THe Grave at Storm's End

by Devin Madson

  ‘I go where I am blown, Your Majesty.’

  ‘Like a destructive storm. An apt analogy.’ He let out a snort of breath and shook raindrops from the skirt of his surcoat. From its crimson folds a golden dragon roared, its great maw open as though to swallow me whole. The same ferocious face was painted on the waxed wood of an imperial battle mask hanging from his saddle.

  ‘You have been silent?’ he said when I made no reply.

  ‘To Hana, yes.’

  ‘You have told others? Do not lie to me, Endymion, or it will go very poorly for you.’

  I could read the emptiness of that threat in his soul, partnered with doubt. ‘You’re right, it would be difficult for you to know if I was lying or not,’ I said, causing his frown to stiffen. ‘But I think I told you once before that I do not lie. Malice saw my memory of what passed between us. He would have told Darius.’

  Kin’s nostrils flared the same way Kaze’s did when he was excited. ‘I ought to have killed you when I had the chance.’

  ‘We agreed that letting me go was the only way to avoid a messy problem. You’re thinking about executing me now, but I wouldn’t do that either. If nothing else, Hana is unlikely to approve of you getting rid of another member of her family.’

  ‘A threat?’

  ‘No, Your Majesty. The truth.’

  His stallion backed with a snort, and Kin loosened his tight grip on the reins. ‘Damn you. It’s Darius I’m fighting, not Katashi, and now you have given him the greatest weapon against me he’ll ever need.’

  ‘And you have Lady Kimiko,’ I said. ‘The greatest weapon against him. He loves her, you know. She’s carrying his child.’

  Emperor Kin stared at me. ‘Why are you telling me this?’

  ‘Because I want him saved.’

  Darius had risked everything for me.

  ‘He is our enemy.’

  ‘He is my brother.’

  The rain had slowed to a gentle caress, its drops achieving nothing but the further dampening of a saturated day. Water dripped from Kin’s topknot.

  ‘Brother,’ he said. ‘Tell me something else, Endymion, tell me—’

  ‘We have company, Your Majesty,’ I said, looking over his shoulder to see General Rini approaching. Emperor Kin turned, his frustration forming a haze in the air around him.

  ‘Your Majesty.’

  ‘What is it, General,’ Kin snapped.

  ‘We are ready to keep moving, Your Majesty. Master Kenji has already gone ahead.’

  ‘Then go. We will catch up.’

  The general’s expression didn’t give much away, but there was shock behind those limpid eyes. ‘Yes, Your Majesty.’

  He read no encouragement to linger in his emperor’s bearing and turned his horse to ride away, his mind spilling with speculation.

  ‘He is wondering who I am,’ I said when the general was once again out of earshot, leaving us to our field of wildflowers and rain. ‘His mother always told him not to trust men with only one name.’

  ‘I would be grateful if you didn’t inform him that you have, in fact, two names,’ Kin replied dryly. ‘I control the available information or I don’t control anything.’

  ‘Darius would agree.’

  Kin snorted. ‘I always thought we were much alike, at least the face Darius let me see. The real man I am not so sure about.’

  ‘He would say the same of you, Your Majesty. The man he bowed to was no murderer.’

  Emperor Kin clenched his teeth. ‘Be careful what you say, boy.’

  ‘You want truths,’ I said. ‘I am giving them to you. You knew from the first that Darius was an Empath, you knew his father was one, you just didn’t know what it meant. There was always the possibility he would turn out to be useful, but you never meant to become friends, just as you never meant to fall in love with Hana.’

  ‘Who needs introspection when you have a mind reader?’ Kin said. ‘I did not ask to speak to you to have you condemn every decision I have ever made.’

  ‘There are not many to condemn, Your Majesty. You did what was best for Kisia. You’ve always done what was best for Kisia.’

  Kin eyed me, his brows set low. ‘Then you are more sure than I.’

  He turned to survey his army, lines of infantry and riders taking once again to the road with knots of boys and grooms and packhorses carrying minimal supplies. Everything else had been abandoned to a caretaker squad at Kogahaera.

