Gods of Nabban

by K V Johansen

  He took the candle from an unresisting hand, stuck it back in the horn-paned lantern on the shelf. “Sit down, Master Yuro.” But it was the polite honorific of the road he gave him, not the Imperial word for one’s owner or a higher ranking servant of the house. Slightest of differences in sound, a world of meaning. Yuro raised his eyebrows at it, hand folded across a probably-sore midriff. Ahj didn’t always hear that difference when he snarled about it.

  “Where do they have Lord Daro Korat? I need to find him.”

  “Old Great Gods have mercy, do you not know what’s been happening here?”

  “Don’t shout. Yes, I do. I need to get the Kho’anzi away. I need his name, to take this province.”

  “Need?” Yuro, who had not sat, took a step back. “The province? Do you know what you’re saying?” A frown. “You never used to put enough words together to make sense.”

  “I’ve had to learn. My friend growls at me when I don’t.”

  “You’re not the boy. You look like him, maybe. If he went north. All sorts of wild things in the Denanbaki hills and the desert. Demons. Spirits of the wind and the sand. The stories the caravaneers tell . . . You’re not him. Something’s putting words in your mouth. His mouth.”

  “I went south, Yuro, and east. To the cities and the sea. And west, after, to the Five Cities and beyond. Now I’m back. Do you want Daro Korat to die?”

  “No! Never such a death as they mean for him.”

  “You didn’t join Sia.”

  “Lord Sia was a fool and damned all his family. Once he had the Kho’anzi, the general said he was going to kill even the children. Don’t know if he meant it, but the ladies poisoned them to spare them. Their own children.”

  “Who’s the girl?” Ghu tilted his head towards the heap of blankets.

  “Lady Daro Willow.” Yuro’s lips thinned. He had not meant to answer.

  “The baby?” The Kho’anzi’s third and last daughter’s baby. A scandal, that had been. She had been refusing a betrothal to a young lord of Musa Clan in Taihu, an alliance the old emperor had strongly hinted would be to his liking, when her pregnancy became obvious. The father had never been named that Ghu knew of, but it ruined her marriage prospects. She had always wanted an officer’s commission in the couriers anyway, not to be lady of a household. She gave that up, as well, to raise her baby herself and not leave it entirely to slaves and her brother’s wife. Or maybe she had had other reasons for not wanting to leave the castle . . . riding down along the river, and a man who thought himself out of sight in the willows at the stony spit where the coltsfoot bloomed so thickly in spring. Take my dogs for a good run, Ghu, she said. Take both horses. I’m going to sit and watch the water. . . . Lord Sia’s confidential secretary, he had been, secreted in the willows, some minor banner-lady’s younger child, landless, rankless. No fit match for a high lord’s daughter. Ghu had always understood the baby’s name, if nobody else did.

  “So you know who the child was. Doesn’t mean anything. You could know what’s in Ghu’s mind, maybe, what he remembers. Whatever you are.”

  “Two of the Kho’anzi’s family left to him. And he himself.”

  “One.”

  “I am Ghu, Yuro. And if I did not talk much, I listened. Are you going to let your father be sent to die in the Golden City, or will you help him?”

  Yuro sat, then, as if the wind had been knocked out of him a second time.

  “Where did you hear that? Old Great Gods, not even—no one—”

  “It’s in your heart,” he said gently. “Every time you stood before him. And in his.”

  Yuro said nothing, so Ghu bowed and turned away. It would have to be the river, then. The punt would not hold so many, once they had Lord Korat, but he could swim the moat, and they could raid the village on the mound southward for a proper boat—would the Kho’anzi in hiding be enough to rouse the province, with an imperial army in Dernang? He needed—he knew what he needed and could not see any way to it, but through the devil.

  To start so . . .

  He paused by the girl. “What did they do to her?”

  “She ran from her aunts—her mother’s dead. I mean, two years dead. Died in childbirth with a second baby and no father known for that one, either. Though—Sia’s secretary had died of winter fever not long before and I saw the life going out of her with that, if no one else did.” He added, “She always liked the horses.”

  Yuro had had affection for her, then, the sister who did not know him her brother. Ghu had liked her too. It spoke well of both of them.

