“And how does a man know he has chosen the right path?”
Khama shrugged. “He discovers this when he reaches his destination.”
Undutu laughed at the wind. “I ask for sorcery and you give me philosophy.”
“I will give you more than that, Majesty,” said Khama. “I will give you hurricanes to cast at these sky-ships. I will give you knowledge and power and wisdom. I will give you the Feathered Serpent in all his glorious fury.”
Undutu clapped him on the back. “I know you will, my friend. Look at this armada. The warships of three nations joined together. Soon to be four! There has never been anything like this assembly in all of history.”
Now it was Khama’s turn to frown. “Not in your history, Majesty. Yet there are many lands ancient and powerful that lie beyond your own. The Land of the Five Cities is a tiny thing compared to the Living Empire of Zyung, whose history goes back ten thousand years.”
Undutu leaned against the railing. The ship’s figurehead, a great swan head with a curved neck, loomed above him. “Tell me of this history,” said the King. “Tsoti tells me it is wise to know one’s enemy.”
Khama smiled. “Nearly three thousand years ago, long before I had taken the shape of a Man, I guided Ywatha the First across the Cryptic Sea to the wild land he would name Mumbaza.”
“My venerable ancestor,” smiled Undutu. “Every boy knows this story.”
“Yet have you ever wondered where the First Son of the Feathered Serpent and his people came from?”
Undutu’s brow knotted. “The Ancient Land… a place of curses and monsters.”
Khama smirked. “So grandmothers tell their children. Yet the truth is this: A great continent lies beyond the Cryptic Sea, and also beyond the Golden Sea, for as you’ve learned our world is a sphere. Like a golden ring, it doubles back upon itself until the beginning is the end and the end is the beginning. This great continent is many times the size of our own. Entire seas are found within its borders. This is the land where Zyung built his empire, and now it bears his name.
“Ages ago the God-King began the campaign of conquest that would build this empire. He knew it would take thousands of years to subdue all the realms of the great continent, but being an immortal, this did not concern him. He gathered together those of the Old Breed who would take up his cause and began to topple the capitals of minor kingdoms. With each kingdom that fell to him, he gathered more power, more legions, and more fuel to feed the fires of his great dream.”
“What was this dream?” asked Undutu.
“The same as it is now,” said Khama. “To remake the world in his image. To remove free will and conflict and individual thought and replace it with his vision of perfect unity. To rid this world of all those who would oppose him and create an empire of slaves living as one beneath his tread. There would be only one King and one God for the world. Zyung would be both. In the name of peace and order he slaughtered millions. His empire grew slowly, but it crept like a disease across the great continent.
“Your own ancestors, the People of Ywatha, lived free and wild on a great plain called Orbusa. A land of wild oxen and crystal streams, silver grasses and fertile soil. They built no cities, erected no walls, kept no armies, for they had no enemies. Until the legions of Zyung came and razed the villages, cast down their wooden idols, and enslaved the proud tribes of Orbusa. I had lived among these tribes for generations. They had built a temple for me from the holy wood of the sacred ahbroa trees. They worshipped the Feathered Serpent as their deity, though the wisest among them knew that I was not truly a God. Yet I was their protector.
“One of the Old Breed had come to me a century earlier, urging me to quit the silver plain and take my people across the ocean. He led his own tribe of refugees, survivors of Zyung’s early conquests, and promised a new land across the waves where the God-King’s legions could not reach. I should have listened then, but it was a century later when the Manslayers of Zyung reached Orbusa. Only then, watching my people cut down and their fields set to the torch… only when the conquerors burned my beautiful temple and forced me to wrath… only then did I hear the wisdom in what Iardu the Shaper had said to me. More of Zyung’s legions would arrive to replace the ones my power had annihilated. I had no wish for further slaughter. I only wanted to protect those I loved. An exodus was the only answer.
“I gathered together the surviving tribes of Orbusa and ordained Ywatha as their King. We marched toward the shores of the Cryptic Sea. Many were the hardships and sufferings of the Orbusans as they migrated. Once we came to the edge of the great continent, we built ships from the wood of an ancient forest. For long months that tiny fleet endured the waves and the storms. Many were lost to the ocean’s wild hunger.
“I flew ahead of the ships and found the lesser continent that Iardu the Shaper had promised. His people had fanned out across this new land, yet none had claimed the golden lands beyond the Pearl Cliffs. There I advised Ywatha to build his new capital, and there his son Ybondu was crowned as the Second King. Before Ywatha died, content that his life had been most fruitful, he named this new land Mumbaza.
“I served Ybondu and his people as I had served their ancestors. I aided them through early wars and kept them safe from plagues and famines. I tried my best to secure peace for them. Before the Usurper Elhathym returned to Yaskatha eight years ago, Mumbaza had enjoyed a hundred years of unbroken peace. Nor was this the first era to be blessed with the absence of war.”
