Pyrebound - 14.1
Author: theredsheep

Fourteen: A Bondsman of Fate – Pyrebound

The philosophy of ethics and justice takes a streamlined form in the Dominion. With so many evils so near at hand, the question of the highest good appears simple and obvious. Political science is likewise straightforward; most pyres are effectively dictatorships elected and supported by a hereditary aristocracy. That this aristocracy expresses itself in multiple ways—the flamekeeper military elite, the acolytes of the civil service, and the handmaidens, as well as the primarily economic power of the great families themselves—does not make it any less a closed group. Good government is said to focus on balancing the competing claims of these varied power blocs to avoid conflict, and conceive of no greater good beyond the maintenance of order.

The mountaintop was as dry and desolate as before, a desert of bare rock and catsmoss waiting for a rain that would never come from a roiling black cloud that would never go away. Ram stood blinking in the evening light, looking at the fire of Dul Misishi and wondering what it felt like to burn. All his memories, all the lives he carried inside him, ceased at that last tantalizing, terrifying moment. At least, the lucky ones did. Many of them died much sooner.

Was three blooms such a very short time? Or would it be better to get it over with? “Imbri. Do you think the bazuu will win, in the end?”

“They haven’t won yet, and it’s been too many kindlings to count. I wouldn’t worry about that if I were you.”

“Then what should I worry about? Help me out here. See me through these next few blooms, and I’ll do what I can to get you a way to live. Your help is worth a house with an herb garden to me.”

“Hah! Listen to you promise what you haven’t got. What about Darun? What are you going to bribe her with? She’s not staying in my house, I can tell you that.”

“You leave Darun to me. And I’ll keep my promise, if you still want it.” Dul Karagi was calling him. It was long past time that he went home.

“I don’t know that I do, anymore. But I can stick around a bit longer. This trip was interesting.”

“Interesting? Maybe.” He looked up; a swollen drop of black shab-matter was slowly descending from the cloud. “This isn’t going to be a very smooth ride, is it?”

The drop fell, rolling over and engulfing them. Between one eyeblink and the next they were both wrapped in a hundred arms of dark dust and liquid muscle, and then they were thrown forward, bouncing and rolling inside a half-made sphere with a gleaming blue eye at its center. The world spun around them in streaks of brown and grey and blue, but only for an instant. Then the last traces of dust caught up and patched the outer shell, blocking out every trace of natural light.

It was perhaps for the best that Ram couldn’t see where they were going; he and Imbri were suspended inside a twilight mass like the yolk in an egg, but he could tell they were moving faster than anything on the ground had a right to go. Nearly as fast as a skybarque, the liquid stuff of the shab’s core dulling the bumps and jostles to a uniform rattle that Ram could feel in his bones. Now they were rolling downhill, picking up speed. Ram had only the feeling of their acceleration to guide him; they were turning far too quickly to track their path against the spirits.

With a sudden bump they lifted into the air, and the shab disintegrated around them. Absurdly, Ram screamed—what was he afraid of? Death?—but the shriek was only half-out before the shab reformed, snapping out nightmare wings to catch their fall in a glide. He caught a confused glimpse of the dreary brown world before it dissolved again, and they plunged to the ground in a black fog.

The sphere reformed around them, and he was as blind as Imbri again. He heard, as if from a distance, a splash of water, then an abrupt lurch as they began rising into the air again. But not for long. With another crash they landed once more, spinning sideways in an interminable cartwheel down the long slope of the mountain.

He couldn’t find his bearings long enough to think or fear, until it slowed, and relaxed, and with a final twitch disgorged both of them onto the level ground outside the cave entrance. Ram felt a powerful urge to take Beshi and slice the damned thing right through the locus—but by the time he had got his breath and his balance back, it was halfway up the slope again, its lone blue eye laughing in retreat. He was forced to content himself with a potent stream of curses. Beside him, Imbri rose to hands and knees so she could vomit into the dust.

