Mage's Blood

14

The Road North

Hebusalim

… and likewise thee, Hebusalim, birth place of the Ahmed-Aluq. All worshippers of the Faith must come to thee ere they die, to be assured of a place in Paradise.

THE KALISTHAM, HOLY BOOK OF AMTEH

Northern Lakh, on the continent of Antiopia

Shawwal (Octen) to Zulhijja (Decore) 927

9–7 months until the Moontide

‘Have you and he done it yet? What was it like?’ Huriya, her voice both pitying and curious.

‘I’ve been with you all the time,’ Ramita parried blandly. It’s none of your business – but no, it hasn’t happened yet.

‘He came to your rooms last night while I was still in blood-purdah,’ Huriya noted. She poked Ramita’s arm. ‘So did it happen?’

‘He only came to check on my room. He didn’t stay. Look, we’re coming to another village.’

Huriya peered out the window. ‘Another primitive dump, like all the others. Do you think he can even manage it?’

‘Huriya!’

‘All right! You’re just being very dull, that’s all.’

She counted back the days. She had married on the eleventh. They had left the ceremony early, and her last sight of her family home was of it all lit up, the whole neighbourhood there, everyone partying feverishly. She had been petrified of the consummation, but Meiros had retired to another room, leaving Ramita and Huriya in a bare room furnished with nothing but sleeping pallets. Huriya slept, but Ramita lay awake for hours, dreading his tap at the door. But he never came, and she was left feeling hollow and strangely unfulfilled, the test she had been preparing herself for still hanging over her. She slept at last, and woke up bleeding.

‘You menstruate in the Full Moon,’ Meiros observed when she told him next morning, ‘so you will be fertile as the moon waxes, the second week of each month.’ It was Shanivaar, Sabbadai in his tongue, the weekly holy day, and he let Klein take her and Huriya to a nearby temple. By the time they got back, the wagons were almost packed. Huriya was full of cheer. ‘We are leaving soon, Jos says!’ ‘Jos’ was Captain Klein, apparently. Huriya was fascinated by his bear-like frame and shaven skull. Ramita thought him repulsive.

Amidst the bustle of packing, her parents arrived with her clothes and possessions, and Huriya’s things too. They didn’t come to much, even with the gifts from the wedding. They exchanged gossip about the festivities, who had said what to whom, who had got rolling drunk. Father spoke of finding a new house, right beside the river. One with marble floors. It sounded unreal.

Father was obviously pleased that his dutiful daughter had achieved this new wealth for the family, but not all was well. He was worried about Jai. ‘He went off after you left and has not come back,’ he admitted.

‘He spoke loudly about how the Amteh faith is more manly than the Omali. I don’t like it,’ her mother said. ‘They are young and foolish boys, he and Kazim. Who knows what they will do?’

Ramita spent a few precious minutes more with her parents, chatting of inconsequential things that would be nothing to do with their future lives. ‘I pray for you both, all the time,’ Mother whispered to Ramita, her eyes wet. ‘I will miss you every moment. Don’t let that horrible man mistreat you, Mita.’

Horrible man or not, they bowed low to Meiros when he arrived back from some errand, and words of gratitude tumbled out of them in torrents. Ramita felt embarrassed, but she cried when they left.

‘We leave now,’ Meiros told them, and so they did. That had been five days ago, and their small caravan had been rocking and jolting and bouncing their way north ever since. They had two carriages, one for the girls and one for Meiros, and two wagons for supplies. The men clattered alongside on horseback. Carriages were a nightmare, Ramita decided, uncomfortable and nauseating. After a couple of days of throwing up the morning meal they had decided to forgo breakfast entirely; instead they stuck to fluids and fell on the evening meal ravenously.

They had been allowed to attend temple in a squalid village yesterday, where the local children had perched everywhere and stared, like a flock of crows waiting for something to die. Tonight Meiros had promised them better; they would stay at the haveli of an acquaintance of his.

Meiros’ acquaintance turned out to be a raja, the sort of man an Ankesharan could never have aspired to meet. He lived in a palace with one hundred acres of gardens. Lean-tos were propped against the outside walls for the gardeners. Outside the walls there was no drainage and the stench was awful, yet inside the garden walls was a paradise of verdant lawns, marble fountains and statuary, birch trees swaying in the soft breezes. The raja was a portly man with huge waxed moustaches that curled in complete circles. ‘Welcome, welcome, thrice welcome, Lord Meiros,’ he cried, holding out his hands in welcome. ‘My heart trembles to greet so august a personage.’ He bowed and scraped as he walked backwards, leading them towards his palace, his eight wives openly gaping. Ramita wrapped her shawl tighter about her as she walked behind her husband. Meiros was wearing his cowled robes, and he tapped the ground with his heavy black staff at every step. Huriya was a step behind Ramita, peering about with no sense of decorum.

Introductions went on for ever, until at last the girls were taken by the wives into the women’s palace. The walls were whitewashed, then painted with intricate floral patterns in red and green. Every arch was curved and fluted into pretty designs. But the paint was peeling and the corners were dirty. She glimpsed unused fountains with dirty ponds. ‘Times are difficult,’ the head wife, a plump, imperious woman, remarked as she took them to a suite of rooms overlooking a courtyard full of flowerbeds, filed with winter-blooms. A peacock strutted outside.