  ‘I don’t know why I trust you, Endymion, but I do,’ he said. ‘I’ve never told anyone why I did it. I know you won’t keep my secret, but… someone ought to know.’ He watched his army march into the rain while he spoke, years lining his face. ‘After he signed the truce at Lioness Pass to end the war with Chiltae, Emperor Lan started secret meetings with the Curashi Tribes west of the Kuro Mountains. The council knew nothing about it. But it was my job to protect him whatever his movements so I saw it all. He brought Grace Tianto in. They were always fighting, but for once they agreed. A deal was struck with the pirate lords of Lin’ya. Tianto was going to marry his daughter to Lord Eastern’s eldest son in return for two hundred ships, fully manned. And still the council knew nothing.’ He looked at me then, and in his eyes I could see it all. The midnight meetings as two imperial brothers plotted to change the world. And Lan’s sons were no better. Prince Yarri was already proud and ambitious, and Tanaka and Rikk were following his lead. For weeks Kin had watched and waited, hoping for change, while every smile Empress Li turned his way dug the knife in harder.

  ‘They were going to break the truce and throw Kisia back into a war she could ill afford,’ Kin said. ‘Our only allies would have been honourless thieves. And I was the only one who knew. The only way to end it was to end them. They all had to go.’

  ‘Except Katashi,’ I said.

  ‘A mistake that haunts me. But once Tianto had been painted a traitor his family was stripped of their estates. What threat could a ten-year-old boy be to me? There had been enough death.’

  Kin sighed, age coming to him in a breath. ‘I have always fought for Kisia and I will continue fighting for her until my dying breath. Have you seen the throne room in Shimai?’

  I shook my head.

  ‘It is hung with hundreds of scrolls,’ he said. ‘The wisdom of Kisia gathered in a single place, the words of its scholars and its poets, of its emperors and its orators, but it is not Kisia’s voice. Kisia is out there in its people, in its artisans and its soldiers, in its children and its fishermen and its farmers. That is what the Otakos forgot, generation after generation believing they were gods, the empire their plaything. Even Hana is not immune to the entitlement of her name. It is something in their blood, perhaps, some disease of birth.’

  For a moment he stared into the distance, before a gentle shake of the head freed him from the clinging tendrils of the past. ‘Every day since Hana came back to me I have suffered.’ His expression was set like iron, but the soul that moved behind it was full of contradictions and self-doubt. Hana filled his thoughts. He loved her and hated her, and while he knew it was disastrously inadequate he envied her black and white view of an intricately coloured world. He both wanted her to know the truth and hoped she would never find out.

  Again and again every decision came back to the same question. What was best for the empire?

  Marriage to an Otako.

  ‘Gods know why I told you any of that,’ Kin said with a snort. ‘I must be losing my mind. I made the mistake of trusting your brother too.’

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘Trusting Darius was the best decision you ever made, Your Majesty. If you hadn’t you would have been dead long since.’

  *****

  All afternoon a continuous stream of messengers sped back and forth from Shimai carrying Kin’s orders. He rode at the head of his army with General Rini at his side – a war council on the mov
e. Other commanders came and went, but although Hana remained close she was not included. There was awkwardness, anger, hurt. Katashi rode with us as surely as if he had been present in the flesh.

  ‘Endymion.’

  Kimiko drew up alongside, her horse snorting at Kaze. Her hands were untied, but four soldiers on horseback hovered nearby.

  ‘I see they’ve set you free,’ I said.

  ‘For a given value of free.’ She looked around to be sure they were out of earshot and edged her horse closer. ‘Tell me something. You said…’ Again she looked back at the soldiers. ‘You said that the truth could save him. Do you really believe that?’

  ‘Yes,’ I said.

  ‘But his judgement is death.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘That makes no sense,’ she said.

  ‘Empaths are complicated.’

  The rain had eased off for a time, but the forest dripped with its own rhythm, its colours all the richer. Kimiko had always been so sure, but there was an uneasiness in her now that made my gut squirm. ‘You could feel that I’m carrying a child,’ she said after a time. ‘But can you also tell whether it’s a girl or a boy?’

