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

by Curt Benjamin

  “Now that you’ve ‘encouraged’ your young king, perhaps you would let him rest?” Al-Razi suggested.

  Hmishi, however, had other plans. “I think he’s rested enough,” he said. “I respect the rules of your house, honorable physician, but if his teacher is prohibited from entering here, it’s time Llesho went to Master Den.”

  “The world would be a safer place if kings chose their teachers more wisely.”

  His companions waited for Llesho to defend his teacher, but Al-Razi only spoke the truth. Or part of it.

  “A king who doesn’t use his wiles in the defense of his people doesn’t remain king very long. I learned that lesson in the Palace of the Sun in my seventh summer. Swords can support a canny king, but they can’t keep an innocent in power.” His father had been such a king, innocent in the ways of subterfuge and brutal attack. “Fortunately for Thebin, I return with a master of trickery at my beck. We will see a different outcome this time.”

  He didn’t mention the mortal goddess of war, didn’t want to offend his host more sorely than he already had. But Hmishi was right. He needed to see Master Den. And he was right about other things as well. Llesho had slept away the exhaustion of his travels and remained asleep only to escape the struggle ahead. It was time he woke up in more ways than one.

  “I need my clothes.”

  Smiles bloomed on the faces of his companions. Even Prince Tayyichiut looked relieved. Hmishi ran to do his bidding, anxious, it seemed, to be out from under Llesho’s gaze now that he’d decided to return to the land of the living. While he waited for something to wear, Llesho turned his attention to the physician.

  “You have my gratitude, and that of my people—those who travel with me, and those who follow behind us. I will be further in your debt if you will continue to watch over our companion, Prince Tayyichiut, whom you have brought back from the brink of death with your excellent care.” And someday he would have to trade stories with Tayy, find out how far down the path to the underworld he’d actually journeyed, and what stories he had to tell about the way back. But not now, when death still hovered too close in the air.

  “As for myself, it is time I declared this particular well open for business again.”

  Ibn Al-Razi stroked his short beard thoughtfully, but a smile crinkled at the corners of his mouth, and made crow’s-feet at his temples. “You will wish an audience with the Apadisha, then.”

  “First I have to meet with my counselors. Then we must pay our respects to the Apadisha of Pontus,” Llesho agreed.

  Hmishi returned with his clothes then and Llesho was unsurprised to discover that he carried not the rags of slavery, the clothes he’d come ashore in, but the royal garb of a Thebin king.

  “Master Den?” Llesho asked, though he knew the answer.

  Kaydu shrugged. “He said you’d need them.”

  “When did he say that?”

  “This morning.”

  He didn’t know why it surprised him. Or why he wasn’t angrier that he’d been ambushed by a plot hatched among his guards and the trickster god himself. But they’d all signed on for a more important mission than the pleasure of Llesho’s personal whim.

  “Your father and Master Den are still at the school?” Llesho dressed quickly as they talked.

  “With Marmer Sea Dragon,” Kaydu assured him, while Ibn Al-Razi made a warding gesture in the air to protect himself from the offense against his own gods.

  “Is it far?”

  “About a li, though the way is twisty.” She gave him the grin that used to announce her intention to wipe the practice yard with his backside. “It’ll be a good test of your recovery.”

  Llesho settled his embroidered sleeveless coat on his shoulders, wishing with a last backward sigh for his sleep clothes. Court dress was heavy and cumbersome in the warm climate of Pontus. He allowed Bixei to help him with his boots and then Hmishi set on his brow the silver fillet that marked a prince of Thebin. Master Den had been thorough, as always.

  Ready to go, he looked around for the one face he hadn’t seen since he’d awakened to Hmishi’s rebuke.

  “Where is my brother, Menar?”

  “Here.” Menar followed his voice into the room. He moved fluidly, knowing the way in his blindness as a sighted slave might find his way in the dark. He had set aside the attire of a slave and wore more elaborate clothes in rich silk, blue for the pantaloons and red for the shirt, with a cream-colored coat that fit tightly at the waist and flared in a wide skirt to his calves. On his forehead he wore a circlet of silver which he fingered with a questing hand at his temple, and over his eyes a rich purple cloth was bound.

