Chapter 6 Samson
SAMSON
“What is the most dangerous opponent of fire?” the son of sea asked.
“Nothingness itself,” the Great Serpent hummed. “Be wary of absence. Even Agni cannot burn on its own.”
—from The Legends and Myths of Sayon
He dreamed of men pressed against a cage, clawing at him with large metallic hands.
He stared up at them and realized with a start that he was in the cage.
Above, the men laughed. With ease, they broke through the bars and grabbed his hair, his face, sinking their hungry teeth into his flesh and chewing nonchalantly, as if he was simply a thing they had already claimed and thus found no particular hurry to enjoy.
He roared for his Agni, but his waist was bare, his urumi gone.
No flames leapt to his aid. Metal teeth grated through his stomach, and he yelped as a dark mouth ripped out his Agni, the spark already fading.
Come back, he cried. Come back! And then he was sinking.
A deep, terrible void surrounded him, pinning him down as if it was a physical weight.
Like waves, it pushed him down farther and farther to a bottom he could not see, could not feel, but the knowledge of its absence filled him with a wild, animallike fear.
He screamed. The sea vibrated with laughter, and suddenly he was on the wet floor.
Someone kneeled on top of him. Pale hands gripped his throat, metal nails breaking through skin.
He tried to hit the attacker, and they jerked away to reveal eyes as golden as the sun. Horrible and familiar. He reached—
The void reached back, claiming him.
Samson gasped awake. His throat burned. Ash on his tongue, iron clacking between his teeth.
He tried to sit up when he noticed the hot coals on his body.
Three were lined down his naked chest and abdomen, placed above his chakra points.
Their heat spread through his bones, and gradually, Samson relaxed.
There was no chill in his blood, no empty feeling in his gut.
He opened his palm and blue embers sparked between his fingers. His Agni, whole and alive.
Chandi stirred beside him.
“Warmer now?”
He lay back against the pillow and took a long, shuddering breath. Relief, edged with fear, rippled through him. He touched his lower abdomen, where metal teeth had ripped out and stolen his Agni.
“Yes,” he said.
Chandi drew her chair closer. Tired shadows ringed her eyes, but her gaze was bright and alert.
“You—”
“I know,” he said quickly. Then, in a softer voice, “I know.”
Chandi said nothing, but her eyes were still fixed on him like the sharp, dark shards of ore they found underneath the Sona mountains.
After wrapping her hand in a scarf, she took off the coals and placed them back in a metal pot. The room was so warm he could feel his skin tingle, as if every fiber of his being was drinking in the heat. Already, he could feel his strength returning.
Samson sat up. Chandi did not retie the scarf around her neck, and he could see sweat beading on her forehead. The room was too hot for her.
“You should rest—” he began.
“It took longer to revive you this time,” she said. Her mouth was pressed into a thin line, her face pinched with an inwardness that he knew, after many years of fighting together, meant she had been chewing on a topic for some time.
“How long?”
“Five hours.”
A year before, it had been one. A cold panic broke over him, gooseflesh prickling across his chest. He reached for his shirt with a forced calm.
“It’s just that I pushed too hard. That’s it. No reason for concern.”
Chandi simply stared at his chest, at the scar that scraped down his left pec to his lower abdomen. It had turned a vicious crimson like fresh blood.
Chillingly soft, she said, “At the rate you’re going, how long will it take until your Agni withers away?”
“It can be replenished,” he said, but he did not meet her eyes. “I just need fire prana. And we have the Eternal Fire now. If I sit in the flames and soak in its prana, I’ll be as good as new.”
“You’re expending your Agni far more than you are recovering it, like pouring water into a leaky bucket.” She sat forward so that he was forced to meet her gaze. “A sun’s worth. That’s what you estimated was left of your Agni before it…”
She did not say it. She did not have to.
Samson felt the panic resurface, this time with a chill that crept down the back of his neck.
He touched below his navel, the point of his Agni and the most powerful chakra.
Every person had seven main chakras, seven centers in which they could channel the power of the heavens and achieve something more.
