by Matt Weber
The Demon Guard she had stabbed under his pauldron was dead and cooling. One of the men Lin Gyat had clubbed down was unconscious but breathing, his heart strong. She looked at his armor, then up at the King, who was walking with Netten and the Iron Eunuch to survey the field.
“It is good to see you,” a voice said from above her. Datang shot up and threw her arms around Netten before she could think better of it. It was a gesture worth thinking better of; if he had bathed for the Lady Pema recently, it was not evident. But she held her breath, took in her friend’s solidity and warmth, and left to prayer all hope of preserving her clothes from ruination.
“Where were you?” she asked when they parted. She remembered the dead Demon Guard, his flesh’s slow theft of warmth from her fingertips, and anger began to rise in her; she let it speak. “You say two words and the King grants the Iron Eunuch a right that, a heartbeat ago, he would have killed a hundred men to keep.”
“It took more words than that, and luck.”
“Where were those words when this fool thought to cross swords with me?”
Netten’s face darkened, but his voice was even. “When you and I parted ways in the Earthen Sky, why was it?”
“You sought to bring the Lady Pema—” Datang looked around the field. “Is she safe?”
“That and well kept, though no little work went into the keeping. Left Hand, time dwindles. The Gong of Night has rung. You and Envied of Snakes and—what news of the Eager Edge?”
“He lives, but changed. He would not challenge the King, and the Eunuch imprisoned him for it.”
“That is well,” said Netten. “The Eunuch will not harm him.”
“You speak as though the Eunuch will survive the day, but you do not believe it.”
“I have become easy with such counterfactuals,” Netten said as if by reflex. A frown flickered over his brow. “I am sorry. You deserve a better answer. Here it is, perhaps. The Lady Pema is secreted in a burrow on a hill with two protectors whom you do not know. She will not show herself until the sun does likewise. When it does, she will light a great bonfire with green wood. Go to her when you see its smoke, as quickly as you can; send Envied of Snakes ahead if you must, only lose no time. The world in which day comes may not be kind to women advertising their locations.”
“What has this to do with the Eunuch surviving the day?”
The King of Uä’s face is a precision instrument, honed from an early age to obey the brain behind it, which in turn is trained to issue only correct and useful orders to the face before it. But, as we have recently rehearsed, Datang knew Netten too well to be deceived; and perhaps it was as true that Netten knew Datang too well to deceive her. In any case, the tiny adjustments in his brows and the corner of his mouth spoke as brightly as bells, and it was not victory they augured.
“Let us go with you,” she said. “One of us will stay behind, for the Lady. We will draw lots for the duty.”
“No.”
“If the Iron Eunuch may fight at your side, why not your boon companions?”
“You are not King of Uä.”
“Neither is he!”
“To enter the Worm’s lair, he must swear he is.”
“Well, he will do that, and I know at least three crazed beggars in Rassha who will queue behind him for the privilege. But you answer to ‘freeman’—how can you do the same?”
Netten shrugged. “I am a flawed man, Left Hand, as you know, and here is the truth. The King will swear he is King because he believes his claim. The Eunuch will swear he is King because he believes his. And I will swear I am King because, although I know better, in my heart I believe my father was King; and if he was, then I am, for I have sat the throne no shorter time, and done no less.”
Live, Datang was nearly moved to say, and I will make you King. But she thought of what Jangmu had said to her and could not bring herself to speak the words. “Live,” she said instead, “and leave the lamas’ preservation to the lamas. Without them, Uä will need men like you.”
“I cannot leave them to be slaughtered,” said Netten.
Datang could not bring herself to say of course, but she saw Netten see it in her eyes.
“Come,” said Netten, “and speak with Kings, for we must make a plan—and quickly, before the Worm comes to meet us in the open air.” He held out his arm; she took it, and they walked down to the lip of the Gorge, where King and Eunuch looked down and conferred. “What did you purpose to do,” he asked, “with these engines?” It was only at Netten’s query that Datang realized the engine not yet scaffolded had been reduced to slag.
“The Iron Eunuch wished to crack the earth,” she said, “and face the Worm directly.”
Netten laughed aloud. “Ingenious! I nearly wish he had done it.”
