An Emperor's Fury: The Frayed Rope

by Paul Heisel

  Suun smiled. “As long as you aren’t too hands on. We can’t afford to have you killed or injured. There are deaths here, mind you, not on purpose, but it does happen. This is not for the casual learner.”

  “I want to learn all of it.”

  “You shall, if that is your wish.”

  “What do I need to do with Kojo?”

  “We’ll send out regular messengers, falcons or ravens, with your declaration. I will have one of the administrators draw up the decree. What it will state is that Kojo has committed an offense and he’s to be punished by death. If he’s honorable, he’ll surrender to the authorities who will carry out your decree. If he resists or ignores it, then the team must take him by whatever means necessary.”

  “See that it’s done. I want the orange snake team to go to Furawa. I want them to wait until Kojo returns home, as I don’t believe he will surrender. When he’s there, I want the punishment administered.”

  “The other teams?”

  “I want your team to go to Emesia. That’s the problem spot. I want the best there.”

  “Orange snake team is the best,” Suun said, her head cocking to the side.

  “They may be the best at what they do, but I need a person I trust in Emesia. I may need you to help me, and I know you’ll help me no matter what I ask. It may be of a personal nature.” Feln looked at the other teams. He didn’t know where to send them.

  “And the others?” Suun asked.

  “I would be most grateful if you’d choose for me.”

  “I’ll give it thought.” She paused as if reflecting on an important point. “If you deploy the teams, I’ll be leaving immediately. I won’t be here to help you.”

  “I understand. I’ll give you instructions before you leave. All I really need is for you to introduce me to the administrators and one person you trust to take care of me.” He paused and gazed at the arena, now empty of the warriors. “Suun, I have to get back to Owori. That’s the only thing I care about. I don’t mean any offense to the family.”

  “She’s fortunate to have a man as determined as you, just as the Xialao family is fortunate to have our Most Favored back. Promise you will come back.”

  “If I can find a way to bring her with me. That’s when I will come back.”

  “We’ll find a way.”

  “So what now?”

  “I think you should spend some time with Zu,” Suun said. “Zu is the elderly man who gave the first demonstration. Or his granddaughter gave the demonstration. He was my instructor when I was a girl, and looked after me when my father died. He’ll organize a training routine for you as well. Come on, let’s go talk to him. Then I need to show you why for the last twenty years we’ve been like a fearsome dragon with its head cut off.”

  #

  As Feln contemplated the conceptual schedule Zu had put forth, he imagined he would get no sleep. The elderly man understood the need for balance, which was why the day was broken into four parts – two for training, one for administrative duties, and one for personal time. They weren’t in equal measure, and he mused they didn’t need to be, so he decided to trust the man's judgment. He hoped he would learn as much as he could with the time that he had. After Zu departed, Suun directed him to a room in the palace he hadn’t been inside yet. It looked like a study, but it had a superficial feel to it. There were old books and small wooden desks to write upon. The room was dusty from the twenty years of non-use. Suun brightened the lantern and closed the door.

  “What’s this place?”

  “A study.”

  “I gathered as much. It seems rather unremarkable.”

  “That’s its purpose.” Suun paused. She set down the lantern and motioned toward a house banner. “Grab the banner.” The golden sword on the dark background stood out, and it moved slightly as Feln approached. He grasped the soft fabric and pulled it aside. “I vaguely remember your mother doing this. She was so trustful of children. Now grab the bottom of the banner. You will feel a heavy rod. Pull it out.”

  Feln did as instructed. In his hand was a metal rod, cylindrical and as thick as his finger. It had notches and scratches up and down, as if it had been hammered upon by an angry, talentless blacksmith. He gazed at it, his curiosity tickled him. He turned to Suun. “It’s a key.”

  Suun nodded and motioned toward the wall. “There’s a hole in the wall. The combination of the key and the Most Favored belt opens the chamber. I saw your mother do it once. I only know what’s inside because one of the administrators remembers, as he had been in there with your mother for a short time.”

