Gods of Nabban

by K V Johansen

  Fires painted a constellation in scarlet across the line of the Beacon Hills. The Dar-Lathans.

  The soldiers had passed into the night, around to the south. He followed like an obedient child when Lau led him by the hand along narrow paths in the dark.

  “Down.” Hand on his head, pressing him. He ducked, crawled after her, into a sort of den beneath vines growing on a framework completely obscured by the mound they made. Wisteria, naked, but dense in its grey tangle. Just enough faint light from the distant fire and the rising moon, a few days past the full, to see that. He squatted on the ground trying to steady his breath.

  “You are a wizard,” he protested.

  “More a sort of priestess, I think you’d say.”

  “A sort of priestess.”

  “Of the Little Sister.”

  “Of the Mother? There aren’t any priestesses of the Little Sister.”

  “Not,” she said, “on your side of the river.”

  She caught him, a hand over his mouth against his yelp, but gentle, her other arm around his shoulders.

  “Consider,” she said. “It’s not as though your empress has shown any great affection for you, prophet of the god of Nabban. And we’re not cannibals; really, we’re not. That’s a Nabbani lie Bloody Yao started to justify the last war. We’re not so different from you, really, except we never lost our gods.” She appeared to consider, holding him in the dark. “Heads, I’ll grant you. But I’m sure nobody has any use for your skull. I certainly don’t.” She kissed him again, his cheek this time.

  “Will you stop doing that?”

  “Sorry. You looked like you needed it.”

  “It’s too dark for you to see what I need.” The words sounded odd in his own ears, as though his mouth remembered friends and how to trade light words, but his mind did not recognize what he did.

  “I can see in the dark better than you. How about, I wanted to? Take it as a mother’s kiss.”

  “I’d rather not take it at all.” Again, something he might have said a year ago, not now. As if she had woken something he’d thought dead.

  “There’s a lie in your voice, prophet of Nabban. Even a smile. There.” She squeezed his shoulders. “I’ve made you laugh. Good. They haven’t damaged you all that much, not where it matters. That’s what I wanted to know. Caught your breath? That’s the way. We can’t lurk here all night. That fire won’t keep them distracted forever.”

  “You started it?”

  “A beacon to be seen from the Beacon Hills. I did. It’s just a moon-viewing tower, nobody in there. Are you sitting on a sword, by the way?”

  “I hope not.” There was something beneath him. Cloth. Heavy, when he lifted it. A jacket reinforced with horn plates. The sword and its baldric were beneath.

  “My name’s Anlau, but you can call me Rat,” she said, changing her gown for the jacket. “Everyone does.”

  “Why?”

  “Oh, you know. Pointy nose, good at getting in everywhere . . . Stay close.”

  Kaeo followed, keeping close as he could without actually grabbing hold of her hem. It was a long way in the dark, wherever they were going, with much twisting and winding through the groves and up the hill that the grounds of the palace covered. The fury at the gates had subsided; the tower still burned.

  Fog was rising above the walls. Cold water, mud and reed-beds still holding warmth from the day’s sun. The scent of the sea was strong. Buffalo bellowed.

  “Tide’s coming in,” Lau—Anlau—Rat, said. “Drowning the marsh. It’ll be all pools and bogs and sucking mud at low tide, and those ditches turning to channels. We don’t have many boats, and there’s not much forest around. She’s made herself a safe island, for now. Devils take her.” Poked him. “Which maybe they will, if you’re right.”

  “What did I say?”

  “Hmm, what haven’t you said? There’s a devil loose in the land. Maybe more than one. Maybe the empress is one, though you haven’t said that.”

  “It’s not a damned play. Don’t sound so cheerful!”

  “You want me to actually let go and throw off the mask? I’ll be hiding under a bush howling in terror and saying not me, not me, not here, not now. What good does that do anyone?”

  “Can I join you?”

  “Don’t think two of us howling under a bush will help, either.” She caught at his hand.

  “Do you really think the empress is one of the seven?”