Reppi’s haranu was still some distance up the rocky slope they’d just descended in less than five minutes. Presumably the flamekeepers were with her. Ram didn’t care to wait for them. They’d make it back on their own, and he didn’t need their help. “Imbri, are you all right?”

“Hell, no.” She wiped her mouth with the back of her hand, and pulled her hood back down over her face. “But I’ll live. It’s only the second time I’ve done that.”

And you volunteered to do it again? But he didn’t say it, only leaned down to help her to her feet. They had a long trek ahead yet, up through the dark tunnels. At least Ram’s dulsphere hadn’t smashed when the shab dropped them.

Without Reppi’s help, Ram had to hack through each of the three grates with Beshi. He was most of the way through the second when Imbri said, “What are we going to tell them, when we get back?”

“The truth. Shimrun is dead, and I’m Ensi.” He said it more sharply than he meant to; he was tempted to reach ahead and break the news via Mana or Rinti, so he wouldn’t have to hang around watching how everybody took it. But he had no right to play puppeteer just to indulge his own cowardice. There was no telling what kind of monster he’d wind up as if he started doing things like that.

“No, not about Shimrun. We came this way to get answers from the bazuu. What do we say the bazuu told us?”

“Oh. That.” He thought a moment. “They don’t need to know we learned anything at all. It won’t help them, and they won’t thank us. Assuming they believe it at all.”

“I would at least tell someone. Even if we can’t use it now, it’s not the kind of thing we should risk being forgotten.”

“Not much chance of that. As soon as I die, the next Ensi will get that dumped on him with the rest of the mess. I’ll tell him ahead of time, if I can, so it’s not such a shock. But the only way this won’t get remembered is if Dul Karagi doesn’t kindle at all. And if that happens—“

“Okay, I see what you mean. I still want to tell someone.”

“Go ahead, if you want. I won’t stop you. I’m going to worry about the problems I had already; I’ll have a hard enough time fixing those.” He wanted to leave a less humiliating memory behind for whoever came next. That part of him would keep living long after he, and everyone who knew him, was dead.

Their reappearance at Zasha’s house caused some stir—they hadn’t expected him back until the following evening, if they’d expected him back at all. Ram accepted a series of enthusiastic embraces from Darun, Mother, Father, and Mana, but refused to discuss the trip with any of them.

“Where’s your husband at?” he asked Tirnun. “Something important has happened, and he needs to know as soon as possible.”

“Has it?” She looked him in the eye, pursing her lips. “He won’t like being interrupted.”

“He’ll forgive you for this. Trust me.”

Tir shook her head, but said, “Jezrimin? Could you escort Rammash back to Zasha’s office, please?”

As predicted, Zasha was not happy to hear a knock at his office door. When Ram came in, his patron sat at a desk buried in heaps of papers, looking torn as to which he should scowl at first. “What are you after now?” he snapped, without looking up. “I thought I’d be rid of you a bit longer than this. Don’t tell me something else has gone wrong?”

“Depends how you look at it. Shimrun is dead. I’m Ensi now.”

Zasha froze midway through crumpling up a sheet of official-looking vellum. “Really. How?”

“Mannagiri killed him around noon today.”

Zasha set the vellum down, smoothing it out again. “Killed him with cause?”

“Self-defense. Shimrun tried to assassinate him.”

“Idiot. Well. I wish I could say this changes things.”

“It does! Just fly me closer to Karagi and I can send them a message with a handmaiden. They don’t have anyone else indwelt, so it’s either accept me or take their chances with whoever the pyre picks at the—what? Why are you looking at me like that?”

Zasha leaned back in his chair. “You will have a hard time persuading anyone to fly you anywhere at the moment. Dul Shebnai, just down the river, blasted the last skybarque we sent them out of the sky.”

“They’ve revolted too? I heard they had riots, but—“

“Oh, I doubt they revolted. Suppose the Shebnaya had their own Mannagiri now. Why would he be afraid of skybarques?”

