Children of the Dragon Read online

  “Yes, Ram-Tvahoud.”

  “You can be grateful I’m letting you off this easy.”

  “Yes, Ram-Tvahoud.”

  Uthsharamon Yarif climbed back up into the wagon, bulging with rice, a lot of it rice that Lord Khnotthros would never see. Yarif looked down and raised his hand.

  “Until next year,” he said, but he knew it wasn’t true. Yarif could see what was happening to Khnotthros’ lands, exacerbated by the Lord’s stupid act of raising the rent, and he foresaw ever thinner pickings from his chief collectorship. This year would be his last, then; Yarif would take as much as possible, and leave wealthy. In the process, he would destroy the peasants, thereby destroying Khnotthros. But before the Lord would realize this, Uthsharamon Yarif would be far away.

  Mussopo bowed once more as the gaars were whipped and the huge wagon began to rumble away. Like Yarif, he did not believe this scene would ever be reenacted. Yaveta and Gaffar, watching the dust balloon as the wagon disappeared, did not have to be told.

  “Well, we’re lucky for one thing at least,” Samud said. “I thought he’d kill you, Gaffar. It was a good thing you didn’t say anything more.”

  Gaffar did not take his eyes off the yellow dust cloud. “Words are good for nothing anyway.”

  He realized this fully now. Words could not bring back Rassav, the gaar. They could not restore his dead sister, or the rice Yarif had stolen. Words could not bring back the blessed days of Urhem.

  So Gaffar had nothing more to say; instead, he had things to do. In his enflamed mind, it was all unclear just what he must do, except for one thing.

  If he stayed here, the Mussopos would all starve. He would have to run away to have a chance of saving himself, and his parents. And he would run away to fight the Tnemghadi. This fight would start close to home:

  He would kill Uthsharamon Yarif.

  14

  GAFFAR MUSSOPO LAY abed with his open eyes glittering in the dark.

  He tingled; his lip was swollen and still hurt dully from Yarif’s blow, but more than that, he tingled with a passion. There was so much injustice! So much oppression! The Tnemghadi would not let them live; it was defiance to even think one’s own way. Only in hiding could the southern people venerate their god Urhem. To speak his creed of life and love in public would mean swift death, and even underground it wasn’t safe; half the Urhem worshippers could turn out to be Tnemghadi spies. Forbidden their own religion, the Urhemmedhins were instead forced to bow before the Emperor’s idol and to swallow the tenet that life was meaningless, a human being worthless, existing only at the whim of a reasonless tyrant. This bankrupt morality filled not just the Tnemghadi prayers, but seemed to underlay their every deed.

  Gaffar seethed with his outrage and tingled with fright: not only at the prospect of striking forth alone, but at the thing he knew he had to do.

  In the morning, as soon as his parents rose, he told them brusquely of his decision to leave. His mother embraced and kissed him. She did not try to dissuade him. Neither did Samud, who understood and nodded with solemnity.

  “Don’t worry,” the boy said, “I’m sixteen; I’ll be all right.” He did not mention his determination to kill Uthsharamon Yarif.

  “Where will you go? Will you go far away?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Take some rice to eat on the road,” said Yaveta.

  “No, keep it for yourself. I’ll find what to eat, I won’t starve.”

  “Will we never see you again? How will we know if you’re all right?”

  “Perhaps I’ll come back some day—when things are better. Or else I’ll send word. This isn’t goodbye forever.”

  The couple kissed their son on both cheeks, and hugged him tightly, patting his back. “We’ll be praying for you, Gaffar,” his father said.

  “Pray for all of our people. And I will pray too,” Gaffar said, “to Urhem.”

  “Pray for the Ur-Rasvadhi!”

  Gaffar grinned. “Just for you, Paban, I’ll pray for the Ur-Rasvadhi.”

  Samud grinned back, his browned skin crinkling deeply. Gaffar put his few belongings into a little rucksack, and headed for the road.

  Many times he turned around to wave back. Samud and Yaveta, standing outside the hut, kept waving too, following the boy toward the horizon with their eyes, until not even the dust of his wake could be seen against the ochre landscape.