Huriya leaped for joy as soon as they were left unattended. ‘Separate rooms,’ she cried. ‘A night without your snoring – this is the life!’

‘A night without your farting,’ Ramita countered. ‘Bliss!’

They wagged tongues at each other and slammed the adjoining doors, laughing.

Servants showed them the baths and they pulled out their bathing salwars. It felt strange to change into the voluminous shifts in front of the servants, for neither of them had ever been attended upon before, but the water was warm and scented, and roses floated on the surface. The eight wives crowded into the waters around them, asking all about Baranasi and the road north. Huriya did most of the talking, spinning a concoction of fantasy about Ramita and her.

Eventually the chief wife spoke, ‘Are all noblewomen of the south so dark-skinned?’ she asked frankly. All the raja’s wives were fair, and plump too, in stark contrast to the two girls, who had the sun-blackened skin of the marketplace, and who felt positively skeletal beside them.

‘Oh yes,’ Huriya answered them, to cover Ramita’s confusion. ‘We Baranasi are known for our dark skin – but everyone knows the fairest-skinned women are from the north,’ she added, making the eight wives coo self-importantly. Huriya set about describing an elaborate palace where she and Ramita had lived until her marriage to the Rondian magus. She spoke of saree-length fashions in the Baranasi court as if she were an intimate of the emir. She gossiped airily about fictional court ladies, while Ramita just nodded and agreed that yes, it was just so. It was like a game.

‘So,’ the chief wife gave Ramita a conspiratorial wink, ‘your husband, he is very old … Can he still stiffen his tool when required?’

Huriya giggled uncontrollably while Ramita’s face burned and she contemplated sinking beneath the waters and drowning herself.

They spent several days at the raja’s palace, enjoying the rich food and the entertainments: an endless variety of musicians and dancers and jugglers and fire-eaters. One man had a dancing bear – but it was scarred and timid, and Meiros clicked his tongue in disapproval and it was sent away. They viewed the menagerie, where brilliant birds sang overhead while jewel-coloured snakes slithered into the shadows. Tigers endlessly paced foetid cages and a painted, pampered elephant left droppings the size of a man’s head in the dirt at their feet. They came away fascinated and appalled.

Meiros had a long, intent conversation with the raja, then summoned Ramita to be inspected. The raja praised her beauty, though his palpable fear of Meiros made his opinion meaningless. He said something in a low voice to Meiros, something full of assurances and promises, and the mage looked pleased as he ushered her away. ‘Your name will be known to the mughal’s vizier within days,’ he whispered to her. ‘Vizier Hanook has promised his friendship to you, Wife.’

Why would the mughal’s chief advisor have any interest in me? Wives are just for breeding. They are unimportant – and I am the least of all wives …

Meiros read her thoughts in that unnerving way he had. ‘Wife, you are Lady Meiros now, and Vizier Hanook will be grateful of your friendship.’

Grateful of my friendship? Parvasi save us! She spent dinner in a daze.

After dinner, dancers filed into the room: dervishes of Lokistan. Ululating madly, spinning like tops in a torrent of colour and sound, they were captivating, and the girls clapped and cheered and stomped their feet. The raja’s wives, catching the girls’ excitement, yelled and stamped their approval too. Afterward one of the younger ones whispered to Ramita, ‘Normally we have to be quiet, but with you here, raja could not risk offending your husband by telling us to remain silent.’ She smiled softly. ‘That was such fun.’ She looked fourteen and was four months pregnant.

‘Good night, Huriya!’ Ramita kissed her friend on both cheeks as they parted outside their rooms. ‘This has been the best day so far.’

Huriya grinned back at her. ‘You are smiling, Mita. That’s good. It makes me smile too. We are going to be so happy in the north. You’ll see.’

She woke to a cold hand on her shoulder and almost screamed as another hand came around her mouth, stifling her cry. The waning moon poured its light through the thin curtains, showing her the cowled figure that held her. ‘Shhhh.’ Her husband. She felt a clutch of dread pull at her guts.

‘Quiet, girl. I won’t hurt you,’ he rasped. She could smell alcohol like a cloud about the cowl. He pulled the hood back, so that the moonlight illuminated his lined face. It made him appear older still, deepening the furrows, brightening the ridges.

‘I thought …’ She trailed off. I thought I was safe until my fertile week.

His voice was sympathetic, almost introspective, and she couldn’t tell if he were talking to himself or her. ‘It is wrong to leave these things undone. They grow to appear insurmountable obstacles if we do not confront them. They assume a greater importance than they warrant. It is not such a big matter.’

He handed her a small vial. ‘Apply this oil. It will ease matters.’ His hand shook, whether from age or uncertainty, she could not tell. Taking it mutely she turned away, knelt and hitched up her nightdress. Her skin felt clammy in the night air. She unstopped the vial and felt a soft, fragrant slickness on her fingers. Trying not to shudder, she reached between her legs and smeared the oil on the lips of her yoni. She felt him move fully onto the bed and turned in alarm.

