Mantos
Mantos Tiboli, Imperial Prince of the Masvam Empire, was heir to the throne by a hairline crack. Two eggs had rested in two divots, on two identical stone pillars. Identical wrought-iron branches curved around them, rising into tall spikes surrounding the leathery spheres. Everything the same, everything equal, both eggs cared for the same way in the same warm air. It was a miracle, something unheard of, even in the annals of time. Never before had two eggs been brought into the world together—not since the time of the gods themselves.
Armed guards and males of the household watched over them. They stared, eyes never leaving the leathery shells, waiting for the blessed moment when the future emperor would hatch. But which one would it be? The larger egg, black dappled with gold? Or the smaller one, silver and smooth and glinting in the candlelight? It was rumored that courtiers and potwashes alike took bets, though if any were caught, it would mean their heads. To bet on the future emperor was shameful, but the glint of coin was too great a temptation.
Mantos emerged from his silver egg first, all razor claws and stubby tail, golden eyes glimmering. His first sight was a joyful smile, and the first sound he heard a whoop of joy.
After the briefest of moments, brother Bandim escaped from his black and gold shell, too young to see and hear that the joy was less for the second hatchling. The spare.
It was only by virtue of that brief moment that Mantos found himself standing at the edge of his father’s bed, twenty-one cycles later, on the cusp of becoming emperor.
Bandim lingered further away, cloaked by shadow. He stared at their dying father, unblinking.
‘Is he awake?’ he asked.
Slowly, Mantos shook his head.
‘I don’t think so,’ he said.
‘Will he wake again?’
Mantos paused before he answered. The truth stilled his tongue, until duty bade him answer his brother.
‘I don’t know.’
For the longest time the brothers stood in the lavish bedchamber, watching the erratic rise and fall of their father’s chest, listening to the rattle of his breath and the spluttering of the candles. This was the same bedchamber they had been hatched in. It was the bedchamber that would become Mantos’s upon his father’s death.
And what then? Mantos thought as he fingered the fine embroidery of the bedspread. His claws passed over the scenes picked out in golden thread. Conquests, killings, triumphs. His stomach lurched. Soon the crown will fall upon my head, as will leadership of the largest empire in the land… An empire that swallows everything in its path. An empire that I want nothing to do with… His eyes flicked to Bandim. But an empire I must command. The alternative is unthinkable.
Until losing his speech three days before their father, Emperor Braslen, had still commanded his advisers, poring over crinkled maps servants brought to his bedside. He was still talking strategy, showing Mantos the next steps in his grand plan.
‘We will break the Metakalans once and for all,’ Braslen said. Despite the wheeze in his voice and the tremble in his hand, fire blazed in his eyes. ‘Too long have they held out against us. Now that the Selamans have been crushed, we can focus our attention on Metakala—but do not forget, we must leave enough military might in Selama to quell any rebellion. We will roll our borders into Metakalan lands, and then, we will strike against the Althemerians. Metakala is nothing more than a stepping-stone to our true quarry. The Althemerian queen disrespected me twice: once when she denied my marriage offer, and again when she would not marry her daughters to my sons.’ The fury in Braslen’s eyes made Mantos want to step back, but he held firm. Braslen snarled. ‘We will crush them…’
Dutiful, the prince listened and nodded at the right times. He knew the Selamans had been crushed. He had been there. He planted the Masvam flag in their capital. He torched the banner that once hung in their ornate long hall. He slit the throat of the queen beneath its flaming remains. Crushed wasn’t even the right word. Decimated was closer to the mark. Crops and shipyards set alight in white-hot flame, cities brought to ash and ruin, females and younglings trampled to death on the streets… And for what? Mantos thought. Land? Power? He suppressed a snort. More like rebellion. More like death.
As always, he dared not share those thoughts. Once, he had a confidant, but… Mantos shuddered. Fonbir and I dare not communicate about these matters any longer, he thought. Princes on opposing sides of an impending war... It is not prudent, as much as my heart aches for him.
An obedient son, Mantos always played his part. He was a scholar, a diplomat and most importantly, a warrior. It was expected. The heir to the Masvam throne, he could be nothing else. No matter what the Metakalans or the Althemerians or the Linvarrans might believe, he thought, the Masvams saw their males as soldiers, protectors, while other cultures denigrated theirs. Males were nothing more than simpering pets to them, those lands with queens and empresses. That was why they resisted Masvam rule with blood and steel. They saw Masvam ideals as dangerous, against the natural way. But how could that be? The Masvams followed the Light and did as the goddess commanded. We inhabit the holy words, where the male is power and strength, Mantos thought. They live a lie, where females are leaders and warriors. It is against the natural way. Our way is the natural way.
