Dragon and Phoenix

by Joanne Bertin

  “And if that’s not enough for you, remember this: if all comes to naught because of you, your family dies. So keep your mouth shut, and play the game my lord Jhanun has set you to. Succeed, and you will be richly rewarded.”

  Nama shut her eyes in pain. Zuia was right; there was no way out for her. It was even too late to die. Phoenix help her, she was so cold and empty inside … .

  The little maid in charge of airing out the bed silks appeared in the doorway of the sleeping chamber and bowed. Her eyes were huge. “Lady Nama,” she said breathlessly, “the emperor’s eunuch is here to take you to the Phoenix Lord.” She stared at Nama in awe.

  For a moment Nama thought she would faint. Only the thought of her family sustained her. “Tell him I’m coming,” she managed to say.

  The girl disappeared on her errand.

  Refusing Zuia’s hand, Nama stood, smoothing her elaborate robes. She looked down at the fan in her hand for a long moment.

  She could “forget” it here. Or drop it on the way. Then it would soon be all over … .

  “Come,” ordered Zuia as she left the sleeping chamber.

  The fan now tucked securely into the sleeve of her inner robe, Nama followed.

  Shima stood by the banks of the Moth, the little river that flowed from the Vale. In its course, it would join two other small rivers, the Yellow Dog and the Crying Woman, to become the Red Horses, which would become the Tiensha when it reached the land of the Jehangli.

  Dusk was turning into night, and the air grew colder. But the scent of spring drifted on the breezes at last. Shima wrapped his jelah closer, shutting out the cold, shutting out the memories of the day. They haunted him anyway.

  What of this matter of the ship coming early? What if it never came again? There weren’t enough mulberry trees yet in the Vale. All the hard work of his people would go for nothing.

  Then there was his own problem, petty as it might be in comparison to the possible disaster facing the Vale. The attacks of the Feeling were getting stronger and, worse yet, coming more frequently—much more frequently—of late. Despite Zhantse’s reassurance, Shima still wondered if he were going mad.

  This was not a thing to bear alone. So he called into the night, “Miune! Miune Kihn! Can you hear me?”

  The night breeze teased through his long hair, tugged the fringe of his boots. At his feet, the Moth flowed on.

  Somewhere a little desert owl hooted. He watched the river intently, but the water was dark, and hid its secret well.

  It was his ears rather than his eyes that gave him the first warning. The sound of the placid rippling changed ever so slightly. Had he not been listening, he would have missed it.

  Then the waters at his feet swirled. Bubbles appeared, and suddenly a head many times the size of his own broke the surface, stretching up and up on a long neck and body. Water streamed from the lacy, weedlike fringes that surrounded the head, and two large, round eyes regarded him. From each side of a long snout sprang a feeler the length of a man’s arm. One reached for him.

  Shima put out a hand and caught the feeler. It curled around his fingers. He sighed in relief. “I’m glad you were close by, Miune.”

  *As am I, my friend. I feel that thee are troubled—what is it?*

  Shima sat on the bank and told his friend of all that had happened that day.

  They entered the imperial chambers at long last. Nama was so frightened that she had passed beyond it into a kind of numbness. So she barely noticed the room around her; later she would remember only an impression of gold. Sheets of hammered gold in the image of the Phoenix on every wall, gold silk against dark woods, the golden sashes of the eunuchs who descended upon her, cooing over her like a flock of doves.

  The only thing that pierced the fog she walked in was the sight of Zuia being forced into a corner as the eunuchs crowded around. It brought a tiny smile to her lips.

  “Ah! How pretty,” the oldest eunuch said, clapping his hands in pleasure. “Lips like the petals of a rose! The emperor will be pleased.”

  It seemed that she passed their inspection, for most fell back from her. Only the three senior eunuchs stayed.

  Then the eldest took her hand and led her into the emperor’s sleeping chamber. The others followed at her heels like well-trained dogs.

