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

by Curt Benjamin

  “Stay here,” he said, “but stay alert.” He didn’t want them captured if things went badly on the other side of the door.

  Kaydu gave a deep bow in salute, unhappy to be left behind but not surprised at the regulation. As a student of her father, she might have followed the others of the school, but that was neither her position in his cadre nor the uniform she pesently wore. She joined the others who followed him as they took up watchful positions around the perimeter. Llesho reclaimed his place in the procession. The Bithynian guardswoman struck a gong taller than she was that echoed through the hall and the door swung open.

  Llesho had expected a room, but more gardens awaited them on the other side. This time an inner courtyard lay before them, surrounded by open and airy pavilions topped by the fat round towers he had seen in the distance on his arrival. A fountain gushed from the center of an intersection where half a dozen paved walkways met. From that center the paths wandered through stands of date trees and tall ferns. Thick vines raised themselves along white trellises, flowering with large red blooms that released a heady perfume as the procession passed.

  In state, their party, with the whole school behind them, walked slowly past the fountain, down a path that snaked between hibiscus and oleander, to a set of doors the like of which Llesho had never seen before. They stood three times as high as Llesho’s head and four times the width of a normal door. Elaborate patterns of flowers and trailing vines covered the surface that was made entirely out of gold.

  “The Divan of the Grand Apadisha of Pontus and all the surrounding lands of Bithynia and the Marmer Sea that washes his shores in the east,” Master Astrologer said. She smiled proudly as she announced the lands and holdings of the Apadisha’s rule. Marmer Sea Dragon bristled at the mention of his own realm among the possessions, but did not raise an objection. The gleam in his eyes warned Llesho that more remained to be said on the subject. For the time being he kept his peace, while the doors in front of them glinted in the afternoon as if the sun itself blazed with the glory of the Grand Apadisha.

  “Leaf,” Habiba muttered in his ear. Gold leaf, that was. Artisans had beaten thin sheets of gold foil into the material that made up the bulk of the door, giving it the luster of gold but not the cost or weight. A solid gold door would have been impossible to move even if the Apadisha had wished to display his wealth in such a way. Gold leaf in such quantity itself spoke of overwhelming riches, however. Pontus was not just the center of magical education for witches and magicians. It was also the last stop in the East for goods passing into and out of the West.

  Master Numerologist stopped in front of the magnificent doors and pulled on a thick silk rope that hung down from the center of a tubular chime. At the sounding of the chime, the doors began to heave slowly outward. Whatever they were made of, they were heavy. Three slaves on each side heaved against the thick crossbars, muscles bunching in their shoulders and veins straining in their necks. Slowly, the doors opened on soundless post hinges set into the ground and the lintel arch. When the doors had opened enough so that Llesho’s party could enter three abreast, the headmasters of the magicians started forward again.

  The governor of Guynm Province must have gotten his decorating ideas from the Grand Apadisha’s Divan in Pontus. Everywhere the walls glittered with a million jewellike bits of glass worked in the same motifs of vines and flowers that had adorned the golden doors. Gold foil molded the leafy decorations that banded the ceiling from which rose the greatest of the bulbous domes that towered over the city. Stealing a glance overhead, Llesho saw a densely complex geometric pattern built of brilliantly colored tiles that covered the dome. Bits of colored glass let in shafts of painted light all around its circumference.

  The Divan itself was a room so large that the two hundred students forming themselves in rows behind a hand-carved screen at the right of the door seemed to be tucked out of the way. Behind a matching screen to the left of the gold door an orchestra of boys played strange discordant music on their instruments. The masters led Menar and Llesho and their small party of advisers forward, with all the faculty of the magicians’ school at their backs.

  They came to the foot of the sumptuously draped dais at the center of the great room, where a reclining figure awaited them on a low couch.

