Golden Daughter

by Anne Elisabeth Stengl

  Jovann saw Sairu’s cheeks take on a faintly greenish tinge. She looked like death made animate, but she struggled again to mask her sickness behind a calm façade. Jovann was not fooled. But the Besur stood behind her and could not see her face.

  The emperor slowly shifted in his chair, moving his weight from one leaning arm to the other, and resting his chin lightly upon bejeweled fingers. “I seem to recall asking the honored Besur not to contradict the judgments of those to whom I look for guidance,” he said to no one in particular.

  The Besur, under the joint pressure of Princess Safiya’s gaze and the emperor’s languid tone, sat once more, glaring at the back of Sairu’s head as though he would fill her brain with venom if he could.

  The emperor addressed himself to Jovann. “I trust your word, Minister Juong-Khla Jovann,” he said. “It will be as you say. We will arrange protection in the dungeons, though I will not send the Golden Daughters as my dear Sairu suggests, but will enjoin them to protect my wives and younger children. There will be soldiers enough. And if what Masayi Sairu has told us about the Long Fire weapons proves true, I believe we may set up defenses against them. It seems to me that the effectiveness of these new weapons lies as much in the terror they inspire as in the destruction they work. But an expected terror is far less terrible than a surprise.”

  “I will myself see to the wall defenses,” Princess Safiya declared. “And when the siege begins, I will stand by my Ascendant Brother’s side and assure his safety so that the honored warriors of Noorhitam may concentrate their energies upon the enemy at hand.”

  And so the plans for war swiftly progressed, for Jovann again warned that he believed the Chhayans could strike at any moment. The exact date he did not know, but attack was surely imminent.

  Many times he found the words sticking in his throat. How could he go on? How could he betray his father and his people? How could he destroy this generational dream of reclamation and revenge? But the images he had seen of the gory sacrifices and the face of the Greater Dark remained too vivid in his head. More vivid than a dream. More vivid than a memory. More vivid even than the reality surrounding him. And he knew that he could not back down.

  His gaze slid to Sairu several times throughout the next few hours. She remained where she knelt before the emperor, her head bowed, her hands still, one atop the other. He could not see her face, but he saw the curve of her cheek behind her elegant braids, and he saw its ghastly hue.

  The moment the council broke up, and the ministers and warlords parted ways to pursue their various tasks of preparation and defense, Sairu rose, kissed the ring on the emperor’s hand, and slipped from the room. Jovann made hasty genuflection before the Anuk and hurried after her, catching her in the gilded, silk-hung corridor without. “Princess!” he said, afraid to speak loudly. But the urgency of his voice carried far enough to stop her in her tracks. She turned slowly, meeting his gaze, and he found himself faced with her smile. “Princess Masayi Sairu,” he said, “I hope you will forgive me.”

  “Forgive you?” said she, her voice honey-sweet though her lips were gray and dry beneath the gold paint. “Whatever for, Honored Minister?”

  He tried to answer, but too many words came together at once, refusing to be spoken. At last, he managed, “I did not know.”

  “That I am what I am?” said she. “That I am more to my Lady Hariawan than a mere handmaiden? Why of course not, Honored Minister. That is, after all, the whole point and purpose of the Masayi.”

  “But . . . the emperor’s daughter!”

  “Indeed, Honored Minister. Can you be surprised? Could anything less than a princess be deemed worthy to serve one so gracious, so precious as my mistress?” She swayed as she spoke, though her smile remained fixed in place.

  Then suddenly she fell. Jovann, moving on reflex more than thought, leapt forward and caught her before she hit the floor, and she grabbed his arm hard, trying to find her balance, trying to support herself. Jovann looked around for help but saw no one, for all had dispersed from the council and hastened to their various duties. Not even the emperor remained on hand to see the distress of his daughter.

