Golden Daughter

by Anne Elisabeth Stengl

  “You will provide medicines for our sick,” the lady said, gesturing to the man in the sling. “Give my handmaiden whatever aid she requires. I would have that man healed.”

  Without another word she dismounted in a sudden graceful movement. The dogs in their baskets barked and wriggled, wishing to escape along with her. She ignored them and passed silently from among her companions, proceeding into the temple grounds.

  “Honored Daughter,” Brother Tenuk said, his voice thin with nerves, “who are you, please, come among us like the sudden appearing of an angel?”

  He had hoped it would sound gracious and even mystical. Instead it sounded silly in his own ears, and he would have kicked himself if he could.

  But the lady drew near to him and stood taller than he, looking down upon him. “I am Lady Hariawan, servant of Hulan, sacred sister of the Crown of the Moon,” said she.

  Then she blinked. When her eyes opened once more, they were empty and cold as a moonless winter’s night.

  Sairu tried to follow her mistress into the chambers made ready for her. She caught a glimpse of fine, if old, wall-hangings, a warm fire, a low table set with a meal, and a pile of cushions on an enormous bed. But before she could see any more, her wrist was caught in a vise-like grasp.

  Startled, she turned and found herself face-to-face with Lady Hariawan, who stood just inside the door of her new room, with her back pressed to the wall like some fugitive. But her face was as calm as ever, and her voice distant, as though it struggled to exist.

  “Go to him,” she said. “Heal him.”

  “I cannot!” Sairu protested, though all her training forbade her from contradicting her mistress. “My place is at your side.”

  “Go,” said Lady Hariawan. Her grip on Sairu’s wrist tightened momentarily. It startled Sairu, for it was a strong grip, one not easily broken. And yet Lady Hariawan herself could be knocked over by the merest breath of wind.

  “Yes, my mistress,” Sairu said, but only after she glanced again around the room, taking in as much as she could in that instant. She could spy no indication of lurking figures behind the wall hangings, and the windows, though many, were all shut and secured from the inside. This bedroom itself was at the end of a series of three rooms, each of which could be secured behind her as she departed. Lady Hariawan was as safe here as she could be anywhere.

  Which wasn’t safe enough, Sairu thought. But she could not disobey, so after urging her mistress to drop the bolts behind her when she left, she bowed herself out of the series of rooms and stood in the dark corridor beyond. A collection of nervous young acolytes flanked her, twisting their hands and bowing and trying not to look at her with too much curiosity. Many of them hadn’t seen a woman in over a year, and they were still young enough to find Sairu uncomfortably fascinating.

  “Take me to the wounded man,” Sairu commanded with a smile. They fell over themselves to obey.

  As she followed the acolytes, Sairu met Tu Syed, Tu Domchu, and the other temple slaves coming down the passage. They would be expected to sleep in the outermost chamber of Lady Hariawan’s rooms, so they could watch over her mistress for a while at least.

  But, Sairu thought, I cannot depend on them to help should things go wrong.

  Why should things go wrong, though? The journey was over. Lady Hariawan was safe and could recover or recuperate or whatever it was she was meant to do here at her leisure, far from the intrigues of Lunthea Maly, sequestered away in the quiet of these mountains. The Besur might be unwilling to share the whole truth of the situation with Sairu, but he wasn’t a liar. She had seen that in his face. He honestly intended to keep Lady Hariawan safe and believed this to be the safest haven possible.

  But what the Besur believed and the truth of the matter might not be the same. And Sairu could not shake the feeling that something . . . something . . . was not right.

  Something about the abbot’s old, hairless face.

  A humble building set apart from the main temple served as an infirmary. There the acolytes led Sairu, and she discovered the slave lying on his stomach upon a low pallet in the shadows.

  “Bring me light,” Sairu said as she knelt beside him, for there were not enough windows in this building to allow in the sun. Soon enough she was surrounded by a series of lamps. By their glow, she did as she had done the last many days, unbinding the slave’s back and washing the wicked gashes. She asked for balm, and when it was brought to her she dismissed the acolytes, who left her alone in the infirmary with her patient. It was a very small, sad sort of aloneness, one that felt as though it wanted to be broken. But she hadn’t the patience to deal with others. Not now.

