The Spice Gate, page 6
“So why now? There couldn’t be a worse time, Amir.”
“Exactly because of that: time. Hasmin has threatened to put Kabir on the trail within a month. And when I heard you had the Poison, I came right away.”
“So, it’s the Poison you came here for, is it? Not to see me?” She narrowed her eyes. “Based on a rumor in the Vanasari bazaar?”
Fell right into that, didn’t you?
“No, I don’t mean that,” he stammered. “I came to meet you—of course I wanted to see you! But I also need the Poison, Harini—I won’t lie to you about that. And with everything that seems to be going on, some answers would be helpful here. The Jewelmaker is missing, there is news of the turmeric being stolen, and you’re here, decked in thronekeeper clothes. What is truly going on?”
“And I already told you—nothing. Just Spice Trade business.”
Yet Harini averted her gaze. She began pacing the dais, her hands clasped behind her back. Gates, why does she have to look so stern?
And why can’t I leave this alone?
“Then who was that woman? She didn’t sound like she was from any guild or the Spice Trade.”
He did not intend to interrogate Harini. But he also desperately hoped that she was not like the other abovefolk. There had to be at least one who wasn’t . . . right? His trust could not have been for nothing, and this—this was their test. Of friendship.
Or love.
She remained silent for a while, only staring at him, at his struggling countenance, as though he had betrayed her.
“You should not have come tonight to the qila, Amir,” she said.
“But I am here. And is this what I get? Not an answer but a dismissal?”
“I didn’t know you were coming today.”
“I don’t really have a choice when I get to come, Harini,” he said, and then sighed. Gates, but he did not wish to argue. Not with her. “Look, I’m here to see you. But I’d be lying if I didn’t say I also really need the Poison. Not more than a vial, I promise. I have given away my month’s spice allowance. The Jewelmaker’s gone, and Raluha and the eight kingdoms run dry. I have tried every other way, and you’re my last hope.” He was surprised at the flow of words, at the seemingly endless supply of desperation buried within him that poured out onto Harini’s lap. “I would never ask anything of you other than what we feel for each other if it weren’t so important—you know that.”
“I do know that,” she said, her own chest heaving. Harini, however, was also shaking her head, the coldness manifesting in her eyes and seeping down her face to her tongue. “I don’t have any Poison to spare, Amir. I am sorry.”
She was lying. He could measure the timbre of her voice, the way her lips quivered to utter that falsehood. And her eyes spoke the loudest: they looked askance for a fleeting instant, unmasking her.
Amir did not wish to ask her again, so instead said, “It’s the stranger you were talking to earlier, isn’t it? You wish to give her the Poison and take her with you to Jhanak for the afsal dina feast.”
Harini emitted a deep sigh. “I don’t know how much you heard, Amir, but you do not understand—”
“Then tell me,” Amir pleaded. “I am tired of making assumptions and jumping to conclusions. Tell me the truth, and I’ll leave.”
Harini clenched her fists. She rounded the throne and leaned against the seat’s edge. Her gaze was fixed on one of the windows, unseeing and ghostly. “I can’t.”
He was gutted.
“Believe me, I wish I could, but this—whatever is happening is bigger than what we feel for each other. You must trust me on this, Amir.”
“And Ilangovan?” he prodded, unable to stop now that he had begun, his heart a thousand shards in his chest, each piece ricocheting in a different direction. “What do you plan to do with him?”
“What is he to you?” she retorted, and then the realization seemed to dawn on her. “Wait, is that where you plan to take your family? To the Black Coves? Amir, he’s a criminal.”
“He’s a hero. He’s someone countless Carriers and gatecaste across the eight kingdoms look up to.”
“For all the wrong reasons,” she hissed.
“They’re wrong because they could upset the balance of power. Your power. They upset your sense of justice.” Amir shook his head. “But that’s neither here nor there . . . I thought you cared what happens to my family. I thought you knew how unjust our lives were. Merely saying out loud that the discrimination against the gatecaste needs to stop does not make it go away, Harini. Something needs to be done!”