‘Do not look at me,’ he whispered. ‘Stay where you are.’ She felt those cold hands on her thighs, pushing up her nightdress, baring her to him. His weight settled behind her and he manhandled her legs apart. She winced as his fingers touched her genitals, a bony digit prodding inside her, spreading the oil. She buried her head in the pillow to stifle herself: this was her duty. She heard him spit, and then a wet, rubbing sound. She waited and waited, trembling, her buttocks going cold, until at last she heard him grunt, then sigh. She nearly cried out as she felt the tip of his member against her yoni lips, pushing through her folds until she felt a tearing that made her grit her teeth. The penetration went deeper and his hips, cold as his hands on her flesh, clapped against her buttocks. She held her breath, tense and frightened, as his groin jerked in and out, once, twice, a dozen times, and then he gasped and she felt a hot wetness inside. He sagged against her slightly for a moment. When he pulled himself out, she fell forward onto her belly, fighting tears.

He sighed regretfully. ‘I am sorry,’ he whispered. ‘I am not the man I was.’ He retreated to the end of the bed as she curled into a foetal bundle, looking away from him. ‘See, girl: it’s not so bad.’ He pulled down his robes and stood painfully: just a pale ghost of a man, drifting away. Gone.

A few seconds later Huriya bounded in and perched on the end of the bed. She watched Ramita piss semen and urine into the slop-bucket with unflinching eyes. ‘So, how was it?’

The next stop was not a village at all, but a major city. Gradually the farmhouses were infiltrated by closer-packed, squalid lean-tos and poorly constructed hovels: the jhuggis that surrounded all the big towns. The stench of faeces and rotting food filled the air, smoke dirtied the sky and myriad voices assailed them as they fought their way through the dirty streets. ‘This is Kankritipur,’ a boy shouted in response to Huriya’s call as he chased a chicken around their carriage. Then he jumped on the footpad and peered in the window hole. ‘Pretty ladies, chapatti money,’ he begged cheerily. Ramita pressed a few copper coins into his hand. He looked slightly hurt and put out his hand again.

‘Imp, that’s enough,’ snapped Huriya, and he waggled his tongue rudely and jumped down, laughing. Another face replaced his, a filthy-faced girl with half her teeth missing, miming an eating gesture. ‘No mamma, no papa. Please, beautiful ladies.’

Huriya rolled her eyes. ‘Chod! We’re going to have every beggar in the city hanging off the footplate at this rate.’

They wound slowly through the squalor until they passed through the city gates, where soldiers beat the beggars until they dropped off the carriages like ticks from a dog. They moved from that desperate chaos into a richer, more frenzied pandemonium. Tiny shops lined the streets and men and women called their wares at the very tops of their voices, marketing through sheer volume. Woven shawls, supari leaves, sarees, scarves, knives, roots and leaves; cardamom from Teshwallabad, ginger from the south, even Imuna water from Baranasi, sold in tiny flasks for holy rites. The soldiers rode close by and Klein shouted angrily as faces constantly pressed into the windows, beggars with missing limbs or hideous diseases, young girls with babies at the teat.

Just when it felt like it would never end, they swung into the courtyard of the guest-house and relative quiet descended. They stumbled from the carriages, almost dazed. ‘What a dreadful city!’ exclaimed Huriya, not noticing or caring that the staff all stared at her with narrowing faces. ‘What a stinking shit-hole!’

Meiros didn’t come to her that night though, or the next, or the next, until it felt like it had been just a bad dream. Ramita finally regained the ability to sleep.

Huriya grew more and more animated the further north she went, flirting with the guards, giggling uncontrollably at her own daring, clutching her mouth to mute her own hilarity. She had eyes everywhere. Nothing passed her notice. Ramita envied her this never-ending voyage of discoveries, but she could not share in it, instead retreating further and further into herself.

Beyond Kankritipur was Latakwar. They struck the banks of the Sabanati River during the week of the waning moon. The river was wide but low, more than two-thirds mud. Crocodiles glided near the barges that ferried them across the dark, sluggish water. To the west and east were distant hills, with the hint of larger, grimmer promontories beyond, but to the north, the horizon was flat. The land was grey-brown, the sparse grass brittle and dry. Gold and green bee-eaters flitted amidst the bushes and kites circled high above. Once they even saw a cobra on the roadside, sidling backwards into a crevice, hooded and hissing. There were still people – always people – sun-blackened farmers labouring in the fields, bony children driving skinny cattle with sharp horns and quick tempers. They replenished their water barrels, bought an extra wagon full of feed and swapped their horses for a bevy of old camels. The town of Latakwar was wholly Amteh, the only places of worship Dom-al’Ahms, their domes crusted with windblown dust. The whole town was similarly glazed. The men were all dressed in white, the women wore black bekira-shrouds. They had a slow, distant manner, as if nothing were important enough to hurry about when exertion cost so much in sweat and energy in this dry, burning heat.

