Chapter 21
YUMA
The oroxen had fattened, and the days were colder as winter was closing in.
On a clear day and high ground, a sharp-eyed herder could make out the chimney smoke rising from faraway Danras.
Now wearing thick coats, the herders crossed the yellowed steppe toward home.
They all longed for their families and friends in the city.
The songs they sang at night changed with the cooling weather, as they did every year.
Lysandros had finally learned how to ride a horse.
He had taken off most of his scaffolding, leaving only the bare bones of the frame, and was helped onto his mount by a herder.
Because his legs couldn’t command the horse, Yuma took his reins on his right.
When Yuma worried aloud that he was risking serious injury, Lysandros said he had to be conspicuous as an emissary of the Empire entering a realm for the first time, that he had no choice in the matter.
“You can ride on the back of Fractica,” Yuma countered.
“I can’t be more conspicuous than Chief Herder.” Lysandros smiled. “I must be side by side.”
A proud but respectful man. Yuma returned his smile and dropped the reins. “You fear nothing, then. Follow me if you can!”
She lightly kicked Aston on the side, and the horse sprang into action like an arrow.
She looked behind her. Kentley, the two-year-old mare carrying Lysandros, was following at a light trot, while Lysandros held on to the horn of the saddle and tried not to fall.
Though by Mersehi standards the sight of a grown man trying not to fall from a saddle might look pitiful, there was nothing about Lysandros that inspired pity.
Instead, the act of him riding a horse felt like a great achievement to Yuma. Yuma turned Aston’s head and stopped.
“Where are we going now?” he asked.
“That hill!”
Yuma approached to grab his reins, but Lysandros grinned and his horse shot forward. Kentley cantered toward the hill. Yuma laughed and spurred Aston to follow him at the same speed.
Kentley stopped at the top of the hill. Carefully, Lysandros dismounted.
He walked forward unsteadily and stopped to admire the view before him.
Yuma also dismounted and stood next to him.
The Trina River, sparkling like gold in the late-afternoon sun, flowed around half of Danras before continuing on its way down the steppe.
This beautiful city surrounded by log walls was surely the same one she had left behind in the spring, but it always felt like a new city when she came back from a herding.
“A magnificent place, Chief Herder’s home.”
“They say it’s the jewel of the steppe,” Yuma agreed. “We can’t reach there today, but we will tomorrow.”
“What’s the tall building in the middle of the city? Much larger than the others.”
“The Feast Hall. It’s where the Host will spend his winter. There are festivals there during the holy days, and funerals and weddings. It’s also where people gather to pray,” Yuma said, pointing forward. “Emissary, do you see the wind chimes along the eaves of the Feast Hall?”
After squinting in the direction of Danras, Lysandros gave up. “No. I can just about make out the outline of the building itself … You herders have much better eyesight than I do, I’ve learned.”
“Well, the stronger the storm, the louder the chimes ring. It is there to remind us that however hard it gets, we have the Host to protect us.”
“Yes, the Host…” Lysandros turned to the direction of the camp. Yuma’s eyes followed his gaze. A plume of smoke was rising. The Host and his helpers must be preparing dinner at the kitchen carriage.
“What do you do with the Power that prayers generate?” Lysandros asked.
Yuma had never thought about it much until now. “With the prayers? The Host guards the catacombs, I suppose … Otherwise, the Grim King would raise the dead. The kitchen carriage has some of that magic as well. The Host guards the oroxen with it.”
Lysandros nodded. His expression hardened.
Yuma asked, “Do they pray in the Empire? Do they have gods?”
“Not anymore. The people have enough Power on their own.”
She stood up straight. “It’s useful to have a helpful god, though.”
“We have our generators. Fractica!”
Yuma turned around and saw that Fractica was already standing at the foot of the hill, waiting for Lysandros like a loyal mount.
Since he was incapable of motion without Fractica being nearby, it was not surprising that the machine would remain close, just like her horses.
She chuckled at the fact that she was seeing this creature as less of a metal giant and more like a horse.
Yuma once again thought of the question she had wondered about from the beginning.
“This might be an awkward question…” Yuma started.
“You want to know why the Empire would send someone with my body as an emissary?”
