Children of the Dragon Read online

  He was as tom apart inside as poor Tsevni: he wanted to flood the room with his tears. But he couldn’t let his torturers see the grief they were inflicting on him. These contradictory imperatives wrestled in him, and the hatred forced back the tears of love. He had come to hate these cruel men more powerfully than he had loved his children. He hated them all the more bitterly for having made him hate so deeply that he could let his children die without his tears.

  Jenefa lifted her daughter’s tom body into her arms. The blood poured over her, but she ignored it, and walked to Grebzreh sitting on his couch. They stared at each other.

  She opened her mouth and bared her teeth.

  Then she struck like a cobra and sank her teeth into his face.

  The warden yelped, writhed, and grappled Jenefa around the neck, frantic to get free, to strangle her. But she hung on, still carrying her dead child, she hung on with just her teeth, tightening upon the man’s nose and chewing on him like a jungle beast.

  Grebzreh was blinded and unmanned by the agony, he couldn’t get her off. His men stood still, for fear that he’d regard a rush to his aid as insulting.

  Jenefa dropped the child, but hung onto Grebzreh, clawing at him with her stubby fingers. She got her hand under his tunic and savagely grabbed his testicles. The man stiffened, half paralyzed.

  Then abruptly Jenefa’s head jerked backward. She had his nose in her mouth, she had chewed it off. He hit her with his fist and she fell on top of Tsevni’s body, the mangled nose flung from her mouth. He jumped down on her.

  “Urhem bitch!” he shouted, beating her head with loud cracks against the hard floor. “Sow, bitch!”

  He was beating her into a pool of blood; the back of her head was pulp, she was dead.

  Agonizingly, Grebzreh stood up, the middle of his face a shapeless smear. He was tottering, and sank back upon the couch with a heavy breath, spreading his legs apart and moaning. A man put a wet towel over his face.

  “Not a wet one, moron—damn, stop the bleeding.” Dry rags were brought; these rapidly soaked through with blood.

  The warden lay back very still, trembling with labored breath, and chafing that he could not tear Jehan Henghmani limb from limb for what his woman had done. But the Emperor’s decree forbade it. Only torture was permitted—which seemed to have less effect the more severe it became.

  But he would show this monster! There was still Maiya, and before Jehan’s eyes, he would commit unspeakable atrocities upon her, chop her hands and feet off, flay the skin from her, slowly roast her black!

  But no, he knew Jehan would take it all impassively, a demon sent from Hell, who endured all horrors in silence, tormenting his torturer.

  Grebzreh opened his eyes and took the measure of this girl, Maiya. She’d been spared her parents’ ugliness. In fact, she was uncommonly pretty, having a well-formed oval face with a tiny nose, high cheekbones, and blue eyes. Her skin was smooth and coffee-colored. Under her smock could be seen the bumps of a precocious bosom. Though still a child, she was already a woman, a most entrancing duality.

  Grebzreh didn’t lust for her now, though. What he yearned for was to break Jehan Henghmani; and his raping Maiya, or killing her, wouldn’t break him.

  But the girl would be violated, and it would bring Jehan down. There was only one man whose copulation with her could accomplish it.

  “Bring the girl forward,” Grebzreh said in a voice hoarsened by his wound.

  Maiya was shoved into the middle of the room.

  The warden gestured, and one of the men took her by the neck and with a few harsh tugs tore off her smock. Then he stepped back.

  She stood alone, naked, with her hands clasped at her heart.

  When Jehan had last seen her, she’d been nothing but a child. Now the girl seemed an angel, with her hands folded as in prayer, her big round eyes accentuated by terror. She had slim, shapely legs; a small, taut belly; high, pink nipples.

  Jehan felt a strange excitement at having begotten such a lovely creature. But it was unbearable that she would, very shortly, be despoiled.

  “Take a good look at her, Man Eater,” the warden said. “She’s a little virgin, eh?”

  Jehan turned his eyes away and didn’t answer.

