There was the gleam of a blade. The vision turned. It spun wildly, and Sunan could see only flashes of a small but elegant room whirling as though in a storm. He believed he caught a glimpse of a small dog, of a knife. Then there was still more confusion. Someone he could not well discern flashed across the vision, a young woman, he thought, but not the beautiful girl he had viewed a moment before. Another face also appeared, a face so otherworldly, so pale, and so golden that were it not for the ferocious snarl upon its mouth, Sunan might have thought it an angelic being. That face also vanished, and there was darkness, spinning darkness, with only flashes of light illuminating another, humbler room.
And at the very last he saw—and this surprised him, for it was not what he’d expected—an orange cat crouched in a corner, its eyes wide and gold.
The vision faded into the blackness behind his eyelids. Sunan realized he was not breathing and inhaled sharply.
“Did you see her?” demanded the Crouching Shadow.
Sunan nodded. “I saw a woman lying on a bed, and she—”
“Yes, I know. I’ve seen it myself. I was there.”
Sunan looked up, his eyes sharp with curiosity. “Who was she?”
“A temple girl. I will tell you no more. But you must find her.”
“Find her?” Sunan frowned, bracing his knees against the dizziness in his head. “How?”
“That is for you to discover, Kasemsan’s kin,” Tu Domchu replied. “I can help you no more than I have. We are all of us too carefully watched, and even Chaso the beggar-man may not be as inconspicuous as I would wish. But my Master tells me you are intelligent beyond your years, if a little weak, and that you even possess some of the Dok House’s cunning. From what I can see, if you possess such cunning, you have not yet discovered it. But no matter. My Master believes in you. So you must find the girl and, when you find her, return to these docks. I, or one of my brethren, will come to you then and tell you what to do next. Do you understand?”
“I understand,” Sunan said, though in truth he did not. His mind was still full of the vision of that lovely face. And he thought, of all the dreadful things he’d feared his new masters would require of him, discovering the location of a beautiful girl was not so terrible as all that. “I do not know where to begin my search. Can you tell me—”
“I can tell you nothing,” said the Crouching Shadow. Then he repeated, “Nothing.”
And he was gone. Sunan stood alone in the alley, staring blankly at the space where a man had stood but a moment before.
A shiver ran up his spine, and he shook it out at the neck. Then he hastened back out of the alley and on to the busy street. He did not know where he was to go or how he was to begin this bizarre assignment, but he felt the need to move, so he did. Soon he was running up from the docks, deep into the winding heart of Lunthea Maly. He kept his eyes straight ahead, avoiding the crush and throng of life and death around him, passing from squalor to splendor and back into squalor again. At last, out of breath, he stopped and leaned against a wall. He tilted his head back, seeing nothing at first and then . . .
The shining silver gong atop the tallest temple tower flickered in the sunlight, like a small moon come down to earth.
“It’s too easy,” Sunan muttered. Then he shrugged. It couldn’t possibly be so simple, but where else was one to begin a search for a nameless temple girl? He gathered his robes in both hands and started at a trot up the street, making his way as straight as he could for the Crown of the Moon.
Three figures stepped through the crack in the worlds. Three mortal figures, which was the last thing the cat had expected as he cowered, belly-flattened on the stone floor. And the moment they were through, the crack closed behind them. Or did not close so much as cease, as though it had never been.
But it had been. The cat’s eyes were full of it, his spirit overrun with it. He knew what it was, and he knew how it led.
These mortals, whoever else they might be, were servants of the Dragon. And they walked the Dragon’s own Paths, crossing leagues in a stride, passing through solid walls. Their origin in the mortal world, the cat could not begin to guess. They may have set out from halfway across the world and, by using this path, crossed to this place in mere minutes.
Mortals might use Faerie Paths if they had allies among the Faerie kind. But never, in all his long existence, had the cat known a mortal to ally himself with the Dragon.
