Forged by Fire (9 page)

Is that how you felt, Mother, when you chose Waivia over me? Your belly heavy with despair, your eyes swollen with unshed tears? Did you, too, choke on your own betrayal, comfort yourself with the fierce vow that no matter what, this one child,
this one child,
you would not turn away from, not now, not ever?

Into the daronpuis’ quarters, along cool stone halls so nar row two could not comfortably walk abreast. The white stonework gleamed as if varnished; I thought of white coranuts, hulled and bobbing in a pan of hot fat. Small, smooth concavities dimpled the walls, each tiny basin home for an exquisite ivory carving of a dragon. Those were not normal dragons, no: They were nippled, bosomy, teated, pigeon-breasted. Their tails were burled and phallic. Some statuettes were convoluted, kinked into a helix. Others were cuneated, all sharp angles and pointed triangles. Each looked the work of a dawahat komikon, an ivory-paring master, and worth many dragon eggs.

I had to place Savga down, limited by the strength in my arms and back, and she slid otterlike down my torso, clinging still. I kept a hand upon one of her bony little shoulders as we lurched along, joined at my hip.

The musky smell of incense impregnated the air, and sticky brown beads of it clung to the upper walls; trail marks of the stuff ran down the stone as if the white walls were sweating sap. Every now and then we passed a shellshaped recess, a grotto where a daronpu might stand aside to let others pass him in the narrow corridor.

We passed mouthlike doors, oval, made of beaten tin, stamped with images of featon sheaves, dragon eggs, and pomegranates. Some were locked with great bolts and latches. Temple needed to guard against its own, it seemed.

We stopped at one of those tin doors. The acolyte opened it, ducked through. The dragonmaster followed, Savga and I at his heels.

The room we entered seemed lumpish with overstuffed pillows, the walls furry with ponderous tapestries. I could scarce draw in a breath, so airless and dusty was the room. The stale smell of disuse filled my mouth and nostrils like thick wadding.

Two paras flanking the inside of the door we’d just come through glowered at me with twin repugnance. I flushed with shame for the brown stains upon my bitoo, for the stench of me and Savga, yet I also lifted my chin in defiance. If not for the paras and their ilk, I wouldn’t
be
in such a dis graceful state. They’d created my filth; let them gag on it.

“That’s the one,” a voice said, and I scanned the pillows and tapestries and found, standing amongst the nubby con fusion of colors, the Wai Vaneshor, the First Chancellor, clothed in red robes, the trim around his neck and sleeves and hem blue silk. The gray-bearded man looked disturb ingly familiar.

“This is the hatagin komikon who owes money from debts incurred at Arena,” the First Chancellor said. “I’ll deal with him and his claimed woman from here.”

The acolyte shot a smug look at the dragonmaster, then me.
Now you’ll get your comeuppance,
the look clearly said. As he swept by, Savga burrowed her head under one of my arms. The acolyte flicked his thumbnails against his earlobes as a gesture to ward off evil—as if a hungry child and her filthy surrogate mother had the power to harm him.