“He need not have made the attempt,” Datang said, “had he but known how simple it would be to gain entry.”
“Need not have sacrificed his men, you mean.” Netten grimaced, as though swallowing a bitter drink. “I could have forestalled the bloodshed, had I only been with you to speak with the Eunuch. But, Left Hand, I cannot regret protecting my wife and daughters. I am flawed, as I have said.”
“That is no flaw,” said Datang, her voice rough-edged.
“It is kind of you to say so. And, talking of daughters—” Netten shook his head. “I will tell you later, before I enter the abattoir. But, come, the Eunuch summoned two earth-moving engines in service of his cunning plan—what other machines has he?”
Blasted from the sky
hree men trod down a spiraling tunnel under Pongyo Gorge, their path lit by two white beacons—the Four Conflagration touch wrapped around the hands of the Gracious Regent and the King. Every few minutes, the Iron Eunuch’s eyes would move from one enflamed hand to the other, and even his practiced hardness, the arrogance written deep into the very muscles of his face, could not hide the Pretender’s shame.
They had talked at length as Kings before entering the tunnel. After the clerk-spirit had sworn them in—the angle of its mantid head betraying its only hint of surprise at seeing three Kings rather than one—the shock of the experience had caused them to talk briefly as friends, and even to laugh; the Iron Eunuch in particular had some choice comments (“A fine species for mandarins,” he had said, “for each father can sire but one brood, which limits their proliferation.”) But the novelty of the event had soon receded, and with it the urge to converse.
The air grew close; the King and the Iron Eunuch began to cough. “The Infinitesimal Breath,” said Netten, and the King’s cough immediately subsided. He gave Netten a look that mixed gratitude and resentment; but the Iron Eunuch, try as he might, could not seem to still the need of his lungs, tensing, instead, the muscles of his chest and stomach to stop the coughing. It seemed to work, save the occasional, silent convulsion. “The Rigor has eluded me,” the Eunuch said, with rue but no evident fear.
Netten looked at his companions, red-faced and tear-spangled with the effort of breathing, and allowed himself a moment of contempt against which his kingly education had so unstintingly fought. Are these the men who would pit their blood against mine? The White Umbrella Deity save Uä if it is so! But it was the King who lent his shoulder to the Iron Eunuch; and Netten was shamed.
“Go back,” said Netten, “A corpse will do us no good.”
“Then I must delay my transition to corpsehood for the nonce,” said the Eunuch.
“You have men who will follow you,” said Netten. “Leaders of your caliber are not so common in Uä. Whether we win or lose, your talents will be needed.”
“Then we had better win.” The Eunuch stumbled. “Unless you think the Worm disposed to give quarter. What use a leader, in any case, if the doom of Uä is loosed?”
“The doom may be less comprehensive than we have been led to believe,” said Netten.
The Eunuch succumbed to another bout of coughing. “Regent,” he said when it was done, “I do not pretend disinterest in your prop
osal, but I have no breath left for conversation. Wherefore I must press on.”
Netten looked to the King, who shrugged. He has commanded men in the field, Netten reminded himself, of whom not all survived. He is too hard to worry for an enemy, even one converted. The King’s face changed as though he had read Netten’s thoughts and found them enervating. Well, perhaps the Eye at least will serve him.
At last the spiraling corridor opened out onto a high-ceilinged chamber, a slick rock shore sliding into an underground lake. Standing at some distance along the shore, facing the three comrades, were a hale, broad-shouldered man of middle years in judge’s blacks; a towering, long-armed peasant with a protruding lower jaw; and a slim, ageless woman in a faintly unfashionable qipao, who carried a writing case with pen at the ready. The judge and the woman were armed, she with a straight sword in a scaled scabbard, he with a glaive whose blade thrust out from the mouth of a snake scaled in red, yellow, black, and white. Three other glaives of identical length stood in a rack behind the peasant, each decorated with the head of a different animal: a bull, a blue-maned horse, and a bat. A gong thrummed quietly in the air, the stone, the companions’ bones.
The Iron Eunuch coughed, stumbled, and fell to his knees.
The Judge rolled his eyes as the Eunuch dragged himself back to his feet. “Which false King is it who lacks even the Infinitesimal Breath?” He let the cavern’s echo carry his voice to the companions. “The one born on the throne, the one to whom he ceded it, or the one now scuffling for it on the Palden Plain?”
