The Forbidden City

by Deborah A. Wolf

  As the beast turned and advanced upon the unmoving forms, wings half-furled, head low to the ground and hissing, the red-cloaked form of Aasah stepped from the shadows. He stood between the bintshi and its intended prey and lifted one hand, fingers extended. His face showed not the slightest trace of fear—indeed, he smiled at the shadow-thing, and his voice rolled like thunder before the rains.

  “Enough.”

  The bintshi paused and rattled its wings, feathered crest rising high and long black tongue flicking out in agitation. It took another step, more cautiously, and another, and its jaws gaped wide.

  “Enough.” Aasah held up his other hand, and then spread them wide apart, more in benediction than in warning, and then he began to sing. Sulema did not know the words—indeed, she did not recognize the language—but she knew a lullaby when she heard one. The tension was drawn from her body, and she heard a long, low sigh sweep across the gathered audience. Where there had been fear, there was none. Even the sky seemed to brighten as shadows were sucked into the shadowmancer’s song, and the creature’s head snaked side to side, side to side, black-flame eyes blinking in the sunlight, growing heavy, heavy.

  Finally those wicked eyes shut and the great night-feathered head drooped to the ground, and with a sound like the end of a sandstorm all the shadows were sucked from its scaly hide and the beast dissipated, leaving the arena empty but for the shadowmancer, the warrior, her vash’ai, and the curled and senseless form of the druid’s apprentice.

  Aasah scooped the girl from the ground as tenderly as if she were his own daughter and walked slowly away, still singing to her, ignoring the audience’s shocked silence as he had disregarded their panicked screams, moments before.

  The crowd erupted with a deafening roar.

  “Za fik,” Sulema breathed. “Za fik! Is it over, then? Is your shadowmancer to be named champion?”

  “No, child, the spectacle is not over.” Wyvernus laughed, and even he sounded a touch breathless as he patted his daughter’s knee. “There are still the fools’ plays, the beastmasters, and so many smaller fights and skirmishes that even you will have your fill before the day—” He stopped short, eyes flashing dangerously, and stared down into the arena. Sulema followed his line of sight and wondered what had so drawn the king’s ire.

  Salarian troops, white-robed and resplendent astride their slender mounts, flowed onto the grounds of the Sulemnium like a wave of salt and steel, like the heroes of ages past springing full-fleshed from the pages of a book. Sulema nodded in approval at their horses, which were long-limbed and sleek, with delicate ears curled back toward the rider. They were close cousins to the desert asil, and fine to look upon.

  The thundering cavalry split into two groups. One group wore red belts under their white cloaks, the other blue. They circled the outer edge of the arena, shouting insults to one another in a rhythm that was almost a song, flowing now together and now apart, bright-tipped spears and salt-steel daggers flashing bright. Sulema smiled.

  “They are very good.”

  “They are,” Wyvernus answered, but he did not smile. His face was unreadable as he leaned back into his enormous wooden throne. “The Salarians have a powerful army—and they mean to remind me of it.”

  “Oh,” she said, deflated, and she slumped into her own, much smaller chair. “Does everything here have to have a hidden meaning? You outlanders need to learn to relax and just have fun.”

  “Hm.” Wyvernus nodded, stroking his beard. The Salarian foot soldiers entered the Sulemnium and began to run concentric circles within the ring of riders, blue and red banners streaming, pikes bristling. “You have a point… but, my dear, you do need to learn to refrain from calling your own people outlanders.”

  Sulema shrugged, face heating.

  Red and blue faced off across the arena. Horses charged the pikemen and fell, riders tumbling to the ground to lie still, their well-trained mounts kneeling, heads bowed. Swordsmen danced across the sand, twirling, whirling, flashing, robes streaming behind them like clouds, only to fall like white petals to the riders’ spears and swords. Back and forth they went, back and forth, fewer and fewer each time, until only a lone horseman remained. This rider—a woman, Sulema thought—snagged the enemy’s blue banner and rode a victory lap round the arena on her fine-boned gray, standing in the stirrups, voice raised in an ululation of victory as spectators threw bundles of braided herbs and flowers.