  “Health and long life!” Master Astrologer proclaimed the greeting. She fell to her knees, as did Master Numerologist, both dropping their foreheads to the floor, awaiting the pleasure of their sultan. All the faculty and students that had followed them did likewise. Llesho and his company bowed their respect, but did not kneel or knock their heads on the floor. Menar might have done so, but his blindness absolved him from the awkward duty. As for the others in their party, they either were themselves or represented equal monarchs in their own right, and owed the Grand Apadisha no greater abasement.

  From her position on her knees and with her face still turned to the floor, Master Astrologer introduced the newcomers: “My lord Grand Apadisha of Pontus and all the lands and waters surrounding it on which his hand has fallen by the Grace of the Father and the Sword of the Daughter, I bring you the blind prophet and a king in exile who claims to be the foretold one.”

  Fortunately for them all, the old teacher ran out of air at that point, or they might still be listening while she awarded to the Apadisha all the lands from here to Pearl Island. The part about the Sword of the Daughter caught his attention, however. This was the first he had heard of a military aspect to the religion of the Father and the Daughter. Suddenly, he wondered how friendly this audience really was, and how seriously the Apadisha did take his claims to the property of his neighbors.

  The Apadisha watched with bright, birdlike dark eyes. His gaze reminded Llesho of Kaydu, but he didn’t think it was a good idea to inquire about the presence of dragons—or eagles—in his lineage. He was very thin, with dark circles smudging his cheekbones and sagging flesh, as if he’d recently lost a great deal of weight to worry or illness.

  Dreams,Llesho thought,could eat at the body as they ate at the soul. A moment of unspoken understanding passed between them as the exiled king of Thebin and the Apadisha of Bithynia recognized in each other the terrible burden they carried. But even that connection of mutual understanding must be proved in front of the many witnesses.

  “In truth I make no such claim about myself,” Llesho corrected Master Astrologer. “I came to Pontus following rumors of the exiled poet-prince of Thebin, said to have been blinded and enslaved in the attack on Kungol, our home. I hoped to find my brother Menar, and I did.” He couldn’t help the smile that sneaked across his lips. Menar, injured but alive, stood at his side.

  The Apadisha responded to his contentment with a formal reflection of his smile, but his eyes narrowed. “You travel with disreputable companions.” He looked to Master Den when he spoke, letting his glance slide over Marmer Sea Dragon as if he wasn’t sure what to make of this guest. “In both of the worlds open to men. But one is missing.”

  Many had stayed behind, he could have said. But the reference to two worlds meant the dream world and the waking one. The Grand Apadisha knew of Pig even if he didn’t believe in the Great Goddess or her gardens.

  “One follows the guide who knows the way,” Llesho therefore answered.

  “But not too far, or with one’s eyes closed,” the Apadisha warned him.

  Menar, the poet and master of lore and story, joined the argument with a knowing little smile. “Even the blind keep one eye open in the land of the spirits.”

  Which offered Llesho the opening he needed to reassure his host, “Can I, with two eyes, be less wary than my brother?” He knew the Jinn’s crimes as well as anybody, after all.

  The Grand Apadisha raised an eyebrow. “Is that a question?” he asked in an ironic drawl that Habiba refrained from copying in his translation.

  Llesho wondered who had been whispering in the sultan’s ear, and what they’d told of his more hair-raising adventures in ignoring good sense. Stil
l it was a fair challenge.

  “Maybe it should be. Fortunately, I have other advisers—” At this, he made a small gesture with his hand to take in Habiba at his side. “—to keep me from falling too far off my proper course.”

  The Grand Apadisha could have no objection to the magician, who had trained in his own royal school in Pontus.

  Indeed, the sultan accepted this answer with only the briefest glance at Habiba. “The Father finds favor in one who, like himself, has had the raising of a Daughter of the Sword,” he agreed, calling upon the name of his god as witness. Then he added as a caution, “But for the Daughter’s mind, we must ask his sages. It is her prophecies, after all, that will lead us into war or bar the way of our enemies.”

  “That is the other reason why I’ve journeyed to Pontus.”

