Even odder, in many ways, was that she was sorry he was gone. Truth be told, she missed him. So she filled her days with reading the reports Xiane had Lord Musahi prepare for her, and questioning the former tutor about the state of affairs in Jehanglan. To what was probably the astonishment of both, they got on well together, and Shei-Luin quickly saw why Xiane valued this pedantic, precise man so much.
When she was not talking to Musahi, she walked in the private gardens of the empress—her private gardens—and fed the carp that lived in the lotus pond. Against all custom, she ordered Xahnu and Xu brought back from the pavilion in the Khorushin Mountains, and taken to her quarters to live, rather than the royal nursery. She played with them in the gardens; at last, she thought, she could finally see enough of her children.
When evening fell and the boys were in bed, Zyuzin sang to her until she fell asleep.
But each night, she woke in the darkness, and wondered when Xiane would return from hunting.
As an “imperial messenger,” Yesuin was entitled to food and lodging at any way station upon his route, or at any inn if there was no way station. He avoided the way stations whenever possible, stopping at one only when he had to change horses, lest someone recognize him from the palace, or ask awkward questions about what route he used to ride.
Even the inns made him uncomfortable, but when he ran out of food, he would stop at one to rest himself and his horse. At least at inns, the sight of his uniform, with its horse badge upon breast and back, kept the curious away from him. Ordinary folk, it seemed, avoided any kind of imperial entanglement whenever possible.
This night, his saddlebag was empty again, he’d not eaten for a day and a half, and his horse was nearly spent. He rode into a little town and down its only street, making for the sign with its sheaf of millet and rice stalks bound to it, the symbol for an inn throughout the countryside. As he passed the tiny temple, a pigeon winged past overhead, the last light of the sun flashing on its white wings, and landed upon the rickety wooden tower by it. He saw the swirl of robes as the pigeon keeper scurried up the tower ladder to welcome the bird and strip the message from its leg.
Did it say Seize any imperial messenger who looks Zharmatian?
Were he not so tired, the thought would send chills down his spine. But he’d seen a score of messenger pigeons on his ride, and none had aught to do with him. None would, he was certain in his heart; Xiane would find a way to stop it. The only thing he must worry about was avoiding his own people, and reaching Nisayeh, the land of the Tah’nehsieh.
One night, perhaps a second, to rest, then on to Rhampul.
The thought of Rhampul made him uneasy. He’d no wish to stop at the fort, but it was the only place to get a good horse. All that was available from the countryfolk were broken-down nags.
At last he was in the courtyard of the little hostel. He tossed the reins at the stableboy and, after dismounting and taking his saddlebag, growled, “Care for him well—brush him and feed him the best you’ve got.”
“Yes, sir!” the boy said, ogling the uniform. “The very best, sir!” He led the tired horse away.
Yesuin went to the inn and pushed aside the hanging over the open doorway. A miasma of equal parts onion, garlic, asafoetida, and unwashed bodies rolled over him. Yesuin paused to gather himself, then plunged into it. The sooner he was part of it, the sooner he’d get used to it. Heads turned as he entered, then looked quickly away again at sight of the badge of the golden running horse upon his tunic. The owner hurried up to him, wiping his hands on a stained apron.
“This way, sir, this way! A table just for you!”
Yesuin followed. Conversation died as he passed, springing up again only reluctantly. The owner rousted two drinkers from a small table in the back. They slunk off without a word. With a sigh of relief, Yesuin sat down.
“Tea,” he said, knowing the wine in this place would be vile, “and a bowl of stew and millet. And make certain there is nothing but stew and millet in that bowl, do you understand?”
“Yes, sir! Right away, sir!”
The innkeeper scuttled off. Yesuin buried his face in his hands, thinking, The boy outside must be his son.
With a pang, he thought of his own two sons. He’d never even seen Xu; the boy had been taken straight to the Khorushin mountains to the imperial pavilion there. All he knew was what Shei-Luin had told him: the boy looked just like him, even down to the birthmark on the thigh, hidden now by a burn scar.
