Children of the Dragon Read online

  “I regret to say the town was burned, Your Majesty, and most of the inhabitants were slaughtered.”

  “Ah, well. At least we drove the villains back.”

  “There is one other piece of news, Your Majesty: from your dungeons.”

  Tnem Sarbat scowled. What news could come from that vile pest-hole to warrant his attention? Irajdhan was bidden to explain.

  “Your Majesty, the executioner, Zakhar Wasfour, has been killed—by a prisoner.”

  Now Sarbat raised an intrigued eyebrow. Zakhar Wasfour was one of the burliest brutes in the province.

  “Wasfour was preparing to execute the man,” Irajdhan explained, “but although the prisoner’s hands were bound, he somehow managed to wrench the ax right out of Wasfour’s grasp. Before he could be subdued, the wretch did quite some damage. The executioner’s skull was chopped open and two of the guards were gravely injured.”

  The Emperor leaned forward on his cushion, interest piqued. “Tell me, Lord Irajdhan, who was this prisoner who executed his own executioner?”

  “Your Majesty, he was the ringleader of a gang of cutthroat bandits in Taroloweh Province.”

  “Ah, yes, another of these annoying Urhemmedhin risings.”

  “There was nothing political about them, Your Majesty; they were merely bandits. Indeed, they preyed upon their own people. It was Urhemmedhin villages they sacked, Urhemmedhins they robbed and killed.”

  Sarbat Satanichadh snorted. “Perhaps we should have left them alone.”

  Irajdhan did not smile. “I took the liberty of ordering that these bandits be wiped out, and the army has in fact decimated them. As for their leader, the one who killed Zakhar Wasfour, he was a pretty tough customer and it took nearly half the army to capture him.”

  “And what was his name?”

  “His real name, Your Majesty, is unknown. But everyone in Taroloweh called him ‘Jehan Henghmani.’ ”

  “Jehan Henghmani,” repeated the Emperor slowly. “In the Urhemmedhin dialect, that means Man Eater. He must have been quite a fellow. Tell me more about him.”

  Irajdhan shrugged. “I’m afraid there’s not much to tell. He is about thirty-five years old; a native of Taroloweh; of sharecropper stock. He is an ignorant ox who can’t even write his own name. He wasn’t married, but had a woman and two daughters by her. An outlaw all his life, he led a band that terrorized the eastern part of Taroloweh, until we put them out of business. That’s all there is to tell.”

  “Did this Jehan Henghmani finally die well?”

  The old statesman hesitated briefly. “Oh, Your Majesty, he is not dead yet. It was thought Your Majesty might wish to prescribe some special punishment for this most special case.”

  “Very good, indeed; perhaps something special is called for. I would like to have a look at this Man Eater.”

  Irajdhan nodded crisply. “He will be brought up at once.”

  “No,” said Sarbat. “I don’t want him brought before me. We will go to the dungeon. Fetch my litter.”

  Irajdhan was not alone in feeling consternation at this odd whim of the ruler. But the Emperor could not, of course, be questioned. The Grand Chamberlain bowed low, and then whispered to a servant, who in turn bowed and struck the gong which summoned the litter bearers.

  Came now the eight bald eunuchs, their smooth oiled heads glistening, all clothed as gloriously as the viceroy of a province, jewelry jingling as they stately pranced. Hoisted on their shoulders was the litter, gold- and jewelencrusted with a canopy of vermilion silk. Behind the litter was assembled the entourage of criers, chamberlains, councilors, priests, pages, ministers, soldiers, concubines, and courtiers—and all their servants—into a ponderous caravan.

  The Empress Denoi, Irajdhan, and the clown Halaf each climbed into the litter. Only then did the Emperor Tnem Sarbat Satanichadh decamp from his pedestal, walk down the velvet stairs, and take his seat.

  Thereupon the boat of gold and silk was sent on its way by the braying of trumpets and the bong of cymbals, and the Emperor Sarbat was borne down from his mighty throne-room, the most awesome place in all the world, into his dungeon, the most godforsaken.

