The Veiled Throne, page 26
“Oh,” said Thoryo, disappointed. Then her eyes lit up again. “There’s no way to make urine safe, the way you make the cactus juice mostly safe?”
“I don’t know of a way,” said Takval.
“When I was in the ship’s hold,” said Thoryo, “I got sick from drinking the seawater at first. But when I licked the condensation from the beams overhead, I was all right. It has to be the same water, isn’t it? Just somehow made safe.”
Théra stared at Thoryo, dumbstruck.
“Maybe that’s what dew is,” continued Thoryo, oblivious to Théra’s look, “just cactus juice refined by the power of the sun. I wish we could make dew.”
Théra grabbed Thoryo and shook her. “I think you’ve just solved our problem!”
* * *
Noonday sun in the desert can be deadly. Normally, by this time Théra and Takval’s expedition would already be hiding inside the shade of some gully or rocky outcrop, dozing to conserve energy and water until the evening, when they could make another sprint across the deadly wasteland.
Today, however, the expedition hadn’t budged at all from their campsite since dawn.
To keep the wait from driving everyone mad, Takval took the marines and Toof to collect clenched-fist cactus. With more time, they could afford to focus only on the most tender lobes and underground roots, which tended to produce the least toxic juice.
Back at the campsite, Princess Théra and Thoryo, ensconced in the shade under a rocky overhang, stared intently at a translucent bubble in the desert, like a strange mushroom that didn’t belong.
The bubble was a waterskin with the leather cover stripped off to reveal the sheep’s bladder inside. It was now exposed to the intense rays of the sun and baked by the reflected heat of the tan desert all around it.
Out of sight, under the bulging sand piled on one side of it, lay a second, identical waterskin. The two pouches were connected spout to spout so that whatever vapors emanating out of the exposed skin would be collected by the one buried under the sand.
This morning, when Théra had set up the double-pouch system, the waterskin under the sand had been completely empty. The other pouch, the one now baking in the sun, had been filled.
But not with water.
“I’m not doing it!” Takval had said. “This isn’t the first time someone thought drinking urine was a good idea. Trust me, every camp knows of someone who wanted to make it through Lurodia Tanta without enough water and ended up trying it. They all died horribly.”
“It’s not going to be like that,” said Théra. “You have to trust me.”
To start, Théra persuaded everyone in camp who hadn’t finished their morning routines yet to pee into the first waterskin. Next, she carefully scooped out a depression in the sand so that the heat of the sun would be reflected from every direction to concentrate on the urine-filled waterskin, converting the liquid inside to vapor. The second waterskin, connected to the first spout to spout, was buried in an elevated mound. The slightly elevated position of the waterskin meant that all the vapor from the first pouch, freed of impurities, would be directed into it, and the earth mound around the second waterskin would keep it at a lower temperature, allowing the vapor to condense into purified water again. The neck of the second waterskin was bent so that the body was lower than the spigot, keeping the purified water from flowing back into the first waterskin.
“In Dara, distillation is a well-known technique for removing impurities,” she said.
After he understood what Théra was after, Toof proposed that the mound around the second waterskin be augmented with tubes made from thin, hollow garinafin wing bones, originally intended as tent poles. The idea was to pierce the base of the mound with a series of thinner tubes, and to push a wider tube down the center, almost like a chimney. Inside the mound, all the tubes would be connected together.
Though skeptical, Théra followed Toof’s advice. As the sun continued to rise, the tubes began to make a faint whistling sound. When Théra leaned closer, she could feel streams of warm air coming out of the thin tubes in the mound. It was as though the mound itself was breathing.
“What sort of magic is this?”
“No magic at all,” explained Toof. “You want the inside of the mound as cool as possible, right? The thinner bones heat up in the sun faster than the thick bone at the center, so the hot air is pushed out and the inside cooled by fresh air coming down the chimney.”
“But how did you come up with such an idea?” asked Théra in disbelief. How could a people with no Imperial academies and laboratories, no scholars, no writing even, have invented such a system?