There had been a time when gods walked the earth.
A time when dragons and great creatures raced through the skies, and his people built their kingdoms in the clouds.
“But men began to desire the physical pleasures of the earth,” his mother had said.
They sat before their altar of the Great Serpent, incense wreathing around them, and he had wondered then if the smoke was the very breath of the Serpent, blessing them.
“They fell to the illusions of mortal life, and their chakra points closed. They forgot about the Great Serpent and Her lesser gods. So She faded. And men began to walk among men, not gods.”
The shells of her headdress tinkled softly as she turned to him. Gently, she had touched his navel.
“But you, my cursed Ruru, are blessed by Her. And your chakra here is still open. If you focus, you can summon Agni through it. But you must keep it balanced. Whole.”
He had placed his little hand over hers, and replied solemnly, “Yes, Mama.”
He had spent suns under her guidance of opening his navel chakra until he felt an almost metaphysical spark in his body.
Agni was not a physical object. It was a power made physical, a manifestation of the gods.
He had learned to nurture and strengthen his navel chakra until his Agni flared with a sure, heady assurance that vibrated through his blood.
Reminding him of his deathly, beautiful purpose.
He was a god.
But every day that his Agni grew, so did the promise of ruin.
That was his curse, and his gift.
When he summoned his Agni, the pain was the first warning.
It would begin with his sword arm. A chill would creep through his fingers, then up his elbow, across his shoulders.
If he was not careful, it would spread. Down his chest, toward his navel chakra.
Cold, and the nothingness it brought, would slowly surround his Agni and choke it out, like a flame gradually deprived of air. In time, he would fade.
To where? Men had the ability to be reborn, to live infinite lives. But he was a god. He did not know where the graveyard of his kind was kept.
“You have to seriously consider the Sona operation,” Chandi said, bringing him back. “The Eternal Fire may sustain you now, but what if you summon too much, or you’re too far away? What then, Samson? How will we be able to save you then?”
He turned to her, surprised by the anger in her voice.
“You can’t put it off,” she said. “It endangers not only you, but everyone. We should take Elena and—”
“I told you before, Elena is of Agni.” He stood, buttoning his shirt. “And hers is deep and powerful. Maybe I can learn how she sustains it. Maybe she has the answer.”
“But—”
“Enough, Chandi, please.” Though a part of him knew Chandi spoke with reason, it annoyed him to hear Elena attacked, and he did not fully understand why. “We haven’t exhausted all our options yet. If there is no other way, then we will go to Sona, and I’ll tap into Elena’s Agni.”
“Then learn from her soon. And quickly.” Chandi nodded to the scar on his chest. “It’s fading.”
He looked down. Indeed, the scar had washed out to a ruddy red.
“See?” He rapped his chest. “Good as new.”
Chandi rolled her eyes. “Inconsiderate prick. You didn’t even thank me.”
“Thank you, Chandi the Great, Chandi the Marvelous, Chandi the Killer Who Can Gut Out Jantaris in the Dark—” He finished buttoning up his shirt and shrugged on his jacket. “Is that adequate, or should I go on?”
She leaned back in her chair, crossing her arms. “Continue.”
“Chandi the Savior, Chandi the Brave, Chandi the Hero We Don’t Deserve but Who Saves Us Without Complaint.” He paused, catching her eyes. “Chandi the Flirt Who Has Women Running in Circles Simply Because She Can’t Settle Down—”
“Okay, okay.” Chandi stood, her cheeks coloring. “You ruined it.”
She pushed past him, muttering obscenities as he grinned.
They left his chambers, bickering, and went out into the bright sun of Magar and the warm roar of the festivities.
Songs floated up the street. Somewhere, around the corner, he heard drunken laughter.
A soldier offered him whiskey. Samson took a swig, then another, making Chandi scowl, but even as she reached for a drink, even as laughter rolled through them both at her sudden grimace, Samson could not shake off the ghostlike hand of remembered pain.
It lingered, like the gritty salt of the sea after a swim.
A reminder of his nature, and the curse that came with it.