But then she found that she was walking. She could not remember the end of the fall, could not remember finding solid ground. She was walking where she had been falling. For a moment her spirits lifted. There was a Path at her feet, and she could navigate through this strange Between. All was dark and shifting horror around her, but she could walk. She could follow this Path to its end and there, she hoped, find this Ay-Ibunda of which both Jovann and the cat had told her.
Time meant nothing here, and she could grasp no sense of passing minutes or hours. Again the change was so sudden that she did not realize it had happened until long afterward. For she walked in her own personal hell, and it overwhelmed all else.
She saw the face of the Chhayan man. The man she had killed. She knew now, though she could not say how she knew, what his name had been: Chakra. Chakra, whose life she had ended. He stood before her, behind her, on all sides. And she saw him screaming in the torment of an afterlife that was no rest, no peace, but utter, eternal, hopeless pain. And it was her fault! She had sent him here! She felt his pain as though it were her own, felt it searing her spirit. All was lost! All was endless! His face shifted and became that of Idrus, whom she had not slain with her own hands, but whose death she had brought about. He too was screaming, for there were no angels here to make his sins right. The blood of innocents flowed down his face, and it burned him, and it burned Sairu. The other slavers were there as well, the men who had lost their lives that night. And they were Idrus, and they were Chakra, and they were Sairu herself.
She screamed. But when she opened her mouth it was choked with blood. Falling on her face, she knew she could not walk a single step more on this road, this Dragon’s Path.
But suddenly there were arms around her, strong arms drawing her close. She fell into them, leaning against a warm heartbeat. She heard a voice she recognized, felt it flowing over her like a covering, a shield, a protection.
“Beyond the Final Water falling,
The songs of spheres recalling,
When all around you is the emptiness of night,
Won’t you return to me?”
“I don’t know how to return,” Sairu moaned. “I don’t know the way.”
“Hush,” said the voice, which was like the cat’s voice and yet unlike. “Hush and listen. He will show you the way.” He rocked her as he might rock a baby, still singing softly. And as he sang, the faces of Chakra, Idrus, and the others faded, and the blood and the gore vanished from Sairu’s vision. The Dragon’s Path itself dissipated, giving way to a new Path, a clear Path, shining white and gold. When she dared look up, Sairu saw the wafting of green leaves, the sturdy trunks of tall trees. The Wood surrounded them, opening up before them and pointing clearly straight ahead.
She heard the silver voice of the wood thrush, which she had heard before without recognizing. And it sang: “Won’t you follow me?”
Sairu was on her feet in an instant. The stranger was gone, and the cat was beside her. She looked down at him, and her face almost took on its customary smile, though not quite. “We will find her, Monster,” she said. “We will find my mistress.”
“I hope so,” said the cat. He fell into a loping stride beside her, and the two of them ran down the Path, following the light, following the birdsong. Within a few paces the Wood gave way around them, replaced by swirling, formless mist. A few paces more and they stepped out into the wasteland of the Dream.
The cat came to a halt. The fur along his spine and up his tail stood on end. “Lumé love us!” he said. “This is it. This is the place, the very edge of the Between. This is where the temple was built. Ay-Ibunda.”
Sairu stood very still. She had come to accept the notion of other worlds. She had come to accept the strange truth of the Dream Walkers and the art they practiced. She had seen the lovely opal stones Jovann brought back from the Gardens of Hulan, and she had felt the presence of phantoms she could not see, touch, or perceive with any ordinary senses. She knew there was more to life, to the world, than what she and her small reason could comprehend.
Nevertheless, the sight of the Dream stretching out before her was enough to stop her heart. She wished she could have come here in spirit only, as Lady Hariawan did, leaving her physical body behind. For her physical body did not want to exist here. One false step and she feared all the particles of her being would split, shooting off and away from one another, dispersing her across this terrible, mist-murky waste.
But the need of the Masayi was strong in her heart. She must find her mistress.
And perhaps, when she found her mistress, she would also find Jovann.