Khama sighed. “Yet always war returns, as our tiny world spins among the stars. Perhaps it is an inevitable part of what we are. You, me, the Old Breed, all of us slaves to unknown forces that drive the universe. Now Zyung rules the entirety of the great continent, and he reaches across the Golden Sea for the Land of the Five Cities. Now we must go to war again, or choose to be slaves.”
Khama had almost forgotten all of this during his two decades as a goatherd. Taking the form and life of a simple man, he had almost become that man. Part of him was glad that Iardu had shaken him from the peaceful dream, while another part resented the Shaper for robbing him of a few more years of bliss. Yet Khama could never abandon the people of Mumbaza. He loved them deeply, and they were all his family. He could no longer hide them from the blazing eyes of Zyung. Now they must stand and fight. They would live as a free nation, or die as a legend of freedom. Khama would die with them if he must. He would not give himself to the sway of the God-King’s power. Not in the past, and not now.
I will never serve him. Better to face annihilation.
Iardu must feel the same way.
Khama wondered if the Shaper would truly find others of the Old Breed to stand and oppose Zyung’s invasion. How many of the Dreaming Ones could be awakened? How many of them would make a difference in the face of ultimate power? How many of them even still existed as entities separate from the living world itself?
Khama had no answers to these questions, so he refocused his thoughts on the battle to come. The first strike in the final war for freedom. Many of these ships would perish, and thousands of Men would die. Yet the Feathered Serpent would do what he could to protect the dream of his beloved Mumbaza.
Undutu’s face was grim. He stared at the blue waters rushing past the prow of his flagship. The Bird of War and D’zan’s Kingspear led the triple fleet.
“Zyung was once of the Old Breed?” asked the young lion.
“He was the greatest of us all,” said Khama. “Also the cruelest.”
Undutu swallowed. Perhaps he regretted rushing toward the invaders so readily. Yet it was too late now. The King could not change his course.
Undutu waved his hand toward the horizon. “Bah! This tyrant is only another sorcerer. Let the people of his great continent crawl before him like insects. We will face him and die like Men. We will tear his ships from the sky and make his Manslayers scream like weeping children. He may destroy us, Khama, but he will remember us.”
Khama grabbed the young lion by
his shoulder. He smiled.
“Do not forget that Iardu stands with us,” he told the King. “Even now he travels with the Vodsdaughter to enlist more sorcerers. Together we will stand against Zyung as none have ever dared to stand. Remember too that nothing ever truly ends. Life and death are twin illusions.”
“And honor?”
“Honor is what defines us.”
Undutu nodded. His own honor would lead him to victory or death; he was prepared for either. A surge of pride swelled in Khama’s chest. Here was a King who truly deserved to be called Son of the Feathered Serpent.
Wake them, Iardu. Wake them all, as you awakened me.
Through our sacrifice you will have the time you need.
The nine black hawks of Iardu’s creation were dispatched on the day of the triple fleet’s launch. Eight of them ranged far and wide across the Golden Sea, searching for signs of the God-King’s airborne forces. After three days only the ninth hawk returned, the one sent as messenger to the Jade Isles.
The bird dropped out of a bloody sunset to perch on the forward railing. Sailors sent word to Undutu’s cabin that his envoy had returned. Khama came up with him to speak with the hawk that was a Man. He did not like the choice of form the Shaper had chosen.
Hawks always bring trouble.
If his own sorcery could weave and warp others’ flesh the way Iardu’s could, Khama would have changed the soldiers into seabirds. Yet the Feathered Serpent’s magic was confined mainly to his own person and the realms of wind, storm, sun, and cloud. Iardu had called him a Creature of the Air. Once there were others like Khama, but they were lost in the rushing depths of time.
The black hawk bowed its head and screeched a welcome as the King and his Vizier drew near. It spoke in a human voice, barely a whisper but easily understood. Onyx eyes focused on Undutu.
“Majesty, I bring word from the court of Ongthaia,” said the transformed one, using the true name of the island kingdom. Only in the Five Cities was Ongthaia referred to as the Jade Isles.
“Speak, last of my hawks,” said Undutu. Khama steadied himself for dreadful news.
“An emissary of Zyung has arrived at the Jade King’s palace,” croaked the bird. “Robed all in silver, he stands at the King’s side as an honored guest. He offers the Jade King a choice: Surrender to Zyung or face death.”
Khama looked at Undutu. The young lion’s jaw was firm-set.
“What was the Jade King’s answer?” asked Undutu.
“I know not, Majesty,” said the hawk. “The foreign emissary is a sorcerer. He knew me for no natural bird and caught me with his bare hands. I feared he would snap my neck, but instead he gave me a message for you.” The false hawk screeched again, as if it would rather take to the sky than deliver the words of the enemy’s herald.