  Gaffar was heading for the Syad-Rekked, the centuries- old manor house of the Khnotthros estate, where he would find Uthsharamon Yarif. He knew in what direction it lay, but had never been there before.

  As he walked barefoot on the shoulder of the dirt road, Yarif obsessed his thoughts to the exclusion of all else. To Gaffar the Ram-Tvahoud was the incarnation of everything Tnemghadi; every villainy ever perpetrated upon Urhemmedhins was behind Yarif’s smug face. Clenching his fists, the boy burned with his murderous resolve. And yet, he hadn’t the least idea of how to carry it out.

  That didn’t deter him, though. Once he reached Yarif, Gaffar was sure his ingenuity and courage wouldn’t fail him.

  The Syad-Rekked was less than thirty lim from the Mussopo farm. Walking briskly, Gaffar reached it in the afternoon. He had imagined it a dark gloomy fortress, towering with walls of stone. But instead the Syad-Rekked was a complex of buildings upon a low hill, many of them wooden, and only one of them imposing. This structure, three-storied, well built, and crisply clean with red and white trim, was obviously Lord Khnotthros’ lair. The subsidiary buildings circled around a wide courtyard, deeply scored with wheel-furrows and mud puddles. Chickens and pigs ran about loose, and horses and gaars were tethered to posts. The whole complex was surrounded by a wooden fence.

  Choosing a direct approach, Gaffar walked up the road and addressed himself to the gatesman, a burly Urhemmedhin seated on a stool: “I wish to see Ram-Tvahoud Yarif.”

  The gatesman sneered down at Gaffar. “And just what does the likes of you have to. do with the Ram-Tvahoud?”

  The boy feigned humility, lowering his eyes. “Please, sir, tell the good Ram-Tvahoud that a young worm wishes to make his honor an apology for having spoken foolishly yesterday.”

  “An apology?” the gatesman said with contempt. “You think a man like that’s got time to listen to sniveling apologies?”

  “Please sir, at least tell him. I’ve come a very long way.”

  “Well, the Ram-Tvahoud’s not here, anyway. He’s out collecting rents and won’t be back till late tonight.”

  “I’d like to wait for him. Could you tell me, please, where he lives?” This was the information Gaffar needed.

  “He lives over in that house,” said the gatesman, pointing. “But of course, I can’t let you in. On the other hand, I suppose there’s no harm in your waiting here outside the gate.”

  Having learned where Yarif lived, Gaffar would just as soon have been turned away. But, to maintain his pose, he thanked the gatesman profusely for allowing him -to wait, and then sat down in the shadow of the fence. He tried to be as inconspicuous as possible, keeping his face hidden as carts and horses clattered in and out through the gate.

  Hours passed and the sky darkened. The dusk had brought rainclouds. It began to drizzle, for the first time in many weeks. Gaffar huddled against the fence, cursing the gatesman and cursing what was ordinarily considered a godsend: the rain.

  After it had fallen dark, and been pouring for some time, the gatesman called out from his little covered booth. “Hey, boy, you still there?”

  Gaffar answered that he was. He hadn’t dared arouse suspicion by slinking away.

  “You must be soaked, boy. You may as well come in here under the gate, before you get washed away.”

  “You’re very kind, sir,” Gaffar said as he accepted the invitation, brushing the water off his hair.

  When the moon was well up, the great wag
on of the Tvahoud lumbered up toward the gate. Canvas had been spread over the rice-laden baskets to protect them from the downpour, and Yarif was holding a sheet of canvas over his head.

  “Ram-Tvahoud,” the gatesman shouted, pulling the gate open wide, “there’s some boy here, wants to apologize to you.”

  “What?” Yarif said sharply. “You idiot, can’t you see it’s raining? Get out of the way!”

  The wagon rolled past, into the muddy courtyard. Yarif had not even seen Gaffar.

  “Well, you heard the Ram-Tvahoud,” the gatesman said. “I guess you’ve waited for nothing.”

  Gaffar faked a forlorn pout. “Perhaps I’ll try again tomorrow. Thanks, anyway; I’ll be going now.”

  “Where can you go in this rain?”

  The boy shrugged. It was coming down in heavy iridescent waves, sizzling loud against the ground, and Gaffar again cursed his ill-luck to be caught in it.

