Lords of Grass and Thunder

by Curt Benjamin

  In spite of their quarrel with the emperor of Shan, Daritai had led the Tinglut horde in the wars of the foreign gods to defend the mortal world from demons. He’d helped to win that one, but it hadn’t stopped his half brother from usurping his place next to Tinglut on the dais. Now he was reduced to bargaining over wives for the failing khan.

  “I understand you traveled with the god-king Llesho himself.” He addressed the young Qubal prince with just a hint of a question and a wave of his hand in the direction of the bronze head. He’d never met a god himself nor any man who had. But the Qubal had a special bond through Prince Tayyichiut the Orphan. So he’d heard and the bronze head seemed to prove.

  A twisty little smile touched the Qubal prince’s lips, not for Daritai, but for a memory painful for all its warmth. “He saved my life,” the prince said, rubbing absently at his belly.

  Daritai recognized the track of Prince Tayyichiut’s hand. Some old wound lay hidden beneath the princely clothes; on occasion Daritai had followed that same anxious path of sword or spear across his flesh. Even now, like any soldier watching the prince, he was reminded of past pain, the old reflex to soothe it. Does it still hurt much? he wanted to ask, but courtesy forbid him even to notice the prince’s actions.

  “Please pardon the Princess Orda’s absence.” With a careless nod, Mergen Gur-Khan ordered the dinner trays taken away. “I have sent for her, but she was visiting with relatives in a distant clan. I expect her party to return by morning.”

  It was doubtless past her bedtime anyway, Daritai mused, though he didn’t phrase his objection in quite those words for the khan. A child bride, the Princess Orda would be an inconvenience until she reached a marriageable age and, brought up far from the court, could offer no useful intelligence to her new clans. He had such a one of his own to offer in reciprocal trade.

  By the khan’s order, Daritai’s daughter of but four summers, who held his heart like a treasure box in her tiny hands, might go as a future bride to Mergen-Khan or his heir. The thought of his daughter raised among the Qubal, forgetting her beloved father and her own people, chilled him to his very liver. He didn’t think this khan would suffer such qualms about Chimbai’s girl child, but knew better than to trust the face a master such as Mergen Gur-Khan put upon a bargain.

  “The child is sweet-natured and eager to learn.” As the Princess Orda’s grandmother, Lady Bortu made the offer. In the normal course of lesser matchmaking among the clans, the husband’s grandmother would dismiss the offer or show her interest in the prospective granddaughter-in-law. Then the negotiations for a dowry would begin in earnest. But Tinglut-Khan’s grandmother had been dust before Daritai drew his first breath. No ulus would have entrusted the Great Mother of the khan’s royal clan to a foreign power anyway, even under treaty.

  Daritai sipped his kumiss and smiled to take the offense out of his next words. “Do not take my answer amiss,” he prefaced his response to the khaness with a diplomatically apologetic lift of his shoulder. “But time being what it is for the grandfathers among us, the Tinglut-Khan needs a wife for today, not a child to raise for tomorrow’s bed, even if she is the true child of the famed Chimbai-Khan, who now reigns in state among the ancestors.

  “We might, of course, consider a match for the future at a later date.” The youngest of Daritai’s brothers, not much older than his own daughter, would need a wife eventually. But he hadn’t come to bind a treaty with the marriage beds of the next generation. His father was looking for the freshness of youth to rejuvenate his generative parts, as if he lacked heirs from among the ten legitimate sons and daughters he claimed by his current and former wives and concubines.

  And then there was the intelligence, of course. Did Mergen Gur-Khan plan to hold the reins of the Qubal forever, or turn them over to his heir? Did he plan to legitimize his blanket-sons and set up his own dynasty or take a wife and make new heirs? Did he plan to marry Prince Tayyichiut to some great power who would give him the strength to conquer all the grasslands? All were questions that touched on the security of the Tinglut, and his father had charged him to return with answers, or not at all.

