Golden Daughter

by Anne Elisabeth Stengl

  He rolled his head from side to side, his body having grown stiff as it sat rigidly awaiting his spirit’s return. He wondered how long he had been away. It could have been moments or hours. Time did not seem to matter in the Wood as it did here in his own world.

  Something moved.

  Jovann raised his head like a wolf on alert, and his grip on his knife tightened. Something had moved in the corner, beyond the lamp. Something large.

  Sliding carefully, each movement under his control, Jovann unfolded his body until he stood upon the bed, balanced on the soft cushions. He stepped across to the edge and sprang down to the floor, landing in a crouch. His eyes fixed upon that darkened corner hung with a heavy painted banner of woven bamboo depicting some Pen-Chan artist’s idea of heaven, complete with ugly angels. Could it have been the banner itself he had seen wafting in some breeze? But how could there be a breeze in this room without windows?

  Jovann crept toward the corner, his teeth bared, his knife at the ready. If anyone stood in that corner, they would find they did not like meeting a Chhayan prince at such close quarters! They would find—

  The room went dark.

  Jovann inhaled the stink of some fetid sack as it went over his head. He felt it pull tight about his throat, and he tried to cry out but could not. One hand flew up to tear at the sack, the other lashing out with the knife at the coward who stood behind him, the coward who had taken him by surprise! He twisted violently.

  Something struck him hard across the temple, and he knew no more.

  The darkness was almost heavy enough to smother the pain of his bleeding wound. But that pain pulsed with a rhythmic promise to continue for hours, even days to come, and could not be long ignored.

  Sunan stood, breathing lightly and feeling the warmth of blood trickling down his hand and into his sleeve. His own voice, crying out after the assassin, still rang in his ears. How long he stood there, frozen in place, he could not guess.

  Then suddenly he was in motion. He hardly knew what he did, for there was no time to stop and think and reason. All his Pen-Chan training fell away, giving place to Chhayan instinct, and he leapt across his room, flung back the door, and darted into the passage beyond. It was empty. Of course it was. Did he really expect to find the Crouching Shadow simply standing there? The man—if it was a man—had not even exited the room by the door as far as Sunan knew. Perhaps he had simply evaporated into thin air by some unholy means or magic.

  It did not matter. Sunan stumbled the first few steps, and then he was running through his uncle’s house, down a narrow flight of stairs, and into the guest wing where, he believed, Jovann would have been given a room. Surely he had not gone to bed yet. Surely he had not even left the dining table. Surely the Crouching Shadow had not yet had a chance to fulfill his promise.

  But somehow he knew that the mere minutes he had felt passing by since his angry conversation with his brother had turned into hours while he stood frozen in the dark. Time itself had escaped him. He would be too late.

  “No!” Sunan growled between his teeth. “It will not be so!” He flung open the door of each room as he came to it. There were three fine chambers reserved for guests of Lord Dok-Kasemsan. The first two were empty. The third, however, Sunan could see had been made up, with a lamp on a carved stand burning low and bedding already disarrayed. But it too was empty.

  Sunan stood in the doorway, leaning heavily on the frame, his chest heaving with more fear than exertion. His eyes scanned what could be seen of the room by lamplight.

  They lit upon a Chhayan knife lying in the middle of the room. Jovann’s knife. Carved with the head of a tiger on its hilt.

  “He’s dead, then,” Sunan whispered. And he believed that his heart stopped.

  Was he sad? Did he mourn his brother’s end? Was he ashamed? Did he regret the part he had played in this evil event by the secret wishes of his spirit?

  No. He was none of those things: not sad, not sorry, not shamed.

  With a rush and a roar, mad terror swept over him. He turned and fled the chamber.

  Old Kiut stood outside his master’s study, wringing his hands and wishing to Anwar’s vaulting heavens that Lord Dok-Kasemsan were home. He would never stand for letting his halls be overrun with stinking Chhayan filth. He would never stand for his shifty-eyed, half-Chhayan nephew to go rooting through his documents, his secrets, his labored-after studies.

  Were he home, he would order ten lashes for any servant who permitted such atrocities to be perpetrated upon this fine Pen-Chan household.