They slept in Latakwar for two nights and as the waxing moon rose, signalling her fertility, Ramita’s husband finally returned to her bed for his brief, awkward fumblings. She felt like a piece of livestock as he pumped his seed into her while she knelt with her buttocks in the air. He wouldn’t let her look at his body, though the few glimpses revealed nothing horrific, just a pale, somewhat bony frame that was surprisingly well-formed for such an old man. He is vain, she realised with a start.

‘Do I please you?’ she found the nerve to ask him this time as he rose to leave.

He frowned. ‘You will please me when you quicken,’ he answered tartly. ‘My seed is thin, as is typical of magi. We must rely on persistence and good fortune.’

‘And the blessing of the gods,’ she replied.

He snorted. ‘Aye and that.’ He left her to lie alone, until Huriya came in, chuckling softly.

‘I asked him how it went,’ Huriya giggled. ‘He just looked at me. I think he might actually have a sense of humour, if you seek it hard enough.’

Ramita looked aghast at her friend’s effrontery. That night she prayed for the blessing of Sivraman. But she bled, as she always did, on the first night of the full moon, so they unfurled the blood-tent and she reacquainted herself with being alone. Her husband’s disappointment hung over the caravan like a pall of smoke. Huriya joined her in the blood-tent a few days later, as usual, and they retreated again into their own tiny world.

When Ramita emerged from blood-purdah a few days ahead of Huriya, she found they were hundreds of miles further north. All week she had watched the featureless lands roll by. The last week of Zulqeda, or Noveleve, as her husband called it, the dark of the moon: the air was freezing-cold at night, so that she had to use two blankets. She was looking forward to spending a couple of nights away from Huriya. Her friend was losing all her girlish modesty and a new creature was emerging, one obsessed with wealth and men, who speculated ceaselessly about both. And her excitement at the journey was making Ramita irritable. It was tiresome, but she couldn’t fight with her only friend, so she tolerated it. For now it was just a relief to be alone.

That night Meiros came and sat with her after dinner, beside the small fire Klein had built her. He pressed a book into her hands and she took it, trembling. She had never even touched one before. The lines and squiggles were odd, meaningless things that spidered across page after page. There were pictures though, of strange people with pale skin and oddly cut clothing. ‘This is a child’s atlas of Urte,’ he said. ‘It will help you learn Rondian.’

That night was a new type of awakening for her: more wondrous, more spiritual and awakening than any flesh-and-blood experience. These symbols contained language. They contained knowledge. Ramita dutifully intoned the sounds associated with each symbol and repeated them back to him until he was satisfied. Finally he put the book aside and mounted her, apparently for pleasure rather than duty. It wasn’t too awful, and he left her the book when he departed. She clutched it to her as she slid beneath her blankets, her mind bursting with this new thing. She fell asleep when her eyes could no longer take in the pictures swimming before her eyes.

From then on, she rode with Meiros in his carriage so she could continue learning to read, leaving a disgusted Huriya alone. The landscape had turned entirely to sand, a sea that rose and fell in golden waves. There were no trees, just rocks where snakes and lizards basked, or jackals snoozed in the shade, awaiting dusk. The camels walked slowly onwards, phlegmatic, surprisingly gentle animals. The camels in Aruna Nagar had been bad-tempered creatures, whipped and beaten by their owners into obedience, but these were well-cared-for, and they rewarded that care. Beneath the awning, the heat was almost bearable.

Meiros rode with his hood lowered, allowing her to study him. His long, thin hair ill-suited him and his beard was a lank thing that she longed to trim. His eyes were haunted, but he smiled sometimes as he taught her his tongue. He apologised that he had not brought a windship to speed their passage, but he said it would have attracted too much attention. She wasn’t sorry; she had never seen the legendary flying ships and the thought of going up in one petrified her.

She was slowly losing some of her fear of her husband. Behind the gauzy curtains of the carriage they were able to converse more freely, and she discovered he was a patient man for all his curtness. He seemed younger when he relaxed. ‘It’s the desert air,’ he said when she was bold enough to remark on this. She thought it was more likely being away from all his cares for a while.

Not all his teaching was of language. He taught her a mantra, a little chant, to hinder magi seeking to learn things from her mind – only for a while, but long enough to seek help. The notion frightened her, that these people could read her private thoughts, so she practised hard at maintaining her concentration on the mantra, no matter what distractions there might be. Meiros told her she learned well, which pleased her. He also taught the mantra to Huriya, who picked it up quickly.

She also learned a little about the place they were going to. ‘Hebusalim is a sacred city to the Amteh,’ he told her, ‘one of the three holiest. That is another reason why they resent the Rondian occupation. It was a major city even before the Bridge was built.’ He told her about the sultans of Dhassa and old wars, but she was interested in more immediate things.

‘Who is the Justina you sometimes mention?’

Meiros paused in midflow. ‘Justina? She is my only daughter, the child of my second wife.’

‘Does she live with you? How old is she? Is she married? Does she have children?’

