What else can you do? It’s her life or yours. What do you owe her?
That beautiful face—rendered so much more beautiful in contrast to those wretches surrounding her on all sides—flashed across his memory. A beautiful face, but he did not know her. He did not truly love her. He felt his heart race at the thought of her, felt his limbs turn to water as the idea of her filled his mind. But he did not love her. Her death would mean so little.
And there is your blood oath to be considered.
This was true indeed. After all, committing this act was not simply a matter of life or death. It was a matter of honor. He had vowed a solemn vow, and as an honorable man he must fulfill it or lose face. His death would be preferable by far. So ultimately this couldn’t be murder. Not really. Not when looked at from the proper vantage.
He knew they were watching him. The Crouching Shadows. He couldn’t see them, but he felt them, and every man, woman, and child moving up and down the narrow streets of Lunthea Maly seemed to him suspicious, dangerous, their eyes full of a killer’s cunning.
With a sudden sense of urgency Sunan swallowed down the rest of the dumplings. Then he drew himself up and stepped boldly from the doorway, hastening down the street and on to the northernmost gate of Lunthea Maly. He felt the morning sun rising, and shadows lengthened across his path, broken up by bursts of soft white-gold light. Beggar children, seeing his haste, rushed after him, jeering and begging for coins at the same time. He snarled at them, and when they would not leave him be, lunged suddenly and watched them scatter back into the mist.
He did not see the three forms spying on his movements from the upper window of a disreputable inn. He did not see the fur-clad arm of a master sharply motion or the two pairs of heavy boots stamping down a narrow stair and entering the street. Sunan, intent upon the task at hand, intent upon forcing back the horror mounting in his heart, did not realize that he was followed, not by Crouching Shadows as he feared, but by a danger much more dreadful to him.
Sunan’s world was made up of broken shards of time. One moment, he was in the city. Then, before he realized it, he was at the gates. He passed through these and was unaware of anything more until he was quite far out into the country beyond, pushing against the flow of those journeying from across the empire to make their way into Lunthea Maly’s welcoming, devouring heart.
Then, quite suddenly, he stood on the lip of Lembu Rana, gazing down upon the secluded village of lepers. The sight was rendered no less horrible by the gentle light of late morning. Indeed, it was more difficult to watch those wretched forms—some hobbling about to tend their meager gardens, some stirring boiling pots full of stew or laundry, some carrying bits of wood to fuel the fires, but most simply lying before the doors of their huts, ravaged faces upturned to Anwar’s warmth as the only comfort they could know in their suffering. In the shadows of night they had been wraithlike and otherworldly. By day they were living corpses, and this was worse by far.
Sunan’s resolve wavered, not for any sense of guilt now, but simply for fear. “They’re not cursed. They’re sick,” he whispered even as he’d done the evening before, which seemed like years ago.
He glanced back over his shoulder, perhaps with a thought of flight. Only then did he spy two distant forms watching him from up the road. He did not recognize them from that distance but believed them to be Crouching Shadows observing whether or not he would fulfill his oath. If he turned back now, he would surely die.
So, steeling himself with what little courage remained to him, he started down the path. Some of the lepers climbing up eyed him with suspicion and avoided him with as much alacrity as he avoided them. He passed unimpeded into their village and stood there a moment, uncertain which way to turn. The night before he’d had a guide through these tumbledown structures. Now they stretched before him like a maze into the very pit of hell.
But to his surprise, a little form approached him. She moved slowly, with much pain, and as she drew near, Sunan recoiled at the ugliness of her face, missing part of its jaw and raw with infection. But then he recognized her. She was the same child who had sat outside the hut of the lepers’ angel.
She smiled at Sunan. It was a ghastly sight. And yet, for the first time since looking upon the Valley of Suffering, he felt his heart moved by something like pity. After all, this was a child. She should be at play with a dozen brothers and sisters. She should be clutching some rag of a doll in one hand, tugging her mama’s skirts with the other. Instead she died. Every day she died more. And who could say where her mama was, having long since abandoned her blighted offspring?
So when the child smiled at him, Sunan offered something of a smile in return. This seemed to give her courage, and she drew nearer so that he could hear her roughened voice saying, “Come with me. To the angel.”
He did not think. He did not consider what he was about to do to this poor waif’s angel. She led, and he followed, avoiding eye-contact with those who watched him warily. And at last they came to a hut in the very center of the valley, and Sunan knew it was the one he sought.
There was no sign of the one called Granddad anywhere near, and the child settled beside her blackened fire pit, making no move to enter. But she motioned Sunan to the doorway, and he knew that she trusted him, that she gave him leave to pass.
Ignoring the ramming of his heart against his breastbone, Sunan ducked and entered, and found himself once more standing in the light of three lamps. These all burned low, their oil nearly gone. But they were enough still to illuminate the face of the beautiful woman. The scar was red across the pale curve of her cheek.
Sunan’s heart nearly failed him. He almost ran from that hut, out of the valley, his arms outspread in welcome to those who would kill him for his failure. For she was so elegant in her rags, so composed amid this nightmare. Her eyes were closed once more, and for this he was thankful. Otherwise he felt quite certain that he would not have been able to take another step toward her.
