The fig tree was just like he remembered it, every branch and twig. The fruit were still green, but Ram didn’t mind; he wasn’t especially hungry at the moment. It was enough that the tree was there, gracing the courtyard of the house he’d grown up in. Dappled sunlight came through the branches to light up the table in just the way he’d always loved. Mother’s chair was empty. He assumed she’d be back by and by. The purple curtain was on her doorway, so wherever she was, she was happy. It was an early summer morning, warm but not hot. All was well.
The Temple of Haranduluz soared overhead just as it always had, illuminating Urapu with its mighty pillar of fire—but something about it didn’t seem quite as right as the rest of it. Was Nusun not at his post, maybe? He would have to tell the Ensi, if the murrush wasn’t there, but Ram couldn’t see from where he was. Oh, well. It was probably fine.
“Hello, Ram. Nice weather you gave us.”
He turned, and saw Darun leaning against the frame of the doorway that led to his room. She, too, was beautiful, but his room … something was odd about his room. Had Darun been doing something with it? He pushed past her, and found himself in a good-sized chamber with an oval table in its center. The tabletop had little sparkling bits of metal scattered across its near end, along with a few odd tools he didn’t recognize.
“My dad was a goldsmith,” Darun explained. “He had his own workshop and everything, but he was always taking his work downstairs to the dinner table with him. It drove Mom crazy, especially since he never let the bondsmen clean up. He thought they stole the scraps; he never did figure out it was me doing that.” She laughed. “I just hid them under my mattress. I was so scared he’d find them. But I was four, and they were pretty, you know?”
“Yeah, I get it.” He scanned the room. One wall was covered with ornaments of beaten metal—men, beasts, suns and stars—surrounding a fine mirror; on the other side, at least a dozen potted plants jostled for the light from a broad window. The whole thing was glazed with one flawless pane, and looked out on a street he’d never seen before. Nowhere in Dul Karagi. “Why is your dining room my bedroom now?”
“That’s just how it is, lover. Especially right now, while everything’s still moving around and putting the pieces together. It’ll settle down in a bit. In the meantime, check this out.” She snapped a finger, and her dress changed from a purple outfit to the red-and-blue striped one she’d shown him at the Garden. “Cool, huh?”
“Suppose so,” he agreed, blinking. Experimentally, he closed his eyes, and opened them to find he was dressed in flamekeeper gear. A fairly stupid trick, really; he changed himself back to normal, and got to work exploring. There was a doorway at the far end of the room, with a flight of stairs set in it.
They led to a low, rocky cavern, its floor scattered with bits of equipment: a pair of crude spears leaned against one rough wall, and a set of ropes and nets hung from iron pegs jammed into the far side. Morning sunlight shone in from a crevice high above on the face to Ram’s left. Its light fell on a broad, sandy patch on the floor where Bal lay dozing. There was a neat brick frame around the stairs he’d just come up, set seamlessly into the rough rock wall.
Bal appeared to be drowsing comfortably, so Ram clambered up the rock face to poke his head through the crack. He wasn’t especially surprised to find himself looking down on a harbor cluttered with boats. Not a riverside dock like Dul Karagi’s, or even Pilupura’s, but a quay beside an enormous open body of restless dark blue water. There didn’t seem to be a far side to it, but the sunset was magnificent. Ram shook his head, and clambered out of the crack.
Shazru stood some distance away, staring out at the crashing waves; nobody else was in sight, unless you counted the white birds shrieking overhead. Ram waved to Shazru, who waved back, but came no closer. So Ram sat down on the paving-stones, damp with salt-smelling spray, and studied the sunset. A minute later, Darun appeared, and sat down next to him.
He threw out an arm, and pulled her a bit closer. He spent a moment making her hair smell like different perfumes before he said, “So, where are we?”
“This here? Shazru’s never said, but I think it’s somewhere down south. The end of the Teshalun.”
“Dul Mashiburna,” Ram supplied. He remembered that from his lessons. “But that’s not what I meant. What is all this?” He had a feeling he should know, but he couldn’t quite remember.
“It’s where a gate takes you. Some weird magic space that doesn’t exist most of the time. It’s only here on white day.”