“Maybe he’s not afraid. Maybe he’s just a hateful bastard who likes killing people. I don’t know anything about who they keep in their temple.”

“Possible. The more likely explanation is that they have repulsed, at great cost, one attempt to overthrow their government, and are now desperate to avoid another disaster. They won’t likely have any good idea where the last barque came from, so they play safe by raking the sky.”

“So land a second barque way up the river, out of reach, and send a delegation to talk with them on foot.”

“Which is exactly what we are doing, not being complete idiots, thank you. But it will take time to allay their fears and come up with a plan of action to deal with the situation.”

“The situation being … what? I’ve been out of touch.”

“The situation, as far as anyone can tell by interrogating a handful of terrified boatmen, is that most of the Teshalun is in a panic, preparing for insurrection or bazu subversion or any number of unspecified and unimagined dangers. Your erstwhile ally is encouraging the chaos by playing river-pirate—thank you so much for giving him that idea—while several bands of moonchildren have come up with various innovative and obnoxious ways to profit from the general disorder. And there has never been a better time to be a blackband.”

Ram decided not to point out that he’d been asking for just this sort of upheaval. “Mannagiri might be in charge of those moonchildren now. I’m pretty sure Shennai and Pimna are still alive, so if you give me a little time I might be able to check what’s going on there.”

“Oh, take all the time you like. I am, as you see, not short of things to do.” He waved a hand at the mass of papers. “It is rather difficult to keep everyone in this pyre paid and fed when you can’t sell anything to anyone. In a few tetrads, matters might settle down to the point where anyone cares about something as trivial as the mastery of the fifth pyre down the Teshalun. In the meantime, I’d prefer that you stay out of the way, and avoid making any more problems for me.”

Taking the very obvious hint, Ram retreated to his room—carefully and gutlessly avoiding Mother’s eye in the sitting-room—and sat down on the bed. Sooner or later, he’d have to face up to it all. He had the fears of scores of imminent deaths bottled up inside him, ready to offer sympathy the moment he let down his guard.Ram saw no reason to rush into it.

He shut his eyes, and peered out at the vast constellation of spirits around the Dominion. He could tell he’d never stretch his consciousness as far as Dul Karagi itself. No matter how he strained, the warm, familiar cluster of lights refused to come into focus.

There were five Karagene haranuu remaining at Dul Atellu. He could tell them apart easily enough, even if they were a bit vague with distance. Three were dulspheres, looted from the pyre or its hearths; they would be useless, stuffed away in a bag somewhere. The other two were also close together, and not moving much. He leaned in, focusing on one until it grew in his awareness, leaning closer, closer, closer …

Something in him tipped over, and he was Pimna. Not entirely; he was too far from her to sense everything clearly. But he now sat on the floor of a dismal chamber, lit by a spark of light of his own making, while the body of Rammash im-Belemel was a faraway distraction at the edge of the world. It would only take the slightest effort to fly back to that room, and he wanted to. The room was dim and drab, its colors muted, like it was submerged in muddy water. He couldn’t even tell where the door was. Only Shennai, sitting in silence against the far wall, came through clearly, lit by the fire inside her.

Shennai, it’s Ram, he thought. But Pimna said nothing. “Shennai, it’s Ram.” No good. Say ‘Shennai, it’s Ram.’

“Shennai, it’s Ram,” Pimna parroted.

Shennai lifted her head. “Hello, Ram. I was wondering when you would make an appearance.”

“I’m sorry to use Pimna like this.”

“It isn’t as if you have any other option, so spare yourself the effort of apologies. We have endured, and seen, much worse.”

“Right. You already knew Shimrun was dead, then?”

“Mannagiri sent one of his girls to tell us some hours ago, then hauled us down here.”

“You’re in his temple?” Shennai nodded. “As prisoners?”

“I believe so. We effectively were already; we have only been downgraded to less comfortable housing. The lock on the door is only a seal against tampering, so to speak. We could burn through it in minutes. But it is not as if we could go anywhere.”