  “But Willow, she hid, when the family—did what they did. House-master Duri couldn’t roll over fast enough for the Zhung general. He told him who the girl was, when they found her halfway down the fishpond overflow drain. General Musan said a bastard Daro brat wasn’t much of threat if she was put in her proper place and ordered her branded for Zhung Clan and set in the castle records as a captive of war. As if she were a foreigner! They sent her to the kitchens, and I don’t think that lot were any too kindly. Scared for their own skins if they were, maybe. So the child took the punt across the moat, three nights ago now—the flood hadn’t come up so high yet. She stole a horse from a courier station—no one knows how she managed that—but they caught up with her, of course. Don’t know where she thought she was going. So Musan marked her as a runaway.”

  “Someone meant her to die,” Ghu said.

  “General Musan. With his own hand on the iron. I took the girl out of the kitchens to see what I could do, for her mother’s sake, but I’ll have to send her back in the morning. If she’s still breathing. Musan is—” He shook his head. “To execute rebels is one thing but—”

  “Bring the light.”

  Yuro hesitated, just long enough to make it clear he was not jumping to the order. But he brought the lantern and held it up. The child lay on her side. Her skin was slick with sweat and a flushed, unhealthy colour; her hair had been shorn to a knuckle’s length all over her head. The wound on her face was a crusted burn, purple, black, red, oozing. The iron left in place too long, searing too deeply. The eye above it was swollen and her breath heavy and wheezing. Ghu knelt and pulled back the thin gown. The brand on her shoulder had nearly healed, deep and livid though it was, only seeping a little, and crusted, smeared like her face with some rank-smelling salve Ghu doubted was doing any good. He put his hand over the festering new burn on the girl’s face. She was dreaming now of the moat, of cold, lightless water, struggling to reach it, to drown herself, while hands like claws clutched her back.

  “You’re stronger than that,” he whispered, because it was true, but despair and surrender were heavy on the child, as killing a force as the fever that ate her. “Be stronger, Willow.” The little hand found and gripped his suddenly. Eyes flickered, not quite opening.

  “Tell me again,” Yuro said abruptly. “Tell me again, why you’re here. Why you’ve come back, why you talk so. To take the province. Are you mad?”

  “No. Yuro, do you truly think a newborn baby should survive, in the river? How long was my mother dead when Gomul found me? How long had I been in the water?” Almost a whisper. “Yuro, I am here; I belong to the gods, who send me to you, to Nabban, and if you love the gods, believe me. I need Daro Korat.”

  “You need. You tell me what you are, before the gods.” The horsemaster’s voice shook. “What thing you are and what you did to young Ghu.”

  The fever was cooling. Ghu put a palm over the burn on the girl’s back.

  “Why come back?” Yuro demanded. “Whatever you are, and I don’t believe you, why? What’s the old lord to the gods? I know what’s planned for him; I know how the emperor killed his enemies and the empress’s rule is no different. Worse. She executed all her brother’s counsellors before his body had even cooled, that’s what they’re saying. If it’s true. Had them summoned to her and murdered by Wind in the Reeds there before her, to show what would happen to those who didn’t accept her. I don’t want the old man to die
a traitor’s death for defying that kind of tyranny. He was always—he wasn’t like Sia, after anything with breasts. Whatever my mother was to him, it was something that mattered, and to both of them. He was always kind to me as he could be, while his mother lived and ruled the Daro, and kind to my mother who was mistress of the stables before me, and after—she died in the same year as the old lady so it was too late, wasn’t it? But the little lady—he let Willow have the Daro name and set her in the family descent acknowledged in her lordship and that was for—for what he hadn’t done for me, as much as for his daughter’s child, I knew it. But Lord Korat will die. So many have, and the gods have done nothing. If they exist at all. Why? Why say you need him?”

  “I told you. I need his name—”

  “The Daro name is worth nothing now but death. Look at Willow.”

  “I need the Kho’anzi. I need the army of Choa, the banner-lords of the Daro Clan.”