  The room was huge, filled with exquisite treasures, but all she saw was the bed in the shadows. It seemed to fill the chamber. Her knees turned to water at the sight of it, and she trembled.

  The eunuchs, thinking hers were the fears of a maiden, spoke softly to her, patted her cheeks with smooth, gentle hands. They whispered little encouragements as they slipped the heavy outer robe from her shoulders and bore it away. The door shut behind them.

  A man stepped from deep shadows beyond the bed; he came forward slowly. Nama almost screamed at the sight of him. Her uncle’s agents had done their work well; the Demon might be twin to this man who stretched out a hand, who ran a finger down her cheek, down her neck, and into the front opening of her robe. Who teased that robe slightly open and traced the curve of her breast … .

  Was she truly in the emperor’s bed chamber, or back in the house of nightmares?

  The other hand joined the first, parted her robe, and, with its brother, cupped her breasts.

  She could not go through with this. She couldn’t! There was no Zuia to keep her from striking this time. She would scratch his eyes out, she would—

  She thought of her family and did nothing.

  The hands withdrew. “You’re very pretty,” the emperor said, his voice soft. “Just as your uncle said. Don’t be afraid, little butterfly. I know this is your first time, so I will be gentle.”

  She knelt before him, accepting all that was to come, her heart a lump of ice within her breast. Her fingers closed upon the fan in her sleeve, and she retreated to the haven within her mind.

  Linden studied the gelding as Raven, lead line in hand, trotted it back and forth before him in the stable yard of the inn.

  Lleld, sitting on the edge of the watering trough, asked, “So?”

  Much as he hated to say it, Linden admitted, “The swelling is gone, and so is the lameness. He’s fit to travel again.”

  “Good. We’ve been delayed long enough. Tomorrow we set out for Nen dra Kove.” She jumped down and dusted the seat of her breeches off. “I know that ship has orders to wait for us, but I want this over with.”

  Don’t we all, Linden thought bitterly. Don’t we all.

  Thirty-two

  After a journey of few rests and hard riding, the troupe entered Nen dra Kove in the teeth of a ferocious storm.

  “I don’t believe it!” Maurynna yelled as the wind tried to snatch her words away. “First Taren’s horse, now this!”

  “Never mind all that—let’s find that inn,” Lleld yelled back. “We’ll worry about the weather later. After all, how long can this last?”

  “Days!” Maurynna shouted.

  A chorus of groans greeted her words. Soaked and weary, the troupe rode through the great port city in search of the inn used by entertainers waiting to board a ship to the Phoenix Empire.

  Maurynna slitted her eyes against the blowing rain, and wondered how long the storm would last.

  I can’t stand this waiting much longer; I want this over with. Then, I want to go home.

  General V’houn halted his troops at the eastern bank of the Tiensha, the narrow, shallow river—now barely more than a stream in the long drought—that marked the border between the Western Plains, ruled by the Zharmatians, and Jehanglan proper. Sometimes emperors had pushed the border further west; sometimes the Zharmatians had forced it back and into Jehanglan. Back and forth the wars raged. Only the boldest or most desperate farmers tried to wrest a living from the fertile soil. This earth was watered with blood.

  The soldiers stopped in a jangle of armor and harness. They had covered the distance in little more half the time it usually took. Men and horses were weary to the bone. Their breath steam
ed in the early morning chill as they formed three lines facing the river. Mist snaked around the horses’ feet as they waited, and there was fog before and fog behind. Many of the men looked around uneasily; V’houn couldn’t blame them. If ever there was a perfect time for an ambush, this was it. Two scouts splashed their horses across the river and disappeared into the fog.

  V’houn beckoned. At once Captain Chiand-Tal rode alongside and saluted.

  “I’m ready, sir,” the captain said. The hand that gripped the staff bearing the green banner of a messenger was steady.