“I’ve watched hundreds of garinafins build breathing mounds like this to keep their eggs cool until the mothers are ready to incubate—of course they do it by digging tunnels instead of using bone. And I’ve heard that ant mounds work the same way. The Great Tent in Taten also has cooling tubes that work similarly.”
Théra looked at Toof with newfound respect. What other knowledge did the people of the scrublands possess that she could learn?
By the time the afternoon rolled around, Théra declared the experiment over. Gingerly, she and Thoryo dug out the waterskins, careful not to mix the contents of the two. The foul odor of the urine that had been left to bake in the sun was overwhelming.
“I’m not drinking that,” said Toof, a look of revulsion on his face.
Even Takval and Théra, as they held up the other waterskin, looked reluctant to try.
But Thoryo laughed, grabbed the second waterskin from Théra, and drank her fill without a second thought.
“It tastes perfectly fresh,” said Thoryo. She looked at the skeptical faces around her. “Are you too scared to try a little purified pee-water? I wonder who’s braver: Lyucu, Agon, or Dara?”
The marines, Takval, and Toof looked at one another. Then everyone fought to be the first to grab the waterskin from her.
* * *
With the sun rising, the expedition was going to have to stop in another quarter of an hour. Takval decided that they would climb over the next dune and find shelter in the shade.
But as he crested the top, he froze.
“What’s wrong?” asked Théra. As she climbed up next to him, she froze as well.
The rest of the expedition scrambled up; they whooped, jumped, and hugged one another, laughing and crying in equal measure.
On the other side of the dune, less than an hour’s journey away, was an impossible vision: Green grass painted the desert floor like a velvet cloth, in the middle of which was a sparkling emerald lake. Palm trees, cactus trees, and thick, verdant shrubs crowded the shore, along with strands of reeds. Flocks of birds swooped over the lake and frolicked in its waters.
And most lovely of all, a patch of white tents like mushrooms sprouted next to the lake. Flocks of long-haired and short-haired cattle grazed farther away from the shore. Behind the flocks, a few garinafins paced, their serpentine necks craning in the expedition’s direction with curiosity.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN AN UNWELCOME WELCOME
THE OASIS OF SLIYUSA KI, UKYU-GONDÉ: THE FIFTH MONTH IN THE SECOND YEAR SINCE PRINCESS THÉRA DEPARTED DARA (KNOWN IN DARA AS THE SECOND YEAR OF THE REIGN OF SEASON OF STORMS).
“Princess of Dara, welcome to Sliyusa Ki, the First Oasis of the Agon,” said the gray-haired man who sat at the head of the open-air banquet. “I am called Volyu Aragoz, son of Nobo Aragoz, son of Akiga Aragoz, that Akiga who was once dance-drawn as the Pride of the Scrublands. I serve my people now as the Pé-Afir-tekten. You are a stranger alone among us tonight, far from home. May your heart be seen as clearly as the bottom of this bowl.”
“Pé-Afir-tekten” meant “Chief of the Children of Afir.” It was an old title that had been used by many legendary heroes who claimed descent from Afir.
Eyes on Théra, Volyu raised a bull skull, full of kyoffir, and drained it in one long gulp. Then he tilted the skull bowl to show the princess the empty inside.
“Kyoffir! Kyoffir!” the dozens of Agon chieftains and naros-votan sitting in an oval around the banquet-fire shouted. They drained their skull bowls as well and showed the empty containers to those around them.
“I thank you, Chief Volyu Aragoz of the Agon,” said Princess Théra, sitting at the opposite end of the oval from Volyu. Having delivered her brief answer, she swallowed nervously. She was unaccustomed to the formal register of the Agon tongue, and it required all her concentration to parse the unfamiliar words and to carefully compose her sentences. She was afraid of missing nuances, misinterpreting intentions, misapprehending directions.
I am a princess of Dara. I can do this.
Forcing her hands to be steady, she lifted her skull bowl in return and drank. But instead of gulping down the strong alcoholic drink, she merely sipped it before tipping the skull bowl toward Volyu. Starlight and firelight glinted off the brimming liquid.
