“I’m not certain entirely,” she said. “He says wants to hire me for my expertise in glass.”
The Panjeri looked from one to another.
“And will you go with him?”
“Perhaps. We shall see. If he has returned before we leave on the morn, I may. I doubt he will. But I must consult with the leader.”
“It would be your choice,” said one of the men beside her.
She covered her eyes with her hand, endeavoring to catch sight of the moving shadow, and failing. She put her hand down again and stared out over the ruddy desert below.
“I know.” Achmed watched until the wagon had descended the mountain to the flatlands, following it down along the ridge. He watched it pull into a campsite amid three other wagons and a handful of tents where the other Panjeri had already laid a celebratory bonfire.
He made careful note of the position of the camp, then hurried down the cliff face and back to the castle of Jierna Tal as night fell thickly, coating the dome of the sky above Sorbold with inky blackness through which no stars could be seen.
23
Lielash Mousa was growing weary of Fists and Scales, sand and Weighings.
Once the burial rites in the deep temple of Terreanfor and the internal peak of the stained-glass crypt were concluded, he had hoped to move on to the more important and difficult business at hand, the sorting out of Sorbold’s future. Insuring Leitha’s place in eternity, complete with pomp and ceremony, and the laying of her scrawny bones to rest in the brilliant light of the stained-glass chapel might have been what the dowager had believed would be the first order of things, but Mousa knew that the dead could wait, while the living might not.
Already there were rumblings in the army.
The empress’s control of the military had been legendary. In a harsh land composed largely of shifting desert sand and impenetrable mountains, the concept of landownership among any but the monarch was more ephemeral than it would have been in other parts of the world, where the terrain was more stable. In Roland, a man could stake out a piece of the Rrevensfield Plain or a river valley, build on it, farm it, hand it down to his children, in short, imbue his soul, and the souls of his descendants, into the very soil. Leaders might come and go, taxes might be owed and grudgingly paid to the Crown, but the lore of the land belonged to the one whose blood had shaped it, and continued to steward it.
It was the same with the great Orlandan cities. Every palace, every basilica, represented the dreams, aspirations, and sweat of far more people than the duke who lived in it, the benison who performed rites there. It was the vision of the architect, the toil of the carpenter, the labor of the stonemason, magnified a thousand times over, and a hundred thousand times, every shop, guild, and business reflecting the concept of ownership, individual power in the shadow of a loose, overarching leader.
The instability of the terrain of Sorbold, where the places to build cities were few and far between, led to the opposite: the desert disdained the puny attempts of man to conquer it, to mold it; it had much in common with the sea in that regard. The mountains had a similar attitude. As a result, the only real power that the land itself supported was the primacy of whatever ruler held the favor of the Dark Earth, the pure element of Living Stone.
For five generations, that power had been indisputably locked in the iron grasp of the Sorbold royal family. Each generation had produced but one heir;
Leitha had been the single offspring of her father’s loins, as he had been to his father before him, and as Vyshla had been to her. This concentration made the family all the more obviously powerful. And the army respected obvious power.
But now, in a cruel twist, the sole heir had predeceased the monarch, and had died without producing a direct heir himself. This left no one with clear Right of Kings. The field of candidates with far-flung ties to the royal family was a dubious one; already there had been noise that the commander of the Western Face might not be willing to be directed by anyone whose claim to Leitha’s throne was barely more defensible than his own would be.
Those rumblings notwithstanding, they had come, every pretender to the Sun Throne with a drop of blood in his or her veins that could be puffed into a pedigree. It was not the desire for the emperor’s mantle that drove them to sue for the throne—indeed, the responsibility that came with the crown was far more grievous a burden than could be balanced against the pleasures of its power—but in an attempt to retain their own royalty and privilege. Without a family member, no matter how far removed, on the throne, those who had been by birth accustomed to the luxurious trappings and easy life of distant royal relations could be divested of those tides, and the privilege that went with them.
Mousa had stood in the heat of the Place of Weight for the better part of the afternoon, as candidate upon candidate mounted the steps that led to the Scales to weigh himself and his presumed right to rule, balanced against the Ring of State in the other plate.
One by one they stepped nervously onto the empty golden plate, eyeing the small oval of hematite and rubies on the other.
One by one, the Scales weighed, then discharged them, some more violently than others, as if the great instrumentality was not only declining their suit, but actively vomiting them off balance.
What remained of the crowd from the funeral that morning had brought rough blankets and food, camping out in the square to watch the spectacle. Their persistence was rewarded; some of the candidates had been dumped so comically on their heads or hindquarters that the onlookers felt as if they had been treated to a performance by a circus of clowns.
Now there was only one left, a distant cousin several times removed. He came to the top of the last step hesitantly, his long, loose shirt stained down the back and under the arms with nervous sweat. Nielash Mousa forced a benevolent smile. “Speak your name.”
“Karis of Ylwendar.”
The benison nodded, then turned to the assemblage and repeated the name.
“Is it your wish to address the Scales, in suit for the Sun Throne of the Dark Earth, for stewardship of Terreanfor, and all the realm of Sorbold, from its dark depths to the endless sun above it?”
“It is,” the man replied anxiously, his eyes darting around the square.
“Very well, Karis of Ylwendar. Step into the eastern plate and cast your lot to Leuk, the wind of justice.”
The man stood frozen.
The benison exhaled tensely. “Do you wish to sue for the throne or not?”
Karis looked over his shoulder, then looked back at Mousa, shaking like a leaf in the desert wind.
“I do.”
“Then set about it, man,” the benison said as pleasantly as he could, mustering what little protocol was left in him. He did not want to be remembered as the cleric who insulted the next emperor just as the Scales confirmed him, though from what he could guess, there was little chance of that.
Nervously, Karis stepped onto the plate.
Just as his second foot came to rest, the wind blasted through from the west in a great hot gust; it spun the plate crazily, then tilted it with an enormous recoil and swung it like a giant sling shot.
Karis of Ylwendar sailed over the heads of the delighted crowd and into a fishseller’s cart, sending dried herring and salted mackerel flying in every direction. A chorus of cheers and hooting saluted him as he landed.
Mousa struggled to maintain a solemn mien. “Is there anyone else claiming royal birth who commands a Weighing?”
Silence answered him.
The Blesser of Sorbold cleared his throat and spoke, the heaviness in his heart mixing with the inevitability of the outcome.
“Very well. Having performed ritual Weighing for each person of royal blood who requested one, and found none suitable in the eyes of the Scales to assume the Sun throne, I declare the Dynasty of the Dark Earth to have ended. A colloquium will commence immediately to determine the interim leadership; any candidates who emerge in the course of that, or any other discussion, will be summoned to the Scales by the tolling of the bells of Jierna Tal. Until such a time as that occurs, I command the bells to be silent.”