quiet daughter. Ramita was six years his junior, but he had waited, for she was the one. When she turned fourteen, he had asked for her hand in marriage. Everyone had been happy, the street had partied for days. When she turned sixteen, it was agreed, they would marry. That was this autumn. And now she was to be snatched away from him …

Who was this man? Why had he been allowed to do this? Money was involved, that was clear, but how much must it be to have Ispal break faith with Raz, his blood-brother? No one would give him answers and it was driving him mad.

A young man sat down beside him on the Dom-al’Ahm floor, cross-legged on the warming stones. It was midmorning. All Kazim had done for the last twenty hours was sleep, curled in a foetal position. Now he was ravenous, and desperately thirsty.

‘You are hungry, brother?’ said the youth with a friendly smile. He had a small curly bush of a beard and a thin moustache. His kurta was white but grimy and his headdress was a blue chequered Hebb Valley pattern. ‘Would you like something to eat?’

Kazim nodded mutely. Do I look as pathetic as I feel?

‘My name is Haroun. I am a trainee Scriptualist here. We are brothers in faith, Kazim Makani.’

He knows my name. He felt a small quiver of curiosity. Haroun … that was a Dhassan name. He allowed the youth to lead him behind the Dom-al’Ahm to a line of broken, desperate-looking men of all ages, waiting to be fed, too exhausted even to fight their way up the queue.

Haroun found him a chair in the corner, motioning away the man already there with quiet authority. ‘Wait here, my friend,’ he said, and soon returned with a plate of black daal and a chapatti and some cold chai. Kazim could have wept.

‘Kazim Makani, why are you here? What has happened to you?’ Haroun asked gently as Kazim wolfed down the food.

His appetite partially satisfied, Kazim regained a little caution. ‘Please excuse me, brother, but how do you know my name? I do not recognise you.’ Though now he studied him, he did recall seeing him about, watching the kalikiti games, and busying himself at the Dom-al’Ahm.

‘I am a son of Ahm and a student of the Holy Book. I strive to be of service to God.’ Haroun shrugged. ‘That is all there is to know, the whole of the truth of it. I saw your plight, heard of the dishonour done to you, and grieved. I have been looking for you.’

‘Why?’

‘Is not a good deed reason enough?’

Not in this world, Kazim thought suspiciously.

Haroun smiled. ‘We have high hopes of you in our community, Kazim. You are a man of talent, a soul that burns bright among men. I wished to remind you that Ahm loves you. I wish to bring you home.’

‘I have no home any more.’

‘I am here to bring you home to Ahm.’ Haroun pointed skywards. ‘Tell me, my friend, what has been done to you?’

Kazim thought about saying nothing. He should be with his father and sister – were they still at home with Ispal’s family, or were they on the streets now? He, worthless son that he was, had given them no thought at all in his own mad grief. But he looked at Haroun and felt a desperate need to unburden himself. It would help to talk of this …

*

He’d been having such a magnificent day. They had set up a game of kalikiti against Sanjay’s boys from Koshi Vihar, the smaller market half a mile south. Sanjay was Kazim’s age and he was ‘raja’ of Koshi Vihar, just as Kazim led the Aruna Nagar youths. They had clashed for years, enemies, rivals, almost friends – almost, but never. Sanjay had goaded them into the game, relying on the Amteh boys being weakened by having fasted during the daytime for the last month, but Kazim had wolfed down his food before dawn like it would be his last meal on earth, and the game had been a stunning victory. Then fights had broken out, of course – they always did, but then they made up, as they also always did. They had found a dhaba that sold beer, that most choice of imports from the barbaric Rondians, and got raucous.

Kazim and Jai had been floating in an alcoholic haze by the time they got home, only to find Ispal Ankesharan waiting for them, which he normally never did. They were adults, they could do what they wanted, he always said, but this time he had waited up for them to give Kazim the news that had shattered his life.

‘Ramita is to be given to another.

‘We will all be wealthy beyond our dreams.

‘He is an old man and won’t last long.

‘No, I cannot tell you who he is.

‘Your father understands.’

Fury had turned him feral. He remembered grabbing Ispal’s throat, the man who had given him so much, and shaking him like a dog. He had struck Jai when he tried to separate them. He remembered calling for Ramita, over and over, but only men came, dozens of men, who struck him and bloodied him, who twisted his knife from his hand, who kicked and punched him and left him unconscious in the alleyway a block from the house. He had woken in a puddle of cold cow-piss, bloodied, bruised and filthy.

How could he go home after that?

‘You cannot trust these Omali,’ said Haroun. ‘They are faithless – they understand only money. They cannot be trusted.’

‘Ramita is so beautiful – more beautiful than dawn,’ he replied. ‘She loves me. She is waiting for me.’ He made to stand. ‘I must go to her.’