“The latter,” said the secretary. Netten’s eyes widened when he heard her voice. “This is the false King styled the Iron Eunuch, who retained the Ratter’s services as Chief Strategist, and whose army now besieges Rassha.”
“And the one in white—he holds the throne?”
“While he lives,” said the secretary.
“Which makes the dirty one in black the Gracious Regent,” said the Judge. “I do not know you, freeman, but I sense you have let yourself go.”
Netten bowed. “When the world believes a Regent a King, it asks of him a King’s exertions. Such a man’s freedoms are much increased when he goes incognito. As, I infer, you know as well, Judge—for are you not an aspect of the Priestkiller Worm?”
“The obverse,” the Judge replied. “But I have no time to lecture the stooges of clerics on their masters’ lies. The Gong of Night sounds, false Kings, and your quarry is here. I will not suffer your heartbeats much longer. Unerring, will you read the statute?”
“For a Mortal,” the Secretary intoned, “knowingly interfering with a Deity, Demigod, Spirit, Magical Beast, or other supramortal of permanent or temporary status (‘Being’ hereinafter), said Being engaged in the pursuit of enforcing a Celestial Statute or carrying out a duly warranted Celestial Directive, the penalty is Death, with all applicable Karmic penalties assessed in determination of said Mortal’s post mortem position on the Ladder to Perfection,” the Secretary recited from memory.
Netten was tensed to spring, but the King issued a challenge in a voice that, in the cavern, rang insistent, rude, overloud: “Your statute stipulates knowing interference. How can you kill us until we know in what we interfere? Perhaps we will accede to your enforcement of said statute.”
“Or duly warranted Directive,” coughed the Iron Eunuch.
The challenge seemed to have wrong-footed the Judge; about to step forward, he rocked back slightly and blinked once, then again. “You have the right of it, false King. And perhaps you will accede. This Netten, after all, is the only one of you raised by priests. Lumberjacks and thugs may have a clearer view of things.”
The King and the Iron Eunuch both frowned in incomprehension. Netten felt faintly sick. The Judge cast an eye toward the Secretary whom he had called Unerring; she, in turn, cast an eye toward Netten. He sensed pleading in her gaze. She read:
“The Court Celestial issues the following Directive:
“Whereas the Priesthood of the White Way, in disseminating the Talents Martial to the Laity, has transgressed against the express Wishes of the White Umbrella Deity;
“Whereas that Priesthood has flouted its duly levied penalty of Decimation;
“And whereas it has delayed the prosecution of justice by opposing the duly appointed Officer of the Court, Perfect Judge Dorje, with a Mechanical designed to do him mortal injury;
“Therefore, this Court orders the Priesthood of the White Way expunged;
“Its Vassalage and Servants executed;
“Its Properties destroyed and Assets sacrificed to the furtherance of Heaven;
“And its Scriptures fed to an Everburning Flame to adorn the highest tower of the University of Heavenly Ordnance, there to serve as a Reminder of the Wages of unauthorized Dissemination of the Deific Mystery. Voted into law by the Court of Stars.”
The faces of the King and the Iron Eunuch were as clear as glass. We go to die for clerics? Netten saw the Eunuch turn to him, saw the resolve that had taken him through short breath waver, saw the mouth begin, then hesitate, to put him the question.
“Voted into law by what margin?” Netten heard himself say.
The Judge grimaced at the question. The King and the Iron Eunuch looked to Netten in confusion.
“The Court of Stars votes publicly on cases,” Netten said. “I have read the ancient Celestial Records. Who voted to destroy the priesthood?”
“Your companion is suffocating,” said the Judge. “A regrettable side effect of my aura, when I do not work to suppress it. Is this information germane to your decision?”
The Iron Eunuch’s eyes flashed. Netten smiled. The Judge had made the wrong guess about a revolutionary’s values. “Who knows?” said Netten. “We require it nonetheless.”
The Judge nodded to Unerring Jangmu. She met Netten’s eyes once, then read. “In favor: The Green Crescent Deity. The Lotus Deity. The Lion Rider Deity. The Many-Colored Deity, Black representing. Against: The Unborn Deity. The Thousand Arm Deity. The White Umbrella Deity. Recused: The Deity Who Waits.”
