Portal of a Thousand Worlds

by Duncan, Dave

  The impact hurled Man Valor backward, down onto the jagged chaos. He did not feel pain, only the shock of the bullet and the fall, which alone might have killed him. He lay there, trying to gather his wits. He watched his men running past him, jumping over him—and being mowed down. Some were getting through, but why were the rest just lying there? Heaven had spoken through the earthquake, so why were patriots falling? His wits weren’t coming back. There was a red fountain spurting out of his chest. Had his faith failed him? Or had he been gulled?

  So that is why we were not led past the battlefield. Not just blunt swords, but blank cartridges, too. All that hit me at my proving was wadding. It was all a fake. I was deceived and I am dying.

  Chapter 6

  The game was the thing. Gray Brother Luminous could have bought himself a 100-ply abbey years ago, or retired as a respectable citizen of any background he cared to fake, but money didn’t buy contentment. It was the chase that mattered. He had long ago lost count of his score and nowadays usually left the actual outings to the youngsters, who appreciated any opportunity to increase their own tallies. But the hunt, the being somebody else, the planning, the lying in ambush—those were the things that made life worth living. One day, Heaven would decide to move him on to the Fifth World. His departure might involve a horrible display in some city square, but even then he would have no regrets. Free public entertainment would be his final role.

  Nonetheless, he was aging, and spending the best part of a day on a horse in the heat of Fish Moon was a strain. There was no shade anywhere. The rolling hills were mummified already and Luminous was close to it. Lord Silk Hand, riding beside him, looked dusty and sweaty, but quite unwearied, grinning eagerly as the play unfolded. Savoring the game. A promising lad, Silky, the best to come along in years, brilliant and deadly, if inclined to be reckless. This Goat Haven project would be an incredible score if the boy could pull it off, but the risks were enough to make a man’s queue stand on end, straight up, if he had one. There would be no public entertainment at the end of this road, but the consequences might be as fatal and even more prolonged. The ranchers were as hard as their horseshoes.

  Luminous glanced behind him to inspect his retinue, all supplied by the abbess of Cherish. Watersprite was there, dressed as a boy, but currently flirting with Windchime, one of the Cherish Helpers. Behind them rode another, Carp, and also the curiously named Mercy, on loan from some abbey down river, a skilled young archer anxious to add a notch to his tally stick. His crossbow was well hidden in the baggage, of course. Altogether, they were a convincing following for a minor nobleman. Private armies were strictly regulated in the Good Land.

  It wasn’t the deception that was the problem in this venture. Luminous was confident that his performance as Prince Luminous Aspect would be flawless, and Silky as his aide had passed the ranchers’ inspection on his earlier visit. Once credibility had been established, the second presentation always went more smoothly. No, it was in the seamy underside of the cloth that the bedbugs lurked, not on the public face. Any seed of suspicion planted during Silky’s earlier visit had had a week to sprout.

  Watersprite had put the forged will in place on that previous call. The purpose of this one was to arrange Sky Hammer 7’s death—preferably by seemingly natural causes and not during the strangers’ stay. This was Silky’s mission, so he must choose how to proceed. He must make the crucial decision between certainty and subtlety. The Gray Helpers always had at least two plans for an outing, and in this case, they had at least three.

  The simplest and most brutal option required Sky Hammer to accompany his noble guest when he went to Heaven’s Threshold to view the legendary Portal of Worlds tomorrow or the next day. The old man must have seen it thousands of times, but he might go again, just because there was so much talk of a possible opening in the near future. If he did, and did not take too many guards of his own along, then he would die with an arrow hole through either him or his horse, tumbling and rolling down the cliff that Silky had so joyfully described. A tragic mishap!

  The trouble with Plan One was that it was far too obvious. As soon as that extraordinary will was discovered, screams of murder would rise to Heaven’s chimneypots. Governor Scarlet Meadow, in Cherish, was party to the plot, but if the disinherited Sky Rider appealed to the provincial governor in Wedlock, or even to the Golden Throne itself, then the noodles would come unraveled.

  A more insidious option was Plan Two, smallpox, which would have the advantage of not showing up until ten or twelve days after Luminous Aspect and his entourage had departed. Moreover, the resulting panic would strip the ranch of hands who might resist the governor’s troops when they arrived to assess death taxes and impose the new owner. The disadvantages were that the outbreak might not catch the old tyrant himself, and Goat Haven would be unsafe to visit for some time after.

  There was always wolfsbane. Having used that poison so effectively against Distant Cloud on his first score, Silky was leaning toward using it again. Luminous disliked that option for two reasons. First, it was too sudden. The subject’s death while strangers were visiting, swiftly followed by the discovery of an incredible will in the chest in the same room—who would ever believe in that legend? Besides, it would require either Silky himself or another Helper to repeat Sister Watersprite’s feat of entering Sky Hammer’s bedroom while he slept. One toe stubbed in the dark, or one old man suddenly needing the chamber pot, and all would be lost.

  Silky was bound to have other ideas he had not mentioned, and Luminous would be very interested to see which method he used. Sky Hammer’s life expectancy was undoubtedly very short.