“Where is the temple?” Sairu asked, turning to the cat, relieved to see his orange face upturned to hers. He, at least, appeared solid and real, and her eyes clung to him as desperately as her hands might have clung to a lifeline.
“I do not know,” the cat admitted, one white paw curled as he took a tentative step forward. “This is the Realm of Dreams, my girl, and I do not know the laws here. It is more dangerous by far than the Wood, for it is the very edge of the Between. Ay-Ibunda is supported by the dreams of men, but those dreams might be tossed about anywhere across this landscape. You would do well not to search for the temple.”
“What then?” Sairu demanded. “What do I do? Tell me, Monster!”
“You know the answer to that already,” the cat replied. “You know the Path you must follow.”
He was right. She did not want to admit it, but he was right. There was only one Path that could lead her through this dreadful dreamscape. There was only one Path she believed would guide her safely.
She closed her eyes. It made no difference here, for the Dream was in her head. But she was a Golden Daughter, and she knew how to calm and quiet and finally silence each of her senses, one at a time, until only one remained. She blocked out sight, sound, hearing, even taste and touch. She blocked out everything and felt only the beating of her heart. My mistress! she thought.
And then, more softly still, Jovann . . .
Her eyes opened, and they were bright in the strange light of the Dream. “This way!” she said, and moved with confidence across the wasteland, taking in miles with each stride. The Path opened beneath her feet, guiding her, and the cat hastened along behind. Overhead, shapes began to form. Clouds gathered, black and then burning red. Hail fell in fiery stones that glowed through the swirling mist and burned it away, revealing dust on all sides. Still Sairu walked without pause, and the hailstones could not touch her. Far away she saw mountains high and green. But the red clouds gathered and roiled more thickly than ever, blocking these from her sight. They could not block the Path, however.
Then the ground broke. With a gut-wrenching thrill, Sairu found herself flung up suddenly on a jutting strip of rock which shot to the heavens even as the landscape all around fell away, plunging far and gone. She fell headlong upon the ground and felt empty drop on either side, and wind and clouds beating at her head.
“Monster!” she cried, but the cat was nowhere near. Perhaps the break had carried him from her. “Monster!” she cried again, and the searing clouds filled her mouth, burning her throat. She coughed and gagged.
Then another name, one she had heard spoken only once before, appeared in her mind, swelled upon her tongue. She tried to resist speaking it. Why should she? It was not a name she knew. But the sucking depths on either side thrilled her with terror. In desperation she whispered:
“Lumil Eliasul.”
The ground leveled out. With no motion or shift, she found herself once more on the wide plain, standing firm upon her Path. The cat leapt to her side and put his paws up on her knee. “Are you all right?” he demanded, gazing up at her. “For a moment there I was afraid the Dream had taken you!”
Her limbs shook, and she feared that if she spoke she might melt into a puddle of cowardice. So she only nodded. Then, setting her jaw, she proceeded up the Path, the cat at her heels.
Once more the ground broke. But this t
ime it did not carry Sairu with it. Instead she found she had come to the edge of an enormous chasm which had been invisible on the flat landscape until she stood just above it. The vastness of the drop swept over her, and she felt heat rising with terrible intensity. But the Path led her right to the edge, so she crept along until she stood upon the brink. Her arms out for balance, she looked down.
Below her lay a molten lake. In a spidering network across the surface, lines of black rock shifted and groaned, shot with cracks of heat. Otherwise, all was roiling red, and she could not tell from that height if it was water, blood, or magma. It might have been all three at once here in the Dream. She did not wonder at this for long however, for something else caught her gaze.
She saw Hulan’s Gate.
She knew it at once, for she, like all children of Noorhitam, had been raised with the little Moon Gate shrines. Many such shrines decorated the gardens of Manusbau and the Masayi, and Sairu had been made to pray before them and offer gifts back when she was young, back before she lost her faith. But this gate was as different from those shrines as the emperor’s powerful warhorse differed from a child’s painted stick pony. This gate was old, older than Time. And through it Sairu could glimpse the brilliant lights, in so many colors beyond what her own eyes could perceive, of Hulan’s Garden.
