Raven's Warrior

by Pratchett, Vincent

  Urban Night

  This was a city that never slept. I crossed the Dragon Ford Bridge on the imperial walkway, which formed the central north-south axis running through the old and new cities. Both sides of the walkway were lined with commoners’ quarters and aristocrat mansions, shopping galleries, and merchant stalls of all description. Everywhere the staccato call of the hawkers cried their wares. The resplendent red lanterns of the night market caught my eye, and I quickly disappeared into the bustling vitality of the pulsing urban night.

  I crossed the canal that passed through the city and was its life line. It fed the moat around the outer walls and floated barges of goods and food to and from the surrounding warehouses. It joined the city to the Grand Canal in the south and the Yellow River to the north.

  This city was tumultuously cosmopolitan, filled with multitudes from every place in every manner of attire. Gymnasts soared and tumbled in the streets while riches also climbed and fell in financial acrobatics. Fortune tellers read the lines etched on outstretched hands. Money flashed auspiciously through countless fingers, fortunes truly held within the palm. I walked on past temple gardens and restaurants, but soon the number of people and the regular grid of the wards stifled me, and I chose instead to follow the quieter wandering banks of the canal with no thoughts in mind of destination or purpose.

  They led me gently past the booths that featured everything from shoes and clothing to the shops of traditional healers and their herbal medicine. The dank coolness of the green water flowed on, and I flowed with it. The grunting and squealing of the pigs reached my ears just before the smell of the abattoirs reached my nostrils. Strangely, it was a refreshing respite from the perfumed courtesans of the palace.

  I continued to walk, and as the cry of the pigs diminished with the growing distance, the high- pitched sound of female voices grew to take its place. Many comments and proposals came my way as I strode through the neighborhood brothel like any other soldier. However, I was not inclined toward tryst or dalliance and so kept pace with the moving waterway.

  Before too long, something of interest did again catch my ear. It was the steady pounding sound of machinery and industry. I had arrived in the fabric district. Once more I left the serenity of the banks, and taking to the narrow laneways, I meandered happily through silk and garment, carpets and weavings, but it was the sound of constant rhythm that drew me onward. I felt the wooden cadence of the engine pull me through the darkness to the open door of the run-down shop.

  What I heard with ear was the click clack tempo of unknown machine, but what I heard with heart was the ghostly echo of marching soldiers.

  The Morning Looms

  She and many of her people had settled within the protective walls of the very capital that had made them refugees. She worked the great loom by day and by night, driven by survival rather than artistic calling, guided by necessity rather than inspiration. Although she was always vigilant, she could not have heard his approach above the clatter of the loom, and yet she looked toward the open doorway even before his tall frame had filled it.

  Hope reared up with the memory of her husband, and in the less time than the beat of a bird’s wing, reality had banished it. It could not be him. At a glance she knew the stranger that entered was not a drunken castoff from the brothel region, but a warrior from a far distant land, and she froze before the threads. He was embarrassed and apologetic for his clumsy interruption, and in an accent bordering on incomprehensible, he managed to make it clear that his interest lay in the wonders of the machine before her and implored her to “Work on.”

  This she did, and although initially self-conscious, she soon relaxed back into the symphony of color and strand. The noisy beat and measure marched within the room once more, as the warrior sat with sword on back. While he quietly watched and listened, her powerful legs worked the treadles as her fingers moved like lightning over and between the delicate fibers of her craft.

  In the cold comfort of this hovel, he marveled at how she controlled the loom. The cosmic engine of the palatial courtyard harmonized time and space, but she transcended it. He looked at the finished rugs hung haphazardly upon the walls, and his eye was drawn to the room’s shadowed corner. There he saw her two small boys safely covered by warm layers of wool and silk. They lay in the deep and peaceful sleep of childhood, entwined together like an animal’s litter. Both were red-faced and plump, healthy, and happily alive.

  The shadow of her husband’s memory returned now with every glimpse of the man before her. She knew who he must be, for in the crowded quarters of the poor, stories are told and retold flowing downward from palatial heights. She worked steadily on, beckoning him closer to catch a subtle movement of her hand or finger, or showing without words the intricate movement and design of her instrument, and time flew by for both.

  Unwelcomed came the sound of distant drumming that marked the end of commerce and revelry, and signaled that it was now his time to return to his family within the palace. He stood and strode to the children’s corner and without thought placed all his paper money down beside them. He saw the look of protest on her face, and she saw the resolve on his.

  By lamps soft light she had seen the color shimmer through his armor and searched briefly among the shadowed piles that sat upon the floor. Like her movements at the loom, her actions were deliberate, and she soon stood before him, now holding the woad blue weaving from her former life. She did not question the course she chose, but pressed the woven fragment into the strong hands of this warrior. He humbly accepted her gift. He saw clearly the skill of its weaver locked within its fabric, and knew that its small size and single color spoke that this was not a carpet.

  She explained gently that, “this is the last and unfinished work of a master weaver from the northlands. I thought I would keep it forever, but now I see its purpose. It will fit perfectly between your saddle and your charger. It is the color within your armor and will show you well upon your stallion.”