  “Do you like them young like that, Man Eater? Fruit picked fresh and juicy off the tree?” Grebzreh smacked his lips lecherously. “Ah, look at her breasts, such charming little breasts. Tell me, did you ever cuddle her and feel them bump up against you? Ever sneak your hand on them? Did you ever think of bedding her?

  “No, of course not, she’s your daughter. It would be vile, depraved.

  “But, tell me, Man Eater: how long since you’ve had a woman? A long time, eh, for a stud like you. You must’ve had them left and right while you were rampaging through Taroloweh. Now I’ll bet you’re horny as a dog in heat, just burning to grab someone and stick it in her. Think about it. Think how much you want it.”

  Jehan snickered with disdain.

  “Oh, you think I’m teasing you, Man Eater? But that’s not so at all. I am going to let you have a woman today —that one,” Grebzreh said, and his finger darted toward Maiya. He gave a sniggering laugh.

  Jehan was startled by the calculated, savage baseness of it. Maiya was his daughter, but she was also very nubile, and in Jehan’s straits, bedding her was not completely unthinkable. Grebzreh was tantalizing him, and what made it excruciating was the certainty of Maiya being raped and killed anyway. In this pit of horrors, would it matter that she be violated by her father as well?

  Somehow, here, the incest taboo seemed singularly irrelevant. What difference did it make that she was his daughter? Even while he loved her as a daughter, he could want her too as a woman. If he loved her, why abjure making love to her?

  He felt himself melting toward it.

  But then his back stiffened. He remembered his vow— to be stoic in the face of everything, to show transcendant fortitude, and to gain power even from his ordeal. That would be his glorification, his apotheosis. The longing for it was a lust of the mind, hence a strength; and he was fighting now the lust of the body, a weakness. He knew the triumph of the body would mean the subjugation of the mind, and all his suffering would go for nought.

  Jehan the man ached for Maiya’s flesh; Jehan the superman forbade it.

  He flashed his teeth wrily at Grebzreh. “If I say I want her, then surely you’d withhold her from me. This is all a perfectly transparent game. You’re going to kill her sooner or later, so you might as well get it over with.”

  Grebzreh chuckled. “You’re right that if I thought you really wanted her, then I’d use her only to tantalize you. But you are the one who is transparent. You hold yourself as some kind of exalted being; you wouldn’t lower yourself to such a vulgar act. You’d hate yourself if you fornicated with your daughter.

  “You do see it now, don’t you, Man Eater? I want to watch you defile your daughter, defiling yourself in the process. I can’t force you. But I can bribe you. With her life.”

  Jehan answered in contempt. “You take me for a fool. You would entice me into this infamous act, and then you’d mock me by killing her anyway. I won’t play your game.”

  “Very well, don’t. Then she dies, at once, and very unpleasantly.” Grebzreh gestured toward the mangled bodies on the floor before his couch. “But if you agree to my terms . . . then who knows? It may just be my whim today to fulfill my bargain. So make your choice: Will you commit incest upon her, or watch her raped and tortured to death?”

  “You ask me to trust you that she won’t suffer both. How can I?”

  “How can you not? Between trust and certain death, is there anything to choose? At least, will you not give your daughter a chance to live?”

  “And give you the pleasure of an obscene joke at her expense? Better that you are the first to defile her, not me. You woul
d never keep your promise, you hate me too much. Once you’d gotten the performance you want, then you’d surely kill her.”

  Grebzreh clucked his tongue in feigned sadness, and spoke softly to Maiya. “Girl, do you understand my proposal?”

  Maiya nodded.

  “Would you rather die, than have your father do what I ask?”

  The girl looked at the bodies of her mother and sister. “No,” she said with a shudder, “Paban, no!”

  Jehan shut his eyes and clenched his teeth and fists. “I’d never know if you fulfilled your bargain,” he protested to Grebzreh. “You could lead her out of here, only to cut her throat in the next room.”

  “That’s true,” the warden admitted readily. Then he slapped his knee in mirth. “Come now! You are trying to rationalize condemning your daughter to a certain and horrible death!”