  Llesho took this opening to plead his position. “The rumors that reached the grasslands, about this blind poet who might be my brother, claimed that prophecies spilled off the blind poet’s tongue like water gushing from a fountain.

  “My advisers suggested that I might find answers to further my quest with this poet. Even if he turned out not to be the Menar I lost as a child, I was honor bound to seek him out. But I know nothing of Bithynia’s troubles nor can I claim any part in its prophecies until I know what the prophecies say.”

  The Grand Apadisha listened carefully and when Llesho had ended his little speech with a bow, he turned to Master Numerologist and Master Astrologer, who had remained on their knees, with their heads to the ground. “What do you have to say about this prophecy? Are we called to war in the East, or do we face the West for battle season? You have my permission to speak.”

  Master Numerologist rose from his position of abasement and dusted fussily at his immaculate robes, to win a moment more for thought before he must speak, Llesho thought.

  “As Your Excellency knows, the sages of the school have studied the prophecy of the blind poet for three cycles of the seasons to no avail. In this young king from afar we have, at last, a key of sorts. It is time, we agree, to listen anew to the words of the blind prophet, but in the presence of the king of which it speaks.”

  “Master Astrologer?”

  She rose as well, advising with fewer hesitation tactics but no more particular direction, “Let the young king explain what he can, and perhaps out of his tale we can find the star on which to set our course, and the numbers that mark the appointed time and day.”

  The Apadisha considered the advice of his sages. “Vague enough to keep your heads on your shoulders if things go badly,” he remarked, to make it known that he hadn’t fallen for the trick before he went on. “A blind man to set the course of the season’s warfare. Hmm. Better than a pin in a map, I suppose, though barely.”

  Habiba hesitated just a moment before he translated in tones as hushed as he could make them. Understandable, that nervousness.So, Llesho thought,we do not bring war to this Apadisha. We just give him a direction to point his soldiers during hunting season. He tried to imagine what Shou would say. Not difficult. The emperor who now sat in the palace of the provincial governor he’d executed for plotting treason would warn him to be cautious. This sultan who played with real armies like other men played at Go might send his forces into Kungol at Llesho’s behest. Getting them out again might prove more difficult than asking them in, however.

  Shou would tell him not to invite an army he’d have to fight as soon as the common enemy had been routed. Especially when their leader was giving him that look that said, “It’s snack time. And you’re it.”

  In fact, however, the immediate message in those hungry eyes was a simpler version of “snack time.” The Apadisha clapped his hands, summoning servants who had waited for his signal to begin their own procession. Breads and sauces, fruits and roasted meats, passed in orderly assemblage on great silver platters. “Sit, sit.” He waved Llesho’s party to cushions scattered before the dais. “Deciding the fates of nations is hungry work. It’s time we calmed the beasts in our bellies before they start making demands of the map.”

  When he put it that way, it sounded like a good idea. Llesho sat, with Master Den on his right and Marmer Sea Dragon in human form at his left. As a servant, even so exalted a one, Habiba remained standing. He placed himself between the Apadisha and Llesho’s party as an arbiter. The sages, Master Astrologer and Master Numerologist, likewise did not join them at the feast. And since each had one of Menar’s elbows, he didn’t sit either.

  When the Apadisha had taken a plate from a servant and helped himself to the delicacies there, he nodded his head at the masters awaiting his command.

  “Let’s hear it, then. This prophecy has set armies in motion and washed up on my shore an exiled king demanding aid and armies. What can this young king tell us to shed light on the words of our blind poet?”

  Menar stepped forward and spread his hands in the way of all poets, to show that he carried no weapons. In the market the gesture would also invite coins from the audience, but here it was form only. Menar gave a respectful bow and set his chin in the manner of one who looked into the distance in spite of his milky eyes. Slowly, in hypnotic cadence as if a force outside himself had taken control of his throat, Menar, prince of Thebin, began to recite.

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  “What is that sound?”

  The Father of all things asked. Looking out his window, the day was clear The sun shone brightly, but a cloud Marred the distance.

