“Perhaps… your time here might be better spent visiting your uncle Prasert. We decided to stay here overnight to clarify the situation. I know your uncle would be eager to see you and perhaps help you learn the Reverie.”
Banisu raised an eyebrow at this. Abbot Cibu, like all monks and even the clan leaders, was wary of the arts that those in his bloodline trained in. It was odd to be actually encouraged to pursue them. Banisu realized after a moment that the two men had fallen silent, as if they were waiting for him to leave. So important business was being done. No need for the Emperor, then.
“Do you know where-”
“Your uncle has always been an early riser. I believe you will find him in the meditation room.”
The abbot made a gesture that an uncharitable person might call one of annoyed dismissal. Banisu clenched his teeth but trotted off. It took a few winding turns down the corridors of Lord Prasert’s castle, but he remembered the way from his previous visits, and didn’t even pass a single servant. Banisu edged open the door that led to the meditation chamber and saw his uncle Prasert in thought. Behind him waited a silent attendant holding an urn.
Prasert had always been a small man, and kneeling on the stone floor as he was, he looked downright minuscule. A slurping sound broke the silence. Many unkind things had been said about his uncle. Chief among them were the observations about the limits of inbreeding. It was a priority to keep an affinity for the Reverie within the Imperial bloodline, which led to continual marriages of cousins. Yet in recent years, because of those who ended up like Prasert, the previous Emperors had made courtesans of young noblewomen who possessed an affinity.
Banisu himself was the product of the last emperor and his third courtesan. The eldest son at the time of his late father’s self-immolation. It was also said insanity ran in the bloodline, hand in hand with the power. Though the clan leaders had no trust for each other, they had agreed that Abbot Cibu would keep a close eye for any signs of insanity. And it was enough to drive me mad.
Banisu walked toward his uncle as he rose. Prasert stood no taller than the boy emperor and gave a lop-sided grin as Banisu came near. His uncle’s left eye rolled back, and his chin stuck out prominently, continually dribbling spittle. Banisu smiled and they hugged each other in genuine affection.
Perhaps he is the only one who is really rooting for me, after all. The clan leaders just want me to stay locked up in a corner like a dangerous animal. My uncle, at least, understands what that’s like, barred as he is from the Imperial succession.
Banisu forced himself not to check if any spittle had dribbled on to his own robe. More than likely it had.
“Have you been practicing your Reverie?” Prasert asked once they had separated.
“I have not,” Banisu said, feeling somewhat shamefaced. “Abbot Cibu has me working on other-”
“Bah,” Prasert said dismissively. “The monks are too concerned with their stories and moralizing.” He stopped to wipe drool dribbling out of his crooked jaw. “They do not know true power. Not like your father.”
My father. Burned to death in his palace after he exercised his power one too many times.
“How did my father die?” Banisu asked. He was ready to know now, and it wasn’t as though anyone else would tell him.
“You know how he died,” Prasert said evasively. “Self-immolation in his palace.”
“Is that really how it happened?”
“It’s true,” Prasert said slowly. He paused, slurping. “Your father was powerful when it came to the arts. He concentrated so hard his eyes reddened.” He paused. “Or it was from a special plant that he had brought to him in his tea.” His lazy eye rolled over to look at Banisu. “I bet the monks never told you that.”
“A special plant?”
Prasert nodded several times. “Or spice, or something. I shared a cup with your father once, back near the end. His eyes had changed to red and his skin was pale. Still, he looked more alert than I had ever seen him. He asked me to enter my Reverie afterward.” Prasert clenched his fist. “And it was enhanced! That was the most power I have ever esh, esh… eshpressed.” Prasert paused to wave his attendant over, and spat into the man’s jar.
“Shcuse me. Anyway, your father said that it had no effect on others, besides a certain intoxicating effect. Only those with our affinity and training could share in it.”
“Did your eyes turn red?” Banisu asked.