“Or the night of dark dreams.” It was supposed to be night now. At least, it had been before. He thought. But there was the yellow sun, and the splendor of pink and orange that took up half the sky.
“Same thing, but yeah. It’s always taken us the same places: this harbor, Bal’s cave, the house I was born in. There’s never anybody there, or anything going on, but it’s always just how you like it. There are worse ways to spend white day.”
There had been a gate, he recalled. Only everything was so mixed up. “Home. It gives us a home. Or what we think of as home. The places we like best, or feel safest.”
“Pretty much. You can mess with it a little, if you feel like changing things up. Here.” The harbor vanished, and they were sitting on their bed in the suite at Naimenka’s Garden. “You can’t play around too much, though, or Imbri gets pissy. She says it’s destabilizing to keep changing stuff.”
“Destabilizing? Can all this fall apart?”
“We got kicked out once, but that was when I was basically trying to crash it. Made myself the craziest house I could, to see what would happen. Thirty-foot wine fountain in the foyer, and you could walk up the walls. We only got kicked out for a bit, and had to hop back in. Maybe thirty seconds of white sun exposure, big damn deal.”
“Uh-huh.” She was almost as excited as she’d been for the real Garden. Normally Ram found her fits of enthusiasm endearing, when they weren’t about criminal activity; just now, she was overwhelming. He put his head in his hands.
“Hey, are you okay?”
“Bit dizzy.” Something was definitely wrong. Just like the last time he’d been in this room. “I can’t feel any haranuu. That might be it.” He didn’t want to speak too much; his stomach was suddenly unhappy. For months, he’d been accustomed to the presence of spirits, to the point where he used them to help him get around in the dark without thinking about it. Now they’d all vanished from the world, and the world didn’t make sense anymore. No wonder he felt terrible.
“Hmm.” Darun craned her neck around to look at Ram’s face. “You do look green. I’d make you some medicine, if I knew what to dream up—and would it even work, if we got it here? Food doesn’t.”
Ram was barely listening. He tried to get off the bed, only to stumble to the floor on his hands and knees. When he raised his face, he was kneeling at the base of the stairs to the Dul Karagi Temple. For half a second, his spirit exulted. But the Temple was as empty as everything else here—no murrush at the door, no spirits within. Even the fire at the top was a lie; this false and hateful place did not love the golden sun.
“Ram?” Darun’s hand gripped him by the shoulder. “Talk to me, here. What’s going on?”
“Imbri. Get me to Imbri.”
“Good idea. Hang on.” The false fire vanished, and Ram was in a vast, dark, empty room. The only light came from a plain wax candle stuck to the floor, where Imbri and Piridur sat talking; the two other flamekeepers stood at a respectful distance. Darun whistled for attention. “Hey all, we’ve got a situation here!”
Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.
Piridur was on his feet in an instant. “Explain.”
“Would if I could. Imbri, Ram’s not doing so hot. I think his little buddy’s not liking the gate.”
“That stands to reason,” she said from the floor. “Haranuu aren’t on friendly terms with bazu craft.”
Piridur rounded on her. “Why didn’t you mention this before?”
“Because it never occurred to me. We’ve never taken anyone indwelt before, unless you count Bal. But it’s understandable that his haranu wouldn’t like the situation, even if I wouldn’t necessarily have predicted it. Ram, what’s wrong? Can you describe it?”
“I can’t … I can’t feel any other spirits, and it’s making me feel weird. Have we left Ki?”
“That’s hard to say, since we aren’t anywhere in particular. The gate constructs a space to fit our own memories and experiences, meshing them up as best it can. We’re limited in how many people we can bring in because it’s difficult to harmonize multiple minds. I’d been assuming your spirit didn’t make you count as more than one. Maybe I was wrong.”
“Is that all you have to say?” Piridur demanded.
“What else is there? The construct is still mostly stable, as long as the rest of us don’t do anything extravagant, and however bad he feels in here, he’ll feel worse outside when the white sun comes up. We might have to cut him loose a few hours early, but for now staying put is the best option.”
Piridur’s jaw clenched. “A few hours early?”