  “No. But she might be allied with one. I don’t know. It seemed like wizardry murdered old Yao, not poison, which was what caught my interest, and then realizing how very suspicious it was Otono’s children all dying. But it wasn’t wizardry, that’s the thing. It really was more like some god’s or demon’s power set loose. We—I—did a bit of scouting around the palace. It’s not too difficult, really. You thought I was Nabbani.”

  “You look Nabbani.”

  “Pah. It’s your gods and your language make you of a folk, not your looks. We’re the same folk in the blood, folk of what’s Nabban now, and Darru and Lathi, only those of us from south of the Little Sister are better looking. And that doesn’t make us Nabbani belonging to Nabban, no matter what Yeh-Lin thought. It’s the tongue that’s the trick of passing, not the looks, so long as I don’t pretend to be some flat-faced, pale-skinned lout of a herdsman from Argya or Alwu. Anyway—my goddess is—”

  “There’s no goddess in the river. The Little Sister gave herself up to become Mother Nabban.”

  “My goddess,” she said, “is dead and gone, yes, but sometimes I used to dream her dreams, lost in the Mother as they were, and the gods and the goddesses of Darru and Lathi speak to me. I travel a lot, to see them. Sometimes I think I’ve been doing nothing but roaming all this land from Upper Lat to the coast of Darru since I was a baby. My sisters and brothers who serve our gods and I all gathered—we were dreaming echoes of—we weren’t sure what. And my sisters—the Wild Sisters—were eager for war, the omens said it was time . . . I ended up back in the palace, taking the place of a messenger-girl.”

  “What happened to her?”

  “Ran away to be a soldier.”

  He remembered, though, how easily she had stabbed that guard.

  “Really, she did, and was very glad of the chance. Her name really was Lau, too. After the last queen of Lathi, like me. She was Lathan, or her mother was, and brought up on old stories until they took her from the fields at one of the imperial manors for palace service. Easy enough to start sliding myself into things, and people thinking, there’s something a bit different about that girl, maybe, and forgetting the thought as they have it.”

  “Wizardry.”

  “It’s not exactly wizardry, in my case. But call it that if you like. So I put myself, very quietly, into Buri-Nai’s household to see what she was.”

  “What she was up to?”

  “That too. And then she killed Otono and snatched you. Just as well. There wasn’t anything I could have done for you without revealing myself to—well, probably the wizards, and definitely the empress.”

  She was still holding his hand, almost towing him along. Hard to catch his breath, climbing along the hillside.

  “Where are we going?”

  “Far, far away . . . not really. Downhill soon.”

  That was good to know. His head ached. “Water?” he suggested.

  “There’s water. Not far. Springs and wells all over the hill—very romantic for trysting in the night.”

  “Not trysting,” he gasped. She was Wind in the Reeds, or whatever the Dar-Lathans had that was the same. Spy, assassin, wizard—lunatic who wanted to flirt on the edge of a battlefield. It was just her light-hearted manner, a way of encouraging him to talk, to give her all he knew, which she knew already, or maybe just a way to keep him moving and not realizing how much he hurt, scars, wounds, headache, craving for the free-floating release of the yellowroot. It was not anything she really meant, but it warmed his heart somehow regardless. “The empress. She’s n
ot a goddess.”

  “I can tell that. What do your gods tell you about her?”

  “That she’s a lie. She’s not some saviour chosen by the Old Great Gods. The heir of the gods is in the north. I’ve seen him.”

  “Really?”

  “I—think so. I don’t know. It was strange.”

  “Dreams can be that. What about the empress?”

  “They don’t know. I mean, I don’t know.” Kaeo considered. “The gods fear her.”

  “I thought she might be Yeh-Lin returned, taking the princess’s place as I took young Lau’s, but she seems too—confused.”

  Buri-Nai had not struck him as confused. A ruler ill-suited to a time of war, but she had hardly been given the education for that, he supposed.