Prasert shook his head. “Perhaps it comes from esheshive conshumption. It may have affected his head. But the power!” He trailed off, and wiped his chin.
“Ashally, I have been looking into it, over the years. I haven’t found it yet but I am sure to evenshly. I believe it may be in the deep jungles of Inner Shinzen territory. In fact, only yesterday I had been composing a letter to Lord Shinzen requesting he allow an eshpedition into his jungles. I have not sent it. There was dangling partishipple…” he paused and gestured at his servant, who hurried over with a large jar, and Prasert spat into it.
“Well. You know what a grammarian I am. My letters must be perfect.” His eyes fell for a moment, or perhaps it only appeared that way, as his lazy rolled downward. “I am unforshunally deficient in speech. And so my letters must be perfect.”
Banisu thought about this for a moment. Perhaps this spice is what drove my father insane?
“If you find it, will you let me know?”
His uncle bowed majestically. “Of course, Emperor.”
Banisu smiled. He liked his uncle. With him he could feel like an actual emperor.
“But let us return to your studies,” Prasert continued. Banisu’s smiled faded. Prasert gestured in impatience.
“Come now, show me your stance.”
◆◆◆
“Run, flee!”
Banisu opened his eyes in some annoyance. He had been practicing his stances and the use of his Reverie all day, even meditating through the noon meal. His uncle was every bit the taskmaster as Abbot Cibu. But then this shouting could be heard even through the castle walls.
“Flee while you still can!”
Banisu left the meditation chamber, Prasert kneeling in a trance and focusing his energy on a potted tree, one of Prasert’s preferred methods of harnessing the power. Behind him the attendant seemed in a similar trance-like state, his eyes dead and wearied. Banisu peeked his head through a nearby opening, meant for archers to rain down arrows on attackers, and stared into the town square below.
“Grab that man!” Abbot Cibu shouted in the distance, his voice always easy to hear.
The town square was a bustling market of at least a hundred souls, though one new arrival was yammering away in the midst of them. Guards leapt forward and surrounded the startled man, hauling him away. But already word was spreading, panic in everyone’s eyes.
“Bring him round back!” Abbot Cibu shouted.
Banisu heard the soft tread of feet behind him and an audible slurp.
“Ah,” Prasert said, after he noticed Banisu staring out the window. “Please try to conshentrate on your, ah,” he waved his attendant over and spat into the jar. He wiped his mouth with his jacket and fixed his bleary eyes on Banisu before his left eye wandered away. “Shtudies.”
“What do you think will happen to him?”
“Eshecution, I eshpect. Now then! Become one with the tree. Quickly now, quickly!”
Banisu knelt before the potted tree, closed his eyes and concentrated. It took several long minutes before he felt the tree’s presence outlined in his mind’s eye. Banisu felt the roots unfolding in the peaty soil, siphoning off moisture, and as he shifted his hands he felt the vines shift along with him. He heard a distant sound of shock from his uncle, or perhaps he was spitting again. The light filtered in from above and Banisu felt the energy from it, felt it filling his body with power… raw, magical power… and then he flexed, and felt the tree shift as well, and then…
There was shouting in the town square. Banisu’s left eye blinked open
, and he swiveled it around in annoyance to look outside the window. Behind him his uncle sighed, or perhaps he was spitting again.
“Theresh another one.”
“The invaders are coming! The invaders are coming!” Banisu heard over the distance. “They… what! Unhand me, you! Oof!”
The black and gold of the armored guardsmen were clear now, converging on the same spot, and within moments they were hauling another twisting and screeching man through the crowd to the back of the castle.
“But I was warning you!” the man wailed.
Banisu felt his magic draining and let it end. He whirled around, pushing past his sputtering uncle. Banisu found his way to the staircase and pounded down the stairs, shoving his way past a bewildered maid with a bundle of garments, and careened through the doorway into the gated pavilion at the back of the castle. There were a half dozen black and gold armored guardsmen in the back, and they turned toward Banisu as he approached.
