Excerpt: The City of a Thousand Sieges

[from the prologue, when Thomas is eleven]

She shook her head. “Few people could hope to understand this, Thomas; this palace is from the Ŋæpiro Empire, and no one has lived here for over a thousand years.”
“What happened to it?”
“Do you see the patterns of darkness on the stone?”
I nodded.
“Scorch marks. It was burned, with much of the city, after one conqueror triumphed. So many people have conquered Krohan over its thousands of years… no ruler lasts forever.”
I stepped over to a vaulted doorway and peered in. “I know. I bet Tsuol will come take over soon. I wouldn’t mind that.”
She shook her head sadly. “Any kind of siege would be a disaster, no matter who it is… do you know what I call Krohan?”
“Tauon?” That was the Tsuonil name for Krohan.
“Not just that; I think of it as ‘The City of a Thousand Sieges.’ This is an old city, Thomas, older even than Tsuol itself, and it has been besieged so many times… so many peoples…”
“Were there really a thousand sieges?” I interrupted, watching her expectantly, her face girded by pulled-back pale brown hair, wound in a Tsuonil bun.
“Maybe not a thousand… who knows? But this has always been a city of sieges, and I am afraid that, someday, there will be another.”
I raised an eyebrow. “Well I think that’s a good thing. The Christians deserve to be conquered. Now let’s take a look around.” I stepped into the arched vault; the inside of the ‘Umeqah was very well lit by the gaping windows pervading it.
Auirong hurried after me, the hem of her dress settling around her ankles as it was no longer swept by the rushing wind. “The Master is a good man. He should not be killed. He likes you very much, you know.”
I ran through a corridor, passing through a beam of light cast by a crumbling skylight. “I hate him! You know what he did to my mother!”
Auirong was a practiced runner; I suppose it came from looking after all the free children of the estate. She was by my side when I stopped at the end of the corridor, where the pointed arches of the ceiling lowered and opened into a gracefully curved doorway. She looked down at me with her sad wide eyes. “Do you know what happened with your mother?”
I folded my arms and flashed her a dark defiant stare. “Yes. She was Tsuonil, a warrior’s daughter, and he captured her! And… and… he made her his slave, and she lived in misery, and she couldn’t live with it and she died! Just after I was born.” I rubbed the corner of my eyes with the back of my hand. “I know the whole story.” And someday, my real family will come and take me north into Tsuol, and I’ll leave this hated city behind.
Auirong took my hand and began leading me back around the building to the cart. “That isn’t the whole story. It was too early for you to understand before, I think… well, as you’re growing older, surely you can see… haven’t you realized who your father is?”
“I already know I’m not all Tsuonil.” That was suggested by my eyes, of Terran shape, not wide, not large, without eyefold, and colored brown, so much more common among the descendents of the Christians who came from another world, hundreds of years ago.
We entered the cart. Normally it would have been a struggle for Auirong to shepherd me in, but I had become sullen and no longer felt like running and prancing.
She picked up her bag and took out the shard of quartz that she used as a mirror; I was pretty sure it was stolen, for a slave would not have the means to purchase one herself. She held it out to me. “Look, Thomas. These past few months, the resemblance has come out; what we all suspected is certain, now. Don’t you see?”
I looked over my reflection. I was darker than most other people in Krohan, having the dark tan that I’d heard was common among the Tsuonil warrior class, so many of them being descendent from the Mjenjötüm of the far northern rainforests. Similarly, I had their black hair, mine a curling frizzing mass, hairs going in every direction. My nose was still developing, but it already had a strong Novan look, long and jutting, though also beginning to develop a beakish look; not the most Tsuonil, suggesting some other kind of Novan. And, of course, I had those ugly little Terran eyes. The face was still soft and round, though; I was young. And yet… something of the features, now that I looked at my face as a whole, seemed to remind me of someone else; features more matured, more developed, skin and hair much lighter.
I shook my head, handing her the mirror. “No, no one.”
Auirong placed it in her bag, and pushed the flank of the horse, which began trotting, resuming our trip southward. “Never mind, then. Perhaps I was wrong.”
I stared back at the ‘Umeqah as it became distant, the massive block of stone, rowed with doors and ornamental windows, arches and incinerated designs lining its sides. “Which conqueror burnt the ‘Umeqah?”
Auirong paused for a moment, likely running her beloved tales of history through her mind. “The Empire of the South,” she recalled at last. “One of the Tsuonil states, during Tsuol’s last time of disunion.”
I turned ahead, watching the churches, markets and mansions of the Katse come closer as we passed through the gate of the inner wall. Come again, Tsuol. Come bringing fire again and destroy the Christian and Láfkatso lords. Scorch the buildings of the Katse, like you scorched the ‘Umeqah. Destroy the Master—for I now knew that he, man who had enslaved my mother only to grant me freedom, must be my father. I hate him!