  “What’s inside?” Feln asked.

  “Why don’t you just see what’s in there.”

  Feln took the key and stuck it in the hole. He felt the energy of the belt jolt him. A lock clicked and a secret panel swung open. The air was stale and cold. Suun handed him the lantern.

  “Aren’t you coming with me?”

  “Only if asked. This is your secret chamber. Others aren’t allowed unless you're asked.”

  Feln grumbled at the formality Suun had observed. Of course she would only come in if asked. He was the leader, head of the family, and no one would do anything under assumption. There had to be a way for him to remember that. “Suun, please come in with me. Make yourself useful and hold the lantern.”

  He handed the lantern back to her and entered the room. It was about the size of a small bedroom, no more than one hundred feet square. To the left was a tiny iron stove, and along the wall was a woodbin built into the brick wall. There were tinder kits and small pieces of wood for starting a fire. Along the same wall were faded scrolls tacked to the wall with metal pins. Some looked to be thousands of years old, were yellowing and falling apart. In the middle of the room was a large square wooden table that took up most of the room's space. On it was a scale map of Pyndira, complete with mountains, lakes, streams, and borders. It looked like a sculpted clay model, but done with such detail that Feln suspected magic had been used. Next to the map was a teak box the size of a wealthy woman's jewelry chest, with the lid closed and latched. The end wall had nothing of importance. To the right was a small wooden desk, upon it was a feather quill and a small book. The bookmarks were silk, each a different color – red, green, blue, yellow, orange, purple, and white. He grabbed the book and opened it. The first pages were blank, and he flipped through the rest to discover all of them were blank. Even the bookmarks seemed meaningless. He looked to Suun, and she was beaming. She had the biggest grin on her face.

  “Am I missing something?”

  “Open it to the red bookmark,” she told him. “Write in it.”

  Feln took the quill. “No ink. Anything we find in here will be dried up.”

  “None is needed. Trust me.”

  He pushed the quill to the paper, scratching against it made a dry scraping sound. Magic ink flowed from the tip, filling in the letters as he wrote, This is really strange.

  “Look,” Suun said. She held up a small book, open to a blank page. On it This is really strange appeared. She closed it and stuffed it in her uniform. “This is how the Most Favored communicates with the teams. This is how you dispense the most important justice.” She pointed at the faded scrolls on the wall. “Twenty years ago our teams stopped receiving instructions. Months later, when no orders were issued, they all came home.”

  “Each team has a book then,” Feln said.

  “This is why we need our leader. Without the leader, we have no way of knowing what needs to be done. This is why you can’t delegate this to an administrator. Only the wearer of the Most Favored belt can write in that book.”

  “What if one of the teams loses their book?”

  “Useless to anyone but a member of the Xialao family. The magic binds it.”

  Feln thought this would be safer than using ravens or falcons, and it would be unlikely that an enemy would suspect a blank diary of being magical. He put the book down and slid the quill into its holder. So that’s how they co
mmunicated. He turned his attention to the teak box, as it intrigued him. He wondered what that was for. There was a sturdy latch made of brass, so he unclasped it then swung open the top on ancient creaking hinges.

  Out of it came little things, leaping and flying. Both Feln and Suun jumped at the sudden movement. Eight tiny dragons, the size of small dragonflies, came out and flew over the map. The dragons were of different colors, shapes, and sizes. The red one flew toward Hikimi, the others went to Daiwer-dar and landed at the Emperor’s palace. They became smaller, tiny as mosquitoes, and took up their positions.

  “The Emperor’s dragons,” Suun said. “One for each family, one for the Emperor, and one for the Warlord I believe. When the Emperor calls for the heads of the family, he sends their dragons to fetch them. Of course you already know this…”

  Out of the box climbed seven warriors, each a different color – the same colors as the bookmarks. They were an inch tall, looking like miniature toys. Once they were on the map, they ran along different routes to Safun and took up residence there. More figures came out, these larger, about two inches tall. They looked like samurai dressed in full armor. Each was black as obsidian. They took up positions within the provinces, and Feln figured that had to be the Most Favoreds. In Emesia, the figure collapsed on the ground dead, then another black figure arrived and stood over it with arms crossed.