“Not many. The gate’s construct naturally deteriorates as white day progresses. We’ll get kicked out a bit before sunset anyway.”
“Yes, I’m aware of that. I won’t have Ram unsupervised.”
“You can leave with him, if you want, but I wouldn’t. I expect whatever the white sun does to him will heal tomorrow. You won’t be so lucky.”
“You said there’d be shelter.“
“Enough to keep the brutes from dying outright, yes. They’ll still be worse for wear, and it kills the brain first. If you stay out there a few hours every white day, you’ll be pretty well insane in a few tetrads. Or drooling stupid.”
Even by candlelight, the concern on Piridur’s face was plain enough. “I won’t go anywhere,” Ram promised.
“He couldn’t,” Imbri confirmed. “Not outside the gate’s penumbra. He’d feel too sick to move, indwelt or not.”
Abruptly, Piridur sat back down. “Perhaps you’re right.”
If Ram’s spirit didn’t like the gate in general, it seemed to have particularly strong objections to the empty black space they were presently in. With the conversation plainly over, he shut his eyes, and wished himself and Darun into the dining room of the Red Flute.
“Somebody’s learning quick,” she said, as the room settled into place around them.
“It’s not exactly hard,” Ram replied, sounding harsher than he meant. This was better than the black place, but the queasy feeling was only getting worse. He sat on one of the tables, because he couldn’t spare the concentration it took to stand up straight. “Did the way Piridur acted just now seem a little off to you?”
“You mean the way he made a big fuss, then gave up all at once? Sure. He’s hiding something, same as always. Good luck finding out what.”
“Not finding out’s not an option.”
“Sure it is,” she retorted, sitting down in one chair and propping her feet up on another. “It’s what happens most of the time. It’s just a crappy option, is all.”
“Darun. Please. Get serious.”
“What do you want? It’s Piridur. Big important pyre boss man. He likes to be in charge, and he likes to know exactly what’s going on. Now he’s not and he doesn’t, so he’s losing his shit, like a little kid who stayed up too late. This might be some big secret, or he might just be acting like an overbearing asshole because it makes him feel like he’s on top again. You want to ask him which it is?”
“Where’d you get all that from?”
Darun put her hands behind her head, and looked smug. “About twelve blooms as a beggar, whore, and negotiator. I wouldn’t have lasted at any of it if I couldn’t read men well, would I?”
“Probably not.” He shut his eyes, and tried to relax; he had no idea how he was supposed to last hours in this place. “I need to lie down.”
“No problem.” When Ram opened his eyes, they were back on the bed in the Garden. He lay down at once. “I’m going to go hallucinate me a big old bath in the next room. Feel free to join me later, if you get better.” She kissed him on the cheek, and was gone with a soft click of the door’s latch. Sleep came surprisingly quickly, and without dreams—but what would be the point of dreaming, in a place like this?
A long or a short time later, he woke up to find the room on fire. The bed he sat on was untouched; every other article of furniture was engulfed in flames. Even the walls were afire; a bright red glow was eating away at the brickwork, breaking the mortar loose with cracks and pops. He sat up—his stomach felt better—and saw golden flecks of light weaving in and out of the walls. The window with the dancing gods abruptly shattered, revealing a world of bright red light.
Ram ordered the room to be normal again. Nothing happened. He imagined himself in a pristine room, and it was whole for a half-second. Then the red light came back, and the window re-shattered. Damn it.
The door flew open, and Darun stormed in, dry and fully dressed. The room behind her was burning too. “Ram, what are you doing?”
“I’m not doing anything!”
“Well, somebody is, and it isn’t me!”
He grabbed her hand, and wished them back in his courtyard. The tree burst into flames two seconds after they arrived, followed by the table and Mother’s chair. The little golden lights rushed about like frightened songbirds, torching everything they could and a lot of things they logically couldn’t. They weren’t haranuu—he couldn’t feel them—but he had no doubt where they came from. Only the Temple, looming overhead, was untouched.
Imbri appeared in Mother’s doorway, vanishing the burning purple curtain as she did. “Ram. Can you stop this?”
“No. I’ve tried.”
