Chapter 13
The island of Fortress had always been a mystery to Ashok. He knew what he had been allowed to know, nothing more. It was a land of criminals, isolated heretics who refused to submit to reason and order. Despite being kept apart by a narrow patch of sea, their dangerous, illegal weapons sometimes found their way into the Law-abiding world to stir up trouble. There had been many failed attempts to invade, but separated by the demon-infested sea, the island might as well have been on a different world. The warriors who didn’t drown or get torn apart by demons ended up blasted to pieces while trying to scale the various fortifications along the northern coasts.
As a young Protector, Ashok had often dreamed of being tasked with bringing justice to this place, because in those days the idea of so many living outside the reach of the Law had offended him greatly. A pragmatic man, Ashok did not have an imaginative nature; however, as a young Protector he had often wondered what it would be like to bring justice to this place. The coast would be like a vast castle, with defenses beyond comprehension. Beyond that would be a land of dedicated fanatics, armed with illegal weapons, willing to fight to the death.
In person, it was not nearly so impressive. On their journey down the mountain they passed very few farms, and he almost no tillable ground. Unless they had discovered a way to digest rocks, the population of the island could not be very numerous. It was doubtful the parts he had not seen yet were any more fruitful, and he reasoned that it would only get colder and more unforgiving to the south.
The town took up the top of a large hilltop. Through the haze of coal smoke, he saw that the buildings were low and wide, similar to how they lived in Devakula, built into the ground to retain warmth and resist wind. The town was surrounded by a wall, but it was only ten feet tall and made of brick. Such defenses would barely slow a demon, and they were near enough to the sea that Ashok could occasionally smell the saltwater and decay on the wind. In Lok, only the lowest of the low would dwell in a place so terrible. Demon incursions must have been a continuous danger.
“Do your Fortress rods work against sea demons?” Ashok asked the Guru, since the sharpest spears wielded by the strongest men rarely managed to pierce their hide.
“I wouldn’t know. I’m a man of peace. Not a man of war.”
“Demons will eat either.” Then Ashok noticed one of the monks looked like he wanted to say something. “Speak up.”
“Before taking my vows, I was in the Weapons Guild. Regular bullets bounce off demons. Soft lead flattens against their skin. But there are special guns for demon. Big.” He spread his arms wide. “With heavy bullets of solid copper, with points like needles.”
“Those will fell a demon?”
“Sometimes. It still takes many many bullets.”
“You built guns?”
The monk nodded. “Yes. To take lives. Now I am here, sorry for what I’ve done to the gods’ children. Now I try to make lives better.”
Ashok didn’t care about this monk’s feelings of guilt or his attempted repentance, but if he had been wasting time with a supposed wise man when one of the men he was staying with had known the way home all along, he would be very displeased. “How do you smuggle these weapons into Lok?”
“My old guild builds and uses them, but don’t sell. Only the Traders Guild takes the under path all the way to the mainland to see the infidels there.” He pointed toward the town. “There be a Collectors Guild here, though. They go to the down below too. But not to trade, to scrounge the dark. The collectors know how to get across.”
“As I assured you they would, Ashok Vadal. I would not lead you astray,” the Guru said from atop the rocking cart. “But it is good you are so distrusting, for there are vipers in this place. Once we are inside those walls, it would be best if you let me do the talking. You are a stranger here and do not know our ways. By your current appearance these people will think you merely another monk, unless you open your mouth, and needlessly complicate all our lives.”
“Very well.”
They approached the gate as the sun rose over the mountain peaks. There were guards atop the wall, dressed in sealskin and armed with long Fortress rods. It wasn’t until they got closer that Ashok realized there were hundreds of pockmarks in the brick, probably created over the years by lead projectiles. These walls weren’t only for keeping out demons…
“You war amongst yourselves.”
“Of course.” The Guru sounded incredulous. “The guilds are quarrelsome. Conflict is the natural state of man. Did you assume Xhonura was so different from your land?”