  She knew. ‘Yes,’ I said, thinking as I spoke that I ought to have lied.

  ‘And?’

  ‘I don’t want to know the answer myself.’

  ‘It isn’t you that will die,’ she said.

  I did not ask how she knew.

  ‘Tell me.’

  ‘Kimiko—’

  ‘Tell me.’

  Beneath the lazy boughs of a willow tree Kaze stopped walking. Kimiko brought her mount to a halt beside us, her guards keeping a wary distance.

  Keep an eye on her, he said. He’ll want to know about this.

  That’s Lady Kimiko Otako. I wonder why she’s talking to the traitor freak.

  ‘I need to know, Endymion,’ Kimiko said, holding out her hand. ‘I need to know what I’m fighting for.’

  The space between us shrank. Our fingers met, and there on the Willow Road under a stormy sky, I read her judgement.

  Chapter 13

  Shimai sat upon the horizon, a shadowy mass beneath an iron sky. This was the heart of Kisia stretched out before me, this city that straddled the Tzitzi River and guarded its twin to the south.

  ‘Admiring my empire, Laroth?’ Katashi said, approaching through a sea of horsetail ferns that caressed his knees.

  ‘It is not your empire yet.’

  Captain Yorah and General Manshin walked with him, but although both frowned I made no apology. It had been a long day. The tracks over which the wagon travelled had been bumpy at best and Malice’s company sullen and oppressive.

  I turned back to the view, and behind me they continued their conversation.

  ‘My scouts tell me Kin should meet the Willow Road around noon tomorrow,’ Captain Yorah said. ‘We can still hit them from behind, we could send—’

  ‘No,’ Katashi said. ‘We risk losing too many men if we meet them in open battle. I trained you to fight in narrow streets and dark forests, not on the open road.’

  They were my words through his lips. ‘If you want to take the hearts of Kisia’s people you have to be their saviour,’ I had said. ‘Ambush their emperor before he reaches a battle and you’ll be an honourless rebel forever, instead of the avenging god you are.’

  ‘It will hurt Kin more,’ he said. ‘To have the opportunity to protect his city and fail.’

  ‘Yes, Captain, but at the pace we are travelling we will arrive before them.’

  ‘Then we stop here for the night,’ Katashi said.

  They joined me on the plateau.

  ‘Tell me, Laroth,’ Katashi said. ‘What do you see?’

  I followed the direction of his pointing finger. Through the sultry haze the Tzitzi River was little more than a shadow, cutting Shimai in two.

  ‘The river, Your Majesty.’

  ‘And Kin let you command his army,’ Katashi jeered. ‘Come on, think like a general and tell me what you see. What purpose does the river serve?’

  ‘The Tzitzi River serves many purposes,’ I said. ‘It is useful for transporting goods; it is a source of water, both clean and dirty; fishermen pull some big fish out of it in the rains; and it makes interesting smells. But what you’re referring to is Emperor Catuzi’s theory of the second wall. He built Mei’lian south of the river, because the river itself protected the city.’

  ‘Not just a pretty face after all,’ Katashi said, turning to his traitor general. ‘And how many crossings span the Tzitzi, General?’

  ‘Five,’ General Manshin said and counted them off on his fingers. ‘Shimai, Syan, the Fork, Mesai, and The Valley.’

  ‘Six,’ I said.

  ‘Six?’

  ‘Yes. The Span in Shimai. The Ezzi Bridge in Syan. The Broad at the Huon Fork. The Two Way at Mesai. The Zisian at the mouth of The Valley, and there is a rickety but passable footbridge in the hills south of Esvar. And every emperor since Catuzi has opposed the building of more.’

  Captain Yorah cleared his throat. ‘Seven.’

  Katashi grinned. ‘Give the man a dukedom. There are seven crossings.’

  ‘Seven?’ General Manshin scowled. ‘Where’s the seventh?’

  Katashi’s grin widened. ‘We’re standing on it.’

