“Because I’m no longer alone,” she whispered. “Because I’ve lived through poverty and through war, and I found a place to belong, and I found something to fight for. Because I’m no longer Koyee Mai, a frightened orphan. I am my dreams under the moon.” She swallowed a lump and looked at those towers outside her window. “Though evil burns outside, and though I am afraid, I found a new home. Father, I hope I made you proud.”
The door creaked open. The yezyani stirred in their chairs but did not wake. He stood there in the doorway, a mere shadow, daring not enter, but in his mismatched eyes she saw his compassion. For so long those eyes had haunted her—the eyes that had stared over her father’s bones. For so long those had been demon eyes. Now she saw the eyes of a friend … of Torin.
She looked at him, and he stared back, and he did not speak, but she knew his thoughts.
I’m here. I will not leave you.
“You are day and I am night,” she said to him, and a smile found her lips. “You are a white wing and I am black. Together we will fly.”
A flutter caught her eye, and she looked up and gasped. Fresh tears filled her eyes, her smile trembled, and Koyee laughed because she knew that though her city crumbled, there was still hope and goodness in the world. She reached up and the moth landed on her fingertips, a duskmoth shaped like the world, its wings of sunlight and darkness. It moved its feathery antennae, tilted its head, and then flew out the window into the endless night.
EMPIRES OF MOTH
THE MOTH SAGA: BOOK TWO
DANIEL ARENSON
Copyright © 2013 by Daniel Arenson
All rights reserved.
This novel is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination, or, if real, used fictitiously.
No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by an electronic or mechanical means, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the express written permission of the author.
CHAPTER ONE
JIN
In the darkness of the new moon, another assassin tried to kill Shenlai, the last dragon of the empire.
Jin felt so helpless, lying there, watching, shouting, unable to move. He was Emperor of Qaelin, a vast land that stretched across so much of the night, and yet as this enemy attacked, he felt like no more than a crippled boy. How he wished for legs that could run! How he prayed for arms and hands that could wield weapons! He had none, but he had a mouth … and he screamed.
“Shenlai! Shenlai, fight him! Guards!”
Shenlai filled most of his bedchamber, his scaled body coiling around the bed, pressing up against the walls, his blue scales chinking. An ancient dragon, Shenlai was too large for this chamber—he was meant to sleep in great caves, on mountaintops, or even upon the moon itself—but Jin was always so scared to sleep alone. Ten years old and limbless, even an emperor found fear in loneliness and shadows. And so Shenlai entered his bedchamber every hourglass turn, delicately looped himself around the bed, and watched over Jin until he fell asleep.
Yet now … now would this kindness be the dragon’s death?
“Shenlai!” Jin called, tears in his eyes.
The assassin, clad in the dark silks of the dojai order, was lashing a wavy dagger, slamming the blade repeatedly against Shenlai’s scales. The dragon tried to fight back. He raised his head and lashed his tail, but he could barely move; the walls pressed against him like a cocoon, and his horns kept clattering against the ceiling. Perhaps the dragon could have fought better, Jin thought, were he not still carefully enveloping the bed, protecting his emperor.
Even as he bleeds, as the blade thrusts into him, he only thinks to protect me, Jin thought.
“Guards, please!” Jin cried, knowing they were dead. The only way a dojai assassin could reach his chamber, which lay deep within the palace, was to slay his defenders.
“Tell me your secret!” shouted the assassin, driving his dagger down against Shenlai. Blue scales cracked and blood seeped. “Feel your blood flow and reveal your secret, blue dragon of Qaelin.”
Jin hopped upon the bed, trying to reach his friend, to leap onto the assailant and bite, but he only fell facedown onto the mattress. His bed was so large, a plain of silk, and he was so small, so weak. If he had limbs he could have leaped up, fought, and saved his friend. Born without them, he could simply lie and watch.
Like every other assassin, this robed man cared not to slay the boy emperor—only to hear Shenlai’s dying words, for the last dragon of Qaelin held a secret, a great truth that could change the world, a knowledge for which armies had fought. Only with his dying breath could this ancient blue being reveal his secret. And so every year they tried to kill him—sometimes great hosts with a hundred thousand men and wolves, sometimes only lone killers. For five thousand years they had tried to slay Shenlai. For ten years, small Jin had loved his dearest—his only—friend.