Oddly enough, Ashok had. As if all of Fortress would be organized like a single great house, only as a society of criminals united together against the Law. He should have known better.
When they reached the gate, it was clear the guards there recognized the monks, but from their sneering contempt didn’t care for them. For a moment Ashok thought the guards would turn them away, but they were allowed to pass through without issue.
The streets were muddy. A fine grit of coal dust coated every structure. Even at dawn’s light, men were already laboring, marching back and forth carrying sacks and tools. It reminded Ashok of the workers’ district in Neeramphorn, except poorer. Filthy people, thinner even than Ashok’s current pathetic state, were sleeping near the gate, huddled in improvised shelters made of ratty blankets held up by sticks. The few of them who were awake held out cups as the monks passed, begging. Ashok didn’t know what passed for money in this land, but apparently the monks had none to give…or perhaps this place was so harsh that even its supposed holy men could not be bothered to care?
“I did not know you had casteless here,” Ashok said softly, so his foreign accent wouldn’t be overheard by the guards.
“There are no castes in Xhonura. These are merely the poor.”
They looked like casteless to him. “What’s the difference?”
The Guru shrugged. “They are free to stop being poor.”
“Your law allows them to sleep in your streets?”
“Where else would they go?”
They were approached by one guard who Ashok assumed outranked the others, because he had more symbols embroidered on his arm with colored string.
The Guru crossed his forearms, high on his chest, which was apparently a gesture of respect here. “I am Guru Dondrub of the Nalanda sect. These monks wish to purchase provisions, and I seek the Collectors Guild.”
“Go that way until you see the southern gate. Their guild house is on the right side.” The guard gave the monks a disgusted look, then cleared his throat and spit on the ground. “And we’ll have no trouble from your cult this time—or else.”
The monks kept their eyes averted as they led the yak cart away. Ashok was not good at feigning meekness, and when he met the guard’s gaze directly, the man scowled. “What are you looking at, scum?”
After that insult, Ashok thought about answering, A dead man. He may have been born casteless, but that didn’t mean he was good at putting up with insolence. Except pride would not aid him now, so he lowered his head, said nothing, and followed the others.
Once there was nobody near them, the Guru said, “I should have warned you. There has been a schism. There are competing factions among the followers of great Ramrowan. Ours is not currently the most favored here.”
“That was obvious. Will this conflict harm my mission?”
“It shouldn’t. These collectors are not apostate. They still believe in the correct way.”
Then Ashok didn’t care. This whole island could sink into the ocean after he was gone, and all would be well with him.
There were signs on many of the larger buildings, but the letters were different enough that he couldn’t read them. That was a strange feeling, for in Lok, even the most distant houses used the same alphabet, as the Capitol mandated. From Sarnobat to Uttara, words were the same.
The townsfolk watched the monks and their clattering cart pass by, but very few of them paid the new arrivals any mind. The way Keta had spoken about the ancient priests of Ramrowan, they were supposed to have been mighty influences upon the people. This was not disrespect, like the guards had shown them, but it was at minimum indifference. Either Keta’s history was wishful thinking, or the mighty had fallen a very long way.
“They dwindle in unbelief,” the Guru said, almost as if he could read Ashok’s thoughts. “We are seen as a nuisance now. For too long my kind kept demanding obedience, while promising them that the end was near. Stay faithful because our glorious reunification with the gods is at hand. Stay faithful because the spirit of Ramrowan will return soon, and you must be ready. Obey or else! People can only hear that so many times before they quit caring.”
That made Ashok curious, because it was nothing at all like how Keta conducted himself as a priest, working himself ragged trying to serve and better his people. “What did you do for them?”
“A good question. To my predecessors’ great shame, we took their tithes and gave them nothing in return but empty promises. We were aloof. Distant guardians of ancient wisdom, parading about in our fine raiment. It’s no wonder over the years the guilds grew in influence while the priests became increasingly irrelevant. Even if you were who I hoped you were, I don’t know if the people would believe.”
