The Eighth King (The White Umbrella Testament Book 1)

by Matt Weber

  “Of course,” said Kalsang. “Its salvage-men were priests. They did not wish to risk sending someone like me on an expedition—someone with no loyalty to the faith, who might sooner make off with a particularly interesting artifact, than submit it to mystical examinations.”

  That brought to the surface a question that had been nagging, unformed, at Datang since the discussion had begun. “No loyalty to the faith,” she said. “Yet you hold the University.”

  “Oh, the University has been devoid of priests for days,” said Kalsang. “We entered when they fled. The great hall is painted in blood.”

  “What happened?”

  Kalsang shrugged and shot a pointed look at Lin Yongten. “They prayed too strenuously, I imagine.”

  They emerged in one of the warehouses they had seen from the ridge. It was disarrayed and humming with activity, everywhere dirty, unshaven men in laborers’ garb hammering and soldering on artifacts of various sizes and complexities. The great majority were familiar to Datang, but some she had never seen: A tangled metal ball that looked like spider legs, a sword-shaped object taller than Lin Gyat, a great white wing rusted where the feathers overlapped.

  The whole scene was supervised by a bald-shaved, grey-clad man, flanked by Green Morning brothers, striding the perimeter of the warehouse with his chest out and his hands behind his back. His eyes flickered over Datang and her confrères, and recognition kindled in his face. “Eager Edge,” he said, familiar but reserved. “It has been a long time. Come, though, have you fallen afoul of some lingering snowdrift, or perhaps an ice-belching dragon? We must get you to a fire.” Revulsion briefly overtook Lin Yongten’s face at the word “fire.” The Iron Eunuch closed the distance between them, placing the back of his hand against Lin Yongten’s cheek. “What has befallen you, Yongten?”

  Lin Yongten shrugged, not easily. “I received a small boon from a coterie of spirits not long ago. This was the price of their assistance. I move more stiffly than once I did, but at least the blowflies and mosquitoes seem to have lost all interest in me.”

  The Iron Eunuch waited a moment, but Lin Yongten did not enlarge on his summary. The Pretender shook his head. “Your candor will be the death of you yet, Yongten. But is there aught amiss with my face?” Lin Yongten seemed to have become distracted with an examination of the Eunuch’s features.

  “The opposite,” said the blue-skinned warrior. “Only—I have never been in close quarters with a master of the Reflecting Pool Mind, and I wish to imprint the experience in my memory.” He met the Eunuch’s gaze again, one eyebrow laboriously arched.

  The Eunuch smiled thinly. “You think I will correct you on this matter?”

  “Only if I require correction, Iron. It is, of course, a King’s right.”

  “And yet you do not address me as a King. Have no fear, I’ll not reprimand you for it. The proofs of my claim will become clear to all in due time.”

  “A time the whole world anxiously awaits,” said Lin Yongten. “Forgive me, Iron, for not introducing my companions, Datang of Shrastaka jiao Ape’s Left Hand, and Lin Gyat of Degyen jiao Envied of Snakes. We three served in the Cerulean Guard together until we were pulled to Therku, whence we traveled through the Bat Mountains and Imja to this place. Until recently, we accompanied the Gracious Regent, but his wife was an unwilling guest of the Blue Duke, and an injury to my own person sustained during her extraction forced the separation of our party.”

  Lin Gyat leaned down to Datang. “Lin Yongten is voluble about our preoccupations these last weeks. Is that wise?”

  “I do not know,” said Datang. “But I do not imagine that conspiratorial whispering can possibly be taken well by our captor.”

  “I will speak more loudly, then.” Lin Gyat was as good as his word. Lin Yongten and the Iron Eunuch stared at him with near-identical expressions of mild curiosity.

  After a moment, the Eunuch continued. “The Cerulean Guard. That implies a loyalty not compatible with my cause. I am surprised you remain armed and unrestrained.”

  “We only wish to see our friend,” Datang put in, “and to aid in the defeat of the Priestkiller Worm in whatever way possible. We have no stake in this dispute otherwise.”

  “Have we not?” said Lin Yongten. “Did we not swear to guard the King’s person?”

  “I had wondered the same,” said the Iron Eunuch. “If so, it is inconvenient, for the preservation of the realm and the preservation of the man you recognize as King may be at odds. Seeing as his blood is not equal to combat with the Priestkiller Worm, and mine is.”

