Bandim

The only sound in Bandim’s chambers was the rhythmic in and out of his breathing. The emperor sat in an opulent chair by the empty fireplace. The cold ashes within were as grey as his mood. The shutters were closed tightly against the midday brightness and his servants had long since been banished. Bandim sat, alone and silent, staring at his reflection in his gilt-silver handplate.

As he moved it from side to side, his image warped, growing thinner or fatter depending on the angle at which he held it. Fitting, he thought. Warped is exactly how I feel.

It had been days since Dorai had given him her presence. Yet all was not as Bandim had anticipated, or how Johrann had prophesied. He felt the goddess within him but there was no symbiosis. Johrann had claimed he would become the goddess herself and that all her might and power would flow through him.

Johrann was wrong.

Worse still, his brother’s dead body had disappeared. No matter what Johrann said, it still worried him. He would not settle fully until his brother’s body was burned.

Bandim shook his head but kept his eyes fixed on his reflection. Since Johrann had channeled Dorai into the world and into him, all Bandim had felt was himself as always, but with a vacant pocket somewhere within that had not been there before. It was as if Dorai had invaded his body but was hiding in the dark recesses of his mind, constantly out of reach. He leaned forward and brought the handplate closer to his face. His careful examination of his features continued and yet he could still find no trace of the goddess there.

‘You will see her in yourself,’ Johrann had said. ‘She will give you a sign to show you she is there, ready to share all she has.’

Bandim stared deeply into the reflection of his own face, searching for something. Anything. But he saw nothing that had not been there before. He had the same flat face, the same yellow eyes blinking back at him.

There was nothing.

Frustration built in his chest like the swelled banks of a river in flood. Bandim grunted and, without warning, cast the handplate from his grasp. It skidded across the stone floor, clearing a path through the fresh rushes. The situation was intolerable. Johrann had lied. He was not the goddess. He was still just a male.

Not known for his patience, Bandim had quickly tired of his advisor’s vapid assurances that all would be well. Instead of his constant companion, Johrann was now seldom a guest in his presence, despite her pleading. With or without the goddess, Bandim was still emperor, and his word was law.

‘Your Grace,’ Johrann had said, her eyes brimming, ‘if you do not let me work with you to unleash your inner power, the goddess will never grant you her gifts. Do not send me away. Let me help you.’

Working for Dorai’s power was not part of Johrann’s promises before. She had felt her failure through the harsh flats of his hands.

The handplate discarded, Bandim instead stared into the dim grate of the fireplace. He didn’t know how long for but eventually his attention was diverted by a deferent knock at the door.

‘Enter,’ he said, not turning.

Soft footsteps entered. The door was closed gently. His guest waited in obedient silence until Bandim deigned to grant them his attention. As soon as he saw who it was, his face drew tight with anger.

It was Johrann.

‘I told you not to return,’ Bandim said, rising slowly from his chair.

Johrann kept her eyes averted from his gaze and clasped her hands in front of her waist.

‘I know, Your Grace,’ she said. ‘However, I have come to appeal to you to let me try once more to help you.’

He could have simply turned her away. Told her to get out, even shouted it had he wanted. But even that seemed too easy. Bandim was an emperor, and emperors must be obeyed. It was time to reinforce that issue with Johrann.

His soft slippers made little noise as he crossed the room to her. She kept her eyes on the floor as he walked, just as she should.

Bandim grasped her throat with his claws and pinned her to the wall before she knew what was happening. White hot anger coursed through him, boiling his blood. The edges of his vision blurred as fury consumed him. Bandim bared his teeth and growled.

‘You need to learn your place,’ he snarled. ‘You may live in the empress’s chambers but that does not make you the empress. You have played me a merry tune, promising me the sun, the moons and the stars, and what have you delivered for me?’ He tightened his grip around the thin slip of her neck. ‘Nothing!’

His temper burned brighter and his whole body flashed hot, as if he was engulfed in flame. He clamped his jaws together as ire consumed him. His nose slits flared.

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Johrann squeezed her eyes shut as she tried to extricate herself from the tight clamp of his claws. That only urged Bandim’s temper to flame.

‘My word is law!’ he said. ‘I told you not to return here, and yet you have. Not only do you lie but you disobey as well. You have promised me much and delivered me nothing. And now you have the audacity to enter my presence again, your arrogance leading you to think I will take you back into my favor. No!’

Something flared within him with that word. A well of power rose within him, and his claws squeezed tighter.

He smelled the charred flesh before he saw the smoke.

Under his fingertips, Johrann’s skin smoldered. She shrieked in agony, writhing to escape from his grasp. Bandim’s eyes widened at the sight, shock keeping his grasp tight around her neck. Then thought dawned like a tawny sun and he released her.

Bandim stumbled backwards, staring at his hands. A bright red glow formed in his palms and snaked to the tips of his claws. Inside, fire as hot as a funeral pyre coursed through him. But fear began to dampen it, and he stuttered.

‘What…what is this?’ he asked. ‘What is this power?’

Johrann’s neck still smoldered but it was as if she could not feel the pain. Instead of tending to her wounds, she stared at him, jaw slack with awe.