  “Yeh-Lin would have pushed us back over the Little Sister long ago, not sat in her palace worrying about prophecies of a solitary enemy. Buri-Nai sends her generals scurrying about worshipping her as a goddess, but she lacks any clear strategy or a rein to hold them in. And making enemies of all the priests, decreeing the shrines unhallowed? Ordering them killed if they don’t offer their allegiance to her cult instead? The folk hate her as well as fear her now, as they never hated even Bloody Yao, for all the misery he brought them. That was stupid, and Yeh-Lin was never said to be stupid. Here. I told you there was a well.”

  The well was surrounded by ferns, overshadowed by pale-barked fan-leaf trees, naked now. Some convenience for the gardeners. Kaeo sank down gratefully on damp paving stones, let Rat draw water in a wooden pail. So cold it almost burned in his throat, which was raw and sore anyway.

  He did not want yellowroot. He did not want to dream. The headaches would fade in time.

  “Why did you save me?” It did not sound as though they needed a dreamer.

  “Honestly?”

  “Yes.”

  “A whim. You’re no use to us. We don’t need your prophecies and anyway I’ve heard all you’ve had to say so far and it isn’t much use. Nothing we couldn’t have found out on our own with a more reverent use of a shaman’s proper rite of dreaming. But I was there when she saved you—a little diversion after assassinating her brother—and I helped the physician keep you from taking the road, which you were about ready to do—not that she noticed my help, but you can thank me. I guess I’ve gotten fond of you, young Kaeo.”

  “I’m older than you.”

  “And you look it. You need fattening up. Also I used to go to plays at the Flowering Orange, when I was in the city, before I turned myself into a palace slave. You’re going to sing for me, someday, my boy, when you’ve recovered.”

  “Am I?”

  “Oh yes.”

  She confused him and warmed his heart. “I might.” More water.

  “And largely,” she said, her voice serious, “it was because you were where I could get at you, and I figured you wouldn’t slow me down all that much, and the risk wasn’t too great. And it defied her, taking you. Just so you know, I’d have stolen her dog if the same considerations held good, and if she had one.”

  “If the dog could sing, you mean?”

  “Well, obviously. Ready to go on?”

  Kaeo could have slept right there on the stones, damp and all, but he pushed himself wearily to his feet and fell in behind Rat as she led off across close-shorn grass and down a snaking sanded path. They had been walking hours, or so it felt, though the stars said not quite so long as all that. His legs felt each as though they were his own weight again and his bare feet, gone soft with only trudging the palace corridors or dancing in his prison, were bruised and tender and probably bleeding. The empress was going to discover his escape before they were out of the palace grounds, if they didn’t find some way out soon. Perhaps she would have too many other important things to deal with this night. He had been getting the feeling her interest in him had waned. One day soon Buri-Nai would have given Oryo the order to kill him in one of his fits, and it would have been over. Better to be out walking beneath the moon with a whimsical not-a-cannibal spy. Take what little kindness life offered. Perhaps Rat would kiss him again.

  The moon climbed until it was nearly overhead. Rat had fallen into silence, and Kaeo had dropped behind, stumbling along wondering if they would circle through the gardens forever or only until the dawn, when ahead, someone snapped out a challenge.

  ‘Stand, in the name of the empress.”

  “Ah, cold hells.”

  “I said—”

  “Keep back.” She was gone in a rush, and someone yelled. Up to him to save himself, abandoned as the empress’s dog would have been. Kaeo set his back against a tree and, feeling a fool, tugged the sword free. Heavier than painted wood, of course it was. But it felt unsettlingly familiar anyway. Shorter than the false court swords he had fought with playing Min-Jan and other heroes of legend. A soldier’s sword. Thrust, don’t slash, he heard Master Wey’s voice telling one of the others, some comedy piece involving merchant’s guards. No armour, no old-fashioned shield. Maybe he wouldn’t be seen. Metal rang loudly and someone gasped and grunted. Someone else shouted, “There’s another!” and he was seen, a wrong shape in the moonlight, not a tree, and they came out of the darkness. Two of them.

