Curt Benjamin - [Seven Brothers 03] - The Gates of Heaven

by Curt Benjamin

  “You have said much of monsters and gods and the loyalty one owes a friend, young King Llesho.” The old khan of the Tinglut clan nodded his head to emphasize each point of his argument. “And yet, you say nothing of my daughter. Does your honor stop at the well-being of a friend and useful ally in your coming war with the South? What of a woman who leaves her home to forge alliances with her kindness and her love? What of such a woman, lost in the vast sea of grass, and the brink of war to which her loss brings an honored friend and a potential ally?”

  “I would speak of your daughter and cherish her honor as my own, Tinglut-Khan, but I never met her.” It pained Llesho to speak his fears to the father of the missing Har nishwoman, but he could not, in conscience, withhold what he knew. “The woman who sat next to Chimbai-Khan as his wife was no Tinglut but a demon of the underworld with some plot of her own.”

  Tinglut-Khan’s face grew red with fury. “And how do you know this, young man?”

  “Because she told me so, while I slept on the grasslands on my way to Edris.”

  “And you spoke to this demon during your dream travels, as you say you are doing now with us?” Tinglut-Khan asked with disbelief clear in his voice.

  Llesho shook his head. “No,” he answered. “In a dream, I knew that the emerald bamboo snake had uncurled from a spiral rune at the bottom of a cup with which the lady had once poisoned me. When I awoke I found that in her serpent form, the lady had wrapped herself against my belly. She hissed my name and in the shape of the false Lady Chaiujin she offered to make me a king among her own kind if I would join her in the underworld. We argued.”

  He didn’t tell them what she’d said. “You are a demon, too.” Didn’t want anyone to know until he’d figured out what she meant, or if she’d been lying to draw him under her spell. “She would have killed me where I lay, except that I refused her. Then she slithered away into the grass. I couldn’t find her again after that.”

  “This is serious,” the lady SienMa interrupted him. “Did you bring the cup with you?”

  “No, my lady. Lling carries it for me until I have freed Prince Tayyichiut.” And now he wondered why he had refused when Lling had wanted to rid herself of the miserable thing. What danger had he left among his cadre because he did not wish to bring it into this company?

  Her ladyship accepted this with a thoughtful nod. “Bring it next time. In the meantime, I will ask my witch to discover what he can about this bamboo snake demon.”

  Llesho accepted the gentle rebuke. Knowing that Habiba was on the case gave him some measure of reassurance. As he expected, however, Tinglut-Khan dismissed the tale. The Harnishman expressed his disgust with a hawking sound deep in his throat. He looked around for somewhere to spit, and gave up with an irritated growl.

  “This is all nonsense. Gods and demons do not consort with homeless kinglings in the light of day. I do not believe half of what you have said. If I did, I would order my armies into this city and burn it to the ground to cleanse the earth of these unholy monsters.”

  Bright Morning watched as if he attended some play or entertainment, but the Lady SienMa found his discourtesy unpleasing. Tinglut did not have to believe, Llesho thought, to bring the wrath of the mortal goddess of war down on his head.

  “If you are speaking of Master Markko or the demon who has taken the Lady Chaiujin’s place to murderous advantage, all here in this room would support you, and join in your grief.” Her ladyship spoke with compassion. He was, after all, a father suffering a great loss.

  Then she added a sensible warning, “When in the house of strangers, however, one cautions a proper respect for the company one finds there.”

  It seemed for a moment poised upon a knife blade that Tinglut would object to her ladyship’s rebuke. The khan saw something moving in her eyes, however, that stilled his tongue. War, Llesho thought. Even Lluka kept still.

  Tinglut bowed his head. “Like Mergen-Khan, the Tinglut join the young king in learning something new today.”

  Her ladyship accepted his apology with a gentle incline of her head.

  “I have to go back. Marmer Sea Dragon says that the storm Master Markko has raised will soon grow out of his control and Kaydu can’t do much more than slow it down. The dragon-king has agreed to help us, but he hasn’t yet said how, or if his aid will be enough to turn the tide.”