“Lights Above, spare us!” whispered the cat. “The Dragon!”
Only then, when the cat spoke, did Sairu see the form like a man standing before that gate. And at his back, balanced upon the black, shifting stones floating on the surface of that fiery lake, stood the Chhayan priests. And they dragged the enormous Gold Gong behind them, as though there were no lake beneath their feet. Indeed, they did not perceive any of the same sights Sairu saw, neither lake nor cliff, but instead walked on flat, empty plain.
The gong gleamed like the sun, shining in the reflected glow of the lake’s heat. It was supported upon two black pillars shaped like dragons. The Chhayan priests brought it to rest right before Hulan’s Gate. Size and perspective were so distorted here in the Dream that to Sairu it seemed as though the gong were as great as the Gate itself, though this could not be possible. She saw that words were etched in the gold, but she did not try to read them for fear of the evil they might spell. Instead she searched the gathered crowd.
“My mistress!” she exclaimed. “Monster, look. It is she!”
And indeed there stood Lady Hariawan, appearing from behind the bulk of the Dragon. She was tiny, but Sairu could not have mistaken her at any distance. How frail and weak she appeared, and blood stained her shoulders and arms.
She stood before the Dragon. And then she bowed.
“No,” Sairu whispered. “No, my mistress. Don’t!”
With this cry, Sairu flung herself down on the edge of the chasm and swung out over the fiery gulf. Scrabbling for any handhold or foothold she could, she began the descent. “Sairu!” the cat called to her. “Don’t be a fool!” But she could not hear him. She slipped and nearly fell, felt the plunge in her gut. But somehow she held on and scrambled down a few more feet. Heat rippled up from below and pushed against her. She almost believed that if she let go, the rising air would catch in her robes and buoy her up into the churning sky.
It was hopeless. She could not make herself move faster. Hanging precariously by one hand, she turned and looked again at the vision below.
Lady Hariawan remained before the Dragon. She straightened from her bow and lifted one hand, allowing the sleeve of her leper’s robe to fall back, baring her arm. She offered this hand, palm up, to the Dragon. He took it, holding it delicately with his own claw-tipped fingers.
Then he raised it to his mouth and bit, sinking poison into her veins.
Lady Hariawan’s cry of pain rang throughout the Dream, across the burning lake, up into the crimson clouds above. Sairu shouted furiously in ineffectual protest, her voice lost in the pain of her mistress. Once more she tried to descend and felt all the resistance of fire beneath her.
Lady Hariawan turned then from the Dragon. She cradled her poisoned hand to her heart, and black blood filled her palm and spilled down her wrist. She turned and approached the gong. Sairu, straining to look once more, suddenly saw a figure bound to one of the pillars. Jovann!
He recoiled at the approach of the beautiful lady stained with blood, her face full of poison. Though Sairu could not hear him, she could feel him in her heart, making his whispered, desperate plea.
“Please, Umeer’s daughter,” he said. “Please don’t do this thing. Don’t give in to the venom.”
Lady Hariawan stood so close to him now that scarcely a breeze could move between them. She gazed into his eyes, and he saw, beneath the lovely contours of her face, the withered hag he had glimpsed before.
“Death. Life,” said she. “What is the difference, Juong-Khla Jovann? Can you tell me this? Can you tell me the secret?”
“No mortal can tell you that,” Jovann said. “It is not for us to know.”
“I would have it for myself,” said Lady Hariawan. “The knowledge of Good. The knowledge of Evil. The knowledge of Life and Death.”
With this, she bent toward him and planted a kiss upon his mouth. Her mouth was wide and insistent, forcing his open to receive hers. And the Dragon’s poison inside her flowed into him. He screamed. She fell against him, clutching his shoulders, his arms, and she too screamed, and their joint pain shattered the worlds around them.