Thus he tried to disbelieve what his eyes beheld, tried to disbelieve what his fearful heart screamed in his breast. He tried to tell himself that these could not be mortal men, or that the Path they walked was not one which, long ago, he himself had walked and would recognize anywhere.
The truth was too plain before him. And the cat trembled and made himself small and invisible.
All three men were clad in heavy garments of rough, tanned leather lined in fur, with stout leather caps on their heads, also fur-lined. Though he wore no distinguishing mark, the third man to step through was obviously the leader. His very stance and bearing bespoke his sovereignty among his brethren. The other two yielded to him, standing protectively to either side as he surveyed the dungeon cell. His sharp eyes passed right over the prisoner as though he did not exist.
But the prisoner, to the cat’s surprise, lunged against his chains, crying out, his hands extended to their furthest reach. His eyes, though set in an older face, looked like those of a child. He spoke gibberish, but he spoke it with such excited vehemence that the cat could have sworn the prisoner looked upon the faces of long-lost friends thought dead and gone.
The leader—a tall, broad warrior with a long mustache carefully braided away from his mouth, and keen eyes peering from beneath a strangely smooth, strangely placid brow—spoke: “Not here.”
“Tenuk’s message was clear, Honored Khla,” said one of his men. “He sent the Dream Walker to the Crown of the Moon.”
“There is no Dream Walker here,” said the leader. His voice was calm. Too calm. Like a dormant volcano not so deeply sleeping as one might hope.
The third man growled, “Tenuk is a fool. An old, doddering fool!”
“Waste no bile upon our good brother,” the leader growled. “The Greater Dark will deal with him.” His eye lit upon the corpse lying in chains beside the gibbering prisoner. He knelt and turned it over, sucking in his breath at the sight of ravaging gangrene. “Not a Dream Walker.”
The prisoner flung himself at the great man, his hands straining so that the shackles cut into his wrists. He could not reach him, save for his fingertips, which scraped the toes of his boots. The warrior gazed down upon him. Then, when the prisoner raised up his face, the warrior frowned. He looked from that face to the corpse’s. But the shadows of the lantern were deep and the distortions of sickness severe. The warrior blinked once then turned away.
“There is no Dream Walker here,” he said.
“What will we tell the Greater Dark?” said one of his men in a voice as deep as a bear’s but full of fear.
The leader merely shook his head, his face a mask. “We will tell the Greater Dark that we have not yet received our promise.”
With that he turned from the prisoner, who, with a gurgling cry, flung himself upon the floor, his hands held up behind him by the chains, his head striking hard upon the stones. His words were incomprehensible, but his tone was desperate.
The warrior spared him not a glance. He crossed the room, the other two falling into place behind him. And though he made no sign or sound, the cat saw the Path open again. He smelled death and the not-too-distant stench of the Dark Water. Did these fools of mortals not understand that into which they passed? Could they not see it? Could they not sense it? Were they so blinded by their desires, whatever those desires might be?
They were gone. The Path closed behind them, and the cat could no longer perceive even a trace of its memory. But he shuddered where he crouched, and his heart condemned him. After all, he had walked that Path himself. He was no bet
ter than these mortals. Not on his own.
“Lumil Eliasul,” he whispered. “Lumil Eliasul . . .”
It was like a prayer, but he asked nothing: no blessing, no benediction. He merely repeated the words until his breathing calmed and the fur of his tail smoothed down once more.
Then, rising and shaking himself, he padded across the cell to better inspect the prisoner.
The poor man, with his strange face and stranger words, wept upon the stone. His arms rose up uncomfortably behind him, his wrists limp in the shackles. He’d probably pulled several muscles in his wild contortions, the cat thought, possibly sprained something as well. Mortals were such fools sometimes!
