1 - In which it begins

asa kraiya

[beyond the sword]

Being the separate memoirs of Fourth Chevenga Shae-Arano-e that recount the transformation of his life in the year of Yeola 1556, and associated documents both complete and excerpted, compiled by the Workfast Literary of Yeola-e; Aletheya Athal, editor, Y. 1558

[A.D. 4982]

†

I wrote “This paragraph, it seems, is farewell.”

It wasn’t farewell, after all. My farewell would not come as I’d thought it would. Perhaps.

†

You think of me, I know, as having everything. My life is spun out of other men’s dreams.

At the start of that which changed it all, I was Imperator of Arko as well as semanakraseye of Yeola-e. I had command over more wealth than most could imagine; my name was known the world over, loved by allies, dreaded by enemies. I even had the simpler things: my health and strength, a good marriage, lovers outside it with no strife from within it, five perfect children, a more beautiful house in Vae Arahi than I could ever have imagined living in, and the love of as many friends as anyone could want. I could look back on my life and know I had prevailed in the face of the worst agonies and the greatest dangers; I could say honestly that I had done everything I had done well. What I was now doing – arranging to grant that empire back its independence, but with the vote now well enshrined in its laws and the citizens experienced in using it, the greatest defense against renewed tyranny – I could not help but take pride in. Who would not envy me for any part of it, let alone all?

But in my twenty-eighth year, when I would have thirty at the most, I would not have any of it much longer.

†

It began, ironically enough, when I was training. On the sprawling roof of the Marble Palace (since an Imperator’s feet must not touch earth), under a hazy spring Arko-the-City sky, wearing loin-cloth and wristlets and Chirel on my shoulder, I practiced fighting along with fifty-odd other members of the Yeoli and Arkan elites.

It was just shy of Yeoli year-turn—in two days it would be 1556—and I was six moons or so into my second term as Imperator. By my old reckoning I had two years left to live, but it could be less. Avritha of F’talezon’s prophecy, Finish thy work before summer, was always in the back of my mind now. I had an Arkan Assembly now, but that slowed other things down; I couldn’t just write the new constitution, but had to consult with them, which made it take ten times as long. I had a date for the election for Imperator: verekina 86, or Anae 36 by the Arkan calendar, the last day before the year-end festival of Jitzmitthra, which would be six days since it was a leap year. But for candidates I had three Arkan lords who all seemed to have no interest in it other than for personal ambition, and Kallijas, who was not truly willing and did not feel qualified. And a thousand thousand other things needed settling or solving. Avritha’s words drove me out of bed every dawn when I felt like lazing, kept my eyes open past midnight when the writing before me began blurring and splitting into two in the lamplight, made me bolt my food if it was not a meal-meeting. I was not taking an easy run to last the distance, but sprinting, as always.

“Imperator-semanakraseye.”

Once I was home, I’d be just semanakraseye, just the people-wills-one of Yeola-e, which I was born and trained for and grew into, which I have in my heart. No more faces with smiles of false admiration, currying favour; no more people flinging themselves face-first on the floor before me as this servant had done. It wasn’t even the prostration that bothered me the most; it was that an Arkan wouldn’t get up again until I said gehit, so that I was an accessory to his shame. The wages of conquest.

How long would I have, at home? Not long—but better than nothing.

“There is a Haian healer who begs that you deign to speak with her,” the servant told me. “I pray You Whose Whim is the Will of the World will forgive me for conveying her importunacy, but she wished it to be... immediately, as it is urgent, so she says. She says you know her, and she has come all the way from Haiu Menshir to say something to you. A matter of life and death, she says.”

All sweaty and sand-dusted from practicing killing—a fine sight for a visiting Haian—I took a splash from the water-flask and wondered whose life and death. It didn’t seem like Haian diplomatic business; they tended more to follow the protocols. I didn’t know many Haians aside from those who’d healed me from one thing or another. More than anything else, it sounded like someone somewhere needed saving on an informal basis, and if this Haian thought it was in my power, it probably was.

I said, “Show her here.”

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