Yuma didn’t know what to say. Perhaps it was too soon to ask such questions. Perhaps she should have waited until he volunteered his story. She realized she didn’t know half as much about the Empire’s culture as Lysandros knew about hers.
“No, that’s not … your body isn’t…” Yuma stuttered.
Lysandros only laughed. “I’ve honestly never been in a country so long before being asked this question.
In Lasra, the head of the clans there took one look at me and said, ‘The Empire must think nothing of Lasra to send a cripple as an emissary!’” Yuma flinched at the unexpected slur, angry at whichever cruel herder dared teach the word to her guest and friend.
But Lysandros seemed unbothered by it. “How did you stand not asking that question for so long?”
Her face turned red. “You don’t have to answer. I apologize, sincerely.”
Lysandros smiled and waved away her apology. “No, no, it’s just that I was wondering all throughout the herding when you were going to ask. I should’ve brought it up before you … I should be the one to apologize. I’m sorry.”
Lysandros bowed, but the act made his stance somewhat precarious, and Yuma hurriedly stepped forward to support him.
“You have nothing to apologize for,” she said fiercely, looking into his eyes. He returned her gaze with a soft smile before he looked back at Danras and continued speaking.
“My body became weaker and weaker ever since I was a child. By the time we began treatment, I couldn’t walk.
But though it may be immodest to say so, I was fairly clever, and picked up foreign tongues with ease.
So, I swiftly moved up the ranks and became an inquisitor.
And my body does not create many problems in practice.
With Fractica by my side, I am much stronger than most men, am I not? ”
“You are.” Yuma had seen him do things in that frame that none of the herders could do. “In our country—well, in any other country I know—someone with such a body … with such discomfort … would not live long.”
“The Empire does not waste talent. It helps talent thrive.” There was a pride and determination in his voice that she had not heard in him before. Perhaps sensing that her gaze was still on him, he turned from Danras back to Yuma and said, “That man with the blue face … Aidan, came to see me.”
“What he must have said to you behind my back…” Yuma frowned. “Don’t worry. As long as I am alive, I shall not take you to the Grim King.”
“That is not why he wanted to see me.” Lysandros’s voice turned serious. “He told me a bit about the sorcery of the Grim King.”
Yuma was surprised. “He’s rarely spoken of his time as an apprentice candidate to us. That’s how much he fears the Grim King. But—”
“If that is so, then Aidan is all the braver.” Lysandros’s gaze swept over the camp.
“The Grim King is most notorious for great necromantic powers; the Empire has known of the Grim King’s abilities for years.
But according to Aidan, that sorcerer can create a whole world, inside the mind.
There is very little known about this sorcery even theoretically, but to learn of someone who can actually do it … No wonder the Grim King is feared.”
His hardened expression was making Yuma nervous. “Do you know much about sorcery?”
His beautiful smile came back as he turned to her. “Well, I am a sorcerer.”
This surprised Yuma. Danras had no sorcerers.
Other than the Grim King, the only kind of sorcerers she knew of were the rhymesmiths of Iorca who made magical trinkets with poetry.
Perhaps Lansisi life priests were also sorcerers, as their blessed water made crops grow and cured illnesses.
But Lysandros was nothing like them—he didn’t wear outlandish clothes, nor did he speak in riddles.
She had never seen him use any kind of sorcery.
She wondered for a moment whether the Host was a sorcerer, then decided against it.
The Host had never been anyone’s apprentice.
His wisdom, songs, and recipes came when the spirit of the Host entered the child.
It was a sacred gift, only used for the good of the people of Danras. No sorcerer she knew was like that.
Lysandros gestured to Fractica. “The sorcerers of the Empire do not use things like spells, but make Power generators instead. Other forms of sorcery allow only one person to use Power, but anyone may tap into a Power generator.”
Yuma’s gaze followed his gesture to Fractica. “Can such a thing be used in Danras?”
“Of course. If Danras joins the Empire, the streets can be lit up without using flame or a drop of oil. Water can be drawn from the Trina and made clean enough for the people to drink. Grass can be harvested for the oroxen to eat.” He was growing more excited.
“The Empire will change the world with Power. Even the Grim King can be defeated.”
