Temple of a Thousand Faces (44 page)

He thought of Voisanne. Run, my lady. Run.

And then darkness swept into him.

hey had hurried all night through the jungle, moving beneath the light of the full moon and then, when it fell below the horizon, using torches to illuminate the trail. The Khmer guide kept a manageable but constant pace, pausing every few hundred steps to make two rips in a prominent leaf. At each fork in the trail he left a sign, which hopefully would bring Asal to them. Though Voisanne had asked him several times if they might wait, the guide had resisted, instead reassuring her that all would be well. Asal would catch up with them.

Yet it was now morning and he still hadn’t arrived. Voisanne tried to stay strong for the sake of her sister, but the task was becoming increasingly difficult. She felt as if she had abandoned him, and feelings of guilt, worry, and frustration flooded her. As she placed one dusty and scratched foot in front of the other, she wished they could go back in time. They should have all left together or stayed together. Were it not for Chaya, Voisanne would have remained, but her little sister had to come first.

Though dawn wasn’t long gone, the day was already becoming hot. Sweat ran down Voisanne’s spine and into her skirt cloth. Fortunately, they passed many streams and stopped often to cool themselves. While Voisanne and Chaya drank and bathed hurriedly, their guide would climb a tree and look to the south. So far, he’d seen nothing that gave him any concern. But neither had he spied Asal, and each time he descended with no news, Voisanne lowered her gaze and grew quiet.

Now, as they entered a vast section of the jungle that had been scorched by fire, the guide paused to study their surroundings. He had already lived longer than most Khmers would and seemed to consider each choice with equal parts patience and caution. Though most of the giant trees were unscathed, the undergrowth had been burned away, leaving charred embers, ash, and a barren landscape the likes of which Voisanne had rarely seen. The normal sounds of the jungle were missing.

“What happened?” Voisanne asked, standing atop a blackened boulder.

The furrows on their guide’s brow deepened. “Lightning.”

“What should we do?”

He glanced in all directions, seeming not to hear her. To head across the charred land would leave prominent tracks. But to circle the area would add time to their journey. “Can you go faster?” he finally asked, looking from Voisanne to Chaya.

Voisanne nodded.

“Then let’s make haste,” he replied, heading straight into the wasteland.

Chaya skipped after him. For a moment, Voisanne was jealous of her sister’s childhood innocence. Despite the horrors that had befallen their family, Chaya remained upbeat. She believed that their loved ones had already been reborn into better lives, and she didn’t dwell on uncertainties.

The sisters could now jog beside each other, and though their pace was swift, Voisanne suddenly needed to talk about Asal. “Tell me how he treated you at the stables,” she said. “What was he like?”

Chaya smiled. “But you know him better than I. You asking me that is like a fish asking a rabbit how to swim.”

“True, but still, what did you think of him?”

As she leapt over a charred log, Chaya beckoned Voisanne onward. “He came to the stables only once. He showed me how to care for his horse, how to avoid its kicks. Later, he said I looked like you. And then, after I’d finished cleaning and we were talking, he must have been thinking about you, because he wasn’t really listening to me, and he called me ‘my lady.’”

“He did?”

“He didn’t even notice he did it. He just smiled when I told him. And when he was about to leave, I asked him why he called you that, and he said it was because you deserved it. Because you were noble and good. Of course, I said he was crazy. But he just kept smiling.”

The breeze lifted a swirling cloud of ash into the air. Voisanne held her breath and hurried forward, sweat beading on her face. “I think…he sees me as his queen.”

“Then he must be blind.”

Voisanne grinned. “Someday, Chaya, someday you shall be someone’s queen.”

“And why would I want that?”

“Why not want it?”

“Because the lives of queens are boring. Why would I want to sit on a throne and do nothing but look pretty? I might as well be a fern.”

Voisanne remembered running through the jungle with Asal,
then making love with him on the riverside. Nothing she’d done with him had been boring. “I wish he would catch up with us. It’s been too long.”

“He’s probably out gathering flowers for you, or doing something else gallant.”

“I hope so.”

“Last night, when we were waiting by the water, I saw how he touched the necklace you made him. You cast a spell on him, that’s for sure. You charmed a Cham.”

“He’s a man, Chaya. Just a man.”

“A man who calls you ‘my lady.’ And if he does that, he must be your king. He’s hardly just a man.”

Voisanne saw the scorched shell of a dead turtle and wondered how many creatures the fire had killed. Winded, she slowed their pace, letting their guide pull ahead of them. “Do you know who I want him to be, Chaya?”

“No.”

“The father of my children.”

Chaya stopped, dust settling around her feet. “Then we shouldn’t have gone. We shouldn’t have left him all alone.”

I know, Voisanne thought. I left him because of you, but I should have sent you ahead. I should have stayed.

“What?” Chaya asked.

“Nothing.”

“Tell me.”

“It’s just…each step I take, I feel as if I’m drawing farther away from him. I rush to the north, but what I want to do is run to the south.”

“Then let’s run to the south.”

Voisanne shook her head. “If I could, I’d pick up a sword. I’d fight my way to him. I’m not afraid. But…but since I can’t do
that, what I can do is what he asked me to do. I can pray, I can go north, and when I finally see him, I can use my strength and love to fill him with whatever he needs.”

Chaya pointed toward the guide, who was now far ahead. “He wants us to hurry.”

“You go. I shall be right behind.”

