by Alec Hutson
“What is this spirit you are referring to?” asked Garmond, twisting strands of his long gray beard around his finger, a mannerism Keilan had seen before, and meant that something had caught the seeker’s interest.
The prince and the poet shared a look. Finally, Ghabrial threw up his hands. “Go ahead, tell them then. I expect that fairly soon every peasant will know all our city’s ancient secrets. Perhaps we can invite them into our most hallowed sanctums, charge a silver a visit, and make a goodly fortune.”
The prince ignored the poet’s outburst. “Seeker Garmond . . . the truth is that we do not know. It’s always been there, as far back as our histories go, since the Barrow was truly a barrow and held only the first kings of Vis. That is why some think of it as a ghost, or a spirit. I am not sure it is indeed that. I think of it as a presence. Sometimes it helps our librarians when they are searching for something, sometimes it hinders them. Why, I could not tell you.”
“To be truthful, in the Reliquary we have heard rumors of this spirit. Even that some deaths have been blamed on it.”
The librarian frowned at the seeker’s words. “Librarians have died before in the Barrow, and even one king, if the stories are true. Most became lost in the deeps and could not find their way out. One young adept was found just a hundred paces from the stairwell to the surface, dead from thirst, surrounded by the gnawed leather binding of books he had tried to eat. It may be that the spirit of the Barrow had some role in his passing . . . or perhaps not. The rows of books seem to twist in upon themselves, a shifting labyrinth, but I do not know if the spirit controls this aspect of the Barrow. In any case, good seeker, you need not worry. I would not allow a rival scholar from the Reliquary entrance to our most sacred halls.”
Garmond stopped stroking his beard, shock and disappointment plain in his face. “Truly?”
“Truly.” The librarian leaned forward. “Would you grant me entrance to your most hallowed sanctum?”
The seeker sighed. “Aye, we would not. None but those who have sworn their lives to the lore may delve into our innermost archives.”
The poet cleared his throat loudly. “But you would allow a magister of the Scholia to descend into the Barrow? Pardon me if I do not understand.”
All eyes now turned to the prince. The lord of Vis spread his arms, glancing at each of them in turn. “You all know that I believe the future of our city is bound up with Dymoria and her queen. Some of you disagree, and I respect your opinions. So I will leave the decision of whether to allow these visitors into the Barrow up to the ancient guardians of our city.” He gestured towards the soaring tree. “Let us ask the starlings.”
“You’re going to have the birds decide?” Nel asked, clearly surprised.
“I am, as we have done many times before. That is why I asked the poet Ghabrial and Lady Meredith here today – there are none more respected in reading the murmurations.” The prince withdrew a slim golden whistle from a pocket. “Are you ready?”
“We are,” said the poet.
“Very well.”
The prince placed the whistle in his mouth and blew, and though Keilan heard no sound the great mass of birds clustering the branches of the tree suddenly stirred, fluttering dark wings. Then, as if one great creature, the starlings threw themselves into the air, instantly blending together. They became like a great snake slithering around the trunk, looping over the branches, silent except for the susurrus of the leaves that came from the wind of their passage. Keilan could almost imagine that the tree itself was whispering to them.
Lady Meredith and the poet watched this with rapt attention, until the birds finally returned to their perches. Then they shared a long look.
“Magister, prepare yourself,” said the poet slowly, “you shall enter the Barrow.”
The peach rains had finally come.
For weeks now Menekar had been swaddled in a shroud of late summer heat, heavy and suffocating. Along the Aveline Way, in the shadow of the aqueduct that channeled water from mother Asterppa to the cisterns and gardens of the city, the bare feet of children had slapped the marble as they ran shrieking to play in the crowded fountains. Past them matrons and maidens alike had walked swaying to market, their jokkas unbound and bared breasts gleaming, hair coiled atop their heads so that the faint breath of a breeze might cool their necks. And elsewhere in the city, in shaded villas along the banks of the sluggish, silty Pandreth, the painted wives of satraps summering in the capitol had reclined on velvet couches, fanned by great feathers held by the hairless men of the Whispering Isles.
