Throne of Ruins (The Powers of Amur Book 5) Read online

  “Yes, my lord and king,” Nakhur said with an awkward bow. “I can help you.”

  “Come,” Navran said. He gestured to his guard. “Dastha, call for Bhudman as well.”

  The guard moved to confer with the messenger waiting at the entrance to the throne room. Nakhur approached the throne and stood at Navran’s right, looking down at the open leaves.

  “The book of the Powers of Amur, with their secret names,” he began.

  Nakhur paused and looked around. Nothing happened. Daladham let out a pent-up breath.

  “Is something wrong?” the king asked.

  “No,” Nakhur said. “But last time I read it, there was an… unusual reaction.”

  Navran looked at all of them. “Something you should tell me?”

  His gaze settled on Daladham as the eldest in the group. Daladham swallowed and bowed to the king again. “Navran-dar, when Nakhur began to read this book aloud for the first time we were in the presence of the Emperor, Sadja-daridarya, and an Uluriya girl named Aryaji, a companion of Mandhi. Aryaji and the Emperor were there because, ah, they had both been afflicted by spirits and had spoken a prophecy together.”

  Navran straightened in his throne. “Spirits?”

  “Amashi,” Nakhur said.

  The king leaned forward attentively. “Go on.”

  “When the two prophets heard the words of the book, they both screamed, covered their ears, and told us that we should bring the book to Virnas to read it.”

  “Ah. So that’s why you came here.”

  “We believe, my lord and king, that the book of the thikratta will tell us what we need to know to defeat the Mouth of the Devourer.”

  “There is one here,” Navran said.

  “A book?”

  “No,” Navran said. “A prophetess.”

  Daladham’s eyes grew wide.

  Amabhu suppressed a laugh. “Did you forget, Daladham-dhu? Aryaji said as much. She and Sadja-daridarya have a sister in Virnas.”

  “I should see her,” Caupana said quietly.

  Navran murmured. “Close the book,” he said to the saghada. “We aren’t going to read it today.”

  “We aren’t, my lord and king?” asked Nakhur. He seemed disappointed.

  “No,” Navran said. “The book is important, but I don’t need to hear it. You and Bhudman should study the book together with Daladham and the thikratta.”

  “Who is Bhudman?” Daladham asked.

  “The chief of the saghada in Virnas,” Navran said. “He’ll be here shortly. Where are you staying?”

  “We only just arrived, my lord and king. Last night we stayed in a guesthouse.”

  Navran shook his head. He rose to his feet. “Nakhur, I will send you to the house of Veshta, the House of the Ruin. It is purified suitably for a saghada. Daladham-dhu, you and the thikratta may stay with Yavada-kha, my father-in-law, in the estate which he has in the city. And you may all meet with Bhudman at Veshta’s house to study the book.”

  “I must see the prophetess,” Caupana said insistently.

  “Which you will,” Navran said, “Because she’s Veshta’s wife.”

  * * *

  Veshta’s wife turned out to be a young woman with long, wispy hair, neatly tied up in the Uluriya style and covered with a gauzy white scarf. She had the wide hips and heavy breasts of a woman who had recently given birth, and she carried a swaddled two-month-old infant in a sling over her shoulder. She looked at Daladham and the two thikratta with barely-concealed terror.

  “I vouch for them, Srithi,” Bhudman said in a gentle, calming tone as the three of them took seats. They sat on stools around a small pool in the center of Veshta’s stone-paved courtyard, shaded by palms. Daladham spent his time craning his neck to look at the house’s furniture and ornaments. It was clearly a very old house, wealthy but not extravagantly so, with stone foundations that looked as ancient as anything he had ever seen in Virnas. These Uluriya didn’t do badly for themselves, it seemed.

  Pity about the woman, though. Daladham had met Veshta briefly to talk about their errand, and the man was clearly unhappy about his wife’s membership in this fellowship of prophets. But they had the king’s word and came with the elderly saghada Bhudman, which was enough to get them entrance into the house.

  Srithi looked from Bhudman to the thikratta again. “They’re clean, you mean,” she said.

  “They have washed according to our customs,” Bhudman said patiently. “They are not purified as worshippers of Ulaur, but you may approach them.”