He departed. The First Chancellor addressed the paras. “Wait outside. I’ll summon you if need be.”
They obeyed.
The door shut with a sharp, glassy sound.
“For the love of wings, Babu, what’s happened to you?” the chancellor rumbled. I stared at him.
And, as if gazing across a desert at a figure made hazy by shimmering waves of heat, the chancellor slowly resolved into a recognizable figure. Daronpu Gen.
He stood stooped, like a wizened old man, and his unruly cleft beard had been chopped off and groomed into a neat gray arrowhead. His head was tonsured and age-spotted, and his skin was no longer bark-brown but ivory, as impos sibly fa-pim as the Emperor’s.
“Gen?” I gasped.
“Keep your voice down, blood-blood! That door is lis tening.” He furrowed gray, atypically groomed eyebrows. “Have you been ill? You stink worse than rot.”
“Your skin’s the wrong color,” I said, stupid with baffle ment.
“Watch what you say!” He pointed to my side. “Who’s the rishi via?”
I looked down, was somewhat startled to see a young girl standing beside me. But only for a moment. I remem bered where I was, what had transpired, and suddenly I was spuming with outrage.
“What are you
doing
?” I cried, taking several steps for ward. Savga held me back, ballast, millstone, anchor. “Voice down!” Gen ordered.
I flared my nostrils and dragged Savga toward him, wad ing over dunes of dusty pillows. “What’s the meaning of this, stealing people from their kus and wrapping them in chains?” I held up Savga’s manacled wrists and shook them. “You treat children like this?”
Gen looked suddenly as ill and beaten as Fwipi had, back at the arbiyesku barracks. “Ghepp gave me little choice, Babu. If there was another way to buy what we need, to pay our debts—”
“There
is
another way; there must be!”
“I’ve thought of many, but Ghepp—”
“I own this Clutch, not Ghepp.”
A weary look flashed across Gen’s face, but I ignored it, trapped in a hemorrhaging pustule of wrath. I gashed the air behind me with a finger. “Those walls out there are covered with figurines worth a small fortune. How dare you tell me you have no choice; how dare you sell children in stead of those!”
“Those figurines belong to Temple,” the dragonmaster said. He stalked over and stood beside me, radiating hos tility. “We sell those and we antagonize every daronpu on these acres. The uproar will be heard clear to Liru.”
“Don’t think I haven’t fought this,” Gen said, his voice old, his eyes pleading.
I would not grant him a shred of empathy.
“Sell off some of our brooders,” I demanded, hands clenching into fists, using the word
our
like a sword.
“We’ve barely enough food in this Clutch as it is. We can ill afford to lose a single egg producer, let alone the amount required—”
“Manioc, then.”
“The unharvested crop is already presold.”
“Rishi are not slaves!” I cried. “We’re not indentured serfs to be poached and traded like deer!”
The dragonmaster waved aside my outcry and addressed Gen. “You trade the children for a dragon, yes? A young destrier?”
Gen nodded. “Ghepp has managed to purchase a ven omous yearling from Clutch Diri for our purposes.”
“Diri?” the dragonmaster cried. “They suffer scale plague! If that destrier carries the disease, Xxamer Zu’s brooder herd will be decimated.”
“We intend on keeping it isolated,” Gen growled. “No Clutch in the Jungle Crown would sell us a destrier. We had little choice but to go to Diri. Kratt is ill pleased that his half brother won Xxamer Zu in Arena. He’s using his influ ence so that Ghepp hasn’t a single ally with the overseers of the Clutches in this jurisdiction.”
The dragonmaster scowled. “Kratt suspects foul play.”
“Of course! The man’s not a fool. Against preposterous odds, Ghepp laid an outrageous wager, backed by an anon ymous source. Such a wager doesn’t go unnoticed, hey-o! Even now, Kratt’s trying to learn where Ghepp found the resources for it. He’ll learn before long that Malaban Bri backed our bid.”
Gen glanced at me.“And Kratt knows you escaped Arena alive, what-hey. He’s inciting Temple and the populace into a fever over you; says you’re demon spawned, intent on subverting tradition and corrupting youth to commit besti ality. Your name is on the lips of every Clutch Re rishi right now. The capital is in a foment, a froth, a boil!”
“I have always been unpopular with the public,” I said boldly. But my pulse turned erratic.
“This is different, girl. Kratt’s made you a symbol of evil and himself a holy crusader driven by repentance. He’s us ing the fact that he once supported you as evidence of your powers of beguilement.” Gen wagged one of his fingers at me, as if I were a child. “It’s because he fears your Skykeeper, hey-o! He knows who you truly are; he knows what power you have at your disposal. Like a thundercloud, you are, and he fears the lightning you can shed!”
My stomach went hard and sour. I
didn’t