“I don’t think I’ll be able to get you out any time soon. In fact, we might need your help; nobody else knows anything about what’s going on in that pyre.”

“We know very little, you realize. Very likely you have seen more, through your inheritance, than we have.”

“Yeah, all filtered through what Shimrun noticed. What’s your take?”

Shennai shrugged. “We are the captives of a selfish and demented boy who wishes to spend the last blooms of his life devouring the pyre that raised him. At the rate he is going, it simply won’t last that long. Eventually, Dul Atellu will be a desert, and everyone here will die.”

“Then what does he want you for?”

“Hostages, perhaps? Or a means of communicating without trouble. It may be that he has not thought the matter through that far. His spirit will discourage him, as long as it can, from harming indwelt women. He has food to spare, for a time. Now, what do you need us to do for you, Ensi?”

“What can you do? You can’t escape, but can you talk with the women who feed you? Gather information that way?”

“We can try. I don’t think he controls them directly for such mundane tasks. Is there anything specific you would like to learn?”

“I don’t even know what to ask, I’m so ignorant. Start with what he did to the other two pyres, Natati and Shebnai. That’ll be the most immediately useful. We’re trying to re-establish contact.”

“Very well. If you don’t mind my saying so, it wouldn’t be helpful for Mannagiri to come by and overhear us, so if there isn’t anything else, I suggest we part for the moment.”

It made sense. He let go, and found himself back in the familiar world of full light and color, with the Misishi firelight shining in through the window at the head of his bed. The transition was jarring, so much so that he took a moment to realize Darun was leaning against the wall in the corner.

“You all right, lover? You’ve been sitting there mumbling under your breath for the last five minutes. I hope you’re not cracking up.”

“I’m fine,” he said, rubbing at his neck. He’d been sitting unnaturally stiffly.

“You’re really not,” she reproved, coming forward into the light. Her burns were much better now, but he doubted she’d ever be really pretty again. Only an ordinary kind of ugly. He’d take it. “Sorry, I’ve been kind of a lousy mistress, haven’t I? My man’s falling apart, and I’m not doing a thing about it. Shame on me.”

“Aren’t you tired of that joke yet, Darun? If you’re not my wife yet, you might as well be.”

“That’s awful presumptuous of you,” she said, and sat down next to him. “But you’re probably right. What the hell. I’m not going to get a better offer in the next kindling or so.”

It was the ideal moment for telling her. He opened his mouth, then shut it. Darun didn’t seem to notice.

She sighed, and leaned against him. She was trembling, ever so faintly. “We’ve … got a little situation here, Ram.”

“No, that’s not what I mean. Hell. I’m getting this all cocked up, aren’t I? It’s, uh, it’s happened before, don’t get me wrong. And we always dealt with it, and it was fine. And, and I know what I said, but I don’t think I want to handle it the same way, and you know, it’s a totally different situation this time. You weren’t around before. And yeah, it’s a really, really shitty time for this, and to tell you, but it’s really not going to get any better if I wait … “

“Darun, what are you on about?”

“I figured you need to know first, right? It’s only fair. But Tir is so damn nosy, and you know, it’s her dream come true. She’s probably suspicious already. So, you know, I’m sorry to put this on you. But I’ve got to. Okay?”

“What have you done now, Darun? The sooner I know, the sooner we can fix it, so spit it out.”

She gave a nervous laugh. “Uh, that’s the thing. You can’t really fix this one. And I don’t know if it was all my fault exactly—for once—so let’s be fair—”

“Right. Babbling.” She sighed again. “Here’s the thing, lover: it’s a shitty time, like I said, and I feel like a total bitch just dumping it on you like this, but I’ve been counting and figuring it backwards and forwards, over and over, and I’m pretty sure I’m … pregnant.” She mumbled the last word.

Ram froze in place, waiting for the words to make sense. When they finally hit, it was too much. The full weight of his dead hopes fell on him all at once, and he burst into tears like a child.