“A delicate maiden!” exclaimed Volyu, a contemptuous smirk on his face. “That is all right. Take your time.”
The other Agon chuckled at the princess’s inability to drink like a warrior. At this rate, it would take a hundred sips for Théra to match Volyu’s toast. They waited for her to collect herself and resume drinking.
The princess did not bring the skull bowl back to her lips.
As the wait stretched, laughter among the crowd died down. Volyu’s smile froze. The faces of the chieftains turned stony.
Scattered cries of consternation erupted from the assembled warriors at the banquet. The roaring bonfire lit their lined faces and shaggy hair with deep shadows, much as the rays of the setting sun lit up the cracks in a dried gully bed in Lurodia Tanta. Some of the naros-votan whispered to one another, anxious and confused, looking askance at the young Dara princess who had just insulted their chief.
“What are you doing?” asked Takval, sitting next to Théra. He spoke in Dara and kept his voice barely above a whisper. “Drink again! You have to finish the bowl.”
“Kyoffir upsets my stomach,” Théra whispered back. “Most men and women of Dara can’t drink kyoffir without either becoming sick or losing their senses. It was the downfall of my brother Timu.”
“You can throw up later! But right now, if you don’t finish this first bowl, everyone will see it as a great insult to my uncle.”
“He’s trying to assert dominance over me,” whispered Théra. It had not escaped her notice that Volyu had emphasized in his toast that she was alone, and made no mention of the proposed alliance between Dara and the Agon.
“It’s just a drink.”
Théra shook her head almost imperceptibly. Years under her parents’ tutelage had taught her that there was no such thing as a simple banquet among emperors and pékyus. Everything was theater, and all performances were about power. This was a truth that did not change between Dara and Ukyu-Gondé.
“You’re in Gondé,” whispered Takval again. “Please.”
If Takval were familiar with the Ano Classics, at this point he would probably quote her the famous episode of Iluthan’s blood meal. During the Diaspora Wars, the hero Iluthan once ate the heart of a slain foe on Wolf’s Paw to prove to the natives of the island that he was willing to abide by their customs and follow their laws. This act of cannibalism, though widely condemned by Iluthan’s own priests and allies, proved instrumental in securing him the loyalty of the berserkers of Wolf’s Paw.
In Dara, the story had been cited by generations of Moralists as an example of Iluthan’s lack of principles—a prefiguration of the state of moral confusion society had to endure in the absence of good Tiro kings guided by Moralist philosophers. But some Fluxist scholars, intent on arguing against the excessive rigidity of classical Moralism (particularly the extremist strain propounded by Poti Maji, Kon Fiji’s most renowned student), had also used the story as an example of the lack of absolutes when it came to moral judgments. For them, Iluthan’s pragmatism showed that even a taboo like cannibalism was a matter of convention and ritual, rather than something that could be derived from self-evident principles.
Being a daughter of Kuni Garu, Théra naturally disagreed with both interpretations and had drawn her own conclusions: Iluthan wasn’t interested in abstract notions of ethics; he was trying to secure power for a grander goal.
“Let me handle this my way,” she whispered to Takval.
Before Takval could respond, his uncle called out in a booming voice. “Princess of Dara, are you truly too delicate for the rough drink of the scrublands? Or do you hold yourself so high that you would not deign to drain kyoffir with a barbaric chief?”
There was utter silence as every pair of ears perked up for the princess’s response.
Théra stared across the long elliptic space into the eyes of Takval’s uncle. The man was in his early fifties, gaunt and hunched over in his posture, as though perpetually cringing from some blow that was about to be dealt. The oasis allowed his tribe to survive but not to thrive, and years of hiding in the wasteland had drained him of the warrior’s vigor that he might once have inherited from his father, the last pékyu of the Agon. Though he was not ancient, his face was already so lined that it was hard to read his expression in the dim fire glow.
The princess knew better than to underestimate the man. He was the sole surviving son of the Agon royal line, and there was no doubt that his calculated performance of the role of cringing coward had been useful in his survival.
“You misunderstand my meaning, Chief Aragoz,” said Princess Théra. “I took only a sip out of great respect for both our peoples.”
