The Heir

Chapter 1

1

Inordinately wealthy, given wide latitude in choices, worshipped by the populace before he could walk. The store of knowledge regarding Flaming Arrow's childhood would fill multiple volumes, but little of this knowledge helps us to understand who he was at age fifteen. The person he became bears little resemblance to the resplendence of his origins. We have no way to account for the compassion, strength, and benevolence that so characterized his rule. The Gathering of Power, by the Wizard Spying Eagle.

On top of cascading silks sat the Matriarch Bubbling Water, dressed in black high-collared robes, the hair styled fashionably, the eyes set wide on the face. The elaborate dress and meticulous coiffure did little to disguise the fact that she was dead.

Resting on pilings three feet high, the bier stood ready for transport to the pyre grounds. Milling around it were the highest of Eastern noble women, also dressed in black. Three men and nine women stood near the funeral bier between the two outermost battlements of Emparia Castle, waiting for Rippling Water. Over the towering battlement seeped the noise of the crowd beyond the castle walls.

“If Rippling Water doesn't appear soon,” Flaming Arrow said, “someone will have to take her place at the bier.”

The Prefect Rolling Bear grunted, nodding. “Infinite knows where she went, Lord Heir.”

Flaming Arrow frowned at his cousin. What do you really think? he wondered. Without a shred of talent, and hence no telepathy, he would never know. Heir to the throne of the Eastern Empire, Flaming Arrow knew his lack of talent would be his most difficult challenge. He was blind in a world of the sighted. And he was supposed to rule the Empire someday.

He sighed. The Eastern Heir was fifteen years old. His hair was the bronze of cooling embers, his eyes the blue-gray of hazy skies, his skin the brown of tanned leather. Six feet tall, he weighed one hundred seventy-five pounds. He still had the narrow shoulders and hips of adolescence, which many mistook for clumsiness. Left-handed and able to fight equally well with either hand, he was anything but clumsy. Months ago, he had dueled Rolling Bear and won.

“Not like Rippling Water to shirk her duties.” Flaming Arrow looked at the bier towering above them.

The Matriarch Water's mate, Guarding Bear, stood to one side of the east castle gate. The vacant look that had taken possession of the General's eyes four days ago was more intense now. White stubble covered the sagging cheeks, weathered chin, and ropy neck. He hadn't shaved in days. Gray now and without luster, Guarding Bear's hair was more wild and unruly than usual, looking slept in. When alive, Bubbling Water had been the only person able to manage Guarding Bear. Now, in his grief, he couldn't manage himself.

Looking at the ground, Flaming Arrow winced.

Rolling Bear said, his voice low, “Don't worry, Lord; he'll recover eventually.”

Flaming Arrow nodded. Frowning, he fingered the hilt of the Heir Sword. The diamond on the pommel glittered.

I'd give it away to have Grandmother and Grandfather back, he thought.

Rolling Bear sighed.

Ten years ago, Guarding Bear had passed the Caven Hills prefecture to his eldest son. At first, as nominal Prefect, Rolling Bear had merely instituted his father's general directives, which had grown increasingly few over the years. Now, Father looks as if nothing will ever interest him again, Rolling Bear thought—not even his precious native lands. I'd give away the Caven Hills to have Mother and Father back.

What about your brother, who caused this mess? he asked himself.

Rolling Bear sighed again. No chance he'll be back. Rippling Water should be the one to tell him where she went, he thought. He looked at Flaming Arrow beside him, wondering what the boy would do if he knew.

“I hear you've asked the Lord Emperor to set your requirements,” Rolling Bear said.

“Yes, I asked the night before your…” Sighing, Flaming Arrow gestured mutely at the bier.

“Most boys don't ask until they're much older, Lord,” Rolling Bear said. “I didn't ask until I was nineteen.”

Every father gave his every son a grueling test before awarding the title of man. Few manhood ritual requirements were the same. Most boys formally asked their fathers to set the requirements at eighteen years old, after completing all formal studies. Flaming Arrow's asking at fifteen was atypical. He had completed nearly all his formal schooling early.

The Heir shrugged. “I'm ready for it, Lord Bear. Since I didn't have a talent to develop, I devoted the extra time to my studies.”

“Most people use their talents to learn, though, Lord. Not having any, how did you learn so fast?” How do you endure without talent? Rolling Bear wanted to ask.

“I don't know.” Flaming Arrow glanced at the sky. “What time is it?”

The bulk of Emparia Castle hid the afternoon sun.