have such power at my disposal. My sister did, and she stood at Kratt’s side. Kratt wanted to eliminate any threat of losing the Skykeeper. He wanted, therefore, to eliminate me.
Again, the dragonmaster impatiently waved away Gen’s remarks, as if swatting the air clear of flies. “When will the destrier arrive from Diri? She’ll take months to train. We’ve no time to waste.”
“She’ll arrive the week following delivery of . . . of our bartered goods,” Gen said, eyes flitting upon me but unable to touch upon the manacled child at my side. “That’s why I brought you both here—”
“No,” I said. “I refuse.”
“Refuse
what
?” the dragonmaster sneered.
I slapped his cheek. Yes. I struck the cheek of the man who, not long before, had achieved Savga’s unharmed presence at my side. The man who had, a mere year ago, whipped me, derided me, demanded I commit bestiality with a dragon, and cowed me with fear.
The imprint of my hand stood white as poached albumen upon the dragonmaster’s piebald cheek. I felt every bead of blood within the dragonmaster and me realign as my action altered the balance of power between us. His face turned the color of muddy water. I wouldn’t let him indulge in a moment of his anger. I met Gen’s eyes and held them with all the force of iron manacles.
“I will walk away from you, this Clutch, and your schemes and dreams if you go through with this, Gen. You return ev ery last one of these rishi to their clans, understand? We’ll pay for the destrier another way. I will not lie with a dragon purchased with the lives of children.”
“For the love of wings, girl—”
“Do it.”
“
How?
I can’t shit bullion!”
I thought of all the wealth I’d passed in the corridor, all that white wealth locked untouchably in the carved bone and stone and horn of the statuettes. And I thought of the white, dust-furred bayen mansions I’d passed while being led, shackled, to Temple Xxamer Zu.
“Those mansions on the thoroughfare,” I said. “What are they made of? That egg-white stone.”
“The facades are alabaster. Marble perhaps.” A wary look crept over Gen’s face. “I’m no stonemason. I can’t be sure.”
“Demolish one of those mansions,” I said with finality. “Sell the contents and have the facade stone carved into fine caskets for salve, into perfume flacons. Into statuettes and drinking pipettes and urns and hair combs—whatever trinkets are fashionable amongst the aristocrats in Liru. Trade those for a destrier.”
“Yolkbrained screw!” the dragonmaster raved beside me. “It’ll take months for such to transpire—”
Without looking at him I held up a hand to cut off his tirade, and I spoke only to Gen. “Do this. Do this, or lose me.”
“You ask me to hold mist in my hands.”
“Mist is made from water. You can hold water.”
“If Ghepp is pushed toward something, he curls up like a banded noony, all armor-plated and impenetrable. The man barely believes you’re the Dirwalan Babu, and he’s ambivalent about pitting himself against Temple.”
“Do it, Gen.”
He closed his eyes and pressed his knuckles to his fore head. He kept still for a long, long time. Finally, he looked at me.
“There is a bayen family here,” he said, weighing each word slowly. “One that would not protest too much if re located to the coast under much pomp and circumstance. Perchance Malaban Bri might find an illustrious post in Liru for the lord of that family. We could demolish their house here, use that marble. . . .”
“Good.”
“There’ll be repercussions from Ghepp.”
“Yes.”
He rubbed his cheeks, looked old and frail. But because he was a good man, because he
wanted
to acknowledge the child beside me, Gen took a deep breath that inflated him beyond his disguise as a wizened old man, and he nodded.
“Fine, Babu,” he said, and he reached out and placed a broad hand on Savga’s head. “It will be done.”
* * *
Using his rank as Wai Vaneshor Xxamer Zu—First Chan cellor to Lupini Xxamer Zu—Gen was able to arrange the release of every poached rishi without consulting Ghepp. Under the artificial guard of two paras handpicked by Gen, the dragonmaster was taken to the defunct and empty destrier stables of Xxamer Zu, there to begin making an inven tory of its tack and what needed repairing. One of those paras was the soldier who’d slipped me Gen’s token upon my arrest from the arbiyesku.
I insisted upon accompanying Gen in returning Oblan, Runami, and Savga to the arbiyesku.
Gen ran a blunt-nailed finger over the bridge of his prominent nose. He looked tired and resigned. “Yes, yes.” He sighed. “As you say. Into the cart with you.”
He’d managed to appropriate several carts for our pur pose. The brooders yoked to them were ribby and potgutted. If I’d had any room left within my emotionally spent psyche, I’d have been aghast at their condition.