  According to his spies and messengers, Mergen kept no young female relations at court. Daritai could find report of few female relations at all. The Lady Bortu, of course, but Tinglut loathed her with some old, undying fury. The dead Chimbai’s young daughter had remained no more than a whisper of a rumor until the Lady Bortu had offered her as a wife to the Tinglut-Khan.

  As for other female relations, none could claim more than a distant blood kinship to the gur-khan, and none had fostered among the intrigues that sprouted like wild grass around the dais. He expected Mergen to counter with the offer of a poor relation who smelled like the sheep and had a temperament to match. Which would probably suit his father just fine if she had a fair face and a youthful figure.

  It was still early in the negotiations, but he already missed his own tents, his wives, and his sons and daughters. He was starting to wonder if his father had sent him more to be rid of him than to negotiate a marriage when Mergen Gur-Khan spoke up again.

  “There will be time tomorrow to talk of treaties and marriage contracts. Tonight, let us entertain you with drink and music, and in the morning a hunt in honor of your name. You can meet the Princess Orda and consider other eligible women of noble blood who might prove more acceptable to an eager husband.

  Daritai saw the Qubal prince cut a doubtful frown at his uncle from under his dark brows. Whatever he meant by it, he kept to himself. The old grandmother Bortu said nothing, nor by the twitch of a muscle let her feelings be known, but still he thought she wasn’t pleased with Mergen’s offer. Secrets here, he realized, and wondered how that boded for the Tinglut-Khan.

  The musicians had taken their signal to bring out their instruments, however, and he turned politely to listen to the first song, one his spies had reported about the prince and a giant bear. Exaggerated, surely, but he sensed a seed of truth in the prince’s long-suffering sigh. He settled himself to listen and remember the song for his father.

  Tayy rolled over in his bed of furs and stared up at the great radiating spokes that held up the roof of the ger-tent palace. It was still night. For a change he hadn’t wakened with his belly on fire, which gave him a blessed moment of peace to think. Great Moon had risen high in the sky before Daritai’s guardsmen had boosted their prince into his saddle. They’d led him back to his own tents still mumbling Bekter’s song that had come to be known as “Prince Tayyichiut’s Bear.”

  It had been a good effort until the foreign prince pulled his head up and swept his gleaming glance over the white tents of the gur-khan. Counting, Tayy thought, and not tumbled in his cups at all. That made him smarter than he’d let on, which was considerable in itself. Likable too, which might be just another weapon or might mean something deeper.

  In the dark, he listened to the blue-coated warriors rustling with small movements to stay awake as they guarded the gur-khan and his court. Nearby, Mergen slept in his usual watchful silence and a little farther away, the Lady Bortu snored soundly, interrupted only by the occasional snort as she lay deep in some grandmother-dream. Other noble retainers likewise slept scattered through the great tent.

  Peaceful, except that Bolghai hadn’t roused him from his blankets, so Eluneke must not have returned yet. “How will we know when she’s back?” he’d asked the shaman with the rain falling on their shoulders and the thunder all around. Tayy liked warm and dry better than cold and wet any day, but he wouldn’t abandon her to an unknown fate.

  “Don’t worry. She’ll find a way to let us know.”

  “So it’s not that dangerous—” Maybe he was overreacting, though it seemed unlikely. People didn’t just disappear up a bolt of lightning every day, but perhaps her calling protected her.

  “Not dangerous?” Bolghai had looked back at him as if he were mad. “Of course it’s dangerous. I should think it’s the most dangerous thing a human being can do, outside
of being on a galley ship in a storm like this one, of course,” he added, as if he’d just remembered Tayy’s own recent brushes with death. “But we can’t do anything right now. It’s up to Eluneke.”

  It seemed a thin excuse to abandon the watch, but Bolghai would hear of nothing else. He’d mumbled something under his breath about headstrong princes making life complicated and then he’d run. It would have been a long, wet walk, but Tayy’s horse had turned and stood her ground some distance from the unnatural fireworks at the khan’s shrine. Bolghai had disappeared then, leaving him in the care of his mount. He’d made it home to the angry fear of his uncle and the knowing silence of his grandmother, who had ordered dry clothes and hot food for him but asked no questions about why he had abandoned his guardsmen once again for his own perilous adventures in the storm.

