Portal of a Thousand Worlds

by Duncan, Dave

The day after Verdant found shelter at Tutu, she learned that Silkworm’s new wet nurse was named Monkey Flower. This did not bother him, though. He took to her like a leech. Seeming much happier with her milk than he had with White Petal’s, he gave up colic and smiled blissfully at people on the rare occasions when he wasn’t either sucking or sleeping.

  Monkey Flower had lost a girl child in the earthquake, so her husband, Thornbush, was well satisfied with the exchange. Verdant understood that she had just given away her son, but the alternative had been to watch him die, so she would have to accept the situation and love him from afar. She was less pleased by the prospect of becoming Thornbush’s junior wife, for he was a nasty, foul-mouthed little man with bow legs and a fixed sneer, clearly well past his best, if he had ever had a best. Several more attractive options were walking around, if she were truly doomed to spend the rest of her life in Tutu, but Thornbush, despite his lack of stature, seemed to be the local headman, so there were going to be no other options. Then a prospect worse than marriage presented itself.

  The villagers had slept on grass well back from the huts on that first night, for the aftershocks continued, and sometimes more mud-brick walls collapsed. Wounded children wailed in the night, but the weather remained fine and there were no more deaths or injuries. Monkey Flower produced very meager bowls of congee for breakfast, but her own helping was no larger than Verdant’s, so Verdant made no complaint. The entire Good Land was going to be on short commons this year.

  “I must find some better clothes,” she said after wolfing down her snack. The tattered remains of her gown made her feel like a beggar, which was horribly close to being true.

  “Come!” Thornbush commanded. He led her around to what had once been the main, and only, street. He gestured at the ruins of the village. Half the houses, including his, had survived, but the rest were heaps of rubble and mud. “You can have anything you want off the corpses. You see there?” He pointed to where a gang of men was stacking timbers. “We’re building a pyre. You bring the bodies there. That’s your job now.”

  Verdant was at a loss for words. Yet now she understood: She had offended her ancestors by marrying a Gray Helper, and their punishment was that she must become one. The nasty glint in the headman’s eye confirmed it. Silkworm was welcome; she was not. She had expected that she would have to earn her keep, but she had not anticipated being assigned the worst job in the Good Land. What choice did she have? She nodded, and headed for the nearest ruin in the hope of finding something to wear.

  There was a brief digression then, when a group of strangers was seen approaching. The villagers rushed out with bamboo spears and a few swords. They blew trumpets and banged drums, and the refugees turned away. It was a scene that would be repeated several times in the next few weeks.

  Verdant labored for days to collect all the corpses. Whenever the men dismantling the ruins uncovered another body, they would shout for her. She would dig the corpse free, lay it on a blanket, and drag it to the makeshift mortuary beside the rising pyre. The moment she had touched the first body, she had become ill-omened and unclean, of course. After that, she had to sleep and eat apart from everyone else, and people fled from her. Children shouted insults at her. On the bright side, she was not required to serve as anybody’s concubine.

  She had plenty of time to muse on her own incredible folly. Why, oh why, had she not taken Plum Blossom’s advice after the earthquake and headed west to find Silky instead of east? Silky was no ideal husband, but he had provided generously for her. Fool, fool, fool!

  She was not dead yet. She must fulfill the penance the ancestors had prescribed for her and hope for their forgiveness. And then she must do whatever it took to improve the situation. Silkworm would stay there, in Tutu. She would go in search of Silky and return with him to reclaim their son. And if she couldn’t find Silky, she would go back to Wedlock and seek help from her father. Such plans must wait a week or two, until the Emperor came to the aid of his people, as he surely would.

  The weather broke, bringing spring showers, but at least they made the world feel cleaner. Verdant found lodging in a ruin at the downstream edge of the town, a nook that was at least dry, if not warm, and her repugnant status ensured that even the raunchiest youths in the village would not dare molest her. There she could store anything she found near the corpses that might be useful to her later. She even retrieved pots of dried fruit, salted fish, and unspoiled bags of rice.