As summer had waxed, the days had lengthened, becoming more languorous, colors slowly seeping from a city bleached by the heat.
Then the spell had broken. As happened every year, something in the swollen air had burst, and the peach rains had finally come, sweeping over the city in lashing torrents. The patter of children’s feet had given way to the sound of falling raindrops; the hairless men of the Isles had set down their fans and bent to rub oils into the legs of their mistresses. The dust and filth of the hot dry summer months had been swept into the suddenly overflowing canals. Menekar had been reborn, cleansed – for a short while, at least.
The idea of cleansings had always fascinated Wen Xenxing. It was an essential aspect of this empire and its faith, but still after so many years he could not bring himself to embrace the notion that transgressions could simply be washed away. Mendicants brought sinners to the shores of Asterppa and submerged them in the blessed water, and when they broke the surface they were considered innocent again in the eyes of Ama – if not the law – no matter what their crimes. The Pure expunged the taint of magic from sorcerers in their most holy ceremony, and on occasion the Cleansed even rose again as paladins of Ama themselves, blazing with the god’s sacred light.
The Shan did not believe in rebirths. There were no second chances in this life, no possibility that what had come before would be overlooked or forgotten. If you could not accept the shame of your actions than death – not a new life – was the only honorable outcome. Wen had found that this made it much easier to live with his decisions. And he would have a great many important ones to make in the coming months, he was sure. The slow pulse of history had quickened recently. He remembered an old curse of his homeland, inflicted only upon true enemies – ‘may you live in interesting times. ’ Interesting times had indeed come to these lands.
The decision he had to make at this very moment held great importance to him, if no one else. Wen Xenxing, the black vizier of Menekar – spymaster, assassin, whisperer – hovered above the unrolled scroll that spanned the length of his chamber, unsure where to paint the cranes. There, between the mist-threaded crags? Or perhaps swooping low over the unruffled lake, with its lone sampan and cluster of stilt houses? Maybe – and this offended the purist in him – this landscape should lack for cranes, despite what meaning that would impart. Cranes were symbols of fidelity. Of loyalty.
Whatever else Wen was, he was loyal to his adopted home. So how best to serve it? How could he protect his emperor against the shadowy forces he felt gathering? There was a pattern there, hidden in the events of the past few months, a revelation that would lay bare the threat to the empire. What was it?
A powerful sorceress arises in the west, wielding magics that render Menekar’s greatest weapons impotent. Meanwhile in Tsai Yin the Betrayers escape – or were freed? – from their ancient prison, and hunters from Shan spread across the land trying to recapture them. The High Mendicant dispatches a disgraced paladin and a shadowblade to steal away a boy whom he believes could become Ama’s holy champion. What was the connection? And why did he feel, against all reason, that the emperor’s favored concubine was somehow at the heart of this unfolding drama?
A cool breeze slipped into the chamber, fingering the edges of the heavy scroll. Wen straightened and glided over to the open window. He stared out into the darkness for a l
ong moment, listening to the rain as it fell upon his garden, the staccato drumbeat of drops striking broad palm fronds, the sound the water made as it trickled down the rocks he had so carefully sculpted. He could close his eyes and envision exactly what his garden must look like in this downpour. The curve of every plant’s stem, the placement of the mosaic tiles that inlaid the paths, the colors that patterned the koi fish in the pond – he had carefully arranged everything. The men north of the Broken Sea preferred their gardens wild, unkempt, truly more nature than civilization. But the Shan desired spaces to find peace and harmony, and wise men understood that those qualities could only be attained when you were able to control every aspect of your surroundings. Wen could have closed his eyes and walked out into his garden, his jeweled slippers perfectly following the twisting paths. Ja-nin, the old masters had called it, the inner peace that mastered the outer tumult.
He must guide events, shape the future rather than react to what had already happened. But how? And how did this Alyanna fit into what was unfolding?