  Sulema would have applauded. The Salarian horses were very well trained, and she doubted even her own Atemi would lie still like that. She stopped short, however, at the look on the Dragon King’s face.

  “Father?” she asked.

  “Watch.” He pointed as the great double doors at each end of the Sulemnium drew back.

  A wind began to blow from one side of the battlefield to the other, catching the white cloaks of the salt-soldiers, stirring them to life. One after another of the defeated combatants rose, though they kept their faces down, and fluttered out through the far end of the arena like ghosts scattered by the wind. Horses rose with their riders and exited in a stately march, until eventually all that remained as a reminder of the mock battle was the shining detritus of abandoned weapons, and the victor, still cantering about the periphery, oblivious to the coming storm.

  The wind grew stronger, stronger, and an eerie low moan rose from the ground. The crowd remained utterly silent, gaping. Finally the lone rider seemed to take notice. She rode to the center of the arena and wheeled her mount so that it faced whatever was to come. The horse reared, mane and tail streaming, and together they screamed their defiance.

  Long streamers of red and gold silk burst into the arena like flames carried upon the wind. These were borne by yet more soldiers, all in red and gold and yellow, with golden dragon’s helms like those worn by the Draiksguard and Divasguard, and wyverns were wrought upon their backs in thread-of-gold. They were driven, moaning, before the source of the storm, and Sulema gasped to see it—an enormous wooden dragon, gold-scaled, golden-eyed, mouth gaping wide and red, swayed this way and that as it coiled its way onto the arena sands.

  It was a great, dancing puppet. Sulema had never seen anything like it, and clapped her hands to her mouth in wonder even as her father stood, his face a mask of cold rage.

  “They dare,” he said, voice sharp as a dragonglass knife. “They dare.”

  The victorious rider quailed at the last before the dragon’s silken flames and fled before them. The wide wood-and-iron doors shut with a resounding crash that shook the stadium, and silence fell as the dragon coiled in upon itself, flames falling still all about him, wide head nodding in satisfaction as he lay in a bed of fire and swords.

  Sulema turned to her father and was startled anew to find herself alone but for Saskia, who had returned to guard the door. The other warrior was wide-eyed and scowling.

  “Fuck this place,” she muttered. “We should go home, Sulema.”

  Sulema could not disagree, but neither was she free to leave, and so she turned back to the tableau beneath her. The crowd gasped in awe, falling back as the mouth of the dragon opened wide, wider, and a woman dressed in the brilliant blues and greens of Sajani Earth Dragon stepped forth just as the Dragon King himself took to the sands, golden robes blazing, the mask of the Sun Dragon catching the sunlight and throwing it back so that Sulema winced and shielded her eyes.

  A second woman, dressed all in purest dazzling white, emerged from the mouth of the dragon to join the lady in blue.

  The Dragon King stopped some distance from them both.

  The lady in blue knelt, bowing her head. The lady in white, most pointedly, did not. Wyvernus stared at them, and his fury was such that the sands shimmered, and faint wisps of smoke rose from the dragon puppet.

  “Ninianne,” he said to the lady in white. Then, to the other, eliciting gasps from the crowd:

  “Bashaba.”

  TWENTY-ONE

  “This is treason,” Master Ezio shouted. “Treason!”
He had not been the first to utter the word, but he was the first to dare it before the Dragon King.

  Wyvernus raised his hand, and the mutters fell silent. “It is I who will decide what is treason and what is not. Ninianne, what have you to say for this… this travesty?”

  They had gathered in the Sunset Chamber. Matreons and patreons, mistresses and masters of craft, and a few who had not been invited but had seen fit to sneak in under the shadows of their betters. Food and drink had been laid out by terrified servants, and went untouched.

  Untouched except by Sulema, that is. “If you are going to die anyway,” Ani had said, and often, “try not to die with an empty belly.” She bit into a rind of fine white cheese as Ninianne, the Salt Queen of Salar Merraj, tipped back her head in a manner of arrogance nearly as great as that of the Dragon King, and mocked the assemblage with a bold eye.