“Then I’m afraid we don’t have any choice. The construct can’t take this kind of abuse. I’m sorry.” She spat a phrase in Moonchild, and Ram blacked out.
When he came to, he was lying on the bare sand of a lonely hill in the desert. The sky overhead was an empty black, with only one familiar, hateful blue star rising out of the east. The brutes lay huddled together, for warmth or comfort, on one side of the hill. None of them even looked up when Ram appeared.
He felt better, and worse. He was unquestionably in Ki, with all the familiar haranuu in the right places—including Beshi’s, two feet away on the ground. Ram couldn’t remember taking his sword off; it seemed the gate had decided to leave it behind on its own. It was good, his haranu said, to be back in the real world. All the same, he was far from Dul Karagi on a bare hilltop on white day. He felt as if he had mud in his brain. There was no sign of Imbri’s promised shelter, and the white sun was just rising over the dead world. A long, miserable day lay ahead of him.
He put his head back down, to lay in the dust some more. Perhaps he would feel better in the evening, but it hurt to think that far ahead. Everything hurt. He could track the crawling passage of time by the drumbeat of his pulse inside his skull. Sleeping was out of the question. Even the brutes weren’t sleeping, he didn’t think. Only picking the least uncomfortable position to suffer in.
But Ram was not a brute. Time passed, and passed, and he shifted and turned restlessly in the dirt. By and by, he grew irritated with every position he could lie in, and staggered to his feet. He needed a distraction. Something to do with his time. He tried walking—though he hardly felt like exercise—only to find that the pain of the white sun grew sharply worse as he moved down the hill. He hadn’t thought that was possible.
He returned to the crown of the hill, feeling a fresher and clearer hate for the white sun than he had ever felt before. Damn Haranduluz, anyway, deserting his people every four days and then asking blood for payment. Damn the bazuu, for their lying tricks. Damn the Ensi, for getting him involved. And damn men like Piridur, for—
Piridur. Piridur hadn’t wanted him left here unsupervised. Why? There was nowhere to go, and nothing to do. Only the brutes, wheezing and hurting on one side of the gate … and their packs and saddles on the other. Well, that was something.
He didn’t hurry. It would have hurt, and he was far from short on time. Pack by pack, he went through the gear, taking excruciating care to put everything back exactly as he found it. When he found the rations, he made himself eat a handful of pistachios, on the theory that nourishment would make him stronger. It really didn’t, but it gave him a rest. Lifting and moving the saddles was as painful as everything else.
Naturally, Piridur had arranged to have his and his men’s personal packs on the bottom. Most of it was unimportant: clothes, money, rope, jewelry for gifts, and the odd comb or razor. A sealed letter from Jushur, in the usual vellum, was squashed into one corner of Piridur’s bag. Ram spent ten minutes debating whether to rip the seal, and make it look like the shifting weight of the load had done it. In the end, he decided he didn’t dare risk it.
And then there was one other thing, in one of the flamekeepers’ packs: an oblong, heavy satchel of oil-treated leather that clinked softly when he picked it up. It, too, was sealed, tied tightly shut at three points and the knots coated in wax. Fortunately, the leather was not terribly thick, and Ram took his time feeling the contents. About eight or ten long metal objects, he decided, each slightly less heavy than Beshi, all wrapped up in some kind of fabric to discourage noise. The padding was extra-thick at one end of each pole, but if he pushed down he could feel hard, sharp protrusions. Barbs, he decided. Barbs, or spikes, with the biggest point at the end.
He couldn’t think of any way they could be used as tools, but they’d be brutal weapons if you threw them. A strong arm could drive one right through a man’s stomach, or neck, or even his rib cage if the thrower got close. And once a man was stuck, the barbs would make sure he stayed stuck, like a fishhook. The target would disembowel himself trying to get them out again, if he could even stand to try for the pain.
Ram put everything carefully away, then curled up with his arms around his knees to wait out the day. Even the white sun couldn’t make him too stupid to realize why Piridur had packed such a thing, or why he wanted it kept secret. But was it a precaution, in case Ram’s spirit drove him mad, or something he intended to use regardless?