He was amused at the sudden torrent of questions. ‘Yes, she lives with me, but she has her own apartment and comes and goes as she pleases. No, she is not married; she has lovers, I suppose, but that is none of my business. She has no children – we magi do not breed easily or often, I’m afraid. As for her age …’ He looked her in the eye. ‘Justina is one hundred and sixty-three years old.’

Ramita went cold. It was so easy to forget that magi were not like other men. After a pause she asked, ‘What does she look like?’

He thought for a moment, then said, ‘She looks like a typical thirty-year-old woman, I suppose. She has long black hair and pale skin. She is accounted a beauty – she inherited her mother’s looks, obviously,’ he added self-deprecatingly.

Ramita pressed on. ‘What happened to your wife?’

‘She died of old age, forty years ago.’ He gazed into space. ‘She was the daughter of another acolyte of Corineus. We married when I settled in Pontus.’

‘Who was Corineus? Is he not your god?’

Meiros shook his head. ‘No, not back then, anyway. Baramitius and his ilk made him into a god afterwards, but to me he was just Johan – somewhat mad, incomprehensible, charismatic, compelling, but utterly human. He changed my life, several times over. I was a youngest son of a Brician baron, with no prospects beyond a career in the legions. Then Johan came to our village and lured me away. It was the time of the Rimoni Empire – we were all of the Sollan faith then, and the drui taught that salvation could be found through following personal vision, so travelling preachers abounded. I heard Johan Corin in the marketplace, talking about freedom and equality, and I was captivated. He painted a vision of a world governed by love, truth and understanding: a dream world. He had his woman, Selene, and a dozen other followers, and I walked away from the life my family had prepared for me and joined them that very day. I was just thirteen years old.

‘For several years we wandered all over Rondelmar, teaching Johan’s version of the Sollan faith. We slept in fields or under trees, on the outskirts of those towns where the authorities had turned us away, but others welcomed us, and Johan’s following grew. Soon we were dozens, then a hundred, and by the following spring we were nearly two hundred-strong and growing daily. A new word was being whispered everywhere: “Messiah”, which means “saviour”. Corin became “Corineus” and people said that he’d come to lead us to a better life here on Urte. The legion commanders became frightened of our numbers, and when trouble flared and several of us were killed, Johan personally intervened and persuaded the legion commander to stop the violence. From then on we started to hear all these stories of miracles and great deeds – all nonsense, of course, but by midsummer we numbered more than a thousand. Johan – Corineus – began to speak more and more pompously, of visions sent to him from Sol and Luna. Selene announced that Sol and Luna had transformed Corineus and her, making them brother and sister, and she began calling herself “Corinea”.’ Meiros shook his head. ‘It’s almost funny now. Beware, Wife, of people who claim to speak the words of God. They will be lying. Most of the world’s biggest liars claim to speak for God.’

‘But priests—’

‘Especially priests! Never trust a priest – and never, ever trust a magi who claims his gift comes from Kore or Ahm or Sol, or anyone else.’ He waggled a finger at her. ‘Never!’

‘But you got magic from your god, that’s what Guru Dev taught me.’ In fact, Guru Dev had told her the magi got their powers from demons of Hel, but it felt unwise to repeat that, just in case.

Meiros laughed. ‘Ha – yes, well … the Kore have done well out of that little myth.’ He leaned forward. ‘The secret of the gnosis is contained in a thing Baramitius made called the Scytale of Corineus. Baramitius was a great one for secrets, and for potions. He was Corin’s oldest disciple, an alchemist – he was the true miracle worker. He discovered the liquid he called “ambrosia”. Any who survived drinking it gained the gnosis-power to manipulate nature. I did not see any god that night.’

She looked up at him, confused, wondering. ‘Did you see demons of Hel then?’ she asked without thinking, then she almost swallowed her tongue in fright at what she had said.

To her vast relief, Meiros only laughed. ‘No, nor angels either – I have never seen any demon nor angel, Wife, and nor do I expect to.’ He chuckled heartily. ‘The gnosis has nothing to do with any god, do you understand?’ He jabbed a finger for emphasis and then paused and stared at it, as if amused by his own animation. Ramita felt a curious warming towards him. He reminded her of Guru Dev.

‘No, the Scytale had nothing to do with religion,’ he went on. ‘Johan Corin intended the drink to open our minds to God – he got the idea after taking Sydian opiates, which ought to tell you much of his state of mind. Baramitius laboured to make Johan’s vision a reality – he even tested his experimental brews upon fellow disciples – some died, but Johan concealed this to protect him. I only found out about his experiments years later, and I was appalled. Anyway, Baramitius eventually found what he sought, and got permission to administer it to the whole flock.

‘On the chosen night Corin told us we were to imbibe the wine of the gods and ascend to greet them. A legion had surrounded our camp, sent by some alarmist townsfolk, but Corineus was adamant the ceremony would go ahead. We gathered in north Rondelmar, on a balmy day in late autumn. The wolves were beginning to howl in the wilds, but we all went about garlanded with flowers and dizzy from drink. Corineus made a slurred speech about sacrifice and love and salvation as the ambrosia was shared out. We each got just a drop, and at a sign from Corineus we raised our cups to our lips and drank. Outside the camp, the legionnaires were closing in.