“Emperor,” one of them said, surprise evident in his voice. “Ah, you really shouldn’t…” he trailed off as more guards entered from the back gate, hauling the squealing peasant behind them. The roar of the distant crowd accompanied the man’s shouts.
“But I’m innocent!”
Behind the man was a blood-soaked patch of ground next to the castle wall, which was itself speckled with fresh blood. Bizarrely, the beheaded corpse of a man in the black and gold armor was even now being hauled away by another guard.
Banisu stared at it. “Commander Jenisutane?”
Abbot Cibu appeared as if from nowhere as guards hauled the struggling peasant to the same bloodied patch of grass.
“You shouldn’t see this,” Abbot Cibu cut in, more harshly than was appropriate in an address to the Emperor.
“No. No, dear Abbot, he should,” came Prasert’s voice from the staircase. Prasert looked Banisu over, a bit of spittle dribbling down his chin. “The young Emperor needs to see his own justice done. He needs to know the resh…” he dabbed at his chin for a moment. “The reshponshibility of command.”
“Your order, sir!” One soldier said, holding down the struggling peasant. His gaze shifted from Banisu to Abbot Cibu as if unsure who was in command. Banisu hesitated.
“Execution, of course! Rumor mongering and cowardice is a capital offense. We must stop the rot before it spreads,” Abbot Cibu said.
The guard waited a few beats, and it was only when he answered in the affirmative that Banisu realized he could have countermanded it.
“Yes, my lord,” the soldier said.
“Wait!” Banisu could have said. But instead he stood there, just as Prasert had suggested, and watched as the peasant was punched and beaten until he lay on the ground, quivering and motionless. A final sword stroke severed his head.
Silence fell in the courtyard.
“This is justice, Emperor,” Abbot Cibu said finally. “We cannot allow cowardice to spread.”
“And Commander Jenisutane?” Banisu found himself saying. “What was his crime?”
“Incompetence. He let Tamani fall to some foreign invasion. We are still working out the details.”
“But he wasn’t even there…”
“There’s no excuse for it. He understood that. I allowed him to plunge his own blade in before he was finished off by his second. Now Emperor, perhaps you should attend to your studies with Lord Prasert while we sort out the situation here.”
“We’re under attack!”
The shout came from the town square, already a growing hubbub. The guards stirred, awaiting the order to seize the new arrival. But one of them stepped forward.
“There’s no stopping it now, Abbot,” the guard said, the three slashes of red on the front of his armor some sign of rank that still mystified Banisu. “Word is going to spread one way or another. Half of Tamani could be here by nightfall.”
The Abbot scowled but remained silent. The clamor continued in the town square; the shouts carrying even to the bloody courtyard.
“Very well,” he said. “We must be away.” He clapped the man on his lacquer pauldron. “What is your name, soldier?”
“Lian, Abbot Cibu.”
“You are in command, Lian. Do not give up while any of your guardsmen yet breathe. We will take only four of you back. You, you, you, and you. The rest will stay and fight to the death.”
A complicated interplay of emotions worked itself out in the faces of the guards in the courtyard. Lian glanced over at the Emperor, but Banisu was looking down at his feet.
“Yes… Abbot Cibu.”
Abbot Cibu was already moving past them and gave a curt bow to Lord Prasert.
“Lord Prasert. Will you be accompanying us?”
“Ah, I do believe that would be, ah. Prudent.”
“Yes. Prudent indeed. Ready a palanquin and we will be off. It is imperative that Emperor Banisu remains free to lead the Three Clans to victory.” The abbot leaned in close to Banisu as he passed by. “And I expect you to finish the fourteenth sutra by the time we’re back at the monastery. This current invasion is no excuse for ignorance of the classics.”
Chapter Nineteen
Payment
“Why do we have to pay them anything?” the Syriot soldier groused, leaning back on his wooden stool inside one of Tamani’s taverns.
