The Usurper's Crown (58 page)

“I am most interested to hear it.” The Vixen gestured with one hand, indicating the woman might sit if she felt so inclined.

The woman sat cross-legged upon the ground, drawing her sword from her belt and laying it across her knees. The blade was black and had an edge so keen, even the Vixen’s eyes could scarcely see it. One of the red foxes at her feet pricked up its ears and lifted its head, alert to the warning of that drawn blade.

“It has been seen that soon the Old Witch will send an ambassador to you to reclaim that which you stole.”

The corner of the Vixen’s mouth quirked up in a crooked smile. “Yet I insist I stole nothing. The Old Witch wounds me to the heart.” She laid her long white hand on her bosom. “To think that she believes I would wrong her in that fashion.”

The woman did not blink at these words. “My sisters and I say that we would be grateful if the ambassador were able to find what she will seek.”

“Would you?” The Vixen raised her eyebrows. “And how would this gratitude be expressed?”

“Your help would be remembered,” said the woman, her words as solid as stones. “We would swear it so.”

“Hmmmm …” The Vixen leaned her chin in her hand. “Gratitude from you seven. You who seek to bring permanent order to your lands being grateful to me. Tempting,” she admitted. Then she straightened and shook her head. “No. It is too much. I cannot give what I do not have.”

The woman’s dark eyes glowed. “What then, pray, can you give?”

The Vixen considered. Her gaze lingered for a moment on the naked sword with its keen edge. A gray fox lifted its head and drew its lip back, showing a gleam of fang. She reached down idly and scratched its ears, soothing it so that it once again curled up calmly.

“Why would you wish to do a favor for the Old Witch?” she asked. “She has no claim on you, or your sisters.”

“Our lands are troubled by a little man who walks too tall.” The woman gripped the hilt of her sword. A dangerous light sparked in the Vixen’s green gaze, but the woman moved no further. “He has begun a chain of dangers that will crash down over that which is ours. If the ambassador returns to the Old Witch what has been lost, the little man will fall.”

“May fall,” the Vixen corrected her. “Nothing is set. Not where I can see. Your little man is most resourceful.”

The woman bridled at those words, but did not move to contradict them. “Will you do this thing we ask?”

“No,” said the Vixen. The woman lifted the sword a fraction of an inch from her lap. One white fox rose to its feet, its tail bristling.

The Vixen just smiled. “But I will give this ambassador a chance. One chance, for a price. If she succeeds, she may have what she wants. If she fails …” The Vixen shrugged. “Then you too will have to be resourceful.”

The woman laid her sword back down. As she did, the white fox lowered its hackles, but did not sit.

“What price?” asked the woman.

“A favor, from your oldest sister. A favor of my choosing, to be granted without questions or restrictions.”

“You ask a great thing.” The woman’s voice rasped in the still air.

“As do you,” replied the Vixen calmly. “Especially for one who has come to my place of power to call me a thief.”

The Vixen watched the woman bridle at this, and smiled as she struggled to hold back her rage. But need and, more likely, the warnings of her sisters, kept her hand from her sword.

“Very well. A favor, without questions or restrictions. It shall be so.”

“Then this ambassador from the Old Witch will have her one chance,” replied the Vixen. Her smile spread so that all her shining teeth showed. “Then we will see what may happen, Mother Vimala. Then we will most certainly see.”

“Well?” said Chandra, looking up from the pile of pillows where he lounged on the balcony. “What news have you?”

The rains poured down in solid sheets outside, obscuring the gardens with a curtain of silver and filling the world with the scent of fresh water. This was the beginning of the Second Rains. Samudra had timed Chandra’s wedding, and the beginning of his campaign, nicely. The brief respite that separated the First Rains from the Second had given the emperor enough time to march his army inland, beyond the floods. It had also given him enough time to see his elder brother sent to the far south with his new bride and household of spies.

Chandra had never been able to wait well. Every day he summoned Yamuna to him and demanded to know how things proceeded in the north. Not even a full month had passed, and already his exile seemed to chafe at him beyond endurance.

Yamuna looked down his nose at his master, and considered lying. No, he decided. It would be more humiliating should he have to retract his words later.

