15 - Caging Birds

In his study, Nadian leaned over the scraps of parchment. Diriyish hadn’t been the same since the funeral. I suppose he doesn’t have anyone left to bury. But he hadn’t given up and just died. Somehow he’d hardened into a stick of boot leather and just as responsive sometimes, even while still being the stone adder dangerous he’d always been. Nadian pulled out his magnifier and dismissed the Emperor from his thoughts. That was a daytime problem when everyone was under the Beneficent Light.

This was his time, the time when he could indulge in what his true passion was. It was criminal that there was no one to teach him how to be a Cliner, no one to promote him from the Ahy all the way to the dizzying heights of the Deei with all the attendant pomp and power.

It was that power that had smoothed the sides of the city hundreds of years ago, Cliners pulling the spaces and holes in the solid stone and bringing the molten rock to the Manders who could take it and form it into the deep basin to hold the water at the top of the column. And then made the Loggia grow out of that like stone flowers until they towered another five hundred feet over the canyon rim, the flower island homes delicate as lilies. It was the power that built the ancient pumps capable of pulling water all the way from the canyon bottom to the top and the kind of power that made the seamless columns of hollow stone that held the liquid wax that heated the city at night. It was the kind of power that had died away in Lainz and no one remembered how to teach it, how to foster it in its own children. It was a power that was dead as far as the Empire was concerned and could not be resurrected, for all that everyone prayed to their Ancestors.

Except him. He knew he had the power from his father before him. And it was a power he would claim if he had to defile a thousand graves to wrest the Deei’s secrets out of their rotting hands. It was the kind of power that made the office of Emperor look like a children’s poppet.

**

Nadian deliberately adjusted his hood and accepted the ceremonial mace from his valet. The stone entry of his loggia was polished to a high gloss, white as salt, and he could see his own reflection, the dashing figure he cut. He looked plain as a deep-desert nomad, all in black hood with only eyes showing, bloused black tunic and pantaloons, soft boots, the black sash with gold trim and tassels falling past his knee. He didn’t bother to pose with the gold and gemmed short mace in his fist.

I look like a brigand about to lead a howling band waving our weapons over our heads. But I certainly wouldn’t be wearing anything as crass as plain cotton. The silk makes it bearable.

It was his turn to witness the day’s punishments, representing the Emperor. The old fool actually insisted that nobles play that part, rather than letting some lesser officer do it. It was such a throwback to when the nobles were personally responsible for people... Honestly archaic and uncivilized. When I finally find a spell to kill the old man... when I am Emperor... THIS horrible little custom is going off the edge of the canyon. He stood, mace in hand, the heavy head resting in the folded crook of his elbow, just back under the archway enough to be in the shade and out of the vicious wind.

The moa handler brought the white riding beast around to the bottom of the stairs. The golden hood and tassels winked almost blinding bright, glare made worse by the mirrored chips of silvered glass. They shifted all around the restlessly moving head, hanging from pendants and bobbing wires, the best armour in the desert sun. Make it nearly impossible to see the target to strike at it.

The softly flowing feathers fell clean and smooth, the beak clamp and chain in gilded steel, vicious, curving claws gilded to match the saddle over smooth-plucked shoulders. “Chechi looks good, Maki. How many times has she tried to kill you today?”

“She’s gentling right down, Naser. Only a handful of times.”

“Feed her more live meat then, Maki.”

“Very good, Naser.”

It was vile that there were only minor offenses for him to witness and the Emperor, damn his eyes, and his ears, and his mind that should have been failing by now, would hear if he shirked his duty. It meant riding all the way across the bridge from the city to the south rim where the minor cages hung.

The cages of punishment nearest the city, the ones meant for murders and poisoners and traitors, were all empty, their supports arching out gracefully, up overhead and out over the drop like flower stems. Each ugly bud, hanging out over hundreds of  feet of space to the bottom of the canyon, swayed gently at the end of their chains.

They were meant as methods of execution and had no bottoms for the condemned to stand on, only a single bar across the centre. A man in one of those had to balance, or cling. Stripped naked and shaved they could not even have the means to tie themselves to the bars to sleep. The moment he lost consciousness, of course he, or more rarely she, would fall to their deaths.