Amir was red-faced, veins throbbing, ready to explode.
Harini rushed to clamp a palm to his mouth as she threw a glance at the doors again. It was then he realized he had been shouting. “And I need you to trust me, Amir. Ilangovan cannot be the solution.”
He wrestled her hand away, even as he savored the musk on her skin, and lowered his voice.
“Are you going to arrest him? Have you ever wondered why he’s looting the eight kingdoms for their spices? Why he chose this life?”
The beauty faded from her like the light of a sun at the edge of dusk. She appeared to have a thousand words on her tongue that were tethered to whatever promises or deals she had made not to utter them. His heart softened, making him momentarily regret the harshness of his words.
Where was the woman who blushed when he poked her dimple with a finger? Where was the gentleness, the tender touches to blooming chrysanthemums and the patience with which she would wait for the earthworms to climb a mound of mud and slither onto her thumb? Where were her desires to escape into the forests and become one with the wilderness? Tame the wild horses, swim in the river, build a hut alongside it where she would store all her spices in little wooden boxes that her grandmother had given her . . .
And above all, where was the woman who wanted all of this for the bowlers and the rooters, and the easters of Halmora? Who bribed the Haldiveer to allow Carriers additional minutes for rest after passing through the gate, who smuggled pocketfuls of spices to Amir to be shared among the others, who had once sworn that as she was inducted into the trade council, she would upend the system?
What did those ideals amount to now?
“Amir, I want you to listen to me,” Harini began. “For a year now, turmeric has been the least desirable of all spices. Ever since the alchemists of Vanasi proclaimed how it is ineffective against many ailments, people have reduced its consumption. Our yellow-tongued Mouth is not an accountant, Amir. Because if it were, our people would realize that Halmora is being taken for a fool. Our coffers empty only by the grace of those who smear it on the idols in the temples in each of the eight kingdoms and for rituals like the Bashara. My father thinks so long as we’re devout and remain true to the Mouth, we will not face any trouble. But the truth is, turmeric is no longer the Mouth’s own spice. And if nobody buys turmeric, Halmora is staring at a crisis. We will not have enough to buy the spices from the other kingdoms. The people will revolt. You know how it goes. This qila cannot stand an uprising.”
“What does this have to do with Ilangovan?” Amir asked. “Without him, the coves would cease to exist!”
Harini once again remained tight-lipped. When she spoke, Amir sensed the trepidation in her voice, as though she were speaking only in half-truths. “Amir, you’re not understanding what I’m try—”
Amir raised his hands in supplication. “I . . . I’m sorry I came here today. I am sorry I asked you for the Poison. I’m sorry I tried to obtain a better life for my mother, and that I tried to save my brother and possibly my unborn sibling from a life of pain and servitude. I . . . thought I loved you, you know?”
Something akin to tears formed in Harini’s eyes. Let her cry! He wasn’t finished.
“I did, even when I came out of that hole up there and stood in front of you. I was on the verge of giving myself to you, considering myself fortunate for having someone like you in my life. I don’t know what it is that you’re plotting with this stranger. You claim to not be able to tell me, and I do not even know whether I can trust you on that, Harini. Trust came so easily until today, but somehow, I am unable to at the moment. All I can think of is that if I don’t get the Poison and get my family out of Raluha, I will have failed them. I would then be no better than my father.”
He joined his hands in a pious goodbye and began to head toward the servants’ door.
“Amir, wait,” Harini called.
He stopped and turned.
If there indeed had been tears earlier, Harini had wiped them off her face. A glassy look prevailed now. Amir wanted to believe her. But he also knew that she had the Poison. He could always tell when she kept things from him to prevent him from being hurt. A trait of the abovefolk he could neither fault nor forgive but something he had grown to live with. And with Harini, it took on the added flavor of affection, for he truly believed that she cared for him.
Gates, it is a heart, not a furnace.
He considered whether to ask for the Poison one last time.
The moment passed. He knew she would not part with it.