Yuma was finally seeing the true Lysandros—the man’s pride and sense of mission were wrapped around him like armor over his metal frame. She didn’t reply, only smiled at him before they both looked back down on Danras.
After a silence, Fractica approached with the parts of Lysandros’s frame that he had removed to ride the horse. Lysandros took the metal parts and reattached them to his frame.
“I’ll walk back with Fractica. I need to conserve my strength for riding the horse tomorrow.”
Yuma nodded, and did not mount Aston herself, instead grabbing hold of his reins and joining Lysandros.
They talked all the way back, under the river of stars. Lysandros described his home, this time talking less about the majesty of the Empire and more about his simple life in it. Yuma shared her childhood stories, from on the steppe and in the city.
“You must miss your family and friends in the Imperial Capital,” Yuma said.
“I used to.”
His eyes met hers. Yuma felt her face flush. He then turned his head, making a shy smile.
Because they walked back, dinner was over by the time they arrived at camp. Yuma led Lysandros to his personal tent.
“You must be starving. I’ll have some food brought to you,” Yuma said, trying to shake a new awkwardness.
Lysandros tried to say something in return, but Yuma swiftly turned her back—there was only one thing she wanted to hear from him in this moment, and she didn’t want to risk the chance of hearing anything else.
She asked the kitchen carriage to send him some leftovers as she received hers.
Some of the herders must have gathered currants common in this area, as she tasted their subtle tang in the Host’s usual fare of savory meat buns and pink pickled carrots.
Yuma finished her dinner at the carriage and then went to sit among the herders singing songs around the fire, each of them holding up their drinks to her in welcome.
The night grew deeper and the herders sang and danced.
Yuma, not feeling like joining in, simply drank and clapped and smiled from where she sat.
She couldn’t stop thinking about what Lysandros had said to her as they looked down on Danras.
This Empire was a place that gave this disabled man a chance, acknowledging and nurturing his talent.
They said the Empire had no king, but surely its people were being well taken care of regardless of where that care came from.
In the nest of starlight, Lysandros had said the Chief Herder was the true king of Danras.
His words had taken her breath away, as did the conviction with which he spoke them.
For as long as anyone could remember, “king” in Mersehi meant only Eldred, and the word inspired nothing but fear.
So why did the word make her heart beat faster, even now?
Maybe it was the man, not the word, that made it so.
She couldn’t tell the difference anymore.
Across from where she sat, Aidan stood up and came over to her.
He started talking, but Yuma was too deep in her thoughts to pay attention.
She looked at him without hearing him, nodding along absentmindedly.
He went on about the Grim King and some disaster that was sure to follow, but in the end, he must have figured out she wasn’t really listening.
Finally, he sighed, shook his head, and went back to where he’d been sitting.
All the while, she couldn’t stop thinking about what Lysandros might have said if she had only let him, when they parted at his tent.
The fire crackled, sending up sparks into the star-filled sky. The herders began returning to their tents one by one, and the singing turned quiet. Signs that the night was deep.
Yuma stood up. The herders tipped their hats at her. She returned the gesture and turned her back to the fire.
“Chief,” called out one of the herders, “you must’ve had a little too much to drink. Your tent is in the other direction!”
Yuma waved her hand behind her and continued in the direction she was going.
“Can it be?”
“Finally!”
“What did I tell you?”
She could hear their whispers. A wit among them gave a long whistle; the truly brave cheered. She ignored them.
She stopped at a tent pitched at a bit of a distance. Fractica lay next to it, its long legs folded under it, its lights dim. She rang the little bell on the entry flap.
“Who?” His Mersehi was still a little awkward.
“Can I come in?”
A rustling. She waited. She worried about him falling by accident.
Then an answer.
“Come in.”
Lysandros was sitting up in bed, wearing the light frame he had worn when riding the horse earlier that day. The room was dimly illuminated by the light of a small stove. There was a scent of flowers she didn’t recognize.
“What’s the matter?”
This wasn’t his usual calm, low voice. She could hear a touch of tremor. Yuma took off her hat and coat and hung them on a corner hook. Then, she sat down on the edge of his bedding. Taking his shy smile as encouragement, she took off her boots and laid them neatly against each other by the door.