Portal of a Thousand Worlds

by Duncan, Dave

  “Your Majesty’s humble servant is distraught to confess that he fails to understand what—”

  “Stop that! I know who I am. You know who I am not. If either Sweet Melody or Devotion produces a boy, my days will be numbered. And so will yours be, my obsequious friend! You know too much.”

  Joyous Diligence remained on his knees, eyes wide, staring up at his master without a word. But he was very far from stupid.

  “How many others around the palace are in on the deception?” Butterfly Sword inquired. “Chief Eunuch must be. First Mandarin? Is Absolute Purity himself still breathing regularly? How many?” He would not mention Snow Lily.

  “I have no idea,” Joyous Diligence said, dropping the pretense of respect. “Why ask? No one will tell you.”

  “Because of what I told you. As soon as she has a baby prince to play with, the tigress will pounce. I, for one, intend to make a break for it before then, and I expect you do, too, but the moment one of us disappears, the rest are compost.”

  This wasn’t going to work, he saw. The basic requirement for bribery was something valuable to offer. He was penniless and already under sentence of death. Joyous Diligence was probably a very wealthy man, if he had managed to stash his loot in a safe place outside the palace walls.

  “You would never get out of the Great Within, imposter,” the eunuch said, barely hiding a sneer. “There are never less than a dozen pairs of eyes on you when you step through that door. Whenever you go riding, troops of cavalry guard every possible exit. At night, men with dogs patrol the grounds around whichever palace you are occupying.”

  “That’s why I am suggesting we form a partnership. You could arrange a small lapse in security. And I …” Um?

  “And you?”

  Butterfly Sword laughed. “And I do not believe a word you say. There may be many people guarding me, but they cannot all be aware that I am not the genuine Emperor. Maybe an officer or two. The rest think they are guarding me, not restraining me. Who gets obeyed when I start shouting orders?”

  “I expect the officer shoots you dead,” Joyous Diligence said. “And I doubt if I am in as much danger as you think, but it is an interesting idea and I will discuss it with my father.”

  A shiver of alarm ran down the imperial imposter’s backbone. “I am not familiar with your father.”

  “He has the honor of being Your Majesty’s Chief Eunuch.”

  Oh, bollocks! The family resemblance was obvious now it was pointed out. Butterfly Sword stammered. “I … I find that a curious paradox.”

  “It is not uncommon, Your Majesty.” There was no respect in that title, only contempt. “My father is a eunuch, as was his father before him. Your Majesty graciously allows his servants to leave the palace as long as we return by dark. I have a house and family in town. Once I had sired the sons I needed, I underwent the operation. They may do the same in their time. When my revered father wanted someone he could trust absolutely to supervise a valuable guest, he chose me. Now, is there anything I can do for you this morning, August Son of the Sun?”

  “Is there something you would particularly like to steal?”

  “Your Majesty is most generous. I do have my eye on that jade horse, but it is a little too heavy to carry. I will get one of my brothers to assist me. May Heaven sustain you, lord.” Joyous Diligence bowed and took his leave.

  Chapter 2

  The Firstborn was dying. His coughing in the darkness was growing weaker, and he had not eaten for two days. He did not know that they had no food to give him, because he had not asked for anything to eat. Shard Gingko lay beside him, wrapped in the same blanket, hoping thereby to keep him warm. They had long since run out of fuel, so the only thing heating the tiny cave was Splendid Steed, the donkey, and she had not eaten for two days, either. Even she was too weak to complain now. Mouse had gone away to look for help in the worst of the blizzard and must be presumed dead by now.

  When the storm ended, perhaps Shard would find the strength to saddle Splendid Steed, and perhaps she would have the strength to carry him to somewhere, and perhaps that place would have some food and fuel to spare to save the Firstborn’s life.

  Back at High Abode, Shard had foreseen the journey south to Dongguan as being long but relatively easy—down the Clay River to the Grand Canal, south to the Great Fish River, and then upstream to Dongguan. Three months or perhaps four, he had guessed, but there he was thinking like a mandarin, as the Firstborn had explained.

