By the end of the second week Alaron had catalogued most of the novices, and a few of the initiated monks, who had approached him out of curiosity. He even used the information of people he knew, like Cym, Ramon and even his father. It didn’t provide any great revelations, but it helped with creating hypotheses.
All the while, his own gnostic reach was increasing. He began to feel like he was inhabiting that statue of Sivraman, with four ‘ghost arms’ holding his conjured Fire, Earth, Water and Air; his aura had a sorcerous eye on his brow and a lion’s cloak slung over his shoulder representing Hermetic gnosis. He struggled with his Theurgy symbolism until settling on the four women who meant the most to him to represent each study. Ramita was Mysticism, because he felt so linked to her. Cym he chose for Illusion, because he never felt like he’d known the real her. His mother Tesla was Spiritualism, because she was now a spirit; and Anise’s lovely eyes made him think of Mesmerism. At the Arcanum they’d had to learn about all the studies, even those they couldn’t use, so they could protect themselves. Now, as he explored, those lessons came back to him and he made new gains every day … which meant that by the end of Julsep they had no more excuses to delay their departure. The time had come to leave this haven and seek Vizier Hanook.
*
‘So, Alaron Mercer, you are leaving us,’ said Puravai in his gravely melodic voice. Alaron and Ramita had gone to the master’s office together to tell him of their intentions. The master showed not a whit of surprise. ‘I had hopes that you might join us and become “Brother Longlegs” in truth.’
Alaron wasn’t sure if the master was serious or just being polite. ‘We have to go to the mughal’s court.’
‘Indeed, and I fully support that plan. I knew the vizier, as I told you: man is a social being and Hanook always was destined for the outside world. That is why we have city-based monasteries as well as sanctuaries far from the hustle and bustle of the world.’ He clapped his hands and Yash walked in. His steps were light and eager, but his face worried. ‘Brother Yash has asked to accompany you to Teshwallabad, en route to his new life in a monastery there.’
‘I know Teshwallabad,’ Yash said eagerly. ‘I’ve lived there before, and I have asked to be transferred.’
‘We would welcome the company,’ Ramita said, after some consideration. ‘Provided the windskiff can carry three.’
Alaron smiled. ‘It’ll be cosy, but we should manage. Only … the babies?’ They’d discussed that matter over the previous evenings, inconclusively.
Ramita lifted her chin. ‘Master Puravai, Al’Rhon and I have talked much about this. Al’Rhon would have me leave the children here with a wet-nurse, but I cannot be without them.
I cannot
. And so they will come with us.’ She looked at Alaron defiantly. ‘That is my decision.’
‘The court is a perilous place, Lady,’ Puravai said.
‘I will not be separated from my children,’ Ramita said firmly. ‘This is not to be debated.’
*
The new moon signalled the beginning of Augeite. In the outside world there would great celebrations among Amteh-worshippers, for Julsep – Rajab in Ahmedhassa –was the Amteh holy month, a time of austerity and prayer. The new moon of Augeite heralded the end of thirty days of privation, in the festival of Eyeed. But the day was barely marked at the monastery and Alaron and Ramita spent their final days there preparing the windskiff, provisioning it with dried lentils and other stores and poring over maps. They intended flying at night, to avoid alarming the local people; the journey would take about a week.
Leaving was surprisingly hard. Alaron was touched to be given a new kon-staff, decorated with gaudy friendship cords from each of the three dozen novices with whom he’d been training. He knew them all well now, from their mannerisms and the way they fought to the raw data from his Scytale research: ages and birthdates, the colours of eyes, and all the other categorisations.
I’m going to miss them
, he realised.
The monastery itself too. It’s like a second home
.
They left without ceremony the day after Eyeed. Luna’s brilliant face lit the mountains in silver, set the snowy peaks aglow and carved the valley and slopes into light and shadow. Their breath frosted as they took to the air. Only Puravai had come to watch their departure. Ramita was wrapped in blankets, the children asleep in her lap. Yash was anxious to be away quickly, as if he feared Puravai might change his mind and make him stay.
Puravai slipped an envelope into Alaron’s hands. ‘Give this to Hanook in greeting,’ he murmured. ‘Do not open it, or damage the seal.’