  By the fourth day, the corpses were swelling and their stench was making the whole village unbearable. Thornbush declared the pyre big enough, but then came the problem of lifting the bodies to lay them on top. Verdant was not strong enough, so the men rigged a derrick, and it became her job to tie the rope around a body’s ankles, so it could be dragged up a ramp. Then she had to climb up there, see that it was correctly positioned, untie the rope, go back down for the next one. The worst ones were the small children, because she had to carry those up by herself.

  The bale fire burned for a day and a night. The smell before had been bad enough, but the reek of burning flesh was infinitely worse.

  Even then, her work was not finished. She still had to gather the bones, dig the graves, and bury them. If she complained or balked, Thornbush threatened to cut off her food and drive her away altogether. The children alone could do that just by throwing stones at her. A few more bodies were found, so the whole process had to be repeated on a smaller scale.

  At last came the day when the dead had gone, damaged huts had been more or less repaired, and the men felt free to start replacing those that had been totally destroyed. Verdant was ordered to help the women gathering the straw that would stiffen the mud bricks. It was backbreaking work, and she had to work far apart from anyone else, for she was still unclean and always would be.

  The Little River no longer carried so much floating debris. Yet still she lingered, waiting until the dribble of refugees tapered away and the villagers stopped posting night guards. After that, she could begin planning her escape, and it was amazingly easy. She had found many useful things in the ruins while collecting corpses and had hidden them in her den. Tired as she was, she stayed awake until the village had fallen silent and a last-quarter moon had risen. Then she heaved her first bundle onto her back and headed for the little jetty where the boats were kept.

  Voices ahead stopped her—the sound of adolescents enjoying themselves, and no doubt enjoying one another. Somewhere, a baby cried, quite possibly Silkworm, whom she had not held in her arms for so long. She crept back to her lair to wait. The temptation to fall asleep was torment, but she knew she must try again in an hour or two. Soon, the old folk would be stirring their cramped old bones to face another day.

  This time, she reached the jetty unchallenged. The village owned three boats, and she chose the smallest, dumped her bundle in it, then hurried back to fetch her second bundle, the one with the food.

  The Little River would carry her down to the Jade. From there, she could row upstream to Cherish and appeal for help from the Gray Helpers, who would certainly have benefitted greatly from the earthquake toll. They would guide her to Silky. If she couldn’t row against the current, she could let the Jade carry her down to Wedlock, where it joined the Golden. And there she would find her parents.

  The little dory was leaky, so her feet were in water, but it was outfitted with oars and a pole. She had never tried rowing, but she had watched it being done on her long trip upriver with Silky in the Year of the Nightingale. She cut the painter with a very sharp knife she had found on a dead man’s belt. The current caught the boat, swinging it around so suddenly that she lost her balance, almost fell overboard, toppled over her bundles, and sprawled headlong, banging her head on a thwart.

  After that, she knelt in the bow and tried to steer with the pole, for the water was mostly shallow. She could not always stay clear of obstacles—mostly stranded debris brought down by the earth
quake—so the boat took several hard knocks. After an hour or so, more by accident than design, it ran aground on a sandbank. She had come a long way from Tutu. She was trembling with weariness. She made herself as comfortable as possible in the bow—the bilge had all collected in the stern—and fell into a dreamless sleep.

  She was awakened by a blaze of sunlight and her own cry of alarm as her robe was ripped open. A man was kneeling over her, leering down at her. He was young, he was large, and he was naked. He grabbed both of her breasts and laughed.

  “Good morning to you, woman! I’ve got a real treat for you to start your day with. See the lovely present I’m going to give you?”

  “No! Go away, stop that …”

  “Struggle all you want,” he said. “I like that.”

  She tried to heave him off her, which was hopeless. But her hand found the knife she had dropped. Her right hand. Thinking of the child she carried, she thrust the blade into the man’s ribs.

