The Twelve Chapters of the Infinite Night, page 21
In the end, I am left floating on the surface of the water, too relaxed to move or protest to the departure of my attentive nymphs. The water stills and silence descends. I open my eyes and gaze up at the intricate golden designs magnificently woven in circles on the domed roof above - a meditation for the eyes. Columns support the dome above and large archways extend down to form the circular chamber of the bathhouse, granting views to gardens in the four cardinal directions. I feel like Ares returned to heaven after a great victory. Such grandeur I have never imagined, and if Minnagara was my city, I could build such extraordinary structures there and inspire my fellow countrymen to imagine such greatness for our people. My ancestors were nomads, but they needed to trade and marry. Minnagara had been established as this meeting place. My people put down routes to settle and run our capital, but it could be so much more than a market town. As I imagine all the possibilities, again I feel my heart expanding in my chest. Can I really walk away from the horror and leave behind the monster I have been forced to become?
Kambuja’s capital of Vyādhapura had been every bit as grand as this before the Sangdil arrived. The memory of what I did to the royal family there and to the people of that land ever since sours my joy. The tears, suppressed earlier, pour forth in a flood that I cannot prevent. The opulence of this setting ceases to pleasure me; I only feel guilt and I submerge to compose myself.
Upon surfacing, I wade towards the stairs and notice a monk standing by, shaved bald and dressed in the orange robes of Buddhists. I assume this is the abbot Tissa, Ashoka’s only full brother and spiritual advisor. His eyes are closed and he appears to be praying.
My clothes have been taken away and replaced with newer, finer ones - dark of colour, fairly plain and to my taste.
‘Can I help you?’ I wait until I am half-dressed before I address the abbot. I am fully dressed by the time the monk emerges from his prayer to respond.
‘Our emperor has requested that I lead you through a cleansing meditation.’
‘I have already been cleansed,’ I motioned to the pool.
‘Your body has been cleansed …’ he agrees, ‘but not your mind, not your heart, not your spirit.’
I see no point in resisting as this is part of my agreement with the emperor. I can take physical pain, but I suspect that this monk means to unlock my inner demons that the dark amulet has laid dormant since I first put it on twenty years ago.
‘Greatness cannot come to he who doubts his own divinity.’ He replies as if he knows what is running through my mind. ‘Within your shadow self is the potential self you have repressed.’
Even though I believe I have glimpsed this potential self, I shrug as if I do not care, or know what he is talking about.
‘You will feel better after.’ He smiles to reassure me.
‘I feel fine now.’ I have one last stab at resisting.
Tissa stares blankly at me; we both know I am lying.
‘Where do you want me, Abbot?’ I grouch to sound as displeased and put out as possible.
The smile returns to a beam on his face. ‘This way.’ The holy man leads me out of the bathhouse.
Back out in the courtyard, in the most distant corner away from the fountain where the dark amulet lay submerged, we arrive at a curtained gazebo, carpeted by rugs and cushions. Open on two sides to allow a cross breeze, the roof of the pinnacled structure provides shade from the afternoon sun.
Here we are seated and I am led through a series of breathing exercises. The abbot chants and uses different percussive instruments to relax me and emote a sense of peace and wellbeing - concepts I have not been familiar with since leaving on my mission to Kambuja. My mind is drawn back to a time before my induction into the Sangdil and there dwells the beautiful Rhaiyche. I remember her, suited for battle, her long, sandy blonde locks hanging loose beneath her ornately armoured helmet. Big brown eyes serve me a smouldering look as her hands run over all the weapons affixed to her body, checking all is where it should be. Such a glorious vision of a goddess she was, and just as deadly.
‘Turn your mind to the cause of your greatest distress.’
The abbot’s instruction is a jarring departure from my present mind, and I am tempted to stir from this induced trance state he has put me in! Still, it has taken so long to get me here and relaxed, that the idea of going through all that again compels me to cooperate.