  At least they didn’t just walk up and kill him. They moved a little apart to come one from each side, as if he might know what he was doing. Foot had touched something. Fallen branch or root. Root was no use, but he dropped and seized it in his left hand. It was a dead branch as he had hoped and their rush at his movement found him on one knee on the ground, so he swung the branch sideways with all his strength across the knees of one man and then lunged up stabbing at the other, who leapt back and seemed to expect Kaeo to follow, but he backed up against the tree again. Stabbed with the broken branch at the other man’s face as he closed in. It was a long branch. The man swatted it aside with his sword, and while he was doing that Kaeo yelled—because a good yell always pleased the audience in a fight, if there were no lines to say—and stabbed and the sword bit something and grated and the man yelled and stumbled. He jerked his blade clear and slashed around at the other man, forgetting the bit about thrusting—and what did Shouja Wey know, he was a theatre master not a swordsman. He hit something hard and yielding in one and felt the shock of it up his arm, dodged the thrust he knew was coming—back to the tree once more, dodged and fended off strike after strike and struck blows himself that twice found a mark, but his arm was shaking and so were his knees and his breath panted like a runner’s. The man he’d first wounded was standing off and watching, hurt or confident in his friend, and suddenly he pitched forward and Rat was there behind him.

  “Leave him,” she snarled, and put herself in the way. Kaeo slid down to the ground, fighting for breath, and now the man he had been fighting was fighting for his life and knew it. The blades flashed, catching light, and then the soldier was staggering back and falling and thrashing a little. Rat whirled around, watching for movement all about. There was none save the light, a moving light, and he tried to gasp a warning but she dropped down by him, took his face in her hands.

  “All right?”

  He nodded, unable to speak.

  “Sorry they got past. There were four of them. I didn’t think the patrols would come around so far with all the excitement at the gates and my nice little fire on the tower and all. And you took on two at once. Not bad for an actor.”

  She did kiss him again. He took his fair part in it, this time, and was sorry when she sat back on her heels away from him. “Better get my kissing in while I can.” Her face twisted, a smile fighting to lay itself over something else, and she wiped at blood on his face. “Thought I’d got you killed before I even got you away.” He was fumbling for his sword and as his mouth opened on a warning, breath for it at last, she bounced to her feet again and spun around, loosing a torrent of words that sounded Nabbani and were not.

  Allies. Ah. Dar-Lathan tribal warriors, with painted faces and not a torch but some sort of wizard-made light ca
ged in a sphere of woven bamboo. It faded slowly away to the faintest of fox-light again once the man who bore it dangling from a long staff had recognized Rat.

  There was a grove of pines near the wall, the landmark Rat’s escort had used to find their meeting-place. They went back over the wall using ropes and grappling irons—more shame for him, because his grip failed him and they had to haul him like a sack. Down a steep bank. The flat grasslands of the marsh seemed to squirm and undulate in the moonlight. Water where there was water only during the bad typhoons, but not come over the dykes in storm and fury, water running up channels usually blocked against salt inflow by tide-gates, water flowing in breaches in the dykes, reclaiming the saltings that the Exalted Min-Jan had barred to them when he dyked the marsh for his hunting preserve and turned the old pirate-fortress island into his palace. Tall reed-grass stood in water, broken seedheads and leaf-tips of the previous summer lying on the surface. A herd of buffalo stood on an isolated stretch of dyke, statues against the sky, waiting for the tide to drop. Easy for small parties to come and go, but not unseen, not by daylight. For any force to come against the walls now on ground soft and getting softer, clay dissolving into mudflats, would be next to impossible.

  A man whose face was all painted in dark slashes and swirls murmured something to Rat.

  “We have canoes pinched from the imperial boat-pound, good. Can you swim, Kaeo?”

  “Will I need to? Yes.” He doubted he could swim far, the shape he was in.

  “Let’s hope not, but it’s good to know.”

  They had three canoes, one an outrigger meant for the sea. Shadowy shapes about him, more than had been inside the palace. The lantern was dark and they all, even Rat, kept silent, running the canoes out into the strange sea of winter-grey grass. The water was not deep, but there would be hidden ditches and creeks and currents in them. No one offered him a paddle. He was a prisoner, he supposed, but no one took his sword from him.

  His sword. As if he had become a warrior by holding his ground even so short a time.