by Jaida Jones
I felt the sharp pang of guilt again, of having harmed someone I’d sworn to protect. What I’d done had been as wrong as a fish taking flight, and as in all cases of nature’s laws being flouted, there would be a price to pay.
I had only hoped to make that payment with my sworn life. I’d never guessed that the gods would choose to punish Mamoru for such a thing. He was as blameless as a new day, fresh with promise and none of the weight of yesterday’s mistakes hanging over him. He did not deserve such unworthy servants, who were not so blameless as he.
I was so caught up in my own thoughts that I didn’t notice it when we came to the river. It was only the sudden splash of water that caught my attention, as in the dark the horse hadn’t seen it either. Mamoru chose that moment to cry out from the fever, and our horse shied in surprise and confusion. I tugged hard on the reins to keep him from bucking.
“Mamoru,” I murmured, then, since there was no one to hear us, “my lord. We have reached the river.”
He made a noise like an animal in pain, and turned his bright, glassy gaze up toward mine. “It’s hot,” he complained softly, “all over. I can’t…” His head dipped, and fell against my shoulder. “Kouje?”
“It’s fine,” I told him, fighting to believe it myself. “Everything’s going to be fine.”
I helped him down from the horse, his body swaying like a doll’s, limp and pale. He was still dressed like a servant.
“Easy now,” I said, edging us both toward the riverbank.
It was a warm night, I reminded myself, and there was no time to think of myself. I waded in fully clothed, with Mamoru held close against my chest. He thrashed in my hold like a fish for a moment, and then went still again as the water washed over him, cold even in the summertime. The Suijin River was one of the larger ones in Xi’an, so wide that the far bank was nearly invisible in the dark, and so long that it crossed over the Cobalts and into Volstov before it once again met with the ocean. I wondered if they had another name for it there, across the mountains, and if the river god ever became confused at having more than one name for the same body of water.
“It’s cold,” Mamoru said.
“Yes,” I replied.
“Don’t let the fish eat my toes,” he pleaded.
“I won’t,” I promised, and recalled that morning in the forest, when the catfish had so startled him. It seemed an unthinkable length of time when I looked back, though it had been no more than three weeks. Not such a great length of time, though it was long enough for our story to have caught the imaginations and satiric attention of the playwrights. It was as though my lord and I were no longer real people, living and breathing among them, but something lofty and far off, removed from the world and entered into legend.
Had the loyal retainer stood as tall as the mountains when he stood on the bridge to defend his lord against a dishonorable death? Had he truly been the figure worthy of legend that my father had talked about?
Or had he been like me: tired and watchful, always suspicious of a stranger, and even more so of a good turn of luck? Had he ever stood in a river alongside his lord, soaking wet, just praying that the fever might go down, that they might make it safely to their destination with no further complications, no more obstacles to block their path?
I wondered when he’d realized that they weren’t going to reach their destination. Then I thought of Mamoru’s stubbornness, and I wondered how the legendary retainer had managed to convince his lord to leave him there on the bridge in the first place.
Perhaps we weren’t the stuff of legends after all.
“It hurts,” Mamoru whispered, crumpling suddenly as though he’d been struck.
I moved once more to hold him up.
“It hurts all over,” he said, looking up at me with pleading in his eyes. “I can’t bear it. I can’t. It’s too much.”
“The water will help,” I said, willing the conviction into my voice. “It is uncomfortable because you are so warm, and the cold is such a shock, but it will help,” I promised. “Trust me.”
Mamoru swallowed, and made a noise of protest in his throat, but he didn’t attempt to argue. I held him as I had when he’d been a child starved for attention, and myself not yet old enough to keep from allowing him his indulgences. I could feel him shivering despite the heat still in his body, and I felt the beginnings of fear flicker to life deep in my heart. We were still too far from my sister’s house for him to be so ill. If I could coax the fever down, then that would be one thing, but if I could not…
The problem was that I couldn’t shake my gut instinct—that this had something to do with Iseul. I did not want to believe that such a thing was possible, that it would be so simple for one brother to turn against the other in such a final way—using forbidden arts—but then, Iseul had already turned his heart and his hand against Mamoru. What else could I expect?