  Jovann had never since meeting her seen Sairu betray the least sign of weakness, and it frightened him. His arm around her shoulders, his other hand gripping hers, he supported her back into the council chamber, which was empty now. Trying to be gentle but feeling like a great clod, Jovann helped Sairu down onto the nearest low cushion. As he backed away, he saw blood seeping through the shoulder of her silken garment. “You are wounded!” he said stupidly, and stood a moment with his mouth open, uncertain. “I—I should find help—”

  “No,” said Sairu, her head bowed, one hand rubbing furiously at her forehead. Her jaw clenched, and her lips pulled back in what looked like a snarl. “No, there is no time. We must help my mistress.” She turned then upon Jovann, and her eyes were full of fear. It was an expression her face was not meant to wear, and he felt his heart sink with trepidation at the sight. “Your people have taken Lady Hariawan,” she said. “They have captured her.”

  The image of Ay-Ibunda rose in Jovann’s mind, along with the memory of the dark phantoms who had pursued him and Lady Hariawan across the landscape of the Dream. He understood now both Sairu’s wound and the sickness in her gaze. She had been hurt defending her mistress, he did not doubt. And if she did not find Lady Hariawan, she would waste away. Indeed, he believed with a sudden rush of understanding that Sairu’s very life was essentially bound up with that of her mistress; she could not fail Lady Hariawan without ultimately destroying herself.

  “I will help,” he said. “I will do anything. I will help you find Lady Hariawan.”

  “I know,” said Sairu. “We will find her. We will find her together. Somehow.” Her voice was thin and quavering, and he suspected that she ran a fever. Sweat dampened her hair, little wisps sticking to her forehead. “And when we find her—when we see her safe—and all of this horror is over, then—” She gasped, and her small body shuddered.

  Jovann looked again at the blood on her shoulder. “Please,” he said, “let me fetch someone. You are very ill.” He had half turned when she darted out a hand and caught him by the wrist, turning him back to her with ferocious intensity.

  “When we find my mistress,” she said, “I will speak to the Anuk. He will change his decree, and you will wed Lady Hariawan, as you so desire. You will wed Umeer’s daughter. Then everything . . . everything will be as it should be. And I will protect you both—”

  Another shudder ran up her spine. Then she seemed to collapse upon herself like a wilting rose. Jovann knelt only just in time to prevent her from striking her head upon the floor. “Help!” he cried, turning and calling over his shoulder. “Please, someone help!”

  “Iubdan’s beard, the racket you make!” A strange golden voice spoke from the shadows. Jovann, who had believed they were alone in that chamber, startled and whirled to face the speaker. Somehow he was not as surprised as he thought he should be when the big fluffy cat stepped into the lamplight, his white paws and ruff shining.

  The cat offered Jovann a supercilious sneer then hastened to Sairu’s side, sniffing her hand, her arm, her shoulder. His tail lashed when he came to the blood. “She’s hurt,” Jovann said.

  “Oh, really?” said the cat. “Well then, why don’t you just—no. No.” He shook his whiskers. “I have promised to mend my ways and speak with a civil tongue even when you mortals insist on being dimwitted. Yes, my lad, she is wounded. But this wound afflicts her spirit more than her body, I fear.”

  Jovann opened his mouth then closed it. Then he said, “I knew you could talk.”

  “Clever boy,” said the cat. “Lay her out flat for me, will you?”

  Carefully Jovann shifted Sairu’s weight and arranged her on the floor, snatching a cushion to pillow her head. He thought she was not fully unconscious, for her eyes opened and she moaned, though she did not seem to see anything or be aware of what was around he
r. The cat stared into her face, his pink nose nearly touching hers. He growled softly.

  “This is not good,” he said. “Her heart is tearing in two. I can slow the progress, but—” Putting his ears back, he looked up at Jovann, who knelt beside Sairu, his hands moving helplessly as though he wanted to do something but had no idea what. “Stop fidgeting. If you want to help, there’s only one thing you can do.”

  “What? Anything!” said Jovann. “This girl has come to my aid more times than I remember, and I will gladly repay the debt if I can. Tell me what you want of me!”

  “I want you to find Lady Hariawan,” said the cat.

  Soldiers were not permitted within the bounds of the Crown of the Moon except during consecrating ceremonies before marching off to war. But there were no ceremonies now. Only men of blood tramping through sacred groves, setting up defenses along walls and walkways meant only to be trod in prayerful solemnity.

