King of Ashes

  Hatu hesitated, then said, ‘I’m not sure how to answer, sir. There were girls who drew my eye, a few who I would have liked to have had sex with, and a few with whom I did.’ He tried to speak as if it was of no matter, afraid that to be caught out in a lie about women would be a bad outcome of this seemingly offhand discussion. Some part of him realised that no matter how casual a conversation with Zusara might seem, nothing he said was without significance. Hatu just hadn’t grasped what that significance was yet.

  Zusara said, ‘No matter. All things in their own time.’ He let out an audible sigh, then said, ‘What passes between a man and his wife may not be noble, but it is very important.’ He put his hand on Hatu’s shoulder. ‘This is why the common people of Coaltachin are like those of other nations: boy meets girl, they think they are in love, they marry and have children …

  ‘But between the Quelli Nascosti, marriages are arranged. Older, wiser men pick the wives of their sons, nephews, and grandsons. If the boy is an orphan, his master will decide for him.

  ‘It is done this way because the wife must make the husband strong, and the husband must make the wife strong in turn, matching two equally valuable, but different, strengths. It is too important to our future to leave such a choice to the whims of youthful feelings. Do you know why?’

  Hatu shook his head. ‘No, master.’

  ‘Because the greatest service we do for our kin, and our nation, is to make sure that we stay strong. Our children must be as strong, or stronger, than their parents.’

  Hatu was surprised when the master sighed audibly, revealing a hint of frustration. ‘At least that’s how it is supposed to be. There have been the occasional … bad choices.’

  Hatu was now completely confused. He failed to see the point of this conversation but said nothing.

  ‘So you have been with a woman?’ Hatu was pleased that in the torchlight, the master couldn’t see his blush and witness his embarrassment, but the question appeared rhetorical as Zusara laughed. ‘Village girls?’ Hatu nodded, furthering his deceit. He tried to reassure himself he was only being a little dishonest with Zusara.

  Zusara smiled as if remembering his own youth, then patted Hatu on the shoulder, turned, and resumed walking. ‘One of the hardest things for a boy to learn when becoming a man is to master his desires.

  ‘Some young men desire gold. Some desire power. Some desire drug-granted dreams or the pleasure of strong spirits. Other men cannot resist games of chance.’ He glanced back at Hatu as if ensuring he was listening. ‘Those who do not master such … cravings are … weeded out. They make a family weak.’

  Continuing their slow walk, Zusara nodded as he said, ‘Almost everyone desires the touch of another.’ He looked forward and shrugged. ‘Men, women, it doesn’t matter, it is the most common desire of all. Nature doesn’t care who you bed; nature just wants children.’ He chuckled. ‘Even those who seek out others like themselves, men seeking men, women with women … many of them desire someone to carry on their name.’ He nodded and added, ‘Some of the best people at raising children are like that.’ Then he shook his head slightly, as if confounded by the very topic he had raised. ‘In the end we can say this: had our parents not succumbed to their desire, we wouldn’t be here, would we?’

  ‘I think …’ Hatu began before he realised that he really didn’t know what to think. He looked at the master.

  ‘My point, boy, is that you must be cautious of desire and even more of attachments, of caring too much about those around you.’ He stopped again, turned, and regarded Hatu. ‘It is easy to forget you are not truly one of us.’

  Hatu stopped. ‘I do not understand, sir.’

  ‘No, you do not.’ Zusara studied the boy’s face, ‘You are a charge of the Quelli Nascosti. We cared for you, raised you, and taught you. But you are not one of us.’

  He was different; the single most powerful man in the nation had now openly acknowledged something that Hatu had known intuitively since he was young. He decided to give voice to the question that had nagged him most of his life: ‘Then who am I?’

  ‘That is what we will now attempt to find out,’ said Zusara, once again resuming their climb up the narrow track. ‘Fate has provided you with a different path, Hatu, but you will find that what we have taught you here will serve you wherever that fortune takes you.’

  ‘That is a lot to consider,’ Hatu said softly, almost a whisper.