  He thought she already knew and didn’t want the words spoken aloud in front of the gur-khan. Then Chahar had brought in Toragana, under arrest. Bolghai had objected, Chahar had looked miserable. Mergen had relented, but only a little. He’d released her into the custody of his shaman and the guardsman Chahar, who was Bolghai’s son, with the words, “I need the girl; she must be presented to me properly attired for court when we return from the hunt tomorrow.”

  “Where she has traveled no mortal, not even another shaman, may follow,” Bolghai had answered, demonstrating, if Mergen hadn’t known it, his complicity with Eluneke’s teacher.

  “Find a way to end this madness at once, or suffer the consequences, which fall to the ulus as well as to yourself, shaman.”

  Bolghai had said nothing, but his expression said it all. There was no turning back from where Eluneke had gone. Mergen had cursed very thoroughly under his breath. “You don’t know what you may have cost your people,” he growled.

  “Ah.” Bolghai had given the half-mad grin of the spirit-possessed when he answered, “But what have we saved the Qubal people?”

  What, indeed? How had Eluneke become the prey his uncle and the shaman fought over like two hunting dogs? Bolghai confirmed his guess when he added, “She is not for the Tinglut-Khan. The spirits have made other plans.”

  “And what good is she to me wed to our own prince?” Mergen had demanded, so he knew something about Tayy’s meeting with the girl. In his anger, it seemed that he’d forgotten the prince, who listened furtively to their low-voiced argument. The Lady Bortu didn’t stop them but cut her glance to his uncle when Tayy looked at her. Attend, her gaze told him, and he did, while shaman and khan debated his future as if he weren’t there.

  “For that matter,” Mergen had gone on with his low-voiced rant meant only for the ears of his shaman, “what good is the prince to me if he is already attached within the ulus. We have alliances to seal with weddings. I have a Tinglut prince on my doorstep, old man; who do you leave me to trade for peace?”

  “The spirits don’t ask my permission,” Bolghai pointed out with a little bounce to set the stoats of his shaman’s robes in motion, a reminder of his office.

  Tayy had felt some mysterious bond form with Eluneke from that first shared glance. She had stood in the doorway of Toragana’s tent with her broom and watched him ride by with his hunting companions. Her eyes had pierced him like a lightning bolt; he hadn’t wanted to look away. That sense of destiny had grown stronger with each chance meeting. Tayy could well believe the spirits had a hand in it. Nice to hear it from an expert, though.

  He’d known from the start the girl’s status would prove an issue with his uncle, but this debate hadn’t taken the direction he’d expected. Mergen had the more pressing matter of a bride for the Tinglut-Khan to consider and he didn’t need to hear prophecy with an uneasy ally riding to parley.

  Toragana had stood silent as a stone, her face a graven image until then. She spoke up now, however, giving the gur-khan what little comfort she had to offer one who crossed the wishes of the spirit world. “I believe they are meant to survive,” she said. “Before she even met him, the girl believed her purpose was to save his life.” She turned to Tayy himself then, with a reassuring smile. “She’s a stubborn girl. If she is meant to keep the prince alive, she’ll find a way to do it. Right now, she’s pursuing the ‘finding a way’ part.”

  “You don’t fool me. She’s pursuing a set of robes like your own.” But at the mention of death something in Mergen’s eyes had shifted. “The Tinglut prince is on my doorstep.”

  Even through his shock, Tayy had understood his meaning. Neither Bolghai nor Toragana had an answer for him, however. Finally, Mergen had dismissed them both with an angry growl, “Watch him.”

  Why did his uncle want to see Eluneke now? Tayy balked at the only logical answer. Chimbai-Khan had sent his brother into many tents. Qutula and Bekter had resulted in one such tent. But what about the others? Eluneke? Mergen’s daughter? His cousin? Had he screwed up that badly?