Mantos sighed and dropped the hem of his father’s bedspread. Bandim came a little closer, his face lit by the fine white candles their father favored.
Like Mantos, Bandim had a fine figure. They were tall and wiry, strength without bulk, and favored their mother’s coloring. Their skin was a deep brown, their armor—thick scales running in patterns across the body—was burnished gold, with straw-like head fronds straight and black as night. In the light, Bandim’s eyes were opalescent yellow— just like Mantos’s. Both princes were adorned with jewelry: rings, bracelets, and a fine gold chain that wound around their curving horn crests, dripping with colored gemstones. They both wore identical pendants around their necks. Two crossed Tiboli lightning strikes with a round shield between them. Their jewels were bright but their robes were black, a sign of respect for their dying father.
Soon they would wear white. White to help Braslen’s spirit find its way to the temple, then to the Light.
But not yet.
Bandim fell in beside Mantos and clasped his sharp claws, polished to fine black points, against his flat stomach. His horned tail shifted, the thick bulk lying against the fine muscles of his legs.
‘He doesn’t have much time left. His life’s thread is ready to snap.’ Bandim said. There was a pause. His tone shifted. ‘You will continue with Father’s plans, won’t you?’
It was phrased as a question but said as a command. You don’t care that he is passing into the Light, Mantos thought. All you care about is the opportunity it brings for you, brother. You’ve never hidden your disdain. Don’t try to, even now that he is dying.
Mantos drew himself to his full height, the scales of his neck unfurling. They widened like a golden ruff, licking at the periphery of his vision. He stared at his brother. Hard.
‘I have given my word,’ he said.
Bandim twitched his tail and raised himself to meet Mantos’s eyes. His own neck pulsed, the scales unfurling in a mirror image of Mantos’s.
‘Words are words,’ he said, speaking with the wise and confident tone that had fooled many housemasters and teachers. One quality Bandim had in abundance was intelligence, even at the cost of kindness and compassion. ‘You can speak them and still not believe them. I know you’ve given him your word.’ He drew his scaled brows low, raised a claw, and pressed on Mantos’s scaly chest plate. ‘But the question is, have you given him your heart?’
Mantos’s nose slits widened. He narrowed his eyes.
‘Do not presume to touch me, brother,’ he said.
Bandim chuckled, though it was a mirthless sound.
‘Do not presume to act as if you are already the emperor,’ he replied.
With deliberate slowness, he withdrew his claw. When he smiled, his sharp teeth glinted. His face, so like Mantos’s own, was patterned with scaled armor, his eyes deep-set and golden. His brows were fine, his mouth lined at the corners. It was like looking in a cracked mirror, the features similar and yet in some way distorted. He wished they were more different than alike. He despised how similar they looked, being such opposites. I am of the Light, Mantos thought, and he dwells in the Dark.
His neck scales did not retract until his brother stepped away.
‘Leave,’ Mantos said, turning back to their father. ‘I want to be alone with him.’
Bandim lingered for a moment, then gave a shallow bow. He turned, robes whirling, and was gone.
Alone, Mantos listened to his father’s shuddering breaths. He brushed a translucent frond from Braslen’s forehead.
‘I fear my brother will not obey me when you are gone,’ Mantos whispered. ‘What shall I do then? How can I command an empire if I cannot keep my own house in order?’
His father did not reply.
Mantos huffed a quick breath and shook his head. Even if you were awake, you wouldn’t answer, he thought. You’d push it back on me. ‘What will you do to get your house in order? How will you force your brother to obey?’ But those are your ways, Father, not mine. I am not like you, and I’m not like Bandim. I wish… Tears welled, but Mantos pushed them away. I wish that just once, we had seen eye-to-eye. That just once, we could have been father and son, not emperor and emperor-in-waiting.
Wishing was, as his father always said, for fools. Exhaling long and hard, Mantos remained at the bedside, waiting, trying not to wish.
The Vigil was a long-held Masvam tradition. Offspring stayed with their waning parent, waiting for the flesh to die, the thread to finally snap. Mantos’s first duty as emperor would be to share word of his father’s demise. There would be no herald. There would be no grand ceremony. Clad in white, he would walk onto the balcony of the speaker’s bowl. It was an ancient thing, built by emperors of long ago, allowing their voices to carry to the hundreds in the assembled crowd. Mantos would stand at the ornate balcony rail and wait to be seen. There would be courtiers stationed below, their eyes ready to catch a glimpse of the imperial prince. As soon as one saw Mantos, their wail would fill the courtyard.
