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

by Curt Benjamin

  Llesho wondered why that might be. The pearls, of course, but that seemed hardly an immeasurable goal. Pig might take them home in a pinch now that they had broken the siege, he thought. But he’d done what he set out to do. His Goddess, and his nation, were both safe now, whether he lived or died.

  Marmer Sea Dragon didn’t pursue his question, however. “I’m taking my son home now,” he said.

  “Won’t you wait for the arrival of the princes?” Kwan-ti asked him. “They have much to thank you for, and will want to honor your son’s bravery against the demon-king.”

  “Thank the princes for me in my absence. My son has paid for his mistakes; now it’s time we both left such adventures to those for whom death stirs the blood.”

  “You do them an injustice,” she chided her fellow dragon gently. “They started none of this. As for Llesho—”

  “About the young god you need say nothing.” Marmer Sea Dragon didn’t look down at Llesho, but his words were meant to be overheard. “I have traveled with him, and have seen into the bottom of his soul. I know what this day has cost him.”

  There seemed nothing more to say then. Marmer Sea Dragon was determined to be gone before the princes and their sister could reach the cave which, freed of the demon who had lodged there, had entered the mortal realm again. And so he left, carrying his burden of sorrow close to his heart.

  Chapter Forty-one

  WHEN THE dragon-king had gone, Llesho pulled himself to his feet.

  “Not yet,” Kwan-ti cautioned him.

  The elixir had renewed his strength somewhat, but a poison strong enough to distract the demon-king could not be so easily thrown off. He still hunched over his aching gut. “One last thing—”

  The fighting might be over, but he still had one task to complete. There it was, the corpse of the demon-king, rotting already as was the nature of that kind. It lay like a vast lake of putrefying flesh with its feet in the doorway and its head pressed up against the back of the huge cavern. Llesho climbed over an outthrust arm and made his way to the head, where two black pearls stared emptily out of the creature’s eye sockets.

  Llesho remembered a dream, long ago. Then it had been the eyes of the Gansau Wastrels that he plucked. He found it no less dismaying to take the jewels from the head of the monster, but knew what he had to do. They popped out easily enough; carefully wiping the slime off them with the hem of his coat, he added them to the pouch he wore at his throat.

  “Come,” Kwan-ti said when he was done. “If you are up to the walk, our people await you.”

  Llesho followed her slowly from the demon-king’s cave. Once outside, the healer gave a little snort and toss of her head. Transforming into her dragon form, she rose to join Dun Dragon and Golden River Dragon, who perched on the rocks above him. He noted the presence of the dragons with only a part of his attention, however.

  He’d thought she meant a delegation from the forces that the dragons had brought to the mountain to fight the demon invaders. Instead he found the mountainside covered with all the combined armies that he had gathered from the far reaches of the world. Kaydu and Shou had remained behind in the infirmary—he remembered the shock of their wounds—but Habiba was there, and all the kings and generals who had accompanied him to Kungol. Sawghar, the Gansau Wastrel, who represented the dream readers of Ahkenbad and even the Thebin corporal, Tonkuq, who had sometimes fought at his side in the Harnlands. The mortal gods, all but the mortal god of learning, gathered at the fore of all that massed company. He’d seen Master Geomancer as she was in her mortal form, muttering to herself at the mouth of the demon cave when he’d come out. “There were shards here, I know I saw them,” he’d heard her say, but he wasn’t tracking well enough yet to figure out what shards she meant. She bustled after him, however, and took her place among the gods.

  This time the Lady SienMa stood not at the head of gods and humans, but to the side, deferring to the mortal god of peace who smiled at Llesho with tears in his eyes. “A costly day,” he said, meaning not this one battle. In the way that god spoke to god, Peace meant all the trials that had brought them here, from the attack on Kungol by Uulgar raiders and Master Markko’s wish to be other than nature had made him, through all the wasted lives and destruction that led them here, to the death of the demon-king.

  “The rift between underworld and the mortal realm—” Llesho held his breath, fearing the answer, that the damage was permanent and more nightmares were coming.

  But the god gave him a reassuring smile and said, “Closed by the demons themselves, who feared the champion of the Great Goddess might bring his war to the dead. For now, at least, the worlds of gods and men are safe.”

  That was good to know. “Thank you,” Llesho said.