  “I have grown out of the habit of crowns,” he confessed with an awkward smile. “But Ibn Al-Razi informs me the Apadisha will expect some such sign.”

  “But no Thebin court dress?” Llesho asked, not chiding his brother, but curious about the clothes he wore, which were nothing like the simple whites of his master.

  “In the house of my master I am a recorder of medical poems, but the Apadisha often asks my presence for my skills as a teller of tales. This is what I wear to perform for his gracious majesty. The other slaves assure me that I cut a dashing figure, except for my eyes, of course, which are covered so the sight of them doesn’t offend the Apadisha’s company.”

  Llesho had spent so much of his life as a slave that he almost didn’t notice Menar’s reference to his own servitude. “Not a slave anymore,” Llesho insisted when it struck him that they had not yet discussed his brother’s condition. “I would dispute your master’s right to own a prince of the royal house of Kungol.”

  “You need the Apadisha,” his brother warned him.

  “Then we will discuss with the physician Ibn Al-Razi the terms of your freedom. I wouldn’t leave you here, a possession in a foreign land, under any circumstances. Under these, it is impossible. Lleck told me to find all of my brothers, not just the ones it was convenient to make away with.”

  “I know, better than you think,” Menar assured him. “But wait, be patient. Hear the prophecy. Then we will see what we will see.”

  Llesho didn’t mention that he’d come all the way to Pontus to hear the prophecy and, weeks after his arrival, had yet to find out what it said. He was about to hear it and arguing would only delay things. Instead, he untied the cloth that bound Menar’s eyes.

  “These are not times to hide the consequences of our actions, or our lack of actions, from our allies,” he said. “If the Apadisha would hear the prophecy, and decide upon a course of action based on what he hears, he should see what the cost of doing nothing is.”

  It sounded harsh, but Hmishi had stirred him to action and he found that he had little patience for himself or anyone else who would avoid knowing the consequences if he failed to act. So he didn’t apologize, but firmed his chin and, with a glare that dared anyone to test him, he swept out of the sickroom, leaving Prince Tayy wide-eyed in his bed and Ibn Al-Razi staring after them.

  “My father is waiting for us,” Kaydu said when they were moving. “I’ll lead the way.”

  A single nod, and Llesho followed his brother. The physician arranged for sedan chairs to carry the princes, and Llesho’s cadre fell in around them. Bixei and Stipes ranged out ahead and behind while Hmishi and Lling stayed close to the brothers in defensive mode. In that way they entered the streets of Pontus.

  Chapter Twenty-six

  PONTUS WAS larger than Edris, with a more varied architecture. Llesho could see the roots of the one city in the other, however. The streets were wider in Pontus, but the houses that lined them still hid behind high walls gleaming whiter here than those of the city that faced it across the sea. Gates were more prominent, with elaborately decorated arches over them and a view of the flowery gardens visible between the great hinges. Unlike Edris, Pontus was a city of towers: graceful slim minarets and clusters of thick, bulbous domes raised their heads high over the mansions and more modest houses at their feet.

  Kay
du was leading them toward a huge gate of carved wood bound in bronze. As they approached, a wizened face peered at them out of a small slot and then disappeared. A moment later they heard a bolt sliding in its keeper, and a portcullis door opened in the gate.

  “Come in, come in,” The old man gestured them forward, reverting to the mysterious liquid sibilance of the Bithynian tongue spoken in the city. Kaydu quickly translated with a whisper in Llesho’s ear: “The masters await!”

  Inside the high, white wall, Llesho found a self-contained little city of its own, more than a dozen buildings, the smallest no larger than a cottage. The largest stood twice the height of the wall that enclosed them, with six towers rising into the sunlight around a central dome shaped like a giant onion. Between the lowest, nearest the gate, and the tallest, at the farthest reach of the walled city-within-a-city, buildings of varied sizes and shapes lay scattered along sweeping pathways among lush gardens. Some of those had towers of their own.