  Llesho asked permission with his eyes and received it when her ladyship held out her hands to be kissed. He rose and bowed to all the gathered dignitaries. Shokar seemed on the point of pleading with him, that if he stayed he might escape the fate of his comrades. Even he, with anguish in his eyes, held his tongue, however.

  Rather, Mergen-Khan asked, “Will you do us the honor of leaving from our presence, or do you require privacy for your transformation?”

  Mergen had studied with Bolghai the shaman and knew what Llesho must do to return to his ship. For the rest, they had traveled with wonders for many cycles of the seasons now. Tinglut-Khan, however, might need a demonstration to prove the story he had heard. Lives surely depended on the khan believing that the Qubal people had not murdered the daughter sent to be Chimbai’s second wife. With a last bow, Llesho stepped away from the company of thrones into the center of the jeweled room. Slowly he began to run in the tight circle that Bolghai had taught him, gaining speed as he focused on his goal.

  Like an anchor the place where he’d begun his dream travel tugged at him and he tossed his head, irritated at the itch of antlers breaching the skin on his forehead. A gasp behind him followed by Tinglut’s guttural voice swearing, “It’s a demon!” almost threw him off his course. He righted himself and lifted, to a litany of Tinglut’s curses and prayers to the ancestors while Bright Morning played a cheerful jig to speed him on his way. As his hooves cut the sky, Llesho figured that the old khan would need assurances, but at least he had seen something of the magical parts of the tale for himself.

  In the twilight world of dream travel, he felt the pull of a familiar, malevolent power. Master Markko, his inner vision ever roving, latched onto Llesho and pulled.

  “No!” Llesho thrashed against the tug at his soul, felt himself surrounded by the turbulence of the distant storm.

  “No.” A deep, calm voice from outside of the dream world agreed. Something scooped him up and tucked him into a pocket of calm, away from the storm and safe from the magician’s madness.

  Then he was falling, his shabby slave’s clothes napping in the fresh wind and his arms and legs flailing as he returned to his human shape. The galley appeared beneath him and he fell toward his rowing bench.

  “By the Goddess!” Just in time, Singer rolled off the bench where he’d been sleeping.

  Llesho fell onto the padded surface with a bone-jarring thump. The spear remained strapped to his back and the knife at his belt, and beneath his shirt the pearls were a familiar weight. But . . . a moment later, her ladyship’s buckle fell out of the sky after him. No pockets. Somewhere in his trek across the dream world, he’d lost his court clothes and landed back where he began in the slave clothes he’d left in. Which had no pockets. He made a grab for the copper token, but Singer, who was shocked but not knocked senseless from his fall, reached it before him.

  Chapter Eighteen

  THE GALLEY bobbed with a gentle warning of the coming storm, which seemed farther away now than when Llesho had left. He figured Pig had kept his promise, returning him to the pirate galley before he left it. The absence of his court clothes seemed to confirm his suspicion. That was good news. The bad news was Singer standing over him with the Lady SienMa’s token in his hand.

  “What are you?” The oarsman shook the copper buckle in Llesho’s face. Fear made him dangerous. When he’d gone to sleep, the newcomers had been chained to their bench like the rest of the galley slaves. Even Llesho had to admit that waking to find his bench mate falling out of the sky on top of him was a bit much to take lying down, so to speak.

  Common sense warned Llesho to tread cauti
ously. While his bench mates had managed some rest after their shift at the oar, he’d spent the missing time dream traveling and doing the heavy work of statecraft. He’d had no sleep at all, he was exhausted beyond measure, and Singer had her ladyship’s token. He made a grab for the buckle, but Singer held it out of reach.

  It was turning into a really bad day, and Llesho just wasn’t up to any more diplomacy. “I’m the king of Thebin and you’ve got my property there—who’re you?”

  He knew his answer would rub a raw spot on his fellow slave. He didn’t have the energy to worry about anything more than getting back the gift her ladyship had sent for Marmer Sea Dragon. Singer didn’t seem inclined to cooperate.

  “Well, I’m the king of Shan.” Sarcasm didn’t hurt as much as a punch in the nose, but Llesho still winced.

