The Annals of Orme: Book One

Yalet

The Empire of Nejim

The City of Tijar

Zalas’s eyelids slid open, and he winced as the pupils of his garnet-colored eyes shrank to pinpoints. He was sitting cross-legged on a large, flat cushion made from a yellow damask material, his gold and purple robes spread about him. The black-tiled floor of his audience hall shone like a dust-covered mirror, reflecting the harsh afternoon sunlight up the gold-paneled walls to the vaulted ceiling. This made the long, rectangular hall feel much more like the interior of a lit oven.

Finally free of his self-imposed meditation, Zalas’s ears were once again filled with the grating voice of the bleary-eyed man who knelt before him. Zalas still wasn’t ready to process that voice in words, and instead looked up and beyond the man’s shining, hairless head to the open balcony window on the other side of the hall. There used to be a grand inselberg standing in the far distance, like a black cloud hovering over the desert, but no more. In his forefathers’ time, the mountain was tall enough to eclipse the sun at times, but now Mount Thayl had been gutted to the point that it resembled a moldy hunk of cheese that was beginning to collapse in on itself. Generations of excavation had all but destroyed it.

Zalas knew Yalet was an ugly world; his slaves—pathetic Naltites secretly stolen from Zaidna—often complained of that fact. While whipping them for their insolence, he often recalled his own father speaking passionately of Zaidna’s beauty, and how cruelly the Anotites had been chased from it through the parting by the vengeful goddess Naltena. His father seemed to think their ancestral home had been as lush and verdant as Yalet was crusty and bitter.

But Zalas had no desire to travel beyond the parting to see whether his father was blind or simply mad. Even though it was unpleasant to have his body baked by Yalet’s sun on a daily basis, he could never long for a world he had never set foot on, no matter how green and moist his father claimed it was. Besides, plenty of progress had been made over the last few centuries, and through irrigation and ormé, his people had managed to transform much of the desert immediately outside of Tijar, the capital city of Nejim, into useful farmland.

The old man’s ramblings finally tore through Zalas’s idle musings, forcing him to return to the task at hand. “And in conclusion, Emperor Zalas,” sniffed the noble, “I want my supposed ‘family’ and ‘friends’ to answer for hurting me so deeply.” The old man bowed his head, his face papery and creased with greed. Zalas wanted nothing more than to wrap his hands around the man’s shriveled neck in order to silence his wheezing, spotted lips.

Instead, Zalas simply sighed. “What would you like to be done?”

“Well,” the old man sputtered. “I want them to write notes of apology to me, for a start. You’re the emperor, so you could easily order them to do that.”

Zalas slumped in exasperation. “You want me to what?”

“You could force them to write apology notes to me. Send a decree if need be. As I said several times already, I hinted to them time and time again that I wanted to have a party thrown for me in commemoration of my ninetieth Naming Day. I think that we can all agree that ninety years of life is a significant achievement!”

When Zalas was still the high prince, he believed that becoming emperor would elevate him above all other nobility. After all, his first ancestors had been chosen as emperors by Anoth and the Orb itself. But now that he was the emperor, he was becoming increasingly aware of how meaningless the title truly was. “So, you are angry that your friends and family did not throw you a party,” he finally muttered. “Does such a matter really merit an audience with the emperor?”

“Of course it does!” the crumpled sack of a man declared.

Zalas shut his eyes for a moment. “You should realize that these people likely didn’t want to throw you a party because they consider you to be an old nuisance.”

The noble puffed up his chest, which made him resemble a pillow that had been overstuffed with twigs. “Well I never!”

Zalas shrugged off the glares from his advisors and calmly placed his palms on his knees, leaning forward to look the noble directly in the eyes. “Do go away, old man, and settle the matter yourself!” He waved both of his hands in dismissal, his sleeves falling over his knuckles.

The noble picked up the skirts of his robe and stood up on bowed legs. Huffing, he shuffled straight out of the hall, grumbling his displeasure all the while.

When the old man was gone and the slave at the entrance had sealed the doors for the umpteenth time that day, Zalas smiled. Now that was satisfying. But his advisors were not quite so pleased, and they whispered disapprovingly back and forth around him until one of them bent forward and hissed, “Emperor, Master Anoth wishes for you to mediate the contentions of his people, even if they might seem . . . trivial. It would have been a simple matter to send notices to the old man’s kin asking them to apologize.”

Zalas shook his head in annoyance. He was the emperor of Nejim, not a wet nurse. He opened his mouth to vocalize his displeasure but was interrupted by his wife, who was sitting behind him as she usually did during these audiences. He liked her better when he could pretend that she didn’t exist.