He was a young man though he seemed determined to pretend to be a hard-bitten veteran like most of his companions. Vermilies had noticed the man’s jacket was already grease-stained from the chicken they had eaten earlier. The soldier hadn’t complained then, back when the tavern was packed full of hungry Syriots, but now that most of his comrades had left he seemed to have found his tongue.
“We’re an occupying force, not bandits,” the translator replied.
He was beginning to lose patience with the man but he had not yet finished his drink. And besides, there is little else to do until my services are requested.
“Huh. When is their king going to submit?”
“They have an emperor, not a king. Well, it’s largely ceremonial, but they’ve historically been three separate fiefdoms in a loose confederacy,” Vermilies said. He cast a dubious stare at the young man. “Didn’t you read anything about this? Do you even know where you are?”
“Eh, why bother,” the man said, lounging back and idly eyeing the tavern keeper.
She was a quiet woman of perhaps thirty, cleaning up the almost-deserted tavern. Most of the locals seemed understandably reluctant to leave their houses. After all, it was only yesterday that an invading force had landed on their shores. That seemed as good a reason as any to spend the day indoors.
“These colonies are all the same, anyway. Sail over, win a few fights, have adventures and make a good deal of gold. What does it matter what savages we’re fighting?”
Vermilies had found his mood had taken a darkly contemplative turn. This oaf is like so many others. A generation ago those just like him had landed in the Jade Sea Islands. He had just finished an interesting conversation with an older sergeant who had left a few minutes ago, the tavern steadily losing its Syriot patrons as the day wore on.
It’s funny how similar they all look in their blue uniforms, yet some can talk of ancient Jade Sea Islands ornamental art and others seem to have just stumbled out of a gutter and into the nearest recruiting station.
Now he was left with this simpleton. Yet Vermilies found he felt like talking, so he leaned over and thumped his finger on the table.
“You should care. You’ll be fighting them, after all.” Idiot.
The man considered this for a moment and shrugged. “Alright. So what are these three clans all about?”
“They used to be united under their founding emperor, but split apart as great families secured land and titles. It’s really quite an interesting system. We’re in Hangyul territory now, and they’re a more coastal and maritime people. Tamani is the capital of the clan’s fiefdom and I know at least some of the clan leaders have remained here. To the east
are the Kintari with their fertile farmlands and rolling hills that stretch all the way to the mountainous borders that cut off the Veldtland. The south is Shinzen territory, the largest area although it’s mainly rough jungle and rivers. They are a simple people, rice farmers mostly, and have their own dialect. That one gave me more than a bit of trouble, hah! Did you know the word for fish can also mean… well, anyway. Now as I said, although the emperor is the nominal ruler, there’s been a delicate balance among the scheming clan leaders as well as the religious leaders - oh, I should talk about the role of the church. Now, their theology is normally reckoned as-”
The soldier belched and slammed his fist on the table. The tavern keeper glanced over in worry, and then looked away just as fast.
“I don’t care about any of that. You said I’d be fighting them. So what do they fight like?”
Vermilies paused, momentarily disconcerted. He lowered his hands, which had been waving around wildly. Jade Sea Islanders were known to be very expressive.
“Oh. Well. The Hangyul are a maritime culture and are known for their gunpowder boats. Primitive by our standards, of course.”
“Their boats,” the soldier sneered. “You mean like the ones we sunk on the way here?”
“Yes, like those.”
It was true, the combined fire of the Syriot fleet had quickly sunk the small Hangyul ships they had encountered a couple days before arriving, and finished off the remainder just outside the Tamani docks. Yet only a fool would think that was all the naval power they possessed.
“By and large, the forces of the Three Clans consist of peasant levees. The Shinzen clan in particular mainly raises peasant forces. Their villages are scattered and isolated but with such a large territory they’ve been able to be a formidable force in civil conflicts. They are lacking in muskets and cannons, however. It is not a very prosperous region.”
“Huh. Is any region in this backwater prosperous?”
“Well, Tamani.”
“Hah! This dump?” the soldier leaned back and chuckled for a moment.
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