The Spice Gate, page 41
From the shadows stepped Ilangovan, followed by his loyal pirates. Sekaran and few others were absent—still making boat repairs, Amir presumed—but Ilangovan had brought enough people to handle Kalay.
They closed in, narrowing the funnel toward the shore where Karim bhai squatted, dripping water down one leg.
“What is the meaning of this?” Kalay asked, one eyebrow raised.
Ilangovan removed a kerchief tied around his face and pressed closer, sword aloft. Kalay recognized Ilangovan for who he was, and—stunned—looked at Amir. Her lip curled at the sight of Mahrang’s shamshir wavering in front of his chest. “I’m flattered.” She smirked. “Twenty-five of you. Wonderful! When did you decide to do this? Right after I confessed my desire to not see you dead?”
“Around that time,” said Amir, licking dew off his lips. “Drop the talwar, Kalay. We’re going to just tie you up and take you to the settlement below.”
Karim bhai stood up, wiped his face and arms with his towel, and smiled. “Ho, ponnu, we all know you’re good with the blade. As for me, I don’t even have a chaku, but I trust you to see the sense in this arrangement.”
“An arrangement?” Kalay questioned. Why is she so calm? She regarded Ilangovan and his men closing in. “I think we’re a little late for etiquette, don’t you?”
Amir hesitated before stepping forward. Slowly, he lowered the shamshir, as though inviting her to a truce. “I cannot let you go after Madhyra, Kalay.”
She smiled perfunctorily. “What happened to believing that I am not capable of killing my aunt?”
“I have decided not to take that chance.”
Kalay’s mouth straightened. “You know, when Mahrang chose me to accompany you to the eight kingdoms, he told me he was quietly confident of you standing up to Madhyra. I had my doubts, of course. One look at you in Munivarey’s cavern, and I could tell that you don’t have the mettle of those who draw blood without remorse. But Mahrang made me see sense. He told me what was at stake for you, and that if you could abandon your beliefs, your daydreams, your home, and travel to Illindhi, all for a vial of the Poison, you could—if the need arose—sacrifice your morals for the sake of your family. For the sake of your freedom. You looked like the kind who would go to any end to ensure that the arrival of the Uyirsena could be averted. He trusted you, Amir of Raluha.”
Amir’s lip curled in response. “I’m afraid being a disappointment to Mahrang is the least of my worries.”
Kalay sighed. “I did not lie when I told you earlier that I wished for you to live a long life. For your family, for all your people. I truly cherished your company, Amir of Raluha. You showed me much that I had always dreamed of, even though under fraught circumstances, and even if I may not have admitted it at the time. You are annoying, insufferable, and almost impressively reckless, but I can see now that you were raised in an unjust world, surrounded by people who have misunderstood the realm’s philosophy. And for your valiance against that, you have my salute. However, I am sorry. Where you think your journey must end is not right.”
Ilangovan laughed. “Tchah! I wonder if I was this brazen when I escaped to the Black Coves, la! When I stood up to Zariba and her mother, and to the Spice Trade. Or must I have looked this stupid?” He twirled his mustache. “These are not odds you can overcome, warrior. Lay down your blade.”
Karim bhai limped ahead. “Ponnu, when this pulla here told me about the Outerlands, I laughed in his face. I’m here now. If a stubborn, old man can see the wrong of his ways . . .”
“Please, Kalay,” said Amir. “You know you cannot kill all of us. Let this go.”
It took an age for Kalay to lower her talwar. Amir admitted he did not think she would. He’d thought her stubbornness a permanent part of her. But perhaps in all this insanity, Kalay could see the festering of her madness, her obsession.
Some would say you are no different. And wouldn’t that be as true?
Amir stepped forward to snatch the talwar from her once she sheathed it. She gave a smile he did not expect.
“One thief begets another, Amir of Raluha. You have truly taught me much about the eight kingdoms.” She looked to the skies, her stare almost remorseful. “The Uyirsena are not trained to be stupid. I know I cannot kill all of you. But it can.”