  “I’m not sure I understand,” the woman said. “Why are we here? The amashi hasn’t troubled me since Navran-dar gave me the pansha.”

  She gestured at the white scarf tied over her head, without which Daladham would not have known the meaning of the word pansha.

  “The pansha is the problem,” Caupana said. His voice was low and smooth, and he stared at Srithi with calm patience. Amabhu fidgeted beside him.

  “Problem?” Srithi looked at the tall, bald thikratta, blinking rapidly as if she couldn’t quite understand what he said or how he came to be in her house. “I’m sorry, um—”

  “Caupana,” the thikratta said.

  “Thank you, Caupana. Why is it a problem?”

  “The voice of the amashi guides us. We should not stop up its mouth.”

  “I’m sorry,” Srithi said, looking around nervously. “I don’t think I can… where’s Veshta?”

  “Coming,” Bhudman said. “He and Nakhur said they would join us in a moment.”

  Srithi ran her hand along the sleeping form of the infant in its sling. “I just don’t understand. Why do you need me?”

  “The Powers have given us three prophets,” Caupana said. “The first is Sadja-daridarya.”

  “The Emperor of Amur,” Srithi said, her incredulity evident in her tone.

  Caupana merely nodded. “The second is an Uluriya girl of Davrakhanda named Aryaji. And you are the third. We shall need guidance from all three of you to face the Mouth of the Devourer.”

  “And how do you know that?” Srithi said.

  “Because both Sadja-daridarya and Aryaji said they knew of you. But you closed the mouth of the amashi with your pansha.”

  Srithi tugged at the edge of the scarf. “But I’m a mother.”

  “So?”

  The young woman looked at Caupana with an perplexed expression.

  Daladham looked at her sympathetically. He felt about the same as her, but he’d had a few more weeks to get used to the idea. “I wouldn’t believe it myself,” he said, “if I hadn’t been there when the Emperor and Aryaji began to prophecy—”

  Srithi shuddered. She looked off to the side of the courtyard. “Veshta is coming,” she said in relief.

  A moment later Veshta joined them, a garrulous high-spirited man with a small pot-belly and a graying beard. He greeted them all warmly and bowed to Daladham and the two thikratta, then he gestured for Nakhur to take one of the stools around the central pool. They were arranged now in two identical trios: Daladham and the two thikratta on one side, with Veshta, Bhudman, and Nakhur on the other side. Srithi stood awkwardly in the center.

  “So you had a few minutes to speak to my Srithi,” he said pleasantly. “What have you understood?”

  “I want her to take off her pansha and let the amashi speak through her,” Caupana said bluntly.

  Veshta’s pleasantness evaporated. He looked as if Caupana had choked him.

  “You see that she has a nursing infant,” he said to Caupana.

  “Yes,” Caupana said. “It doesn’t matter.”

  “And if she has a fit while she’s holding the child? She’ll pitch herself down on the floor and crush my son underneath her.”

  “Exactly,” Srithi said. Her fingers ran nervously over the infant in its sling. “That’s why I begged Navran-dar to give me a blessed pansha.”

  “That will not happen,” Caupana said. “Both Aryaji and Sadja-daridarya said that the spirit’s
voice became less overpowering as they grew used to it. And I will teach her the disciplines of the thikratta.”

  A moment of silence. Then Amabhu and Veshta said in unison, “What?”

  “She has the gift of farsight,” Caupana said. “Otherwise she could not have heard the voice of the amashi in the first place.”

  Srithi stared at Caupana in horror. “I don’t have farsight,” she said in a tone that made farsight sound like leprosy.

  “And a woman cannot become a thikratta,” Amabhu shouted.

  Veshta slapped his knee. “Least of all my wife!”

  Caupana stared at them as serenely as a lamb. “With only a little of the thikratta’s discipline she will be able to bear the amashi’s voice without harm. And if she exercises the farsight within her, she will see and hear things that none of us could know otherwise. Navran-dar would do very well with a farseer.”

  Amabhu shook his head and rose to his feet. “No, no, Caupana. First, we have no time. The thikratta’s disciplines take years to hone—”

  “So practice should begin immediately.”