  “There is no Daro Clan in Choa. The name is forbidden. They’re to be Zhung, all Zhung, even the banner-lords, those few who’ll keep their rank. Or their heads. There is only General Zhung Musan’s army; he’s been appointed Kho’anzi of Choa now. All the companies of the town and the border posts are his. Prince Dan’s army—I don’t know if it ever existed, or it was just a wish of Lord Sia’s. There were certainly companies from over in Alwu roaming like brigands here, mostly harassing the imperial forces, but they’ve scattered. There’s rumour that there’s still a rebel army over in Alwu, but we haven’t seen them here. Here, the garrison of the castle, our lord’s own banner-lords and his soldiery—they were disarmed when Lord Daro surrendered himself to the general. They laid down their weapons trusting in General Musan’s word and honour, and they’re imprisoned now and to be sent in chains to the Old Capital with the Kho’anzi, to die with him. The younger sons, the warrior daughters of every Daro family, the household armsfolk. There is no Daro army. They’re all prisoners here.”

  “The Kho’anzi was a good lord and the soldiers of the clan and lords of the province and their banner-lords will find their heart again for him,” Ghu said. “But they won’t follow Daro Korat’s horseboy.”

  “Why should they?” But it sounded a plea.

  Ghu sighed, sitting back on his heels. “Yuro—I am all I ever was, and I become all that the gods, who claimed me before Gomul ever fished me from the river, mean me to be. Believe, or don’t.”

  “The empress—her people say the gods are dead. They pray to her as a goddess, Chosen Daughter of the Old Great Gods. They’re tearing down the shrines of the woods and waters, building temples and altars to the empress. They kill the old priests, now, if they don’t turn from the Father and Mother to serve the new cult-centres in the towns. The family of the Swajui shrine are dead. You think the gods have sent you to fight that?”

  “Yes. They have. The gods aren’t dead yet, but they are dying, Yuro. They have been dying a long time. But they have not set any child of Min-Jan’s line to take their place.”

  “That’s not a prophecy to bring the folk to follow you, boy, or to bring them to the Kho’anzi’s banner either. Anyway, there’s not a mad fool who claims to hear the whispers of the gods who doesn’t die for it in short order.”

  “There is more honour in fighting to renew this land than in making yourself a slave, surrendering choice and leaving the struggle to others. I don’t claim to be a prophet, but it is the true heir of Nabban who will shape the fate of this land now, not the children of Min-Jan. Not the empress.”

  Yuro snorted. “Not the Min-Jan. That’s what the prophets say. Old Great Gods—yourself, you mean?”

  Ghu looked up. “Yes.”

  Something touched him again, brushed over him, hesitated, lost in fog, and passed on.

  Yuro was silent, lips working as if he chewed his thoughts.

  “You’re mad,” he said at last. “But you’ll take Lady Willow away? You’ve been in foreign lands. You’ve been out in the world. You’ll take her over the border to Denanbak?”

  He could not answer that. It felt wrong. Where? Swajui, the shrine of the Mother’s rising. No. He must go to Swajui, to the holy spring, and up the mountain to the Father, but Daro Korat—the Kho’anzi was where he needed to be. Here.

  Prince Dan. If the man was not dead, he must find him, too.

  He was mad. They were three, against a castle.

  But they were already inside the walls.

  “How do you think you can get her out? Demon magic?”

  “I’m not a demon.” But he had a devil leashed by her word. For now. If he thought it right to use her.

  He did not. But she was the only weapon he had to hand.

  Yuro shrugged. The little girl, beneath Ghu’s hand, mumbled and curled up smaller, like a dog getting comfortable. Her grip on Ghu slackened. “How?” Yuro persisted.

  How, indeed. “We’ll manage.”

  “Who’s we?”

  “Friends.”

  “Caravan-folk?” Eyeing Ghu’s sheepskin coat.

  “Not exactly.” Ghu sighed. “It’s you I wanted, Yuro. Your help. Your sense. Your care for your father. But if you will not, at least stay quiet here. Bar your door and keep the child safe. I don’t think we’ll get Daro Korat away without bloodshed.”

  “I’ll meet you on the road,” Yuro said. “With horses and the girl. We can run for Denanbak.”

  “There are two wizards.” Yeh-Lin’s voice, the door ajar. “There were wards and guards on this castle, and you walked through them without a stir, my lord, I don’t know how, but the attention of something has been drawn by this fog, and now one at least of the wizards is waking and knows things run amiss. We’re out of time.”