  “This hill is Goat Haven,” Silky said. “Those two cairns mark the turnoff.”

  Not a moment too soon.

  C C CSilky had barely left with the others that morning before Verdant strolled out to the stable to begin her morning ride. She genuinely enjoyed riding, although she had tried it, at first, mainly out of boredom and a wicked sense of daring. Back in Wedlock, her parents would have been scandalized beyond belief at the idea of any woman on horseback, let alone a respectable lady of the mercantile class. In the last week, riding had become her excuse to talk with Walnut Shell, her hope for freedom.

  She was determined to escape from Silky, a thief and merciless killer. After Silkworm was born, she had refused to let him touch her. Their marriage was a sham, she had said, and her son was illegitimate. Even after three months, when the birth nurse had left, whispering that it was safe and decent for a woman to “admit her husband to her room” again, Verdant had refused. Silky had never argued, threatened, begged, or complained. He had just stood in the doorway or sat on a chair, talking of other things and looking so unbearably sexy that even watching him breathe made her want to tear his clothes off. And one night, somehow—she was never quite sure how—she had found him not just inside her room, but inside the bedcovers and her, too. As always, he had coaxed her body into betraying her with fits of the most intense passion she could imagine. Now she suspected that she might be pregnant again.

  Escape would not be easy. Silky had left Plum Blossom behind, obviously to be Verdant’s jailer. But Plum Blossom would find Silkworm much easier to watch than his mother, knowing that she would never run away without him. At the moment, he was still making the entire household suffer from his colic, so Verdant was free to finalize her plans with Walnut Shell.

  He was waiting with the last two horses saddled, hers and the one normally ridden by Plum Blossom. Since seeing Silky off, he had donned a tunic, a garment he wore only when he escorted Verdant into town. Without a word, he offered his hands for her boot and hoisted her up to the saddle. Then he swung nimbly aboard the other mount and they trotted out of the yard together.

  She half expected to see the gate keeper replaced by a platoon of Gray Helpers. There might be some in the guard house, but only the usual day man, Bold Star, was visible. Bent and toothless
, he scurried out to open the gate for her, bowing low as she passed.

  Verdant could now speak without fear of being overheard, but that did not mean that she could trust her uncouth accomplice, who might well turn out to be another Silky spy. He was uneducated but not stupid. She had not put her needs into words yet, but she had hinted enough, so Walnut Shell knew what she wanted of him. He had certainly indicated what he wanted of her, although his idea of wooing was to stare at her with half-closed lids and fondle his crotch. Today she would spell out her plan and, if at all possible, put it into effect.

  Without preamble, she said. “I am going to leave my husband and return to my parents.”

  “Yes, lady.” He turned on his noon-strength smile.

  “Taking my baby and his nurse.” White Petal had not even started weaning Silkworm.

  “Yes.” Walnut Shell was a man of few words.

  “Will you help me?”

  “How?”

  “Think well,” she said. “It’s a crime to take a woman away from her husband. Lord Silk Hand could report you to the magistrates.”

  Walnut Shell snorted. “Him? He’s a Gray Helper.”

  “How do you know … I mean, why do you think that?”

  “He’s in and out of their lair all the time.”

  “You’re not frightened of him?”

  “Not if we get away fast. How?”

  “There are ships in the harbor. I will buy passage for us. I need you to come with me, because I cannot travel without a man.” No captain would let an unaccompanied woman aboard his vessel unless he had a brothel license, and in that case, the girls would be his employees. “I will give you money when we reach Wedlock.”

  She expected him to ask how much.

  He beat around no bushes. “We share a bed?”

  “Of course.” She returned his smile encouragingly. Why not? She had played whore to get impregnated by Silky, so she could do so again to rescue her son. Besides, the hostler was not hard to smile at. He offered nothing in the way of daytime conversation, but considered purely as future nighttime entertainment, he could hardly be bettered.

  “Leave today?”

  “If we can.”

  He nodded. “Go find a ship now?”

  She felt a shudder of delicious terror. She had dreamed of this moment. “Yes, now.”

  Her escort nodded and let her ride on ahead, falling back to a servant’s proper place in the rear. Soon they left the area of big, walled houses, passed by the gloomy fort, and entered the teeming trading dock lands along the river. She sniffed at her perfumed sleeve to deaden the stench. She would have to live with smells and fleas and bad food for at least the next two weeks.

  One thing that must be said of Silky, he was never miserly. He let her have all the money she asked for to run the household and she had saved quite enough of it to pay the fare back down river. She would have to do the bargaining, because Walnut Shell would be out of his depth, but she had seen how it was done on last year’s painfully prolonged trip up from Wedlock.

  It turned out to be easier than she expected, because there was only one paddle wheeler in the harbor. She did not trust the small craft or their crews. Having warned her companion not to speak, she walked up the gangplank with him at her heels, hoping neither of them got soot on their clothes to arouse Plum Blossom’s suspicions. Her heart sank when she saw the stokers already raising steam—she could not leave without her child.

  The captain was a tall, curt man, almost as laconic as Walnut Shell. She explained that her husband’s mother was very ill in Wedlock and they wished to go there as soon as possible. She needed a first-class cabin for them, a small one for their child and his nurse. The captain eyed her companion suspiciously, but did not ask if that ill-clad, black-nailed yokel was the husband in question.