  “And what are requirements of the thikratta’s discipline? Meditation, fasting—”

  “A woman who nurses should not fast,” Veshta added.

  “—and virginity,” finished Amabhu.

  A moment of silence.

  “Well it’s a little too late for that,” Srithi said, with a nervous laugh. She squeezed the sleeping boy at her hip.

  “In any case, she’s a woman,” Amabhu said. “And a woman cannot be trained as a thikratta.”

  “Women were thikratta in the days of the Seven Kingdoms,” Caupana said. “You know that as well as I do.”

  Amabhu made a face. “It’s been hundreds of years. There were never any women in Ternas.”

  “We are not in Ternas.”

  A grunt of acknowledgement.

  “Meditation can be learned,” Caupana said, counting their objections on his fingers. “Fasting occurs by degrees, and there is a degree of fasting which a mother may take up while still feeding her child. And virginity—”

  “I remind you that this is my wife,” Veshta broke in.

  “Then perhaps you should choose whether your enjoyment is more important than her service to Navran-dar.”

  Veshta gave him a dark look.

  Daladham cleared his throat and stood. He put a hand on Amabhu’s shoulder and made the young thikratta sit down. “Caupana,” he said, “let’s be circumspect before we impose a vow of abstinence on a young woman and her husband.” He glanced over at Veshta. “How many children do you have?”

  “Two,” Veshta said cautiously. “The older girl is upstairs with my mother.”

  The customary greeting to follow that question was many more sons to you, but that seemed a little too pointed for the current discussion.

  Nakhur spoke up, the first time that he had spoken since joining them. “Perhaps we should let Veshta and Srithi consider what they wish to do. We came here to read the book of Ternas, not to recruit for the thikratta.” He gave Caupana a glance of reproof.

  “Yes, very well,” Veshta said, frustration and bafflement on his face. He rose from his stool and lay his hand on Srithi’s shoulder.

  “Bring us a table,” Bhudman said. “We will need to lay out the book.”

  Veshta waved for someone to help, and his boy-servant brought out a light and raised rattan table from the colonnade and set it between the stools. Bhudman touched Veshta’s forearm.

  “Don’t forget the friendship between Cauratha and Gocam,” he said.

  A flicker of pain crossed Veshta’s face. Without saying a word he straightened and left, and Srithi followed him.

  “Shall we bring out the book?” Daladham asked. He was anxious to read past the first sentence.

  Everyone assented. Amabhu took the book case and set it on the table, loosened the laces holding the case shut, and exposed the pages within. The dry leaves whispered together. Daladham came close, and he found Nakhur and Bhudman crowding closer to him.

  “Very old,” muttered Bhudman, the elder saghada next to him. “No wonder Navran-dar couldn’t read it.”

  “But if he’s read Ghuptashya, especially an older copy—”

  “Navran-dar couldn’t read at all when he became Heir,” Bhudman said gently. “He knows the saghada script as well as can be expected.”

  Daladham touched the page. “Well, I can’t read it at all. Bhudman, perhaps you’ll teach me.”

  “Perhaps,” Bhudman said.

  Nakhur drew in his breath sharply. “Only the saghada should know the secret script.”

  “These are strange times,” Bhudman said. “The Heir sits on the throne of Virnas, and the Emperor is driven out by a nameless man with a strange Power. Flexibility may be a virtue. Read it for us, Nakhur.”

  Nakhur gave Bhudman a distrustful look and began to read. “The book of the Powers of Amur, with their secret names and the names of their origins. Written by the dhorsha Haksha and the dhorsha Sujaur, knowledgeable and venerable among the servants of Ulaur.”

  Nakhur paused. “That’s odd. Perhaps I read it wrong.”

  “It seems clear enough to me,” Daladham said. He was actually surprised—for a book in such an obscure script, he expected the language itself to be more obscure. “The language is easier than the language of the prayers.”

  Bhudman looked at Daladham with a bit of curiosity. “Do you find the language of the prayers of the dhorsha to be difficult?”

  “One learns it as a child in the dhorsha house,” Daladham said with a shrug. “But to those not trained, the prayers of the sanctum are troublesome.”