“The quest did not succeed,” he said blandly.

Chandra stared at him, as if he could not believe what he heard. For a time, the drumming of the rain on the balcony’s arched roof sounded very loud.

“My servants who failed me have been punished,” said Yamuna, his memory filling with the sound of the demons’ screams as the earth pulled them down. “They will have no further opportunity to make such mistakes.”

“In the meantime, Avanasy is still alive, and the empress is still out of our control, and has her best advisor hurrying toward her,” sneered Chandra. “Excellently managed,
Agnidh
Yamuna. For all your machinations, you have accomplished exactly nothing.” Disgusted, he turned back toward the rain.

Yamuna held himself very still. They were not truly alone. Slaves still moved about the interior apartment. If any of those were ears for Samudra, they had already heard too much. It was very like Chandra to have forgotten such a salient fact at this moment.

“Son of the Throne,” said Yamuna, slowly and deliberately, so that Chandra turned one eye to look at him. “I must beg your leave to undertake a quest of my own.”
I must, for I must remain bound to you, whether I wish it or no. The gods have declared that your success is the determinant for my own
.

Chandra narrowed his eyes at Yamuna. His gaze flickered left, looking through the archways to the apartments beyond, this time noting the slaves who were there, and actually remembering which master they might truly serve. As he did, an unexpected smile flitted across his face, before his bland mask of disinterest and disdain settled back in place.

“Yes,” he said. “Undertake your quest. You have good leave.”

He settled himself back down to watch the steady fall of rain, and did not even look as Yamuna knelt to him and rose again to take his leave.

That flicker of a smile haunted Yamuna’s thoughts as he returned to his own apartments. It was a strange expression, sly and unfamiliar, and indicative of hidden thoughts.

Was it possible Chandra would attempt to plot his own coup while Yamuna was gone? It would be a disaster. It would ruin all. Chandra had no mind for subtlety. He was merely a petulant child who wanted his brother’s pretty toy. When the plot was discovered, which it would surely be, Samudra would have no choice but to execute his brother, and without Chandra, weak support that he was, Yamuna’s own plans would crumble.

But Avanasy must be stopped. The little empress could not be allowed to regain power in Isavalta. Alone, she was helpless, she had proven that often enough. But with a powerful and subtle sorcerer to aid her … Yamuna knew full well how that could make the weakest of men an enemy to be feared.

No. Without a servant he could trust, he himself must take care of Avanasy. There was no choice. He must go swiftly and swiftly return.

Yamuna proceeded through his outer apartments, paying no heed to the servants there, still putting them in order for their master. The innermost door he unlocked with a key and a word. He closed the door carefully behind himself.

This chamber was much less fine than the one where he worked in the Palace of the Pearl Throne. Arches and domes with their inlays of coral and ivory were here replaced by simple carvings of gray-and-red stone surmounted by a wooden dome with seven tiers, each tier, of course, dedicated to one of the Mothers. Yamuna did not spare them a thought.

The only furnishings in the chamber thus far were four chests which Yamuna had carried there himself. No other hand would touch them, as no other foot would tread in this place that was his alone. For the bare moment he stopped to think on it, he did not believe those who served him were sorry to obey this order.

Yamuna’s touch and five more words opened the first chest. There, packed in straw, were one quarter of his precious vials and bottles. Some glinted dully in the watery daylight. The most delicate, however, had been wrapped first in white linen.

Yamuna lifted one of the linen bundles out, brushing a few wisps of straw from the cloth. Inside lay a small faceted bottle, the color of garnet. If he peered closely through the translucent crystal, he could see the contents swirling and blurring like contained smoke.

Despite its wrapping and despite the warmth of the day, the sides of the bottle were cold to the touch.

A curse waited in that bottle, a curse made into a solid thing so that it did not have to be woven again, no more blood had to be shed, no detection had to be risked. The bottle simply had to be opened with the name of the one for whom the curse was intended. The closer one came, the more quickly this solid, pulsating thing would envelop them and suck away their fortunes, their good destiny, their love and, at last, their life. Applied to Avanasy, it would not kill at once. It would allow him to live, hobbled and increasingly impaired. His advice would sour, as would his commitments. If he reached Medeoan, he would do her more harm than good.

