“A Chhayan?”
Tenuk nodded.
That was when he heard the Dragon laugh. The sound could not fit into mortal senses but sank through his heart down into the cowering, shriveled remnants of his soul. He felt his whole body begin to quake with dread far greater than anything he had yet known in all the sorry years of his service to the Greater Dark.
It was too much. Even as the Dragon stood above him, laughing, Brother Tenuk gasped and fell to one side.
A darkness deeper than night passed over him. Then he was alone upon the mountainside save for the doves in the cote. These did not stir for some little while until, quite certain the danger was gone, they emerged one by one and flitted down to perch upon the body of the man who had loved them. They pecked at his skin, at his ears, his lips, his hands. They covered him like a shroud.
Then as one mass they rose up in flight, a white cloud vanishing into the darkness, never to be seen again by a living soul in Daramuti. And so Brother Tenuk died alone.
“The son!”
With a burst of flame the Dragon appeared on the doorstep of Ay-Ibunda, the raven still clutching his arm. All those within the temple turned their gazes up to the door. They did not cease their chanting. If they had, they and all their work would have slipped away. But some trembled, and the chant wavered for a moment. The solidity of Ay-Ibunda shivered.
The Dragon stood where he had appeared, wrapped deep in his cloak. He ran his tongue over his enormous teeth, and his eyes flashed with fury. Then suddenly he turned and cried out through the Dream, “Come to me, my child!”
Across the worlds, across the realms, his fiery voice carried. The dragon who had once been Sunan heard him even as he spiraled up above the destruction of the Center of Learning, his own handiwork. He did not hesitate even to glory in the deaths of his enemies. At the command of his new Dark Father he turned and slipped into the realms beyond the mortal world, passing into the Between as easily as a man might dive into a scum-layered lake. Within moments he appeared in the churning sky of the Dream, his dragon form dreadful to behold. Those chanters who raised their faces at his approach put up their hands, covered their eyes, and continued chanting even as shudders shook their bodies and their souls.
The young dragon swooped down and alighted in the courtyard at the feet of his Dark Father. Near to hand, the Gold Gong suspended between its posts shivered and hummed in the wind of beating wings. The young dragon folded his wings against his body and bowed. “What is your bidding, my Father?” he asked.
“Have you avenged yourself, my child?” the Dragon asked. “Have you slain those who would imprison you and brought their citadel to ruin?”
“I have. Their tower burns even now, the smoke rising in offering to you.”
“That is good,” said the Dragon. “Now I have one more gift for you, my favored one. Are you ready to receive it?”
A greedy light shone in the young dragon’s eyes, and he lifted his head, a more elegant head than that of his creator. A crest of horns adorned his crown, and he was mighty, red, and magnificent. He grinned, showing sharp rows of teeth as yet un-blackened by the smoke spilling from his gut. “I am ready, Father!” he declared.
The Dragon turned from him and addressed the raven on his arm. “Go,” he said. “Bring me Juong-Khla.”
The raven spread its wings wide and flew through the gate, between the uncarved pillar and the pillar carved like a sinuous dragon, out into the formless Dream. Slipping easily from the Dream into the dark paths across the void into the mortal world, it emerged in the wide open skies of Chhayan territory, high above the wind-cooled plains. It soared on air currents, tilting this way and that as its red eyes roved, searching. It spotted at last a cluster of gurtas arranged in a protective circle around campfires.
Around these fires crouched men of war. Some of these affixed tubes of bamboo to long, sturdy arrows, setting the tubes with long rice-paper fuses trimmed to a specified length. Some of the men melted bits of metal purloined in raids long past, melted and formed them into tiny sharp pellets. These too went into the bamboo tubes.
And black powder was ground, mixed, and poured into the tubes last of all.
Juong-Khla stood overseeing the labor of his clan. He felt rather than saw the shadow of the raven approaching and turned in time to see it alight upon the ground just within the circle of firelight. Something about the look in its reptilian eye gave him pause, and his hand tightened, if only for a moment, around the knife at his belt.