  “So I’m told that it is with us,” Bhudman said. He rose a little ways out of his seat. “It’s a curious fact about the Laws of Ghuptashya. The first two books, Chronicles and Precepts, are simple to understand, but Songs, the third book, is quite difficult. And of course the sacrificial prayers are all contained in Songs. I’ve often wondered—”

  Nakhur cleared his throat. “Bhudman, honored saghada, we are here to read the thikratta’s book, not to discuss the language of the liturgy.”

  Daladham felt a sting of disappointment. He was warming up to Bhudman. A good, crunchy discussion of history, language, and ritual was the sort of thing he liked. But the book would hopefully be crunchy enough.

  “In any case, you must have missed the most remarkable thing about the opening lines,” Nakhur said. “The authors are called dhorsha, but they call themselves servants of Ulaur.”

  “I noticed that,” Amabhu spoke up.

  “You said the book was old,” Bhudman said. “Now we know how old.”

  “We do?” Nakhur asked.

  “It predates the time when the priests of the Uluriya were called saghada, obviously.”

  “But how old is that?”

  Bhudman blinked. “Do you want me to tell you the year?”

  Nakhur shook his head in frustration. “But even in Ghuptashya whose who perform the sacrifices are called saghada.”

  “Then clearly this book predates Ghuptashya.”

  There was a moment of quiet. Daladham looked at the book in wonder. “Surely it’s been copied…”

  “Yes,” Amabhu said. “The original is probably dust. But the monks of Ternas make faithful copies every time a book in our library nears the end of its days.”

  “Still,” Daladham said. He looked at Nakhur apologetically. “Nakhur, you told me that Ghuptashya was written a generation after the fall of the Kingdom of Manjur.”

  “Yes,” Nakhur murmured.

  “If this book is older than Ghuptashya, then it dates to—”

  “Manjur’s time,” Nakhur said. He sounded strangely sullen.

  “Perhaps not as old as Manjur himself,” Bhudman added, pulling at the edge of his beard. “But before the fall of his kingdom.”

  Daladham took a deep breath. He glanced over at the two thikratta, Amabhu on the edge of his stool, Caupana as motionless an
d rooted as a tree. “What sort of treasures have you brought us?”

  “The ones we need,” Caupana said.

  “Shall I keep reading?” Nakhur asked.

  Bhudman tapped on the edge of the table. “Go on.”

  Daladham and Nakhur read through a dozen lines of introductory material without further interruption. Daladham listened attentively, noting here and there bits of language that were obscure or unusual, though there were fewer of them than he expected. The crackle of dried palm-leaf pages mingled with the glittering of sunlight on the surface of the pool. Nakhur turned a page and took a deep breath.

  “These are the names of the great Powers of Amur: Am, Jakhur, Ashti—”

  “Peculiar,” Daladham broke in.

  “Eh?” Nakhur said. He set the leaf down. “The names of those Powers are well-known.”

  “But Ashti should always be named immediately after Am,” Daladham said. “The Lord is not separated from the Lady.”

  “Perhaps they were not yet Lord and Lady,” Bhudman suggested.

  Daladham hesitated. A half-remembered conversation that he’d had with Lejani in Davrakhanda stirred in his memory. “Perhaps,” he said. “The temple mother of the Ashtyavarunda told me once, in passing, that their lineage recalls a time when Ashti was not yet the consort of Am. And even among the Amya, in the oldest invocations Am’s name appears alone.”

  Bhudman nodded, a slight smile appearing on his face. “Further proof, if we needed it, of the age of the text.”

  Nakhur cleared his throat. “It’s possible, of course that the text has merely been corrupted.”

  Amabhu wagged his finger. “The thikratta do not make mistakes when they copy a book.”

  “Nonsense,” Nakhur said. “Everyone makes mistakes. We saghada even have a prayer dedicated to emending mistakes in a copy of the Law.”

  Amabhu laughed. “If you saghada make so many mistakes that you need a prayer to commemorate the fact—”

  “Quiet, children,” Bhudman said, clapping his hands together gently. He assumed a relaxed, seated version of the Moon posture. “Let us assume the text is correct. In any case, we have no second copy with which to compare this one, so on what basis can we call it mistaken? Nakhur, keep reading.”