  ‘This is indeed much for a young man to absorb,’ said Zusara, tapping Hatu on the shoulder. ‘Today shall be the last day you live as you have; with your manhood day approaching, this was soon to be true anyway, so what does it matter if you and I decide a few weeks early?’

  Hatu was still confused by Zusara’s rambling discourse but was now convinced that somewhere in all this discussion of men and women, family, and the rest lurked something very important to his future. He let go of the need to understand every phrase and word, and decided to wait for it to come together and make sense. He nodded to the old man.

  ‘Now, back to women.’ Zusara paused again and held up a finger to emphasise his point. Hatu stopped as well. ‘Women who give you sons … they are worth much. Wives …’ He sighed. ‘A man’s wife …’ Again he halted, as if still unsure where he wanted the talk to go. Finally, he took a deep breath and said, ‘Well, try not to care for a woman too much; it makes things difficult. It was a hard lesson I learned and passed along to my sons. Reza learned it best.’ He looked out at the horizon, as if lost for a moment in memory. Then he shrugged as if indicating something was implied there that Hatu didn’t understand. ‘Just try not to care; it makes hard choices easier.’

  As they started walking again up the hillside path, Hatu thought about the master’s wife and couldn’t imagine how the quiet, soft-spoken woman ever made Zusara’s life difficult.

  ‘You fall asleep in their arms and you get used to that’ – Zusara paused and let out a quiet sigh – ‘and that is where the difficulty begins. They whisper in your ear after dark …’ The old man waved a finger as if warding off some evil. ‘Therein lies the danger.’ Then his tone brightened. ‘Not all women are problems. Many do what they’re told without complaint. And there are a few who are strong enough to train; those girls are very valuable.’

  Without thought, Hatu said, ‘Hava.’

  Zusara blinked in the torchlight, then asked, ‘Who is Hava?’

  ‘A girl …’ He let his voice drop a bit. ‘She was the best fighter … as good as Donte, We are … were friends.’

  ‘Hmmm.’ Zusara looked at Hatu for a silent moment, then said, ‘You like her.’ It was not a question.

  ‘She’s a friend,’ he repeated, trying to make it sound matter-of-fact when he could barely hold his emotions in check at the mention of her name. He’d ached to see her since losing Donte and had never felt this alone in his life. If Hatu wasn’t vigilant, the terror of what he had endured with the Sisters of the Deep would overwhelm him. He now managed it in the same fashion in which he managed the constant anger that had been with him all his life, but it was never easy.

  Zusara made a dismissive noise. Returning to their trek, he said, ‘You grow used to a wife. Mine has given me four sons, three still living. You know my youngest, Reza …’ Hatu waited while the master collected his thoughts. ‘Over the years, you become accustomed to having the same woman around. If you do not send her from your bed once you’ve enjoyed her, as I said, you get used to falling asleep beside her … and then, if she whispers in the dark …’ Again he stopped. ‘This can be very dangerous,’ he said, walking on.

  ‘Why?’ asked Hatu.

  ‘It’s the whispering. At first you just fall asleep. Then after a while you tell her things before you go to sleep. At first she listens, eventually she might question or placate you … and after a longer while, you might listen to her views.’ Again he stopped, and leaned over to whisper, which, in Hatu’s opinion, was unnecessary. ‘And then, in the dark of night, you might be tempted
to ask her advice. No man of importance should ever fall into that trap.’

  He turned and walked again. Something in his voice told Hatu that Master Zusara didn’t believe what he was saying.

  ‘Do you know why it is forbidden for students in the same training class to have sex with one another?’

  Hatu shook his head, then again realised he couldn’t be seen, so said, ‘No, sir. We’ve been told about the rule since we began training, but never why it’s there.’

  Zusara laughed. ‘And some of you break it anyway, I know.’ He fixed Hatu with a narrow gaze, then said, ‘We have this rule because a girl’s duties are more difficult than yours, and our valuable female students do not need to be bothered by a bunch of boys whose cocks get hard every time they walk by. Besides killing men with blades, cords, or poison, they may need to make a man fall in love with them, and it is impossible for them to learn those arts if they think they are betraying some stupid boy and spreading their legs for him every night.