  Bolghai had known, that was clear, and so had Toragana, but he thought not for as long. Why hadn’t they told him? Cousins didn’t marry. It was legal, barely, in the royal family, but Mergen was right. He needed all the able-bodied young he could lay hands on to seal the alliances begun in the war for the Cloud Country. There was the part about saving his life, of course, but that could be anything. Mergen was right. That didn’t mean Tayy’d give her up, though—certainly not to wed Tinglut-Khan. Not for anyone.

  The Tinglut prince had come and gone for the night, making no threat. Lying there awake, Tayy imagined Eluneke in the heavy silk coats of court, riding away with Prince Daritai. A newly familiar burn churned his stomach. He thought of old Tinglut-Khan touching her and a red haze filled the darkness. It would little serve his uncle’s peace if he murdered the royal husband in his bed, but for a few gut-churning moments he could think of nothing else.

  First things first, however. He was worried and tired and still amazed at all that he had seen by his father’s shrine. Daritai seemed a small obstacle to someone who could climb the lightning and return with the knowledge of the sky god. And it seemed unlikely that the old khan would accept a shamaness as a wife. Eluneke hadn’t returned yet, of course, and if he were telling the truth, to himself if to no one else, he was wounded that she had left him behind. Even the toad people climbed to heaven with her by riding on her shaman’s robes. I would have stood beside you, he thought, I would have defended you against gods and demons.

  But she’d gone without him. Waiting for the hunt that would begin with the dawn, he worried that her role as a shaman would put a distance between them more uncross-able even than the needs of the ulus for political marriages.

  Time passed strangely in the heaven of the sky god and his daughters. Eluneke drank tea and ate yogurt with the gods while her mortal body, attuned to the world below, felt the passing of the storm and Great Sun’s descent into the underworld. “I should go home,” she said, having listened to each sky daughter in turn and acquired all their knowledge. “Though I’m grateful for all that you’ve taught me, and for the wonders I’ve seen in your realm.”

  “As to that,” the sky god answered, taking up a piece of cheese, “You have shown great courage and determination in visiting me, and my daughters tell me you’re wise beyond mortal skill and an amiable companion as well. You’re welcome to stay here, where the rain only falls at night and the sky is always full of rainbows.”

  “You flatter me beyond words that gratitude can express.” Eluneke set her cup down with deliberation. “But, alas, I came to borrow the wisdom of the gods to save my future husband, a prince in the world below. All that you’ve taught me warns me to return as soon as possible. He may be in mortal danger even as we sit in comfortable conversation over our tea.”

  “Then you should go,” the daughter with the drum answered kindly, and offered her instrument as a parting gift. “Take this to call the spirits at need.”

  “And this.” The daughter who knew all the herbs and medicines that grew on land added her own gift, a laurel bough, and the next and the next. Each added the
accoutrements of her own special knowledge to Eluneke’s shamanic burden, until the next to last, the daughter of the spear, who offered Eluneke her weapon, “To help you save your husband from the underworld,” she said. “The demons fear it above all terrors to their kind.”

  When they were done with their good-byes and the giving of gifts, Eluneke wondered how she would carry all these things with her, but the last sister gave her a pouch small enough to hang from her belt. And into the pouch she placed each of the other gifts, which would not have fit in the mortal realm, but each shrank down until it was small enough to join the others at her waist in the world above. And when she had them securely tied, she bowed to the sky god and his daughters and prepared to take her leave. The king of the toads, who had accompanied her and had himself received numerous presents for his people, climbed up into his seat in the basket atop her shaman’s headdress.

  “If you would have a servant guide us to the place where we might descend again into our own world, we’ll leave you in peace now,” she said.

  The sky god stretched his hands out, to show that they were empty, and he did not smile. “If you chose to stay, I would have gladly given you all the comforts you might require,” he said, “but this one thing I cannot do. The paths of the gods are not open to mortals. Those rare few who find their way to my realm must likewise find their own way home.”

  Like a dream on waking, the ger-tent palace of the suns and moons disappeared, and with it the god and his daughters. Eluneke found herself alone with King Toad on a plain more vast than the grasslands of the Harn. Nowhere did she see even a rabbit hole that might lead her down into the world below.