  “The Emperor will have ordered the army south by now, which means the canal will be closed to all other traffic. Rebels always stay away from the canal, because they know the army controls it and will destroy the locks rather than let insurgents use it. The Bamboo Banner will keep well inland as it heads north.”

  “Are you certain that it will head north, Master?”

  The Firstborn had smiled his sad, heartrending smile. “Where else can it go? Rebellions almost always begin in the south, but even when one doesn’t, all that rebels ever think of is marching on Heart of the World to explain to the Emperor that he must govern more wisely so their children don’t starve. Sometimes, the Emperor flees and the nastiest of the rebel leaders takes the Golden Throne. More usually, the army meets the rebels halfway and routs them. When soldiers fight farmers, the farmers lose.” He sighed, looking very young and frail. “Now guns have made it much worse.”

  All the rivers ran east. “You are planning to walk to Dongguan?” Shard Gingko glanced down at the reed-thin, twisted legs.

  Sometimes, the Firstborn seemed like the legendary sage of his reputation, pouring out wisdom. At others, he was only a boy, an irreverent one at that. He smirked. “You don’t have to come.”

  “Yes, I do.”

  The Urfather raised a hand in blessing and his smile changed from mockery to gratitude, from boyish to ageless. “It won’t be quite as far as you think. The army almost always turns off from the canal at the Golden River and heads inland. It intercepts the rebels in Jingyan, Shashi, or Wanrong. That is where we must go.”

  For thousands of years, that crippled boy had not met a problem he had not met before, and he had never intended to walk half the length of the Empire on his own twisted legs. He no sooner asked some elders to have a bamboo carrying chair made for him than it was done and strong young men were fighting over the honor of carrying him on to the next village. So it went—a morning’s journey, an afternoon of teaching and preaching, and next day on to the next village. His bearers sang as they trotted. Mouse could keep up, but poor old Shard was usually left hobbling far behind. He worried that Sunlight was leaving an obvious trail for the Emperor’s men to follow, so he always warned the village elders not to let news of the Urfather’s passing spread, and evidently they never did.

  Day after day, month after month.

  The disciple said, “Master, how can I tell what is good from what is evil?”

  The master said, “Tell me a good you know and an evil you know.”

  The disciple said, “Giving alms is good and stealing is evil.”

  The master said, “And which one hurts other people?”

  By Fog Moon, the weather had turned, and they had been in Wanrong, in country too dry to grow rice or even barley. Rumors of famine and insurrection had been growing ever more ominous. Villages lay farther apart, too far for young men to run in a morning. Crops gave way to orchards and vines, then charcoal burning and mining. But Sunlight had said, Miracles are only a matter of patience, and sure enough, one village had given him a donkey. It would have cost far more than he could pay, but he had accepted the charity, named her Splendid Steed, and continued on his way with his disciples trudging alongside.

  Shard Gingko had known that their luck must run out eventually. Fog Moon waned. Cold Moon waxed and then waned. Wolf Moon brought in the new year with a blizzard. Shard Gingko and Mouse would have died the first day,
but the Firstborn knew the country, all the country.

  “This way,” he said, pointing. “There used to be a forest here. There used to be forest everywhere. Rivers did not flood in those days. Up this valley …”

  He led them to the cave, he riding the donkey and Mouse pulling it, although he often had to go back to help Shard also. Mouse was growing fast. Without his strength, they would have all perished. There was a spring nearby, and Mouse gathered thorns and shrubs for fuel, but the blizzard soon buried the landscape and the fuel ran out. The food ran out. The All-Wise had been running a fever and should not have been traveling at all.

  A whisper in his ear: “Grandfather?”

  Shard Gingko had been dozing without knowing it. He started awake to the dark and the cold. At least the cold kept down the stench of donkey dung. Water was dripping somewhere. “Master?”

  “Thank you. For all you have done. It was a good try. Thank Mouse for me.”