  “Treason has been committed,” she agreed, and the silent room fell to dread. “Treason, I say, but not by me, and not by this one.” She gestured to the blue-robed, blue-masked woman who stood a pace behind her, face bowed and eyes downcast. “The one you would call Queen Consort has committed murder and foul magic in the very heart of this great city. While Bashaba—”

  Wyvernus rose from his seat and every person in the room shrank back—including Sulema, this time, though she held stubbornly to her cheese and a small loaf of bread.

  “To speak that name here is to die,” he said, in a voice of soft thunder. “Do not do so again.”

  Ninianne bowed her head. “As you will, your… your Arrogance.” She swallowed hard before continuing. “But I have a grievance, and we have a treaty. I do not come here to banter, or for pageantry. I come here for vengeance.”

  “Vengeance.” Wyvernus resumed his seat, and the room resumed breathing. “Pray, what matter of vengeance?” He waved a languid hand at the courtiers, who began to sip and nibble obediently at their food.

  “One close to you has committed murder. The murder of my great-niece Eleni, a girl who was dear to me. She and other members of my family were slaughtered by blade and fire in our holding at Bayyid Eidtein, not a two-moon past.” She paused and glared a challenge at him. “Do you deny this?”

  Wyvernus brought his goblet of wine up to his lips, beneath the golden mask, and sipped. He did not answer, but his eyes shone with such anger that Sulema pushed her food aside.

  “I see,” the lady in white said at last, and drew herself up to her full height. “Wyvernus, first of his house, Ka Atu, Dragon King of Atualon, I call upon you under the terms of our treaty to—”

  “You shall not have her.”

  The woman stopped, mouth gaping in a furious “o.”

  Ka Atu continued in a voice as hot and smooth as burning silk. “I have seen the demands your ministers have drawn up, I have listened to your whispers and lies for moons now. Do you think me deaf? Do you think me blind?” The eyes in the golden mask glowed red, and the Dragon King’s voice was an inferno. “The deaths at your inn were nothing but an excuse for you to bring that woman here. Remove her from my sight, or I shall have all of your heads removed and served to my faithful parens for supper.”

  Master Ezio fainted. A fist of Draiksguard surrounded the woman in blue and led her, weeping, from the chamber. The dragon mask fell cold and silent.

  Finally Wyvernus said, “Now then, my dear Ninianne. What reasonable demand would you make of me?” His eyes, blue once more, flashed with a cold and cruel amusement.

  This man is my father, Sulema thought as the bread and cheese she had forced down tried to fight its way back up. He will not harm me.

  She did not believe it for a moment.

  “My King.” Ninianne took a long and shuddering breath, and at last bowed in obeisance. To her benefit, the lovely voice did not falter. “I beg you for the return of my son.”

  “Your son Soutan Mer is to be put to death,” Wyvernus noted. “He and his men attacked my Queen Consort for no reason, and stand accused of arson and murder, as well.”

  The salt queen flinched at his words. “Your Arrogance, please—”

  “However,” he went on, ignoring her, “I understand full well the passions of a misguided youth, having been such a one myself, a hundred years ago or more.” The parens chuckled dutifully—if nervously—and he nodded. “I am also reminded by Loremaster Rothfaust of our treaties, and long friendship. In light of such, I am willing to make a trade with you, Ninianne il Mer.”

  “Yes, your Arrogance?”

  “I will release your son Soutan Mer to you, alive.” He held up one finger, silencing the room. “In exchange you will return my ward, Mattu Halfmask, whom you have been holding as a… guest, for some time now.”

  “I will send to Salar Merraj for—”

  The walls of Atukos trembled and flashed red with the Dragon King’s ire.

  “Do not try my patience any further, woman. I have none.” Ka Atu set his wine goblet down with great care. “I know the young man is with you. Return him to me immediately—with no further harm to his person, mind—and I will give your son to you in one piece, which is better than either of you deserve.”

  Ninianne il Mer swayed where she stood, and Sulema could see that her face was wet with tears.

  “Immediately, your Arrogance.”

  “Oh, and Ninianne?” Wyvernus picked up a small loaf of bread from the plate in front of him.

  “Yes, your Arrogance?”