  His eyes and mouth went very wide. He made a few whimpering sounds, and then vomited blood all over her. His death throes shook the boat loose, and in a few moments she found herself floating downstream again, soaked in blood and pinned under a corpse.

  She had married a Gray Helper who was also a murderer. If she ever did meet Silky again, he would laugh himself silly.

  Her ancestors had helped her escape from Tutu, but now she had proved unworthy of them. She had killed a man. Would they ever forgive her?

  She struggled free of the corpse, but she could not throw it overboard, and would tip the boat over if she tried. The extra weight was making it ride lower in the water and leak faster. It was sinking. Her store of food, which she had counted on to feed her until she found sanctuary somewhere, was already ruined. Everything she tried went wrong.

  She saw obstacles ahead and could not even free the pole, which was trapped under the body. She watched in frozen horror as she headed to disaster and the remains of the ruined bridge that she and Walnut Shell had seen on the day of the earthquake, which now seemed so very long ago. The boat struck the debris and the impact hurled her bodily into the river. She floundered, hampered by her clothes and the current, and then by a violent collision with a vertical post. She grabbed it, hung on, and got her head above water.

  It took her several minutes and many bruises to fight her way ashore and climb onto dry land. The boat was gone. Her precious stack of food, clothes, and useful things had all disappeared. She was stranded on the bank of the Little River with nothing but the soaking wet clothes on her back, and for a few minutes, she could do nothing but sit there and fight back tears.

  Her face was bleeding, her eye swollen. She had other bruises. She was barefoot.

  She had even climbed out on the wrong bank, and her only hope now was to walk back to Cherish and appeal to the Gray Helpers. She didn’t think she could ford the river on foot. Horses obviously did, for she could see where trails had formed on both banks, opposite each other. What had she done to offend Heaven so grossly? Why couldn’t she have just died in the earthquake with so many thousands of people?

  Then she heard the sound of hooves and saw a band of four people riding in her direction on her side of the river. One of them was certainly a woman, who might just possibly take pity on her. That was extremely unlikely, of course, but possible. Verdant rose and hobbled over to the trail to approach them.

  They reined in and stared at her in astonishment.

  Then her ancestors smiled at last!

  Did not the Rose Teacher say, However dark the night, the sun will rise?

  Verdant knew the old man on the front horse—pudgy, with his face all scarred by smallpox, and the foulest breath she had ever encountered.

  “Honorable Pearl White 11! You came to my wedding.”

  He beamed at her. “Indeed, I do remember. You are Verdant Harmony. You married Mandarin Effulgent Brushwork! How fares your noble husband?”

  He meant, of course, Gray Brother Luminous. “I have had no news of him since the earthquake struck, but I can lead you to where he is.”

  Chapter 15

  “We are presently camped one day’s march east of the city of Prosperity …” the Emperor said. He was dictating to his secretary, Mandarin of the First Rank Ash Staff. “The capital of Jiading Province,” he added to save Boundless Shore from having to ask someone. First Mandarin would know, of course. “So far we have seen no sign of earthquake damage, although we are told that the Golden River is higher than normal for Harvest Moon.”

  He waited for Ash Staff to wipe his brush and take more ink. First Mandarin had been appalled at the idea that the Emperor would inscribe his own correspondence. Emperors wrote poetry, and some had been known to dabble in landscapes, but nothing more. Butterfly Sword knew that his own calligraphy was suffering from disuse, and would be regarded by his regents with silent contempt. Besides, writing with a water cask as a table and a saddlebag as a chair did not lend itself to creating the best art, although Ash Staff produced excellent script under those conditions.

  Ash Staff had been recommended to His Imperial Majesty by First Mandarin, and might well be a grandson or great-grandson of the old rascal. He would certainly be writing his own reports back to Sublime Mountain, tattling on what the Emperor was up to but hadn’t thought to mention.

  “Our progress has been slower than we had hoped since we left the Grand Canal.”