  “Then why not go into battle together?” said Datang. The Iron Eunuch narrowed his eyes. She shrugged. “How can it hurt? One of you will die; the other may prevail and live. Do you think a monster styled ‘Priestkiller Worm’ can possibly have a care for propriety? Why contend for the right to go in alone?”

  “You speak as though we ought to take an army to the Gorge.”

  “Take any man who thinks he might be an eighth son of an eighth son, or better. Take the weapons in this chamber. If the King is weak in the Crane’s Migration Step, give him that wing.” She pointed to the rust-feathered machine looming a few paces away. “The Crescent! I have fought solo for my own life, and I could barely stomach the needlessness of it. You fighting-men all fetishize On Dispute, yet somehow the wisdom of overwhelming force continues to elude you. In any case, if you are to be King, you should better understand the difference between a glory-duel and the slaying of a dangerous beast.”

  The Eunuch smiled thinly. “I suppose I need not lecture you on the restraint of diction prudent in the circumstances. Let me explain our position better. I am not opposed to the soi-distant King slinking into the Worm’s lair after me. In fact, I believe a valorous death would be easier to face than the disgrace he and his family await when my victory is known. Your friend Netten has accepted the fiction of a regency, and his conduct has earned him every ounce of the grace he is ascribed; but there is little more contemptible than an upjumped lumberjack who has wrested the throne from a good man on a bad claim. So, I do not begrudge the King the opportunity to seek death in combat. There is surely no nobler way to have it.” His magnanimity concluded, the Iron Eunuch allowed himself a grimace. “But I do not know the rituals to enter the lair. That is a secret guarded by the King’s Lama and the Orchid Throne. And the King will not share it.”

  “And you thought to have it by bombing his retinue to bits?” said Lin Yongten mildly.

  “Our attacks have been purely deterrent,” said the Iron Eunuch. “The King’s retinue made a sally at us several days ago. They hoped to overwhelm us and claim some of our weapons. They failed.” He could not keep the smugness from his voice. “Then he sent an envoy to demand them, which did not go well. So, we are at an impasse. He wants our weapons, but he will not give us the words. I do not know what he will do when the Gong of Night rings. But I do not plan to wait for it.” He looked to Datang, smiling again. “You may tell this to the King you swore to serve, if you like. The Gong of Night may sound when it cares. But if it waits, the Priestkiller Worm may find that the Iron Eunuch has prised his lair open before he is ready. We have engines to break rocks, to move earth, to burn and melt what will not break or move; we need not kowtow to the druthers of death-beasts.” He turned to Lin Yongten. “Come, what think you?”

  “A tidy plan,” said Lin Yongten. “But who says the King will let your machines close enough to the Gorge to do their work? Can you even get them near the cave without losing them to a ruinous fall? I have seen the gorges in this region; they are sheer and deep. You purpose to effect such a strenuous translocation under fire?”

  This seemed to set the Eunuch back a bit. Soon, though, his face resumed its studiedly enigmatic aspect. “Ah, Yongten, always the tactician. Your objections are apt, of course. Will you not help me do it?”

  Lin Yongten gave the Iron Eunuch a long look. “You know how to do it,” he said at last. “I cannot help you.”

 
“I suppose you think you cannot. Will you go to the King, if I let you?”

  Now Lin Yongten’s gaze turned to Datang.

  “Come, Eager Edge,” she said softly. “We all stand on the cliff’s edge now. Is it not better to serve the realm than the King?”

  “There are men who have more to live for than duty,” said Lin Yongten. “Women too. You are such a woman, Ape’s Left Hand, and Envied of Snakes is such a man—should he ever choose to honor that potential. But I am barred from such nourishing attachments.”

  The Iron Eunuch gave another thin smile, this one infused by a curious pity. “Will I not taste your blade again, then, Eager Edge? I invite it, make no mistake.”