  She opened the jar of balm and rubbed its contents gently into the slave’s puckering skin. He trembled at her touch but did not moan. He was frighteningly silent. She could not tell whether he was sleeping or awake. Possibly neither.

  “So tell me, little mortal, does this place give you the same unsettling tingle in the whiskers as it does me?”

  Sairu used two fingers to scoop more balm from the jar and smeared it between the slave’s shoulder blades without a glance for the cat, who had appeared across from her, his ears back-tilted. She ran her hand gently across the fevered skin, feeling the pain beneath her fingertips as though it were her own. She spoke in a whisper, though there was no one else in the room. “Why does the name Daramuti upset you?”

  One tufted ear flicked forward. “It doesn’t,” said the cat in a tone that told her it absolutely did. “Besides, that’s not the question. Doesn’t that abbot give you the shivers? Tell me honestly.”

  Sairu glanced at the cat. She smiled then and focused on her work once more. “Are you afraid?”

  “Never,” said the cat. “But I think it might be a good idea if I remained on hand, don’t you? If the devil sours the milk, as it were, you can’t depend on your hedge-pigs to protect you. They’ve not proven much use in devil-warding, now have they?”

  Sairu’s mouth continued to smile even as the rest of her face set into hard lines. “I don’t trust you,” she said, but she wasn’t paying attention to the cat anymore. She stared at the side of the slave’s face turned toward her. Her brows knit together, and she bent down, putting her ear close to his parted mouth.

  “I don’t blame you,” said the cat. “I wouldn’t trust me either, but it would still be wiser of you—What are you doing? A bit soon for kisses, don’t you think? You’ve only just met!”

  “He’s . . .” Sairu sat up, and all trace of her smile was gone. She stared at the slave, shook her head, then gently used finger and thumb to open his eye. She shook her head again. “He’s gone.”

  “What? Dead?” The cat sniffed, smelling plenty of life in the mortal body before him. He lashed his tail. “What do you mean, gone?”

  “I don’t know. He’s not here,” said Sairu. “He’s fled away. He’s . . .” She pressed her lips together, her eyes widening. Her hands slowly drew back, as though against her will, and folded and pressed themselves into her lap. “I think he’s dream-walking.”

  “What?” said the cat.

  The hair rose on the back of Sairu’s neck. Feeling eyes upon her, she carefully masked her expression and turned a demure face over her shoulder. Brother Tenuk, bathed in the fading sunlight streaming through the door, leaned heavily upon his cane, his face hidden beneath his abbot’s hood.

  “My daughter,” he said, his wizened old voice scarcely able to cross that distance to her ears. “Will Lady Hariawan’s slave survive?”

  “He will, Honored Brother,” said Sairu, turning and bowing to the floor. While prostrate, she carefully checked her expression, making doubly certain it revealed nothing. Then she sat upright again, all sweetness and innocence, lacking any trace of guile. Any trace of fear. “I must be allowed to work in peace,” she said. “To honor my mistress’s will.”

  She could not see the abbot’s face. But by the way he stood, unmoving save for a shivering in his knees, she knew he was car
efully evaluating what he saw before him. She offered a little smile.

  It was enough. The abbot turned away, saying as he went, “Do as you must, my daughter.”

  Then he was gone. Sairu sighed and sagged where she sat. Her hands squeezed together until they hurt, and her knuckles stood out white.

  “There go my whiskers tingling again,” said the cat, sitting up from where he had crouched in hiding behind the slave. “I wish I knew what bothers me so about his face!”

  Sairu turned sharply to the cat. “He’s older than he should be,” she said. “That’s what it is. He is too old.”

  “What are you talking about?” said the cat. Then he meowled, leapt over the slave’s still body, and raced after Sairu down the infirmary aisle and on out the door. “Where are you going?” he demanded.

  Sairu did not answer. A Golden Daughter is blessed with intuition and instincts that even she is not always able to understand. But she knows well enough to act upon them at a moment’s notice.