When she removed the small wooden thing from her pocket, Amir was not certain what it was. When she blew into the narrow slit at one end and a familiar shrill racket soared through the air, Amir tumbled back into the days, falling into the memory of standing outside the guard watch in Amarohi, shadowed against the waterfall, gazing up at the skies, at the cloud-encrusted turrets of the aranmanai of Rani Kaivalya. He did not bother to wonder when Kalay had stolen the whistle from him.
No.
The sound shattered the serenity of the lake. It censured the skies for their silence in the face of the outrage that was being conducted in the Outerlands against the Mouth.
Ilangovan, Karim bhai, and the other gatecaste appeared surprised. Slowly, Ilangovan chuckled. “If you’re trying to call for some reinforcements, la, you may perhaps need a reminder that—”
“We need to run!” Amir sounded the warning, his mouth speaking ahead of his raging mind. Oh, Kalay, what did you do?
“Grab her sword,” one of the men shouted.
Amir reached him first. “No,” he repeated. “We need to run! How far is the settlement?”
“What is the matter, pulla?” Karim bhai was the only one who sounded worried. “What is that whistle supposed to mean?”
Amir’s heart thundered in his chest. “That,” he said hoarsely, “is a call for Kuka, the Immortal Son.”
Kuka must have been close by to have heard the whistle. Or perhaps it did not matter how far it was, and it could have still heard the call. Amir decided deliberating on these pointless questions was better than letting fear soak into his skin.
Out on the sparsely vegetated slope, they would be easy pickings for the beast. The settlement was their only hope; and even there, Amir feared they were inviting trouble for the otherwise peaceful settlers.
He was not certain during which part of the scramble down the mountain toward the settlement that they lost Kalay. One moment, Ilangovan and the others were dragging her down the slope. The next, a shrieking roar interrupted their escape, and chaos ensued. Kalay must have slipped through their grasp during the commotion. Amir swore he’d been keeping an eye on her, but when he turned back to help Karim bhai leap over a boulder, Kalay had scuttled away.
“What were you doing, carrying something as dangerous as that?” demanded Karim bhai, panting.
“I-I forgot,” said Amir, racing behind Ilangovan and the rest. In the tumult of the much larger and more dangerous-looking Kishkinda, the river, the shipwrecked pirates of the Black Coves, and seeing Karim bhai alive, Amir had forgotten about the whistle Rani Kaivalya had given him to summon Kuka. No doubt she would have sent Kuka after him and Kalay when they had not returned within that first day.
The Mouth remembers.
Down where the tree line began once more and the forest sprawled as far as the eye could see, Amir glimpsed spirals of woodsmoke and the smell of cloves and cardamom. The promise of a settlement, of life, in the Outerlands dimmed in the face of an imminent assault from the Immortal Sons. Amir had hoped for this moment to be cherished, to be seared in his memory as a story he would someday tell Kabir and Amma, how he had discovered their new home.
You’ll settle for barely scraping through alive.
The shrill cry jolted him as the twenty-five gatecaste sprinted for their lives. Amir craned his neck to glimpse the sun being blotted out, the shadow of Kuka’s wings shimmering on the slope. The shadow thickened as Kuka descended. Ahead, Ilangovan marshaled his men into a knotted ravine that led into the forest and the settlement.
Amir wheeled around. Karim bhai was still fifty feet away, hunkering down, chest heaving.
“Faster!” Amir yelled. Kuka answered his yell with a piercing shriek, its head swiveling downward to regard first Karim bhai up the slope, and then Amir, its eyes narrowing, nostrils snorting, familiarity coursing through its scales.
A second, deeper shriek resounded from the distance. Kuka dived.
With the shamshir in one hand, Amir extended his other for Karim bhai to grab hold of, then he pushed the old Carrier into the ravine. Amir meant to follow, but his foot caught in a tangle of undergrowth, and he tripped sideways, leaning away from the gap. Pain shot up his ankle as he fell. His head smacked against a boulder.
Amir’s vision flickered. A distant second shriek alternated with the silence in his head.
He tumbled down the slope. Before the pain in his head consumed his consciousness, he saw in shuddering gasps Kuka swooping down toward him, shadow dark upon the mountain, its wings splayed wide.