‘The emperor is dead!’
A wave of white would spread across the empire: white clothes, white flags, white banners. Mantos would stand on the balcony as the bells tolled, staring across the stone city to the temple. He would remain in place until the beacon blazed in the cloak of night, starting his father’s journey to the Light.
I never truly thought I would be here, he thought. I imagined Father would live forever. Braslen of House Tiboli had reigned for thirty-five cycles. More advanced in age than their mother, he was on the cusp of old age when he took the crown.
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Mantos clenched his teeth. Mother. Someone should tell her.
Phen of House Yru was a beauty in her youth, so Mantos was told. For as long as he remembered, she was a sickly female, whose wits had long deserted her. Not long after his hatching, his mother had dropped him. Clattering down a flight of stairs, his tiny body had been broken. The details changed depending on who told the tale, but each telling ended the same way. On seeing the youngling, broken and dead, Mantos’s mother had screamed her grief. From the depths of the palace, a temple novice appeared, whisking the dead body away.
Something happened. Something magic. Something Dark. And Mantos returned from the dead.
But instead of rejoicing, his mother blamed herself for the folly, and was never the same again.
Mantos placed a claw on top of his father’s papery palm. Braslen did not stir.
‘Would things have been different if the accident had not happened?’ he asked. ‘If mother hadn’t lost her wits?’ Flashes of Bandim’s fury flickered in his mind. ‘Would my brother hate me less? Might he even love me?’
No response. Mantos lifted his father’s claw. He rubbed circles on the leathery armor of the back of his hand.
Prince Mantos was good at many things. He was skilled with a sword and bow, and his mind was as deadly as any weapon. Not one book in the ornate palace library had escaped his greedy eyes. Yet there was one thing he could not master: deciphering his brother. How can we look so alike and yet be so different? It was a puzzle he couldn’t solve, no matter how many books and scrolls he read.
The solution eluded their father, too.
‘Your brother is a strange sort,’ was his standard response. ‘He concerns himself too much with lore and with...unsavory beliefs.’
Unsavory beliefs, Mantos thought. That’s a meek turn of phrase for the worship of a demon. Rumors lurked in every corner of the palace and down every dank alleyway of the city. Prince Bandim was in league with a Moon Rogue and the false goddess Dorai—what a joy it was that Mantos was to be emperor, and not such spawn of the Dark.
Of course, Bandim never showed his true face to his father. To Braslen, the rumors were folly, nothing more than jealous slander propagated by opposing houses. It didn’t matter what they said. What mattered was that his second son was pure as the first. Even Mantos knew it was a lie, and he sometimes wondered if a shadow of truth lingered in his father’s gaze as he looked on the younger brother. But it didn’t last long. As always, the emperor concentrated on Mantos.
‘You must lead the empire to new glories,’ he said, grasping his son’s hand in his shaking talons. ‘Finish my work and spread the reign of House Tiboli from sea to sea. Continue what my father started, and plant the seeds of glory for your younglings and your youngling’s younglings…’
There was a rattle, and a slow wheeze. Braslen’s grip slackened. Those were the last words Emperor Braslen of House Tiboli spoke to his son, before he slipped into unconsciousness.
As it turned out, they were the last words he spoke at all.
*
Bandim
Bandim didn’t draw his hood over his horned head. His face was clear for all to see. Why bother? It’s no great mystery where I’m going. And who could move against me?
His cloak swept behind him in a sable wave as he made his way to the outskirts of the city. The buildings, fine stonework that glimmered in the setting sun and arched windows to accept the Light, gave way to darker coils of decrepit towers. What they see above shows the foolishness of the Light, Bandim thought. The Dark is pure and shows more truth than their Light ever will.
Nestled in an ancient stone dwelling, the Temple of Dorai’s location was an open secret. An unsuspecting building in a narrow street of broken cobbles, only those invited were welcome to cross the threshold.
Few city folk craved such an invitation. Bandim snorted and rounded the final corner on his journey. The Light was dying and so was his father. If that sunset was to be Braslen’s last, Bandim needed to be ready to act.
Outside, the temple was unimpressive. Inside was…different, all thanks to the Bandim’s devotion. Since finding the love of the Goddess Dorai through high priestess Johrann Maa many cycles before, Bandim had funneled gold into the hands of her priestesses. Instead of the derelict monstrosity it had once been, the inner chambers were lined with black stone, smooth and perfect. What once had been dilapidated catacombs from a civilization long gone, was now an underground palace, fit for an emperor. The floor sloped into the embrace of darkness, what the followers of the Light called evil.