“But why?”

“Because I want to leave him a message. Here in this blackened dirt.”

Chaya nodded, then scampered ahead. Voisanne dropped to her knees. She placed her forefinger on the ground. Pushing down, creating a trail within the soot, she wrote:
I have only one request of you, my love. Wherever I have gone, you must go. May the Gods give you wings. May they fill my eyes with the sight of you.

Voisanne’s tears left dimples in the ash. She stood up. Though her body trembled, her mind propelled her forward, ahead into the bleakness where she must travel.

S
tatues loomed over him—Gods who had been created from stone and covered in gold. They seemed to whisper in the darkness in a language too divine for him to understand. The Gods leaned toward him. Though their faces showed pity, they made no move to release him. His bonds weren’t severed. His pain lingered. He remained tied to a wooden column with his hands behind his back, upright only because of the ropes that encircled his legs, midsection, arms, and chest.

With one of his eyes swollen shut and a hundred aches assailing him, Asal wished the Gods would set him free, from his bonds or from his pain—preferably both, though even one would be glorious. He silently begged the grinning figures to do as much, but they made no such effort. Closing his good eye, he
tried to fall back into the darkness. Voices rang out from somewhere. Footsteps echoed in his mind.

“Voisanne?” he asked, or at least he thought he asked.

Water splashed against his face. He gagged on it, turning away. A hand slapped his cheek. As more water poured over him a voice emerged—the voice of his king. He tried to turn from the voice, to pretend he didn’t hear it, but the water pulled him into the present. The Gods seemed to drift away from him. He saw them more clearly now—statues that had been stolen from temples and brought here, statues that were too beautiful and precious to be gathering dust in a dimly lit room.

Through Asal’s good eye Indravarman also materialized. The king seemed larger than usual, even as he stood next to one of the Gods. Behind him were Po Rame and two guards dressed in war gear. Po Rame was smiling.

Asal tugged at his bonds but could barely stir. The movement produced waves of pain that swept through his head, shoulders, belly, and groin. Only his hands and feet seemed uninjured, though they tingled from the constriction of the ropes that held him.

“You must be wondering why we are here,” Indravarman said, stepping forward, his face impassive.

Again Asal struggled to free himself, straining until the room began to spin around him.

“We are here because many of my men admire you. And I don’t want them to hear your screams. Down here, in the bowels of the Royal Palace, you’ll be mute, as you should be. No one knows that you’re imprisoned, so no one will think to save you—not your men, not the Gods, and certainly not me. If you wish, you may pray. But the Gods shall not listen. They do not listen to insects at their feet, and you’re nothing but an insect.”

“My men—”

“Be silent!” Indravarman roared, his open hand slamming
into Asal’s cheek. “I’ll tell you when to speak! You who tried to steal my woman from me, who tried to dupe me. She told me all about your plans, told me as she begged and wept. I gave you everything a man could want and in return you betrayed me!” Again the king slapped Asal, this time on both sides of his face. “Now I command you to speak. Why did you seek to flee in the night? Why did you try to take what was not yours?”

Asal spat blood. “Lord King…I—”

“I’m no king of yours! I’m a conqueror, a leader of armies! I don’t reign over insects. I step on them.”

Though Asal tried to focus his good eye, the room continued to spin. His right ear rang from Indravarman’s last blow. “I always…fought well for you,” he managed to say.

“Yes, you did fight well. Why then did you betray me? Why did you try to flee?”

“Because…”

“Tell me!”

“Because you…threatened Voisanne. When you did that…you lost me.”

Indravarman started to swing his hand again but stopped, a smile eclipsing his scowl. “A whore caused you to break your vows to me?”

“She’s no whore.”

“But she soon will be, Asal. Because right now my best men are tracking her. She left a half day ahead of them, but how far do you think she will get? And when they catch her she’ll become my whore. You’ll watch as I ravish her, again and again. I wonder what will happen then. Will you still care for her? Because how will you be able to tolerate, much less care for, one of my whores?”

“Leave her be!” Asal shouted, thrashing against his bonds.

Indravarman laughed, then motioned the guards and Po Rame forward. He said something to them, but Asal could not
hear him. He was gripped by such despair that only one desire seemed to make sense—his frantic need to protect Voisanne.

The guards moved behind him. Smiling, Po Rame reached into his hip cloth and produced a sliver of bamboo the size and length of a feather’s shaft. “I’d take your eyes, Khmer lover,” he said, “but the king of kings wants you to see. And so I’ll be pleased in other ways.”

Reaching out, Indravarman placed his hand on the side of Asal’s sweaty face. “Po Rame believes he can break you in a very short time. I told him that you’d be stronger. So humor me, Asal. Last longer than he expects.”

A thin hand held the sliver of bamboo in front of Asal’s good eye. “It doesn’t look like much, does it?” Po Rame asked. “But how it can hurt.” He stepped behind Asal, out of his sight.

When Asal felt the guards grip his left arm and thumb, he struggled against them. He twisted and cursed and heaved against the ropes, but he was held immobile. Po Rame laughed as he took the piece of bamboo and placed it behind Asal’s thumbnail, thrusting it deeper and deeper into his flesh until it moved past the bottom of the nail and lodged against the knuckle. Pain was instantaneous, horrific, and all-consuming. Asal surged against the ropes, fighting as he never had, thrashing and biting and producing more than one cry of hurt from his oppressors.