Chapter 25
Nothing prepares you for the beauty of Amarohi. It is a paradise nestled between waterfalls and a forest encrusted with dew and mist. The branches of trees form arches overhead and their barks form bridges beneath the feet. The air and breaths of those who linger among the woods is rife with cloves. But the moment you open your mouth, you are harried into a cavern, your back whipped and your tongue chopped.
—Ujjvala, An Encyclopedia for Reckless Carriers
Amir awakened on a bed of straw, surrounded by a circle of herbs and candles—teakwood and balsam—and the smell of tulsi hanging in the air. Home, he feared, thinking he was back in Raluha, and sat up. Sharp pain below his shoulder spiked up and exploded, sending him crashing back down on his bed. He felt a strip of cloth around his head. More strips around his shoulder, taut against the armpit, covering another wound. A greenish tinge on the surface, pus soaking into the cloth. Amir winced as he laid a finger on it.
A flap door opened ahead and Ilangovan strode in. Sunlight outside silhouetted his slender, bony figure, but when the flap closed, Amir’s chest tightened.
“Where is Karim bhai?” he asked, raising a hand to block the light. He tried to stand, but Ilangovan bade him to continue lying down.
“Nobody was hurt.”
Amir thought he’d misheard. “But the Immortal Son . . . it was right there.”
Ilangovan appeared to weigh the response in his head before saying, “It did not harm you, la. Or anyone else. It flew over the settlement and headed north.”
Amir breathed out, and pain shot up his shoulder again, and he went slack. When the pain subsided, a jolt of panic took its place.
“It wasn’t after me,” he choked. “It’s gone after Madhyra.”
As has Kalay.
Amir sat up, and all of a sudden, the pain seemed to have numbed. It was as if he had tumbled and fallen onto a bed of grass. “I must go after Madhyra.”
Ilangovan regarded him with a quiet curiosity. Amir did not think the day would come already where he would be sitting inches away from the legendary pirate, no less in the Outerlands. He’d imagined a glorious entry into the Black Coves, an induction of him and his family to the ranks of the pirates and a drunken reunion with those bowlers who had managed to escape their duty over the years. All of it, however, now bore the taste of a dish on the verge of being spoilt. Amir found it disheartening that Ilangovan was not seeing the same urgency he was. “You should stay here,” he said softly. “You have not yet recovered from the fall.”
“I’ll be fine.”
“You’ve already done enough. Word has reached this settlement of your exploits, of your travel to Illindhi, of your quest for the Poison, and now, of helping Madhyra bring down the Spice Gates. They know you as Arsalan’s son. You’ve done everything you can.”
Amir tsked. “Appa would have gone on.”
“They cremated your father a fortnight ago. Along with the four hundred and twenty-seven men and women who lost their lives in killing the Immortal Son we saw, and helping Madhyra reach the eight kingdoms. Would you like to see their memorial stone?”
Four hundred and twenty-seven. He ran the number on his tongue over and over, until each count, each number held within it a universe. “No,” he said flatly. Gates, he desperately wished to see Appa’s name etched on the stone. It would not be anything new, but it would sink in faster, harder, reshaping his grief even more, until the hatred of ten years could dissolve into a love that had been trapped in a limbo between existence and nonexistence.
“No,” he repeated. “Not until I have helped Madhyra see this through. Besides, I cannot stay here. The Mouth knows where I am at all points in time. It will send another Immortal Son after me, and I would rather not put this settlement at risk.”
He stood and pushed past Ilangovan. This time, the pirate did not stop him. Opening the flap, Amir stepped out into the settlement proper. The bright morning light pierced the tree cover overhead and fell dappled on the forest clearing. When his eyes adjusted, they settled on a village bordered by tall trees. From where he stood, he could see the conical roofs and smoking chimneys of at least a hundred homes. The mountain they had fled from lay behind him. Ahead, rows of bamboo houses stood like sentries, some bricked, some stone-walled. Lanes bustled with people carrying wares. Enormous pots billowed steam while they cooked over a fire.