Fools, Bandim thought as he thrust open the doors, startling a young attendant. The believers in Nunako looked to the Arc of the Sky. They trusted in her, thinking the Light would consume the Dark. Accepting an offered mask and taper, Bandim descended into the temple proper. Little did they know, it was the Dark that swallowed their brightness. The Dark would always prevail.
The meagre light flickered, sending shadows dancing across the smooth walls. Today would bring the reckoning, for Bandim and his beloved Johrann. His wondrous priestess would harness her powers. With Father soon breathing his last, the stage is set for her—for me. My moment has finally come.
Masked figures, male and female alike, drew back as he approached, bowing in deference. Face covered or not, they knew who he was. They did not question him as he swept through the underground caverns and into the altar room.
He fell to his knees before the five-armed effigy of the Goddess—three arms on the left, only two on the right.
The statue stood proud and condemning. In four of the god’s hands were the tenants of belief in Dorai: a spade for work, a book for knowledge, a shield for defense, and a sword for battle. The final arm was outstretched, one long claw pointing at the onlooker. The sixth arm was gone, wrenched from its socket by the goddess herself, sacrificed to protect the True Believers.
As soon as Bandim’s knees hit the stone, a voice bade him rise again.
‘An emperor does not fall on his knees,’ it said. Out of the shadows stepped Johrann Maa, high priestess of the Dark. ‘You are part of her. You are the Goddess’s Hand.’
She was a strange creature with unusual coloring: armor of purple and skin of blue, and unusually tall, as tall as himself. No-one in the world is like my Johrann, Bandim thought. She was entirely unique. Her eyes, grey and flecked, pierced through him. Though she was many cycles older than him, she did not look it. Bandim’s mouth went dry every time he saw her.
He rose again and climbed the few steps to the altar. This time, Johrann went to her knees. The tips of her horn crest tapped the floor. Her fronds were tightly bound, not a single one out of place.
‘Rise, dear Heart,’ Bandim said, reaching for her. ‘I am not emperor yet.’
Johrann rose, silent as a shadow, keeping her hand in his. Even in the darkness of the altar room, her eyes glimmered as they met his.
‘You are at the foot of your throne, my prince,’ she said. ‘It won’t take long to ascend the last few steps.’
Bandim kissed the backs of her armored knuckles.
‘Not until my father dies.’
Johrann inclined her head.
‘As you wish,’ she said. ‘Your brother’s life has been in my grasp since he was a hatchling and your mother asked me to save him.’ She lifted her chin and stared, her eyes hard as stone. ‘Once I cut your brother’s thread, your mother will regain her senses. With life returned to her body and gone from his, she will live anew. There is no way around this, Your Grace. They are bound together, a life for a life. That is the way.’
Bandim held her look, his yellow gaze steadfast.
‘I understand,’ he said. ‘My mother is a nuisance, and undeserving of a place in my empire.’
Memories of her absence crashed into him like waves, and Bandim winced. It had never been fair, being left without a mother. His cousins had mothers. The younglings of other kingdoms and queendoms had mothers. He didn’t even have the luxury of a dead mother, to be mourned and comforted over.
All Bandim had was an absent father and a brother who looked the same. He didn’t even have his individuality. He was just Bandim, the younger. Bandim, the spare. Bandim, always lesser than Mantos.
But then he found Dorai, her comforting words, and her sixth arm wrapped around him. And he found Johrann Maa. She gave him comfort too and for the first time, Bandim heard what he had always wanted to hear. She said he was special.
‘You have been chosen, my sweet,’ she had crooned in his ears. ‘Dorai will make you her vessel. One day, all her power will be yours, and you will show the world that you are the rightful emperor.’
That was what they worked towards. That was the reason Bandim lavished the temple with gold. That was why the converts to Dorai grew in number, their good news spreading in shadows, until there were more of them than the Fools of the Light could comprehend. The One True Goddess would return to the world, and Bandim was the vessel who would save them all.
Of course, it hadn’t always been that way. When at first Johrann had revealed it was she who saved Mantos and took his mother away, Bandim’s blood had boiled. He had been ready to cleave off her head.
‘I’ll kill you!’ he had said, an adolescent newly gendered—the same as his brother, not even striking out in difference as a female.
But she had held him to her, cooing and shushing, until his rage turned to tears.
‘It was an error,’ she said, ‘something I did when the arrogance of youth was still upon me. And I am sorry, my dearest Bandim. It is my fault you were denied your throne. Now I will do everything to make sure you get it back, and the power of Dorai, too. Isn’t it written in the Book of Divine Tears that “the servant will err once but will bring greatness to the vessel. The One of Two, pushed aside, will rise like flame, and the goddess will inhabit him.” I am the servant, and you are the vessel. I have erred my once. I will not err again.’
