Portal of a Thousand Worlds

by Duncan, Dave

  “Not I. Not even the most Junior-Junior-Junior of Empresses.” Sweet Melody was a total bore whose only interest was her own advancement. She was as ambitious as the Empress Mother, but nowhere near as clever. “And just because her son would be older than any of the dozen sons you are going to give me doesn’t mean that he would inherit the throne. You know that an Emperor chooses which son will succeed him.”

  “The she-dragon will make her an Empress whether you like it or not,” Snow Lily said sulkily.

  Butterfly Sword sighed. “She may. Listen, my love. I am in danger. If Sweet Melody does produce a son, I won’t be needed anymore.”

  “Oh. No!” Snow Lily’s eyes widened in horror. “She wouldn’t … Not right away, surely? That would be too obvious.”

  “Obvious to whom? Her deception is so enormous that no one can imagine it. As the Desert Teacher said, A man atop a mountain can see all the world except the mountain. I could jump up in the Great Council and shout out that I am a fraud, but no one would believe me. Nevertheless, the she-dragon knows the truth, so my future here is not auspicious. I must make my escape while I can.”

  “How?”

  “I don’t know,” he admitted. “It seems to be much easier to become an Emperor than it is to unbecome one. She has me watched night and day.” He was fairly sure that Joyous Diligence had lied to him about patrol dogs, but the human surveillance was certainly very tight.

  “I’ll come with you.”

  He shook his head. “Even if I get away, I’ll be a penniless, friendless fugitive. You must stay on in the palace and look after Snowbell.”

  “Bah! You’re being stupid.” How many concubines in the history of the Good Land had ever said that to an Emperor? “They don’t let me near Snowbell without other people watching me. I wasn’t allowed to nurse her. You told me you loved me.”

  “I did. I mean I did tell you and I do still love you.”

  “No,” she said suddenly, her rose-petal mouth suddenly determined. “You are right. We concubines are guarded more closely than rubies. Even you could never smuggle me out of the Great Within. I am safe here because I am Snowbell’s mother. You must leave us and escape by yourself.” Her eyes glistened. “But I will miss you, miss you, miss you!”

  He sighed. “I cannot bear to leave you.” The problem had no solution.

  “You must! You are not safe here and I am.”

  She was not safe, that was the trouble. She knew that her daughter was a fraud and the baby prince, also, whenever one chose to appear. Sooner or later, the Empress Mother would decide to clean house of all potential troublemakers, and she held all the—

  Drums? Gongs! Bells! The orchestra froze into icicles as the doors flew open and guards rushed in. Close behind them trotted a dozen bearers, carrying the palanquin of the Empress Mother. Now what? The tigress rarely announced her approach and had never come calling on her fake son before. But unpredictability was one of her strengths, one that Butterfly Sword admired. He admired many things about the woman who ruled an empire that was supposed to be ruled by men. Even the Gray Helpers could not match her for ruthlessness.

  The chair advanced to that end of the hall and was set down. The drape flew open. There sat the Empress Mother in all her splendor, looking furious at the entire world. Snow Lily slid to the floor and kowtowed.

  “I stopped by,” the newcomer proclaimed, “to let you know that you need not waste sleep tonight waiting for news of Sweet Melody. She is attempting a breech birth, stupid girl, so nothing will happen until tomorrow at the earliest. And tomorrow is a highly inauspicious day.”

  “You are kind, August Mother,” Butterfly Sword said.

  The old harridan scowled even harder. “You were clumsy, putting it in the wrong way up. I assume you were indulging in perverted acrobatics. You still lack an heir, Your Majesty!” And with that, she slammed the silken drape shut. A guard called an order, the bearers lifted the palanquin, and the Empress Mother departed as swiftly as she had arrived.

  Butterfly Sword gestured permission for Snow Lily to resume her seat. Such imperial graces were second nature to him now. “Um … what is a breech birth?”

  Snow Lily was ashen pale. “The baby is the wrong way up. Poor, poor Melody! She’ll struggle for days and when she is exhausted they will cut her open to get it out.”