“You’ll be all right,” I told him.
I had no way to render what I offered, but I promised it nonetheless. It was part of my own stubbornness and pride—the very same flaws that had caused me to imagine I, of all men, could protect my prince outside the palace. These were the very same flaws that had inspired me to tell him: Run.
When we were both numb from the water, and long past the moment I’d grown accustomed to the sound of my teeth chattering, Mamoru stilled and his breathing evened. I pressed my wet cheek against his and listened, closely, for each rasp.
“I’m better,” Mamoru whispered.
We’d see about that.
I took him up onto shore nonetheless and wrapped him in the silk. It would soon be ruined, soaked through and stained forever; no longer would it give us away to any man who knew his cloth.
The sun was beginning to rise as I set out, following the course of the river. I listened closely to each sound Mamoru made, but he slept soundly upon the horse, his cheeks only the barest pink. He was no longer as burning hot as he had been the night before, but I refused to let my guard down. Following the river only took us a few miles out of our way, and for now, it was the only cure I had should the fever return.
That night, it did.
It was as soon as the sun dipped beneath the mountain horizon that his teeth began to chatter. Almost immediately I could feel his skin begin to burn, as though some furnace had been ignited within his chest, pumping his blood molten hot through his limbs. In the fading light his cheeks were flushed red, but around his mouth the skin was deadly white.
I dismounted and pulled him after me, and once more we spent hours in the river as the water lashed around me and I held on tight.
He struggled to free himself—if he did, he would drown—as though I were the unlucky fisherman who fell in love with a mermaid and sought to keep her as his wife. He was slippery and strong enough that I had trouble keeping my hold firm, but I wrapped my fingers in his sleeves and stood strong against him.
“Let me free,” he pleaded—begged—commanded. “I know how to swim, Kouje, I’ll be all right.”
“I cannot agree to that,” I replied.
He abandoned begging. Speaking became too much for him. At long last, his arms and legs tired of beating and kicking and he stilled, only to shake now and then with a shiver or a sob.
“Please,” he said, once, his voice rough with effort.
“I cannot,” I said again.
After that, he saw it was no use, and whatever demon had taken hold of him relinquished. It was only me against the fever then, but that was the worse of the two enemies. I lost track of all time as I held him in the water, until at last I felt him go limp and knew he was sleeping.
Again, I wrapped him in the silk. This time, I waited upon the shores of the Suijin for the sun to rise before I mounted up and spurred the weary horse onward.
We were drawing ever closer to the mountains, and when we came to a shallow part of the river, we waded across the water to Honganje province itself. It was what we’d both been waiting for, but now I couldn’t wake Mamo
ru to tell him we’d arrived. If I had, I’d have no assurance that he’d understand me—no assurance that the fever would not take that opportunity to strike again.
Once again, I followed the river. Once again, the fever returned as soon as the sun set.
During the day, it was not so difficult to hold the illness back, but once darkness fell upon us there was nothing I could do but wade into the river and wait.
Mamoru did not struggle so much this time as he had the last. It was easier to keep him from slipping away from me, yet that was no turn of good luck.
“You’ll kill me in the water like this,” Mamoru whispered, deceptive and cold, his eyes white-hot slits. He observed me from behind a face like a mask, and I knew it was the fever speaking. It assumed it knew my lord better than I did. It assumed it could outsmart us with its sly words. “You know how weak I am, Kouje. Do you think I can make it much longer?”
“We shall have to see,” I said.
Mamoru let out a sharp cry, as though I’d pierced his stomach with a blade. It lingered on the air, over the sound of the rushing water, for a long moment; too long.
Then, from somewhere beyond the riverbank, I heard an answering shout.