Alaron slipped the envelope into his coat. He was wearing his Rondian clothes again, and his swordbelt. He laid his kon-staff against the keel of the skiff, alongside Yash’s, then he and Ramita fed an extra burst of gnosis energy into the keel and he called the wind as they rose. In seconds the monastery was a dark huddle below. Puravai shrank to a saffron dot, and then the folds of the land blocked everything out.
Alaron set their course through the upper valley, heading for a pass into the east.
‘Praise be to all the gods,’ Yash breathed. ‘I am flying!’
*
It wasn’t a homecoming, but crossing northern Lakh stirred Ramita’s heart. Most nights they flew for five to six hours, averaging thirty miles each hour, or so Alaron estimated as he compared the countryside below to landmarks on the map. They began covering up to a hundred and fifty miles in a night, and still the land below crawled past, as they crossed the featureless Sithardha Desert, its dunes like the waves of the ocean rendered in sand.
They slept the sweltering days away beside the hull, Ramita and the children on one side, the two young men on the other. There was little privacy, and Yash was even more embarrassed about breastfeeding women than Alaron, who helped Ramita where he could, passing her each child in turn, and cleaning them for her. Such women’s work appeared to beneath the young novice, which irritated Ramita, but by and large they got on. Yash proved to be an eager flier; he was keen to understand how the sails and tiller worked, and how to use the wind. Alaron or Ramita had to power the keel, but they were soon able to let Yash fly the craft alone.
The distances would have been unthinkable on foot. Flying made the journey a simpler thing altogether: a week put the desert behind them and the land took on greener hues as they neared the vast basin of the great Imuna River. It was more than five miles wide, a sluggish brown snake basking beneath the sun and moon. Ramita stared at it avidly, her lips moving in prayer.
This is the holiest of rivers
, she told her children silently.
Imuna, daughter of Baraman the Creator, will look after us.
She looked back at Alaron as he turned the tiller and swung the craft southwards, taking advantage of a warm wind from the north. His hair was thick and unruly – he’d not cut it for months – and she found herself idly fantasising about taming his shaggy locks.
He shouldn’t go before the vizier looking like a barbarian
.
They wound down the river, past settlements they tried to identify on Puravai’s map. Ramita discovered she knew many of the names from her life in Aruna Nagar, where goods came to market from everywhere: this town made good chillies, and that one was famed for its pomegranates.
‘Look at the size of these places,’ Alaron exclaimed at one point. ‘Most of them are bigger than Norostein!’
‘Clearly your Norostein is not a very large town,’ she replied.
‘It’s the capital of the whole kingdom of Noros,’ he replied, gazing down at the expanse of houses they’d identified as Ghanasheed, a minor town on the river.
‘But that’s only Yuros,’ she reminded him. ‘Everything is larger here.’
‘Except the people.’ Alaron chuckled. ‘In all ways,’ he added with a sly wink.
Yash looked affronted, but Ramita found herself giggling. White men were certainly bigger, and her husband had been …
ahem!
… a
tall
man.
Kazim, of course, had been the biggest boy in the neighbourhood; he was much taller and heavier even than Alaron, or most of the white men she’d ever seen. For the first time for many weeks she wondered where he was. She had not forgiven him – she doubted she ever would.
You are part of my past now
, she told his memory.
I do not need to think of you ever again. Or you, Huriya. I do not know you any more
.
*
A few days later, some three hours before dawn, they made out the night-lamps of a huge settlement, and the glowing white domes of many Dom-al’Ahms glowing in the dark expanse. Largest of all were the golden sandstone walls of what had to be the mughal’s palace, crouched above the city like a slumbering lion. The dome of the palace not only reflected the moonlight, but appeared to be giving out its own faint light.
‘Teshwallabad,’ Ramita said, savouring the word on her tongue. ‘We’ve arrived!’
Alaron pulled the skiff into a banking descent and tried to pick out a place where they could hide their craft. He settled on a low hill well inland from the river and steered for the far side of it, concentrating on the tricky task of landing in darkness. As they drew close to the ground he threw a flare of light ahead of them, revealing a rocky expanse with a flat area that looked sandy to one side. He took them in while Ramita held the children to her and shielded them all. Before they touched down, Yash leaped out, holding the hitching rope in what was now a practised manoeuvre. He landed agilely, planted his heels and hauled, and Alaron pulled in the sails and doused the energy in the keel. The skiff sank smoothly and easily to the ground.