  He named a fare. She countered.

  “No haggling, my lady. I will have to evict the passengers that have already hired those cabins.”

  She demanded to see them. Walnut Shell followed and inspected the accommodation, too, although she had not, and would not, ask his opinion. He came out with all his teeth showing, for there was only one pallet provided and no room for more. The second cabin was a hutch, in which even Silkworm and White Petal would be squashed, but that was to be expected. Verdant accepted the tariff, haggled over the deposit, and demanded a receipt in case the ship left a little earlier than the announced sailing time of midafternoon. The port authorities were particular about such misunderstandings, although they would be more interested in extracting a fine from the captain than recovering her money.

  Trembling at what she had just done, she went back down to the horses with her accomplice close behind. Desertion, kidnapping, and soon adultery? Not that Silky would care about the last, because he was even more convinced than she that she was already pregnant again. If she asked permission to cuckold him, he would probably tell her to go right ahead and enjoy herself. He would object vehemently to the abduction of his son.

  So somehow Verdant must distract Plum Blossom and return to the dock again with Silkworm and his wet nurse. And her too-eager escort, of course.

  Luminous saw at once that Silky had observed and described Goat Haven well: the long grassy hillside to the guard post at the base of the cliffs; the steeper, well fortified path up to the plateau; and the maze of paddocks and buildings there. The noble Luminous Aspect’s approach had been observed, so his arrival was expected, but he noticed that the escort provided easily outnumbered the one he had brought—no less than a dozen slit-eyed, stone-faced borderers armed with both rifles and pistols. Perversely, he welcomed this evidence of the locals’ distrust. If they thought twelve ranch hands had a hope against six Gray Helpers, then they had no idea what they were up against.

  They all wore barbarian costume of leather breeches and tunics, but Sky Rider was waiting at the top of the climb to greet the noble guest on his father’s behalf, and he wore proper gentlemen’s robes. He was a chubby man of medium height with a vaguely vacuous face. Not impressive at all, decided Luminous, who prided himself on judging people. Speeches were made.

  The visitors were escorted to a guesthouse, comprising a fine chamber for the prince and a dormitory that would have held a dozen retainers. Silky remained impassive as they looked around, but he could not be pleased. He had hoped the fake prince’s retinue would be billeted in one of the hands’ bunkhouses, where they could leave smallpox-infected blankets as a farewell gift if he chose that plan. Moreover, the guesthouse had only one door, which would obviously be watched at night. Luminous soon discovered two more problems.

  As soon as Prince Luminous Aspect and Lord Silk Hand—guards did not count—had washed and changed after their journey, they were led across to the main palace building and the hall that Silky had described. There was no meal in progress this time, the floor looked as if it had been freshly swept in the guests’ honor, and their host was standing on his dais to greet them. Low bows and flowery greetings were exchanged, and then the two princes sat down on cushions to drink tea and discuss the mess the world was in. Luminous noted that Sky Hammer leaned on his son’s arm to do so, but the implication of that escaped him at the time. Attendants withdrew to a respectable distance.

  Despite his fine silken draperies, all adorned with fat artistic horses, Sky Hammer was far too sun-dried to be mistaken for the sort of noble who would be welcome in Sublime Mountain. His grating speech bore more resemblance to the sound of paddleboats than to the Palace Voice spoken there. He was tall, lean, and aging, yet he still looked capable of holding his own in a fight. He would be far harder to deceive than his son.

  How official his title might be was immaterial. The governor’s clerks in Cherish classed him as a rancher and landowner, but in practice, he was a clan chief or minor warlord, a semidomesticated brigand. Yet his pleasure at meeting his visitor seemed genuine enough. Real p
rinces coming to call must be as rare as whales in these hills, although many of his neighbors likely claimed the same pseudo-royal honors he did. That Luminous Aspect was a self-promoted corpse washer must not become a topic of conversation, or the mountebank and his companions would descend from the plateau much faster than they had come up.

  It was easy enough to steer the talk around to Tenth Dynasty scroll paintings. Many were hung around the three walls enclosing the dais, but Luminous had memorized the inventory taken by the Gray Sisters two years ago and knew that this was only a small part of the Goat Haven collection. He let his eyes wander.

  “You are a collector yourself, Noblest?” the rancher inquired.

  “In a very humble way. Indeed, what you have on display here quite overawes my few trifles, and I cannot believe your magnificence would expose his greatest treasures to the vagaries and odors of a dining hall.”

  “But I like to keep some of my favorites by me. The one by Smoke Hand is not without merit, I believe.” Serve. …

  Without hesitation, Brother Luminous glanced up at the scroll his host referred to. “His treatment of wind in long grass is quite unmistakable.” Return. … “The waterfall behind me cannot be a genuine Agate Shining though?”

  Even the dour Sky Hammer seemed as impressed as he should be, for the fraudulent Luminous Aspect could have had only a few seconds on his way in to observe the waterfall, let alone study it. “A clumsy imitation by one of his pupils. The original hangs in my chamber. If Your Excellency would care to see?”