  So, when Sairu’s brain suddenly exploded with silent screaming, she did not question it but scrambled to her feet and ran, her only thought: My mistress! My mistress!

  For so long, there was only pain.

  Then he heard the voice again. The voice he had been straining his ears, straining all his spirit to hear. And when he heard it, the pain vanished in a powerful flood of relief, and he stepped out of his body into the white emptiness.

  Will you follow me, Jovann?

  He escaped the torments of fever. He escaped the fire of infection. He slid from his body and sped away, into the white, on to the Wood. Through the gateway trees and into the circling safety of the Grandmother Tree’s clearing.

  Jovann stood bodiless, breathing in the golden stillness of that clearing, breathing the strength of the Grandmother, whose roots ran so deep and whose branches rose so tall. Then he took the form of his body, his whole and healthy body, and smiled to feel his limbs strong and his back no longer torn.

  The wood thrush up in the branches sang, “Welcome, Jovann.”

  Jovann approached the great tree. It was so tall that he found it difficult to spot the brown bird even when it perched on the lower branches. How gnarled and solid and real was the trunk of the Grandmother before him, yet somehow less real than the song flowing down from above.

  “You sent me back, my Lord,” Jovann said, straining his neck as he gazed up into the leaves. “You sent me back to nothing. You sent me back to pain. Where is the future you promised me?”

  “The future is now. The future is nigh,” said the bird. Jovann spotted the flash of its white breast as it fluttered from branch to branch. “But you must Walk far deeper than ever you have before. I am going to share a wonder with you, Jovann. Will you see it?”

  Jovann hesitated. He had seen so many visions, so many wonders over the years. And so far he had not seen them come to pass. But it was difficult indeed to refuse that silver song.

  “I will see it,” he said.

  “Then Walk into the Dream. A path will be given you. You must follow wherever it leads you and however far. And you must trust me.”

  And then, even as it had the last time, the bird took flight. Jovann’s eyes were only just quick enough to catch a fleeting glimpse of it before it vanished into the greater Wood beyond the Grandmother’s circle. And Jovann stood alone with the Grandmother.

  “Walk into the Dream?” Jovann whispered, frowning at the great tree as though it would answer him. “What does that mean? Is this not my dream?” He shuddered, wondering if the bird meant for him to leave the Grandmother’s clearing. He glanced over his shoulder into the shadows of the looming Wood, so thick and so forever. Though he knew he bore no coward’s heart, he quailed at the very idea of stepping into that enormous unknown.

  He bowed his head and suddenly felt as though the hurts of his waking body had caught up with him, filling his limbs with the fever’s agony. His stomach heaved, though he had no real stomach here and should be able to escape such pains. His back shivered with the many red lashes.

  Then, as though from an incredible distance, he thought he heard a voice speaking in his ear, a gentle but urgent voice commanding him so that he dared not disobey:

  “Draw it down. Hold your pain. Draw it down into your hand.”

  Even here in the Wood, standing in an imagined form, he cupped his hands, closed his eyes, and held his pain in a small, contained ball. The pain itself did not vanish, but it became something he could hold, something he could bear.

  Then it was gone, far from him, back in the waking world. He opened his eyes and looked around, wondering aloud, “Where is she?”

  Until that moment he had forgotten the beautiful, nameless girl he had glimpsed the last time he came to this place. But now he looked here and there, expecting to see her. For surely she must come to him here. Had she not promised “I’ll find you again. Wait for me.”

  “I’m waiting,” he whispered. Then he raised his head, raised his voice, and cried out into the everlasting Wood, “I am waiting for you! Will you come to me again?”

  “Yes.”

  Jovann nearly tripped over his own feet, turning as suddenly as he did. Although he had just been looking for her, he was surprised when she appeared, stepping around from behind the Grandmother Tree, her hand trailing lightly on the trunk. She wore a white gown in Kitar style with a square front panel, a wide sash, and long, flowing sleeves. The sumptuous bulk of fabric did nothing to disguise her slender frame. Her neck and collarbone were painted with red flowers and black stems twining up her pale skin.

  She was as beautiful as he remembered.