Then he approached the bird and inclined his head in respectful greeting. “Does the Greater Dark summon me?” he asked.
The raven rasped a response that was a clear enough answer.
Juong-Khla’s face wore the perpetual frown of a chieftain long steeped in the cares, the woes, the grievances of his people. His was not a face to easily betray his emotions, and it betrayed none now. He made no protest, nor did he call any orders to his men. When the bird took flight he followed it out of the firelight, into the darkness, and on to the dire Path that opened before him. He pursued the raven into the Realm of the Dream.
The raven led him swiftly across the leagues, back to Ay-Ibunda’s gates. They passed together, one after the other, under the arch and into the mist-filled courtyard, through the chanting phantoms, who dared not look up at the Khla’s passing.
The Dragon stood on the step before the temple door, and Juong-Khla’s son—that monstrous half-blood spawn of his stolen wife—crouched at the Dragon’s feet, once more wearing the form of a man. But the dragon inside could not be hidden, and smoke curled from his nostrils.
Juong-Khla ignored his son but made solemn reverence at the feet of the Greater Dark, his master. “How may I serve you?” he asked.
The raven circled round the Dragon’s head then flew off to perch on a pillar nearby, watching all with a certain greedy eagerness. The Dragon opened his mouth but did not speak for a long moment. Fire crept to his lips and spilled over his chin like liquid, like molten lava.
Then he said, “Your son is a Dream Walker.”
Juong-Khla did not respond. His gaze flickered momentarily to the young dragon who had once been Sunan.
“Not him,” said the Greater Dark. “Were he possessed of such power, you would have told me long ago, for you bear no love in your heart for this one.” With those words, the Dragon kicked the young dragon as he might kick an irritating dog. The young dragon snarled but backed away and made no other form of protest. “No,” the Dragon continued. “Your other son. The one you have never brought to me. The one you told me was not ready, was not yet capable of understanding the dark means by which we attain our dark ends. When were you going to tell me, Tiger Man, that he was a Dream Walker more powerful than the little limping maid we have imprisoned inside?”
Juong-Khla did not so much as blink, though he must have known in that moment that his end was come. He said only, “I did not know of his power. I still know nothing. He is a boy. He has not yet spilled a man’s blood.”
“You suspected,” said the Dragon, reading this truth in the chieftain’s voice. “You suspected all along what he could do. You suspected that he did not need my aid to move through this realm of mine, that he walked in it of his own power. A true Dream Walker of old! You suspected that he would be able to lead us to the Gate, and yet you did not tell me. You tried to hide him from me.”
“Yes,” said Juong-Khla. “Yes, I did. For I know what you intend to do to the girl we have brought you. I would not see the same done to my son.”
The Dragon strode down the steps, his black cloak billowing on the rising heat emanating from his body, framing it like two massive wings. The Greater Dark loomed above the warrior, extending his head on the end of an over-long neck to stare straight into Juong-Khla’s eyes.
“I will have them both,” the Dragon said. The fire of his words burned Juong-Khla’s skin. Welts rose up across his forehead, and sweat rolled down his brow. “I will have them both, your son and t
he girl, and I will make them suffer for the sake of this cause. You have given up everything for your vengeance, Juong-Khla. Now you have given up your son. Now you have given up your life.”
The young dragon seated on the stair recoiled, his eyes wide open and almost human again as they stared in disbelief. He saw the body of Juong-Khla teeter like a tree struck by the final ax blow. Then the warrior fell.
The young dragon saw the bloodied stump of Juong-Khla’s neck.
The Dragon turned about, and his form was nothing like a man’s anymore. It was huge, ten times the size of his small offspring, wrapped in armor scales, each rimmed with searing red heat that pulsed like blood. And his cloak was indeed become wings that smote the air and drove away the mist and the clouds, leaving behind only the darkness and the ongoing chant. The roar of his voice drowned out all other sound, and once more the chanters stumbled, and the reality, the very existence of Ay-Ibunda wavered.