  Jehan’s face suddenly purpled. “You filthy cur, why don’t you just give me a sword so I can kill her myself and be done with it.”

  “You would rather stick a knife into her than your prick?”

  Jehan refused to answer.

  “This I should like to see.”

  Grebzreh ordered his men to place themselves in a wide circle around Jehan’s chair, arming themselves with their longest pikes. Then, ignoring their warnings of its dangerousness, he had the prisoner unchained. Maiya was shoved into his arms.

  They embraced, and wept. He stroked her hair, and she did not shrink from putting her hand up to his grotesque face.

  Now Grebzreh tossed a small dagger to Jehan. “It’s up to you, Man Eater. If you do nothing, I guarantee that she will be raped and tortured to death. You can slit her throat to spare her that. Or you can deflower her yourself. If you do, then I’ll let her go free and unharmed.”

  Maiya whispered urgently, “Please, Paban, do what he asks. Please, I don’t want to die.”

  Jehan had taken up Grebzreh’s dagger, his knuckles were wrapped white around its hilt. Abruptly she pushed away. “Look at me,” she said, touching her breasts and pubic fuzz. “Am I not a woman? Am I not pretty? Look at me, don’t you want me?”

  The onlookers sizzled with intense amusement.

  “Stop, Maiya,” Jehan said, “it’s indecent!” His face was pinched with anguish. But now she threw herself back upon him, in the chair, seized his face in her hands and kissed him full on the lips. She took his free hand and pressed it against her breast and then to her groin, moving his hand to stroke her body, rubbing up against him. Jehan begged her to stop.

  “We must, it’s the only hope,” she said.

  And after months of cruelty and torture, he could not fend off the girl’s caresses. She was warm and soft; she pulled open his tattered clothing and took his genitals in her hand. Jehan felt the blood gorge, his organ swelled; he couldn’t fight it. He could hear the merriment of the guardsmen. His mind still protested, but he was smothered in a fog of lassitude by Maiya. His body didn’t know she was his daughter.

  Maiya impaled herself upon him with a gasp. Jehan tried to push her off, but as the act reached the consummation he could not prevent, he was frozen, drained of will.

  Finally he did push her free, but it was over. All around him, Grebzreh and his men were reveling, hooting, capering.

  Jehan shut his eyes. He could not bear to look at them, or at Maiya.

  Then he remembered the knife still in his hand. He opened his eyes; Maiya was flushed, even triumphant.

  Jehan Henghmani raised the knife.

  Grebzreh shouted, and the guards rushed at him. The tip of a pike hit his knuckles and the knife went flying. Before he knew what happened, he was chained once more. The girl was led away.

  Jehan drooped in the steel chair. Grebzreh was looking hard at him. Despite the bloody bandages covering half the warden’s face, he was smug with victory.

  He had promised to set Maiya free; but Jehan knew there was no reason for that promise to be kept.

  Warden Grebzreh stood smirking at Jehan with his arms folded on his chest. He stood that way a long time, and Jehan knew he was laughing.

  Then the warden turned, without a word, and walked away.

  12

  THE EMPRESS DENOI Devodhrisha looked up at Tnem Sarbat Satanichadh, sitting inscrutable on his throne.

  Sarbat had promised to send her home to Laham Jat. But he had also promised her death to Sirimava, and the Empress wondered which promise he would keep.

  The answer was not revealed in his face, as he announced in the solemn tones of state business that the Empress would be granted leave to make a journey to her native land, of indefinite duration, to commence the next morning. She would convey Bergharra’s salutations to the Court of Laham Jat and bear gifts for its leading officials.

  Now the Empress approached the throne and bowed low. In the flowery formal Court language, she affected gratitude at the granting of her request. Then the other nobles, one at a time and in strict order of precedence, came up to her and bowed. Some brought small gifts. They all bade her farewell and wished her a pleasant journey. The first was her son, Prince Shayuq, and then came old Yasiruwam Irajdhan.

  “You shall be missed,” said Irajdhan. He was the only one to say this.

  “I shall miss you too, Yasir,” she told him.