  From the great steps of Hulan’s Throne, the Besur watched the preparations being made, holding his massive bulk in stern, tall command, though he had no more authority here. The warlords ordered their men as they wished, and the high priest must only look on and wait for the battle that may never come.

  And Hulan looked down on all with the same faceless, voiceless, careless serenity with which she had observed all the long years of Kitar worship. The high priest sneered under her gaze. He did not fancy that Hulan felt any threat despite the wild dreams of his emperor and the wilder claims of the Chhayan prisoner. She, if she were anything more than a shining light in the sky, was neither threatened nor concerned by the fate of one mortal empire. She would not move to intercede, not even to see her sacred grounds spared this indignity and desecration.

  “Hulan blight that Chhayan dog-boy,” the Besur muttered, “if you can bother yourself to do so.”

  “Not an especially holy prayer,” said Jovann. “Particularly for a high priest.”

  The Besur, startled, turned his furious gaze from the distant wall where soldiers’ shadows moved under moonlight, down to the wide, paved pathway leading up to the steps of Hulan’s Throne, his face grim as a stone demon-ward on a gatepost. Of all people in the world the Besur hated (who were many), there were none he could recall in that moment whom he hated more than the emperor’s new vizier. But the Besur was Kitar through and through. While his face was a mask of disgust, he adjusted his words from curses to flattery as nimbly as a dancer performing a difficult turn on the stage.

  “To what do I owe this great honor, minister of my beloved emperor?” the Besur asked with a bow. “How may I serve a man so favored by the great Son of the Sun? Shall I scrub your shoes even as you stand before me? Shall I lay myself down as a footstool for your feet?”

  “I rather hope you’ll do none of those things,” said Jovann, and he mounted the stairs without a single prayer, sign, or murmured benediction, unconsciously breaking holy rites and laws with every step he made. Not that it mattered anymore on such a night. But when he reached the third step from the top, his head still lower than the Besur’s, he stopped and offered a slight bow, though his face was guarded. “But I do require your assistance, priest of Hulan.”

  “Assistance?” The Besur’s sneer deepened. “It would appear to me that your rise from condemned prisoner to esteemed vizier in the course of a single day has needed no assistance, and I can hardly imagine to what new astronomical heights you might aspire.”

  Jovann, his face carefully guarded, said, “Do you care anything for the fate of Hulan?”

  The Besur did not answer at first. His silence betrayed his true feelings more eloquently than any words. Then he said, “Of course I do,” and both knew it for the lie it was.

  “You care for Lady Hariawan,” said Jovann. “I saw your face when you spoke against her handmaiden in the emperor’s council. Hatred such as that can only be motivated by some form of love.”

  “Love? No,” said the Besur. “There you are mistaken.”

  “But you do care for Lady Hariawan.”

  “I would see her returned safely to the temple of Hulan,” the Besur admitted slowly. Then he added with a curse, “And I would to heaven I had never commissioned that Golden Daughter!”

  Jovann nearly pointed out how many times Sairu had protected her mistress, how likely it was that Lady Hariawan would even now be dead were it not for her handmaiden’s protection. But there was no time. At the cat’s urging he had hastened here, and the night was so heavy with foreboding that he felt the very pressure of the darkness between the stars. He knew what he must do, though he did not know how he would do it. He had never controlled his dream-walking ability, and without the songbird to call him out of his world into the Between, he was as bound to mortal Time and mortal reality as the next man.

  Or perhaps not. Perhaps there was one other way . . .

  “Tell me, Besur,” said Jovann, “have you heard rumor concerning the Order of the Greater Dark?”

  In the center of Hulan’s Throne was a wide, round chamber without ceiling or roof. The tower walls rose up high, surrounding, forming a shaft to the sky above. On certain nights of the year, when Hulan was full, her silver face would fit perfectly into the opening and the whole chamber would be brilliantly lit with her glow. On such nights a man could almost remember the Songs of old which once were sung in this world. On such nights a man could almost remember what it meant to worship.