“He’s right, you know,” the wretched cow bayed through her nose. “You were mean to that sweet old man.”

Instantly enraged, Zalas glared over his shoulder at her. By Anoth’s malformed ears, what a detestable creature she was! She had grown so fat during her pregnancy with his first child that he now saw her like a large grub, coiled up and pulsating in her cocoon of white silk. And all this just to produce a legitimate heir.

Once, Zalas had enjoyed a fulfilled life, mastering the supple bodies of countless maidens, but none of the bastards he might have sired could have any claim over the throne of Nejim. He had to be wed, and at the age of just thirty, Anoth forced him to marry this contemptible lump, not for love or lust but because she was born under a high house of ormé and would bear him talented children.

Zalas’s eyes drifted over to a female slave at the far end of the hall. He had developed a taste for dalanai women, even from a young age. While most of the empire’s slaves consisted of beshtats, the ormé-less original inhabitants of Yalet, there were other slaves who were plucked from Zaidna during one raid or another and brought to excavate Mount Thayl or serve in the noble district. He might have very little political power, but being emperor did have its advantages, specifically in his pick of bed slaves.

This particular dalanai slave was an unusual sight in court. Like all dalanais, she was tall and slender, with white skin, which was a stark contrast to her eshtan counterparts. But unlike the old, broken dalanais who usually served in the court, this one’s breasts did not droop, nor did she seem ridden with disease. She was fleshy for a dalanai, and her face was clear of wrinkles and pockmarks. She even had enough dignity left to try hiding her tail beneath her short shift. Why was she here instead of tending to a nobleman’s bed?

“Slave,” he called to the dalanai, interrupting his wife’s blathering. “Go and bring in the next parasite!” He watched with interest as the slave turned obediently toward the doors. His curiosity at the shape of her rear quickly turned into revulsion when he saw her bare shoulders and back. What had surely been perfect, velvet flesh at one time was now swathed with innumerable raised scars in overlapping layers of red, pink, and white. Perhaps her former master had enjoyed their violent “sessions” until even he found her too scarred for his tastes. Still, Zalas mused, he might be able to ignore the scars as long as he didn’t accidentally roll her over in bed.

The slave drew open the ebony-plated doors and stiffly exited the audience hall, returning a moment later with the sounds of footsteps and weeping following her. A young nobleman entered, followed by his wife, who was carrying a small infant swaddled in her arms. The woman was in hysterics, while the man’s face was deformed with anguish.

Three hadirs entered the audience hall directly after the nobles, which caused Zalas to frown. Hadirs always seemed to have an aura of disarray surrounding them like an invisible swarm. He knew very few of the hadirs before their conversions by Anoth’s hand, but any encounter with a hadir always became a memorable one.

Storming ahead of the other two hadirs was Tovam the albino, whom Zalas knew to be a sadist and highly accomplished prick. His braided hair, which trailed down the length of his spine, was frost white, and his eyes shined like the blade of a dagger. Among all of the hadirs, Tovam frightened Zalas the most, for he was the eldest hadir, and the most powerful, having been the very first to be changed from mortal eshtan to immortal abomination.

Tovam strode past the weeping nobles with barely a whisper issuing from his boots and didn’t bow or kneel to Zalas, nor did he even bother to nod in greeting. “These nobles have asked to see you,” he sneered. “We received word of their child’s deficiency in ormé and intended to rectify the matter ourselves, but they refused to let us take it, citing Anoth’s decree that the emperor should mediate such—undesirable situations.” Tovam’s slanted eyes narrowed furiously. He clearly did not take pleasure in being bound by all of Anoth’s laws, even if he enjoyed enforcing most of them.

The noblewoman, still clutching her child to her breast, broke free from her husband’s grasp and rushed ahead of the hadirs, dropping to her knees. Zalas flinched, expecting Tovam to exact swift punishment on the foolish woman, but he merely snorted. “Please, Emperor, do not make me give up my daughter!” Tears beaded up in the woman’s eyes and rolled down her already wet face. “It’s not her fault that she was born under the first house!”

A slow smile curled Zalas’s lips. Not only was this a matter actually worth mediating, but these nobles were showing the proper respect for his authority as emperor. “No, it is not her fault,” Zalas agreed, his tone turning appropriately delicate. “But she was born under the first house, and that does have consequences.”

All the blood drained from the nobleman’s face, while the woman wailed as though she had been stabbed through the heart. Tovam, standing above both Zalas and the noblewoman, crossed his arms before his leather cuirass. Like all hadirs, his arms were covered with dozens of interconnected glyph scars.