  “It is not over yet,” Shard said gamely. “Listen! The wind has stopped. As soon as it is light, we can be on our way. How far to the next village?” He was numb with cold and the frail youth he held was an icicle.

  For a while, there was no reply. Then the Firstborn had another coughing fit, long and painful.

  When he recovered, he croaked, “It was never possible. I should have told you. The Portal of Worlds is going to open.”

  “What has that got to do with it?”

  “Know you of Humble Voice?”

  “A sage of the Ninth Dynasty who wrote of the Portal. His work has been lost, but he is quoted by other writers.”

  The Firstborn tried to chuckle and was taken with another coughing fit. “I expect the Son of the Sun has the original and makes sure no one else sees it. Humble Voice was a big man, loud, and never humble, but he wrote an exquisite fine hand.” He paused to cough again and then continued, sounding weaker then ever. “I am wrong. It was he who said, To claim wisdom is to reveal ignorance. So he was humble once.”

  “You should save your strength, Master.”

  “I have none left to save,” the lad whispered. “Listen, and write when you have light. Humble Voice gathered all the auguries he could find that predict an opening. The Portal opens rarely, about once in a thousand years. I know of seven openings since I first came to the Good Land. When I saw that inscription on the mountain face, the barbarians who lived near there before the coming of the Gentle People swore that it was indeed a real door, and their ancestors had witnessed it opening.

  “Humble Voice listed floods, famines, and insurrection, but those can happen any time. Earthquakes the same. Most of the others are seen often in the years before the Portal opens, but not always—a fire mountain in the Year of the Firebird, an earthquake in the Year of the Raven … many dying stars. All of these may be seen before the opening of the gate, or in cycles when it does not open. Humble Voice knew of four portents that have never failed. The Nightingale sings to two broom stars. We saw this. The dynasty falls, either just before or just after the opening. That is why the Emperor was so anxious to have me answer his questions. His eagerness was such that I think a change of dynasty must be a good thing in this case. It usually is, for a while. Is there water?”

  Shard Gingko stirred himself. “I can go and fetch some.”

  “Wait till I am done. My time is short.” The Firstborn coughed again, but weakly, as if it hurt. “Where was I? A third sure omen is: Demons dance at Snowy Owls. We have heard many times that this happened last year.”

  “But, Master,” Shard Gingko said, anxious to take over the talking for a moment and save the Firstborn’s voice, “you must have seen many openings, and Humble Voice must have garnered the truth of what really did happen at those times. There are so many legends! Did Outlanders really pour out to overrun the Good Land? I wonder if it was just that the Portal stands close by the Wilderness Road to Swordcut Pass. Was that how the Outlanders came, and ignorant people assumed they had come through the Portal? Thus an opening may merely signal their coming, but does not mean that they will emerge through the Portal. And as for Emperor Virtuous Ruler—who supposedly rode into the Portal at the head of his army and never returned—is it not at least possible that he was pursuing an Outlander horde through the Swordcut Pass and was ambushed in the desert beyond?”

  The Firstborn sighed. “I cannot tell you, friend, because there is an omen that Humble Voice did not know of, that only I know. And that is that the Firstborn is not there. Heaven has never let me see the Portal stand open. I very rarely come even this close. Always I die before it opens, and am not reborn until the Year of the Phoenix, two years later. Often, I am born far away. By the time I am old enough to question, men’s memories are already blurred and uncertain. Whatever it is that happens, it must be dread, for I have never found a witness who stayed to watch. Men flee. Or, if they do not, they go mad, or they do not live to speak of what they saw.”

  Shard stared at the faint trace of the icicles that decorated the cave roof. Some were ice and some were stone, and it could not possibly be dawn already.

  “Look, Master! There is light!” Splendid Steed had raised her head and Shard Gingko could make out the shape of her ears against the cave mouth.

  Releasing Sunlight, he wriggled out from the blankets, painfully stiff and weak. He crawled past the donkey and rose unsteadily to his feet, leaning against one of the white stone pillars that Heaven had put there to support the cave roof. He heard voices just an instant before a man pushed aside the hurdle and flimsy old blanket that they used as a door.