  “Really?” Tayy stirred from his sleep in the well between the benches. “You said the emperor was back in Durnhag, Llesho.”

  “He is,” Llesho heaved an irritated sigh. “Our good friend Singer is trying to say he doesn’t believe me. Which is just fine, because I hadn’t intended him to.”

  “It’s true, then?” Singer fell to his bench and grabbed hold of his oar as the galley tipped into a small trough. Time and Master Markko’s storm would catch up with them soon.

  “Not really.” The rest he’d managed had revived the Harnish prince. Discovering the biscuits in his pocket helped even more. He pulled one out and took a bite.

  Relief flashed across Singer’s face as Tayy struggled up out of the well. Anger replaced it quickly, though, at having been made to look a fool with all the talk of kings and emperors.

  Then Prince Tayyichiut finished his sentence. “He used to be a prince of Thebin, until the raiders overran the city of Kungol and killed his parents. He was on his way home to reclaim his father’s throne when he was captured by pirates.”

  “Not captured,” Llesho corrected him. “I came to rescue you.”

  “Nice of you, considering it’s your fault I was captured in the first place,” Tayy answered tartly. Now that it had become clear that he hadn’t been abandoned to his fate he’d cheered up considerably. It seemed he might even be inclined to live.

  At that moment, as if to remind them of their situation, the beater changed the pattern of his drumming with a flurry of sound before settling into his rhythm again. Llesho twitched as if he’d been struck by the tip of a lash. He’d become so accustomed to the regular pattern of the drum that it had blended with the sound of the sea and the creak of the oars. He hadn’t really heard it at all until the change reminded him of his position here.

  “The call to the next quarter,” Singer explained. He looked off to the horizon, where Master Markko’s magic stirred the haze over the land. “I don’t think we’ll have a full shift of rest. It looks like a storm may be coming.”

  “There is.” Llesho followed his gaze, remembering Kaydu standing on the deck with her hand out, holding back the wind. If he expected Marmer Sea Dragon’s aid, he would need to get her ladyship’s token back.

  Tayy was familiar with dream travel and in the way of a Harnishman who spent more time than was completely healthy tagging after shaman, recognized the signs of it in Llesho’s answer. “You’ve been travelling again,” he deduced. “Where have you been while the rest of us slept?”

  “Durnhag.” He didn’t ask for a bite of Tayy’s biscuit, but Llesho wished he’d thought to grab a snack before he left the palace. Time moved strangely in the dream world. He knew it had been a lot longer since breakfast for him than for the rest of them. “The emperor is doing better, but I am in big trouble with your uncle. And Singer here has her ladyship’s buckle, which is not meant for him.”

  “Durnhag? Wow!” The mortal goddess meant little to the Harnish prince. He believed in a different religion and had never met her, but he’d never traveled farther than the grasslands with the Qubal before either. “I wish I’d talked Bolghai into teaching me how to dream travel.”

  “He’d have done it if you asked.”

  Tayy twisted his mouth up in distaste. “Only if I agreed to train to become the next shaman, which wasn’t an option even if I’d wanted to.”

  “I suppose not.” It would have made rescuing him a lot easier, but princes didn’t get such choices. Llesho knew that as well as anybody.

  “Uncle?” Singer had listened in stunned silence while they repaired their friendship, but now he brought them back to the point where their story had set him back on his heels. He’d turned an unpleasant shade of green in the meantime, which might have been the effect of the increasingly choppy seas, but seemed more likely the result of the present conversation. Llesho wondered what shade he’d turn when he discovered who “her ladyship” really was.

  “Is this some sort of outlander game?”

  “No game,” Tayy assured him. He’d met few people in his lifetime who didn’t know who he was, and so he didn’t understand Singer’s disbelief. “Mergen-Khan is my uncle, since my father’s death, the leader of the Qubal people, the greatest clan to wander the grasslands.” His tone of voice said the oarsman really ought to know this last bit at least, but Tayy skittered on to his next thought without looking back:

  “If you saw my uncle, were the princes there as well?”

