Pyrebound - 2.2
Author: theredsheep

Chapter 2.2 – Pyrebound

There was, Ram realized, nothing he could do. Mother’s silver was gone, he was alone in the pyre, and if he ever tried to get his money back Kamenrag had dozens of heavily-armed allies to call on. He hurt all over, his shoulder most of all. But he was lucky. If he’d been hit with the blade of the sword instead of the hilt, he’d be just like Father now. For a whole thirty seconds, before he bled out in the alley.

All the same, there was no denying he was in bad shape. He had a vicious headache, a possibly broken shoulder, and no money, in a pyre where he knew only his reshmarked sister. Kamenrag would be haunting his every step, ready to shake him down or beat him up. He couldn’t even leave; what ship would be headed for Urapu in the next couple of days?

But his first step hadn’t changed. The sooner he saw Mana, the sooner he could get help, any help. He somehow got himself back on his feet, and stuffed his clothes and Mana’s shawl back into his bag. He couldn’t get it back over his shoulder; he’d have to carry it. Oh well.

He attracted plenty of startled glances as he staggered down the street, but no offers of help. Rather, the passersby tended to take one look and then back out of his way, avoiding eye contact. Likely they guessed that, if he’d been roughed up, he’d been roughed up by somebody official, and it was best not to get involved. Very sensible of them.

The shaded boulevard continued for five hundred feet before it came to a broad plaza with a pool at its center. On the left side of the pool stood a twelve-foot-tall statue of a long-bearded man in layered robes, holding up his hands to the heavens; on the right an armored man, carved in the same style, knelt and held up his sheathed sword with both hands. The Lugal, defender of the pyre, offered his service to the Ensi who gave it life. Ram wished the Lugal’s henchmen could be so friendly and accommodating.

Behind the kneeling statue was the palace of the Lugal himself, a rambling mass of towers and flat roofs of varying heights that took up the entire south side of the plaza. It was far bigger than any building Ram had ever seen at Urapu, but he looked away; the place would be swarming with flamekeepers, and he had business elsewhere.

Past the pool, the great street and its oaks continued on for another tenth of a mile, terminating in a thick, dome-topped tower whose purpose he couldn’t guess. To the left, past the Ensi’s statue, was the narrower—but still dispiritingly long—street that led to the Ensi’s home, the mighty Temple and beating heart of the pyre. At three hundred feet in height and half that in width, it dwarfed the Lugal’s silly little palace.

Ram had never felt more pathetically out-of-place than he did limping down that long street, past men and women in coats and gowns and jewelry that probably cost more per person than Father had made in his kindling and a half at Urapu. More imposing still was the décor: most of the way was lined with life-sized statues, dressed identically to the taller standing figure at the pool. That was Karagi himself; these were his descendants, a line that had never failed. Every ensi that had ever died to renew his fire stood in state here, painted with brilliant colors. There were at least a hundred of them; in four blooms, there would be one more. For now, the Ensi remained safely hidden within his temple.

The combined effect was not so much intimidating as terrifying. Every one of those frowning figures stood for a kindling—ten full blooms—of Karagene history. What was he, one battered hearth-brat, with all his concerns, to that? Why should a Temple that had stood so long even deign to notice him? But, he reflected, it probably made anyone else feel much the same way—unless they were horribly conceited.

He had to stop to rest several times along the way; his battered ribs didn’t like heavy breathing, and his head ached almost as badly as his shoulder now. It didn’t help that there was nothing but the statues to lean against, and nowhere to sit down. He kept going; if he let himself pass out here, there was no guessing where he’d wake up.

At the end of the street was the great stairway leading up to the Temple; a masterwork of masonry, it crossed its moat on three tilted arches, ending halfway up the Temple’s first tier—which was itself half the structure’s total height. Each of the remaining four tiers was half the height of the one below, creating a gradual taper up to the pillar of everlasting fire at the top.

The water below was painfully bright with reflected fire, illuminating the bejeweled murals on the Temple walls. The bottom tier was decorated with scenes of war; men with burning swords hacked down fleeing reshki, or shot arrows at the hideous shapes of winged bazu sorcerers and their monstrous servants. The upper tiers got more refined decorations: handmaidens and acolytes in procession. It took him an age to reach the stairs’ end, where only a single guard was posted. But not a flamekeeper; no intact man save the Ensi himself was allowed to remain in the Temple of Haranduluz for long. Instead it was defended by a murrush.

For all that Ram wore Tegnem’s sign, he’d never seen a live murrush before. This one, to judge by its size, was only a couple of centuries old. It sat back on its enormous haunches, resting its (relatively) slender front limbs and their heavy claws lightly on the pavement. The ocher scales on its back, and the top of its long, narrow head, had been overlaid with black iron plates, beaten on red-hot and allowed to cool in place. But not completely cooled; Ram could feel the heat coming off the creature from where he stood. And smell the caustic chemical stench from its innards. The floor was speckled with traces of the ash it had spit up.

Ram had heard that the pyre had murrush, who worked iron with their claws and teeth, or swallowed sand and blew out molten glass. There were no better craftsmen with earth, ore, sand, or stone. This one, however, had no such duties. It would never sleep, never move. And if anyone tried to sneak in, it would smash him to bits, and eat the bits.

Where to begin? “I am Rammash im-Belemel ta-Urapu ni-Karagi,” he gasped at it.

“I am Nusun,” it rumbled back. “What is your purpose here?”

“My sister,” he said. “She’s a handmaiden here. I came to visit. I brought her a present, too. It’s, uh …” He looked helplessly at the bag in his left hand; he couldn’t work his right arm to open it. No doubt he was making a fool of himself, but it was very hard to think straight under those beady red eyes. Murrush never needed to blink.

“Your sister. Her name?”