Haroun pulled him back down. ‘No, it isn’t safe. They won’t welcome you. They will be afraid of you disrupting things.’ He leant forward, his voice dropping. ‘Do you know who the ferang is?’

Kazim shook his head. ‘No, no name. No one told me anything.’

Haroun seemed a little disappointed and Kazim looked down sullenly, no desire to speak further. He didn’t want to tell Haroun how he had spent the three days of Eyeed, inhabiting the lowest places of the jhuggis, drinking and smoking and whoring, spending his last coins. It was too shameful.

Haroun’s eyes were knowing. ‘Come brother,’ he said gently. ‘Let us pray together.’

Outside, the Godsingers called, summoning the faithful back to the bosom of Ahm. Kazim, his body replenished but his soul empty, let his new friend guide him to a place where he could abase himself and pray, to beg Ahm that his Ramita be restored to him.

Or to be granted revenge.

A Scriptualist read from The Kalistham, from the chapter called ‘Words of Fire and Blood’. It had been written by a prophet from Gatioch, where unquestioning faith was instilled at birth. The words were a poetic torrent used since time immemorial to justify and exalt every war ever fought. The Convocation had spoken and the old red stone Dome echoed with the clarion call to arms as shihad was declared on the ferang. Kazim emerged refreshed, no longer alone: he had brothers as angry at the world as he was, though their anger seemed directed at more lofty things than stolen fiancées.

‘What did you make of that?’ asked Haroun as they shared coffee in a tiny dhaba in the Amteh-dominated Geshanti Souk, watching the rush of people churning past. Here all the men wore white and the women went about in black bekira-shrouds.

‘Death to the ferang!’ he barked, toasting Haroun with his thimble of thick black Keshi coffee. He had never really thought about the foreigners before, not seriously. Yes, his father was Keshi, and had fled his homeland because of the ferang – but their home was here in Baranasi now. Huriya didn’t even pray to Ahm these days but carried on like an Omali girl, all sarees and bindus and Lakh dances.

Haroun shook his head. ‘Listen to you, Kazim! You say “death to the ferang”, but all you’re really thinking about is your girl. Don’t you see, your tragedy is but part of a greater wrong? You are a young man of great prowess and fierce determination. Do not waste yourself in despair. Ahm is calling to you, waiting for you to prick up your ears and listen. Ahm wants you.’

‘Why me?’

‘I’ve been watching you a long time. You are a natural leader – all the young men follow you. You excel at all manly pastimes: you run like the wind and wrestle like a python. You are a prodigy, Kazim! Were you to put aside your frivolous pastimes and take up a serious pursuit, the other young men would follow you. You are searching for a star. That star is Ahm, if you would but open your heart to him.’

Kazim had heard Scriptualists say things like this before, and always he’d told himself, ‘Yes, maybe, but I am going to marry an Omali girl and breed hundreds of children.’ That was still his dream – more than a dream: it was destiny. A fortune-teller, an ancient woman who looked older than time, had told him his destiny was to marry Ramita, so how could she be taken away? He was going to be at the wedding, oh yes! And he would look her in the eye and ask her if she loved him and she would say yes. Then he would smite down this stranger and claim his rightful bride. He had come to this decision during the prayers this morning. Love would triumph. He was convinced of it.

Something of this must have conveyed itself because Haroun gave a wry sigh and shook his head. ‘Brother, you must join the shihad. You must learn the ways of the sword. You must help us inspire the local boys to march to war. Say you will join us, brother.’

Kazim returned the young Amteh youth’s intense gaze. I should agree to this – but my destiny is Ramita … He bowed his head. ‘Let me think about this. My sister – my father – I do not know where they are. I’ve neglected my duties to them. And Ramita, she still loves me, I know it!’

Haroun’s eyes clouded over, but then he shrugged. ‘Then let me help you, my friend, and if all works out as you say, well and good. And if not … will you then join the shihad, brother?’

Kazim swallowed. If it came to that, where else could I go?

Kazim and Haroun searched the ghats, the riverbank steps, seeking Raz Makani. In Baranasi, all life and death flowed from the banks of the Imuna river. The city stood on the west bank of the wide, shallow river flowing north to south, the dark water already filthy from untold uses made of it upstream. In the morning almost the entire city came to the river to pray, to wash, to purify themselves for the coming day. Small coracles took out the wealthier people onto the water to watch the dawn and escape the press of commoners. The prince of the city had a barge upon which he performed the dawn chant on holy occasions, even though he was Amteh, to appease his people who were mostly Omali.

By midmorning the worshippers and bathers were replaced by washerwomen, soaking the clothes, then slapping them against stone slabs before spreading them in the sun to dry. Dung-women rolled cow droppings into patties to dry for fuel. People came and went from the Omali temples all day, chiming the heavy temple bells. Downstream, at the southern end, the funeral fires burned all day, cremating the dead. The ashes were scattered for Imuna to bear away.

