Buried in the Sky (Pantheon, #0) Read online

  BURIED IN THE SKY

  Jack Geurts

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  30 years prior to the events of The Fire and the Forge...

  First five chapters of THE FIRE AND THE FORGE

  PROLOGUE | An Offering

  PART I | Oblīviō

  CHAPTER 1 | Where The Ghosts Sow Their Crops

  CHAPTER 2 | The Demon-Child Of Alba

  CHAPTER 3 | A Vast And Empty Sea

  CHAPTER 4 | Legend Of The Shepherd King

  CHAPTER 5 | The Lynching Of A Boy

  THE FIRE AND THE FORGE is out now.

  SUPPORT THE SERIES

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  ALSO BY THE AUTHOR

  30 years prior to the events of The Fire and the Forge...

  When the priests had said their prayers over the body, the corpse-bearers took it upon their shoulders and carried it up the hill to the tower.

  ​ The man’s family waited at the base of the hill with the priests. They watched as the two men, dressed in white, climbed the steps hugging the outside of the squat, cylindrical tower. They watched the body on the stretcher between them, itself wrapped in a white sheet that was knotted beneath the chin and feet.

  ​ The corpse-bearers reached a door in the outer wall of the tower, just below the top where vultures perched constantly throughout the day, and disappeared inside with the body. The family knew they would not see it again. The priests corralled them into a nearby hall where a fire had been burning for as long as anyone could remember, and there they prayed for the dead man.

  ​ Through the window, they could see the tower, and when the white-robed figures emerged again with an empty stretcher, disposing of the corpse’s shroud and clothes in a pit, they gathered their things and returned home. Heading north, to the great mudbrick city of Samazd.

  ​ They were all dressed in white and they walked in pairs, each person holding one end of a white handkerchief as an outward sign of solidarity. For the next three days, they would pray for their lost one. On the fourth, it was said, he would cross over a bridge into the world of the dead. There, he would meet a beautiful maiden accompanied by two four-eyed dogs, and if the man had been good in his life and truthful in all he said and did, she would lead him across the bridge into paradise.

  ​ That is why his family prayed – to ensure safe passage across the bridge. In their way of thinking, death was not something to be mourned, but celebrated. If a person had led a good life, they could embrace death without fear, because they knew in their hearts what awaited them after.

  ​ But as the family of this particular man made its way back to Samazd, Kurosh couldn’t help but notice that none of them appeared to be celebrating. Not that anyone actually celebrated the death of a loved one – it was more about taking solace than anything else – but these folks seemed to be more downhearted than most.

  ​ He asked Babar about it on the way back down from the tower.

  ​ “The man was convicted for the theft of two camels from a Kemish spice merchant,” Babar said. “The high priest sentenced him to be flogged and flogged he was, and after about the seventh or eighth lash, he suddenly keeled over and died. Too much for his weak heart to handle. Though I will concede that the man was old. Too old to be stealing camels from Kemish spice merchants, that much is certain.”

  ​ As they reached the cluster of buildings at the base of the hill, Kurosh cast his gaze out one last time to the departing family. No wonder they weren’t celebrating. Too busy worrying about whether their man would get across that bridge come the fourth day. Too busy worrying that his soul would be weighed and found wanting – instead of a beautiful maiden waiting to guide him across, there would be an old hag, and the bridge would be too narrow to pass. He would fall down into the abyss to suffer punishment for all eternity.

  ​ Certainly no cause for celebration.

  ​ Kurosh and Babar passed the mortuary building where the body had been bathed and wrapped and prayed over, and just as had been done to him, they washed their hair and their bodies with the urine of an ox. Then they rinsed it off with water. The urine was to purify themselves, as were the prayers they spoke while doing so. They had undergone a similar cleansing before the ceremony, washing and putting on clean robes to protect themselves as much as they could from the evil spirits.