“She is known. You may pass.”

He stood astonished for only a second, then hurried on before the beast could change its mind. It was hard not to cower as he walked by it. But—“Pardon me, Master Nusun. Do you know where the junior handmaidens live?”

“I do not,” it replied, still staring straight down the stairway. Murrush were not known for their social skills.

“Oh,” he said lamely, and carried on through the doorway directly behind it.

The corridors within were suffused with the warm temple-light. Presumably there were shafts carrying the light down from above somewhere. Ram got all of twenty paces in before he could go no further; a middle-aged acolyte stumbled across him two minutes later, sitting with his back against the wall. He was as gangling and chubby as any other acolyte, but had an unusually friendly expression fixed to his face. “Dear me,” he said, leaning over, “what’s this? Are you quite all right, sweetheart?”

Ram was pretty sure he’d just been called ‘sweetheart,’ but was far too sore to bother making anything of it. “Shoulder,” he moaned.

“Ah, me,” the acolyte said with a knowing air, “had a run in with the boys, have we? They’ve got some nasty tempers. Come along, now.” He put his arms around Ram’s torso and hauled him upright with a grunt. “Oof! You’re a big one! Been eating well, I expect. Now, let Gelibara take a look. Which shoulder, darling?”

Wondering if he had gone delirious, he pointed to his right shoulder with his left hand, nearly dropping his bag in the process.

“Thank you, love. Now, let’s roll up the sleeve for just a tic—hmm, hmm. Oh, is that all the bother? We’re just a touch out of joint. Give us just a second, and—ah!”

“Aaaaaahhh!” Ram echoed, much louder and in a very different tone.

“Now, now, there’s no need to make a fuss. Move it around for us, there’s a dear.” Ram obeyed; it was only a bit sore. “Lovely! Now, what have you got for us?” The acolyte plucked the bag right out of Ram’s hand and looked through it. He gasped, held up the mantle—which was somewhat the worse for being dropped in an alleyway and possibly stepped on—and exclaimed, “But this is precious!” He beamed, as though Ram had just sewn the thing himself. “Now, don’t tell me. Who’s it for? Hmm. Would you be Erimana’s brother, dearie?”

Ram nodded, grateful that he wasn’t expected to talk much, even if the man was a little louder than he’d have liked at the moment.

“Oh, she’ll be thrilled!” he squealed, clapping his hands. “Come along.”

Gelibara—was that his name?—took his arm and pulled him down a long series of straight passages and short flights of stairs, past any number of deserted rooms. Ram peeked inside one, but saw only a lot of enormous jars. The acolyte yammered at him all the while of how Mana was doing, what a special darling she was, how many little friends she had … after the seventh or eighth turn, Ram grew aware of a tumult of squeals and scuffling noises in the distance, and realized they were headed toward it. He had only a few seconds to brace himself before Gelibara pulled aside a broad curtain, and they were nearly bowled over by the full cacophony of forty or fifty little girls at play.

The room was large, perhaps fifty feet to a side, and lit by a shaft pouring down light from the very center of its ceiling. At the moment, however, that was superfluous, because every one of the dozens of six- to twelve-bloom-old girls in the room was producing plenty of light for herself. For some—mostly the littlest ones—this took the form of golden balls bobbing over their heads and following them around wherever they went. Others had orbiting swarms of smaller, multicolored lights; a few were ostentatiously pretending to juggle theirs.

One whole wall was being “painted” with living pictures by a pack of older girls, who made a line of graceful female figures dance about it, accompanied by frolicking animals, as they sang a tune. Another horde, perhaps fifteen strong, were stampeding in circles around the hall, ducking and dodging to avoid the luminous spheres they threw at each other. Ram couldn’t tell if there were teams, or if it was all against all; any group of girls so boring as to stand still and talk was fair game to be used as a shield by the little savages.

From time to time a ball would hit a girl, or a wall, and explode in a shower of white sparks—but it never did any harm, and the total number of balls never seemed to go down. Most of the time, the person hit was an innocent bystander, who completely ignored it. The lone adult in the room was a single elderly handmaiden with scorch marks on her white robe; she leaned against a wall brushing her hair, looking up from time to time to snap a warning or an order at a passing girl.

For a long time, Ram could only stand and gape, then abruptly realized it was making his headache worse and turned away. “Are they always like this?” he asked Gelibara.

“Oh, goodness, no,” laughed the eunuch. “Meals tend to slow them down a bit. And you wouldn’t want to see them at bedtime, not at all.”

Ram thought a bit, then opened his mouth to ask a question. Unfortunately, he never got the chance to ask it, and soon forgot what it was, because at that exact moment one of the balls of light came swooping around the nearest clot of chattering girls and exploded in his face.

He spent the next several minutes staggering about with his hands over his eyes, letting out a steady stream of the kind of words he probably wasn’t supposed to be saying around children that age. When his vision finally cleared, he found himself near the center of the hall, surrounded by the whole army of junior handmaidens standing in a loose ring. Several pointed and giggled. The old lady, however, had her hands on her hips, and did not look at all inclined to giggle. Though she might point.

“Sorry?” Ram offered weakly.

Before the crone could say anything back, one of the smallest and fattest of the girls stepped forward from the circle to Ram’s right. “Brother?” she said, in a slurred voice. Ram turned his head just in time to see her dash forward with a shriek; he caught a glimpse of snarled black hair shortly before she thumped into him, squeezing his abused ribs hard enough to bring tears to his eyes.

She took a long time to let go; Ram looked down at her glowing face, as broad, flat, and squinty-eyed as he remembered it, with a huge grin stretching her little mouth as far as it would go. It was a human enough face, whatever they said at the hearth. “Hi, Erimana,” he said, trying to sound cheerful. “I brought you a new mantle.”