“I implore you again to trust me,” she said. “There will be a better life for you and your family, I promise. Away from the Bowl, away from Raluha.”
Amir shrugged, stunned at how cold his own body could be. “Perhaps, but I cannot afford to wait, Harini. Gates know we’ve waited long enough. I’m tired of people acknowledging problems and doing nothing about them.”
“And us?” Harini’s lips quivered. “What did you think would happen to us once you joined Ilangovan?”
Amir smiled, and it sapped his reserves. “It doesn’t matter now. Looks like I’m not going anywhere.”
And then he was gone, running through the empty passageways, through the dark and silent qila of Halmora, the walls and the air like a brooding sepulcher. The conversation replayed in his head over and over—where had it all gone wrong? Or perhaps it had been wrong from the start. To harbor hope of anything evolving between him and Harini . . . it was a fool’s dream. In the end, Harini was the scion of a thronekeeper, and he, Amir, a lowly Carrier of Raluha. That was the truth, and he had been given a reminder of it in the darbar. Harini would do what it took for the betterment of Halmora, even if it meant discarding Amir and his life.
Amir blinked and snapped out of his despondence. He had stopped in his tracks, lost in thought and . . . just lost. The labyrinth enveloped him, shrunk him to the size of a speck. He’d forgotten about the spice trail. What if he didn’t make it back before Karim bhai and the other Carriers left for Raluha? He hastened his step, clawing his way out of the qila.
At one point, he caught the scent of rain. The corridor expanded into a kitchen of sorts, which was, once more, oddly empty. From the windows, he heard the sound of rain. Where were the cooks and the maids? The grim-faced tray boys who’d catch Amir gallivanting with Harini in the gardens?
The path meandered to meet the great staircase that dipped in spirals around the walls and toward the front doors of the qila.
The doors themselves stood on a raised platform, with a wider berth of stairs expanding downward into the now-drenched courtyard.
Amir braked hard and came to a standstill, the rain pattering over his head.
Ahead, on the staircase, a man stood panting over the slain bodies of a dozen Haldiveer, holding a silver scimitar in one hand and pressing the other to his bleeding gut. A stream of color hovered about him like thick smoke, engulfing the stairs and the guards sprawled at his feet. The cloud of spice drifted up the walls of the palace and down the steps, ensnaring the banisters, slithering into the windows, and wrapping themselves around light posts as though it were alive, purple tendrils crawling out of a russet heart.
At the sight of Amir, frozen under the torch suspended over his head, the man’s eyes widened, and Amir’s did in kind. He then ran toward Amir, his weapon aloft.
Chapter 4
The sanctity of the Spice Gate was secure in the fact that no amount of weather and assault could make it look worse than it already did.
—Naresh Paragam, The Face of a Spice God
Amir had time only to unfreeze, turn, and dash back to the kitchens.
Lightning tore a rift in the skies, bathing the staircase in bluish-white light. Amir caught a quick glimpse of the man’s dark skin, a violet robe with armor that was sliced open, revealing deep gashes. He was wounded, mortally perhaps, but he was still coming after Amir, and that was enough to keep him running.
If this man had stolen turmeric, it was a capital crime under the laws of the Spice Trade. To be caught stealing spice was to be resigned to the rotten-most depths of imprisonment, where they tortured you until your sense of smell was but a strange memory, where your mind that once understood taste was now bereft of sanity. He had known a few who had suffered that torment and could only wonder now at the fate that awaited his pursuer.
At the moment, though, Amir was more worried about his own fate as he scampered into the empty kitchens, a thin cloud of flour and the smell of fried vadas from earlier in the evening still hanging in the air. His heart galloped in his chest.
Ten strides in, the man with a gash in his gut caught up with him.
Amir had always prided himself on his speed. He would often race the other Carriers up and down the Bowl and would beat them soundly. Needless to say, he cursed himself as he hurled forward like a boulder falling from a cliff and crashed into a vat filled with smaller vessels that spilled out in a menacing clamor of steel.