Many times Ashok had seen Keta sacrifice his own comfort and safety to help his people? He never puffed himself up or made himself out to be greater than his followers. He asked for nothing extra, even though the faithful in the Cove would have been happy to give it to him. His only desire was to serve.
“My priest is better at this job than you are.”
The Guru sighed. “I pray he is. The other sects, their temples are wealthy, while ours has forsaken riches as we try to regain our humility. I do not know if it will be enough in time…There is the guild house.”
The building looked like all the others, an oddly triangular style—probably to keep from too much snow collecting and collapsing the roof—that would have been at home in frozen Devakula. The words painted on the wall were as meaningless as any other sign in this place to him, but their symbol was a pair of scissors—which brought back the memory of the clothing being cut off his frozen body on the beach—a pick, and a lantern.
“What do they collect?”
“Whatever they can. They are a small guild, yet important for traditional reasons,” Guru Dondrub said as one of the monks helped him down from the cart. “Their jurisdiction is resources that neither grow, nor are dug from a mine. They prowl the ruins beneath, sending expeditions to search for anything the ancients might have left behind. When they aren’t doing that, they patrol the shores, as the currents bring many interesting treasures from the mainland to our shores.”
Only the most wretched of Lok’s residents lived by the ocean, and he could only imagine what they would throw in the water. “They are collectors of trash.”
“They found you.”
That amused Ashok because most of the Law-abiding world would say that proved it.
“By now you must have realized this land is lacking certain resources. Nothing goes to waste in Xhonura.” One of the monks handed the Guru his walking staff, and he started tottering toward the guild house.
Something was amiss. Ashok sensed the danger approaching long before the others. A group of five men had begun following them, and from their manner, he could tell they were exciting themselves toward violence. In Lok, he would have assumed they were worker caste, practitioners of some hardy physical trade, but in this strange land, who knew? However, the young man who was clearly their master was dressed in robes similar to the monks’. Only his were bright yellow and appeared to be much higher in quality.
“Someone is following us,” Ashok warned.
Dondrub glanced that way, saw who it was, said, “Oh bother,” and began hobbling faster toward the guild house. “Pay them no mind and hopefully they will leave us be.”
Ashok realized the monks around him had become afraid. Nervous glances were made toward the yellow monk, and then quickly hidden.
“Who are they?” Ashok asked.
“Followers of Ram Sahib,” replied the monk who had once built weapons. “Last time we came here they beat a few of us and left us lying in the road.”
“Their leader’s teachings are very different from mine. Our sect avoids conflict. Theirs embraces it. Ignore them and go about our business.”
Except the man in yellow shouted, “Stop right there, Dondrub!”
The Guru sighed but did as he was told. “Whatever they do to us, brothers, you must hold your tongues and your tempers. You especially, Ashok Vadal, please, please do nothing. They will have their fun, and then move on.”
“Ram Sahib is a man of status here?” Ashok asked.
“He is the Ram and high priest of Xhonura, who controls the workshop in Ramrowan’s name. All the guilds pay homage in exchange for his blessing.”
Coming from a land where religion was banned by Law, the whole thing seemed nonsensical to Ashok. Here the religion seemed to be its own kind of law. “I’m not allowed to kill them, then?”
“No!” the Guru hissed. “Revealing yourself as an outsider would have far worse repercussions for us than any petty barbarity these children could inflict upon us today.”
The yellow monk and his gang approached. They wore long dark coats and carried a mishmash of weapons. All of them seemed to have knives worn on the front of their belts, but two of them held Fortress rods—long, awkward things much bigger than the ones Ratul had procured for the rebellion—and one man even had what appeared to be a proper sword, though he was wearing it slung over his back, like a fool. It would be difficult to draw with any speed that way, so it was more than likely worn for show.
“Hurry, brothers, to your knees, before they take offense.” The monks quickly lowered themselves into the muddy street. Ashok scowled, but then followed their example, soaking the scratchy fabric around his legs in a puddle. “Avert your eyes. Do not provoke them.”