I cannot see you die. But what can I do? His eyes burned. I was born limbless, the child of siblings. How can I save you?
The dagger sank again, driving between scales into the dragon’s flesh, and Shenlai turned his head to look at Jin. His gleaming eyes, each as large as Jin’s head, filled with sadness. He blinked, his lashes ruffling the blankets, and a tear streamed down into his white beard. Looking upon the dragon, Jin realized something that perhaps he should have seen years ago, that was so obvious his mind had never even considered it.
Shenlai has no limbs either. Jin took a shaky breath. Yet he’s the greatest being I know.
“Reveal your secret, Shenlai,” the assassin demanded, blood on his gloves. “You are dying. Your blood flows. Speak your words.”
Shenlai opened his mouth, revealing sharp teeth, and Jin froze, tears in his eyes, wondering if this was it. After five thousand years, would Shenlai die here in this chamber, protecting him, and speak his mystery?
“No, Shenlai,” Jin whispered, shoving his armless shoulders against the bed, pushing himself up. “I don’t care what your secret is. You don’t have to tell anyone. Please. Please don’t die.”
Dagger in hand, the assassin turned toward him. Jin couldn’t see the man’s face—a black scarf hid it—but he saw his eyes. Large, emerald eyes flecked with gold. The assassin stared, and those eyes narrowed.
“So the stories are true,” the man said. “The Emperor of Qaelin is but a limbless boy, but a creature. Maybe after Shenlai bleeds out and I hear his secret, I will slay you too, and I will sleep upon your bed, and I will rule your empire.”
Finally it seemed that rage filled Shenlai’s blue eyes. The dragon bared his fangs and lunged toward the assassin, his horns scraping along the wall. The assassin leaped back, dodging the attack, and thrust his dagger again. The blade sparked across Shenlai’s cheek.
“Still alive, old beast?” The man laughed. “Bleed out! Bleed for me. With your dying breath, you will reveal your truth. I will quicken the process.”
He raised the dagger again, prepared to stab Shenlai in the neck.
I have no strength, Jin thought. I have no speed. But this is my friend, and he’s always protected me. Now I must save him.
Jin narrowed his eyes, dipped his head down, and grabbed his silken sheet between his teeth. Most people were surprised Jin could move at all; they thought him capable of no more than lying like a pillow. But even without limbs, Jin would often roll across rugs, hop about, and even swim. Now he leaped higher and farther than ever. He flew from the bed, the sheet clutched in his teeth; it trailed behind him like a cape. He sailed over the assassin’s head, then opened his mouth, letting the sheet fall upon the intruder.
The man grunted and slashed at the silk enveloping him.
Jin thudded against the corner and thumped to the ground.
He spun to see a figure like a ghost, a sheet spinning around, the dagger tearing through the fabric.
“Kill him, Shenlai!” Jin cried. He sat slumped i
n the corner, his body bruising. “Quickly.”
The dragon hissed. His body began to constrict, crushing the bed frame. Splinters showered. If before Shenlai had to coil delicately around the bed, protecting Jin, now—with the emperor in the corner—the dragon could rise. The bed shattered as his serpentine body rose taller. The dragon’s tail lashed. Scales clanked. The assassin finally tore the sheet off, but it was too late for him. Shenlai’s body wrapped around him and squeezed, a python constricting his prey.
“Crush him, Shenlai!” Jin shouted. “Squeeze him dead.”
Wrapping the assassin in his body, Shenlai looked upon Jin, and his eyes were sad. For the first time, the dragon spoke. His voice sounded both deep and high, rumbling and beautiful, a voice like water in the depths and clouds in the sky, like moonlight and dust upon rocky plains, like night and the memory of day.