Out of the corner of his eye, Zalas could see the fidgeting of his advisors. Behind him, his wife gave a soft sniffle. Perhaps she was considering what fate would befall their own child should it be unfortunate enough to be born under a low house of ormé.

“Well? What is your decision?” Tovam demanded. “I’ll happily split the babe open like a melon if you have no other instructions.”

Zalas looked again at the young, lamenting parents, and then to Tovam’s detestable face. Usually, the hadirs acted as judge, jury, and executioner in these matters, leaving Zalas out of them entirely, but the unusual rise in untalented children convinced Anoth to at least allow the nobles to make their cases heard.

“The problem with this situation is that this child was born under the lowest house of ormé,” Zalas explained. “You know that there is a blight among our people. Since the loss of the Orb, ormé has been fading and must be carefully preserved. We cannot risk any more dilution of ormé among our nobility. That is why we must cast out the weak and bring the rare commoner born under a higher house of ormé to live among us. This is the law.”

Sobbing bitterly, the young mother nodded. “But I can’t leave her in the desert!” Above her, Tovam growled, clearly almost out of patience.

As Zalas stared into the woman’s pleading eyes, he knew that this was an opportunity to garner favor from multiple groups if he handled it wisely. But how could he follow the law and show proper leadership? “Perhaps the child doesn’t need to die. What if you take her to the outer borough and place her with a commoner family there? She would never be able to return to the noble district, so we would not risk weakening noble blood.”

“Absurd!” Tovam snapped. The mother gasped and squeezed her baby to her chest. “Do not think to make your own interpretations of the law, Zalas! This law is a simple one. Anoth wants to keep the blight out of the nobility. The entire purpose of leaving these worthless children in the desert to die is to keep them from breeding and contaminating more bloodlines. This child is weak and of no value; it must be destroyed!”

Zalas flinched again. He was the emperor, but Tovam threw his weight around as if he had even greater authority. Zalas, even though he was born under the seventh house of ormé, stood no chance against the power of any hadir, much less the eldest of them all. Tovam would get his way whether Zalas agreed or not. “I’m sorry,” Zalas finally murmured to the noblewoman, “but Tovam is correct; the law must be satisfied. You will immediately surrender this child to the hadirs.”

“Wise words at last, Zalas,” Tovam hissed before turning to address the couple. “You are free to have another child. Pray that the next one does not suffer a similar—defect.”

The father, sensible despite his grief, bowed his head in submission. He moved to his wife and grabbed her arm to help her stand, but she pried herself free. “No! This is my daughter! Please don’t make me give her up! You are a high priest, are you not, Emperor Zalas? What if the priests who named my daughter and divined her house of ormé were not accurate? Test her yourself, Emperor Zalas, to be certain that she’s not a member of a higher house!”

Zalas frowned. Even if he wanted to intervene, he couldn’t. He already knew his political power was a farce, but the idea that the emperor was the highest of high priests was an even bigger farce. Religious training was withheld from him his whole life, and while he knew plenty of destructive patterns, he didn’t even know how to use a naming crystal to divine the house of his own unborn child. And what need did the Anotites have for learning about their God? Anoth walked among them. What Zalas longed to understand was what Anoth worshiped as even greater than himself: the Orb. But the Orb, from which they had received so many of their laws, was still missing, and the Anotites all labored and awaited the day when the Orb would be found within Mount Thayl.

“I’m sorry, but your daughter must be taken to the wastes,” Zalas finally whispered as the woman let loose a wretched-sounding howl. “As a token of Anoth’s mercy, I will make sure that the next infant born under the third house or greater among the commoners will be placed in your home.”

“It’s not the same!” the woman shrieked.

The woman’s husband brushed past Tovam and attempted to hush her. He then bowed nervously to Zalas. “We would like very much for you to have another infant placed in our home, Emperor.”

“This isn’t fair!” the woman screeched. “First you condemn my daughter to death for no fault of her own, and then you suggest that I rob some other poor woman of her child in order to ease my suffering? We don’t deserve the ormé you’re trying to protect if you resort to murdering children and taking others from their families!”

“Take the child and lead them to the desert!” Tovam barked, before gesturing to one of the other hadirs. “Ensure that it is left behind, and if they refuse to leave it, kill all three of them.” When the babe was snatched away, the woman flopped to the floor in hysterics, shrieking to have her daughter returned. The second hadir promptly forced her to stand.

“We must do what they say!” the young father pleaded with his wife.

“Tovam, this might be a little hasty,” Zalas murmured, half beneath his breath.