It was no echo.
I cursed the moon, the sun, winter, and summer; I cursed my father and my mother, the very day I was born. I cursed until I had run out of curses, but all the while I was dragging Mamoru—who’d found new strength to kick and bite and claw and shout—out of the water and up onto the horse.
The horse reared and whinnied, one last act of defiance, before I jammed my boots into his flanks and he tore off alongside the river, slipping occasionally upon the wet pebbles that lined the bank.
I could only imagine the men following us, chasing the lone cry in the night. Bandits, or worse—state officials, soldiers, Iseul’s men, closing in on us.
When was the last time I slept? I had no memory of it, nor indeed of what sleep felt like. In my altered, dizzied state, I imagined all those shadows that had been haunting us closing in on their prey at last, owls upon two field mice.
I covered Mamoru’s mouth with one hand, muffling his cries, and steered the horse with the other. There was only one place along the plains that we could go where we wouldn’t be revealed to the open sky when the sun rose: the mountains. And if my feelings were right, and Iseul had finally shown his hand in using blood magic once again, then there was only one direction we could head for help and sanctuary. I jerked the reins, perhaps too hard, and the horse tore off across the river, away from Honganje. Water flew up around us in an ice-cold spray, and Mamoru tried to bite at my palm.
“Hold tight, my lord,” I said, knowing full well I spoke to someone who was no longer there.
I rode on.
If we could only reach the foothills before the sun began to rise. I had no way of telling whether the men who’d answered my lord’s fevered call had been mounted on horseback, but if they were not, that would surely give us the head start we so desperately needed.
Mamoru pitched forward, his fingers twisted in the horse’s mane as though he meant to bring us down, and I snaked an arm around his chest, pulling him back. He whimpered, then fought against my hold, while I did my damnedest to steer the horse one-handed toward the looming dark of the mountains ahead of us. It didn’t work very well, and I was forced to let my hand fall.
“You’re not making things very easy for me,” I said, because my lord couldn’t hear me.
“You’re so cruel,” he moaned.
I ignored that, as one ignored everything brought on by a fever, and dug my heels in harder. I do not think that I took the time or space to breathe until the ground turned rockier and began to slant upward.
It was then that I began to realize we were going to have to dismount in order to continue. There were footpaths in the Cobalts—secret winding ways that we’d used in the war against Volstov and her dragons. It wouldn’t be safe to ride along them—especially not with my lord in such a state—but one might lead a horse along them efficiently enough.
I just didn’t have any idea how I was going to coax Mamoru into walking. More than that, I didn’t know how I was going to coax him into the sudden change of plans.
Best to confront those problems head-on instead of worrying about them, though. I urged our horse onward, looking for a familiar marking, etched into stone by a simple blade, that would tell me where one of the hidden paths started. They were much harder to spot in the moonlight. I took heart from the fact that Mamoru had not tried to leap from the horse since I’d grabbed hold of him, as though whatever had possessed him had been exorcised by my own sheer stubbornness.
I didn’t flatter myself that I was capable of such things, of course. I was merely glad that whatever it had been seemed to have passed. The fever was opponent enough for me. I was just a man and no figure of legend.
Finally I recognized a marking, a symbol scratched into the rock for soldiers to follow. It would do well enough for my lord and me. I pulled Mamoru from the horse when I myself dismounted, and held him in front of me like a bundle of reeds wrapped in silk.
“Walking,” Mamoru sighed, as though it was an unimaginable burden.
“I’ll help you,” I promised, maneuvering around him to take the horse by the reins.
There was a moment, thankfully brief, when the world spun beneath my feet, and the bright blue of the rocks swirled together with the dark ground. Then, the horse tossed its head impatiently and broke my attention. I was freed from the vortex. I didn’t think it was anything more serious than my own exhaustion, but it was yet another thing to watch for.
There were more causes for a fever than I could count. If I fell prey to illness because of my own exhaustion, then everything fell to the gods.