  Cries of grief rose from the darkness.

  “It’s only death,”

  The Daughter of the Sword answered, Setting aside her blade to pour him tea. “A war pauses in its path, destiny Awaits a new coming.”

  And cries of anguish rose from the darkness.

  “When will that be?”

  The Father of all things asked. He drank his tea. The day had darkened. The sun had fallen behind the clouds Blotting out the heavens.

  Cries of terror grew closer in the darkness. Seven lost princes each find the others

  Six heads crowned with stars a gate have hidden Five armies, like one hand, close around them Four worms breathing fire rise above them Three bitter gifts must teach a bitter lesson Two paths are offered, one is chosen One jewel alone, to each of seven brothers.

  A king is called to turn the sacred key. Return to heaven that which heaven lost—Justice brings both light and darkness—Then heaven will have peace.

  Cry, cry, for justice howled in the darkness.

  MENAR STOPPED then, to the puzzlement of many. “Is that all?” the Grand Apadisha asked him.

  “As far as I have been given, Your Excellency.” The blind poet managed to shrug his shoulders and bow at the same time, no easy feat, but it said much of his own feelings on the matter.

  Llesho wasn’t sure about the structure of the poem. The numerological portion, of which he understood a good amount, seemed dropped in from a different poem altogether. He didn’t know if that was the mark of prophetic poems in general or just the intrusion of the prophecy in what was otherwise a narrative poem about the gods of this land having tea, perhaps a preamble to an epic of war and battle. He’d heard enough of them in his time, across all the length and breadth of the road west.

  The final verse should have had a reference to the daughter god at least, and a verse to follow, he thought, that summed up the reaction of the father in the poem.

  As if his brother had read his mind and spoke to confirm the unstated question, Menar added, “I have tried, using my humble talents as a poet, to complete the verses. But it seems that whatever will happen next awaits what we do here, and will not be written until the path is truly chosen.

  “This talk of paths is troubling,” the Grand Apadisha grumbled. “One wonders if the poet is falling into pagan ways.”

  Llesho didn’t know what the going penalty for idolatry was in Pontus—no matter that the Way of the Goddess didn’t actually have idols—but he didn’t want it getting in the way of his dealings with the
Apadisha.

  “Perhaps the gods of Pontus have been troubled by events happening elsewhere in the realm of spirits and gods,” he suggested, “a realm far from the dominion of the Father and his Daughter of the Sword, where other heavenly beings on the side of right prevail for the moment but suffer attack by a mutual enemy.”

  Habiba was quick to agree. “The prophecy makes sense as a warning of battles waged within and without the kingdoms of the gods, which arise elsewhere to threaten the Father and the Daughter in their heaven and in Bithynia below.”

  It seemed as if the whole Divan held its breath while the Apadisha considered the witch’s appeal. The sages were a conservative lot by nature and seldom risked their necks on any controversy. And yet, the school had brought these strangers forward, had presented Llesho and his struggle for a different heaven—strange and heretical to the Bithynians—as explanation for the prophecy.

  If their ruler took offense, he might order the beheading of every master and student in the city. So they waited, breath held, until the Apadisha’s narrowed eyes drifted from the poet to his Master Numerologist.

  “What scientific proof can you present that this young vagabond is the king foretold by the Father and the Daughter?”

  “That is the troubling matter,” Master Numerologist admitted. “Some parts of the prophecy seem clear enough. This exiled prince is one of seven brothers. In another land, a spirit told him to seek out those he had lost, which he has done.”

  “All but one. I haven’t found Ghrisz yet,” Llesho corrected this small error. He had faith that the Way of the Goddess would take him to the last of his lost brothers. He didn’t have to wait long.

  “Ghrisz is in Kungol, leading the rebels,” Menar said, as if this was common knowledge.

  Apparently it was, because the Apadisha perked up at the reference. “Ghrisz the Ghost-Warrior of the Golden City?” he asked.