  At this thought Old Kiut wrung his hands again, offering yet another pleading bleat. “Please, please, Master Sunan! Please come out of there and leave your uncle’s—Oh! Oh!”

  This unhappy moan followed a resounding thud which could only be Kasemsan’s massive chest tumbling from its place above the old inlaid armoire and landing with a crack upon the floor. Kasemsan’s massive chest which Old Kiut was under strict orders never to disturb, not even at the height of spring cleaning. “Oh, great Anwar’s chin-hair!”

  “Go away, Kiut.”

  Young Sunan did not sound at all the reserved student Kiut had become grudgingly accustomed to seeing about his master’s house. Indeed, he sounded as rough and uncouth as those dreadful Chhayans Kiut had been forced to serve earlier that evening. Kiut saw the lantern light shift beyond the wicker woven wall as Sunan knelt to inspect the chest’s overturned contents.

  “No, Master Sunan,” Kiut persisted. “I cannot sanction you to desecrate your uncle’s property! When my Lord Dok-Kasemsan returns—”

  “If he returns,” the voice within snarled. “If he returns, I will answer for the consequences.” The lantern light flickered, and for a brief, hopeful moment, Kiut thought the lord’s young nephew was indeed ready to exit the chamber. But instead the door was drawn aside, and the face that looked out at the old servant was so twisted with sick fear that Kiut could have believed he gazed upon a nightmare and not upon a person at all.

  “Go away,” Sunan said.

  “But Master Sunan—”

  “Do I look as though I joke?”

  He didn’t. Not at all. He looked a man on the verge of breaking something, possibly a neck if it fell under his hand at an untimely moment.

  “Um . . . ” Kiut bowed and backed away. “May Anwar shine on all your endeavors.”

  It was a prayer with a double meaning. While on one hand a blessing, it could also mean “Don’t you dare get caught in shady business!” Wrapping himself in that prayer, Kiut made his escape, leaving his master’s secrets to be rooted through, and may Anwar spare them all!

  Sunan drew the door shut again and turned to the tipped-over chest. Documents littered the floor, documents and other small boxes and parcels that contained who-knew-what secrets. He didn’t know quite what he was looking for, but he knelt in the mess and dug through, his heart beating in time with his frantically shaking hands. One of his hands moved more stiffly than the other, hastily wrapped up in a thin scarf as it was, to stop the flow of blood.

  He came upon a scroll with a broken seal still attached. The seal was melted gold.

  The Crouching Shadows. His uncle was one of the Crouching Shadows. The words of the overseer’s message burned like fire in Sunan’s brain. And it was impossible and horrible, and suddenly made far too much sense to be denied. Uncle Kasemsan, always so dignified, always so refined, always so tranquil. A beautiful man with a melodic voice that chanted the family’s evening prayers with a serene rhythm one might expect to hear among the stars themselves.

  The last man in the world one would expect to turn a knife upon another living soul, especially not for pay.

  Sunan closed his eyes even as his hand closed upon the gold-sealed scroll. He saw the Mask again and heard the voice behind it saying, “A mystery such as the Crouching Shadows is not so easily explained.”

  Maybe his uncle wasn’t an assassin. Maybe he was something much worse.

  Sunan opened the sc
roll. A beautiful calligraphy unrolled before his eyes, and he read in the language and letters of the Pen-Chan:

  I feel that life is long,

  Sorrowful and unbearable

  But

  I cannot flee away

  Since I am not a bird

  And I have not the wings

  To fly.

  A chill like the breath of a dead child ran up his spine. He read the words again, and a third time.

  “It’s a code,” he whispered.

  Had he not that very morning finished his final Gruung essay on subterfuge? And one entire section had been devoted to his study of code-writing, both classic examples and modern ideas, mixed with his own faltering theories. He recognized a code when he saw one, and he saw one now, written in his uncle’s own hand under the guise of fatalist poetry.

  The oil in his lamp sank lower and lower as he sat in the middle of his uncle’s chamber floor, studying that document. And while he turned the full force of his mind upon those secretive words and phrases—those cryptic brushstrokes, lines, blots, and sweeps of finest Aja ink—his heart beat faster and faster.