But step he did, and then he knelt even as he had the night before. His eyes trailed over her form, resting at last upon that rag-covered place above her heart. The rags were thin enough. They would offer her no shield against the bite of his blade.
How long had it been since he hunted with the Tiger Clan? How long had it been since he last plunged a knife into the throat of his quarry? How long since he’d felt the spurt of blood across his hand? These were memories he had blocked, memories he had vowed to forget upon entering the Pen-Chan life of his mother’s heritage, where a man could rise above all the foundational brutality of life, standing instead upon the towering heights of intellect and reflection.
But life has a way of circling back on itself. And here he knelt before the beautiful lady, even as he had knelt before his fallen prey. As he had done then, so he did now, drawing his knife, which looked like a demon’s tooth in the light of those three lamps.
The woman opened her eyes. He felt her gaze but could not raise his head. He stared at his knife instead.
“I must kill you,” he whispered.
“Is that so?” said she.
Her voice was so calm. Like the sweetest of spring breezes moving through the tall grass of the grazing lands. It pierced Sunan to the heart. He could not move.
“I have long wondered about death. About life,” said the woman. “They are a mystery. The great mystery. And who is to say if the one is worse than the other?”
Sunan swallowed with difficulty. He shifted the knife in his grip, turning it to the right angle for plunging.
“I feel that before I die, I should ask you something,” said the woman. “Will you give me a truthful answer?”
“I—I will if I may.” His voice came out in a hoarse cough.
“What is your name?”
He could not help himself. He looked up into her face, into her deep, deep eyes, and he thought he saw the light of the Dara shining there. He answered without thinking, “Juong-Khla Sunan. That is my name.”
“Sunan,” said she, and her head tilted to one side. Her threadbare head-covering slipped down around her shoulders, revealing her thick hair, which was combed and braided, and which shone with an otherworldly luster. She spoke his name again. “Sunan. The Good Word. It is a worthy name.”
She put up her hands then and, without any sign of fear or fumbling, undid the ties of her garments about her neck and parted the rags to reveal the white skin beneath. She uncovered her heart.
“Very well, Sunan, the Good Word. Do as you have purposed.”
He knew then that he never could.
Sunan raised the knife above his head and threw it across the hut. It struck the wall and stuck there, the hilt shivering with the impact. Sunan’s body shivered in response, and he covered his face with his hands. His heart raced and his gut roiled, but he sat as still as a becalmed sea.
Suddenly he felt soft hands touching his. The woman took hold of his fingers, pulling them back, revealing his face. He found her bent toward him, and the scent of her hair was like wildflowers.
“I want to show you something, Sunan,” said she. “Will you see?”
He nodded mutely. The woman reached into the depths of her garments and withdrew something in her fist. Slowly she uncurled her fingers and revealed the wonder that lay in the palm of her hand.
It was a star. No, it was a flower of stars.
No, even that, Sunan realized with a shake of his head, was not quite right. It was a cluster of opals set in gold, luminous from the inside out, unaided and unhindered by the lamplight.
“It is a gift of the heart,” said the woman. She pressed it into Sunan’s hand, and her fingers, hovering over his, hid the light of those stones. “Will you accept it?”
“I will,” he gasped.
“And will you promise to love me?”
“I promise.”
She took his face between her hands then. His head filled with storms and thunder as she pulled his face to her own and kissed him. That kiss, so full of power, so full of passion he did not comprehend, was the final seal upon his heart.
The woman released him and sat back, her eyes demurely veiled by her lashes. “When the time comes, Sunan,” she said, “you will obey me. You will serve me above all other masters.”
“Yes,” said Sunan. “I will. Anything you want. Anything you need.” He did not consider just then that he would not live to offer her any service. Life and death did not matter in this place. Somehow he would make good his promise to her.
She did not look at him again. When she spoke, her voice was a whisper. “You must go now. She is returning, and she will kill you if she finds you here. Go.”
Though it was like tearing his own heart in two, Sunan rose, obedient to his new mistress’s every wish. He stumbled from the darkened hut, leaving behind his very will as well as the knife in the wall. And he clutched the opals tight in his fist.
Sairu ran with the cat at her feet, her pace scarcely letting up since she emerged from the dungeons into the surface world. Only at the gates of the Crown of the Moon did she pause to shed her disguise of priestly robes, revealing the leper’s rags beneath. Then she ran with much greater speed than a leper should be capable of, darting with such quickness through the winding streets of Lunthea Maly that anyone watching her would have thought she had grown up navigating their mysteries rather than behind the sheltering walls of Manusbau and the Masayi.
The cat found himself hard-pressed to keep pace with her, which was unusual for him. But she was driven by an instinct far stronger than anything he had ever before encountered in a mortal.
Sairu cursed herself with every step. How could she have let herself be drawn away from her mistress’s side? Especially when she knew—she knew, Anwar blight it!—that the cat had been followed and their situation was no longer safe. She should have ignored all thoughts of Jovann, all hope of finding him, against all reason, alive. She should have remained at her mistress’s side, discovered some new safe hiding place.
