The Hand of the Sun King by J.T. Greathouse

Author:J.T. Greathouse [Greathouse, J.T.]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 978-1-625675-46-0
Publisher: Jabberwocky Literary Agency, Inc.
Published: 2021-08-15T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Sixteen

The City of Water and Wind

The obelisks of An-Zabat stood like columns holding up the blue dome of the sky, glimmering with silver filigree that mimicked the patterns the wind writes on desert dunes. Red banners bearing the Emperor’s tetragram hung from each obelisk. A reminder to the people of An-Zabat, who had conquered the desert and the sky, that they had been conquered in turn.

I had seen the wonders of Northern Capital, sailed on man-made canals across the great plains of western Sien, and crossed the deserts of the Batir Waste by windship. I thought myself worldly after so many weeks of travel, but even the Thousand-Armed Throne paled in comparison to the obelisks.

Crewmen struck all but the steering sail as the windship coasted on its runner blades into the elevated harbor. The ship’s windcaller breathed deeply and planted his feet wide. I tried and failed, not for the first time, to comprehend the magic he wielded. It was brisk and subtle, like a cool breeze on the back of my neck that left little wake in the pattern of the world. A slight ripple like light on fractured glass ran along the whorled tattoos that covered his arms. He pushed the wind up and around into the steering sail to turn the ship about. It coasted into place facing out toward the rolling dunes.

During the fifteen days of our journey I had hardly taken my eyes from the windcaller. The An-Zabati had shrugged off the Empire’s every attempt to add their magic to the canon, which only deepened my desire to learn it. I knew it would not be the true, unbridled power I had felt before my grandmother marked me. Yet I nursed a hope that deeper understanding could be gleaned from the magics that Hand Usher would call primitive, and which I knew to be just as powerful as the canon. Hopefully there would be opportunities to indulge my curiosity--and investigate An-Zabat’s goddess, and her miracle--after I had begun my work as Minister of Trade.

Any such magic would likely be as constrained as witchcraft, I knew, and would not offer me mastery. Yet I was thirsty for any knowledge that lay beyond the limits of the canon. Any deeper truth I might glean was a paving stone on that third path through the world I would build for myself, first to the Academy and then beyond, to true freedom.

A palanquin carried me through the city toward the imperial citadel, whose broad sandstone walls competed with the obelisks for dominance of the skyline. Every few blocks we passed a ruin blasted apart by chemical grenades, or a structure scarred by battle-sorcery. The people were strange to me--bronze skinned and light haired--and though I had studied their language the snatched phrases I heard fluttered past my ears, as meaningless as the wingbeat of a moth. Stranger still were the dromedaries that pulled carts or carried bundles on their humped backs. They seemed to me creatures from outlandish mythology.

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