Wen remembered the peacock in the garden dipping its head to her, almost as if it was paying obeisance. Could she be a sorceress, a servant of the Crimson Queen disguised from the Pure, just as the emissary had been that had died in the audience chamber? The other concubines in the harem seemed either infatuated with her, or terrified beyond reason. None had been willing to divulge much about the emperor’s favorite. And then there was the matter of the man in black . . .
One servant had reported seeing a strange pale man with long, dark hair in the pleasure gardens, speaking with Alyanna. He had set aside that whispering as inconsequential, but then the same servant had seen the stranger again, in the company of the disgraced paladin as they had left the temple on their mad quest to recapture the boy the Pure had lost to the servants of the Crimson Queen. And then Wen had learned from his sources in the temple that the man was kith’ketan!
What was an imperial concubine doing consorting with a shadowblade? How did it all connect to the Crimson Queen and the Betrayers?
Wen’s gaze traveled the length of the painting spread before him. The landscape of vanished Shan, preserved in pine-soot ink. Gnarled trees clinging to rocky bluffs, cliffs that plunged precipitously down into placid gorges, the gentle scrawl of birds in flights above pagodas. Bent-back old women laboring along steep mountain paths, glimpses of tigers prowling within bamboo groves.
They had stolen this beautiful world away. The Betrayers. They had brought the Raveling, had ended the Heavenly Kingdom and driven the Shan into the sea. Now only these paintings remained, a fading echo.
When he had learned from his spies in Tsai Yin that the Betrayers were loose again he had been shocked beyond words. It was like a terrible nightmare had bled from the dream world into the waking. Why had the mandarins not dumped that cursed chest into the ocean during the years of the Empire of Wind and Salt?
There. Wen hurried over to a section of the scroll, retrieving a fine horse-hair brush from the collection on his desk. With a few deft strokes a crane materialized above the ancestor shrine he had painted atop one of the vertiginous peaks. Yes, that was fitting. Fidelity to the ghosts of the past – he would avenge his ancestors, find the Betrayers where they had fled, and use the powers of the Pure to exorcise those demons from this world once and for all.
A tentative knock on his chamber’s door. “Yes?”
His servant’s muffled voice came from the other side. “My lord, your newest visitor has arrived.”
“Good,” called back Wen as he crossed the room to return the brush to its ivory container. “Make sure she is washed this time.”
“Of course, my lord,” replied the servant, and a moment later Wen heard the footsteps receding.
Gone to prepare his girl for the evening. Wen crouched and carefully rolled up the long landscape painting. Once his passions had become so inflamed that he had bitten one of his playthings too hard, and blood had splattered his chamber’s floor. He could not risk such a thing happening again, not while his painting was exposed.
His heart began to beat faster. In another life, in another world, the Shan would not have lost at the Shivering Stones and the legions would never have overrun the camp where he had been awaiting his old master’s triumphant return. He would have continued his education in the Jade Court, and very likely would have been selected to ascend to the Phoenix Throne. His manhood would have been removed, his passions cut away for the greater good of Shan.
It was times like these that he appreciated the twisting thread of his life, and where it had brought him.
Another knock at his door, so faint he barely heard. He stood, excitement building in his chest. Tomorrow he would visit the pleasure gardens again, this time with several of the Pure. He would discover what secrets, if any, this concubine was hiding.
He gripped the carved ebonwood handle of his chamber’s door and pulled. The child standing outside shrank away as his huge bulk filled the entrance. Wen quickly stepped back, offering a comforting smile.
“Come in, my dear,” he murmured, sweeping his arm out to usher the child inside. He glanced down the hallway, looking for his servant. Where was the fool? This girl was too young, even for him. And hadn’t he specified a golden-haired one this time, not this ragged little thing with its tangle of black hair?
Realization came to Wen just as he closed the door. He turned slowly. He would not scream, he told himself, no matter what it did to him.
In the end, he screamed.
When the mists cleared, she found that she was flying towards the glittering emerald spikes of the Star Towers.