Nadian thought that was most appropriate, that criminals be forced to kill themselves. The thought that should he be caught he would be in one of them, never crossed his mind. 

Chechi’s slow gait, in the witness procession, was smooth and he was tempted to pull on the reins to open her blinkers more but she would outdistance his honour guard and want to run out into the desert beyond the open Rim Gate.

The cages in the centre had more bars across the bottom, giving the criminals a chance to survive their sentences. And the most cages, ten on each side both the in-bridge and the out-bridge, forty in all, had full bottoms. It was a waste of time, trying to deter, as far as Nadian was concerned. Far better to fling lesser criminals off the edge before their degeneracy could infect more of the lesser classes.

Nadian knew the court records keeper, an amiable enough fellow named Uriken. He nodded as the man made full salaam.

The guards behind presented their raised fists in salute. Now that I could get used to, except for hanging about with sweaty warriors. “So, how many birds do we cage today, Uriken?” Nadian let go the reins, the eye-caps of his moa’s hood snapping shut, stopping it in its tracks.

“Only two, Naser.”

“Ah. Present the first.” For only two he would not bother getting off his bird.

They dragged a younger man forward, already shaved naked. A guard stepped on the chain between the ankles, pushed him over so he fell on his face. “One Akinter Viden condemned thief.” On the rim side a woman knelt, crouched over her children, covering them with her veils. They held their silence to give her husband and their father what honour they could.

As he had to, Nadian asked. “Do you plead mercy or reason?”

“Reason, Naser. I stole food for my wife and children.”

“Myrmidon? Does this man have a family at all?”

“Naser, this man has a wife, four children and another about to be born.” He half turned to indicate the little group kneeling outside the warning lines in the bridgestones.

“And you, man, why could you not work?”

“I was ill, Naser.”

The man was obviously lying and seemed hale enough. “His sentence?”

“Two days, one night.”

Naser raised the mace a fraction. “I witness. Cage him.”

The man made no other sound as the myrmidon on the chair grasped the levers and began peddling the hanging cage in. The whole mechanism rotated around the chair, turning to bring the suspended cage up, and in, and down onto the roadbed. The traffic out of the city waited, patiently behind the swing-line in the stone, watching.

The newly filled cage swivelled up and out and over the gorge. No need to lock it. If the condemned opened the door there was no way to climb out without committing suicide. He sat in a huddled lump of humanity, arms clutched around his knees as it bounced and settled, swaying slightly against the wind. It looked as though he didn’t have many enemies. No one waited to hurl things at him.

The myrmidon locked the mechanism and it sank down into the bridge so the road was again smooth.

“And our second bird?”

The old man brought forth for the cage on the other side, said nothing. His old skin hung in wrinkled folds and there didn’t seem to be any friend or family there for him.

“Corruption of youth, Naser.”

“And the youth he corrupted?”

“Already suspended for a half-day, Naser, and sent to a house of re-education.”

“Ah.”

“Mercy or reason? No?” Even if the man had tried to speak, Nadian wouldn’t hear him. He turned to Uriken. “His sentence?”

“A single day as a deterent, Naser.”

“He is a first-time offender? And in regard to his age I suppose.”

“Yes, Naser.”

“I witness. A day for deterrent. I add a night to teach this old lecher more balance toward the light, let the dark teach him as well.”

“Heard and obeyed, Naser.”

Nadian barely stayed for the old man to be cranked out. Men like that made his skin crawl. I need my wife and my zardukara to get the slime of you off me. “Witnessed?” He asked even before the cage was locked in place. The guard raised their fists and he handed the mace off to the Court official. “Finished. Uriken, I ride!” He grabbed the reins hard, snapping the eye-caps open on his moa. It shrieked and charged for the open gate, stubby wings half open, feathers blowing.

Thank the dark that’s over. Very conscious of the picture he presented he rose into a warrior’s half-crouch, bouncing, letting his knees take the shock. People scattered out of the way as the warbird charged out the gate, wheeled away from the road and turned to come back to the in-city gate and bridge. 

He yipped his way through the crowd weaving between shying draft animals and clumps of foot-traffic, barely keeping Chechi’s vicious beak out of people’s spines.

Scatter, you scum. I will one day have power over all of you