The locals had stopped whatever they were doing to watch the two groups collide. Their cultures may have been very different, but even Ashok—who struggled to understand the feelings of regular people—could tell many of them were bothered by what was happening. Dondrub’s monks might not be popular, but they weren’t despised enough for the villagers to want to see them harmed. Ram Sahib might be an important man, but his followers’ actions did not make him a beloved one. Mothers took hold of their young children and rushed them away, trying to shield them from what was bound to be a violent spectacle. It seemed mothers were the same that way regardless of nation.
“Well, if it isn’t the mad hermit, Dondrub. You’ve got some nerve, showing your ugly face here,” the young man crowed. “Ram Sahib has declared that no other paths are to be preached among his holy followers, especially not from the likes of you heretics.”
“Apologies. We’re only here to buy food, Honored Reverend Kumara.” Dondrub begged the yellow monk, who was probably less than a third his age. “Then we will go back up the mountain to our monastery and trouble you no more.”
One of the two thugs armed with Fortress rods circled around the kneeling monks. Ashok noted that though the weapons were in their hands, the actions had not been readied to fire yet. They were prepared to intimidate, not to kill. The one with the sword was laughing at them.
He recognized their kind. Once having held great authority, the former Protector had no respect for those who abused whatever petty authority they had been delegated. It was a sickness caused by arrogance, and any Protector acolyte who had showed tendencies toward being a bully had that quickly beaten out of them. Their power was to be used serving the Law, never themselves. Though Ashok had parted ways with the Law, his disgust for such weak behavior remained.
A thug examined the monks’ cart. “This is sturdy. I bet it could haul a lot of potatoes.” He patted the yak’s furry head. “The animal’s in good health too. We could use a rig like this.”
“Please,” a monk said. “We need that to haul our goods home.”
“Too bad. It’s ours now,” the honored reverend proclaimed. “Your sect is supposed to enjoy suffering. I’m happy to help you do so.”
“Our Guru is elderly!” the same monk cried. “You can’t expect him to walk all the way up the mountain on foot!”
The yellow monk gave a small nod toward one of his men, who immediately swung the steel-clad stock of his Fortress rod at the protesting monk’s head.
That blow might have been enough to crack a skull, but they never found out, because fast as a striking cobra, Ashok caught it first. The wooden stock hit his palm with a whump, and the gunman blinked in surprise at the hand that had seemingly come out of nowhere.
Ashok waited there, still on one knee, arm stretched wide to intercept the attack, gauging their reaction. It was clear they hadn’t expected much resistance, as the reflexive grasping for their weapons was clumsy. Only Ashok had already calculated how best to murder his way through the lot of them by the time the fastest among them had realized they might be in for a fight.
“Please! There is no need for confrontation,” Dondrub urged.
When the gunman tugged on his weapon to try and get it back, Ashok maintained his iron grip, and the man’s best efforts couldn’t budge it at all.
It was the swordsman who stepped forward first, and it was a miracle he managed to draw a blade that was as long as his arm from over his back without slashing his own neck or removing his ear in the process. Ashok could have crippled him in five different ways by the time that weapon was ready to swing, but he just fixed his indifferent gaze upon the swordsman, and Ashok’s expression alone was enough to make him hesitate. It wasn’t anger, so much as indifference.
When the unwitting gunner pulled one more time, Ashok let go of the Fortress rod, and the man promptly fell on his ass in the mud. Ashok stood, drew himself to his full height, and surveyed his potential enemies. He stared through the yellow monk, not saying a word, until the young man took a nervous step back. Doubtless it was understood that Ashok would end his life with as much nonchalance as swatting an annoying bug.
“We should be going now!” The Guru was not trying to protect his monks from these men. He was trying to protect these men from Ashok. “Please take our cart and our yak as gifts and give Ram Sahib our thanks for this lesson in humility. I’m so sorry we disturbed your morning.”
The obsequious display annoyed him, yet Ashok said nothing. He would bear any indignity as long as it put him one step closer to Thera.