  One of those who said farewell was Sirimava; the yellow-haired concubine bowed deeply and kissed the Empress’ hand. Her lips formed a queer smile.

  The Empress deliberated whether to tell this woman how Sarbat was deceiving her. That would scotch her little smile, but it might be dangerous. So the Empress smiled back at Sirimava and said nothing.

  Regardless of Sarbat’s promises, the Empress and everyone else present knew that this farewell was a final one. If she were truly permitted to leave, she would not return; she would never see Irajdhan again, nor her husband, nor her son. At this, she felt a great calm, even relief. She did not lament her departure from this Court, whether by exile or by death. She was liberated, and it was exhilaration that she felt: should death come, then this would be the proper time to die.

  The Empress Denoi Devodhrisha, accompanied by her maids-in-waiting, retired from the throne-room to her private quarters. She would quickly complete the preparations for her journey, and would go at dawn. By both necessity and choice, her entourage would be a small one; there was little she wished to take with her.

  At the antechamber of her suite in the palace, three guardsmen were posted.

  “There are a few heavy packages I’d like taken out to the wagons,” the Empress said.

  “Your Majesty,” the captain answered, “that isn’t what we’re here for.”

  “Then won’t you do me the favor of helping anyway?”

  The captain did not respond, except to place his hand gently on the Empress’ shoulder, directing her toward her inner room. With a quizzical look, she crossed its threshold. It was empty.

  “Yes, what is it?” she asked impatiently. “Speak up.”

  “By order of His Majesty, the Emperor, you are to remain in this room.”

  “What? For how long?”

  “Forever,” the captain said, shutting the door upon the Empress Denoi Vinga Gondwa Devodhrisha.

  Jehan Henghmani was locked back into his cell, all strength sucked out of him as though by a thousand leeches.

  This day he had been spared the red-hot irons, the knotted whip, the razor knives—but of all the days of his torment, this was far the worst. He’d been forced to sit helpless watching his woman and child raped and coldbloodedly killed. He’d been seduced by his own daughter, to the vast amusement of his torturers. His stoic exterior had been stripped away to reveal pulpy weakness, a weakness that could not stave off the spears of grief, and that had stayed his hand from cutting Maiya’s throat. That, at least, would have aborted her suffering. Now Jehan’s mind was enflamed with visions of what those
cruel men were doing to his little girl.

  They would never let her go. They had raped Tsevni and Jenefa, but Maiya was the choicest of the three. Jehan’s flesh still tingled from the soft warmth of her touch. . . .

  He beat his fists against his head to expel these illicit pictures, to escape the mire of wickedness into which she had seduced him. He huddled, trembling, quaking, trving not to think at all.

  Shock still numbed him. The full horror hadn’t yet penetrated, and he knew it. Only gradually would he come to grips with its enormity. So much comfort had he taken in Jenefa’s devotion, and in his daughters, but that was snuffed out now.

  Nothing remained but Jehan alone. Tormented daily, mauled in body and soul, still he clung to life. It was life only in the barest sense that it wasn’t death, it was merely somethingness against the black void of nothingness. But it was life.

  Jehan thought back to the resolve he had taken at the start of his ordeal, and began to sense how the destruction of his loved ones fitted—indeed, had been necessary. It placed their destruction, the most rending torture of all, behind him. If he survived it, he would survive all else.

  He had learned this day that he was no superman. Today they had humbled him, had brought tears to his eyes. Yet, they had failed to break him. So now, superman or not, he would never be broken. In defeat, he was given knowledge of his ultimate victory.

  On this most horror-swept of days, Jehan Henghmani felt himself reach a new plateau of purification. On this day of death, he achieved a new consciousness of life.

  Locked back in his cell, alone, he had been freed, at last and forever.

  Soon afterward, he was fed the first small pieces of what appeared to be a woman. Not until he was given an intact hand did Jehan realize it was his own Jenefa.

  He stared at the hand, on its wooden platter, and hesitantly reached out to touch it. What had been so familiar was now so grimly altered; the hand that had caressed him warmly was now cold.