  He put down his chopsticks. He had never known that childbirth could be so horrible. His seed had killed Moth. Now Sweet Melody?

  A trill of harp music soared through the hall, and a voice began to sing.

  “Blossoms come with the moon

  And die before it.

  If I mourn their passing

  What of the bud that never bloomed?”

  It was almost finished before the words registered as familiar—an old poem by a minor poet, nothing special. If the singer had overheard the Empress Mother’s news, the song was so glaringly inappropriate that it might merit the death penalty for sedition, but the hall was very big, so the boy had probably just made an unlucky choice. Now Butterfly Sword remembered where he had heard it, and who had sung it. He turned to study the orchestra. Judging by the hand waving and other body language, the soloist had performed without permission and the orchestra leader was furiously warning that he would suffer for it later.

  The Emperor clapped his hands. The Emperor beckoned! The orchestra leader rushed over and kowtowed, practically sliding to a halt on his forehead in his haste.

  “That was well done. The singer’s name?”

  “Eunuch Arpeggio, Your Majesty.”

  “We will hear more of Eunuch Arpeggio’s magic.”

  As the music director scampered back to his ensemble, Butterfly Sword carefully avoided meeting Snow Lily’s surprised expression. He was having great difficulty keeping a straight face, because the last time he had seen or heard Eunuch Arpeggio, he had been Sister Lark in the House of Joyful Departure in Sheep Rocks. How had she arrived here in Sublime Mountain, and why was she deliberately attracting the attention of the man she had known as Novice Horse?

  That the contact was intentional seemed even more likely when “Eunuch” Arpeggio plucked a few strings and then sent her superb alto voice soaring to the rafters in a famous celebration of a herd of horses galloping over the hills, another work she had sung back in those days that now seemed so long ago. Did that choice imply that she had come to rescue Novice Horse? Could he race away from his captivity in Sublime Mountain?

  Sister Lark was at least ten years his senior and a confessed would-be murderer, serving a life sentence in Sheep Rocks. She had given the leggy young initiate some of his first lessons in sex and they had remained casual lovers, like every other heterosexual combination in the Sheep Rocks priory. They had never been friends. So how and why was she now in the imperial palace?

  The Emperor applauded Eunuch Arpeggio’s recital and sent over exquisite porcelain rice bowls as rewards for him and the music director, a standard gratuity that cost the throne nothing, because such items would normally be stolen on their way back to the kitchen.

  The Emperor—and there were times now when Butterfly Sword could almost watch himself performing—then dismissed the Pearl Concubine. He had promised not to burden her with more secrets, and Sister Lark’s presence in the palace was a hair-raising one. He told her to give Sweet Melody his best wishes and prayers, and to send him word of her progress. He then retired to the imperial sleeping quarters, where his valets stripped him of his dress robes and clad him in a loose silk gown embroidered with five-clawed dragons. Eunuch Joyous Diligence bowed and snidely inquired which lady or ladies His Majesty required as company that night.

  If Lark had come to help him escape, she might have organized his departure for this very evening, although more likely she would need him to help by issuing specific orders to somebody. Either way, she would almost certainly call on him tonight.


  “None of them. Tonight we are oppressed by the thought of Sweet Melody’s travails.”

  The Keeper of Hours sighed. “Yes, indeed. A breech birth killed my sister. A long and terrible death!”

  Butterfly Sword clenched a fist. “Go away and stay away.”

  Which was what he intended to do if he got the chance, but what would happen to Snow Lily? The thought of leaving without her was agony, and yet he had nothing to offer her in the world outside Sublime Mountain except danger. Earthquakes, revolution, and many lesser disasters were spreading death over the Good Land like sauce over rice. He could do nothing about those. If he was certain to die soon, he had nothing to offer her inside the palace, either.