Poor, brave Tsiaa.
He wondered if Shei-Luin would ever find another maid she could trust the way she’d trusted Tsiaa. Then he wondered if he’d ever see those dearest to him again—Shei-Luin, Xiane, his sons—and a darkness settled in his soul.
He shook it off with an effort. First he would get past Rhampul, then reach Nisayeh. After that, he would see.
When his meal arrived, Yesuin ate, hardly tasting the watery stew. Someday, he promised himself, someday he’d return.
But first, Rhampul.
As V’Choun poured tea for the three of them, Xiane found enough courage to ask the question that had been tormenting him. “If the Phoenix did not give himself to Jehanglan, Lord Kirano, how did Xilu and Gaolun capture it? It could not have been an easy thing.”
“No, it took great preparation, preparations that had begun years before when Gaolun found a young girl-child who was considered mad by her fellow villagers. Although she was weak of wits and could only grunt, now and again, she fell down in fits and spoke in a clear voice of things the villagers couldn’t understand the meaning of. But Gaolun could. He bought her from her parents, who were only too glad to get a good price for such a useless girl-child, and brought her to his brother.
“Now, Gaolun was a priest in a minor temple dedicated to Kirahi, goddess of mercy and justice, a goddess we no longer worship. Xilu was the warlord—‘king’ he called himself, though he was little better than a bandit—of a little kingdom on the fringes of a much smaller empire of Jehanglan.
“The prophecy was this: there would come from the north two dragons of a kind never seen before. If they were captured and chained, their power could be used in turn to capture the phoenix, the symbol of Jehanglan. And when the symbol was captured, so could the country be taken, as well. It took years for the preparations to be complete, including the seeding of false Oracles who prophesied the sacrifice of the phoenix. Both Xilu and Gaolun were charismatic men and many flocked to their cause and did their bidding without truly understanding it. At last, all was ready.”
Here Kirano paused to drink his tea. He looked expectantly at Xiane, who nodded slowly.
“You mean the four Stones of Warding,” Xiane said, “that were all cut from a single huge boulder of white quartz found in the caverns under Mount Kajhenral.
“As were the smaller warding stones,” said Kirano, “used around the bowl of Mount Rivasha. Then came the day they were waiting for: two dragons unlike any ever seen in Jehanglan were found.”
V’Choun interrupted, “Kirano, I never understood—there were dragons in Jehanglan already. Why didn’t Xilu and Gaolun try to capture one of them?”
“Because our dragons were of a very different kind. Ours were gentle creatures that lived in water, and when they were old enough and powerful enough, they could turn to mist. No chains could hold them then!
“But the northern dragons were different. They were creatures of the air, like the phoenix; and, like the phoenix, creatures of fire.”
“Fire?” Xiane asked.
“They were seen to breathe it,” Kirano replied, “when the soldiers went to capture them. Both had been badly wounded when they were caught in a typhoon, and the smaller died of his wounds before he could be chained in the place prepared for him at the southernmost point of the warding. The larger was taken into Mount Kajhenral and never seen again.
“But the trap was now set, and when the phoenix returned to Mount Rivasha to build its pyre, Xilu and Gaolun, now at the head of a small army
of fanatically dedicated priest-followers, were ready for it. As the new, vulnerable phoenix emerged from the ashes, Gaolun and his minions bound it within a magical barrier.
“And since that day, Jehanglan has tapped the magical power of its poor prisoner.” Kirano drained the last of his tea from the cup. His head drooped slightly, and Xiane noticed a bluish tinge to the thin, wrinkled lips.
“Forgive me, Phoenix Lord, but I must rest.”
Xiane stood. But one last question occurred to him. “What truly happened to the dragons of Jehanglan?”
Old eyes gazed wearily up at him. “Xilu had them hunted down and killed after he overthrew Michero, the last Lotus Emperor. They were gentle creatures; it was a slaughter of innocents. Xilu has much blood on his hands to answer for, my lord.”
And how much of that blood has stained his descendants? Xiane wondered bitterly. All his life had been a lie. All of Jehanglan was a lie.