  ‘Oh, we have boys who train with the Powdered Women, true, for there are powerful men and women in the world who prefer cock.’ He shrugged. ‘And some like everything. But, while the young men who leave the Powdered Women may need the same skills in seduction’ – he waved his hand in the air – ‘they cannot become pregnant.’

  Hatu nodded, conceding the obvious.

  ‘We have ten, fifteen sicari men for every woman. They must be harder than the men, more resilient, and more ruthless. They must be able to ride a man until he’s spent and professing his pleasure and devotion, then kill him before he awakes the next morning. Do you understand?’

  ‘I think so,’ offered Hatu.

  ‘Then let me make it clearer, Hatu. Most of the women you see every day are not important to the nation, save as mothers. But to waste a rare girl, one who can match a man in cunning and skill, to have her grounded with child because some young lout got a stiff cock …’ He shook his head. ‘One of them is the equal of any ten boys who survive training. That is how important they are. That is why the punishment is so severe. You lie with a girl student, you are beaten senseless; do it a second time, or if she gets pregnant the first time, you are killed.

  ‘So, my advice, Hatu, is never love a woman. Thinking with your cock is stupid, and thinking with your heart has been the undoing of more than one man.’

  Hatu thought about Zusara and his wife but knew better than to mention it. Was the master telling him this because his marriage had succeeded, or because it had failed? He would puzzle out that mystery later if he could. Either way, he was not entirely sure he agreed with much of what he’d just heard, but was hard-pressed to say why. That could also be puzzled out later.

  They came around a turn in the side of the hill, and Hatu saw the trail continue to wind its way up into a nearby mountain, but nestled against a rock face stood a building, little more than a hut, but sturdy and sheltered against the wind that would come from the other side of the peak. A light came from within, peeking through a curtained doorway that swayed gently with the night breeze.

  Zusara said, ‘Wait here until I summon you.’

  Hatu watched as he mounted the three steps to the hut and spoke quietly to whoever was inside. After a moment, Zusara turned and beckoned Hatu to join him. At the entrance, Zusara spoke in a low voice. ‘There is another valuable, important type of woman, rarer even than those who rise to be sicari. These women possess powers denied to all but a few – powers that some call magic. The woman you will now meet is such a one. Be respectful. Show regard.’ Zusara extinguished his torch in a bucket of sand and entered the hut, and Hatu followed the old master.

  Inside there were two hanging lamps, wicks floating in oil by the look of the light they cast; their flickering glow caused shadows and objects to move out at the edge of the young man’s vision. Hatu glanced around and saw many strange things: dolls of some type hanging on cords from the ceiling; an array of feathers around the stretched hide of some animal, which was painted in a design that seemed to tug at his vision. He pulled his eyes from them only to be trapped by the wall paintings. Forcing his gaze away, he turned his attention to the figure at the centre of the room. As his eyes adjusted to the dim light, he saw a woman of some age, with grey hair and a fair set of wrinkles around her eyes and the corners of her mouth. She sat calmly and her straight bearing hinted at power.

  Then he locked eyes with her and instantly felt the hair on his arms and neck rise. He felt a play of energies dance over him, a painful reminder of what he had experienced in the cave where he had last seen Donte and his interrogation by the Sisters of the Deep.

  The woman beckoned him over and said softly, ‘Step here, boy, so I may see you better.’

  Hatu took a step forward, and she said, ‘So, what have we here?’

  Master Zusara said, ‘That is what I, too, would like to know. He was taken by the Sisters of the Deep and they set him free.’

  Her intake of breath sounded as if she had touched a hot iron, and her eyes widened as she reflexively pulled back from Hatu. After a moment, she pointed to a cushion in front of her chair and said, ‘Sit!’

  Hatu almost jumped to sit on the cushion. Then the woman said, ‘I am Lorana, and I need your thoughts.’ Without waiting for a reply, she reached out and took his head between her hands and suddenly Hatu fell into shadow.