Far below her rippled a patchwork blanket of terraced farmland, small rivers like stray threads twisting between the hills. Here and there she saw clusters of tiny dwellings, rude little houses, the occasional mill or barn.
She had come from one of those hamlets. She had slept on a dirt floor, covered in rags. An old mangy cat had curled beside her, and from its closeness she had drawn strength and comfort as she had listened night after night to her father beating her mother senseless. A long time ago.
This was not part of his dream, she knew. Alyanna did not understand everything about dreamsending, as the power was relatively new to her, but she had quickly come to realize that when you entered another’s mind your own thoughts and images intruded into what they were experiencing – particularly if you were familiar with what they were dreaming about. Somewhere in the city ahead was Demian, and as she approached him the memory of her own life in a village outside one of the Mosaic Cities was filling in the blank spaces she traversed.
Then abruptly she was there, passing between the forest of towers, drawn inexorably toward the one she had come to find. This rapid stuttering of movement was common in the dreamworld, especially when one neared the other dreamer, and the link between the minds strengthened. The pale green light filtering through the tower’s glass made her feel as if she floated underwater. Green – she was in Kashkana. In each of the Imperium’s major cities the color of the Star Towers had been different, and the sorcerous orders unique to each had identified by the same hue. She had been a Yellow Wizard, from Mahlbion. Demian had been a Green.
There. Of course it would be that one. The tower was different than the rest, smaller. The tapering, luminous swordpoint that topped each of the other Star Towers soaring around it had been sheared off, destroyed in a long-forgotten sorcerous duel. Now the remnants of its uppermost walls were simply ragged shards of green glass. A platform had been built at the highest point where the walls still held, open to the air. This had been the dueling ground for the swordsingers of Kashkana, in the glory days of the Kalyuni Imperium.
Demian was there, spinning across the platform, his sword a flashing blur. He was not dressed how she had come to think of him, in the somber garb of the kith’ketan – rather, he wore traditional swordsinger attire, loose blue pants cinched
by a golden belt, a red vest open to reveal his muscled chest. He gleamed with sweat. His opponent was clad similarly, and moved with the same effortless grace. Their swords were simply too fast for Alyanna to follow, flickering like lightning as they spun together and came apart again and again.
“Demian!” she cried, alighting on the platform.
The swordsinger paused, breathing heavily, and turned to her. For a brief moment confusion passed across his face, and then it was gone.
“Ah. I am dreaming.” He sheathed his sword in his golden sash.
His opponent faded, and then blew away in tatters of gray mist. Before he vanished completely Alyanna glimpsed his face.
“Your brother.”
Demian’s eyes narrowed. “Yes. I dream about him often. He was the only swordsman I knew better than myself. I never bested him. My magic was of course the greater, but his bladeskills were unparalleled.”
“And still you contest with him, a thousand years after his death.”
Demian rested his hand on his sword’s ornate golden hilt. “No one can escape their past, Weaver. Particularly us.”
Alyanna turned slowly, staring at the glittering crown of Star Towers rising up around them. “They were glorious, weren’t they?”
Demian said nothing.
“Have you ever visited them?”
He shook his head curtly.
“I have. Once. Perhaps six hundred years ago. I traveled to the edge of the Broken Sea, and I dispatched my sending into the depths. Deeper and deeper I pushed, the blackness so total it was like I was lost in some fathomless cavern. But I remembered the way.”
He was listening intently now.
“Then I saw them, glimmering in the distance, tiny points of light. It was this city, actually. They glow, you know, these towers – some vestige of sorcery I suppose. And there are things down there, attracted to this luminescence. Sea-creatures I have no name for, great schools of blind fish, lacking eyes yet somehow, for some reason, they are drawn to the lights. And there are other things. I saw, wrapped around one of these towers, a great sea wyrm large enough that it could crush a ship in its coils. It slept, savoring the light and the faint warmth in the cold darkness. I’ve often wondered since then what it dreamed of.”