  “If only because your fantasy of kinghood may be true,” said Lin Yongten, “I must decline. Much as I would like to see the fabled white sword of shining rlung.” He moved his hand from his side up to his chest; the Green Morning brothers at the Iron Eunuch’s side now stepped in front of him, closing ranks. But Lin Yongten’s fingers merely moved once—then, when their motion had no effect, he grimaced and clenched them like a claw, scowling with the effort of some fine motion. After a few silent seconds, he left off—it was the buckle of his baldric he had been trying to undo, though he had succeeded at nothing but rumpling his robes and scarring the leather of the strap—and stiffly drew his sword, then dropped it. “There,” he said. “I am no danger to you.”

  “You remain a distraction,” said the Iron Eunuch. “Long Knife Cook, remand the Eager Edge to one of the monks’ chambers; he will do well with a retreat from the world. But be sure to bring him food and water, for I do not think he is yet holy enough to go without for very long. What about you two? Will you fight for your friend’s freedom? Or make yourselves useful to your rightful King and your imperiled nation?”

  “Ah,” said Lin Gyat, “may we fight?”

  “Not if I have anything to say about it,” said Lin Yongten.

  “You have recused yourself from argument,” said Lin Gyat. “Come, Datang, let us see what this Iron Eunuch is made of—”

  “I do not yet wish to walk the Road of Stars, Envied of Snakes,” said Datang. “Recall my promise.”

  Lin Gyat grimaced. “I do not think it is right to bind a man to earth by threats of erotic deprivation in the afterlife.”

  “I did not ask your opinion on the matter, Envied of Snakes.” Datang turned to the Iron Eunuch. “I have a way to do it.”

  “To do what?”

  “To effect a strenuous translocation under fire.”

  “Well,” the Iron Eunuch said admiringly.

  “I require a stipulation.”

  “State it.”

  “Before you descend into the deeps of the Worm’s lair, there to save the helpless citizenry of Uä, you will order your men to free me and mine.”

  The Iron Eunuch waited.

  “What?” said Datang. “Is it not a clear deal?”

  “I was waiting for you to pledge not to aid the King against me,” said the Iron Eunuch.

  “We pledged our blood and sinew to the King,” said Datang. “My friend had to shame me into remembering it, but I do. This, then, I offer: I will make the best argument I can, to whomever I can, that the King should not molest your men. He may heed me or not heed me; if he does not, he may send me against you, and I will go.”

  “Left Hand.” A disturbed look crept over Lin Youngten’s face. “If he learns what you have done for the Iron Eunuch, he will kill you before he hears you.”

  “That is the King’s prerogative,” said Datang, “though, for my part, I will take what measures I can to prevent it; for I judge that my blood and sinew will more ably assist him in their natural state than they will spilled and severed. But, Eager Edge—are you so sure he is King?”

  “The Iron Eunuch is without talent,” said Lin Yongten. “I cannot prove it, but I know. If Tenshing is not King, and Netten is not King, then no man is King.”

  “You know more than I,” said Datang, “but what I do not know cannot bind me. Here is what can: If Tenshing is King, then by helping the Iron Eunuch to the Priestkiller Worm, I rid the King of a rival. If Tenshing is not King…” Datang shrugged. “Then, by helping the Iron Eunuch to the Priestkiller Worm, I have exerted my sinew in the true King’s favor—and in Tenshing’s favor as well, for I will have done what I can to save him from certain death at the Worm’s talons.”

  Lin Yongten began a rejoinder, then stopped. Lin Gyat did the same.

  “The Lotus, Left Hand,” murmured Lin Yongten at last, “I believe you have the right of it.” He turned to the Long Knife Cook, who had been hovering uncertainly a few feet away. “Restrain me, fool, and quickly, lest I realize that the honor of the Ape’s Left Hand is at odds with my own.”

  “That reminds me of a jest,” said Lin Gyat.

  “Spare us your jesting,” said Datang, as the Long Knife Cook secured Lin Yongten’s hands. “There is one aspect of this plan I have not yet disclosed,” she said to the Iron Eunuch. “And it is only fair that the Eager Edge be here to hear it. We will not succeed without a man of great talent in the Four Conflagration Touch.”

  At this, Lin Yongten met the Eunuch’s eyes. The Eunuch stared back at him, and it seemed there was no distance between those hard gazes, that sparks might strike at any moment from the clash of those flinty stares.

  Datang examined the Eunuch’s visage carefully. “In fact,” she said, “your machines and all the soldiers who man them will likely be destroyed and overrun, should that talent fail us.”