The prisoner remained unaware of the cat. He lay muttering into the dirty straw, his limbs twitching now and then. The cat sniffed the top of his head, cringing at the reek of grime and infestation. Surrounding that was the even stronger scent of enchantment, something mortals would not be able to perceive but which the cat, born in worlds beyond, could recognize, if only just. It was a strong enchantment, the likes of which he had never before encountered. He had heard that Vartera, queen of the goblin people, used similar sorcery: masking her true face in forms she considered more pleasing. But this was not the same enchantment as she used. The cat knew too well the source of Vartera’s power, and it was stronger than this. No, this enchantment came from . . .
“Imps,” the cat muttered.
At the sound of his voice (which could only be perceived as an animal growl), the prisoner looked up. For a moment his eyes were very bright in the lamplight, and the cat, gazing into them, saw something trembling deep in his black pupil. He knew then that he was right.
And those men—Chhayans, unless the cat were much mistaken, which he didn’t consider likely—had been unable to perceive one of their own kind. Their leader, the honored Khla, had been unable to recognize his own son even as the boy pleaded at his feet.
“Jovann,” the cat said. “I know it’s you.”
Even as he said it, the enchantment strengthened. So much so that the cat felt a momentary flicker of doubt. Pernicious imps!
“No fear, my dear young man,” said the cat in his silkiest tones. Then he looked right at the imp deep in the prisoner’s eye. “I know the strength of your little spells. But I also know what can break them!”
With that, he turned and slipped from the cell. He pushed the cell door shut behind him by leaning on it with both his front paws, though it was heavy and his cat’s body should not have had the strength to move it. He did not bother to lock it but left it and the snoring prison-keeper untouched as he darted back through the winding corridors of the temple dungeons.
He must find and fetch Sairu at once!
Suthinnakor boasted a number of impressive buildings, testimony to the creativity and inventiveness of their architects. The Center of Learning itself was the most beautiful structure Sunan had ever before seen, and he had never hoped or expected to behold its like again.
Therefore, as he slogged his way through the filthy streets of Lunthea Maly, climbing closer and closer to the Crown of the Moon, he was obliged to stop several times simply to catch his breath. For the magnificence of that temple, to which the eyes of all those around him had long since become blind, was so great, so beautiful, so enormous, that Sunan thought his heart might stop.
Beyond the Crown of the Moon, more glorious still, rose the Anuk Anwar’s own palace of Manusbau. But the palace did not move Sunan in the same fashion. It was outrageous and opulent, gilded and encrusted with the wealth of its usurper emperor. It invited all to look upon it and marvel at its greatness and the corresponding greatness of the emperor ensconced within. The temple, however, urged mortal men to look heavenward, to gaze upon the glory of the sun and the moon in their palatial skies.
It was enough to make Sunan, so long steeped in Pen-Chan intellectualism as to have given up all childish thoughts of gods or goddesses, desire suddenly to kneel and to worship. But what he desired to worship, he could not say. Surely not Hulan and Anwar, whom he knew to be nothing more than man’s foolish personifications of rock and fire, which were natural elements and not deities at all.
Yet his heart stirred strangely inside him. And he thought perhaps he lacked something, something vital. He thought perhaps he was intended to worship, if only he knew who, what, or why.
There was no time to indulge in such futile speculation, however. So Sunan rallied himself and continued on up through the streets. Sometimes they twisted and the buildings pressed in so close that he lost sight of the temple and the great silver gong upraised above its walls. But eventually he would find it again and renew his course. He felt as though he hunted some living creature which sought to elude him. A bizarre fancy and not one upon which he liked to dwell.
As the day lengthened from morning on into afternoon, he finally reached the southernmost gates of the temple, facing the ocean. These surprised him, because they felt familiar. He could not understand why until he recalled all the little shrines scattered throughout the plains of Chhayan territory. Small gates leading from nowhere to nowhere, built of stone and scattered with flower petals. “Moon Gates,” his mother had called them. Once an important symbol of ancient Chhayan worship.
And here, on a greater scale, was another Moon Gate, built in honor of Hulan.