  So began the agony of waiting. By the light of a single lamp, he paced around his great bedchamber. Had he misunderstood the hint about horses? Armed eunuchs stood guard outside his door all night. More guards patrolled the grounds—he had watched them often enough and knew that they kept to no regular schedule, although he had never seen dogs with them. He trusted Lark to know where he was sleeping, but every now and again, he would go to a window and stare out, so she would see him if she were in doubt. The moon had set and the park was a pattern of shadow upon shadow in the starlight.

  How had she escaped from the penal house of Sheep Rocks? She had been tethered there by her leash, commanded to stay and obey the prior. It was she who had warned Novice Horse about leashes, thereby breaking one of the strictest of rules. Lark had never been much for obeying rules. In her previous posting, she had tried to poison her abbess, or so she claimed. She cynically maintained that her real crime had been failure; had she succeeded, she would have been promoted.

  Whatever her mission here in Sublime Mountain, it had to be illegal and almost certainly treasonous. So why had she been chosen for it? Because the fake Emperor knew her and would recognize her, obviously. But after that, Butterfly Sword’s thinking ran into a wall. Who was planning to do what? To, and for, whom?

  Her presence in the Great Within strongly suggested the supple, subtle hand of Lady Twilight, who was the only link between the Order and the court and probably the only person in the entire Empire who knew all the details of the conspiracy. It was impossible to imagine the Empress Mother making a quick trip to Sheep Rocks in person.

  If Lark had been sent to kill him, she would never have shown herself to him beforehand. The Empress Mother had many ways of causing people to die without having to recruit Lark, and that reasoning also eliminated Lady Twilight. An outsider, then? A new player in the game? Some minor prince seeing himself as a contender for the throne had offered a fortune to some House of Joyful Departure to dispose of His Imperial Majesty Emperor Absolute Purity?

  That was the only theory that came close to explaining why Lark had revealed herself during dinner. He was both an impregnably guarded Emperor and a trained Gray Brother. Had she approached him without warning, he could have yelled for his guards or just snapped her neck himself.

  He had expected to have to wait for half the night, but the stars had hardly moved in their courses before something creaked in the darkest corner of the room. A vertical strip of light appeared low down—light so faint he might not have noticed it at all had his eyes not been completely dark-adjusted, but light where there should be none. It widened to a rectangle and was obscured as a black-garbed figure entered on hands and knees. She straightened up and advanced into the lamplight, blinking at its brightness.

  Palace servants were excused the excessive formalities required of princes and other high ranks. So were assassins. Lark did not kowtow.

  He bowed to her instead. There could be no legal explanation for their meeting like this in this place, so the Order’s normal insistence on staying in character at all times did not apply. He did not embrace her, for they had never been friends and he certainly did not trust her. He admired her as hard-bitten, meticulous, and an excellent operator. Tonight, she even smelled like a eunuch.

  “You are a sight for sore eyes, Sister. Your arrival here is a miracle, and I congratulate you on it. But don’t come any closer until you have explained why I should trust you.”

  She acknowledged the tribute with a nod. “You have done wonderfully well, Brother. I was amazed when I was told what you were up to.”

  “It is the she-dragon’s doing. Her audacity is amazing. No one else could have pulled it off. They call her the tigress. She is quite a character.”

  “She must be.” Lark was implying that she had not met the Empress Mother, but that meant nothing in such a fog of intrigue.

  “I see you have resources I do not,” he said. “How ever did you learn about that sneaky backdoor?” An assassin’s door into the Emperor’s bedroom was unthinkable, which strongly suggested that the Empress Mother must be behind this. Had she sent Lark to kill him? That was possible if the tale of the breech birth was a lie and Sweet Melody had in truth been delivered of a healthy son, but the timing seemed unlikely. He ought to be able to count on a few more months so that his death would not seem such a suspicious coincidence. And why alert him beforehand?

  Was this a rescue attempt? Surely, that was too much to hope for.

  “I had a helper,” Lark said. “She’s fetching some dark clothes for you, be along shortly.”

  Lady Twilight, any odds.

  “Tell me why I need dark clothes! Are you going to smuggle me out tonight? Is there any chance of taking my lover along with us?”