I allow my memory of the crypt of King Ja to rise from the depths of my subconscious, where it has been buried beneath the numbing influence of the stone. We did unspeakable things to the ruler and his family, and then proceeded to do the same to the entire kingdom from that day to this. This is the first time, when recalling these events, that I have felt emotionally present, and I am horrified and ashamed by my choices. I didn’t have to be so brutal in my negotiations with the people I had been sent to conquer. I hated that such tactics had been used on me; so why then did I go on to inflict the same on others? If I had been more diplomatic, I would not have had to deal with the Naga. The Naga knew this and that is why they offered me their dark stone to defeat King Ja - as he held the key to subduing them. This is how a mineral deposit is managing to set mankind at war with one another. The remorse, revulsion, guilt and shame well in great pools of pain around my heart, in my throat and head. I served the empire and betrayed my species! My head aches worse. Who am I kidding, I’ve been serving my own ends since the Naga and I met! I grip hold of my skull as my brain feels fit to burst and I release a war cry. Tears run from my eyes as the pressure ballooning in my head pops! And then … euphoria! It feels as if I have broken through an invisible barrier within myself. I fall silent to draw breath, but gag on something deep in my throat. I scamper for the edge of the gazebo to regurgitate the lump, and most of lunch, over the side. In amongst the bile stripped food, are what appear to be large black leeches. The wormlike strands join to form one object, and I realise it is more of the black liquid crystal. They got inside me! I cannot voice my disgust as I am hyperventilating, yet despite the violent reaction, I feel so much relief.
‘I shall contain it.’ I hear the abbot assure. ‘Just rest. You’ve done well.’
I waved him on, unable to respond. I assume the abbot knows what he is dealing with - my guess is that he has expelled some of the liquid crystal from his brother, the emperor, also. A bit unsteady, I collapse onto the cushions and roll on my back to ride out the heady, giddy buzz. A great rush of light blinds me to everything in my inner and outer world, and I am engulfed, not by sleep, but by wakefulness.
Anik. My name is repeated in a voice so familiar, yet one I have not heard in a long time.
Mother. Amid the white she appears, but she is not my mother exactly. She glows full of light, and appears young and beautiful. I feel she is the great Earth Mother, Api, assuming a form I can recognise.
Do you seek absolution?
Now that I have been liberated from the dark influence, I realise my merciless handling of the Naga crisis at Boran Moan was not honourable, and certainly not humane. Send me to the underworld to answer to the wrath of those I have wronged.
We would prefer some recompense sooner.
Just tell me what I must do. I appeal.
She shook her head. I cannot tell you what you must do. I can only inspire, suggest, and encourage you to do what you think is right.
Again I find myself back in the royal crypt tormenting King Ja, but my focus shifts to the royal children. There is nothing that defines them as being royalty - even their clothes are plain. I had thought at the time that they had been dressed down so as to not attract attention if forced to flee. And yet, King Ja and his queen had not dressed down. I recall the princess crying out to her mother, but now that I reflect on it, she had seemed more distressed when the lady in waiting was killed. I thought she’d been the child’s nanny, but … what if the lady in waiting was her mother? They were not the true heirs. The revelation sent chills of knowing through me. I didn’t wipe out the royal family after all. But could the true heirs have survived twenty years of Sangdil occupation? Even if they had, they would have to contend with the force of warriors I’d left behind and the Naga cluster in the temple at Boran Maon to take back their country.
Free will is the gift to all within this planetary system … what will you do given liberty, Destroyer? The great mother smiles proudly and fades into darkness.
Eyes closed, but not asleep, my awareness returns to my body. My consciousness has yet to register my form, and I refrain from moving to savour the lightness I feel from the top of my head to the tips of my fingers and toes. All has gone quiet in my vicinity, and as the temperature is more amenable, I gather the gazebo has fallen into the afternoon shadow of the courtyard walls. These trials the emperor set me are turning out to be rather more beneficial than expected-
From above I am gripped and abruptly rolled onto my stomach, my face planting deep in a pillow. I turn my head to the side to avoid suffocation, but my head is forced, eyes front, stretching the front of my neck to its limit.