“He will sleep in my grip,” said Shenlai, the last dragon of Qaelin, “and we will deliver him to the guards of this palace, but we will not slay him. He came here to bring death; we will prove ourselves nobler, beings of life and compassion. One can only fight death with life. One can only fight cruelty with compassion. One can only light darkness with light. Here, he sleeps.” Gently, Shenlai loosened his grip, letting the assassin drop unconscious onto the remains of the shattered bed. “He will sleep for a long time and dreams will fill him of your bravery, Jin.”
Jin stared at the unconscious man, then raised his eyes to meet Shenlai’s gaze.
“I wasn’t brave,” he said. “I only did what I had to. I was afraid.”
Shenlai nodded, scales chinking. “That is what bravery is. Bravery is doing what you must even when you are afraid.” He looked at the open window and the stars that shone outside. “Fly with me. Let us fly far and breathe the air that flows from the mountains.”
Like a mother wolf lifting her cub, Shenlai grasped Jin’s shirt between his teeth. The dragon lifted the young emperor and placed him upon his back. Jin slipped snugly into a small, golden saddle. He wriggled about, letting clasps snap into place. Sitting here in his harness, he felt safe and secure, no longer a limbless boy but part of a dragon.
Boots thudded outside the chamber. The voices of guards cried out; they had found their slain comrades. The door burst open. Defenders of the palace stood there, clad in scale armor. Their white hair was tied above their heads in knots, beards adorned their chins, and katanas gleamed in their hands. They looked down at the sleeping assassin and gasped, then raised their eyes to Jin.
“Are you safe, my emperor?” they asked, eyes wide.
Sitting in his harness upon his dragon, Jin nodded. “Take him. I never want to see him again.” His eyes stung and he blinked furiously. “Now I will fly. Fly, Shenlai!”
The dragon turned to face the window. He coiled out like a snake emerging from a burrow, flying into the night sky.
The wind whipped Jin’s face, cold and wet and sweet-scented, and he laughed. His hair fluttered. Beneath him, Shenlai let out a roar—a sound like thunder and joy itself, the sound of the night. They rose higher. The stars gleamed and the palace sprawled out below.
Jin looked down upon his home, the Eternal Palace. Inside that labyrinth of stone, he often felt like a queen ant trapped in a hive, never aware of the outside world, barely able to move. But here in the sky … from here his palace seemed a place of wonders—a walled complex of a hundred halls, towers, and courtyards. The buildings lay like blocks, each topped with slanting roofs of red tiles, their edges upturned like curling parchment. Here were barracks, temples, libraries, and armories, a city within a city. Cobbled roads spread between the structures, and countless guards marched back and forth, bedecked in scales and bearing spears and swords. In the center rose the Heavenly Hall—Jin’s home—a great pagoda with seven tiers of roofs, their tiles red, their tips holding dragon statues.
“Thousand of soldiers live within the Eternal Palace,” Jin said. “And yet a man entered my chamber. Perhaps there is no safety in the world.”
Shenlai coiled beneath him, wingless, moving across the sky like a snake upon water. “There is always danger in the world, and even the greatest army cannot fight every shadow in the night.”
They rose higher. The wind fluttered Shenlai’s beard, sending it back to tickle Jin in his saddle. The dragon’s blue scales clanked and shimmered. As they soared, Jin saw his city sprawl beyond the palace walls.
“Yintao,” he whispered. “The wonder of the night.”
Capital of Qaelin, the city was the greatest in his empire—perhaps the greatest in all Eloria, the dark half of this world men called Moth. It grew around the Eternal Palace like a field of mushrooms around a lake. A million people lived in Yintao—it was a city to dwarf all others, even the great Pahmey in the west. Seven layers of walls rose here, squares within squares. Between each level of fortifications, brick houses lined cobbled streets as neatly as soldiers, their roofs tiled with adobe. Lanterns rose every twenty yards, a painting of light and shadow. They said the western cities were tangled hives, towers and homes and temples all jumbled together, but not this place. The capital of Jin’s empire was as meticulous as a tapestry. From up here, it seemed to him a clockwork, a city like an army, a wonder of light and life.
“Fly faster!” Jin cried upon the dragon’s back. “Fly into the wilderness of night.”