  As the litter lurched its way down the corridors and stairs, the Empress Denoi Devodhrisha watched her husband. He had uttered no word since giving the command to fetch the litter.

  “Your Majesty,” the Empress said, “I wish to ask a question.” All eyes turned to her. Would she give voice to what was puzzling everyone?

  “Generous Emperor, why is it that we are going down to the prisoner, instead of hauling him up to grovel at our feet?”

  Sarbat blinked, paused, and then spoke slowly. “I will answer you,” he said. “In my studies of the ancient, sacred parchments of Bergharra, I once came upon a certain parable. It is the story of an emperor who dies in chains at the feet of a man whom he had first seen in chains at the emperor’s own feet. And, as you know, the parables in the sacred parchments are considered to be prophetic.”

  “But Your Majesty,” the Empress scoffed, “countless prisoners have come before you in chains.”

  “Yes, ordinary wretches. But a man who would rise out of his chains and destroy an emperor would not be ordinary. He would be the sort of man who would kill his own executioner; the sort of man Jehan Henghmani seems to be.”

  “But how do you know the parable applies to you specifically? It could be any emperor.”

  Sarbat narrowed his eyes and gave a queer, bitter smile. “The one in the parable was named Sahyid Sarvadakhush. He was the seventh of his dynasty.

  “And I am the seventh Satanichadh.”

  4

  TNEM SARBAT SATANICHADH peeked out from his silken canopy upon a grimy, dingy tunnel.

  Down ramps and narrow stairways the caravan had come, down into the bowels of the earth. Never before had the Emperor viewed this hidden part of the Palace. Repelled by the dank, pungent odor pouring from the labyrinth of cells and the vermin they contained, Sarbat covered his nose. The faces of the Empress and the clown paled; many others coughed and muttered curses as they breathed the foul air.

  “I should condemn no one to death,” the Emperor growled, “this stench is even worse than death.”

  “Indeed,” chimed in the clown Halaf, “it would even make a dead man nauseated.”

  “It’s hellish!”

  “Not so, Your Majesty,” returned the clown, “this is actually Hell itself. This is where the wicked go after they die.”

  “But the prisoners here are yet alive.”

  “Ah, no, they are dead, Majesty, dead to the world.”

  “Very clever, clown,” the Emperor said. “You do amuse me. That’s lucky for you; should you ever cease to be diverting, perhaps I’d send you down here to perish in torment.”

  “Oh, I’ve a better idea, Majesty. Should that day ever come, then crown me Emperor of Bergharra in your place. That would be a torment even worse than anything this dungeon could provide.”

  “How so, foolish clown?”

  “Because if I were emperor, then everything would be nothing.”

  Sarbat considered this statement for a long moment. Then he concluded, “But clown, everything is nothing.”

  “Ah, to you, Majesty, to you alone! And that is because you have everything. To take a cup of water from the sea, or add a cup, is nothing; to shift a grain of sand upon the shore is nothing too. So it is with all your vast possessions: you have everything, and everything can be replaced, so everything is nothing. You are the only man in the world who has nothing. Even I, your silly clown, have something. You see, I have some things and lack some things. To me, everything is something and nothing is nothing.”

  “But if you added all the things that you say you lack to the things that you have, then you would have .. .?”

  “Nothing, Your Majesty. I would then have absolutely not
hing, just like you.”

  “I do not understand a word you’re saying.”

  “That is why you are the mighty emperor, and I am just a pipsqueak clown.”

  “And if I did make you emperor, and I became the clown—”

  “Excuse me, Lord, but if I became the emperor, I would not have you for my clown.”

  “What would you have me as?”

  Halaf’s eye openly appraised the iron-haired woman sitting opposite him. “I would make you consort to the Empress.”

  Sarbat smacked his belly with a shrill laugh. “Ha! In that case, clown, you are safe from ever being made emperor!”

  The eyes of the Empress glinted stonily.

  The dungeon guards had been lolling, gambling with their dice and picking their teeth. Little attention was paid to the prisoners, who were locked so tight in the cells that a lock would sometimes rust to seal the wretch inside forever. When such a prisoner would finally die, the guards found it easiest to seal up the door with mortar, to contain the stink. Sometimes they would not bother to wait until he was dead.