  Peace answered, “I haven’t earned your thanks yet, but I hope to, starting today. For a little while the Lady War will sit out the dance and Peace will have his turn at the floor.”

  “I trust there will be a place in this most peaceful of all worlds for a bit of mischief from time to time.” Master Den pretended indignation at all this harmony. He carried Bright Morning the dwarf who, in turn, carried Little Brother. The Monkey God had returned to his small size—a good thing, Bright Morning declared, since the Monkey God would otherwise be forced to carry the god of mercy on his shoulders!

  The company laughed a little too hard and a little too long at the joke, but that was okay. They’d narrowly escaped the end of the world, after all, and with fewer losses than they had any right to expect. Llesho mourned his dead, but few among their company had known Marmer Sea Dragon or would regret his son’s passing as he did. He could see himself in the position of the young dragon-prince, had it not been for his teachers.

  His brothers and his sister were there, including Lluka, who stumbled from the demon’s cave as if newly woken from a daze. Adar took him gently by the arm and led him over to where Balar stood with Menar’s hand on his shoulder. The wars had caused damage to mind and body, but Peace, he thought, would go a long way toward healing the worst of their wounds. From their midst came the warrior princes Ghrisz and Shokar, who would deny the title, as honor guard for their sister Ping, the sapphire princess, now their queen. Already she wore the robes of her office as high priestess of the Temple of the Moon. With her priests about her, she reminded Llesho of his mother so much that he didn’t know whether to smile or weep.

  “Ceremonies and celebrations can wait until we bury our dead and rebuild our country,” Ghrisz said. “I know and accept that you will not be our king, but let us honor you before you leave us, at least.”

  Of his family only Ghrisz himself seemed particularly surprised that Llesho would not stay. They had seen him grow thinner and more distant from his mortal life with each li closer to the gates of heaven they had traveled and seemed to have known the outcome of his quest even before Llesho had. It hurt him that he couldn’t give his brother even this one thing, but he’d kept the Goddess waiting far too long.

  “Have your ceremony in my name,” he said. “But I can’t stay. I have a wife who misses me dearly, who I have longed to serve for more lives than I can count. I think I got it right this time, though, and I’m going home.”

  “You’re not dying?” Ghrisz asked hesitantly.

  He would have fought another war to prevent it,Llesho thought. He shook his head though. “I don’t think so.”

  But he wasn’t sure. He was so tired, so sick, both in his body from the damage of poisons and battles and in his spirit from the many things he had seen and done on his quest.

  “Not for a long time, I should judge,” Bright Morning agreed. “For most of us, however, comes a time of rest, to figure things out. Then a time of wandering. Then a time, perhaps, of coming home.”

  With the lifting of his madness Lluka had just begun to glimpse a future. While he still suffered from the memories of what he had done, and the horror he had lived with for so long, he wished his brother well with all his heart. “I hope my children
’s children see that day,” he said, meaning the return of the wandering king.

  But: “Us?” Shokar asked with a quizzical cock of his head in the direction of the god of mercy. This most grounded of the seven brothers had come to accept the presence of gods and magicians in his life. But to add one to his family seemed too much for a simple farmer-prince to accept. He hadn’t been on the pavilion above the Palace of the Sun, and hadn’t heard Llesho’s true identity uncovered.

  “Justice,” Bright Morning told him, and from the shoulder of the massive trickster god he gestured to left and to right where the gods of war and peace and learning had gathered with the Monkey God and the trickster and the god of mercy to welcome their lost fellow to their ranks again. “Too long has Justice been absent from the world.”

  While his brothers stared from one god to another in amazement to find him among their ranks, Llesho answered Mercy’s rebuke.

  “The world must make do for a while with the aid of mortals.”

  “Rest,” Bright Morning agreed. “And I think you have still a task to complete for the Goddess your lady wife. The world will be here when you get back.”

  “Indeed.” Llesho set a hand to the pouch in which he had gathered the String of Midnights, the black pearls of the Goddess. He set his gaze on the gates of heaven, which he knew that only the husbands of the Goddess could see inside the ice of the glacier high above the demon-king’s cave. It would be a long climb. If only he could sleep first . . .

  “If I may—” Dun Dragon bowed his huge dragon head. “One last ride, for my lady, the Great Goddess?”