  ​ When all this was done, they retired to a separate building where the family had been so good as to leave behind some bread and wine. The two priests were already helping themselves, and Kurosh and Babar sat down at a separate table and ate mostly in silence.

  ​ It was nice of the family to leave them something. They had feasted here as the body was prepared, and that the leftovers of their feast should be left was not unusual, though it was appreciated.

  ​ Because of the nature of their work, Kurosh and Babar were as much feared by the residents of Samazd as they were appreciated. It was a dirty business, doing what they did, but it was also necessary. Without them, the bodies would pile up in the streets and spread disease, or else be buried or burnt or cast in a river, and none of these options would suffice.

  ​ Earth, fire and water were very sacred to the people of the Zend, and so they could not bring a corpse into contact with any of them. As a result, they did not bury their dead, nor did they cremate them, nor could they dispose of them in river, lake or sea. At the moment of death, a corpse became a host for decay and pollution, and it was disposed of as quickly as possible by means of the tower before it could contaminate the community.

  ​ No one ever saw what happened at the top of that tower, but they knew. No one was permitted to go up there, except the corpse-bearers. In Samazd, that duty fell to Kurosh and Babar, as well as two others posted at a neighbouring tower. Elsewhere, they assumed, the responsibility fell to others, but they didn’t know for sure. They had never been anywhere else.

  ​ Kurosh wouldn’t go so far as to call the job a privilege. It was an exclusive position to be sure, and respected in its own way, but lonely all the same. Sure, he had Babar, but together they were forced to live in isolation from the rest of the city.

  ​ Together, but alone.

  ​ The priests would return to Samazd shortly, but the corpse-bearers would stay. They were not permitted to live among normal folk. They were not allowed to worship in the fire temples, nor were they invited to the public feasts. On these occasions, food was brought to them and while the gesture was appreciated, it wasn’t really the same.

  ​ They were infected, after all. Cursed. They were only allowed to enter the city for the purpose of retrieving a corpse, which no ordinary man could do without sullying himself. So whenever someone died in Samazd, it was almost a cause for celebration among them, for it would mean they would get to walk in the streets among the crowds. To hear the harps and flutes playing. To smell the meat cooking on open fires. To see the stalls of spices, fruits and vegetables from distant lands. The colours.

  ​ He might chance upon a wedding taking place, or a Sindish bard singing the mournful tunes of his homeland.

  ​ It almost didn’t matter that people moved quickly out of their way when they saw them, staring and whispering as they went by. Both of them dressed head-to-toe in white, at once sacred and defiled. Bound to do the job that none of them could or would.

  ​ And then they would bring the body out to the mortuary building, where it was washed and prayed over, and a dog with two spots above its eyes – a ‘four-eyed’ dog as spoken of in the holy texts – would be brought before the body. If the dog were to stare at the body, it would mean the person was still alive. If the dog looked away, it would confirm the person’s death and they would be clear
to proceed. This ritual was carried out several times to make sure the dead person really was dead and not, say, in a coma.

  ​ The family was almost out of sight now, blurred in the heat coming off the desert as the city itself so often was. On these occasions, it seemed to Kurosh like a mirage, or some distant, mythical kingdom spoken of in legends. The family would return home, take a bath, and go about their lives. Kurosh wondered what that might be like – to go about his life, to live among others without fear of being treated like a leper.

  ​ A holy leper, but still.

  ​ Through the window on the other side of the room, he saw the tower rising up out of its barren hilltop. From the peak, he was afforded a view of the entire city. The desert sprawling out all around and the mountains, dark and hazy in the distance. The outskirts of civilisation were still a fair way off, but Kurosh understood why. No one in their right mind wanted to live to close to a place such as this. A place as cursed as it was blessed. The view itself was breathtaking. But then again, so was the smell.