He didn’t want to believe it, Phoenix knew. But Kirano’s words were the truth, he was certain of it. It was there in the calm, old eyes. It was even in the depths of his own heart.
Everything was a lie.
“I will talk more with you in the morning, Kirano,” he said.
“What’s this place, Rhampul, we’re making for?” Linden asked Taren as they sat around the fire while Raven and Maurynna, as “servants,” made dinner. “I don’t remember it from the map.”
Taren said, “My apologies, Linden. I’d forgotten it. It’s a little … settlement on the Black River. I asked the merchant in charge of the caravan what his plans were. He said they planned to rest there for a few days.”
Raven looked up from stirring the pot of stew. “A damned good thing, too,” he said with a frown. “This pace is killing their animals! What’s that idiot thinking of? Even the Llysanyins will be better off for a rest.”
“More importantly,” said Lleld, “is when will Maurynna and Raven be able to make their break? If I remember the map correctly, the Black River leads south to the capital city. But Mount Kajhenral is in the north. You’ve been telling them to hold off and hold off, Taren. So when will be a good time?”
Linden stiffened at Lleld’s words. He’d been grateful to Taren for putting off the time he and Maurynna must separate. Yet Lleld was right; this was what they had come to Jehanglan for … .
He looked at Maurynna, who stared down at the fire now, chewing her lower lip. Maurynna, he dared in mindspeech, and put everything he felt into her name. She looked at him with a small, brave smile.
We knew it had to come, she said.
The worry beads appeared as if by magic. “At Rhampul. Once we reach the Black River, Maurynna and Raven can follow it north until they find a place to cross. Then all they need do is follow that bank north; that will put them on the same side of the river as Mount Kajhenral.”
Linden closed his eyes to visualize the map in his mind’s eye. “He’s right. How far to Rhampul?”
“A little more than a day, less if we push on.”
So little time … .
The hell with what the guards said; this night he and Maurynna were going for a long walk—alone. Their tent was not quite private enough.
Once more he faced Lord Kirano across cups of tea. As always, the older man wore his serenity like a mantle. It surrounded him, sheltered him, kept the storms of emotion from battering him. No fear touched Kirano, no doubt shook him, no uncertainty caused his feet to stumble on the path he’d chosen. So complete was his armor that he could look in the eye the man who held his life in one hand, and challenge that same man’s deepest beliefs without a qualm.
But this time Xiane knew he had the final argument. This time he would see that almost supernatural calm shaken.
“You said that Xilu and Gaolun used false Oracles. Do you say, then, that the Oracles are false?” Xiane challenged. “That they’re all liars?”
“No, not at all,” Kirano said. “True, there have been false Oracles, but most times they’ve been quickly found out and dealt with. No, a true Oracle, like a Seer among the Zharmatians and the Tah’nehsieh, speaks only the truth. We may not always understand that truth,” Kirano admitted with a wry smile, “but in time it will be seen what that truth was.”
Good—Kirano had himself stated the foundation of Xiane’s argument. Now to lay the next next course. “Was the nira’s old Oracle a false one?”
“Myan? No. He was a true Oracle before he outgrew his gift. Not as powerful, perhaps, as Pah-Ko’s present one, but strong.”
“Hah!” Xiane slapped his leg in glee. Now came the keystone of his attack. “So what of Myan’s prophecy that one of my seed and yours would save Jehanglan from calamity? Was that false? I have two fine sons by your daughter Shei-Luin. Surely that’s enough to hold the Phoenix and keep the disasters that Myan saw at bay.”
He grinned in triumph. There! Let Kirano find a way around that, he crowed to himself as he sipped his tea.
Kirano set his own cup down on the low table, then composed his hands in his lap. He was, Xiane considered, taking his defeat well. But then, his own father—the old emperor—had never denied that Kirano was the quintessential gentleman, even while cursing the man for a heretic.
Then Kirano spoke. His voice was as calm and reasonable as always, but his words cut to Xiane’s heart like a sword.
“Seed they are of yours, but your sons are no seed of mine.”