  Now the cymbals were heard clanging through the tunnels, and so they hid away their dice and, donning full uniforms, smartly took up their posts. When the royal entourage arrived, the dungeon staff was all alert efficiency.

  In the first vestibule, their chief, the warden, carefully smoothed his hair and cloak. This was a small, swarthy man named Nimajneb Grebzreh, who had spent his whole adult life in the dungeon. He was sick enough of it by now; but there was no place else for him to go. Hope for a promotion had long since died. Grumbling at the annoyance heralded by the cymbals, this Nimajneb Grebzreh cleared the orange rinds and other offal from his desk, and then settled into a meticulous pose, pretending to pore over an open document.

  When the retinue arrived, Grebzreh and his underlings were dumbstruck to see that their visitor was the Emperor himself. This was absolutely beyond belief to them. They threw themselves down with their lips kissing the floor, cringing, pressing the dirt into their mouths and nostrils.

  Wispy-bearded Irajdhan clambered down from the litter, and bade the men rise. Then he addressed Warden Grebzreh; “You are commanded to bring forward the prisoner Jehan Henghmani.”

  “No, no!” called Sarbat from inside the canopy. “I want to see him in his cell. Warden, lead the way.”

  Nimajneb Grebzreh’s head spun. That the Emperor had come was incredible; that he would go to a prisoner was impossible. But the warden could only obey. Taking a ring of iron keys from its hook on the wall, he proceeded, trembling and with a bowed head, down the narrow corridor. His men and the cumbrous imperial parade followed.

  The emperor Sarbat Satanichadh looked out from his silken canopy with eyes that glittered in the flickering torchlight of the dungeon’s passageways. In this sputtering light he could see how rudely the stones were hewn, and how encrusted with age-old lichens, fungi, and nameless excrescences. How the oozing moisture glistened. How the tiny creatures darted about, fat cockroaches and lizards, eating the slime of the walls, and each other.

  The Emperor heard, not the clopping sound of marching, but the squishing of feet upon muck. The tunnels were deep with a soupy, viscous mud that spattered all the courtiers, the gold of the litter, and even Sarbat’s own jeweled robe.

  But the sound that penetrated most was a steady wailing, shrieking, gibbering. Out of the narrow barred windows of their cells the prisoners could glimpse the dazzling entourage passing by, and they would cry out piteously, a frenzied chittering that rose to a shrill crescendo.

  Some of them would call to the Emperor, pleading for his mercy; and when the caravan was past, they would whimper and fall silent, because it was useless to plead at empty air. These were the fortunate ones, because they could still understand, if only that.

  The unfortunate ones could not. They moaned and keened without let-up, the unwavering screech of animal noise that was part of the very air itself here.

  Those unfortunate ones had lost their minds and no longer even knew how unfortunate they were. The fortunate ones still knew. So it was the fortunate ones who were really the most unfortunate.

  That was a stock joke of Warden Grebzreh and his guards.

  Now Grebzreh stopped. Here was a door with no sound coming from behind it, the one the Emperor sought.

  At the warden’s command, one of the guards rapped a sword noisily on the bars of the opening in the door. “On your knees, scum!”

  “No!” said Sarbat quickly. He must stand on his feet before I look at him. And his chains are to be removed.”

  Grebzreh took a deep breath; this order would be dangerous to execute. He motioned and gathered together his strongest guards, who drew their swords. “Do not waste yourself resisting,” the warden said into the dark cell. “We do not come to harm you. His Imperial Majesty Tnem Sarbat Satanichadh wants to look at you.”

  Then Grebzreh put his key into the lock and pulled open the heavy wooden door; the guards entered the cell. There was a clanking of chains, and in another moment the guards hurried out, slamming the door shut behind them.

  “Is he standing now?”

  Grebzreh thrust a torch between the bars and looked inside. “Yes, the monster stands.”

  The eunuchs maneuvered the golden litter right before the door of the cell, and Grebzreh held up the torch so that the Emperor could see inside. He peered between the bars, squinting his eyes.

