Heir of Iron

Chapter 13

Navran broke off his tale. Something was wrong with Gocam. The hermit had closed his eyes and clutched his fists to his chest, and his lips moved in a silent mantra. He exhaled slowly, a sound like a single subdued sob creaking out of his throat, and he looked at Navran.

"My child lives," he said. "My weakness is nearly complete."

"Your child?"

"A child of the spirit, not of the flesh. Ruyam was my disciple. That was why I ascended the mountain."

"I don't understand."

Gocam rubbed his hand on his chest and closed his eyes. "Did you think I always lived on the mountain? Forty years ago I was the Lama of Ternas. Ruyam came as a young man, the child of a khadir who had shown some promise in the way of the Powers. So I taught him. I taught him everything I knew, and then I drove him out."

He sighed and opened his large, milky eyes to stare at Navran. His expression was guileless and unafraid, but its very openness unnerved Navran. "Should I confess the evil in my heart to you," Gocam asked, "as you confess to me?"

"I got no advice for anybody," Navran said.

"I don't need counsel. Listen: I hated him because I was the strongest in Ternas, and none surpassed me in farsight or the mastery of fire. Until Ruyam came. When I saw that he was nearer to the Powers than I, I drove him away so that he could not threaten me. The imperial court is a comfortable, respectable position for a young monk, and I thought he would molder there far from my leadership. But I underestimated him. He gained the Emperor's ear and turned the Red Men against the Uluriya---and then I realized my folly. I renounced my position as Lama, ascended to this cave, and set out to become someone new."

"Because Ruyam turned against the Uluriya? That wasn't your fault."

"But it was. How do you suppose he knew to oppress the star-cult?"

"I don't know." He had wondered sometimes why Ruyam sought to drive out the cult of Ulaur, but had never dared ask. Mandhi and Cauratha seemed to take it as a matter of course.

"It was because I told him. I didn't tell him to slaughter them, but he learned from me the secrets which lie in Amur's bones. Among those secrets is the fact that the Amur will fall to the Uluriya, unless the Emperor destroys them first."

"I have never heard this prophecy."

"It is not a prophecy as most people think of prophecy. This fact has long been known to the thikratta of Ternas, not because we foresaw it, but because we understand the nature of the Powers."

Navran shifted on the bed of pine beneath him. The cold seemed to be leaving him at last. And despite himself, he found that he was glad to talk and listen to Gocam. He would never admit it to Mandhi, but he no longer regretting coming to Ternas.

Gocam went on. "The union of Amur depends not on the might of the Emperors alone, but on union of the Powers which undergirds him. Before Aidasa began his campaigns he wedded Am and Ashti and unified their temples, binding together the great powers of Sravi and Davrakhanda, and turning Sravi into Majasravi. And under the aegis of Am and Ashti he subdued the cities of Amur and made their Powers subservient to his patrons. Jakhur, Chaludra, and Dhashi bow to Am and Ashti, and so the peace of Amur is maintained. But there were two Powers whom Am could not subdue, the oldest and most terrible Powers in Amur. One of them sleeps, and the other is Ulaur."

Navran laughed. "If the Uluriya hinder the empire, we're doing a terrible job of it."

"The Uluriya themselves do nothing to hinder the Emperors. But your existence means that Am is not the only Power in Amur, and Ulaur kept you safe long after the center of Manjur's kingdom fell. Rajunda fell and became a byword. Manjur fell, and yet his descendants prosper. Aidasa knew this, and he attempted to exterminate you for it. Later emperors abandoned Aidasa's policy as pointless, but Ruyam knew that it mattered. So he persuaded Jandurma to revive the purge."

Navran exhaled and pressed his head into the rough blanket. He had thought more about Ulaur and the Powers in the past few minutes than he had in his entire life previously. And still he understood nothing. "You are not Uluriya," he said.

"No. Ternas has no Uluriya."

"Then why do you care?"

"The Lamas of Ternas have been your allies since the dawn of the empire. Aidasa threatened the thikratta as much as the Uluriya when he took power, and we took refuge with each other. And also... I considered Cauratha my friend. I regretted the sorrow I unleashed on him and his people."

"If that's the worst you've done, then I have you beat."

"It is not a contest, Navran. And the corruption of the soul isn't so easily weighed. I actually went to Majasravi once, after Ruyam had begun the purge but before he marched to Virnas. I urged him to recant, offered to take him back at the monastery, implored him with the alliance between Ternas and the Uluriya. He laughed at me. He was too much my disciple: sick for power, eager to subdue, too proud to listen. Such was I when I was the Lama. Am I so easily absolved of his actions? I taught him to be who he is."

"You'll think worse of me when I finish my story."

Gocam was quiet for a while. The fire spat. Wind moaned in the entrance of the cave. "When I came back to Ternas, I renounced my position as Lama. And I climbed the mountain to this cave, where I have lived ever since."

"Are you stronger than Ruyam now?" Navran had a vague notion that the thikratta derived their power from their ascetic disciplines. Surely, after thirty years of living in a cave, Gocam must be nearly one of the Powers himself.

"Stronger?" Gocam shook his head. "I came here to forget power and learn weakness. If it comes to a contest of power with Ruyam, he will destroy me."

"Then what was the point?" Navran said, his voice suddenly loud and jarring against the walls of the cave. "Did you go up the mountain so that you could defeat Ruyam, or just to feel sorry for yourself?"

Gocam leaned forward, his eyes fixed on Navran, and reached into the fire. Navran gasped and lurched backwards, prompting a spike of pain from his limbs. The flame passed through Gocam's hand like water through a sieve. He grasped a coal which lay in the heart of he fire and lifted it out of the flames. Its edges flickered with red and white, growing brighter and cooler as his breath passed over it.

"When I studied power, I had the mastery of fire. I could pour flame from my hands and burn flesh from bones. That was way of strength and dominion." He watched the coal for a moment, then glanced over to Navran. "Put out your hand."

Navran extended his hand towards Gocam. Gocam dropped the coal into it. Navran yelled, batted the coal back into the fire, and pulled his hand away. His palm was scalded with the heat.

Gocam reached into the fire and picked out the same coal, holding it casually in two fingers. "When you study the way of weakness, you will put your hand in the fire and it will not burn you. And then, how will the master of fire harm you?"

"What are you trying to tell me?"

"You asked me if I had the strength to defeat Ruyam. I do not, nor should you seek such strength. Those who summon flames will be consumed by them in the end. Even I will not survive the fire which I stoked in my ignorance."

"How is that supposed to help me?"

Gocam was quiet for a while. His eyes were clothed, and his chest heaved with his breaths. "I don't know how the Uluriya will be delivered from Ruyam, but it will not be by power. More likely, Ruyam will be burnt up by his own fire. But you should sleep. In the morning, I want to hear more of your tale."

Navran rolled over. The mat was thin, the stone cold and hard under his shoulders. He did not want to sleep, though as soon as he let his mind wander to sleep his muscles cried out for it. "I still don't want to be Heir," he said quietly.

"It would be a problem if you did," Gocam said. "Now sleep."