  As they passed down one of those sweeping paths of raked pebbles, Kaydu pointed out scholars and musicians and poets and soldiers and bakers, each of whom she identified by their style of dress and the color of their pantaloons. Llesho was not surprised to find their chosen path took them toward a large, centrally located building crowned by one large dome. He figured this for one of the main teaching facilities, where Habiba had come to visit with the professors of his own days as a student at the school. He did not expect the greeting that met him when he entered the great hall beneath the central dome, however.

  Hundreds of students sat in an ascending circle that reminded Llesho of the bleachers surrounding the arena where the gladiators had fought in Farshore Province. Here the central auditorium was covered in carpets, not sawdust. Masters in brightly colored robes that indicated their special fields of interest sat in chairs gathered in two rows beneath the colored dome. Habiba rose from the front row to greet them, with Master Den at his right hand and Marmer Sea Dragon, in his human form, at his left. A man and a woman, both wrinkled with age, held hands as they waited to greet him. Llesho sensed that they clung to each other for courage. He wondered what could frighten two wizards who sat untroubled by gods and dragons, but his own party were the only newcomers.

  “Prince of destiny.” The old man bowed to Llesho, making it clear where the title was meant to go.

  “Prince of prophecy,” the woman added with her own bow. “Come, sit. And Prince Menar, who is the poet-prince, and a prophet for his brother’s coming: we hope to hear you recite the prophecy once again so that our students and masters can refine their interpretations.”

  “It will ease my heart to do so,” Menar replied. “His Holy Excellence, King Llesho, may have many answers for us, though I think we will none of us take pleasure in them.”

  “Prophets seldom have good things to say,” the old man agreed. “Good news can wait for tomorrow. Bad news requires warning.”

  “Wise, as always,” Menar acknowledged, bowing to show respect for the teacher. Llesho wondered how a follower of Ibn Al-Razi’s more ascetic practice of belief in the religion of the Father-and-Daughter gods must view the Apadisha’s school for magicians. The physician had recognized the working of dragon magic in Llesho’s illness, however. His servant, Menar, seemed to have no difficulty with the more esoteric practices of the faith that included the training of witches and magicians and the welcome of gods and dragons into their school.

  But the school wasn’t Llesho’s main concern. “The Apadisha has summoned us on the matter of the prophecy,” he said with a proper bow. “I honor your school and your students, but I’ve come to beg leave for my companions to accompany me to the palace.”

  “Ah.” The old woman smiled brightly at him, her cheerfully glittering eyes almost lost in a sea of wrinkles. “I have not introduced myself. I am the chief astrologer for the good fortunes of Pontus and all Bithynia, adviser to the Apadisha and teacher in his school for the great magicians. You may call me Master Astrologer.

  “And this is my husband, our Apadisha’s chief numerologist. You may call him Master Numerologist.”

  An astrologer read the stars for an understanding of past and future and interpreted that knowledge for guidance in the present. A numerologist predicted the mathematics of future events. Dates and the calendar were important in the plotting of the future, as were the seeming accidents of numbers as one measured the path of a lifetime. Pontus, Kaydu had told him, enjoyed a reputation for producing the most skilled in these as well as other magical arts. Llesho gave a slight bow suitable from a youthful king to those of greater wisdom and years.

  “We have been apprised of your summons,” Master Numerologist assured them. “Our sages and their students have been hypothesizing on the Apadisha’s question all day. But we can make no formal determinations until the poet announces his prophecies of doom in the presence of the Apadisha. And, of course, we must observe the one who claims to be the chosen king of said prophecy.”

  At that, Master Numerologist stopped with a bow to his companion. Master Astrologer completed his thought as if they were but one person speaking with two mouths. “His Excellency, our most sagacious Apadisha, will then make such inquiries as will uncover any duplicity of the false prophet working in conspiracy with these barbarians from the East to deceive the sultanate. Or he will establish that the promised savior has appeared to assuage his troubled sleep.”