What a fool, what a fool, what a thrice-cursed fool! So her brain repeated in rhythmic beat with her pounding feet. And she vowed, as her penance, that she would leave Jovann to rot in that cell, that she would never think of him again but focus all her heart and energies upon her mistress’s wellbeing. She vowed as much to Anwar and Hulan and all the starry host, though she did not believe in them. If they would only prove their mythic powers, just this once, and let her reach her mistress in time!
The city was too great, the streets too winding and too long. The world itself might come to an end before she ever achieved the city gates.
The cat cried out at her heels, “Idiot girl, let me help you! Lumé love me, can you not stand still and think for but a moment?”
She did not slow her pace or look at the cat. She could not have heeded him even had she wished to. Her haste was all-consuming, and there was no time, no time at all, no time to stop or think.
She reached the gates. She reached the countryside beyond. Still she did not slow, though her side ached and her lungs heaved and her heart threatened to give out. Many watched her pass, shuddering at the strangeness of a leper in full flight as though pursued by devils. And was that orange cat at her heels perhaps one of those devils himself?
Lembu Rana was not yet in sight when suddenly she glimpsed a figure coming her way. A figure she could almost but not quite recognize.
“It’s him!” said the cat. “It’s the man who followed me last night!”
Only then did Sairu slow and finally stop. She stared at the figure approaching, and loathing for him raged in her heart. “Are you certain?” she asked.
“I am,” said the cat.
The figure drew nearer. He moved at a frantic pace himself, turning now and then to look back over his shoulder. One hand held up his long Pen-Chan robes lest they trip him as he fled. The other clutched in a tight fist as though hiding something.
Sairu’s hand was already up her sleeve, touching the hilt of a hidden knife. But she paused suddenly as the stranger’s face came into view. She thought, even as she had the night before, How like his brother he is.
Then she thought, He has not killed.
The truth of this thought was plain in the stranger’s eyes. Sairu disguised her heaving breaths behind shallow pants and huddled down inside her robes, making herself to all appearances small, frail, weak with sickness. The stranger passed her by without a second glance, and she studied his face more carefully in passing. Again she thought, He has not killed.
“Follow him, Monster,” she said even as the stranger hastened on down the road. “I must see to my mistress. So follow him and find out where he goes.”
“Very well,” said the cat, for once in his life making no resistance to a direct command.
Indeed, he had taken a good ten paces in this new pursuit before he realized how easily he had obeyed. He flattened his ears at the thought, but it was too late to go back without a severe mark against his dignity. So he pursued the stranger, who smelled a great deal like Jovann but certainly was not Jovann.
The stranger rounded a slight bend in the road, and the cat hastened after. Here they came to a stretch that was un-peopled. Not a single merchant’s wagon or farmer’s cart could be seen coming or going. Ahead rose the city in all its magnificence, and the sounds and smells of it filled the air. But in this small stretch, there was nothing but loneliness and the figure of the running man up ahead.
Then suddenly there was a crack in the world.
The cat recognized it in an instant, the same crack he had witnessed opening in the cell beneath the temple. He smelled the sulfur seeping through, smelled the hatred. It opened right in front of the stranger, and two men stepped forth, out of realms beyond and into this world.
The stranger screamed. And it was as much a scream of recognition as of surprise. Two Chhayans lunged at him, taking hold of his arms. Before the cat had time to think, they had dragged him through their crack in the world, all three vanishin
g from sight. The opening began to close.
“Dragon’s teeth!” the cat swore. “Dragon’s wretched, rotting teeth!”
With a single leap he covered the distance and slipped through the crack just before it vanished, leaving the road empty behind him. The nightmare of Death surrounded the cat. And it was a nightmare all too familiar.
For what felt like an age the cat stood frozen where he’d landed in this sliver of madness between worlds. He knew this path, the stench of it, the burn of it beneath his paws. He knew it too well. What could possibly have possessed him to leap upon it despite that knowledge?
“The girl is getting into your head, Eanrin,” he muttered furiously, his eyes squeezed shut. It didn’t matter if he opened them or not. Blindness alone would meet his vision, like a prophecy of doom to come. He felt his limbs turning to water, so great was his dread, and he doubted very much that he would be able to take a single step forward in his pursuit.
But then a voice reached out to him across the leagues of his own vast terror. A silver voice, gentle and serene yet cutting like a blade through any boundaries or walls.
Won’t you follow me?
The cat opened his eyes. Sure enough, the blindness pressed in upon him, sickening his gut. But the voice still sang, and when he turned his head to the sound, he was able—if only just—to discern figures moving up ahead of him.
And so, not for the first time in his life, he walked Death’s Path.
Sunan could see colors, and he thought he saw shapes. But these whirled on the edges of his vision so that he could not tell up from down, inside from out. It was as though his vision had shattered and now fell in broken pieces on every side. All he saw for certain were the faces of the men who held him. Faces Sunan knew too well: Chakra and Kosul, both Tiger men of the Khla clan, his father’s trusted right- and left-hand men. Both had shed their share of men’s blood, and that blood stained their hearts and showed red in the rims of their eyes. They were powerful and they were cunning. Above all, they were cruel.