The creature who had been Sunan fell on his face, groveling and terrified. The Dragon laughed, his black, bloodied teeth flashing. “I have given you your final great gift, my sweet, my child,” he said. “I name you Sunan-Khla, chief of the Khla clan. And you will lead your mortal clansmen into battle, into victory, even as the Moon above bleeds her last!”
“That is impossible,” said the Besur.
His voice, powerful enough to command the whole of a reverberating temple hall full of chanting priests and noisy supplicants, was overwhelming here in the imperial council chamber. He did not even have to raise it, for it boomed on a deep register that filled the stomachs of all those seated in the council circle.
Sairu, who knelt outside the circle, did not look at the Besur when he made this statement. Instead her gaze traveled around the room, studying the reactions in other faces. The emperor reclined easily upon a well-cushioned chair, the look of boredom on his face not quite masking his tension. Princess Safiya, who had been summoned from the Masayi to attend her Ascendant Brother, revealed nothing of her thoughts, for her eyes were downcast. She did not need to look at faces, as Sairu did, to read them. She knew what each man in that room thought already, for she knew each man in that room better than he knew himself. She sat in a quiet place across from the emperor and collected information no man in the room realized he gave.
And the warlords of Noorhitam from across various provinces gathered round, their hands clenched into fists, their jaws set. They scowled, every one of them, but in agreement with the Besur, and cast evil glances toward Jovann. Jovann, the emperor’s new vizier. A Chhayan at the emperor’s right hand.
“Impossible,” said the Besur again. “Beloved Anuk, you cannot listen to what this man says! He is the son of your enemy, and he is trying to lead you astray.”
The emperor blinked mildly at his high priest, though his voice trembled a little when he responded. “Honored Besur, have I or have I not declared this man to be my friend and my advisor?”
The Besur growled but inclined his head. “You have, Imperial Glory.”
“And am I not, according to your own declaration, possessed of the Lordly Sun’s own wisdom bestowed upon me at the hour of my ascension to the throne?”
Now was not the time to quibble over the subtle difference between tradition and truth. The Besur’s jaw worked angrily, but he answered, “You are, blessed Son of the Sun.”
“Then I’ll thank you not to contradict my judgments or the judgments of those to whom I look for guidance.”
The Besur, thus chastened, turned red with fury that could have no vent. Ignoring this, the emperor turned from him, fixed his attention once more upon Jovann, and asked, “Would you kindly repeat what you have just said? It did strike me as far-fetched, though I would never go so far as to say impossible, like some in this room. However, I would be gratified if you would elucidate.”
“Great Emperor,” Jovann said, making a Chhayan sign of respect with one hand, “I would not deceive you. I speak the truth when I say that my people have discovered a way to breach the dungeons beneath your great temple. They use a method not unlike dream-walking. They pass through the Dream, not in spirit but in their physical bodies, and step into this world again far from where they began. I have myself seen a rent in the fabric of our world open, and I have seen my own father and two of his men cross from the Formless into your dungeons.”
He went on to explain, but his words were soon drowned out by the protests of the emperor’s warlords. Did this man—this Chhayan dog-boy—truly counsel the Emperor of Noorhitam to set up a defense in the temple dungeons? In the face of oncoming siege and the threat of fire weapons, were they to waste good warriors guarding a portal that may or may not exist? And who was to say a siege was coming, anyway? They had only this dog-boy’s interpretation of the emperor’s dream, and that was hardly a foundation upon which to build this tower of speculation!
So the arguments rose along with the angry voices. These men who would maintain a preternatural calm in the public setting of the throne room had no qualms about reverting to furious arguments and even threats here in the privacy of the council. The Besur, already thoroughly chastened by his emperor, did not risk joining in, but he shot triumphant looks the Anuk’s way as each new warlord added his voice and his argument. Jovann tried to defend himself, but his words were so drowned out that he at last gave up and sat back, shaking his head, his face very pale. The shadow of the hangman’s noose fell once more across his spirit. The emperor observed his warlords through half-closed eyes, and Princess Safiya sat the while, her face serene, glancing neither to her right nor to her left.