  “Are we in time?” the man shouted. It was Mouse, huge in thick padded clothing. “We have brought food, and oil, and charcoal. And the most virtuous Lady Cataract has sent soft bedding and warm furs. Her own physician follows with a sled and horses to pull it; they will be here within an hour.”

  Shard Gingko stammered, too overcome with joy to speak.

  Behind him, the Firstborn whispered, “Yes. You are in time. This time, you are in time.”

  Chapter 3

  Spring had come to Cherish at last. The frigid, dust-laden winds of winter had given way to warm showers. Swallows were back, hills were turning green again, cracked lips were healing.

  Poor Silky had spent a very dreary morning in the gloomy fortress of Cherish, in the company of General Scarlet Meadow, the governor. Most towns and cities were run by mandarins who, while not honest, at least kept watch on one another so that any shortfall in the Emperor’s taxes remained within traditional limits. Frontier stations like Cherish were run by the army, and their governors were petty monarchs.

  Scarlet Meadow was a sour, wizened little man with a hideous scar across his face. He had his mandarin clerks thoroughly cowed—none of them being of higher rank than second anyway—and even the abbess of the House of Joyful Departure almost treated him as an equal, which Silky found quite shocking. Fortunately, she had bought into Silky’s venture and now had brought the governor on side also, at least for the moment. He had spent the last two hours showing Silky his collection of antique swords.

  Silky had enthused, of course, and had presented His Excellency with an addition for his collection, a very valuable archaic bronze blade from the Sixth Dynasty, specially made by the Gray Helpers’ skilled counterfeiters in the House of Joyful Departure on the far side of the town square.

  They had drunk tea.

  At last, it was time to talk business.

  The document that Silky had asked to borrow … ?

  “Ah, yes.” The little soldier fixed him with his remaining eye, canting his head like a chicken. “Such papers are supposed to be utterly secret, of course. Even I am not supposed to pry. … But I suppose that a brief look at just one, here in my study, would not endanger either of us … unduly.”

  He was trying to raise the price.

  “I need to compare the details with data on several
others back in my studio, Your Excellency, as I thought our mutual friend explained.”

  Soldier and assassin regarded each other for several seconds. “You know her well?”

  “Not especially, but we have many friends in common.”

  Scarlet Meadow sighed, and rose to fetch the scroll he had promised.

  Wise of him.

  Silky solemnly promised to return it within four days, five at the most. In a few more minutes, he was on his horse and riding home through the dogs, carts, camels, raucous street vendors, and chickens of Cherish, whistling happily.

  His project was on the move at last.

  The original plan, that complex plot that the Gray Abbot of Wedlock had worked on for so many years, had fallen like a pagoda of mahjong tiles before the fist of reality. The price of real estate in the Fortress Hills had not plummeted as the omens mounted and the Year of the Firebird drew nearer. The locals refused to heed either legends or portents. The Emperor’s mandarins might have records of the Portal opening, but no folk memory could remain after almost a thousand years. The price of real estate had not risen, either. In fact it never changed, because nobody ever sold any. The Emperor relied on his holdings to supply him with the finest horses in the Good Land, while the rest of the landowners were not about to give up their petty fiefdoms. They mostly claimed to be princes, defying anyone to deny it, although all were descended from old-time brigands, smugglers, or barbarian invaders. No doubt some of them still piously followed family traditions.

  Brother Silky could be just as stubborn as they. He refused to lose face by crawling back to Wedlock empty-handed. If they would not listen to reason, he would just have to show them how unreasonable he could be.

  The winter had not been all gloom and frustration, though. He enjoyed being the possessor of a loud and healthy son and a very fine house, both of them provided by his wife. He owned half a dozen horses, too, and even Verdant had taken up riding, there being few other interesting things to do out there on the frontier. The house itself stood on the hillside above the town and commanded a fine view of the river. Like its neighbors, it was enclosed by a high stone wall topped with bronze spikes and hooks.