  ​ One might think that a lifetime of handling corpses would inure them to the scent of decay, but that was not the case for Kurosh. To him, each ascent to the top of that tower reminded him of his first, when as a boy he set to learn his father’s trade. It was not impossible for a corpse-bearer to take a wife, have a child, but it was hard. It took a very strong woman, or a very selfish man, and the result would invariably be a very unlucky child.

  ​ He had followed his father, dressed in perfect white, up the stairs to the door in the wall of the tower. His father had turned to look at him before entering.

  ​ “Prepare yourself, my child,” he had said. “In time, you will get used to it.”

  ​ Even now, chewing his bread and drinking his wine, Kurosh wondered if he ever would.

  ​ Presently, the priests finished their meal and bid farewell to the corpse-bearers with a curt nod. Then they were on their way, following the family back to Samazd. When they were gone, Babar got up and poured them each another cup of wine.

  ​ It was said that nobody should carry the dead alone – even a child, whom either of them might transport easily by themselves. And so Kurosh had Babar, and Babar had Kurosh, and each were thankful for the other. They sat there and drank and talked and laughed, and in such times, it didn’t seem to matter that they were outcasts. They spoke of news the priests had brought from the city, or wondered what they might do if not shackled to this place.

  ​ More than once Babar had suggested they leave and learn another trade – that of a blacksmith, perhaps, or a soldier. Take up arms against Kashar, or the elephant-riding Sind in the jungles of the east. And each time, Kurosh had said Babar was more than welcome to leave, but he was not going anywhere. His father had worked this tower, just as his father before him. One day, he would have a son, and that son would work the tower after Kurosh had crossed the bridge on the fourth day.

  ​ He thought about his unborn son sitting in the same place he now sat, breaking bread with the only true friend he had in the world, the only connection to that vast multitude of people he would never know, and wondering the same thing.

  ​ Babar had said that in order for them to rejoin society, it was only a matter of going through the ritual purification. The ritual itself took place over nine nights and involved a person routinely washing themselves with urine and rubbing it dry with dirt or ash, then rinsing it off with water. It sounded like an ordeal to be sure, but that wasn’t why Kurosh stayed.

  ​ In truth, he didn’t know why he stayed. He said that it had to do with his father, but even he could tell his friend didn’t believe him anymore. He reasoned that Babar was an orphan – his mother died in childbirth and his father while trying to trap a lion in the desert. He hadn’t inherited the job like Kurosh had and so he didn’t feel the same obligation to the tower.

  ​ Babar told him that whatever debt they owed had been paid and then some. All they had to do now was lead good lives and tell the truth, and they would meet that maiden on the bridge. But their lives need not be spent here, carrying the corpses of men to their final resting place at the top of the world and washing themselves with piss. They could spend their lives anywhere, since they were only given one to spend and already, too much of it had been squandered here.

  ​ Kurosh had laughed and told him to go then, if that’s what he wanted. But his friend had only sighed and poured another drink.

  ​ Babar would never leave him, he knew that. And it pained him to see how excited his friend would get, talking of adventures they would never have. Of battles they would never fight and riches they would never win. Of women and wine in cities beyond reckoning, where the streets were paved with gold and shadowed by palaces so grand they would seem fit only for a god.

  ​ Kurosh would only smile and tell him it sounded good, and then they would speak no more about it.

  ​ On occasion, they would be visited by the corpse-bearers from the neighbouring tower – Daryush and Arshad. Their tower was set on a higher hill and because of that, they considered themselves just a little bit better than Kurosh and Babar. A little closer to God.

  ​ But their haughtiness was tolerable after a few cups of wine and every so often they would get together, splitting visits between the two towers and swapping stories from each, and what they had heard from Samazd.

  ​ Kurosh and Babar could imagine better drinking companions, and often had a better time on their own. But despite being the very best of friends, they would, from time to time, get on each other’s nerves as best friends are known to do. And being as isolated as they were, beggars could not be choosers.

  ​ As the priests vanished into the shimmering haze of the desert, Babar wiped the wine from his lips. “They say people have been arriving in Samazd. In greater numbers than usual.”