  Sunan was a Pen-Chan scholar. He knew how to subvert the weakness of his emotions beneath the iron strength of his intellect. But even so he could feel fear and urgency scraping at the back of his conscience, crying out, Hurry! Hurry! Hurry before it’s too late!

  The night wore on. Sweat dripped the seconds down his forehead with the precision of a water-clock. He blinked now and then, but otherwise might have been a statue, captured in stone forever, studying those lines.

  Then, just as the rim of the far horizon beyond Suthinnakor glowed bright with the coming of Anwar and the new day, Sunan drew a long breath and all but collapsed. His hand shook so hard that he nearly dropped the scroll. But it didn’t matter.

  His uncle’s poem had given over its secrets.

  Sulfur.

  Charcoal.

  Saltpeter.

  Still shaking, Sunan climbed to his feet and nearly fell again, for his legs were numb. Soon he was grimacing with the pain of returning blood-flow, but he didn’t have time for pain. Half-dragging himself across the room, slinking his dead feet behind him, he pulled his uncle’s calligraphy box from the armoire and withdrew brushes and parchment. He wrote swiftly, wondering if his mother would even recognize his hand, so furious were the strokes, lacking their usual beauty and precision. He would never have dared write with such ferocity for his Gruung! His sliced finger throbbed beneath its bindings, but he hardly felt it.

  At last he sat back and read over what he had put to paper.

  Honored Father,

  I place in your hands the secret of the Long Fire or, as it is called by my mother’s people, “black powder.” I would remind you that the Pen-Chans created this blend for medicinal purposes, not for war, and it is said that those who use it to bring death will bring Death upon themselves. But this, you will claim, is naught but Pen-Chan superstition. So I give you warning of my own: Be certain your fuse is long, and shoot your arrow soon upon lighting, or you will lose your face and hands.

  I remain respectfully your son,

  Juong-Khla Sunan

  He could not say why, when he wrote, he referred to “death” the second time as though by name. For some reason, as he formed the letters, his hand seemed to move of its own accord and add the dash that changed the word and altered the meaning, however slightly.

  He would have been marked down in his Gruung for such an error. But he would not bother to rewrite the letter now.

  Instead, below the rest, he wrote the secret recipe of the black powder. The secret recipe held only by Pen-Chans, discovered by alchemists seeking the secret to eternal life, who instead discovered the secret to new, sudden, and fantastically destructive death.

  But the restrained Pen-Chans knew how to hold onto such a secret. How to use it only in greatest need, to inspire fear and protect their small nation. Thus they had rebuffed the forces of Noorhitam and earned the isolated privacy of Nua-Pratut where they could safely pursue their studies and build their brilliant culture. The Pen-Chans knew how to handle a beast such as the black powder. How to use it. How to guard it.

  Chhayans, on the other hand . . .

  “You are releasing the beast, Sunan,” he whispered to himself even as he blew the scroll dry and sealed it with his uncle’s stamp.

  But perhaps his father would accept this gift in exchange for his own life.

  The night had left a new film of undisturbed snow upon the whole of the city, but already the Chhayan buffalo, nervous in their harnesses, had stamped it all into brown muck. The Chhayans stood nervously at the heads of their animals or worked to secure the gurta flaps and test the wheels. But the moment Sunan appeared in the doorway, every one of them turned dark eyes upon him, questions and threats in every face.

  Their leader, a large man named Vibul whom Sunan remembered as a lieutenant of sorts in the Khla clan, strode forward to face Sunan. It was strange to gaze upon Vibul’s face once more, recalling the old scars, noticing the new. It was an ugly face, full of the Tiger that raged within every Chhayan man, woman, and child.

  “Where is Jovann?” Vibul said with no other greeting, not even the salute due the son of his master. His small eyes flashed. “Where is Juong-Khla’s heir?”

  The words were intended to wound, this naming of the second son as heir. They cut into Sunan’s gut, into that place he had long thought suppressed and surmounted. But he would not allow himself to react, no matter how deep the wound.