  “Look, boy, I shouldn’t do this—but do you see that barn there? I won’t say anything if you sneak in there and sleep, if you leave by dawn.”

  Gaffar grabbed the gatesman’s hand and loudly thanked him. “You don’t know what you’re doing for me!”

  “Never mind that, just make sure no one sees you.”

  Gaffar had spoken the truth—the gatesman didn’t realize what he was doing for the boy. And the rain, which he had cursed, had become his murder weapon.

  15

  THOSE PRECIOUS DROPS of water! Millions welcomed the rain because it fed their crops. For Gaffar, it was the rain that had gotten him inside the Syad-Rekked, past the gatesman. Moreover, the rain had kept all the inhabitants indoors, snug in their beds. No one saw Gaffar skulking about, breaking into Yarif’s house. The steady noise of the rain covered his footsteps; the rain was a lullaby that kept Uthsharamon Yarif asleep while Gaffar slipped through the house and found the bedroom.

  The noise of the rain crackling upon the ground had also covered Yarif’s gasps when Gaffar pinned him on his bed and choked him to death.

  Finally, the rain even covered the boy’s escape, up to the roof of the barn, then a wild leap over the fence and to the ground outside. But for the soggy ground, Gaffar might have broken a bone in that jump. Right to the end, it was the rain that was his weapon.

  Away from the Syad-Rekked he ran, splashing through the puddles, heedless of the downpour, exulting in it, holding up his hands and letting it wash over him in cascades. In the dark he stumbled upon a road, and knew only that it wasn’t the road by which he’d come. He followed it, not knowing where it would take him, except that it led away from the Syad-Rekked.

  Despite having neither slept nor eaten in almost two days, the boy skipped and ran with exhilarated vigor. He was thrilled by his adventure. He had killed Uthsharamon Yarif! He had murdered a Tnemghadi Ram-Tvahoud! The villain had been roused from sleep to find Gaffar Mussopo’s hands around his neck; and while his life was being choked out, Yarif had recognized the boy and understood the reason he was dying. That made Gaffar’s triumph all the more delicious.

  He ran the rest of the night. The rain had stopped and the morning sun had dried him off before Gaffar could think about anything except his glorious deed. Not until then did he realize how tired and hungry he was. And then, too, it hit him suddenly: fixed so single-mindedly on the assassination, he had wasted a grand opportunity to steal food or even money from Yarif’s house!

  Gaffar slumped down by the road and smacked his head, castigating himself for his stupidity. Yarif was a rich man. How much gold might have been taken from him! Gold that Yarif had stolen in the first place from Urhemmedhins—including Gaffar’s own father! Gold with which he could have fed himself, saved his family, even used to fight the Tnemghadi!

  But in his blind lust to kill Yarif, he had never thought of gold. Now the opportunity was gone, and he was hungry.

  “Well, there’s nothing to be done about it now,” Gaffar lamented; and he consoled himself with the likelihood that he would never be apprehended. No one had seen him but the gatesman, and Gaffar had never mentioned his name. The boy had now become just one more poor peasant wandering down the roads, indistinguishable from countless others. It would be pointless for the Tnemghadi to even hunt for him.

  Just the same, prudence dictated that he flee Khnotthros’ territory. Indeed, he had left it before dawn; this terrain was wholly unfamiliar. Gaffar felt only a small lump of homesickness. He sensed a certain rightness in that he had taken from this land, and from his family, all they had to offer; it had been good to him, but now it was time to move on. The world was wider than the Khnotthros lands, and would hold much for him.

  It was many months later, in a gypsy camp, that Gaffar learned of the aftermath of Yarif’s murder. Gaffar had changed his name and concealed his deed. When the story was related at a campfire, he sat rigid and quivering, desperate against giving himself away.

  According to the story, when the Ram-Tvahoud was found strangled in his bed, Lord Khnotthros was both infuriated and frightened. If a mere boy could murder a Ram-Tvahoud, why not the Lord himself? So the gatesman was replaced by a squad of guards, and the fence strengthened. Meanwhile, the hunt was on for the killer. Gaffar’s absence from the Mussopo hut was noticed although, of course, people were running off constantly during those troubled times. On the other hand, some of Yarif’s men recalled how their master had struck Gaffar the day before the murder. Since the boy also roughly matched the gatesman’s description, the mystery was deemed solved.