Yamuna reached for the bottle. As his fingers came within a hairsbreadth of its surface, he paused. Was it possible he had misinterpreted the scrying he saw in the sun wheel? What if it was the road he traveled, the violation of his sworn place and purpose, that would bring about his doom? The symbol of the broken chain could be intepreted in many ways. What if …

Yamuna sighed sharply. He had thought himself immune to such cowardly doubts. His sight was clear and his purpose was right. He knew well what he had seen, and there was no other interpretation of its meaning. It was only the old teachings of his youth that made him afraid now that he was so close to his goal.

Yamuna laid the bottle carefully inside a pouch of soft deerskin leather that he tied firmly about his neck. The pouch hung against the hollow of his throat. Already, he could feel its intense chill seeping through the leather wrapping. It was not a thing that was healthy to hold for long, but he must endure for the present.

He lifted out another jar. This one was alabaster, opaque and milk white. The stone was smooth to his eye, but strangely rough under his hands. It seemed almost wasteful to reach into his hoard twice like this, but this was the time against which he had laid by this stock of workings. He would spend it all in pursuit of his destiny. After that, it would no longer matter. He would, when his godhood was achieved, see what an infinitesimally small effort it had been.

Unlike the vial at his throat, the jar of alabaster was warm. He had bargained heavily for this jar when he was still a young man, giving away a small fortune and a large secret to possess it. The seal was of white clay engraved with symbols Yamuna could not read. Once it was opened, he would not be able to close it again, or duplicate what lay within. This jar was made by priests in the farthest of the southern islands who worshiped gods they would not name. Not even Yamuna could squeeze their secrets from them.

Setting the jar on the floor, Yamuna drew his knife and cracked the seal. Again, he hesitated. Was there something he had forgotten?

Yamuna shook his head angrily. What were these doubts that assailed him? Nothing had been forgotten. All preparations were complete.

He lifted the heavy lid. An odor of iron and old copper wafted up. He laid the lid aside. The jar brimmed with deep, red blood, still fresh and liquid, even though the jar had been sealed over two hundred years before.

Yamuna reached into the warm blood, and after a moment, his fingers found the soft treasure it concealed and nourished. He drew out a small bird, just barely fledged. It struggled hard against the clutch of his fingers to stretch its wings and gain its freedom.

It smelled of flesh, of blood and of heat. Its heart beat frantically against his hand.

Yamuna took the frightened nestling into his mouth and swallowed it whole.

A shock of pain ran through him so strong that he saw darkness and stars. Even Yamuna could not stand against the fire and doubled over, clutching his stomach. His bones snapped within him, the jagged ends rearranging. Yamuna clamped his jaw down to keep from crying out, and felt his teeth shatter and sink into his gums as his jaw lengthened and the flesh around it peeled away. His joints popped as they dislocated and reformed. Too many changes, too much pain. Yamuna roared in agony, even as he felt the first of the feathers pushed through his skin.

After that, he lost track of all but pain.

When the pain ended, Yamuna was gone. There was only a white crane huddled on the polished floor beside an alabaster jar, empty except for a thin coating of red-brown dust on its inner surface. The crane blinked and flopped its wings clumsily so it could stand on its slender legs. Strutting delicately, as was the nature of its kind, it stepped out onto the broad balcony. Heedless of the rain, the crane launched itself into the air. Wheeling on the wind, it flapped its great wings and turned toward the north.

Kacha reviewed the lists showing the levies of men with growing satisfaction. Barbarians these northerners might be, but that turned out to have its advantages. They were ever ready when it came to a fight. As they marched south, the army grew stronger. More lords arrived at the heads of columns of men, many of them trained, with letters and lists from their Lords Master, pledging their allegiance to the empress in this “great and long-overdue action.” All were placed under the command of officers of the House Guard, and the ranks swelled.

He had thought long and hard before deciding to lead the campaign himself. So much required careful control at the summer palace. But, he reasoned, if he hoped to continue to rule in his own name, he must prove his manhood. He could not be seen to be sitting idle while Isavaltan men went out to fight. So, he had crafted his permission from the empress to go and lead the troops, and had ridden out at their head.