  I looked down at the grass, its long blades curling to touch the Laroth crest branded into my sandals.

  ‘I see neither of you are as smart as you think you are,’ he said. ‘Emperor Catuzi might have built Mei’lian south of the river to guard against attack from Chiltae, but the north is Otako territory. An escape route would be invaluable.’

  Surprise leaked from General Manshin like sweat.

  ‘Didn’t you ever wonder how we got into Mei’lian without being caught at the gates?’ Katashi went on when neither of us spoke. ‘It was called The Imperial Cellar. Only the members of the Imperial Family and the leader of the Imperial Guard knew it existed, knowledge that was passed from generation to generation. It was built in 1167 as an escape route from Mei’lian to the north bank of the Tzitzi, but it collapsed in the tremor of 1352, when I was a boy.

  ‘A loyal man of mine found a way in. He spent weeks studying the old maps and records we saved from Koi before my father’s execution. Some of the passage was impassable, but he dug it out.’

  Because on Kin’s orders Shin had needed a way in. Don’t think it. Don’t think it. Don’t let him read the truth in your face. Not yet.

  ‘And you can be sure Kin has made it impassable again,’ I said, changing the subject before he could dwell on Shin. ‘There is little chance Hana kept it quiet, yes?’

  ‘Little chance indeed,’ Katashi agreed. ‘The way into Mei’lian is irrevocably blocked, yes, but this end is still clear. Did you think I chose to camp in Nivi Fen because I liked the smell?’

  Kin had never mentioned a passage under the river, but there was another, perhaps part of the same network. Shimai to Mei’lian – a tunnel beneath the plain. Overseeing the repair of the passage between the sister cities had been one of my first jobs as a new councillor. Had the Otakos forgotten it existed?

  I couldn’t read Katashi’s face, couldn’t feel anything but the vengeance that fuelled him. But I knew Kin. He would bring soldiers through the passage from Mei’lian even if it meant leaving the capital all but defenceless, because Shimai was the gateway to the south. Jikuko was in The Valley. Yi held what was left of the north and the east. Fear had begun to cripple his play, every piece too precious to move. General Kin had risked everything, but Emperor Kin had too much to lose.

  As did I. The assault on Shimai could not fail.

  ‘Splitting your force will make taking Shimai more difficult,’ I said, doubt churning in my gut. The setting sun cut crimson gashes through the grey sky, turning Katashi’s skin
blood red.

  I never said I was sending anyone at all,’ he said. ‘Your imagination is very active for a man with no soul.’

  General Manshin and Captain Yorah didn’t speak, but their silent stares spoke their own words. With an audience it was treasonous to question him further.

  I bowed. ‘Apologies, Your Majesty, but as your chief advisor I must counsel you to discuss your plans with your generals before making any move.’

  ‘And as your emperor I will do whatever I like, whenever I like.’

  He glared at me, unspoken words in his fiery eyes. Go on, he challenged, his lips turning into a sneer. Make me tell you everything, force me to do your bidding here and now with these men to see.

  If they so much as suspected the truth then they would not fight. Not for me.

  ‘You are dismissed, Laroth. I will not need you again until tomorrow.’

  Having no other choice, I bowed again, trying to maintain an outward assurance I was far from feeling. There was something he didn’t want me to know.

  My control was slipping.

  Tall grass caught at my robe as I started back down the hill in the half-light of dusk. My sandals were not made for rocky slopes so I picked my way with care. I needed space to think anyway, but before long a bloom of amused curiosity informed me I was not alone.

  ‘Your Excellency.’ General Manshin fell in beside me, his long stride heedless of the trailing undergrowth.

  ‘General,’ I said.

  He kept pace as though waiting for me to say more, but despite social etiquette I maintained a discouraging silence. When I had been the Minister of the Left, General Manshin had taken his orders from me and been accountable to me. It was time he remembered that.

  ‘I must confess, Your Excellency,’ he said when I offered nothing. ‘That I had been trying to fathom your reason for following Katashi Otako, but you had me utterly stumped.’

  ‘Ought I thank you for the compliment?’ I enquired when he paused.