A sullen-faced guard stood without, and more stood beyond. Sunan approached, and the guard did not look at him but moved the spear in his hand slightly in silent warning.
Sunan stopped. He looked from the guard’s impassive face through the open gate to the elegant grounds beyond. And he knew that he, worn and tired and ragged from his months of sea travel, would never be permitted entrance.
He did not try to argue or persuade. With a shrug and a sigh, he turned from the gate and began to make his way around the wall. Some vague notion of finding an entrance whispered in the back of his brain, but he paid it no heed, for he knew it was no use.
How was he supposed to find the temple girl? He did not know her name. He did not even know if she served at this temple! And if the Crouching Shadows themselves had not succeeded, why should they think he would manage what they could not? It was all foolishness and folly. He wasn’t even a Presented Scholar!
This bitter thought caused an ugly line to form between his brows. He folded his hands after the fashion of Pen-Chan elegance and moved with a slow sedateness that only just disguised the rising fury in his breast. He was obliged to weave his way, for the outer walls of the Crown of the Moon were crowded with small shrines to various stars, and worshipers of those stars flocked from across the empire to present pitiful offerings before them.
Sunan, brought up among Chhayans, recognized the stars and their shrines. Maly, of course. Her shrine was crowded indeed, surrounded by weeping widows who begged her to light paths through the Netherworld for their lost husbands. Zampei and Zampey, depicted in stone as two children holding hands. And Chiev, whose likeness was carved in fine ivory. The effect was spoiled, however, for someone had painted the ivory an ugly shade of blue.
Up so close, the sense of holiness Sunan had felt while approaching the temple was lost. It was all so sad, so sordid. He saw poor beggars, Kitar and Chhayan alike, dropping coins they could not afford to lose into boxes hung upon the wall beside the shrines. Later on, Sunan did not doubt, fat young acolytes would sally forth and fetch those boxes, telling themselves that it was not thievery, for did not the poor wretches offer their goods willingly?
If Hulan and Anwar did indeed rule all from their heavenly thrones, they were cruel deities to allow their children so to suffer. They were cruel to have abandoned their chosen people.
This thought brought Sunan to an abrupt halt. He stood unseeing, hands folded, head bent. What did he care for Chhayan grievances? He was not one of them! He was the son of Juong-Khla’s stolen wife, and his inheritance was not from his father.
But he felt his Chhayan blood, so long suppressed, stirring inside him. In
his mouth, upon his tongue, he tasted fire.
Suddenly he heard a sound that burst through all the clamor of the streets and even through the roaring of rage in his head. A sound like silver, like water. The sound of birdsong. Startled, Sunan looked up, some half-formed notion in his brain of discovering the source of that song. He cast his gaze around, over the heads of genuflecting peasants, up to the top of the high temple wall.
Instead of a bird, he saw a golden cat appear, having leapt up from the grounds beyond to perch above the street.
Something stirred in Sunan’s eye. He was aware again of the foreign presence in his head, of the imp lodged deep inside. He shook himself but could not shake free that sickening sensation of something moving behind his vision. There flashed across his brain the image he had seen: the temple girl—the dog—the golden stranger’s face.
And the cat.
The vision ended, and Sunan stood staring up at the cat on the wall. He knew it. He knew it was the same cat! How he knew he could not say, but he did not doubt it for a moment.
The cat gauged the distance, large white paws pressing into the wall, haunches upraised and tail quivering slightly as it prepared itself for the long drop. Then it sprang, landed in the street, and vanished in the crowd of peasants surrounding Chiev’s shrine. Sunan, for a heart-stopping instant, believed he’d lost it.
Then he heard a child’s voice exclaiming, “Kitty!”
Sunan elbowed his way past a wrinkled old man and a young, sobbing widow. He saw a little one of uncertain sex stroking the back of a purring cat, which received these attentions with solemn equanimity. Then, as though recalling its purpose, the cat darted away from the child and down into the squalor of Lunthea Maly below.