Netten felt himself warming to the argument. Something within him had scented quarry, and he gleefully pursued it, knowing he could not make the circumstances worse—accepting at last that, if he did, it would not matter anyway; good or bad, no mortal would leave this cave alive. “On what grounds was the Deity Who Waits recused?”
“A successful motion by the prosecuting attorney,” said the Judge, “citing his intimate involvement with the defendants.”
“He’s a god,” barked the King with incredulity. “How could he fail to be intimately involved with priests?”
“Who was the prosecutor in that case, Judge Dorje?” asked Netten.
The silence in the cavern gave all necessary answer.
“I stand with the Lamate and humanity,” Netten said, “against all gods who make a crime of knowledge.”
The Judge and Jangmu lanced the King with their gazes. He stepped back, rocked, opened his mouth, closed it. Netten wanted to whisper a prayer, but did not dare.
Into the silence, the Iron Eunuch coughed, and then coughed on, and on again. Even the faint glow of the Eight Weapon Hand showed the crimson on his lips when it was over. “I stand with the Gracious Regent,” he said, with bubbles on his tongue.
The King’s eyes were wide. His throat worked with a swallow. “I stand with the Gracious Regent,” he whispered at last; and before the words had left his mouth, the Judge, Jangmu, and their lout were in the air.
The Glib Ape ran, and Gyaltsen followed, and between them the Cerulean Sword sowed howling disorder. Gyaltsen barked orders to everyone he came across—kill or detain strangers, stop the Ape, find the Green Morning, evacuate the mandarins, evacuate the queens and their families, evacuate the King. This latter deception he conceived with the last shred of guile that clung to his brain in the face of the riding-gale: If the Ape did not know of the King’s absence, he might seek him in the throne room, where there was nothing to harm but cold
stone and echo-choked air. It was feeble bait, for the Ape must surely have a rendezvous of some kind planned, or else intelligence on the whereabouts of his target.
Feeble bait, perhaps—but the Ape gulped it whole.
The damaged doors of the throne room clattered wide—no bar had been found to replace the one that the Cerulean Sword had bent around the Orchid Throne. The Ape leapt in and landed, abruptly still, feet together and arms out to form a T, as Gyaltsen rolled in. Gyaltsen leapt from the riding-gale and faced him with the Cerulean Sword gripped lightly but firmly in two hands.
The Ape twisted on his toes to face Gyaltsen, arms still extended like a dancer’s. It was the arms that Gyaltsen noticed first: Knuckle-dragging flails no longer, they were now perfectly proportioned for the long torso that joined them, which itself seamlessly joined the straight, well-formed legs that held him up. His garments fit now; only his ill-favored blade had resisted transformation. The Ape, or whoever he was, looked at Gyaltsen and smiled; and behind the realm’s most puissant sword, in the armor forged expressly to protect that sword’s wearer, Gyaltsen felt no more formidable than a mouse.
“No King?” said the Ape. “Delightful! Has he actually gone to meet the doom that he usurped? I had thought his lumberjack’s heart too prone to splintering.”
“The King’s duties often remove him from the palace precincts,” Gyaltsen said, carefully neutral. “But if you will settle for a gristlier dish, I am at your service.”
“You do yourself an insult,” said the slim fencer. “If I popped that pretty shell of yours, I surmise I’d find you as tender as a crab.” He smiled, and his teeth were square and white, but Gyaltsen could practically feel needles biting into his flesh. “But, come, acknowledge at least that you have been outmaneuvered.”
“There is but one exit from the Orchid Chamber,” said Gyaltsen. “The only way out is through the Cerulean Sword.” This was a lie, of course—there were no fewer than three secret exits, cut into the granite walls with hairline precision, and Gyaltsen did not doubt that the royal family knew of more. His general’s mind nagged, like any good general’s, with a maxim from On Dispute: A cornered foe fights with desperation’s strength. But the rush of the riding-gale still fired his blood, and he was not interested in cutting this skinchanger down on the retreat. “Or, if you concede the debate, we may exchange pleasantries until the Demon Guards arrive to detain you.”