The dragon flew faster, his serpentine body undulating. Smoke puffed out from his mouth, and his beard and eyebrows fluttered like banners. The city streamed below and Jin laughed, for here was freedom greater than any in the palace. Here a limbless, frightened boy who had grown up in stone halls could feel the wind, taste the clouds, and be mightier and faster than any hero.
They flew over the city’s seventh wall, the outer layer, and emerged into the open night.
The wilderness of Eloria spread out below, black plains that rolled into the horizon. Only the Sage’s Road broke the darkness, a line of lights heading westward, small mushroom farms and trading posts rising alongside; it stretched for many miles, all the way to Pahmey in the west. Everywhere else Jin looked he saw nothing but the night, rocky and black and empty. The lights below grew smaller, and the stars brightened above, an endless world of shine and shadow. Jin often wished they could fly to those distant stars. He wondered if cities spread among them too and if other dragons flew there; only three dragons remained in Eloria, the dark half of the world, and only one in his empire of Qaelin.
“There is only you here, Shenlai,” he said, the wind swallowing his words. “You are very old and very precious. You are my dearest friend.” He blinked tears from his eyes. “I’m so glad you’re still alive.”
Flying through the night, leaving the city far behind, Shenlai turned his head and looked back at Jin. Sadness filled his eyes and he spoke in a low voice.
“We defeated danger in the palace, yet a greater danger rises in the west. A peril looms that could burn all the lands of night.”
Jin shivered, suddenly feeling less safe in his harness. He looked around, seeking enemies. The city of Yintao lay upon the eastern horizon, a glowing smudge fading into the darkness. The Sage’s Road sprawled beneath him, a mere thread from up here, its lights flickering upon each milestone. All else lay in shadow, for few people ventured far into the cold, dark wilderness of Eloria.
“What is the danger?” Jin asked in a small voice, scanning the darkness, seeking monsters or demons of the afterworld.
Shenlai’s tufted eyebrows bunched together. His scales clattered.
“Hold on tight, little one,” he said, an old joke of theirs. “We will fly faster than ever. I will show you.”
Jin’s heart sank. He didn’t want to fly anywhere near danger.
“Are you sure, Shen—” he began, then gasped when Shenlai’s body straightened and he flew faster than an arrow.
The lands blurred below. The stars trailed above. The wind whipped them and soon it seemed as if the earth below vanished, the hills and plains all falling into
shadow, as if Eloria faded away, a mere bad dream like the ones that sometimes plagued him. All creation was but the stars above, the soothing blackness, and the dragon beneath him. And it felt right. It felt like truth. As they flew and as the distance blurred, even dragon and rider seemed to fade, washing away until Jin was no longer a boy upon a dragon, until there was no more boy—he was thought itself. Then thought vanished too, leaving him only being, only existing, only consciousness among sky and darkness and stars and light and shadow. He was as a duskmoth. He was an ancient world, frozen in a cosmic ocean, one half light, one half dark, broken. Needing healing. There was fear here, deep and dark and sticky and cold, but also hope that stung, joy that would whisper if he could only find it.
The world had stopped like a dead heart. He—the world itself, the sky, the mind flowing through it—would have to fix it. He would have to uncover the shard inside and draw out the poison.
The world slowed.
The wind died.
He blinked and found himself within his body again, a small and limbless body in a harness, flying upon a dragon, gazing toward a horizon of fire.
“See them, Jin,” said Shenlai. “See those who march from the sun.”
They flew closer, and a gasp fled Jin’s lips.
An army covered the horizon.
“An army of fire,” he whispered.
A hundred thousand troops or more stood upon the edge of the night. They swarmed across the barren landscapes. They marched through a city of crystal towers. They raised banners and beat drums and howled for war.
“Who are they?” Jin whispered.
“They come from the land of sunlight,” said Shenlai, voice soft. The dragon hovered, facing the distant light. “They come here to burn, to conquer, to destroy. The city you see is Pahmey, the western jewel of your empire; it has fallen to their fire.”
Jin’s eyes stung. He had never seen Pahmey before, but he had read about this city in books and scrolls. Its hundred towers rose gleaming from the inferno of sunlit soldiers. The banners of the day—sunbursts upon white fields—rose from their crests.
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