Consulting the psychic flow, Rolling Bear said, “She still has ten minutes.” How do you endure it all, Flaming Arrow? Rolling Bear wanted to ask. Your father's sterile, your mother cuckolded him, you're a bastard and don't have a shred of talent besides. Why don't you fall on your knife to expiate your terrible shame? How can you laugh and charm everyone you meet and find the happiness I usually see in your eyes? How do you do it, Flaming Arrow?

“What do you think the Lord Emperor will have you do?” Rolling Bear asked. “Some fathers delight in finding difficult goals for their boys.”

“Something appropriate to my station, I hope.” Flaming Arrow smiled, knowing what he wanted to do. Although the ritual prohibited a boy from suggesting requirements, the Heir intended to do exactly that. The current military situation disgusted him. In the Windy Mountains, military attrition ran at nearly thirty percent per year; at Burrow, it was fifty. The pool of available warriors had almost doubled when female conscription began ten years before, but so had the number of bandits. I know I can decimate the bandits! Flaming Arrow thought, hoping the ritual requirements fitted into his plan.

“Do you have an assistant in mind, Lord?” the Prefect asked. Most boys chose someone to help them. For instance, if a boy had to climb a mountain, his assistant followed at a respectful distance and intervened only if the boy injured himself.

“Know anything about bandits, Lord Bear?” Flaming Arrow asked back.

“No, Lord Heir. Why?” Rolling Bear frowned at him.

“No reason. Know anyone who does?”

A black, bushy eyebrow climbed his forehead. “The Sectathon Colonel Probing Gaze spied on them for five years, Lord. Lives here in Emparia City. Why do you ask?”

Flaming Arrow shrugged, not looking at him. “Just curious. What the bandits are doing is intolerable. I'll have to resolve the situation.” He smiled. “Someday.”

Again, Rolling Bear frowned. “What are you up to, whelp?”

Flaming Arrow chuckled. “You sound like your father, Lord Bear.” My assistant will have to be an expert on bandits, he thought. I can't ask too many people before Father sets my requirements. If the Emperor learns my intention, he'll forbid it outright.

“Well, I do like a man who keeps his own counsel, but—”

“You'd still like to know,” Flaming Arrow finished for him, grinning.

“That I would, Lord, that I would.” The Prefect Bear chuckled mightily.

“Blast, where is she?”

“Wherever she is, I imagine.”

“I could garrote you, you know.” Flaming Arrow shook his head. “How do you handle it so well?”

Sighing, Rolling Bear put his heart on his face. “I don't, not really.”

Taking a deep breath, Flaming Arrow looked at the ground. The Bear Family tragedy was his tragedy, and their grief, his.

“When are you going to mate my little sister?”

Smiling, he looked at Rolling Bear. “You wouldn't think to ask if I'll mate her, eh? No one ever does. It's always when.”

“Of course.” Chuckling, the Prefect gestured over his shoulder, toward the bier. “You two almost grew up together, eh? Mother always winked and said, 'Two children together are less prone to mischief than both alone.' ”

Flaming Arrow laughed, shaking his head.

Bubbling Water had become the most influential woman in all the years of Arrow Sovereignty, bartering hers and her daughters' pleasures so avidly that her enemies called her “the Imperial Whore.” She withheld those pleasures for equal gain. The Water Matriarchy now included almost half of all Eastern women and reached throughout the four Empires. As Bubbling Water's only daughter, Rippling Water stood to inherit the Matriarchy.

If she doesn't show at her own mother's pyre, Flaming Arrow thought, she won't inherit a pox-diseased courtesan. “No one could hold a candle to Grandmother.”

“No, Lord Heir,” Rolling Bear said, looking toward his mother's still form on the bier. “No one could.”

“I'm sorry your mother's dead, Uncle.” Flaming Arrow put his hand on Rolling Bear's shoulder.

Nodding, he frowned and closed his eyes. Rolling Bear's aunt, the Matriarch Steaming Water, was Flaming Arrow's actual grandmother. She had died giving birth to the future Emperor Flying Arrow. Her youngest sister, Bubbling Water, had then reared the motherless infant. Thus, Flaming Arrow called Bubbling Water his grandmother, and felt similarly close to all the members of the Bear family.

All except Running Bear, the prodigal son who had murdered his own mother.

On the practice floor four days ago, he and Guarding Bear had been dueling just before dawn.

“Why did you disown Running Bear?” Flaming Arrow asked, locking hilts with the General. He wondered how Running Bear had felt when his father had cast him out of the largest, most influential Patriarchy in the Eastern Empire.