A sudden sharp pain in her leg drew Sairu’s attention. She scowled at the cat, who had somehow managed to slip into the council room before the door was shut and to hide in the shadows behind Sairu where she knelt. His claws caught in the fabric of her robe as he pawed to get her attention. “What?” Sairu mouthed, not bothering to speak aloud.
The cat put his paws up on her shoulder and spoke into her ear, his whiskers tickling. “I saw it,” he told Sairu. “I saw the portal from the Between of which Jovann speaks. He is telling the truth.”
“Of course he is,” Sairu said, her voice lost in the din, though the cat’s quick ears caught it. Despite her confident words, she felt a certain relief in her heart. Not that she had truly doubted Jovann, but . . .
“You must speak up,” said the cat. “You must vouch for him.”
Sairu frowned and looked once more round at the emperor’s—her father’s—warlords. She was not a young woman to be easily intimidated. But these men were possessed of violent passions, usually restrained behind veneers of civility but now given loose rein. All had left their weapons outside, according to protocol, but she saw hands creeping toward empty sheaths and knew that lack of weapons would not prevent violence. This knowledge would not have given her so much as a pause a short time ago.
But that was before she’d lost her mistress.
Sairu tried to smile and found that she could not. So she assumed a mask that mimicked Princess Safiya’s in every studied particular. Her brow was as smooth as Hulan’s light upon stone. Her mouth neither smiled nor frowned but fell into the painted lines she had herself applied earlier that evening. With this as her only shield, she stood. The warlords were too caught up in their fury to notice her until she had already stepped into their midst and stood before the emperor. She went down on her knees before him, bowing and knocking her forehead to the floor. “Beloved Anuk,” she said.
“Beloved daughter,” said the emperor. “What reason have you to speak into this tumult of bloodlust?”
“You would do wise to heed the counsel of this man, Juong-Khla Jovann,” said Sairu, sitting up and meeting the emperor’s gaze.
“Your betrothed?”
“Yes.” She blinked once. “My betrothed. He, as you know, has traveled into realms these worthy lords of yours have not. He understands as most mortals are incapable of understanding that our world is in fact only one part of many world
s, that our time is only one part of many times. Thus he can discern weakness where these honored warriors cannot. I beg my beloved emperor to listen to this man, your chosen vizier, and set up the defenses in the dungeons of the Crown of the Moon. Let these warlords man the walls of Manusbau, preparing as they like for siege. But send the Golden Daughters beneath the temple, for we do not fear the dark.”
Every one of the warlords stood with his mouth open in a twisted snarl at the implication of her final words. But while any one of them would have gone for his neighbor’s throat for voicing such accusations of cowardice, none dared approach the little Golden Daughter sitting so sweetly before her imperial father. Jovann, observing, felt the dread of the warlords around him, felt their anger and their shame, and wondered again that he had believed this princess, this child of the most powerful emperor in the world, to be nothing more than Lady Hariawan’s handmaiden, nothing more than a slave.
But the Besur’s dislike of Sairu had grown over the months into something much stronger than his fear. He growled and stood, bowing hastily to the emperor but pointing an accusing finger at the girl. “She is no true Masayi,” he said. “Beloved emperor, heed not her words. She was sworn to the service of Lady Hariawan, Hulan’s most gifted Dream Walker. And where is that lady, may I ask? Is she safe as this maiden has claimed? Or has she long since perished, and the truth of her fate is kept hidden from us?”
Sairu paled. Jovann, watching her, saw the mask she wore crack momentarily. He knew then that at least some of the Besur’s words were true. Something terrible had happened to Lady Hariawan.
Princess Safiya raised her face for the first time since that council began. The expression in her eyes could have boiled the high priest’s bones to sludge. “If Masayi Sairu claims her mistress is safe then her mistress is safe,” she said. “You have no right to question her word.”