  HE SWAM IN A MURKY darkness shimmering with colours that were not true colours and felt strangely familiar. The only way Hatu could describe them was that they were like the odd after-images that lingered behind his eyelids when he stared at something bright too long, then closed his eyes, illusions of colour that changed and shifted as they flashed. Making sense of the images was impossible; there were too many and they were reversed in colour: blues became yellows, reds turned into greens, floating quickly away and darting from place to place. Then they started to twist and fold, to flow into one another, swell and recede like combers in a wind-tossed sea, shot through with spindrift of white and silver. It was as if every memory he had ever had was trying to rise within him; each struggled to be recognised yet all were thwarted by something else inside him, something familiar but not understood, causing his mind to race.

  A voice that wasn’t a voice entered Hatu’s mind, asked questions, and found answers, yet as soon as the voices moved away, he could not remember their words. Feelings rose and quickly washed over him, but the moment they fled, he could put no name to them. Echoes of pain taunted him and fled when he attempted to remember their source. He had no sense of how long his interrogation lasted, for each instant slipped by.

  Then suddenly he was awake.

  LORANA STARED INTO HIS EYES as Hatu blinked to refocus them and felt his head swimming. He shook it slightly and then glanced to where Master Zusara looked down on him.

  Quietly, the master said, ‘Return to my home and rest. We have a long day tomorrow. You will need to repeat your tale exactly as you did today. Try to push aside those feelings I saw, for they will seem unmanly to the other masters, and be ready for one of them to vent his anger at you. Do you understand?’

  Hatu hesitated for a moment and then stood up on slightly wobbly legs. He had a vague sense that something important had just happened, but he had no memory of it and he felt fatigued without understanding why. He looked at Lorana and Zusara and nodded, then departed and started down the path.

  After he had left, Zusara looked at the old witch and said, ‘Well?’

  Her voice was hoarse as she whispered, ‘Do you know who he is?’

  ‘He is the last of the Firemanes.’

  ‘But do you know what that means?’

  Zusara nodded. ‘It means he is the rightful heir to the throne of Ithrace.’

  She let out a long sigh, reached for his hand, and looked around the hut as if seeking some sort of inspiration. ‘He is so much more than that, old man.’

  He gripped her hand and gave it a loving squeeze. ‘What?’

  ‘There is magic around us, p
owers that infuse our world and of which most men are ignorant. These energies manifest as … abilities or talents, whatever you choose to call them, and provide … a weight, a presence, a … balance.

  ‘The experience for most people is but a moment of insignificant chance that goes this way or that, for or against them: from the breaking of a tool to the luck of a gambler, or a woman saying yes to her husband when she usually would not, and conceiving a child.’ She paused and looked at Zusara intensely, then took a deep breath and continued. ‘No matter how it appears to most of us, all of these energies are ordered and related in ways none of us can understand. Some of us, mostly women, can glimpse that order and see a bit of the pattern, and a few can even manipulate a little of that energy.

  ‘You are blind, my love, and I have but a glimpse, but there is so much more here than we can understand …’ She closed her eyes, gripped his hand tighter, and then let out a long, painful sigh, almost a moan of anguish.

  He said nothing, letting her organise her thoughts.

  Finally, Lorana said, ‘There is a powerful order that toys with magic so profound that anyone who trusts it is a fool. The Sisters of the Deep use the darkest blood magic known; there are others, too, but none more evil than them. They play with life, kill baby boys and raise their girls to disdain all men, save to use them to breed more daughters or to create monsters to serve them, or … to eat their flesh. There arc others, scattered – the Order of the Spider, the Sisterhood of Storm – all hidden, most small, some more powerful than you can imagine, and all staying out of view. Those of us with gifts know of one another – not everything, but enough.

  ‘Blood magic is powerful, a drawing upon energy that is primal, raw, and terrible. Its layers include death magic and magic wrested by pain and suffering. There are also other, lesser magics, in the life force of the forests and of wild beasts, in the energy provided by the sun, or in the power of words and music. But blood magic is among the most powerful of these arts, and when it ends in death, more powerful still.’