‘The fluid moved slowly from the belly to the heart. It was truly debilitating: we all collapsed. It left us conscious, but unable to function. To me, everything was frozen and magnified; I could even see the separate colours of the rays of light that showered down from the face of Luna. Deeper and deeper we all sank and as light ebbed away, a shimmering opalescence seeped through the air and clung to our bodies. I heard someone cry out in an incredibly slow, deep voice for their mother. Mother? I thought, and suddenly I saw her, my own mother, as clear as daylight, sitting at her table hundreds of miles to the south, and she looked up, seeing nothing, but calling my name. All around me, voices murmured, invoking parents, siblings, children, all the loved ones they abandoned when they joined Johan’s flock, and perhaps they all saw them, as I saw her.

‘But then everything changed again as our languor became infected with pain. As one, the whole thousand-strong flock cried out as agony took us and it grew in intensity, like talons ripping our innards apart, until we could bear no more. Some lost consciousness, some expired. I clung to the hand of a girl beside me, ripping at the turf with my free hand, but that girl’s hand was my lifeline, keeping me grounded, keeping me sane. It felt like the earth was fraying and we were falling through it, into darkness – but we were not alone in that emptiness for long. Now the faces of the dead were surrounding us, people I knew: those who had died on the road with Johan, others from my childhood. They said nothing at first, then they howled at us, and came at us with their spectral hands clawed. I called upon Sol to protect me, and somehow armour appeared on my chest and a sword in my hand. I held the girl behind me and chopped at the ghosts, driving them away. All around me I saw others doing the same, or similar. Some burnt the spectres with fire, others blasted them away with pale light or gusts of wind. But many of us perished, helpless, unable to find the means to defend themselves like I and others had. I fought like a mad thing, hewing and slashing in desperation … and then suddenly the ghosts and the darkness were gone and we were cast up from that dreadful sea onto the cold shores of daylight, naked in a sea of corpses.’

Meiros shuddered at the memory. ‘I came to myself lying with an arm around that girl, the woman who became my first wife. Beside me, a young man, a good friend, lay dead, his body twisted, his eyes wide open, his face frozen in a silent scream. Beyond him lay another, and another. Then I saw a living man, and other survivors gradually staggered upright: maybe half of us at most. The rest were dead or insane. Our eyes were drawn to the centre of the dell, where our leader had been. Johan and Selene lay immobile, and even from where I was I could see he was covered in blood. Someone began to wail, and Selene sat up. She lifted her hands, bathed in blood, and turned to the prone form beside her. I will never forget the sound of her scream. In the midst of her transformation, beset by some vision, she had slammed a dagger through her lover’s heart.’

Ramita was beginning to feel nauseous, and she rather wished Meiros would cease his tale now, but he was caught up in the past, barely seeing her. He went on, ‘I remember someone tried to grab her and she swung her hands at him and her fingers became knives, and she slashed his throat open. Then she ran, before any could think to stop her. Our Master was dead, his lover fled, and we thought we had lost our minds. I saw one man hold up his hands to implore Heaven and fire bloomed from his fingers. I saw another with tears streaming from his eyes which floated up to form rings about his head, a halo of salty water. A woman drifted upwards, panicking as she left the ground. For myself, my only concern was to keep the girl with me safe. What we’d shared had bonded us for life. I was surrounded by light and a barrier of stone was building up at my feet. Everywhere, every survivor was performing uncontrolled miracles, and in the mayhem some killed with accidental thoughts; others lost control and destroyed themselves, bursting into flame or petrifying themselves. It was chaos – Hel on Urte.

‘And in the middle of all this, the legionaries, five thousand fighting men, charged out of the mist. Some six hundred of us had survived Baramitius’ potion. Maybe a hundred of those had gone completely insane, and another hundred had not manifested any powers at all. The four hundred-odd who had attained power had almost no control; all we knew was that if we thought something, it seemed to happen. But when the legionaries attacked we found the focus and will to resist.

‘We destroyed them with pure elemental power: Fire and Earth and Water and Wind, and pure energy – that was all we had then; the refinements came later. That first battle was just slaughter, and I was not alone in being nauseated by the carnage; a number of us swore never again to use such powers to kill. But Baramitius and Sertain, who became the first Rondian emperor, they revelled in their victory: for them, this was the Purpose, the salvation Corineus had promised. They saw themselves as young gods, and they vowed to destroy the Rimoni and rule the world. And so they did, but by then I and many others had left them.’

Ramita remembered to breathe. ‘What did you do?’ she whispered.

‘I walked away. I had never been a violent man, and I was truly sickened by what we had wrought, even though we had not attacked first. I took the hand of the girl beside me and when someone asked where I was going, I said, “Anywhere there is no blood”, and some followed me. We stumbled through the carnage, the burned soldiers, dismembered limbs, headless torsos, and everywhere there was death. Johan Corin’s peace-preaching flock had become a savage mob with horrendous power. So we left, and close on a hundred came with me. The hundred or so who had manifested no power were ostracised, and they also left, but not with me. The remainder went on to overthrow the Rimoni Empire and establish their own. The “Blessed Three Hundred”.’