Returned from the rush of memory, Bandim leaned into Johrann’s touch as she brushed her claws against his masked cheek.
A set of feet clattered along the hall outside. The steps grew closer and louder until they skidded to a halt outside the chamber. After a moment, there was a steady knock.
Johrann blinked, her gaze shifting from door to Bandim.
‘I must change to my Masvam colors,’ she said.
Bandim inclined his head. No-one knew of Johrann’s truth except him. Her colors, blue and purple, still struck as strange. Sometimes, she said, the folk could only take so much oddness. It was better to feed them morsel by morsel, until they listened even when the hand that fed them was empty.
Johrann closed her eyes. There was a whirl of warm wind, and he watched the slow sap of blue and purple from her body, to be replaced by the Masvam norm of brown and gold. She looked like any other female now, though taller. My Johrann, Bandim thought. My magical Johrann.
She brushed down her dark robes and permitted entrance.
A temple novice stumbled in, clad too in dark robes. Her head, covered in deference to the goddess, was bowed.
‘My prince, my priestess,’ she said, breathless. ‘News from the palace. The emperor… He’s dead.’
At once, Bandim and Johrann’s eyes met. She said nothing. For a moment, Bandim stayed still, allowing the words to ebb and flow in his mind. He’s dead. A slow smile crept across his face. He’s finally dead!
Then he schooled his expression and turned to the novice.
‘Get out.’
The female scurried away, leaving them alone once more. Bandim grasped Johrann’s hands, holding them in a vice grip.
‘It is time,’ he said. ‘Today, the Light’s demise begins, and the Dark will paint a sable sky above all nations.’ He pressed the backs of her talons to his lips, savoring the moment. ‘Do it, my love. Start my journey. First an emperor, and then a goddess. Bring it to me as you have promised.’
‘I will, Your Grace,’ she said, squeezing his hands in return. ‘For you, and for the truth of Dorai.’
Releasing him, Johrann turned to the five-armed effigy of Dorai and closed her eyes. Remaining silent, she lifted her hands.
There was no great fanfare. There were no swirling lights. There was simply the warm wind. Bandim thought. The Dark is silent. The Dark is pure. His breath came in shallow waves as he watched and waited. At last, his life’s desire would be fulfilled. Mantos dead for once and for all, and me in the seat of power, ready to bring the truth of Dorai to all the folk of the world!
Johrann turned to him again.
His breath hitched. Her eyes glowed red. Her lips stretched with a leer. Her voice came as a delighted whisper.
‘It is done.’
Mantos
On the balcony, Mantos stood in abject silence. Newly clad in white, he waited as the sun slipped below the horizon. Only a few moments before, the thread of Braslen Tiboli’s life had finally worn through. The death was silent, a simple stilling of the heart and a final exhalation. Mantos had gripped his father’s hand as he slipped away. It was peaceful, but it brought Mantos nothing but torment.
He’s gone… Now rule falls upon me, not as a crown, but as a chain to bind me. Father, I wish you could have lived forever and spared me from this torment.
‘Wishing is for fools, Mantos.’
His father’s words echoed in the depths of his mind. Mantos’s heart ached, not just for his father’s absence, but for everything that was to come. I do not want to walk this path…but I have no choice.
As the sun set and the moons shone bright, the stationed courtiers looked up. As their eyes fell on the prince clad in white, the first shout rose.
‘The emperor is dead!’
Despite the grief that threatened to topple him, Mantos remained steady, silent. The first wail was joined by another, then another. Below, the courtyard brightened with candles, lanterns blossoming like vines. Through it all, Mantos stood. The dark cloak of night fell upon the city. Sounds of mourning drifted from below. After a time, when the sky was black, the Temple of Light flared orange and red. Our colors, Mantos thought. The colors of duty. Of a power that is now mine. Flaming tongues sang the emperor’s demise. They rose to the Arc of the Sky. To the Light.
Mantos’s eyes brimmed, but he dared not shed a tear. He didn’t have that privilege any longer. On gaining the crown, he lost much. As emperor, he must do what the empire expected him to do. He must be their leader, their everything…
There was a sudden tightness at his throat, like an invisible hand grasping his neck. Tears spilled unbidden as his chest heaved, unable to bring in air. He stumbled, fell on one knee, grasped at the balcony rail with scrabbling claws. His eyes blinked and swam, and something deep within him stretched. Tightened. Something was ready to snap.
Father? Is this death?
Without fanfare or swirling lights, Mantos crumpled.
His thread was cut. He was dead, and he saw no more.