The man’s knee found the small of Amir’s back a moment later. Amir’s scream cartwheeled through the corridor, and he hoped it would attract attention. A garrison of Haldiveer would be a lovely sight! Though, having witnessed the slaughter on the steps, he didn’t harbor much hope of rescue.
Only when the blade of the man’s scimitar flashed beside Amir’s face, and from the corner of his eye he glimpsed the water dripping off its serrated edge, did he quieten. In fact, he could barely breathe. His cheek was crushed on wet stone, and whatever his mouth could conjure in that moment did not sound like praise of the stranger’s strength or an admission of defeat.
Ignoring Amir’s struggle, the stranger turned Amir over and tore the top of his tunic, revealing the spicemark in clear candlelight.
“Wh-What do you want? Let me go!” Amir managed.
“Silence,” the man hissed. His labored breath battered Amir’s face and his wet fingers uncurled from Amir’s throat. From the spicemark. A searing tingle spread through Amir’s body as the man’s finger brushed against the imprint.
The man pulled away suddenly and slunk back into the shadows of the nearest wall of the kitchen, clutching his belly and emitting a low moan.
Amir straightened himself, stood up, and staggered back a few steps. But he did not run. Fear clogged his head and froze his feet in place.
The wounded man wore a healer’s robe tucked into a quilted armor and sewn into gauntlets around his corded muscles. The cracked mail and the telltale gray of the robe made him seem like a thunderous cloud whose desire to rain had ebbed.
It was apparent that he was dying. Blood gushed out of his hands. He tried to stanch the wounds, where the mail had been torn apart. His lips were paan red, and flakes of blood peppered his beard. The only skin that could be seen was a thin strip of forehead, upon which was etched a symbol—an eye within a circle within a diamond.
“You’re a Carrier,” he mumbled to Amir. Each syllable seemed to drain a bit more life from him.
Amir nodded, hoping that his reluctance to run away would not prove to be his undoing. “Very perceptive of you.”
The man coughed up some blood. “My name is . . . Fylan. I’m of the legion of the Uyirsena of Illindhi.”
Amir stared at him. He had never heard of Illindhi before, nor of any legion, or Uyirsena. This man showed every sign of being under the influence of the saeveroot, tripping on a hallucinogenic adventure.
Fylan coughed. More blood drooled from his mouth. Every syllable he uttered seemed to take minutes off his life, but the urgency of his situation did not merit the conservation of speech. “You’re a Spice Carrier,” he said again. “And that is your boon.”
“A curse,” Amir corrected promptly.
“Then I’m afraid I’m going to add to that curse, because what I’m about to ask you can be done by no one else. Please . . . do not . . . walk away.”
Amir had always dismissed many of his life’s situations as acts of fate. Fate had thrust him into the role of a Carrier, and fate decreed that he lived with Amma and Kabir, scavenging for the most meager of spices. It was fate that his father had abandoned him and his family, fate that his mother had decided to bear a child with another man in the Bowl, a man she could not even identify. Fate that the woman he loved and desired to be with was keeping secrets from him. And now, since the same fate had given him permission, for once, to make his own choice, he obeyed this strange man.
He chose to not walk away.
He took a few steps closer until he could smell the dying man’s flesh. Fylan’s eyes drooped, and only the last vestiges of life kept his head from rolling forward.
“Closer,” Fylan croaked, and again until Amir stood over him in that dank kitchen, a sense of wonder pulling him nearer even as he prayed for someone to show up and take away the powers of decision-making from him.
When Amir squatted in front of Fylan, the wounded man smiled, teeth coated in blood. His hand let slip the scimitar he was holding—it clattered to the floor—and moved into the inner pockets of his robe. A second later, the hand emerged, clutching a medallion. The string was adorned with beaded agates, and it threaded into a small jar at the center, containing what looked to Amir like silvery sand. It was too difficult to tell in the darkness.
Fylan gestured that Amir should take it.
For a moment, Amir hesitated. Then he obeyed. Or rather, chose to obey. Again.