  “If you ever come to me in such a fashion again—or if I hear so much as a breath of that woman’s existence ever again—” He closed his fist, and smoke rose from between his fingers. When he opened his hand, a scattering of smoking black ash was all that was left. “That for you, and your soldiers, and your whole dae-ridden city. Do you understand me?”

  “I understand, your Arrogance,” she replied, in a subdued and unsteady voice.

  I understand, too, Sulema thought. At last.

  Her magic woke, and her magic broke

  The night the Dragon King sang

  —Bard Davrasha, Song of the Dragon King, vol. II

  If Sulema had thought the shadowmancer’s song powerful, if she had thought Yaela’s dance beautiful, those notions were blown away like sand in the wind that night, in the gentle moonslight, by the might of the Dragon King’s song.

  He looked out across his city, his people, his world, and the light of the loving moons, the distant stars, and the many-colored lanterns of Atualon chased one another across the golden scales of the dragon mask in a scintillating display. Sulema watched from a quiet corner as Ka Atu cradled the Sundered Orb in his hands, much as he might have held her as a newborn, with all the tenderness in the world.

  And well he might. The skull-sized Orb, as she had come to understand, was the world. He drew a breath into the deep furnace of his belly, and Sulema breathed with him. She relaxed her shoulder with his, held her head like his, closed her eyes.

  When the Dragon King sang, his daughter was struck silent with awe.

  Never in ever, she thought, has there been such a voice. Never will there be again.

  The voice of Ka Atu was soft as lambswool, sweet as flowers. It was strong as the river Dibris. It rolled like night across the waking lands, soothing them to sleep, to sleep. The bright houses and homes of Atualon dimmed, darkened, as the residents within found themselves called to bed. Noises of merriment fell to nothing as late-night partygoers, loath to end the day’s festivities, yawned mid-sentence and turned to stumble home. Sheep in their pens, horses in their pastures, stopped their grazing and dozed.

  The very clouds, pale against a velvet night sky, seemed to settle against the mountain peaks. The Dragon King’s song filled with love the dark and empty places between stars, and the darkness did not comprehend it. The shadows fled, the dragon’s doom lifted, and in that moment Sajani Earth Dragon slipped deeper, deeper into the everlasting dreams of life. She slipped—

  —and the Dragon King fell.

  Sulema watched as in a feve
r dream as Wyvernus stumbled and went to one knee. The dragon mask slipped from his face, and his skin went ashen gray. Her mind screamed at her to move, move but her body was slow to respond. Her shoulder where the golden spider had bitten her had gone cold and numb, and her skin was stiff all over. She could only watch in horror as her father toppled slowly to one side and lay on the floor, motionless, still clutching the Orb.

  After a moment he moaned, one arm moved a little, and that seemed to break the spell.

  “Father!” Sulema shouted, and she ran—though slowly, as if through muddied water—and fell to her knees beside him. “Are you—?”

  “I am all right,” he said, his voice thin and watery. “Or I will be, at least. Help me, help me up.” Sulema helped him to stand. He held the Orb close to his face, turning it this way and that, finally breathing a sigh of relief to find it undamaged.

  “What would happen…?” Sulema did not finish the question, afraid of the answer.

  “I am not sure. Perhaps nothing… but I rather doubt that.” Wyvernus’s hands trembled, and he tucked the object deep into a fold of his cloak. “I am tired, Sulema. So tired. This spectacle, the healing of your mother, even your training—they have sapped reserves that I do not have to give. If only there were two of me. If only you had come to me earlier, so that you might have been trained to assist me…” His voice trailed off in a deep sigh.

  “Nothing to be done for it, I suppose,” he added. “We do what we must with the tools we have at hand.” Wyvernus smiled at her, a smile so deeply sorrowful Sulema’s breath caught in her throat. “Would that I could leave you my kingdom only, and not my burdens. Would that you might not have to bear it alone, as I have.”

  “I will try, Father. I will try to learn faster, to bear this burden with you.” Aasah had told her, however, that her body and vocal cords were not yet sufficiently mature to withstand the strain of wielding more than a thin trickle of atulfah. The thought was like a sour taste in her mouth.