“Years ago, Bubbling Water and I asked Running Bear to sell his brothels. Instead, he transferred their ownership to a friend,” Guarding Bear replied, pushing the Heir away and slashing viciously. “For fifteen years we've tried to reform his behavior. Nothing seems to work. Then, yesterday, he slaughtered all the courtesans at one of them.”

Flaming Arrow fought off the General's attack. “Why?”

“Infinite knows, Lord Heir, Infinite knows.” Guarding Bear parried deftly, spun, and slashed at his legs. “That was the straw that broke the peasant's back. We couldn't condone such behavior, even implicitly.”

“So you disowned him, eh?” Flaming Arrow blocked a s***h and was about to press an attack when the General collapsed, his legs giving out.

Flaming Arrow, his heart falling to his feet, tried to rouse the old man.

His face pale and body slack, Guarding Bear mumbled, “She's dead.”

At the castle infirmary an hour later, they heard the news. The manner of her death was beyond belief. Her own profligate and disavowed son, Running Bear, had killed her.

“It's time!” said the Matriarch Shading Oak, bringing the Heir back to the present.

The women arranged themselves at the rungs of the bier. One forward rung was empty—Rippling Water's place.

Shading Oak stepped toward the two men. “Infinite be with you, Lord Prefect Bear, Lord Heir,” she said, bowing. Aged Oak's mate was less than five feet tall; unlike her mate, she didn't have a wrinkle, despite her sixty years. “We seem to have an empty rung, Lords. With your permission, Lord Bear, I would ask the Lord Heir Flaming Arrow for his help.”

“By all means, Lady Oak,” Rolling Bear answered. “The Lady Matriarch Water, Infinite keep her soul, would be proud to have the Lord Heir Flaming Arrow escort her.”

“Thank you, Lord Prefect Bear.” Shading Oak turned. “Lord Heir, I humbly ask you to help us bear the Lady Matriarch Water on her final journey.”

Flaming Arrow returned her bow. “I would consider it an honor beyond my humble station, Lady Matriarch Oak—and certainly beyond my humble gender.”

She smiled, reaching for his hand. “Please, Lord Arrow, do us the honor anyway,” she said gently, tugging him toward the bier.

“Of course, Lady Oak.” Flaming Arrow followed her.

Taking up the left forward rung, Shading Oak shouted, “Ho!” The bier rose off the pilings. By ancient tradition, they used the strength of their bodies, not the talents of their minds, to carry the dead to the funeral pyre.

Rolling Bear stepped to his father's side and pushed open the castle gate. Guiding the dazed General through it, Rolling Bear led the funeral cortege onto the Emparia City-Cove road. A group of black-clad priests formed a line on either side of the bier, chanting a dirge.

The gathered throng greeted their appearance with a hush. Murmuring spread at the sight of Flaming Arrow's bearing a rung. Let them talk, he thought, wishing Rippling Water had shown.

Ten miles away was the pyre grounds. To accommodate the expected crowds, the Emperor had ordered extra tiers added to the coliseum. At noon, a courier had reported that the coliseum was already full.

How many people watched my brother's bier make this same journey fifteen years ago? Flaming Arrow wondered. His twin brother's death at three days old had shocked the Empire, profoundly affecting the way the citizens treated him. In their catharsis for the dead twin, they had made a cathexis of the living. Welcome at every hearth, Flaming Arrow had never lacked friends. Adulation and admiration had been his for the asking. They thought him a god.

Flaming Arrow blinked back tears, feeling terribly, impotently human.

Even he couldn't bring Bubbling Water back to life.

The Matriarch's history long and glorious, Flaming Arrow preferred to remember the Bubbling Water he had known personally. His grandmother had always been kind and loving, stern when he got mischievous, instructive without lecturing, quick to anger and quick to forgive. While the Heir had learned government and related disciplines from others, Bubbling Water had taught him about people and nature, art and creation, spirituality and the Infinite.

Flaming Arrow missed her. Deep within, he wished he were escorting his own mother to the pyre grounds instead. Infinite forgive me my terrible thoughts.

Aloof and reclusive, Flowering Pine had shunned him during infancy. His care-givers had been mostly servants. After he had started school, the Imperial Consort had him presented once a week at the door of her suite, as if he were an actor giving a weekly performance. Eventually, he had resigned himself to the charade, wanting more than that. The Consort seemed like a statue carved from ice. Flowering Pine's unstoppable mouth had always annoyed Flaming Arrow. He knew it her way of keeping others at a distance. Glancing back toward the castle spire, he wondered if she felt safe in her marble tower. If I'd been born in a hovel in the empty northern lands, she'd have treated me no differently, Flaming Arrow thought, sighing. I can't make my mother give me something she doesn't have. Perhaps she never recovered from my unnamed brother's death.