There was no fence. Nothing crooked and barbed with guards or sentries. Just a retinue of men and women deep in discussion. Among them was Karim bhai. Gates, how seamlessly he fit into all of this. A thread of a different color yet sewing itself into this vibrant tapestry of the Outerlands, a tapestry that Karim bhai had not fully believed in until he’d washed up on the cove.
Amir tore himself away from the yearning to remain in the settlement. He could not, he realized, allow himself to be tempted by this possibility while the threat of Madhyra’s failure continued to loom ahead of him. All of a sudden, she was vulnerable.
Amir decided he would not let himself be seen leaving. He had the map Karim bhai had given him. He had Hasmin’s compass. Mahrang’s shamshir. And an unshakable resolve that burned like a forest fire inside his heart. He looked around and pictured himself here, Harini beside him. And his family. And Karim bhai.
“You would have done well at the Black Coves.” Ilangovan stepped out of the tent behind him, hands on hips, a smile dancing on his face.
“We would have been caught sooner or later,” Amir replied.
“Not if we did not wish to be,” said Ilangovan. “But yes, it was a dance with trouble, la. We flirted with Zariba’s ships, and we’d lose a comrade or two. Sometimes ten. Always a difficult conversation to return to the isles and speak to the families. It was easier, instead, to present them with blood in return.”
“There would be blood here too,” said Amir, glancing around.
Ilangovan shrugged. “Perhaps. But a little less, I would wager. Freedom always exacts a cost, la. Some costs are paid to achieve it. Some persist long after that freedom is achieved. It gives you the illusion that, maybe, this is not freedom at all but a poor substitute. Gnaws at your conscience every time you loot a trading vessel or drown a Jhanakari merchant plying an honest business on the waters because you have mouths to feed back on the isles, mouths craving spice in their dal and sabzi. It is a very selfish act, freedom is. But then, the deeper part of your soul whispers to you that the journey to emancipation justifies its preservation.”
Amir chewed over Ilangovan’s words. “I don’t know,” he said at last.
“That’s all right. It doesn’t mean that you wouldn’t have done well in the Black Coves.”
Ilangovan smiled. The conversation had run its course. Amir did not say goodbye. He merely walked away, as though heading for a quiet stroll in the woods. He had his bag, his waterskin, and the remainder of the food that would suffice for the next five days. He nearly walked a mile, his pace slackened by the burden of thoughts, when Karim bhai caught up with him. He had a wooden staff in his hand, his stained towel woven around his head, his own bag slinging from his shoulder carrying his survival paraphernalia. He was already out of breath.
“Go back,” warned Amir, increasing his pace. “I’m sure you have a lot of explaining to do to the settlers.”
“I saw the stone memorial they erected for Arsalan and the others.”
That made Amir stop. Gates, again, he did not want to know what it looked like, and whether it truly had his father’s name inscribed on it. He did not want to be anywhere near it at the moment.
“I’m coming with you, pulla. When I told you this yesterday, I meant till the end—not to this place in between where I can lie in comfort and await whatever fate is bestowed on me, ho?”
“You will only slow me down,” said Amir.
“Nice try. Keep walking. I’m right behind you.” Karim bhai caught up with him and laid a hand on his shoulder. “I’ll show you some new spices. Curse the tongue of whoever said there aren’t any spices in the Outerlands. There’s enough here to feed thrice the population of the eight kingdoms. And we haven’t even seen all of it.”
Chapter 26
One nutmeg is good. Two bad. Three deadly.
—Unknown, The View from the Treetop
It took them two days of crossing different disparate settlements of the Outerlands. Time was of the essence, and they stopped only to refill their waterskins. Some settlers, it dawned on Amir, had been living there for generations. Their parents and their grandparents had lived in the Outerlands, and some of them did not even remember which of the eight kingdoms they once belonged to, let alone the caste of their birth.
You’re doing the right thing.
Mostly, he stuck to observing Karim bhai as the possibilities unfurled in the old Carrier’s mind. It was not to say he wasn’t taking it well. Spurts of joy and curiosity erupted every few moments—as though with each new discovery, Karim bhai was reconciling the new world with the old.