‘Your Grace,’ Johrann whispered, ‘it has happened at last. Look at your hands.’ Her shaking claws rose to touch her neck. ‘Look at what they have done. Look at the power, how it glows upon you. And your eyes, they glowed red too!’

She threw herself forward and fell at his feet.

‘Hand of Dorai,’ she said, her voice thick with emotion, ‘your powers are awakening. Your true spirit is returning!’

Fear gave way to abject joy. Johrann’s words made Bandim’s heart sing. He couldn’t take his eyes from his hands. They glowed and pulsed as Dorai danced within him. At last it had happened. At last, he could feel Dorai’s presence. She inhabited his every corner, no longer invisible but flaring and glowing with fire.

Johrann had been right.

‘This is…tremendous,’ he said. ‘I feel more powerful than I have ever felt before.’

‘You are not just more powerful,’ Johrann said, clutching at the hem of his robes. ‘You are all-powerful.’

Ignoring her attempts to rise, Bandim clicked his talons.

‘Get me my handplate.’

Immediately, Johrann scrabbled across the floor and found the plate, unscathed from its crash. She shuffled forward on her knees. Bowing her head, she held it up. Bandim snatched it from her talons and brought it to his face.

His breath caught. His eyes did glow red.

‘It’s true,’ he said. ‘My eyes… Now I have the power of the goddess within me.’ He delved back in his thoughts, tracing the journey that had awakened his powers. ‘It was fury,’ he said. ‘My anger woke the goddess.’

Johrann spoke, her mouth stumbling with the speed of her words.

‘Of course,’ she said. ‘“And when Dorai struck down the unbelievers with righteous anger, her eyes shone as bright as the midsun.” It is written! Your anger is Dorai’s anger, righteous and terrifying!’

Bandim kept his gaze in the handplate. His claws tightened on the carved wooden handle. Anger. That was the key. His lips widened in a macabre smile. He had enough of that for three goddesses.

He flicked his eyes to Johrann, still prostrate on the floor. His smile faded.

Bandim pulled her to her feet by her collar. Residual heat pulsed through him.

‘The goddess lives within you, awake at last!’ Johrann said.

She reached for his hands but Bandim snatched them away, still grasping his handplate. His anger reared again as a plan formed in his mind.

‘No thanks to you,’ he snarled.

Johrann recoiled as if struck.

‘Y-your Grace…’

Right she may have been, Bandim thought, but that didn’t mean he needed to give her the satisfaction of his acknowledgement. He didn’t need to be thankful to her, especially not now he was truly more than just an ordinary male.

‘Johrann Maa,’ he said, his voice low and dangerous. ‘You have proved yourself an unreliable adviser.’

Her face fell and she shrank back.

‘I live only for you,’ she said. ‘I have never, ever sought to deceive you.’

Bandim drew his eyeridges low and shook his head.

‘You have failed me,’ he said. ‘It should have been you that discovered the catalyst for my powers. I should not have had to find out for myself.’

Johrann cast herself at his feet once more and he allowed her to lavish kisses upon them. Suffer, he thought. You deserve it.

After a moment he stepped away, eyes back on his reflection. He glanced at her through the handplate.

‘However, you can redeem yourself,’ he continued.

‘Anything, Your Grace,’ Johrann replied. ‘I will do anything for you.’

Bandim allowed himself a self-indulgent grin at her scrabbling before he schooled his expression into a solemn frown. As much as he wished to punish her, he could not push her away. Regardless of anything else, she was the only one of her colors he knew of, and the only one with any knowledge of the secrets of the goddess. While he did not want to, he knew it was true. While he tried to deny it, he knew the reality. He needed her, for she was the one who had opened the world up to Dorai. But his need did not make them equals, and the more in his debt she felt, the more influence he would have upon her.

‘You will help me unlock my true potential,’ Bandim continued. ‘You know more of this power than anyone, unworthy as you are. If you prove yourself worthy by helping me harness Dorai’s greatness, you will be welcomed back into my counsel. Until then you are nothing but a servant to me and you will be treated as such.’

Johrann smiled, an expression of complete devotion.

‘Yes, Your Grace,’ she said. ‘I will do it. I will prove to you that I am loyal.’

Bandim shook his head, still staring at himself in the polished plate. His red eyes shimmered and shone.

‘It is not your loyalty that is at fault,’ he said, ‘but rather your arrogance.’

Johrann’s expression crumpled as if she had been stung. But she nodded and licked her lips, bringing her hands together.

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I have been arrogant and I have failed you. But I will prove you can trust me. I will be nothing but a humble servant for your means.’

‘Good,’ Bandim said, staring at her through the plate. ‘The Althemerians will not be able to stand up to my powers once the goddess is strong within me. I will decimate them, just as my father wanted. I will prove to him, as he watches from the afterlife, that I was the true heir. It should have been me. I will raze the entire world, be the greatest emperor that ever lived, to show him he and Mother were wrong!’ Bandim’s heart sang, his flesh tingled, and victory burned through him. ‘I will be all-powerful. I will crush the world. Nothing will stand in my way.’

His was mouth a savage slash as he delivered his next words.

‘I am the goddess incarnate.’