  The old general studied the man before him. Every inch a soldier, V‘Choun thought. Just what he liked to see; some of the younger officers nowadays … The army was not what it once was. But then, the emperor was not the man his father was. V’Choun regretted that old Xalin had not passed on his own fire and wisdom. He loved Xiane like a son, but Xiane was not—

  Bah! Enough of this maundering. That Xiane was now sending for Lord Kirano proved there was hope for him yet. Maybe he would make right the mistake his father had made; it was the only thing Xalin had done that he and V’houn ever argued over.

  V’houn said, “I thank you, Chiand-Tal, for volunteering for this mission. It’s not an easy thing to ride alone into the land of the People of the Horse. But you’re a man of the western lands; you’ve dealt with the Tribe before, have you not?”

  A crisp nod. “Yes, sir. I will do my best to—”

  The thunder of hooves cut him off. At once the archers split off from the rest of the troop, to flank it with bows drawn and arrows nocked. Javelins were readied and swords came out. V’houn cursed the fog that kept him from seeing what approached.

  Then, riding out of the mist, came the two scouts. They plowed through the waters of the Tiensha and back up the eastern bank.

  “General! The Horse People come!” one gasped as he brought his mount to a rearing halt before the general.

  “What banners do they bear?” V’houn snapped. The answer decided whether they lived or died this day. If the Zharmatians came in war, they would be as a twig against a flood.

  “The horsetails are white!”

  V’houn let loose a gusty sigh of relief. All around him he heard other sighs to match his. They would live one more day, at least.

  But had the horsetail banners been red …

  “Thank the Phoenix,” he said quietly. “Now we wait.” He motioned the soldiers back so that he waited alone on the bank. His horse, an old hand at such games, stood with only the occasional swish of his tail to show that he was not a statue.

  From out of the fog came a ghostly piping, fading in and out like a fever dream. A moment’s fear seized V’houn; then he recognized the tune. It was not one of the war songs. Rather, this was the music announcing the presence of Oduin the temur, the leader of the People of the Horse. And that could only mean one thing.

  How did they know? V’houn asked himself in astonishment. No—old Ghulla cannot still be alive!

  She was. For the first figure to appear wraithlike from the mist was the old Seer of the Zharmatians upon a blood bay mare. Withered and wrinkled and older than the bones of the earth Ghulla was, the stories said, half hag and half demon. Her thin grey hair wisped onto hunched, bony shoulders clad with the skins of wolves and wildcats. Though V‘Choun made no sound, her milky, sightless eyes turned unerringly to him. All around him V’Choun heard the mutterings of the spell against the Evil Eye.

  “General V’houn,” she cackled. “Old enemy. We meet once more.”

  VChoun saluted her. “An honest enemy,” he said, “is truer than a false friend.”

  Once again Ghulla’s cackle sounded. “For a young pup you show much wisdom,” she said. “I have hope for you yet—especially since you’re here.”

  “You know why, then.”

  “Of course.” The arrogant confidence in those two words would have filled an oxcart to overflowing. But beneath it, V‘Choun, experienced with all that was not said at an imperial court, heard a note of uncertainty. So, Ghulla Saw part—but not all. It was what she didn’t See that frightened V’Choun. But there was little he could do about shadows.

  The ghostly pipes grew louder. Then, by some trick of the fog—or Ghulla’s wiles—one moment V’houn looked at empty mist swirling over the grass; the next, the vanguard of the People of the Horse materialized as if out of the air.

  Twenty young warriors, men and women, armed to their very eyebrows faced him. But their bows were safely tucked in their cases, and each bore in one hand a long staff from which hung a white horsetail. They sat straight and still in the saddle as their horses advanced at a slow, high-stepping trot.

  From behind he heard some idiot’s ribald comment about the kind of war he would like to wage upon “women who played at soldiers.” There was a solid thump! and a harsh whisper of “If you ever meet the Zharmatians in battle, you horse’s ass, pray it’s the men you fall prisoner to! Now shut your filthy mouth—I’ve no wish to lose my balls!”

  At some signal V’houn didn’t see, the line suddenly split, with the horses, ten to a side, stepping sideways to open a passage through the center.