‘I am here to give you a massage.’ She advises gruffly in my native Scythian tongue, stripping my vest from me and slapping oil on my back.’
‘You are from Minnagara?’ I turn my head to view her, and again she forces me to face the front before she begins pulverising my back.
‘O..u..c..h! Is this supposed to be relaxation or punishment?’
‘Oh, come on,’ she caresses where she has battered. ‘You are a big, brave warrior, you can take it, can’t you?’ She begins beating into me once again.
‘Enough!’ I roll over and grab both her hands. Behind her long, loose fair hair, I glimpse a woman who is not young but very beautiful. Spit lands in my eyes and she makes a move to flee, but I grab one of her ankles. I pull her back towards me as I wipe my face clean on a curtain.
‘Let me go!’
I turn back to catch her heel colliding with my jaw. OUCH! That hurt.
I grab hold of her with both hands, drag her back and pin her beneath me. ‘I am sure this is not the treatment the emperor has ordered for his guest.’
‘I don’t care what the emperor wants!’ She hisses from behind her hair. ‘He locked me up in a harem for twenty years!’ The hair fell away from her face and I saw her.
‘Rhaiyche?’ The shock of recognising her in the middle-aged woman causes my grip to loosen and she belts me off her with an elbow to my face. ‘Mercy sakes…!’
‘I got old!’ She defends her appearance.
I grip my nose to slow the blood flow. ‘You don’t fight like it.’ I rub around my injury to try and get the feeling back in my face.
‘You promised you’d come back for me!’ She manages to jab a kick into my guts before scampering backwards.
‘I didn’t know Ashoka had locked you away!’ I wipe the blood from my nose.
‘You never thought to check?’ She fumes, throwing her hands up wildly. ‘What did you think? The tyrant who bullied you into his army was just going to leave the rest of us to live freely? We are nomadic, female warriors of no use to him whatsoever! Women are good for two things only! To be concubines, or collateral … I am the latter!’
‘I assumed you’d remarried.’
‘You assumed!’
She sounds really mad about that, yet I can’t wipe the smile off my face. ‘You haven’t been with anyone in my absence?’
Her eyes narrow, and there are daggers in them. ‘Did you arrange this?’
‘No! I swear to you on my life, I did not know.’
‘Have you been with other women?’ She holds a finger up at me to emphasise that the question is a threat.
I open my mouth to assure her that I’d been possessed for most of our time apart, but she does not have the patience.
‘You know what … I don’t care!’ She launches at me and pins me to the ground. Her lips enfold mine, and her hands frantically rip at the clothes that stand between her naked form and mine.
This is a welcome shift in mood and before she changes her mind, I assist her to be freed of all impediment. We sink into a deep union and there is an unanimous sigh of relief as two decades of hell and distance evaporate into mutual delirium.
‘What did you do to become so exulted in the emperor’s eyes, to be entertained in his royal chambers and have your wife kidnapped as insurance?’ Rhaiyche had waited until all our combative passion was expended to ask me this. She is not stupid; she knows I am so deliriously happy at this moment in time that I will probably tell her anything. ‘I am privy to secrets that no one else knows.’
‘Tell me.’ She looks up at me all smiles, but if I don’t give her the answer she wants, she’ll start beating me again.
‘Somewhere around here there is a table with wine and food, how about I tell you-’
‘Yes.’ She is up and dressing.
‘You don’t want to fight some more?’ I proffer, but she shakes her head - I’ve said the magic word.
‘I am starving and I will kill for wine.’
There it is.