  “I have never been able to find the Wood,” she said. Her voice wasn’t strong, but it was commanding, low and dark as the shadow of Hulan herself. “We have heard it spoken of, and many writings tell of its greatness,” she said. “I have sometimes glimpsed it in the distance, but whenever I set my face toward it, it retreated from me and I could never draw near. None of my brethren have even tried to discover its secrets.”

  Jovann realized he was staring. He drew a deep breath, finding his voice with an effort. “You came when I was left alone. You found me here.”

  “Yes. I heard you calling, and it was as though a path opened at my feet,” she said. “I was able to follow your voice into this Wood, to this very place. I was able to do what I have never done before.” She leaned against the Grandmother’s trunk, her head tilted back, exposing her delicate throat. The painted flowers seemed to twine about her neck like the loveliest of nooses. “Your voice surprised me. I have never heard its like, not even on the edge of the Dream.”

  The wood thrush’s command came back to Jovann as she spoke: Walk into the Dream. A Path will be given you. And trust me . . . trust me . . . trust me . . .

  “Can you take me to the Dream?” Jovann asked. “Do you know the way?”

  The girl braced herself and pushed away from the tree trunk. How weak she must be, he thought, for she walked slowly as though uncertain of her balance. He wanted to reach out and support her but feared that his touch might drive her away. As she drew near, however, she put out a hand and took hold of his arm. He was surprised to feel warm fingers clutching his skin. They felt as real as anything in the waking world. He found it difficult to breathe.

  “Please,” he said, “tell me your name.”

  “No,” said she. “Names are not safe.”

  “But I must know!” he insisted, startled at his own urgency. “Please. I am Juong-Khla Jovann, son of the clan chief, my father’s heir.”

  Her grip on his arm tightened, and her eyes flashed to his face. They were lovely eyes, gently sloping, black as night, and full of sudden fury. “I told you. Names are not safe.”

  “My name is safe with you, I think,” Jovann replied. “I want you to have it. I want you to know it. Please tell me yours in return.”

  It was a most basic, a most essential politeness. Kitar, Chhayan, Pen-Chan . . . some laws extend across
all peoples. He watched her jaw set, the muscles tensing as she considered her position. The green-cast shadows of the Grandmother’s leaves above made her face seem even paler. So different from the roughened, weathered, red-skinned Chhayan women he knew.

  “Umeer,” she said at last.

  “Umeer?” Jovann repeated. “That must be your father’s name.”

  She nodded once.

  “But what is your name?” he insisted. Very gently he slid one hand up onto his arm, resting it atop her fingers. “Who are you?”

  For a moment he thought she would withdraw. She did not, however. The fury melted from her face, replaced by a mask of serenity.

  “I will not tell you my name,” she said. “I am . . . I am afraid.”

  Then she began to walk, and Jovann allowed her to lead him to the very edge of the clearing. Beyond stretched the Wood, as unsearchable, as unknowable as a lunatic’s memory. Not once in all the years since he was first called into this clearing had Jovann so much as considered stepping outside.

  But the girl progressed out of the clearing, and the shadows could not mar the white purity of her gown, of her skin. Her hand was still on Jovann’s arm, and he must either follow or break her hold. She paused, looking back over her shoulder through the long glossy fall of her hair.

  “Come with me, Juong-Khla Jovann,” she said.

  And when she spoke his name, he knew he could never disobey her.

  They stepped into the Wood, and though the trees grew thick and the undergrowth thicker still, a path spread before their feet. The trees themselves drew away from them, pulling ferns and wildflowers and lush grasses aside to give these mortals clear passage. The girl walked in complete silence, her feet stepping soundlessly on the Wood’s floor. Jovann followed in her wake, led by her insistent hand, and he said nothing.

  But he wondered if he should not have given her his name so freely.

  He looked at her hand on his arm. An exquisite hand with long, delicate fingers and nails burnished with gold paint. He allowed his gaze to progress up her arm to her shoulder, and on to her throat where the painted flowers graced her perfect skin. And he decided that he did not mind. Let her hold him in thrall. Let her control him, manipulate him even. He would do anything for her, whether or not she knew his name.