The sun beat down hotter and hotter as Kazim and Haroun sought Raz in all his favourite places, but no one had seen his father or sister since before Eyeed. It was Haroun who suggested the temple of Devanshri, where the healer-priests ran an infirmary. He waited outside while Kazim went in, though not a believer inclining his head respectfully to the serene statue of the physician-god. The low moan of the patients droned eerily. He took a deep breath of clean air and pulled his scarf around his mouth before entering the hospital.

The air was incense-laden to chase away noxious vapours and demons of the air. Orange-robed priests and priestesses came and went, and young servants carried water from Imuna to bathe those in their charge. The halls were lined with the sick and injured, the dying, the old. Hands clutched at him as he passed. Two men bore an old woman past as he pressed against the wall, her body arched in rigor, her open eyes gazing sightlessly on the hereafter. He felt nauseous and turned to go.

‘Kazim! Kazim!’ Huriya raced to his side, hugged him hard, then slapped him. He just stared, his cheek smarting but his mind numb. ‘Where have you been, you lazy prick?’ she cried. ‘I found Father in the sands on the far side of the river. He tried to walk in and drown himself, but the water wasn’t deep enough and the opium had him so befuddled he didn’t think to lie down.’ She wrapped herself around him. ‘He’s dying! You have to do something!’

He held her close and let her sob, then she drew him towards the silent figure on the pallet in the corner. His father was sleeping, his war-helm cradled in his arms, the one he had brought back from Hebusalim. It was rounded and pointed and had a jackal monogram on the crest. Chain-mail links guarded the cheeks. ‘It is yours when you are old enough for it to fit,’ Raz had told him when he was a child, but he hadn’t pulled it out for years.

‘Huriya, there is a Scriptualist outside called Haroun. Tell him I have found my father. Tell him I will seek him when I have done what is needful.’

Huriya looked curious, but bowed her head. She came back shortly afterward to find Kazim stroking his father’s face, tears running down his cheeks. ‘Did you find Haroun?’ he asked without looking up.

‘Yes. He asked me if I knew who Ramita was to marry.’ Huriya sounded peeved. ‘None of his business!’

‘He is my friend,’ Kazim retorted. ‘What do the doctors say about Father?’

Huriya sat cross-legged on the filthy floor in her stained salwar. ‘They say he has an ague from lying too long in the cold water. His lungs need to be drained constantly, so they keep turning him onto his stomach and pounding him until he vomits phlegm and blood onto the floor. Then I have to clean it up. And the sores on his back are infected again.’ Her eyes were moist. ‘I really think he is going to die this time.’

Kazim thought that likely too. ‘I’ll look after you,’ he said automatically.

‘What, like you looked after me this time? Well, thanks for nothing, big brother!’

He winced. I deserve that. ‘I will take care of you, I promise!’

‘Ha! I’ll look after myself, thank you very much.’ She stuck out her chin. ‘I’m going to ask to go north with Ramita, to be her companion. I don’t need your protection!’ She scowled. ‘Ispal has been here every day to tend Father, and so have Jai and Ramita and Tanuva. Everyone has come except you.’

He hung his head, put his face in his hands and burned with shame. Though even now, all he could think was, If I stay here, maybe I will see Ramita.

He didn’t manage even that, though – Ramita stayed away, no doubt because Huriya had reported his presence. Only Jai and Ispal, whom he could not bear even to look at, came. The physicians let Kazim sleep on the floor beside his father’s pallet, but he was woken repeatedly to help purge the lungs and change the dressings on the sores, which were purulent and stank. The whole world stank. His sleep was too broken to be any relief or gain to him, and waking and sleeping became one. His father moaned, seldom recognising anyone, and cried aloud of a ‘woman of flame’ until he had to be sedated. He called for Ispal, many times, until Kazim felt as if he were in a torture cell, never able to satisfy the questioner.

The end was a blessing. His father woke crying for Ispal again, then convulsed, gasping for breath like a fish on dry land. Before they could turn him over, he jerked and went rigid. Kazim held him and cried and sobbed as he had not since he was a child in his long-gone mother’s arms.

When he finally awoke he was in a sea of dark faces: Lakh men and women, looking at him, then averting their eyes. The Devanshri priests came, wanting him to move the body as they had other patients needing the pallet. One asked for money, to pay two bearers to take Raz Makani’s body to the burning ghats – but Raz was Amteh, so must be buried. Kazim decided that he would carry his father himself. Without a another word or glance at the priests and bearers he took up the burden in his arms. His father was both light as feathers and heavy as the holy mountain. He staggered to the entrance, swayed dazedly and nearly fell.

Haroun was there, waiting for him, looking as tired as Kazim felt: waiting to share his burden, as a true friend would.