  “Whatever fails us, it will not be my talent,” the Iron Eunuch said grimly. “Let our honor-strangled friend recuse his blood and sinew from the field. I wish to hear this plan of yours.”

  A strenuous translocation

  eneral Gyaltsen flew through the streets of Rassha, lifted on the gale of the Cerulean Sword’s hate.

  He had flown so a few times in his life—at the Hill of Faces, for one, and quelling the Carters’ Objection, and the first time, when he and the sword were mutually new and their bond of trust not yet cemented, during a skirmish with Gardener mercenaries in Tanggang. It was that rush, in that skirmish, that sealed their communion; for it seemed to have sensed a young general’s need for glittering deeds and glory, and hurled him uphill and over a line of lancers to claim the Gardener banner. It was always Gyaltsen’s own needs to which the sword responded. But now the blue-steel blade lunged and yawped of its own volition, hauling Gyaltsen behind it like a rickshaw, hungry for its enemy’s scent.

  The scent led, not directly but as surely as night follows day, toward the Orchid Palace.

  A wandering alleyway crammed with fragrant nut-carts gave way to the Road of Silks, where lush awnings and tented storefronts swallowed the susurrus of Gyaltsen’s riding-gale. That road opened out onto the Boulevard In But Not Of The World, where the Woolcloak Monks pursued their barbarian philosophies at all hours and heaped derision on the materialism of would-be silk buyers; then came a quick turn onto the Boulevard of Sudden Enlightenment, blazing with varicolored lanterns and well-clothed human beauty, with the great wall of the Resting Place Between Heaven and Earth Pavilion its looming capstone. Every widening gaze on those thoroughfares, be it from silk merchant, bearded cleric, or sauntering aristocrat, hit Gyaltsen like a whipstroke. To lose the fear of death, he had long ago realized, was no grounds to scorn those who retained it, for on such unvirile anxieties are great works scaffolded; in fact, Gyaltsen had developed a cutting pity for men and women burdened by death-fear, as one harbors for children who weep at little injuries. The eyes that gaped at the gale-riding general in his blue armor were eyes not ready to face exodus, starvation, loss. To have lost lives that could have been saved, that was a burden on anyone’s soul; but to allow such fragile souls in contact with such harsh punishments, that was cruel and shameful, no better than baby-shaking. The Cerulean Sword felt each lash on Gyaltsen’s conscience and redoubled the power of its riding-gale, now extinguishing lanterns and b
owling over the occasional passerby. Gyaltsen could barely see for the streaming of his wind-raked eyes; but he could see the crenels of the Pavilion wall, and a black shape leaping from the wall’s base to disappear behind those crenels as easily as a cat onto a counter.

  He let the gale hurl his own armored form straight after it.

  For a sweet moment, the Glib Ape’s back was naked to the blue blade, delectable as any pretty courtier; but riding-gales are no quieter than Apes are slow, and the Ape actually twisted to meet Gyaltsen in midair, his stop-cut snaking past the general’s defense. Gyaltsen’s heart leapt into his throat, waiting for the nicked blade to burst his organs in a welter of pain—but the stroke, well-placed though it was, turned and yowled across the enchanted enamel of the Heaven’s Vault Cuirass. Then Gyaltsen’s weight and downward power won out against the force of the Ape’s leap, and with a thought, he forbade the Cerulean Sword from softening his landing, hoping to hammer the unarmored Ape on the anvil of the Pavilion.

  The Sword stepped in anyway, though not as much as it might; the grappled strategists hit the flagstones with enough power to make Gyaltsen’s skeleton crunch and wail in protest. He felt the breath leave the Ape’s flattened lungs and blow past his own face, heard the solid sound of flesh and bone on stone. He crouched on all fours over the limp Ape for a moment, panting and mastering his pain, willing his numb arms to bring the blue blade to.

  Then the Ape’s eyes snapped open, and before Gyaltsen so much as felt the foot in his chest, he was soaring like an arrow.

  The Ape came up at him again, timing his leap to hit Gyaltsen at the apex of his own trajectory; but Gyaltsen brought up the Bracer of the North Wind, parrying the stroke even as he seized the Ape’s grubby collar. Again, the battered blade turned on the armor, and the two men landed on their feet, joined at arm’s length by the Gauntlet of the North Star.