Tovam simply turned and laughed derisively. “If a couple so young is producing children born under the first house, what makes you believe their next attempt won’t result in a similar failure? This girl speaks open sacrilege and should die for it. I only show mercy for her stupidity because females are irrational creatures, especially when it concerns their offspring.” Tovam turned back to his subordinates. “Now get them out of here! I want this matter concluded before sundown!”

The other hadirs bowed and obediently left the hall, the first carrying a now squealing infant in his murderous arms, while the other pushed the wailing mother out the double doors. The father followed behind, his shoulders hunched and face entirely gaunt.

When the entrance of the hall was sealed shut and the woman’s shrieks had finally faded, Zalas let out a long sigh through his nostrils. He shouldn’t have let the hadirs be present during the judgment. They had no place in the courts; their role was only in enforcement of the decisions of the courts. He alone should have decided the fate of the infant based on Anoth’s laws and his own interpretation of them. Had Tovam simply given him the respect he deserved, he could have ensured the life of the newborn, and for his wise and selfless deed, he would have been praised as a hero by the child’s parents. But here he was, having sent a child and probably its parents to their deaths, while the white-skinned bastard simply stared at him with a smug grin.

“Is there something wrong?” Tovam asked serenely.

“You overstep your bounds,” Zalas challenged. “It’s my responsibility as the emperor to rule according to Anoth’s edicts.”

“It is also your responsibility to ensure that Anoth’s will is done,” Tovam replied. “Your willful defiance often does the opposite of Anoth’s will, and necessitates correction. You require more instruction. Personal instruction.”

“I receive all the instruction I need from Anoth,” Zalas spat. “Your job is to see that my commands are carried through. I don’t need you to interfere in court matters!”

Tovam narrowed his eyes, then turned menacingly toward everyone else in the audience hall. “All of you will leave. Now!” The advisors and Zalas’s wife immediately fled, needing no additional encouragement. The dalanai slave followed, shutting the doors behind her with a soft boom.

After a few moments of silence, Tovam clasped his hands behind his back and began circling Zalas, his black caftan drifting behind him ever so slightly. “Did you know that the very first emperor chosen by Anoth and the Orb to rule Nejim—one of your forefathers—was my younger brother?”

“I have heard the stories,” Zalas muttered.

“The eshtans of those days were warriors and worthy of respect. I was considered too weak to take the throne, given my condition, but Master Anoth saw fit to grant me a far greater gift. Everlasting life.”

Zalas frowned. What was his point?

“As my brother the emperor grew weak with age, I grew strong in Anoth. When Naltena trespassed through the parting to exact vengeance on Anoth for siding with the Orb, she underestimated our power. We could not prevent her from snatching the Orb and sealing it within the mountain, but I will always relish the look on her face as I and my subordinate hadirs tore her, quite literally, limb from limb.”

“What does this have to do with me?” Zalas asked pointedly.

Tovam’s eyes flashed just a hint of rage, and he stopped his pacing. “Your generations have never seen the Orb, nor have you truly served it as Anoth and I have. This has made you soft.”

Zalas refused to respond.

“Anoth has seen this as well, and has seen fit to assign me to coordinate hadir activities with you in his stead. Permanently.”

“What?” Zalas’s hands balled into fists as he turned to face Tovam head-on.

“My report for today,” Tovam continued coolly. “One of our units has just returned from a successful raid beyond the parting in the dalanai empire, Chalei. They have claimed a dozen or so dalanai slaves to be sold in the markets over the next few days. They ate their fill and left no witnesses, as usual. According to reports, the Naltites still believe that we are dead and that their lesser race beast men are responsible for our raids.”

“More dalanais?” Zalas scoffed. “I hope these aren’t useless old males like last time.”

“This crop includes many young ones. Several will be suitable for excavation work, and there are some that will fetch a high price as bed slaves.”

Zalas folded his arms across his chest. “That’s fine. I will inform my brother-in-law to prepare for the new slaves at the excavation site.”

“And I surmise that Anoth has not yet returned from beyond the parting?”

“No. I have not seen him since your unit left for the last raid.” Zalas scowled. “Certainly, you would have seen him much more recently, since you’re now his personal liaison with me.”

“I see,” Tovam responded cryptically. “He has not participated in the raids in some time, but when scheduled to be in the capital he disappears through the parting quite often, and for lengthy periods. Curious.”

Zalas shrugged his shoulders. “If you care so much about Anoth’s activities, I suggest you keep a better eye on him.”

“Perhaps,” Tovam mused, then nodded ever so slightly in Zalas’s direction. “I will take my leave. Think on my words.”

Zalas watched silently as Tovam turned to exit the audience hall, alone in his thoughts well after Tovam’s footsteps had faded from earshot.