Volyu’s eyebrows lifted. “Do explain.”
“Both the Agon and the people of Dara respect the gods and believe in omens,” said Théra. “Tonight, we meet to celebrate the Agon-Dara alliance secured by a royal marriage. A marriage and an alliance both must be nurtured to last for the long haul, and should not be driven by short-term interests and quick profit. I sipped from the bowl because I wished to honor the gods and give them a sign that the friendship between our peoples should last as long as this bowl of kyoffir.”
The assembled chieftains and warriors murmured in approval. Several of the women even saluted her by lifting both arms, crossed at the wrist.
Takval glanced at Théra in admiration, and she smiled. Since the Agon tribes were scattered to the far corners of the scrublands and many of them were living as enslaved captives of the Lyucu, the tribe at Sliyusa Ki, Volyu’s own tribe, functioned like a Taten-in-exile for the Agon. The chieftains here were the equivalent of the great thanes during the time of the Agon empire, and impressing them would do much to further Théra’s reputation among Takval’s people.
Volyu laughed long and loud. “You’re very clever, Princess of Dara. In the scrublands we call what you’ve just done ‘trying to sell blind cattle on a moonless night.’ ”
Théra’s face flushed. “Is it the custom of the scrublands to insult those who come in friendship? I had hoped that our peoples would be votan-sa-taasa, like Kikisavo and Afir of old.”
Volyu shook his head. “You have come prepared, that is obvious. But this alliance you speak of was negotiated by my nephew without my approval. You assume we’re friends when we’re strangers. Overfamiliarity is also an insult.”
“There was no insult intended—”
“You insult my intelligence with every word you speak! No matter how pretty your words or how elaborate your false reasoning, the only thing that matters is power. An alliance can only occur between peoples who can make each other stronger.”
I knew it, thought Théra, but there was no joy in having her suspicions confirmed. “Do you doubt the power that my people can bring to the Agon? We have knowledge, skills, and weapons. Takval can tell you how much stronger your warriors will be when armed with metal weapons—”
“Do you take me for a fool?” thundered Volyu. “Takval tells me you brought a thousand men and women with you in small ships that could not carry even a single garinafin. Admiral Krita brought more than ten times as many to these shores in city-ships that resembled floating islands, laden with magical weapons, and yet Pékyu Tenryo killed and enslaved them all. Do you command more strength than Krita did? Dara has nothing to offer us!”
Théra closed her eyes for a moment to keep her surging panic under control. This was the worst-case scenario. The chances that Dara could train its own army of garinafins from hatchlings in just ten years to defeat the experienced garinafin riders of Tanvanaki, audacious leader of the Lyucu invasion, were remote at best. If the Lyucu were to send any more reinforcements on city-ships when the Wall of Storms opened again, all of Dara was going to fall. To be sure, the Lyucu didn’t know when the Wall was going to open again—it was a secret she had revealed only to Takval, and even other members of the Dara expedition didn’t know about it, thinking only that they had to defeat the Lyucu as quickly as possible—but there was no guarantee that the Lyucu wouldn’t figure out the secret on their own. Cudyu, presumably, had copies of Luan Zyaji’s calculations, and he might eventually break the cipher Luan had used to disguise the truth. And even if he couldn’t break the code, he could simply try his luck by sending new expeditions every few years, as Tenryo had done before Luan’s arrival. She had come to Ukyu-Gondé to convince the Agon to rebel in order to prevent the Lyucu from sending any more reinforcements, but that required the Agon to first believe that Dara’s aid was valuable.
Volyu continued. “Oh, yes, Théra, Takval tried to tell me about the wonders of your weapons and the glory of Dara’s wealth. But weapons and wealth do not equal power. Power is like water: It flows from high places to low places, and it moves in patterns that are the same whether you’re in the parched wastelands of Lurodia Tanta or the mist-shrouded forests of the World’s Edge Mountains. Despite the web of lies you and Takval have tried to weave, I know that Dara lies mired in the trough, and the Lyucu are poised at the crest.”