Dondrub took Ashok by the arm and guided him toward the guild house. “Forgive his insolence, Honored Reverend. This one is not right in the head.” Then he whispered to Ashok, “Stay your hand, please, I beg of you.”
Luckily for the Guru, the predators had been too surprised by Ashok’s sudden resistance to continue harrying their prey, and their new prize gave them something to gloat over. Most of them were unaware of how close they’d come to the edge. Only their leader continued watching them, suspicious, as Dondrub and his monks retreated.
Once they were far enough away to speak freely, Dondrub said, “Go to the market, brothers. Buy your provisions quickly, cause no disturbance, and then we must go.” As the others obediently parted, he turned to Ashok, “It’s alright. One skinny yak and a worn-out cart is a small sacrifice to keep the peace.”
It was impossible to keep the disgust from his voice. “Peace? You talk so eagerly about how my starving casteless should battle an army of sea demons, while you can’t even stand against scum like that? Complain all you want about the evils of my land, yet everything I’ve seen about yours shows it to be just as petty and cruel. Enough of your lies, Guru.”
“How have I lied?”
“You said you did not have castes here, but you do. You merely give them different names.”
The Guru seemed shamed by that. “It is a perversion. Ram Sahib is a dangerous man. He claims to be the tenth reincarnation of Ramrowan, and enough of the guilds support that to make him very powerful here.”
And Ashok had thought that the doctrines Keta fabricated seemed foolish. “Then you’ve already found your avatar, ten times over, and you can leave me be.”
“Obviously Ram Sahib is not the one! He’s a despot.”
“I don’t care.” Ashok reached the collectors’ door and thumped it with his fist repeatedly.
It opened a minute later—during which Ashok never stopped knocking—and a stocky, disheveled man with a vast mustache and bald head stood before them, smelling of strong drink, clearly angry at whoever had interrupted his nap. “What do you want?” Then an odd look came over his face as he recognized Ashok, and gasped. “The dead man lives!”
* * *
“Of course I know the way to the land of the infidels, Avatara,” Moyo of the Collectors Guild said. “But I can’t take you there now! That’s impossible. We’d be killed.”
Ashok sat near the fire, eating. Moyo had been quick to offer them bowls of soup made from fermented fish, and it was a testament to how hungry Ashok had been that even that disgusting casteless fare was a welcome feast.
“You found me on that beach before the demons did. That is enough.”
“I appreciate that, but to be honest I just thought you were another floating corpse. I tried to stop the guildsmen from taking you away after you woke up, but I’ve got no sway over their kind. I spit on them.”
Ashok felt the same way about the mock judges. “I will not ask you to die on a stranger’s behalf. If you will not guide me, then tell me how and I will do it myself.”
“I could, I suppose, but I’d be sending you to your doom. It takes years of learning to read the signs right. I’ve been doing it since I was a boy and it’s still dangerous. We collectors only go part of the way down, and never this time of year. Only the traders go all the way across to exchange goods with the infidels, but they only go in winter, while the dangerous things sleep more. It’s still bad this season. In another month, maybe; two or three would be better, as there’s things that hunt the dark. Bad things.”
“I’ve dealt with demons before.”
“Worse,” Moyo said, wide-eyed. “There are worse things than demons down there.”
Ashok doubted that. He had once fought a demon big as an elephant and lacked the vision to think of anything more terrible than that. “This path runs beneath the ocean?”
Moyo looked nervously toward where Dondrub was slurping his soup. “I can’t speak guild secrets before a priest. No disrespect, wise man. It is commanded that there must be secrets between church and workshop.”
“Ram Sahib does not agree.”
“Well, he’s not in my guild house now, is he?”
The Guru smiled. “You are the last of the righteous, Moyo Kapoor. If the other guilds were as devoted as you collectors, Xhonura would be in far better shape. I understand and shall leave you to your plans.”
“The Guru knows your secrets already,” Ashok stated.