  Inside there was a hulking shape, almost filling the cramped cell.

  Eyes blinking and glittering in the harsh light of the torch, Jehan Henghmani looked out upon Sarbat Satanichadh.

  Jehan Henghmani was indeed a giant, approaching seven feet in height, and built like a thick stone pillar. The head upon this great body was itself ungainly huge, hairless, and peaked as a mountain, with a snow-cap of drying blood, which had dripped in rivulets down the man’s face. His nose was that of a pig’s snout, with wide splayed nostrils, and his mouth too was wide with rubbery lips like saddle flaps. Here was an extremely ugly brute —a monster, as Grebzreh had called him.

  Standing with his hands freed from the manacles, Jehan Henghmani rubbed the dried blood off his cheeks, while glowering at his subduers with bitter steely eyes, spitting the fire of the torch back into their faces.

  “So, this is the famous Man Eater!” exclaimed the Emperor Sarbat. “Why, he is truly big enough to be such!”

  As he gaped at Jehan Henghmani from his litter, the monstrous prisoner dropped suddenly to his knees so that only the top of his head was visible through the bars.

  Sarbat’s face soured with anger. “Why do you kneel, Man Eater? Get up so I can look at you!”

  “I kneel, Your Majesty,” came the answer in a mocking voice, “because it was your pleasure that I stand.”

  “And what if I declare that it is death for you to kneel?”

  “Am I not equally doomed to death, even if I stand?”

  “Ha!” The Emperor spat a loud laugh and turned to his courtiers. “This creature is too magnificent to die. His audacious crime, and insolence, are too great to be punished with mere death. That would be lenient. He must never die, must never cease to suffer. That is my decree. Now harken: this Jehan Henghmani shall be tortured every day most horribly. But take care that he not die! The man who lets this monster die under torture will be put to the same death himself.”

  And, tauntingly, to Jehan Henghmani: “What do you say to that, Man Eater? Now, beg me for the mercy of death!”

  “Death is nothingness. I do not beg for something that is nothing.”

  “What do you beg for, Man Eater?”

  “I beg for nothing.”

  “Ah, he begs for nothing,” interjected Halaf the clown. “But he also does not beg for nothing. This is a paradox. Majesty.”

  “Yes, this monster is amusing. How would you like to be my clown, Ma
n Eater?”

  “I would like to be nothing to you.”

  “Ha! But you are nothing to me. Everything is nothing to me. My clown tells me that because I am the Emperor, I have nothing. And I will tell you something else, Man Eater, to amuse you while you suffer. Do you know why I wished to see you standing? There was a parable in the ancient parchments about an emperor named Sahyid Sarvadakhush, the seventh of his dynasty, who came to his end at the feet of a man whom he first looked upon in chains at the Emperor’s own feet. I am the seventh Satanichadh, and when I heard about your exploit, I thought you could be the man prophesied to destroy me. But now I have taken my first look at you standing up, not at my feet, and without chains. So you cannot be the man in the prophecy, and you can kneel all you like now; it does not displease me.”

  “It displeases me that it does not displease you.”

  “As you will, Man Eater.” The Emperor’s grin widened sardonically. He was enjoying the mutual baiting with the extraordinary prisoner in this stenchful place, and now he was pricked by an impish thought that gave him open amusement. “So, they call you Man Eater, eh? Well, Man Eater, I have an idea. We shall see that you become worthy of your name. And this is how:

  “I now decree that the only food you shall ever eat will be human flesh—the flesh of the scum who die down here. And you will eat it, if it means stuffing it down your gullet with a ramrod. What do you say to that, Man Eater?”

  “I shall eat human flesh, and you won’t have to stuff it down my throat. I will eat it joyfully. And one fine day the flesh I eat will be your own!”

  At this, Sarbat brayed laughter. “Aha, he gives us another prophecy! I like this; if only I could have you for my clown. But I will make this prophecy come true. When I die, my entrails will be taken out and sent down here for you to eat. Yes, you will eat my guts—because when I die in my goosedown bed, you, Man Eater, will still be down in this hell-hole, still suffering dreadful torture and begging for a death that will be denied to you.”