  Samud and Yaveta Mussopo were tortured, to make them reveal their son’s whereabouts, but they insisted they didn’t know. Then Khnotthros decreed that even though the murderer had escaped, the highest punishment would nevertheless be meted out, as a lesson to anyone else who might contemplate such a fantastic crime. Administered upon the innocent, the punishment would appear all the more terrible! Accordingly, Gaffar’s mother and father were dragged behind horses to the Syad-Rekked, and there publicly put out of their misery: burned at the stake.

  That was the story Gaffar heard at the campfire, and he was compelled to listen in silence.

  He had become a vagabond. At the start, he had vaguely dedicated himself to fighting for the freedom of his people; but after his one great act, he had his hands full just staying alive.

  There were many like him, the dispossessed, the starving poor, all wandering aimlessly along the roads, and Gaffar fell easily among them. It was a scrabbling life; his clothes wore out and he was reduced to scarcely more than a loincloth. Always there was the search for food, it was the universal focus. Sometimes a little rice could be picked off a field; sometimes Gaffar would rob travelers. But itinerants were cautious now and rarely carried much. If Gaffar risked his life in a daring hold-up and came away with a loaf of black bread, he would count himself lucky.

  The unlucky surrounded him: the roadsides were littered with them, bones jutting out under stretched skin. He would see mothers carrying wasted babies, flies crawling on their faces.

  Hunger preyed upon him, shadowed him. If he could assuage it today, he knew it would afflict him tomorrow. Often for days on end the land was barren, dry, gray. Gaffar would feel light-headed, stiff with torpor, unwilling even to lift himself. Somehow, he would do it, and keep on. His own body became to him an accursed, alien encumbrance. The bones bulged, ribs and spine standing out in bold relief along his torso, his knees and elbows were knobs. Bruises wouldn’t heal, sores stayed with him; he collected them like tattoos.

  He was only one of faceless thousands. Occasionally he would travel with some kindred fellow, but these partnerships were fleeting, and the boys would lose each other before long. Sometimes they would never even learn each other’s names.

  The road was the way of life, but once, out of inertia more than anything, Gaffar settled in with a gypsy camp. He would sleep in a ditch dug into the sloping ground; there was not even a piece of cowhide t
o cover it. Sometimes, though, the others in the camp would manage to get a fire going, and he would spend the night huddled in its woozy warmth.

  This was a camp of drifters, none of them with an identity. Although they kept glumly to themselves, their collective namelessness was in some strange way a leavening, even unifying factor. They spoke nothing, shared nothing, yet there was a tacit jointure among these people stripped to their barest skin of humanness.

  One of them was a girl of seventeen. She looked much older, with a worn, washed-out face. She was small and slender, narrow-boned, with large eyes and dark hair down to her waist that somehow, despite her hunger, retained its sheen. She was alone, her family destroyed in some convulsion of which she refused to ever speak. The girl spoke very little at all, but that was true of most people in the camp. Gaffar did manage to learn her name, which was Geyl. With very little ado, she joined Gaffar in his ditch-home.

  Geyl had, of course, been raped several times. Among these bedraggled people living in the open, it could scarcely be avoided. But at any rate, for Gaffar, she happened to be the first lover. They exchanged few words, but that didn’t matter; there was little to be said. Even to himself, Gaffar remarked little about her. Instead, he numbly accepted her coming into his life. He was too enervated to be excited about it.

  What she provided was a quiet comfort to him, a safe harbor. There were in truth only a few times that they made love, but it was sweet to hold her small body close to his while he slept. He liked her most when they snuggled together in the warmth of a fire, and she Would press her head to his shoulder, with her soft hair cascading over him. In that warmth, Geyl would smile, and that was such a rare thing.

  But the warmth was always too brief. The story was the same for all the camps like this: the surrounding lands were soon stripped clean. Ever larger distances had to be searched for food. A few people would move on; many would stay, rooted to the ground by some hypnotic force, long after all food was gone. If the Tnemghadi didn’t strike the camp, its people would starve, one by one, until the last dessicated one of them was dead.