  Arkthar looked from it to her and understood that real beauty is woven on the looms of strength and forbearance. She released her hold upon the textile and felt a great weight lift from her tired shoulders. In that instant she knew that life would go on.

  Her hands reached up and pulled him quickly down to her. Their lips met in the impassioned kiss of encounter and farewell. In this embrace time ceased, and began anew only after they had released their hold. He looked briefly to her resting cubs, and then stared deeply into eyes that overflowed with the waters of deep emotion. In a heartbeat he had turned and disappeared into the growing brightness of the coming dawn, as though he had never been at all.

  She would never wonder why she had handed her loving husband’s last work to a foreign stranger on a slim moon’s night, for like the man she loved; she could now read well the changing patterns of the threads.

  The Poem Of Li Bai

  I moved quickly back along the way that I had come. The city of night folded swiftly with practiced precision. Revelers and merchants alike evaporated in the rays of the coming day. To be caught out after the drumming had ended brought retribution, for here order was the law.

  As I approached the palace, the growing light revealed details hidden by the veil of night. I stopped at the poet’s nest and saw that it lay within a garden of great tranquility. Water flowed over rock, while leaf and blossoms of a solitary tree lent shelter to the empty bench beneath it. The singing and music long ended, the echoed smell of perfume, wine, and rosewood still danced beneath its roof. Li Bia slumped and snored where I had left him. The pretty courtesan had covered him from the morning dampness, and gathered carefully his papered verses, all but one. “This verse,” she said, “he called ‘Crows Calling at Night,’” and added softly, “For you.”

  Looking down I saw the flowing splendor of his script and read the fluid beauty of his words.

  Yellow clouds beside the walls; crows near the tower.

  Flying back, they caw, caw; calling in the b
oughs.

  In the loom she weaves brocade, the Qin river girl,

  made of sapphire yarn like mist.

  The window hides her words.

  She stops the shuttle, sorrowful, and thinks of the distant man.

  She stays alone in the lonely room, her tears just like the rain.

  The Emperor

  The movement of time does not flow like the straight and level roads of the empire, but revolves like a great wheel that turns upon them. More than a thousand years have passed since the First Emperor held the throne, and yet his power is still felt throughout this realm. It is reflected in the very infrastructure of this kingdom, monetary and military, financial and filial, and all had nearly come crashing down. Under the watchful eye of his trusted minister, the current ruler stared out at the Sacred Peaks of Longevity in the distance, then swallowed his potent and bitter elixir of immortality. Standing tall and still, he paused for introspection. He pondered his legacy and wondered how history would portray him.

  He held his arms straight out to the sides as his minions dressed him in the imperial robes of yellow. His mind settled as his thoughts fell into their process. The meaning of his title is “celestial magnificence,” the mediator between heaven and his people. The Mandate of Heaven was slipping, and the signs of its impending loss were everywhere. The disorder and destruction that marks the end of every dynasty had certainly begun. He knew that when an emperor’s power is rescinded by heaven, it is seized by men. As he thought about the northern battle and the plague that followed it, he realized that the siege had not ended with the insurgent’s death, it had escalated.

  The speech he had been handed had been reviewed, but he would not use it, choosing instead to speak from his heart. Words for him came easily when spoken to those that had to listen, a short two hours would be enough for him to express his gratitude and say goodbye.

  The First Emperor’s great wall had done its work well. The Middle Kingdom had existed in isolation for a millennium, and yet a warrior from a world away now graced his court. This wild one had a power that came from within, all the makings of a great King. If the scars he carried were honest, this man had survived where many others had perished. Arkthar had given freely to a people not even his own, and the emperor knew that all this great warrior had offered was driven by a force called love.

  The beautiful young woman was wise beyond her years. The emperor’s own royal physicians had wilted before her knowledge and insight, and they had been reeducated in the traditions of this girl. The Son of Heaven looked forward to lavishly rewarding her.

  He studied Mah Lin and had almost come to regret the monastic genocide he had ordered so many years ago. The duties of an emperor weigh heavy sometimes, but as he had watched this monk’s deadly artistry with the cutting staff, he knew it had been a necessary one. He was pleased that this priest harbored no grudge.

  As the Imperial robes of authority and power were secured, his outstretched arms began to grow weary and thoughts turned to the one in rags. The Son of Heaven liked neither his blackened tatters nor his lingering smell, but he too, had been instrumental in the plague’s eradication. The disease that had come so close to finishing this present dynasty had been conquered, the march toward chaos, slowed. Only the wisest of rulers would have known to let him live. The emperor wondered what favors a beggar would ask to be bestowed.

  Fully dressed, he was ready to deliver his speech of departure. It was a farewell to these strange guests, and perhaps the last oration of an aging emperor. He was indeed grateful, not just for the vanquishing of the pox, but for his involvement in it. He smiled inwardly; before they came he would never have been remembered as a great emperor, but because of them, he will, at the very least, be remembered as a good one.