  Through that opening rode Oduin, temur of the Zharmatians; to his left to guard his shield side rode his eldest son, Yemal. To his right, riding in the place of honor under the protection of the temur’s own sword, came the banished Lord Kirano. They stopped by Ghulla so that she was to Kirano’s right.

  V’houn bowed low in the saddle to hide his shock. He’d no idea Oduin was so ill! Phoenix, the man looked like Death incarnate. Oduin’s face was drawn and grey; lines of pain etched deep furrows around the sunken eyes and the shriveled lips; his tunic of fine white leather hung from once powerful shoulders like a sack draped over one of the stick men the farmers used to scare birds from the fields.

  He’s being eaten from the inside by a demon, V’houn thought. He’d seen it before, this evil. It ate its way through a man the way a worm ate through an apricot, and what the demon didn’t destroy of a man’s mind, the pain did.

  Beside Oduin, Yemal looked a vision of the perfect warrior, healthy and hale, bursting with vigorous life. He smiled thinly when he saw V‘Choun; with a sinking heart V’Choun saw death in that cold smile. The Phoenix help them all; for now, the young stallion was kept on a short rope. But the day the hand holding that rope faltered …

  It would mean war—and Yesuin’s death. V’houn knew well there was no love lost between the two brothers, sons of rival wives.

  His thoughts took but an instant. He raised his empty hands in token of peace. Oduin did the same.

  “You know why I have come, great Horse Lord,” V’houn said.

  “So I do,” Oduin said. Even his voice sounded frail. But there was still the heart of a warrior in it; Oduin would fight this enemy to the last. “This man has been my guest and my friend. What do you want with him?”

  “To bring him back to the Phoenix Court,” V’houn said.

  “Will he sit in the place of honor in the Emperor’s tent?” came the first ritual question.

  “He will.”

  “Will the Emperor feed him, clothe him, give him a fine horse and a tent of his own?”

  “The Emperor will.” Seeing the effort this cost the temur, V’houn broke in against custom. “Old feuds will be forgotten. All the Emperor has, he will share with Lord Kirano as a brother—or, should I say, as an almost father-in-law?” he dared to jest.

  Oduin smiled faintly at that. There was relief in his face, though whether it was for the reminder that his guest was grandfather to the heir and so would be revered now as an ancestor-to-be, or to have the long ritual shortened, V’houn wasn’t certain. There was only one question remaining … .

  Oduin turned to the grey-haired Jehangli man by his side. “And you, elder brother of the heart? Do you go of your own free will?”

  For the first time Kirano spoke. “I do, for this is the Way.” The words rang with an inner peace that V’houn envied.


  “Then travel with the wind at your back, my friend, and a swift horse beneath you. I will miss you,” Oduin said. His voice shook; he wheeled his horse away.

  The Zharmatians followed him, disappearing back into the fog as if they were no more than a dream. For a long moment Kirano looked after them. Then, taking up his reins with a resolute air, the old lord set his horse to ford the shrunken river.

  “Let us go,” Kirano said when he once more stood upon Jehangli soil. “There’s much to be done.”

  “More than you know, my old friend,” V’houn said. “More than you know.”

  A few days later, Maurynna stood on the shore, her cloak wrapped tightly around her as the wind lashed the waves into a white-foamed frenzy. Her hood fell back, and long strands of her hair whipped in the wind. She ignored them, her head thrown back so that she could sniff the salt-laden air, and watch the dark clouds scudding across the sky. Gusts of rain blew into her face from time to time.

  Footsteps crunched in the sand behind her. She knew who it was even without looking. She turned and smiled.

  Linden peered out from inside his hood, a doubtful expression on his face. “Is this standing about in storms something all sailors do?” he asked. “It seems a damned uncomfortable thing.”

  She laughed at him. “No, silly. Don’t you smell it?”

  He sniffed the air. “Salt?” he finally guessed.

  “There is, but that’s not what I meant. The storm’s finally ending; I can smell it on the wind. That is something sailors do.”