Xiane suddenly felt lightheaded, as if he’d stood up too quickly, and the world was grey around the edges. Somehow he managed to set his cup down without spilling it. “What do you mean?”
Kirano blinked at him like a wise old turtle. “Don’t blame Shei-Luin. I never told her, and I doubt very much her mother, my second wife, did. I’m not Shei-Luin’s father.”
The next morning, as Raven attended the horses, he found that Nightsong had cast a shoe. She led him to where it lay in the beaten-down grass around the campsite. With a heavy sigh, he picked it up and went back to the smoldering remains of their campfire. Nightsong followed him.
“Bad news,” he announced, and held up the shoe. “We can’t leave just yet.”
Linden looked up. Raven expected a glare of annoyance. Instead a look of guilty relief flashed across the big Dragonlord’s features. “Give it here,” Linden said, rising and leaving his saddlebag on the ground.
Taren came up as Linden examined the shoe. “What is it?” he asked. When told, he shrugged and said, “So throw it in her saddlebag and let’s be off. The others will be ready soon.” He jerked his head at the merchants’ camp.
“Absolutely not!” both Linden and Raven said at the same time.
Raven explained, “The road is hard and stony, Taren. That’s not good for a horse’s hoof.”
“Raven’s right. Nightsong’s not going anywhere without a shoe,” Linden went on. “We’ve spares for each horse for emergencies like this, and I know how to put a new one on her.”
“We must leave now if we’re to make Rhampul tonight,” Taren insisted.
“Which you said could be done by hard riding, and that would lame her,” Linden said.
“We’ll have to take that risk,” Taren said.
Nightsong bared her teeth at him.
Linden snapped, “No, we’re not. I won’t have anything that endangers our mounts. Now get over there and tell that horse’s ass of a merchant who’s in charge that we’re not ready to leave yet. If he objects, tell him that we don’t think this Lord Jhanun would be happy to find that he’s paid all this money to bring us here and that one of the star performers can’t perform—and we’ll lay it at his doorstep that she can’t. That should shut him up.”
Taren hissed in frustration. For a moment Raven thought the man would argue further, but Taren turned abruptly and strode away. Linden looked after him a moment, frowning, before going off to find one of Nightsong’s spare shoes.
Raven stared after Taren, surprised at this sudden change in the man. He’d never seen Taren lose his temper
before.
Raven was even more surprised when Taren never went to speak with the merchant they all thought lead the caravan. Instead the former slave went straight to the head guard. Moments later, the guard shouted orders, and the preparations to leave ceased.
Now why would that guard listen to Taren? He takes his orders from—
But his train of thought was broken when Lleld came up and asked, “What’s afoot? Why aren’t we getting ready to go?”
Xiane rode back to the imperial palace hardly knowing what he did. His mind chased itself in circles, and his thoughts twisted like a nest of snakes. He felt sick to his very soul as the memory of his conversation with Kirano played over and over in his head like a song gone awry.
“What do you mean?” he’d managed to say through the shock that threatened to overwhelm him.
“Her true father was a Jehangli scholar who came to study under me even though I lived with the People of the Horse then. He was young and handsome, and I was neither. Nesilyu was given to me as my second wife by her father, a minor chief among the Zharmatians, for a small service I’d done him. It was his way of thanking me. She wasn ’t happy at being the wife of what was to her an old, old man. But my student found favor in her eyes, and she in his. It’s an old story, and a sordid one. And yet I could understand why it happened.”
Here Kirano had paused and looked so sheepish that Xiane doubted what his eyes told him. Kirano less than utterly composed?
“Truth was, I didn’t want another wife,” the sage said frankly. “I was quite content with Lura-Sharal’s mother. But I couldn’t offend Nesilyu’s father, and he was adamant I take her. So I did, but neglected her, I’m afraid. How could I blame her when she found comfort with another man who did appreciate her? The inevitable happened. Since it would have been an innocent child who suffered the most, I pretended that Shei-Luin was indeed my own, and didn’t denounce her mother.”
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