Alaron looked at Ramita as one of the twins spluttered awake and began to wail. She silenced him with a wish, clutching them both tight to her bosom. ‘All okay?’
‘Theeka,’ she responded softly, ‘hush, darlings.’ She let all the calmness she could muster brush gently against the two tight little bundles of energy. ‘Sleep on, all is well.’
I hope
. She thanked Parvasi-ji for their safe arrival.
There was work to be done, but first they climbed to the top of the rise, partly to ensure they were not in sight of any farm buildings, but mostly just to look on Teshwallabad in the distance. The dome of the mughal still glowed in the pre-dawn light: an eerie pale gold that spoke of wealth and splendour.
Ramita held Nasatya to her breast while Alaron carried Dasra.
He looks good, holding my child
, she thought fondly, then bit her lip.
Will my next husband be so gentle and kind?
She had made harnesses for the twins, with shoulder straps that allowed them to be held against the back or the chest, leaving hands free. Alaron wore his so the child was in front, but she usually had the child behind her, not pressed against her swollen breasts. The thought reminded her that it would soon be time to wean them.
‘What a place!’ Alaron breathed, staring at the distant dome and palace.
‘Do you know how the mughal came to rule Lakh?’ Yash asked. Ramita knew, but Alaron shook his head, so Yash went on, ‘Kesh and Khotri were having another war, and the Emir of Khotri sent messengers to the Maharajah of Lakh, pleading for aid – this despite frequent war between Lakh and Khotri also. The Maharajah of all Lakh was the great Raj-Prithan, and he had ambitions to be Lord of all Ahmedhassa. So he sent a great army north, to aid Khotri and perhaps gain a foothold there.’
Despite knowing the tale, Ramita still felt a stir of anger. The fall of Raj-Prithan was the great nightmare of her people.
‘It was a trap,’ the monk said grimly. ‘Kesh and Khotri had secretly forged a peace and were conspiring together to draw out Raj-Prithan and destroy his armies. There is a place northwest of Ullakesh where they say the valley is white with the bones of Lakh dead. They captured and executed Raj-Prithan, then the Khotri invaded and seized Teshwallabad. The son of the emir became Mughal of Lakh, and he and his descendants have been pushing south ever since. Everywhere they go they persecute those of the Omali faith and put their own people in lordship over the local rajas.’
‘When did this happen?’ Alaron asked.
‘1288,’ Yash replied. ‘That date is carved upon our souls at birth.’
There are 454 years between the Yuros and Antiopian calendars,’ Alaron noted, doing the arithmetic, ‘so that’s 834 in our time – ninety-five years, not so long ago.’
‘Long enough,’ Yash muttered.
Alaron looked at Ramita. ‘Why would your husband send us to an Amteh ruler?’
‘He is not,’ Ramita replied. ‘He’s sending us to Hanook, the vizier.’
‘What’s a vizier?’
‘The head counsellor,’ Yash replied sullenly. ‘He helps the Amteh oppress our people.’
‘My father always said Hanook often prevented the Amteh from doing far worse,’ Ramita replied, remembering dinner-table conversations, all the good-natured shouting between her parents and their friends about such things.
‘How does the mughal keep control of such a huge land?’ Alaron asked.
‘Fear,’ Yash replied. ‘At the merest hint of rebellion, they come with soldiers and slaughter all who resist – innocent people. They reward those who spy on their fellow Lakh.’ He was breathing heavily. ‘They killed my parents.’
Ramita frowned. ‘You are not here to take revenge,’ she reminded the monk. ‘You are a Zain.’
Yash made a holy sign. ‘I am a child of Zain,’ he agreed. ‘The wind passes through me. I feel neither heat nor cold.’ They were lines from the morning prayer.
‘My husband trusted Hanook. We must also.’
They returned to the skiff and unloaded it, then removed the mast and covered the hull with the sail. Alaron looked at her with a smile and waggled his fingers. ‘Shall we hide the skiff?’
Together they engaged Earth-gnosis and then telekinesis, swiftly excavating a hole and lowering the hull into it. As a final touch Ramita added some vegetation to make the ground look undisturbed, then Alaron dusted it with Air-gnosis so that no one could see the disturbance. Yash watched with awe, though even he didn’t appreciate what he’d seen: their first in-earnest use of multiple forms of the gnosis.