  “My lord?” Yuro repeated.

  Time. The moment, flying. Not away. Here. Now.

  “Daro soldiers,” Ghu said. “Prisoners. Where?”

  “What? Cellars of the western tower,” Yuro said. “If they’re not drowned. It’s flooding down there.”

  “Get them out. Arm them. Where’s Daro Korat?”

  “At the top of the great keep in the sunset room. Don’t be a fool. You can’t—”

  “Ahj!” He was out the door and halfway down the stairs, with Ahjvar coming out of the darkness there to fall in at his side.

  “What?”

  “The Kho’anzi,” he said. “We need to take this place. Now. Tonight. We need to hold it. Come.”

  The gods in him gathered strength, and the thing that watched the fog, the tendril of awareness that had touched him, wary, wondering, was dispersed. For a time. It did not see him clearly, not yet. But one of the imperial wizards stirred ink in a silver shell, and breathed on it. Eyes met his, widening, lit by candle’s flame.

  “No,” Ghu said aloud, and brushed the man away.

  “What?” Ahjvar asked.

  “Wizards. Watching.”

  Ahj shed their packs in the mulberry orchard, cut a thin branch from a tree they passed and stripped the bark from it as they went. “Wait,” he said, and as Ghu paused, impatient and yearning to run, Ahjvar split the wand, leaning back against the wall, and scored lines on it, muttering, “Walnut, mountain ash, grape . . .” none of which would be growing in this enclosure. There was some shape of will there, made between his hand and the knife and the green wood. That which was hidden and the reversal of sight. The wizard, away in the keep, cried out and dropped his silver shell, blinded and clutching his eyes. A woman demanded of him that he speak, say where the danger lay, and he cried, “We are cursed by the gods, lady. Forgive me, Father forgive me.” Another . . . another wizard, somewhere in the keep, walked into a wall, rubbed her eyes, and began to run.

  “Damn. I’ve lost one,” Ahjvar said. “Where’s—” But no point asking, Yeh-Lin was not with them. He snapped the stick in his hand, dry and brittle now as if a year dead, and dropped it, loaded the crossbow. “Go on?”

  “Yes. Run.” A bell jangled alarm somewhere high above.

  They ran where they could, crossing
gardens, went warily in the narrow passages between buildings and on the shallow steps. The place was designed to lose and trap. The Zhung soldiers had been quartered here only a few weeks. More likely they would trap themselves in dead ends than he would. And from the cries, they were mostly being sent to the gate and the outermost yard, after the stables. The air smelt suddenly of smoke.

  “She wouldn’t fire the stables,” Ahjvar said, and gave him a shove when he broke stride, almost turning back.

  No. She would not. Trust. The smoke was doing what she meant, drawing enemies away from the keep. He ducked into a narrow gap between buildings, damp walls, mossy stones underfoot, eaves nearly touching. Steep climb, three sharp-angled turns. Broader passage, a gate, closed. He jumped to catch the top and swung over it, dropping down into a family garden. Ahjvar followed one-handed, holding the crossbow. Soft lawn, clouds of magnolia opened like white stars, and dark mountains of juniper. The ornamental fishpond, a stone statue of a leaping fish. Beyond, there was a low retaining wall and then a raised platform of crunching white gravel to cross, before the towering keep itself.

  Torches burned at the entry porch. Lanterns lit the perimeter of the keep’s platform. Light glinted up high. No windows in the stone-built ground storey.

  They were two, and this was madness. Fog, which had trailed them through the passages, across the garden, thickened over the pond, climbed to blur the lights.

  There was a darkness against the plastered walls high above. Shapes. Not shuttered windows. Elongated . . .

  Death.

  They cried out to him, wordless, beseeching. Ghosts, trapped souls. Bodies. Four. Old man. Young man. Young woman. Girl-child.

  Hanged from the upper windows of the keep, swinging over the eaves of the next storey down.

  He swayed and would have fallen as their fear and pain and loss poured through him, but Ahj seized him as he crumpled, and he caught himself on the top of the retaining wall.

  “Who?” A whisper. Ahjvar could see ghosts, and must see these.