Meiros sighed deeply. ‘For those with me, our only choice was flight. We marched through the Schlessen forests and over the Sydian plains. Of course we had to fight along the way – wherever we went the local tribes saw only helpless wanderers and tried to take us as slaves. Non-violence is a pretty ideal, but it’s virtually impossible in this world. But at least we weren’t part of the butchery that Sertain inflicted upon the Rimoni. At least we were better than that.’

He looked up at her and said, ‘Wife, I do not wish to speak of this any more. Not for now.’ He looked for a moment like a tired old man, whose spirit was long broken, kept moving only by the empty promise of continued existence. She had a momentary desire to hug him, to try to comfort him.

‘I don’t need your pity, girl,’ he suddenly growled. ‘Go back to your wagon. I would be alone.’

They reached the northern edge of the desert the next evening. After exchanging the camels for horses their pace increased dramatically and the days blurred as they rattled along endless hard, stony roads, often pressing on even through the night. Ramita made slow progress in her language lessons with Meiros. He did not visit her bed in the way-stations but locked the girls in their rooms with a tracery of light about the doors and windows: wards, he called them. They were supposedly to keep them safe, but other than making the doors give off sparks when opened, they had no other effect she could see.

For three weeks they travelled in this manner, circling the major cities, sleeping in the countryside. But one afternoon, Ramita was awakened from her slumber in the carriage by Huriya, who was shaking her excitedly and crying, ‘Mita, Mita, look! Jos says it’s Hebusalim!’ She pulled aside the curtain and they gazed out over a wide valley, a fairytale sight: all lit up with house fires and lanterns and torches, with a massive Dom-al’Ahm rising amid the spires of palaces. They could see huge city walls, and wide roads lit with glittering white lamps, and everywhere, the tiny shapes of people, like ants scurrying about a disturbed nest. It was breathtaking.

‘Hebusalim,’ she breathed. Her new home.

Huriya wrapped her arms about her. ‘We’re here – we’ve arrived! By the gods, I thought we would never end this journey. I’m so happy!’

Ramita looked at her flushed and animated face and thought, Yes, my sister you really are. I wish I was. I would happily just turn around and go home … But she tried to look pleased.

The winding roads through the city were choked with people, and Jos and his men were watchful. The clamour of the markets was deafening. There were Rondian soldiers everywhere, dressed in red and white uniforms with golden sunbursts on their tabards: imperial legionaries from Rondelmar, Meiros said shortly. They looked grim-faced and hard, and Ramita saw a local man shoved aside brutally when he got in the way. Some of them recognised Captain Klein; when they called out to him she recognised Rondian words Meiros had taught her. The recognition sent a small thrill through her, a tenuous sense of connection to this alien place.

‘Look! We’re nearly at the gates to the city!’ Huriya exclaimed. ‘I wonder if this is the very street where my father fought the magi and Ispal saved him?’

Ramita tried to see it in her mind’s eye, but it was too dark and the mounted soldiers were blocking most of the views. She could make out lean, bony Keshi and the rounder, paler visage of the local Dhassans, who called themselves ‘Hebb’ to differentiate themselves from their rural cousins. She particularly studied the white-faces of Rondian traders walking the souks with armed guards – mostly local men, she noted – at their backs. Everyone she could see was male. ‘Are there no women here?’ she asked Huriya.

‘They’ll all be at home, cooking,’ the Keshi girl answered. ‘But look, there’s one!’ She pointed to a black-shrouded shape scurrying into a doorway. ‘Bekira – ugh!’ Both girls groaned, already missing the light cloth and colourful hues of Lakh. In Baranasi Huriya had dressed as an Omali most of the time. Here, they would both have to be bekira-robed – the Amteh’s cover-all public garment, named for the death shroud of the Prophet’s wife, had originated in Hebusalim. It was a dismal prospect.

It was well after midnight when they rolled up a wide boulevard to the Eastern Gate, but they were waved through with no delay, into the closer-packed streets of the inner city. They began to see Hebb women more frequently, still shrouded, but with bared heads. Their faces were pale gold, their black hair luxuriant, curling. Many were clinging to tipsy Rondian soldiers. There were many taverns and the air stank of ale and rang with strange songs. Huriya called out to Klein, ‘What is that racket?’

‘Schlessen drinking songs – welcome to Hebusalim, the cesspit of Urte!’ He laughed as they pushed through a crowd of bawdy soldiers and local women, one of whom had her caramel-coloured breasts bared. She was laughing uproariously as two lurching men held her upright.

Ramita was shocked. ‘This place is a den of vice,’ she remarked disgustedly. ‘Did you see that woman? This is a holy city!’ she shouted out the window. The men turned and the woman burst out laughing. To her alarm one of the soldiers took a few steps towards her, but Jos Klein yelled, ‘Make way for Lord Meiros!’ and everyone backed away.