  He held up the scroll he had written. “You will take this to my father,” Sunan said, and his voice was deep, his throat thick. “You have journeyed far for this purpose, and I give it to you now.”

  “Where is Jovann?” Vibul repeated, and took a threatening step closer, his hand moving to a large knife at his side. “He has not been seen since he dined with you. What have you done to him?”

  “I have done nothing,” Sunan said, still holding out the scroll. “Jovann is where he is. I know nothing more. If you have lost him, then—”

  “Lost him?” The knife was out now, held in Vibul’s great scarred fist. The clansman took another threatening step, but Sunan dared not recoil. He quietly reached back to grasp the doorframe, as though to hold himself in place, to face whatever came—even a deathblow—with honor and not the shame of retreat.

  “Lost him?” Vibul repeated, bearing down upon him. “We have not lost him! What have you done with him? Where is our young master? Have you dishonored yourself still deeper, Pen-Chan scum? Does the blood of your own brother stain your hands?”

  The knife was up now, flashing in Anwar’s early light. Sunan paled but refused to break Vibul’s gaze. In a voice as calm as he had ever heard Uncle Kasemsan use, he said, “Your accusations are unjust. You dishonor your tongue.”

  “You? Speak to me of dishonor?” Vibul roared like a bull and took one more step.

  One last step.

  For, the next moment, even as his arm flexed for a killing stroke, he fell flat on his back, thudding thickly into the mud-churned snow. A bright silver dart tipped in black feathers was embedded in his throat.

  Vibul gurgled. He tried to speak. One hand, fluttering like a butterfly over a blossom, moved to his neck and touched the black feathers, delicately, making no effort to withdraw the dart. His eyes bulged, and he sought Sunan’s face but could not find it in the darkness, the velvety shadow crouching above him, reaching down, overwhelming.

  In ten seconds he was dead.

  All eyes in the courtyard stared in horror, Sunan’s included. But Sunan rallied himself first and called out to another of the Chhayan men. “Come here!” he cried. “Come and take this message.”

  The Chhayan, his gaze flickering to the still form of Vibul, hastened to Sunan, bowed, and took the scroll. “See that you place it in my father’s hands,” Sunan said. “See that you do so, or you . . .”

  He faltered. After all, what did he know of these n
ew, terrible friends he had somehow made? The Crouching Shadows, men or monsters, who had taken him on his blood oath and now guarded him from unseen places? What did he know of their plans or their purposes?

  But he had come too far to back down now.

  “. . . or you will suffer the same fate as Vibul.”

  “Yes, Juong-Khla Sunan!” the poor Chhayan stuttered, bowing again and again as he clutched the scroll and backed away. Then he fled back to the gurta and safety among his brethren. Only then did he turn back and cry out in a desperate voice, “What of Jovann? What of the master’s son?”

  Sunan felt the blood draining from his face, as though the last of his courage drained from his spirit. But he steadied his voice and replied, “He may . . . He may yet join you on the road. Watch for him. But if not, you must bear word of his death to Juong-Khla. That is . . . all.”

  With those words he fell back into his uncle’s house and drew the door shut, dropping the bolt. Jovann was dead. He must be! The Mask had promised him his dearest wish, had it not? And what had he ever wished for more than the death of his father’s favorite? The favorite who stole all his hopes, all his chances, stole the love and respect that should have been his! Who wouldn’t wish as much? Who wouldn’t welcome the fulfillment of a lifetime’s desire?

  Sunan stood in the darkness of the passage, filled with the sickness of a dream come true.

  The monks of Daramuti assumed that their abbot, Brother Tenuk, was old. Seventy, possibly even eighty years, a venerable age worthy of honor and reverence. His hair was silver, his face lined, his skin white and paper thin. His hands, as they turned to their work of prayer, or blessing, or even the task of weeding the kitchen garden (a task the abbot of Daramuti traditionally took upon himself to prove his great humility among the brethren), shivered like little flowers in a summer gale. Every vein stood out thick and blue. His lips were thin, and his teeth, though all accounted for, were yellow, set in pale, bruise-colored gums.