  As his outstretched limbs thankfully began to lower, his litter was prepared and waiting. With his High Minister respectfully in place behind the carriage, the emperor’s journey to the Great Hall began.

  The Time Draws Near

  In the months that followed that initial meeting within the palace court, he had watched the four concentrate on their task. Putting the scabs of disease in the nostrils of the healthy was more madness than he could fathom. It was witchcraft, and it stank of occult malevolence.

  The commander took no joy from the stemming of the smallpox or the role that his men had in it. His young page led the forefront of its organized treatment, and for this open betrayal, the boy would be made to suffer. He had been advised to stop the beatings. He would comply, not because of respect, but because he had a much crueler punishment in store for him.

  Time had slowed for the commander, now the passage of a single week seemed more the passage of an entire year. Waiting without acting had been difficult for this man who saw himself a man of action. Gradually, however, painful weeks had piled to months and the time of their departure drew closer. Finally, he had on this day received the summons to report to the palace. The day of their exodus and subsequent demise had arrived. He would endure the pitiful speech of a grateful ruler, and wait.

  Over the passing of half a year he had not exacted direct revenge, yet he had not been idle. Back in his quarters, alone but for the severed head of the rebel, iniquity had continued to feast. He relied heavily on strong spirits to numb his raging pain, and within his mind built silken scaffolds of scheme and plot. These webs he tore down and constructed anew and grew in confidence at their refining. Now that the time had arrived, he felt himself ready to strike once more from the safety of distance and the hidden shadows of dark and solitary inspiration. He had tasted humiliating defeat upon the training field, and it was a flavor that he would be loath to experience again.

  The page was shocked at the appearance of his overlord, who strode proudly toward the palace court for the assembly. He was in stride almost jubilant as if the cloak of hide and hair held no weight upon his shoulders. The wound on the forearm of his commander had healed well, and the boy still wished that it had been fatal. With this thought the lad realized he had been looking at his master’s face and turned his gaze away fearing another beating. It did not come, however, for on this day the imperial might of military command was, in fact, elated.

  It was known by all within the palace grounds that the four who had stemmed the sickness of the kingdom would be leaving very soon. This saddened the page greatly. They had brought about many changes within the empire and within him. He had been diligent in his lessons from his masters. Every night he struck as they struck and parried as they parried. The boy had even begun to plunge his fingers through sand and stones to make them strong and durable. He had taken Arkthar’s dark advice to heart, and life was easier in the wait. One day he knew that he would get his chance.

  Still, he was unnerved by the good mood of his tormentor, for this was an unusual development.

  As the heavy steps of the man faded into the direction of the palace court, a boy’s intuitive wisdom sounded that something sinister was now afoot.

  Two Favors

  Within seven full moons the deadly march of the great epidemic had been halted, and my time in palace opulence was, in the word of the beggar, “Enough.” I longed for my home on the ancient temple grounds and wanted only to get back to the life I had with Mah Lin and Selah. In truth, the sword had spoken to me from its place upon my back often and loudly. This was not a place of safety and not a place of peace. The harmony that had settled here was brought by us, and I was sure it would vanish with our leaving.

  Selah was initially cold toward me after my night meeting with the page, but in the weeks that followed that icy demeanor warmed like the changing of the seasons. The page, too, was less friendly, he seemed afraid, as if it were me who had stirred his hidden thoughts. Only the monk and the beggar had cast no judgment. In time, however, things returned to their natural place, and our job here was almost complete, we had conquered an enemy that was smaller by far than the eye could see. It was my smallest foe but perhaps my greatest victory, and f
inally it was time to return from where we had come.

  I was in good spirits when the summons from the emperor had arrived. Like all conquests this one also demanded all the pomp and ceremony that imperial protocol dictated, and a long-winded speech would be a small price to pay for freedom. It is true that freedom rules the heart of every slave, and soon I would be free once more to be love’s captive, and ruled by the bonds of family.

  We four gathered and assembled in front of the great throne and awaited the emperor’s entrance. Even upon bended knee and with eyes cast down, my sword whispered to me the location of the commander within the large hall, and the heavy drifting smell of fetid bear hide confirmed it.

  The murmurs of gratitude and admiration ceased as the emperor was carried in and took his place upon the Dragon Throne. He smiled graciously to our party and seemed in every way a divine ruler. He did not slow his words for me, but occasionally for my benefit he spoke them louder. Words turned to a drone as my mind and eyes chose to occupy themselves elsewhere. Indeed, his robe offered them a feast. It, too, was made by the worms, and although more ornate than my attire, I doubted that it was spun with love.

  It was yellow in background and dazzling in execution. The bottom hem was lined with the overlapping waves of the sea, blue and white, water and foam. Across the chest of The Son of Heaven was emblazoned the five-clawed beast of dreams. It seemed to frolic amid clouds of drifting silk embroidery, this beast that brings the rains.

  With a change in tone, I came back to the room in which we stood and made effort to follow the speech. It had moved on to farewells and eternal gratitude. It seemed this man had grown fond of our unique clan, and it seemed we would be missed but never forgotten.