Moyo laughed nervously. “No. What? Impossible. They are well kept!”
Except the Guru gave Ashok a very sly look. “What do you mean?”
“You are of no guild, now. But not always. You’ve been to Lok. You’re the only one on this island who does not completely mangle proper language while speaking to me.”
“You retain the suspicious nature of the Law enforcer you once were, yet you are wrong. I did not go to Lok. Lok came to me. Ratul Memon dar Sarnobat and I spent weeks discussing the ways of your people, before I agreed to help him procure a great many guns for his rebellion.”
Ashok shouldn’t have been surprised. “The traitor Ratul was a well-traveled man.”
“Your old sword master also had a very high opinion of his greatest student. Nonetheless, I have kept my word and brought you to someone who knows the path. So I will be on my way.” The Guru sighed as he put down his empty bowl and reached for his staff. “The joints creak. Help me up, please.” Moyo seemed honored to do so, rushing over to offer the old man his arm.
“Did you get the answers you wanted, wise man?”
“I did, Ashok Vadal, but if that is a good thing or not, I don’t yet know yet. Godspeed on your journey.”
As Moyo escorted Dondrub toward the door, Ashok finished his meal and analyzed his surroundings. The guild house was humble and nearly as utilitarian as the monks’ quarters. Though it seemed Moyo was the only one present today, there were ten bunks, and a great deal of equipment—ropes, picks, shovels, packs, and harnesses—organized into orderly rows on shelves. What he didn’t see, however, was any proper weapons, which told him something about the nature of these collectors. It was not good to make assumptions in this strange land, but it appeared they were worker-caste equivalents, and not the kind who were permitted to be armed.
Moyo returned. “Now we may speak freely, Avatara.”
“I am Ashok. That priest spent the last week trying to decide if I was your reborn king or not. The fact he left so eagerly should tell you what he decided.”
“Eh…Dondrub is a wise man, not a know-everything man. I saw what I saw. I don’t need priestly learning. Only Ramrowan can’t die. You can’t die. Simple.”
Ashok had to shake his head at that. “I have certain gifts. I doubt I am immortal. My enemies simply have not tried hard enough to kill me.”
“I convinced the other collectors about who you are too. That’s why they’ve gone home. We declared there’d be no collecting done until the Avatara was given a trial and released. I’m happy our threats got the guildsmen to come around!”
He seemed so proud of the prospects that his strike had worked that Ashok was tempted to let him believe that, but dishonesty was not his way. “There was a trial. It did not go well. So I escaped instead.”
“Oh…”
The truth was always best, but Ashok didn’t want to crush his spirits. “However, I would not have been given the opportunity to escape if it had not been for the demands of your people. For that, you have my gratitude.”
“Well then…” That seemed to cheer him. “Did you kill many guildsmen on the way out?”
“One maybe.” Normally Ashok would have been meticulous about remembering every blow struck in battle, but that day hunger and weakness had made it so that he was not as exacting in his record as usual.
“Excellent!” Moyo clapped his hands with glee. “Good riddance. They’re very bossy.”
“I have one question for you, Collector, for I don’t believe what the Guru told me. How long has it been since you found me on the shore?”
That got him a curious look. “About a year now, why?”
Ashok just closed his eyes and exhaled, for everything he was striving to get back to might already be destroyed. “It doesn’t matter.”
“Let’s get you kitted up and then we can go. I will take you as far as I can into the down below and teach you to follow the signs the rest of the way.”
“You said it was too dangerous this season?”
“Oh, it’s mad dangerous, Avatara! So is hiding a fugitive in my guild house, but not as much. Only a lunatic or a collector would have the guts to go down below now. You’re part god, so you’ll live, but I’ll probably die. Promise after I’m killed and eaten and some beast has shit out my bones you’ll be sure to tell the gods that it was Moyo who found you on that beach, Moyo who helped you escape prison, and Moyo who was brave enough to lead you through the broken kingdom.”
Ashok wasn’t convinced that the gods paid that much attention, but he could do that.