  “Thank you,” Llesho said, “for everything,” and meant their first meeting as well as this last, the fulfillment of the prophecy, and the water flowing once again in the Stone River where Ahkenbad once stood against the thirst of a dusty desert. He was grateful as well for the offer of one last ride but, looking up at the huge creature, he knew he had to come to his lady wife on his own.

  “Not this time,” he said.

  “And about time,” Dun Dragon said, and meant:good-bye, and you’ve done well. “I’m glad I lived to see a young king learn to say ‘no.’ ”

  “So am I, old friend. So am I.” Llesho made the heartfelt nature of his feelings known with a pat on the dragon’s nose. Then, with all the gathered support of gods and men and dragons at his back, with all the five armies of the prophecy looking on, he started to climb.

  The crystal pillars entwined with silver flashed with diamonds and pearls, with sapphires and garnets of the dawn. Llesho would have known them for home, however, if they’d been made of ash and tied together with thongs of leather. Foot by foot, handhold by handhold, he climbed toward his goal.

  Although his battle with the demon-king had sapped his strength, he found that as a god he pulled life from the ground beneath his feet and the air which grew thinner with each step. Mostly, he found the energy to go on in the sight of the gates that waited for him. The first part of this last journey on his quest taxed him no more than the steep staircase inside the tower of the Temple of the Moon. He found that part an easier climb, since no ghosts tormented him in his passage.

  Gradually, however, the air grew too cold to breathe, and the stone under his fingers became ice. He had come out onto the glacier and he used his Thebin knife to dig his handholds as he climbed. Only the hope that called from above him, the precious gates of heaven, kept him moving. It began to seem as though he would never reach them, when, suddenly, he was there. But he was still on the outside, in the eternal winter of the glacier.

  No gatekeeper stood to greet him, no gardener wandered down a leafy path to say hello. All he saw beyond was more ice. Llesho set his shoulder to the gates and pushed.

  They didn’t budge.

  He pushed again.

  They didn’t move.

  If he’d had the strength to fuel a temper he would have pounded on the gates, but he had used up the last of it climbing the mountain. Exhausted, he clung to the silver-turnings that barred his way.

  “My Lady Goddess,” he called. “I’ve come, but I can’t get in.”

  No one came, and finally he fell asleep.

  In his dreams he saw the Goddess, his wife, in all her glory, which was beautiful and unearthly. He could not have described the warmth of her, or the welcome he saw in her arms, which were not arms as he had thought of them before.

  “My lady,” he answered her call, though no words passed between them. She took his hands and led him forward and somehow the gates were meaningless and he had walked through as if the silver and jewels that barred his way did not exist.

  The eternal dull light of heaven pressed down on them however, and the gardens had fallen to ruin as he remembered. Her pleasure at seeing him was equally dimmed by her uncertainty. “The String of Midnights?” she asked. “Have you found the pearls?”

  “I have, my lady.” He drew the leather thong over his head and into her cupped hands he spilled her pearls.

  Her eyes of many colors tallied up the number and she turned to him, stricken down so near to hope. “There is one missing.”

  “Perhaps me?” Pig wandered out of a thicket, bound round with the silver chains that were the symbol of his disgrace. The Goddess put out her hand and Pig disappeared, shrinking down into the pearl that once had dangled from a silver chain at Llesho’s neck. Now he wore no chains, however, and Pig lay expectantly on his lady wife’s palm.

  “The very one,” she said. When she had them all in her hand she flung them into the sky, as far as she could throw. And when they had reached the highest point in their arc, they stayed there. Suddenly, the heavens darkened with a cloudless clarity. Where each pearl had stuck, stars bloomed in the shapes of the constellations: the carter and his cart, the weeping princess, the bull and the goat. At the top of the sky, most resplendent of all the stars, Pig the gardener took his hoe to the rich, loamy darkness. It seemed to Llesho that the Jinn looked down on him and winked, though he thought that must be the twinkling of the stars.

  Night had returned to the gardens of heaven.

  “Come, husband,” the Goddess said as Great Moon Lun peeked over the gates of heaven. “You have been made to wait too long for your bed.”

  She took Llesho’s hand and he let himself be led away to the bedchamber that had called to him across all the thousands of li of his quest. Soon enough he would return to the world as a mortal god with all of humanity to tend. For now, however, he had finally come home.