We traveled in relative silence, Mamoru struggling to put one foot in front of the other, while high above us over the mountains, the sun began to rise. He clutched at his robes with thin, pale fingers, as though the silk gave him comfort against the strain of walking. At least, I thought, we could be thankful that losing the cover of darkness would mean losing the worst of the fever for the day as well. It left him weak, though, and leaning heavily on me in order to keep one foot following the other. I pushed from my mind any thought of what might happen if I weakened too—such a turn of events was unacceptable; I refused it—and we pressed on.
The mountains were brightly colored even in the faint hazy light of dawn, blue as the very heart of the country. For one as devoted as I, it was difficult to see the land as a danger, potentially housing enemies at every turn. The fourteenth pass, the one we were using, was unoccupied these days because of its extreme proximity to the Volstov capital. Clearing it out had been one of the first agreed-upon provisions of the treaty, or so my lord had told me, in the weeks after the war had ended.
We moved deeper into the mountains, while memory blurred with my thoughts and the sound of each ragged breath—my own mingling with my lord’s.
At the heat of midday we stopped to rest, and Mamoru slept so deeply I checked his breath with my palm in front of his mouth more than once to reassure myself. He was still breathing though more quietly.
Even the horse sensed our troubles, and he was restless in the sunlight. I soothed both beast and my lord with alternating hands, let Mamoru drink from a skin dangerously low on water, while the horse whinnied in chastisement. We were both beasts of burden—perhaps, at last, we’d come to appreciate one another. Even if the horse was himself a foreigner.
Just on the other side of the range was Volstov, a country less our enemy than our own Emperor was. It was dragon country no more. From our position, twinkling faintly in the far distance, were the jeweled rooftops of Lapis, like a little toy city, as easily scattered by a child’s hand as it had been by the dragonfire.
I turned to show Mamoru, but his eyes were shut against the sunlight, and I thought the better of it. Instead, I whispered his name against his temple and gently led him on.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CAIUS
It had been nearly a week since Josette, Alcibiades, and I had shared our tête-à-tête in the general’s room, and we had yet to find an opportunity in which to get Lord Temur by himself.
The man was simply impossible!
“Of course, we would have to pick one of the more popular lords.” I sighed, murmuring my complaint to Alcibiades behind the fall of my sleeve. “He’s much too sociable for a Ke-Han warlord.”
“I thought that was what you liked about him,” Alcibiades countered in a maddening fashion.
He reached over me to spear one of the fried dumplings that had somehow begun cropping up at our table. Alcibiades did well enough with his sticks, even if he did use them as if they were weapons instead of eating utensils. I couldn’t help but think that his improved mood had a great deal to do with the fare, though that in turn was doubtless more to do with my helpful little suggestions to Lord Temur—all of them exquisitely tactful—than any hint the cooks might have taken from Alcibiades’ plates of fish going back untouched.
Josette, on my left, took a sip of her tea, watching our quarry with an expression that I might have termed intimate concern were I feeling more romantic about the whole thing. Really, she almost made it too easy for me. She was much like Alcibiades in that fashion, poor thing. Some people just couldn’t keep anything to themselves.
“Are we sure this is the proper way to go about things?” Josette asked.
“Oh, surely not proper,” I said, unable to keep the smile from my lips, “but it will be simplest. And it’s dreadfully efficient. I’m a bit out of practice since the war ended, and unlike Alcibiades, I haven’t had any opportunity for fun.”
“Fun,” Alcibiades snorted. “I wouldn’t call it that, exactly.”
I was starting to take the impression that my companions were experiencing what amounted to a softening of the heart. It was not quite a change of heart, since Alcibiades at the very least could be counted on to stick to a decision once he’d made it, but I could still tell that the poor dears were having doubts. Even to men such as Alcibiades, hardened on the battlefield, my Talent was a questionable force. When asked directly, the most explanation that people could manage was that it didn’t seem “quite fair,” all things considered.
