Amir stood within the ring of erected stones encircling the Spice Gate in the midst of the saffron fields. The spicemark burned on his throat, sensing his proximity to the arch. Karim bhai shuffled next to him, stoic as ever, hair ruffled, beard unkempt, age wrinkling his forehead. He held a pinch of turmeric in his hand.
Amir counted the others. Forty Carriers in all. Twenty each to Vanasi and Halmora. Squatting beside tilted sacks or perched on cartons filled to the brim with saffron, cardamom, and rhubarb, and vials of honey and crates of rosewood. Jhengara, the accountant, whistled an old tune at the front of the queue, a stack of papers beneath his arm and an anxious tremble that was visible twenty feet away.
Amir shivered.
Because no amount of experience could settle the nerves when it came to walking through the Spice Gate. Not for the first time; not for the thousandth.
It loomed ahead like a monstrous archway upon a pedestal, dressed in gray marble and ancient stone, its base withered and swamped with creeping vines that twisted around the pillars in a gnarled choke hold. But what caught Amir’s attention as always was that swirling tempest beneath the arch, a veil like a melted mirror that held a storm within its prison.
The soul of the eight kingdoms ran through its crevices.
A soul I want no part of.
“Salaam,” Karim bhai greeted one of the chowkidars. The guard waved a pike in their direction, its tip grazing Amir’s elbow. Karim bhai raised his hands in supplication and continued. “If you’d be so kind to tell us what we’re waiting for?”
The chowkidar shrugged and moved away. Amir clenched his fists but prevented himself from prodding the chowkidar further. There was added security by the Gate today, and Hasmin, the chief of the chowkidars himself, stood by the Gate’s arch, casting a derisive frown at the column of Carriers waiting to sift through.
Amir whispered in Karim bhai’s ear, “Don’t tell me that now, of all times, they got a hunch about Ilangovan prowling Vanasi.”
He was careful to temper the tension in his voice as he mentioned the most wanted man in the eight kingdoms. Karim bhai sounded far less anxious. “They can pursue him all they want. But make no mistake, in those Mouth-cursed towers, I’d no sooner find a dropped cardamom.”
It ought to have allayed Amir’s fears a little. But as a bowler of Raluha, as a gatecaste Carrier of the eight kingdoms, his fortunes, like those of Karim bhai, flickered like a candle about to be extinguished.
And there’s never been enough wax to begin with.
Ilangovan was a source of light for Amir and the gatecaste. Amir just needed it to hold steady a while longer. Or, better yet, go shine somewhere else, far away from Vanasi. Of course, Amir was not certain if Ilangovan was even in Vanasi – no one could ever really know where he’d be when he was not in the Black Coves; the renegade Carrier was as much a spirit as a pirate. But there was one thing Amir was certain was in Vanasi: the Jewelmaker’s Poison.
And much as he desired to meet Ilangovan, now was not the time.
In fact, the time would only come if he could get his hands on the Poison, and it would be a gatecaste irony, where one desire was upset by the appearance of another.
No – he would get the Poison. It had to be in Vanasi. He’d sacrificed three fortnights’ worth of spices to be certain. He’d climbed enough vines, delivered enough contraband, and crawled on enough rooftops to know that the Jewelmaker and his elusive Carnelian Caravan were supplying the Poison to the denizens of the upper levels of Vanasi’s bramble-choked towers. And all Amir needed was one vial.
Karim bhai must have sensed the trepidation in his voice, the vacancy in his eyes as his thoughts plunged into darkness. “Ho, pulla. Are you sure you’re up for this?”
Amir blinked. “What? Oh, yes – of course, yeah. What do you mean, bhai! I have to do this.” He immediately regretted those words. Making it a compulsion sounded insensitive of Karim bhai and the other bowlers, who harboured no desire to upend their fates. Or at any rate, put their lives at stake for it.
But Ilangovan had. He had broken free.
Karim bhai chuckled. “So much for not wanting to be like your father. You remind me of Arsalan in more ways than one.”
“Is that what you think I am? Delusional?”
“It’s not very far from reckless, pulla. The line between them blurs as you get more desperate.”
Amir forced himself to not think of his father. He raised his head stiffly, to regard the mountains looming beyond the Spice Gate, and the dense hold of trees hugging their bellies. Beautiful and treacherous, the stench of death in the air and the promise of darkness. No, he was nothing like his father. Unlike Appa, he had a plan. “The Jewelmaker is in Vanasi,” he said. “I am certain. I will have the Poison in my hands before nightfall, bhai.”
“By the Gates I hope you do.”
“Don’t worry about me,” said Amir. “Just give my letter to Harini.”
Karim bhai, who had begun cleaning his teeth with a bristled leaf, clicked his tongue. “She’s going to be upset you’re not on the roster for Halmora today.”
“I have explained it all in the letter. Just ensure she reads it.”
“I will do what I always do: deliver. But remember, pulla,” warned Karim bhai, “if the thronekeeper of Halmora finds out his daughter is reading letters sent to her by a bowler of Raluha, things will get ugly real soon, and this whole dream – of joining Ilangovan, of getting your mother and Kabir to the Black Coves—it disappears.”
Amir had thought about this possibility too many times to be truly bothered by Karim bhai’s warning. “She’s not like the other thronekeepers.”
At that, Karim bhai laughed. “If I had a peppercorn for every time the abovefolk thought that of themselves –”
“No, she truly is not. It’s not her saying this but me. I trust her. Ten years of carrying, twenty years in the Bowl. Do you think I do not know the thousand ways the abovefolk discriminate against us? Do you think, after the lashes, after the stink, the seclusion, I would consider opening my heart to one of the abovefolk, to a princess of Halmora, if I was not certain?”
“You’re certain of a lot of things today, pulla.” Karim bhai continued chewing the leaf, massaging his teeth as he did so. “I fear for these assurances you’ve got going on in your head. It reeks of having control over one’s lives. And we? Pulla, we’re not the ones in control. We’re not bred to be certain of anything except the pain of passing through the Gates.”
Amir wanted to argue further – and the Gates knew he was tired of repeating his arguments to Karim bhai day and night as the years rolled by – but at that moment, the line of Carriers began to shuffle ahead. Jhengara the accountant’s tune intensified as a signal for the Spice Trade to begin. Hasmin’s eyes trailed each Carrier as they picked up the sacks and lifted the crates to place them over their heads. Amir swung his own sack over his back and staggered ahead, his head low, his gaze fixed on the back of Karim bhai’s feet, the coarse, fissured skin, the garb of dirt, only a feeble image of the end of the day shimmering in his mind.
Excerpted with permission from The Spice Gate, Prashanth Srivatsa, HarperVoyager.