‘Well?’ She slaps my thigh and I rise to hunt up my clothes. ‘You owe me a drink and a bloody good yarn.’ Rhaiyche smiles and the vision warms my heart to overflowing as I dress. This is so familiar and odd, like the aeons it took to get back to one another have just vanished; we have aged, but no time has passed. The Gods, or more accurately the emperor, seems to be trying to steer me towards taking my wife and going home to lead the life we intended. Perhaps I should leave Kambuja to deal with the Naga as they did before we got there. That is assuming that the heirs have inherited their father’s secret knowledge. Both children had been young at the time that I disposed of their parents, so I think that highly unlikely. And why did the great mother appear in my trance to bring to my attention that I may not have killed the true heirs? She implied my redemption is intertwined with their return to power - I would literally be undoing the damage I have done and setting history back to rights. Or was my semi-conscious exchange with the great mother merely a flight of fancy that is not to be taken too seriously? My destiny is still unclear, and the time to give the emperor an answer draws ever nearer.
As we enter the darkened courtyard paths of white stone lit by the moon, I realise how late the hour actually is. But heading towards the only light - a couple of flaming torches - we find a house servant standing tall and wide awake. The feasting table has been cleared of all but wine and candles.
‘How may I serve you?’ He asks.
‘We have this,’ Rhaiyche informs the servant in his own language as she grabs up the golden jug and fills two of the matching goblets. ‘Food would be good.’
‘At once.’ He bows and heads down the path that leads towards the kitchens. I can smell the aromas - sweet, sour, spicy, and the wholesome smell of fresh bread - wafting from that direction.
‘I’m starving!’ She stresses, and grins when the servant’s pace quickens.
‘So, tell me about these secrets.’ My wife takes a seat, smiling sweetly and conversing in our native tongue once again.
I hold out my hand to accept my goblet of wine from her and the frown returns to her face.
‘Do I look like a servant to you?’ She polishes off the contents of one goblet, and placing it aside, turns her attention to the second golden goblet. ‘If you think harem life tamed me, think again.’
No one has spoken down to me in twenty years, not even the emperor, but at this point I am happy that my wife is speaking to me at all. I pour myself a drink and take a seat to get comfortable, while having a few sips.
‘Am I to age another decade before you answer?’
‘Not telling is what has kept me alive.’ I outline my hesitation.
‘That will not be the case in this instance.’ She raises a brow in challenge.
I am saved by the returning man servant and his numerous staff, who lay out our table.
Across from me, Rhaiyche rolls and crosses her eyes in quiet protest to the drawn out delay in the proceedings. But she does not hesitate to pick food from the plates being laid before her, and she shovels it in her mouth like she has not eaten in years. ‘What?’ She asks of me staring at her. ‘I told you I am hungry.’ As the servants depart, she strips meat from a pheasant and groans in pleasure as she devours it, then washes it down with red wine. ‘Where have you been all this time?’
‘Kambuja.’
‘Kambuja!’ She gasps. ‘It exists?’
I nod to affirm, tear bread and dip it into a curry - everything smells and tastes ten times better than it did just this morning. All my senses are returning.
‘I have heard it said that there is a creature of utter darkness there.’ Her annoyance has morphed into intrigue.
‘True. I am its keeper.’ I reach for my drink, considering the creature described could just as easily be me.
‘So this is your secret?’ She poses in a triumphant fashion.
‘You don’t know the half of it.’
‘But you will tell me.’
‘One day.’ I grant. ‘But right now I need your advice about our immediate future … the emperor has offered me the governorship of Minnagara.’
Her pending protest turns to stunned speechlessness, but only for a moment. ‘He’s toying with you, more likely he plans to kill us both.’
I nod to concede that it is a possibility. ‘I would agree, only by heavenly decree he is bound to be generous to others, unless they cross him. I feel I should mention at this point that the emperor also offered me the kingship of Kambuja.’
‘Where the creature is?’ She appears more horrified than stunned now.
‘But I believe I have learned how it may be pacified-’
‘No.’ She is not hearing it. ‘That horrid place compared to the trading capital of our people! There is no competition!’ Her eyes unexpectedly fill with tears. ‘I never thought to see home or you again.’
‘Nor I.’ I set aside the feast as Rhaiyche straddles my lap to bestow on me a wine-laced kiss. When at last she draws away, she fixes her big hazel eyes on me. ‘Please take me home, Anik.’