  “Chang,” Feln whispered. “The map knows he’s dead.”

  “So this is how we know where the Most Favoreds are,” Suun said, her voice soft. “I had no idea.”

  The last two figures that came out of the box were slightly taller than the Most Favored figurines. They were a gray color, one had a wide brimmed hat and flowing robes and took up station at the top of the palace in Daiwer-dar. The Emperor. The other, dressed as a samurai, stood near the Emperor on his right.

  “Both the Warlord of Pyndira and Emperor are at the palace,” Feln said.

  Suun bent over and peered into the box. There were more figurines, different shapes, different colors, but all defunct it seemed. Moments passed and no others came on the map. She wasn’t completely sure, but she had the feeling there was more to this than just showing the dragons, the Most Favoreds, the Warlord, the Emperor, and their teams.

  “I don’t suppose there are instructions,” Feln said.

  “You read my mind.”

  They searched the room but found nothing that would tell them how the map worked. They would have to experiment or wait for something to happen. For a long time they watched the figures, some would move slightly, others were at a complete standstill. One of the dragons took flight from the palace and headed to Furawa. It was a brown dragon, snakelike and with small wings, slithering through the air until it came to a halt, hovering at a new spot. Each minute it would move forward a fraction of an inch to simulate the distance it was traveling.

  Feln pointed to the red dragon, a fair replica of Sli, flying to Hikimi. “That’s Sli, the dragon assigned to our family. Do you think that brown one is the Furawa dragon?”

  “Browns can be from Emesia, if I recall correctly. I’m not sure though. Dragon lore isn’t my specialty.”

  “So it’s probably headed to Emesia – to collect Hiru?”

  “Or to deliver something.”

  “Either way, I don’t like it.”

  More time passed and nothing new happened. Feln wondered if he should close the small chest that contained the figurines. There had to be a reason they were kept in a small chest. It even had handles, so it was portable. He began closing the lid. An unseen force held it open. At once all the figurines on the map came alive and jumped into the chest. Feln closed and fastened it.

  “I don’t know what to think,” Feln said.

  “You’ll figure it out.”

  “Do you think there’s anyone that can help me? That administrator?”

  “He told me everything he knew,” Suun said. “I’m afraid the last person to be in this room was your mother. All the Most Favoreds before her are long dead. No one else would know.”

  Feln walked out of the room and pulled it shut by an ingenious latch that pushed at the top to let out the bottom. Once closed and locked, he put the key in the banner.

  “I’ll give this some thought. You need to get ready.”

  “We’ve always been ready. Each team will be heading out to their provinces, their starting spots are the capital cities. All you need to do is write in the book what you want done, and we’ll do it. Please let us know, though, if you’re going to be gone for a while. We’ll do our best to stay out of sight.”

  “Will you get jobs, do what?”

  “Our family has homes, land of their own in the other provinces. Our faithful are there. You can call them spies, no sense in calling them something they’re not. We’ll take up residence and work the land, as well as train. Others will find work if they need to. Don’t worry about us. We know what we’re doing.”

  Feln was suddenly reminded of Heng. He alluded to as much, that he was part of the Xialao family. “I wasn’t worried,” Feln said. “Just curious.”

  Suun departed and he was alone for the evening, and he didn’t see her that night or the next day. The teams left for their assignments along with Feln’s first declaration that Kojo was to suffer pain of death for invading Emesia and slaughtering innocent citizens. He wondered where Kojo was and if his team would be able to find him. If it were true that he was in league with Hiru, he could be in Hou by now attacking and upsetting the balance of power. Owori came to his mind, as it often did, and his promise to rescue Iristi would delay him getting home. At this point, he didn’t know where home was. He didn’t want to admit it, but this fortress felt like home to him.