  Now priests of Baiduri—who had nothing better to do this time of year anyway—were summoned to carry ten heavy braziers into this wide chamber and arrange them at evenly spaced intervals around it. They lit the braziers, and the scent of harimau soon filled the air, rising up even to the high opening. It seemed to drown out all other senses, even the sounds of soldiers shouting on the temple walls, even the fear of impending doom which every man felt in his heart. There was no room for anything but harimau. And so, as the high-order priests gathered, they felt their minds clear, prepared for the chant they must perform.

  Jovann stood beside the Besur in the darkness beyond the circle, watching braziers glow, watching the priests gather and, one by one, begin a chant similar to that which Jovann had heard in the Dream, similar to that by which Chhayan men had formed Ay-Ibunda Temple. This chant was more formal, and the Kitar voices speaking it were less bloody. Neither was this chant so powerful as that of the Chhayan priests—the faith of these men toward their deities was apathetic, unlike the faith of the Chhayans, which had turned from devotion to loathing over the centuries.

  And yet there was such a strong similarity that Jovann, who was Chhayan-bred through and through, suddenly felt a strange sense of oneness with the Kitar surrounding him. He recalled, as one might recall the memory of a dream—without mental image, but a powerful memory nonetheless—the face of Hulan. And he heard the North Star warning him yet again, “Do not worship.”

  Jovann whispered so softly that the Besur did not hear him above the rising intonation of rhythmic voices, “We are all equally lost.”

  The Besur turned to Jovann then and said, “You remember the words I taught you?”

  “Yes.”

  “You must speak them precisely. And you must keep them present in your mind. If not, your concentration will be broken and your mind will return to this realm.” The Besur, his face lit strangely by the glow of the nearest brazier, scowled. “If you are indeed a Dream Walker, why do you need our assistance?”

  Jovann did not answer this. He merely said, “Do you want me to find your Lady Hariawan or not?”

  The Besur studied the detestable face of the Chhayan beside him. The high priest of Anwar and Hulan, this master of Kitar worship, this gatekeeper of Kitar tradition, was no fool. Many dismissed him as nothing better than an old, gilded blusterer, but they were mistaken to do so. He was an old, gilded blusterer, but he was more besides. He lacked the precision of perception Princess Safiya possessed, but years of survival in the cutthroat world of ordered religious hierarchy had made him perceptive in his own w
ay.

  Still, he could not read the expression in Jovann’s eyes, so he asked, “What do you care whether or not we recover our lady, emperor’s minister?” He spoke the title in the same tone he said “Chhayan dog-boy,” and both knew what he truly meant. “You stand to gain nothing from undergoing the Sleep. What is your motivation in all this?”

  Jovann opened his mouth to make a reply. But instead of the sharp retort his brain had formed, he said only, “Love, Besur. I’ll do this for love.”

  It would have been difficult to say who was more surprised by this statement, the Besur or Jovann. To cover his embarrassment, Jovann hastily stepped into the circle of braziers and chanters, into the center of that tall round chamber. Harimau overwhelmed him with physical force, and he nearly staggered under the heady burden of it. He looked up to the opening high above him, and he saw the stars shining. He even believed that he glimpsed the blue aura of Chiev, the North Star. What was the name it had called itself?

  “Cé Imral,” Jovann whispered. Then he bowed his head. For a moment he waited, hoping he would hear the birdsong calling, hoping the white emptiness would surround him. But there was nothing. Only the harimau. And the chanting of the Kitar priests. Jovann waited, counting the timing of that chant. Then, in the small opening he’d been told to wait for, he began to speak his own chant, a line of rhythm intoned in counterpoint to that which the priests spoke:

  “From this world to the other, let me walk

  From the Near, from the Far, into the Between

  From tedium to elucidation, let me walk

  From mortal bounds into Eternity.”

  The Besur had told him that, if he were meant to see the Dream, a door would appear before him. He could not tell Jovann what the door would look like, for it varied from Dream Walker to Dream Walker. Jovann, as he spoke the words of the Kitar chant and felt the harimau running through him, half expected to see the gate of trees through which the birdsong had called him since he was a child.