Instead I turned a blind eye, climbed into the back of one of the carts, and settled myself between Runami and Oblan. Savga curled onto my lap. Her body was tense with expectation, and she breathed in gulps. All the children were silent and breathless, all desperately hoping that what Gen had promised them—the return to their guild clans— would indeed transpire.
That’s the one thing that upsets me most, to this day. The fragile silence of desperate children.
A few of the captured young boys, however, sizzled like unshed lightning bolts. Now that their freedom was being returned, indignation emboldened them. They muttered, they glared, they cursed Ranon ki Cinai, the Emperor, and Lupini Xxamer Zu, not caring that the same armed paras who had marched them to imprisonment still surrounded them with blades drawn.
Gen was aware of it. Before the last rishi child had clam bered into a cart, shivering and sweating from belly cramps, Gen rose from the bench of the cart he would drive, inflated his chest, and bellowed, “Lupini Xxamer Zu is a just man, an ingenious overseer. His refusal to deal in the trade of rishi to clear this Clutch of its previous overseer’s debts has granted him the wisdom of the One Dragon, and not but several hours ago did he devise an alternate means to pay off those same debts! I would not earn the wrath of such an ethical man, lest you tempt him to rue and revoke his decision.”
Even though he wore the tonsure and gray beard of an old man, Gen suddenly looked the fierce giant he was, and I’m sure it wasn’t just I who envisioned him with wind swept cinder black brows as he met the eyes of each young boy, one by one.
Such a fine speech cowed the boys, and they fell silent. We began our journey.
The air was muggy, congealed with humidity and odors. Clouds loomed on the horizon, shoals of brooding gray. As if sensing their approach and its impending enclosure, the sun was molten with fury. In the back of the cart, the chil dren and I were languid.
He was wise, Daronpu Gen, where I’d been naive. I had expected tears and joyful reunions. But no. There was an ger, so much anger, directed at Gen and the acolytes he’d pressed into driving the other carts. Anger not that the children were being returned. No. Anger that they’d been taken, an atrocious act committed with such impunity. It was good that the paras accompanied us. Only the threat of their swords prevented Gen and the acolytes from being pulled from their benches and mauled.
It was dark by the time the meaty, rancid stench of the ar biyesku reached my nostrils, and those clouds on the horizon had belly-crawled closer, cloaking a great swath of stars in black. Runami, Savga, and Oblan were dehydrated and filthy, and they sat slumped beside me in the back of the cart.
Our procession of carts—all empty now, save the one Gen drove—rolled into the arbiyesku compound, axles squeaking like crickets. We came to a stop. Everything was silent. Beside me, Savga’s breath sounded as loud as a bel lows.
Shadows rose up from the ground outside the women’s barracks, and more shadows emerged from the doorways of the mud-brick huts. Slowly, those sooty wraiths drew closer. Starlight stabbed down like the points of hundreds of rapiers, imparting the illusion that whorled, piebald skin bled liquid silver. Eyes stared at us. Waiting.
Hoarse and weary, Gen repeated his speech about the new Lupini’s revulsion for trading in humans and his inge nuity at discovering an alternate means of paying for the previous overlord’s debts. But whereas in the morning his words had rung with authenticity, they now sounded con trived and vapid.
The two arbiyesku boys in the back of our cart slowly clam bered down. A para removed the manacles from their wrists. One of the boys—eight years old at most—spat at the para’s feet, then slowly turned and melted into the shadowy crowd.
I struggled to stand and help Runami, then Oblan, then Savga rise.
A para leaned over the cart to unlock our manacles. They fell like black, broken skulls to the ground.
A woman in the crowd cried out Oblan’s name. Oblan burst into tears and extended her little arms out to the dark. I lifted her down to the ground and she ran, knock-kneed and weak, toward a shadow. She was snatched up, clutched, kissed, surrounded, squeezed, petted. The mingled sobbing of child and mother, the murmurs and mutters and weeping of aunts and uncles, was a sad joy dancing on the wind.
“Runami, Runami, my child!”
Runami hurled herself off the cart, dodged between two of the paras that fenced us in, and was united with family once more.
Wearily, I climbed down from the cart and lifted Savga down. I buried my face against the soft, small folds of her neck and inhaled her warm-bread smell.“Go to your mother, Savga.”
She stood by my side, swaying with exhaustion, looking out at silver-sheathed shadows merging and dividing be fore us.
An eerie silence and stillness settled over the arbiyesku. The guild clan of the cocoon warehouse stared at Savga and me, their eyes miniature moons.