With Bubbling Water always near, Flaming Arrow had needed the Imperial Consort little. Never had he lacked for a warm breast when he was young. Half the Empire would have given him succor. At no time in his youth was he without a loving, gentle caress or a protective, comforting embrace. To have these attentions from his mother, though, Flaming Arrow would have given away the Heir Sword.

Bringing his attention back to the road, he frowned. A few steps ahead was Guarding Bear, his son leading him. He's a shadow of the man I knew four days ago, Flaming Arrow thought, aching inside.

Bubbling Water's death had taken the life out of Guarding Bear. His appearance now betrayed his age. In a few hours, his hair had turned completely gray. In four days, his wrinkles had become prominent. His sightless eyes now wandered aimlessly, as with dementia.

Flaming Arrow wondered what kept the General alive, mates of many years tending to die within hours of each other. The greatest general in all seven reigns of the Emperors Arrow is now an empty husk. Oh, dear Lord Infinite, bring Guarding Bear back to us or take him beyond, Flaming Arrow prayed. Please don't leave him like this!

Holding up the rung with one hand, he wiped his face with the other.

When the Heir was five years old, Guarding Bear had asked the Emperor Flying Arrow to let him teach the boy. Initially, the Emperor had refused, reluctant to trust the undefeated General.

Flaming Arrow, however, had known what he wanted, even at five years old. So often had the Heir insisted that Flying Arrow had acquiesced, despite mistrusting the retired general.

Flaming Arrow got more than he asked for. Guarding Bear had been a rigorous and unforgiving taskmaster. Idolizing the old General, Flaming Arrow had been willing to do almost anything to please him. After ten years of daily instruction, he still was.

Bringing Bubbling Water back to life was beyond him, however.

Though the worst affected by the Matriarch's death, Guarding Bear wasn't the only Bear Family member who concerned Flaming Arrow.

Rippling Water had disappeared shortly after her mother's death. When Flaming Arrow had tried to visit each day, the servants had politely refused to admit him. Respecting their grief, Flaming Arrow had left each time without seeing a single member of the Bear Family, a family he considered his own. I can't remember the last time I didn't see Rippling Water for four days, he thought.

Flaming Arrow had no siblings. His father was often busy with Imperial matters. His mother rarely emerged from her private suite in Emparia Castle. Daily lessons with Guarding Bear brought Flaming Arrow into constant contact with Rolling Bear, Bubbling Water, and Rippling Water.

From early childhood, Flaming Arrow and Rippling Water had played with the same toys in the same sandboxes, had bathed with each other, had napped with each other. To the young boy, always having her around seemed natural, inevitable, expected. She eased his loneliness. The Emperor Flying Arrow permitted the Heir few friends, of course, and fewer social contacts.

As adolescence approached, sexuality inevitably brought Flaming Arrow and Rippling Water together in different ways, and separated them in others. Before puberty, they had regarded each other's nudity as all children would. Their curiosity satisfied, they were curious no longer. At twelve, Rippling Water's body began to change. She became more reticent. Once, she showed him the darker hair at pubis and armpit, and once, let him touch the growing breasts. Once was enough, and she told him she valued her body and privacy. When he began to mature two years later, he showed her the physical changes to his body. Their curiosity satisfied, they were curious then only about c****s itself.

They remained close during these years, but without the physical intimacy that had formerly characterized their friendship. Although their elders had as much as told them to couple, they had agreed to wait. Lack of desire wasn't the problem. They each desired the other and no one else. Other potential mates wasn't the problem. Neither of them had ever questioned the assumption that eventually they would mate. Love wasn't the problem. Their love for each other was as certain as the rising of the sun.

Emotional maturity was the problem. Neither was stable emotionally. Both had just emerged from puberty and both wanted the stability of completed educations and budding careers. They had agreed that each year they would pull the problem from its compartment, reexamine all the variables, and decide.

Sighing, Flaming Arrow trudged along the east road toward the coliseum. His mother locked away in her marble tower, his father always busy oiling the machinery of government, his grandmother dead, his grandfather and mentor nearly catatonic with grief, his betrothed only the Infinite knew where, he felt a loneliness more bitter than limes.

Flaming Arrow began to weep, wanting to turn back time.