  ​ Kurosh had noticed this himself from his perch on the hilltop, and wondered what it was. “A festival, perhaps? A census?”

  ​ Babar shook his head. “If the priests are to be believed, they are refugees. Fleeing some unknown menace in the south.”

  ​ Kurosh’s first thought was that it was the Umandra, because it didn’t occur to him it would be anybody else.

  ​ The nomadic horse-archers of the plains beyond the river had taken the Zendish capital of Sargad a few months ago. Decades of intermittent warfare and a recent plague had left both empires utterly drained – maybe now the Umandra were making a push for Samazd, and in doing so, driving the inhabitants of the desert away before them.

  ​ Though why anyone would want to come to Samazd, let alone fight and bleed and die for it, was a mystery to Kurosh. It was not a major city or a seaport. It had no abundant mines or quarries. The only value Kurosh could think that the city held was in its location on a road well-travelled by merchants. A stopping point between more important places.

  ​ After his second or third cup, Babar went outside to relieve himself. When he came back in, the smile had gone from his eyes and in its place was a fearful urgency.

  ​ “What is it, my friend?” Kurosh said.

  ​ “Come with me.”

  ​ He led Kurosh out and pointed west, through a gap in the hills. Kurosh shielded his eyes against the sun and saw there a small cloud of dust on the plain.

  ​ For a moment, he couldn’t figure what it was.

  ​ Then, a single rider came into view, cresting a gentle rise. He was followed in short order by another, then another. Soon there were a dozen of them, two dozen. And they were moving fast.

  ​ Ordinarily, Kurosh wouldn’t have been worried by the sight of horsemen. They might have been messengers, or merchants in a hurry. But these riders weren’t heading for Samazd – they were heading for the tower. For them.

  ​ “What should we do?” Babar said.

  ​ Kurosh kept looking a moment longer, his eyes narrowed. From this distance, he couldn’t tell if they were friend or foe, but as they drew nearer, he saw that they weren’t messengers o
r merchants at all.

  ​ They were soldiers.

  ​ And not Zendish ones. Not horse-archers either.

  ​ The sun glinted off their spear-tips and their white head-cloths billowed behind them as they rode at full gallop. They were not heavily armoured like a Zendish cavalryman might be – in fact, they were shirtless, and seemed to be wearing only short, linen kilts, save for the foremost rider, who had some sort of animal hide draped across his shoulders. Each man carried a spear and a rectangular, round-topped shield made of wood and covered with leather. And those weren’t horses they were riding. They were camels.

  ​ Kem, he realised.

  ​ “Should we run?” Babar said.

  ​ “What good would it do? We will not get far on foot and the riders have almost certainly spotted us.”

  ​ They lingered, tense and silent, and when the Kem drew up on them, they rode in a circle around the two. The camels kicked up a cloud of dust that blinded the corpse-bearers and each of them turned this way, then that, to no avail. They squinted, but could see only mounted shadows moving through the haze, and could hear only the pounding of cloven feet against the earth.

  ​ When finally the riders stopped and the dust began to clear, Kurosh and Babar found themselves at the point of twenty spears. The soldiers arrayed in a circle around them and facing inwards, eyes fixed on the two Zendish men at their mercy.

  ​ They had finer features than the people of the Zend and wore smears of black kohl beneath their eyes. Kurosh had heard that it was mainly used by their women as a cosmetic, but also to protect against the harsh rays of the desert sun. It had the effect, intended or not, of making them appear much more frightening – their eyes seeming wider, wilder against the black.

  ​ Finally, one of them spoke in a language Kurosh could not understand, though he had heard it before. The spears were withdrawn, raised up and held vertically beside each man.

  ​ The one who had spoken, their captain, dismounted his camel. He was the one wearing the animal hide that Kurosh had picked from far off – the hide of a lion, it turned out, its hollow paws knotted at his chest.