  The professors of the magical arts spoke in high-flown accents, using a language Llesho had never heard before. A high-court form of the tongue the gatekeeper had used, he guessed from the cadence and the sibilant flow of the sentences. Suppressing a little smile, Habiba translated both for content and for the style of address. Llesho understood the smile well enough, though he couldn’t say as much for all the words. Unlike his own plain-spoken teachers, these courtly scholars used words to obscure as much as to enlighten. When he’d sorted through it all, he realized that, however the matter settled out, the astrologer and the numerologist could claim to have accurately predicted the outcome.

  “So, Menar will tell his story, then I will tell mine,” Llesho said to Habiba, confirming his understanding of the conversation as it was translated to him. “Then the Apadisha will decide whether or not we are telling the truth.”

  “That’s about it,” Habiba agreed, and hastily translated this into an elaborate description of Llesho’s excellent comprehension.

  “And if the Apadisha decides against us?”

  Habiba gave a little shrug, as if the consequences were minor. “Stoning, or beheading. I would be disappointed if the day goes against us, but even more dismayed if you stayed to see sentence carried out against you.”

  The magician expected him to summon the avatar of his dream travels, and in the shape of a roebuck to leap out of mortal danger. His companions might die, but he would remain to carry on the fight with the armies Shou had already gathered at the edge of the grasslands.

  “According to Lleck’s ghost, I need all my brothers, not just the ones easiest to keep alive.” That was a warning. Menar was no more expendable than Llesho himself, though how the blind poet would be of use in the coming battle he hadn’t figured out yet. For that reason if for no other—what he hadn’t accounted for in his plans invariably rose up and bit him on the nose when he wasn’t paying attention—he wouldn’t abandon his brother to the wrath of the Apadisha. It wasn’t the only reason, or even the most important. He didn’t want to get into an argument with Habiba about family loyalty, though. Or, even worse, about the love he felt for his brothers—even the most exasperating of them.

  The advisers to the Apadisha had left out one important detail, but Llesho had picked up on the clue. “The Apadisha has dreams.”

  Habiba blinked once, the only sign that he had understood the meaning behind the simple statement. He didn’t translate, which was all Llesho needed to confirm it. The Apadisha dream traveled, or perhaps had his own prophetic dreams that woke him with the same fear and drea
d that Lluka suffered. If he had experienced those baleful visions, there would be no question of truthfulness. For all their sakes, Llesho hoped the dreams hadn’t driven him mad.

  “Shall we go?” Master Numerologist asked.

  Llesho didn’t understand the words, but the gesture was plain enough to follow. A student came forward and took Menar’s elbow as they sorted themselves out in the correct diplomatic order. First came the two head masters of the magical arts, who would introduce the prophet and his prophecy. Then came Llesho and his brother Menar. Habiba, Master Den, and Marmer Sea Dragon followed as his court, with the rest of the teachers and then their students behind. Llesho’s cadre, with no assigned positions, flanked the hastily assembled column on both sides.

  In a procession of over two hundred souls, they made their way to an inner door guarded by two women in armor, each with a tall spear in one hand and a sword in the other. “You may not pass,” the guardswoman on the right said, and tilted her spear so that it crossed that of the guard on the left side of the door.

  “We come at the whim of the Apadisha,” the astrologer said with a deep bow. “Delay us at your peril.”

  This seemed to be a formula of admittance rather than a genuine challenge. The guard took no offense but gave their party an assessing examination that would have fit right at home in the eyes of his own cadre. When the guards woman’s glance fell upon his companions, her formal posture gave way to battle readiness.

  “No one may enter the presence of the Apadisha with weapons on their person,” she said, and added, “no foreign soldiers may pass this door, in any state of arms.”

  “Of course.” They’d had the same rule in the Palace of the Sun. That hadn’t stopped the Harnish raiders. But who knew how many foreign spies would have slipped a knife between his father’s ribs before then, if their mercenary guards hadn’t made the same demands of guests and supplicants? Llesho, therefore, did as he was bidden. He took the scabbards from his belt and the sheath that held the spear at his back, putting them both into Kaydu’s hand.