  #

  In the days that followed, Feln felt like an outsider looking through an unfamiliar window that was covered with so much grime that nothing was clear. Suun was gone, and so was his personal guide. Decisions were placed at his feet for consideration, and he wasn’t sure if he was doing the right thing. It took him a few days to realize that he was the Most Favored, the head of the Xialao family, and that he was in charge of the Safun province. He needed to act like it. One of the bureaucrats, one of nameless many who graced his court to run interference and keep petitioners busy, scoffed at one of his notions about what should be done for a farmer whose crops had been destroyed by blight. The decision, while immaterial in this particular case, was really about how he was going to treat people. Those that were able to see him would get a fair hearing. Those, like the bureaucrat who scoffed, would get a flogging. Soon after that the sniggering and whispering stopped. Feln imagined it would happen a few more times, and he would have to issue similar punishments to the bureaucrats if they questioned his judgment in non-constructive ways.

  The training was a welcome distraction from the political life. He was learning much, Zu told him so, and the instructors were impressed with his raw talent and ability. He was able to teach them a few techniques to add to their curriculum. It took a lot out of him, and in the evenings, at least twice he had fallen asleep at the head of the table. The nobles enjoying his company felt slighted. The apology from his staff did nothing to soften their anger, and only private meetings with the Most Favored quelled their ire.

  That, though, wasn’t the worst of it. The administrators who spent their time organizing judgments and recommending punishments were opinionated and insistent on their interpretation of the law, and they didn’t agree with the approach he wanted them to take regarding several disputes. Up front he asked them to measure transgression against transgression, making little quarrels cancel out when family was against family. They protested, quoting one of their ancient sayings that ‘two wrongs do not make a right,’ but he insisted that in the months to come, each family would give them so many transgressions, possibly going back twenty years, that the punishments handed out would cripple their resources. It would also bring their workings to a halt. Feln was determined, though, and he stood by h
is convictions. In a week or two they would come around to his thinking. When he met with them, he told them this wasn’t permanent, it was just to get them through the first onslaught of requests and make it clear to the families that smaller disputes should be settled amongst themselves, fairly, and justly.

  By the third week the administrators understood the wisdom of his thinking and began organizing all the requests, dividing the accusations into different degrees of criminality. The word was getting out and the minor transgressions didn’t even make it into the door. Now that they were enforcing his will, he was assured only the most important issues would get to him.

  There were nine days left until he would depart for Malurrion. It would be a long trek to Emesia, however, he expected to stop in Hiru and see what he could do to release Iristi. Now that he had been exposed to the administrators, the bureaucracy, and their knowledge, he thought that he had political grounds to ask for her release. Though hopeful for a peaceful solution, he imagined he would encounter an army of Furies when he arrived in Hiru. He thought about asking Suun for help, and many times he picked up the magic book in the Map Room, as he started calling it, but didn’t write in it. The map showed that his teams were in place in Shisaru, Hikimi, Daiwer-dar, and Furawa – maybe not settled, but in the province. Ashimo and Emesia teams were still traveling. It occurred to him that it was odd he had a team for Safun, his own province, but one of the administrators explained that Safun, just like other provinces, had its share of bad people. They weren't above the law just because they were from Safun.

  The map was still a mystery but interesting to watch. Sli flew to the southern tip of Hikimi, stayed for a few days, and was now back the palace. The Warlord and Emperor hadn’t moved in three weeks; they were busy with whatever – he didn’t ponder what they were doing. Feln picked up the book and checked it for messages, there were none. He knew the books were not to be used for casual conversation. They were used to give orders. Soon he would give them the order to find Kojo, because he knew he wouldn’t surrender willingly. He would have to put his team to the test. Part of the problem, though, would be finding Kojo. He didn’t know how his team was going to do that. Feln looked at the map, gazing at the wondrous details. Then he looked to the teak box, gazing at the defunct figurines scattered on the bottom. An idea registered.