  In fact, it had been appalling. The canal’s advantage had been that the Emperor’s small flotilla of two boats had been able to transit the problem locks and shallows much faster than the army’s huge fleet had done. But since leaving the canal where it met the Golden River, Iron Spur had proceeded upriver by land, on horseback along the towpath. As a result, he was closing the gap only very slowly. He was still a month behind the Imperial Army.

  Back on Sublime Mountain, Butterfly Sword had fantasized about outracing the wind across the Good Land, but that had not happened. Emperors could not speed along like imperial couriers. Of course he had not expected to travel in his formal robes, acres of golden silk embroidered with pearls and precious stones, but there might be occasions when he would want to dress up. That meant bundles and more bundles, and valets to look after them, and the only trained valets were eunuchs, of course, and few eunuchs knew how to ride. Even his traveling clothes must make a statement: Did he outrank General Iron Spur or didn’t he? If he concealed his rank too well, some uppity officer might set him on latrine duty. Not that Butterfly Sword would mind that very much—he had attended to such matters for years back in Sheep Rocks, and it was not a skill that required constant practice—but the officer would necessarily have to be beheaded. Also, Butterfly Sword needed privacy, which meant a large tent all to himself. And so, despite his bragging to Iron Spur, his presence slowed the general’s progress, which was galling. The worst of it was that everyone in the company soon knew who the big “Captain Dragon Claw” was. Notwithstanding all his protests, guards were posted around his tent at night.

  So his dream of a small, fast-moving group had bloated into a nightmare of about two hundred people, crawling along at the pace of the slowest horse. Butterfly Sword was now convinced that Iron Spur was being overprotective of his Emperor’s safety. Without him to guard, he would take to the river. Of course, he could be overruled, but that must be done tactfully, for Butterfly Sword had promised not to interfere in the way the army was run.

  The lantern flickered; wind flapped the tent. The air was permanently full of bugs and a dust that worked its way into everything. Why should Butterfly Sword complain? Even here, bivouacking in a swamp on the banks of the mighty Golden River, he was better off than nine-tenths of the people he had seen on his journey so far. His people, but he would not sleep tonight if he thought much about that.

  “We have received your report inscribed on the First Day of Harvest Moon. We approve of your actions regarding the unru
ly eunuchs, for truly they are vermin.”

  But they weren’t, not really. They were thousands of wretched, mutilated men he had thrust out into a contemptuous and unforgiving world with no means of earning a living, but if he wrote that, First Mandarin and Boundless Shore would think he was insane.

  “Try to find useful employment for the dutiful.”

  Now what?

  “The Grand Canal,” he said, “is in a much worse state than we expected.”

  Years of neglect had left the banks and locks in dismal condition, and vast stretches of the channel in need of dredging. Butterfly Sword had long since stopped feeling sorry for what he had done to the Empress Mother. For years, that murderous old crone had wasted the revenue of the Empire on megalomaniacal plans for a totally unnecessary Water Palace. Even if the Bamboo Banner could be stopped in its tracks and Heaven granted the phony Emperor Absolute Purity a long reign and the wisdom of all the teachers, he would be hard put to restore the Good Land to the happy prosperity it had known in the days of Zealous Righteousness.

  Ash Staff was waiting again. …

  “On land, we are held back by the slowest horse.” He had to mention horses somewhere, so that Boundless Shore would know that his letter was genuine.

  “We have therefore decided to continue from here by water.”

  Ash Staff looked up in alarm, then remembered his manners and wrote what the Lord of the High and Low had spoken. The local peasants were still terrified that the Golden River would break through the upstream obstruction caused by the earthquake and come roaring down upon them in gigantic waves. But the river here was so wide that its far bank was out of sight. Butterfly Sword could not believe that such an enormous expanse of water could behave like a mountain stream. He could even see traces of debris left on the shore above the current waterline. That was why he had sent Iron Spur ahead to talk to the local governor.

  “Who goes there?” demanded a voice outside.