“Now,” said the Dragon. “Now you will strike.”
Lady Hariawan’s hands moved like two dying birds, struggling. But they undid the bindings that held Jovann to the pillar. He staggered forward, and for a moment braced himself as though to run.
“Now,” said the Dragon.
And the poison in Jovann’s veins responded to the word. He took Lady Hariawan by the hand, and the two of them turned to the gong.
A hammer, very small compared to the gong itself, but still so great that it would take the strength of two to lift it, hung suspended from the carved dragon-mouth of the other pillar. Together, Lady Hariawan and Jovann reached up and took hold of it. Together, they lifted it.
“Now,” said the Dragon once more.
They struck. And the voice of the Gold Gong sounded throughout that realm:
DOOM.
Sairu, clinging like a tiny insect to the wall of the chasm, saw the cracks run through the stones of Hulan’s Gate. She saw them break. She saw spears of light shooting through the stones, and these spears grew and spread. She saw the Gate crumble.
And then it fell in a pile of dust, and nothing remained to separate the Dream from the vast spreading vaults of Hulan’s Garden. The thunder of the stars’ singing overcame all, falling upon the Dream in an avalanche of disaster. Sairu’s body quaked down to the very marrow of her bones. She felt her hands resist then freeze.
She let go. Even as the Dragon spread his massive wings and flew roaring up into the heavens, she fell.
The young dragon staggered back, his hand flying to his throat. Blood gushed from his wound, spilled over his hand, and burbled in his mouth, choking. His eyes widened and turned with something between fury and fear to the figure crouching before him, her sword still upraised from her stroke.
Princess Safiya, moving with liquid grace, rose and turned her sword again. She took a single step and lashed out. Her second stroke should have severed his head from his shoulders.
But the blade connected instead with dragon scales and sprang back, blunted and useless. The young dragon, taking on his true form, reared up before her, flame darting from his eyes. He opened his mouth and, without taking care of his aim, let out a blast of fire that would have incinerated Princess Safiya on the spot.
But she was already in motion, and he missed. His long neck twisting, he turned to follow her, still blasting fire from his gut. The stones of the emperor’s throne room blackened and melted beneath that heat, but Princess Safiya eluded him. She sprang around behind him, leaping over his swiping tail. A spi
ke from that tail caught her robe, however, and brought her crashing down. She was up in an instant, pulling her robe free with a long, shredding gash. Before the dragon could turn, she had sprung upon his back, between his beating wings.
The young dragon roared, this time shooting his flame to the high ceiling above. Tapestries lining the walls blazed, and the throne room was now as bright with light as it had before been shadow-shrouded. The dragon reared back on his haunches, and his wings fanned the flames around him. He felt her climbing his scales, though the heat of his body must have burned her. He could feel her now at the back of his head.
Then her sword pierced through a soft place between scales, down into his head.
The dragon shrieked, and his voice was very like a man’s in that moment. He fell, toppling across the burned floor, and lay still.
Princess Safiya, her flesh scarred red with horrible burns, leapt down from the dragon’s neck and stepped back. Her sword remained embedded beneath the scales. Breathing hard but certain of her victory, she navigated out of the coils of his long body and turned her gaze up to the throne where the emperor had been. He had fled, as she had bidden him, in the midst of the battle. She must follow him and continue to assure his—
Fire struck her from behind.
Princess Safiya flew through the air and crashed upon the steps, halfway to the throne. She felt the life fading from her, rising up like smoke from her flesh. With more strength than she knew she possessed, she turned and looked down at the young dragon, who was pulling himself upright, his claws tearing into the floor.
“You cannot kill me with your mortal weaponry!” he snarled. “You cannot kill me, woman!”
His jaw opened, and fire swelled inside. In another moment he would have flamed her into oblivion.
But just then the skies above tore and the voice of the Moon shattered across all the worlds. Every beating heart in every universe—mortal, immortal, sentient, insentient—every heart quailed at the sound, and every pair of eyes upturned to the sky.