  “All four of them.” Llesho thought about what he had seen. “Adar is looking better, but Shokar would like to take me back to his farm and set me among his children, I think. And Lluka—” He stopped, unsure what to say about his brother. Tayy had no such hesitation.

  “Watch yourself around that one,” he warned. “His mind travels a dark and dangerous path.”

  Llesho didn’t need the warning. Didn’t know what to do about it, but he knew better than to get sucked into Lluka’s reality again.

  “If he’s a king, what are you?” Singer interrupted the exchange of warnings with a barely whispered question. His throat seemed to close up around the thought, strangling the words. The rower shifted her ladyship’s token nervously from hand to hand. He probably didn’t want to hear the answer, but Tayy gave it to him anyway.

  “Prince Tayyichiut, son of Chimbai-Khan, now dead but during his life the greatest warrior chief of the Qubal clan. Also nephew to the present khan, Mergen, my uncle, as I’ve already mentioned.” He gave a little seated bow to acknowledge the introduction.

  “The plan didn’t call for making a public announcement for the pirates to hear,” Llesho complained. With a wary glance at the oarsman, he tucked his weapons out of sight under their bench.

  Tayy seemed undisturbed. “We can’t very well keep our escape a secret from him when we are chained together on this bench,” he reasoned, but Llesho wasn’t reassured.

  “We could have kept it quiet until we were ready to go. Then he wouldn’t have time to warn the pirates.”

  The oarsman, however, had paid no attention to their argument and telling the pirates was the farthest thing from his mind. “I share an oar with a prince and a king?” He shook his head, still unsure whether they were playing a game at his expense. “I would cuff you both on your heads for making fun of your lead rower, except that this one just fell out of the sky on top of me.” He pointed his thumb at Llesho in a contained gesture that took their conversation no farther than their bench.

  Llesho responded with a little tip of the shoulder in apology, for what he wasn’t sure except that it did seem to be his fault. Tayy seemed to be pacing his thoughts along a parallel track.

  “Did you explain to my uncle it was my fault?” he asked, dropping the thread of what Singer should or shouldn’t know about their escape plan. “Some hero I turned out to be, running off instead of fighting for my place in the quest. And then I allowed myself to be captured by pirates! I should have fought them off—there were only five of them, after all. You were right to refuse my company.”

  “I don’t think even Kaydu could take on five armed warriors alone, not and win.” Llesho thought she probably could, actually, but he
wanted to salve Tayy’s wounded pride. It seemed the sort of thing a friend would do. “I told your uncle that I overreacted to a misunderstanding and got you in trouble. He seemed to think you were equally at fault, however, and has forgiven everything because of my efforts to repair the damage my foolishness has caused. He’d appreciate it if I got you back out alive, of course.”

  “Good of him.” Tayy sniffed. “I still haven’t decided whether I’ve forgiven you.”

  He finished his biscuits and looked around for more, but he’d missed his bean soup back the other side of his nap. Singer gestured with her ladyship’s token at the barrel in their well, and Tayy drew himself a cup and drank it down with a satisfied slurp.

  “You mentioned a plan,” he reminded Llesho. “When do we escape? I really don’t like all this water.” he gestured over the side to indicate the vast salty body of it, and not the cup in his hand.

  At the mention of a plan, Singer scanned the deck nervously, but the pirates had their eyes turned to the stern, gauging the cloud bank moving off the shore. “Don’t even think it,” he warned them. “Since this one arrived,” he palmed the copper buckle and gave Llesho the thumb again, “we have been watched constantly by the pirate king among our captors, and by the new slave who came on board with him after the raid on theGuiding Star .”

  “The slave will get along much better if you return that buckle, since it was meant for him.” He didn’t mention the dragon-king’s identity. The reminder of their danger had Llesho craning his neck, however. “It’s Moll and Alph we have to worry about,” he warned them, but he saw no sign of the pair on deck. “Moll paid Stipes six copper coins for me, and she won’t be happy when we slip away.”

  Tayy took a quick look around as well. Though Moll had come aboard with Llesho and he couldn’t know her, he had his own experience with the pirates to make him wary.