They fought free of the crowds after that, rumbling into a side street. A tall white tower appeared ahead of them, illuminated by the waxing moon and filling the sky, gleaming like an ivory tooth. Chains rattled and they heard heavy gates swing open. Faces peered out from the windows of houses lining the street, then vanished again as the caravan rolled forward into a small courtyard. Marble walls glittered in the moonlight; gilt gleamed coldly in the torchlight. Their carriage stopped before steps ascending to imposing gates of wood and iron. Servants and stable-hands swarmed around them, darting between the irritable horses.

Someone opened the girls’ carriage door and helped them out. Meiros was already out and was talking to a small bald man. Both turned to the girls as they stepped unsteadily onto the ground.

‘Ah,’ intoned the bald man obsequiously, ‘this must be the new Lady Meiros.’ He spoke Keshi with an oily accent. Ramita stared at him dazedly, wondering for an instant who Lady Meiros was before she remembered and thrust her hand towards him. He kissed the air above it, not quite touching her with either lips or hand. ‘An Indran beauty, my lord,’ he commented to Meiros, as if appraising a broodmare.

‘Wife, this is my chamberlain, Olaf. He will show you to your rooms.’

Olaf simpered at her, then he looked at Huriya and licked his lips. ‘My lord, did you purchase two? Do the Indrans marry in pairs?’ He gave a small laugh.

‘Her maid,’ replied Meiros shortly. He turned as a tall shape in a dark blue robe detached itself from the shadows. ‘Daughter.’

The blue-robed figure curtseyed. ‘Father,’ came a cool, deep voice. ‘I see you have returned from your shopping expedition. Did you get any bargains?’

‘Don’t be rude, Justina,’ sighed Meiros. He looked shockingly weary to Ramita, who hadn’t seen his face for three days. It was as if returning to Hebusalim had erased the youthful vigour he had shown in the deserts. ‘I have a new wife. Her name is—’

‘I don’t care what her name is!’ snapped Justina. ‘You old fool, have you finally gone senile? I’ve been half-crazy wondering what you were doing. Slipping away with no word, no contact, and now I find you’ve been courting? For Kore’s sake, Father, an Indran – what on Urte are you doing? Have you gone mad? The Order has been in uproar.’ Her face, glimpsed beneath the hood of the robes, was ivory, her mouth a vermilion slash, contorted in scorn.

‘Peace, Daughter. I will not—’

‘Ha – dotard!’ Justina whirled and stamped away into the shadows.

Meiros let out a heavy sigh and turned back to the girls. ‘I apologise for my daughter,’ he told Ramita. ‘She is highly-strung at times.’

Ramita stared at the floor.

‘Come.’ Meiros led them to a panel of carven wood set into the wall which contained what appeared to be a dozen intricately carved doorknobs. ‘I know you are tired, but listen carefully: this palace has several security levels, wrought from the gnosis. I will explain it more fully when you are rested, but for now it suffices to know that I will grant Ramita the third security level, which gives access to all places but my tower. Huriya, you will have the fourth access, giving you the same as Ramita, but no access to my personal quarters. Wife, grasp the third doorknob from the left as if you were wishing to turn it. Grasp tightly and hold on. This will hurt a little, but Olaf will give you salve.’ He held up his left hand, palm open, and Ramita saw for the first time a fine tracery of scarring. She shivered, but reluctantly grasped the handle with her left hand.

Meiros touched a gem set above the doorknobs, closed his eyes and whispered something. Suddenly a stinging heat surged through her hand and she shrieked, pulling it away. Olaf seized her hand before she could close it and pasted an oily goo that smelled of aloes onto her stinging palm. Through sudden tears she saw livid patterns etched into her skin.

Huriya looked ill-pleased, but she endured the marking stoically. Meiros then muttered something about Justina and left the girls alone with the chamberlain.

Olaf chortled under his breath as the old mage scurried after his daughter, then remembered himself. ‘Come, ladies,’ he said, ‘let me show you to your rooms.’

Ramita was given a whole suite on the top floor of the building. Everything was white marble, which would stay cool in the hottest sun, Olaf told them. Servants brought their luggage while a dusky-skinned pregnant woman filled a copper bath with water that came steaming out of a pipe set into the wall. ‘Running hot water,’ Olaf commented as if this sort of miracle were commonplace. There were small sofas beneath each window, and below, a courtyard with a pond and fountain. Even the privy was alien: a chair with a padded rim instead of the usual squat-hole. Ramita wondered whether you were supposed to squat on the rim or sit on it – both looked possible, but she was too embarrassed to ask. The bedroom was vast, the canopied bed the size of her whole room in Baranasi.

The sudden remembrance of home brought tears to her eyes and she clung onto Huriya. Olaf looked puzzled at her distress. ‘She is tired,’ Huriya hissed. ‘You may go now. I will look after her.’

Olaf looked momentarily flustered, then bowed his way out. Huriya led Ramita to the bath and helped her in. The Keshi girl’s face was aglow with pleasure, but Ramita felt only an all-pervading inertia. ‘I miss my mother,’ was the closest she could come to expressing how she felt. ‘And Kazim.’

‘Silly,’ Huriya whispered. ‘We’ve arrived in heaven. I miss nothing at all.’