  Lark’s eyes shone silver in the lamplight. “Is Moth so soon forgotten?”

  Ow! How did she know about Moth? “Never forgotten, but my orders take no account of my feelings. It was almost two years ago, Sister.”

  “It is now. Well, the answers to your questions are all no. You know Twilight, the so-called Lady Twilight?”

  “Yes!”

  “She’s been the Empress Mother’s closest confidante for more than twenty years—confidant and chief poisoner. Her tally in the imperial family alone is about a dozen. Listen … Clusters of vermillion blossoms …

  Moonlight leaves the eastern window …”

  He recoiled and thought he would lose his dinner. A stallion kicking him between the legs would feel no worse, for every heartbeat became a surge of agony. His skin puckered into goose bumps and his muscles trembled violently. So that was his leash?

  “Sorry,” Lark said offhandedly.

  He was drowning in a world of pain. All he could see was her face in the darkness. “Quick, quick! Tell me what you want. And then stop it, please. Oh, please stop it!”

  “Just do as I say and speak quietly. Don’t give us away.”

  He nodded miserably. Hurry! Please hurry! He wanted to scream and his throat was so tight he could hardly breathe. Sweat coursed down his face and body.

  Suddenly, it was over. He straightened up, his breathing steady, not a trace of discomfort. He stared suspiciously at his new mistress, wishing he could wring her neck for inflicting such pain on him. “Why can’t I remember?”

  She laughed. “You always manage to appear stupid, but I knew you back at Sheep Rocks before you got so good at it. Why do you think?”

  “Because you don’t trust Twilight. She must know my leash, so you just used it to cancel it and substitute another.”

  Lark chuckled agreement and wandered over to the great bed to inspect the sweetmeats laid out there for the Emperor’s refreshment when his evening exertions had made him hungry. “Of course. Do you remember the words I spoke to bind you?”

  “Clusters of vermillion blossoms … Moonlight leaves the eastern window.”

  Lark popped a sugary treat in her mouth and chewed with obvious pleasure. “Correct. She may try to double-cross me by changing your leash, but she won’t do it until the two of you are alone together, so my first command to you was to kill her the moment she speaks those words.”

  Butterfly Sword felt a
s if he were sinking in mud and it was up to his shoulders already. Palace games were played for top stakes. “I hope you will warn her.”

  “Certainly not.”

  “Can a brother or sister have more than one leash?”

  “Certainly. But usually only one is in effect, and any others are booby traps, as your old one now is.” She wandered closer to the window.

  He went and sat on the edge of a chair where he would have his back to a wall. “How did you escape from Sheep Rocks?”

  She laughed without turning. “Sheep Rocks is an ocean of talent, Brother. After you and Prior Fraise disappeared, a new prior arrived. Pretty soon, the others began disappearing, one by one. No farewells, no explanations. New novices and brothers turned up to replace them and by the time I was relieved, it was obvious that anyone who had been there in your day was being separated and possibly silenced. I was pleasantly surprised when I discovered that I was being given a new life. Or any life at all, I mean. Have you spoken with Twilight in the last month?”

  “No.” Not that he remembered, but memories could be removed.

  “Good. I came an hour earlier than we agreed, so I could get to you first. … And here she comes, only forty-five minutes early.”

  A faint scuffling from the corner announced the arrival of the helper. The moment she rose and stepped into light, Butterfly Sword recognized the fake abbess who had enlisted him in Huarache, who had later conveyed him to Heart of the World and smuggled him into Sublime Mountain. But he also recognized Mulberry, one of his food tasters; for months, he had looked at her every day without making the connection. Now she was just a plain, aging, and weary-looking woman clutching a bundle of cloth. Death had always been much nearer than he had realized.

  “You had me completely fooled, Sister.”

  Twilight shrugged. Her expression was unreadable in the dim light. “Of course. But you have fooled everybody, Brother. You have done better than we ever dreamed possible.”

  “It’s all the Empress Mother’s doing. I’m just her puppet.”