“Well? What is the message?” asked Undutu. He was angry. The young lion was too quick to anger these days. As a young boy he did not have this weakness. It was the weight of full Kinghood that had changed boy to man and set fire to his temper.
The hawk fluttered its wings. “Turn your ships about,” it said. “Return to your Five Cities and prepare for the blessed peace of Zyung to fall upon you like the summer rain. There will be no further warning. So the emissary spoke, Majesty.” The hawk turned its glimmering eyes toward the clouds.
Undutu stood silent for a moment, then raised his head and laughed into the wind. “This servant of Zyung does not understand us, Khama. We must educate him.”
Khama nodded. We will all learn a lesson that only spilled blood can teach.
“Your work is done,” Undutu told the hawk. “Rest now and eat well. Soon we reach the isles and soon after we meet our enemies.”
The hawk’s feathers began to fall out as its form lengthened, swirled like dark smoke, and took once more its true shape. The dusky-skinned soldier, freed now from Iardu’s spell, sank to one knee before Undutu then trundled off to find clothing, armor, and weapons. Khama supposed the man was glad to be back to his true self, even on the eve of war and death.
“We must deal with this emissary,” said Undutu.
“He may have already persuaded the Jade King to turn against us,” said Khama.
Undutu stared into the darkening horizon. “We shall have to be more persuasive.”
Khama bowed and took himself below decks to find his rest. Tomorrow the fleets would arrive at Ongthaia, and there would be little time left for sleeping. Unless death itself could be counted as slumber. Of that unwelcome sleep he was sure there would be no lack.
Ongthaia was a chain of thirteen islands, each one larger than the last. Six of them possessed wide harbors where ships from the Five Cities and the Southern Isles came to trade mainland goods for green stone, yellow spices, woven silks, and black plum wines. Villages of thatched dome huts sprouted thick as palm trees on every island, but the only proper towns were found on the harbor isles. The kingdom’s capital city, Morovanga, rose from the shoulders of a dormant volcano on the largest isle. Its double walls were of black basalt, but the towers that stood within were built all of sparkling jade. The greatest of those spires rose from the Jade Palace, where King Zharua sat upon a throne made of that same far-famed stone.
The harbors were full of ships from the mainland, all identifiable by the colors of sails and standards flying from prow and mast, yet Khama saw no sign of invaders’ ships. No looming dreadnought floating in the clouds above the green palace. He wondered how the emissary of Zyung had come to Ongthaia. Perhaps he flew under his own power. He might even be one of the Old Breed. Khama could remember few of their names after so many ages.
The royal harbor of Morovanga was crowded with vessels, mostly Jade Isle traders. The Bird of War and the Kingspear had entered the harbor with an escort of six ships. The rest of the triple fleet assembled itself in a crescent that enclosed the western side of the great island. Ongthaia kept no warships among its own fleet. The Jade Folk traded peaceably with every country–even Khyrei during Ianthe’s rule–therefore they had no need of armies or galleons of war. However, their traders were big and sleek, with massive hulls that could hold half a legion if required. In previous ages those holds had carried slaves, and the Jade Isles had built their early reputation in that unwholesome trade.
Some recent ancestor of Zharua’s had received a message from the Sea God that slave-trading was an unholy practice, so that noble monarch outlawed it forevermore. Khama believed there must still be an illegal black market for slaves here. The Jade Folk still kept slaves for themselves, but they no longer bought or sold them with outsiders. On these islands slaves were simply the lowest form of social class. The poorest of the poor were born into it, yet any of them could gain freedom through years of hard work and loyalty.
Khama wondered how many slaves staffed the great Jade Palace as he walked through its gates in the company of Undutu and D’zan. A company of Mumbazans in white cloaks and plumed helms followed them, as well as a cadre of Yaskathans in chain mail and crimson tabards. As a sign of respect for the Jade King’s court, they carried no spears. Yet each warrior retained his sword, curved cutlasses for the Mumbazans and longblades for the Yaskathans, all worn at the waist. The Yaskathan King was the sole exception: D’zan carried a greatsword on his back. The Sun God’s mark was set into the scabbard with a pattern of rubies and diamonds. Khama carried no weapons at all; it had never been his custom to bear arms. Word of his powers usually assured a peaceful reception wherever he traveled. Perhaps this would not be the case with an emissary of Zyung waiting inside these viridian walls.
The procession had wound through the narrow streets from the royal harbor, drawing the stares of curious Jade Folk and the smiles of scampering children. Sages and merchant lords watched the mainland Kings from the balconies of their green towers and the eaves of garden walks. There were few horses on the Jades, so most of the wealthy here traveled on slave-borne litters. The poor walked, and those who could afford beasts of burden rode shaggy yaks with curved h
orns. A squad of guardsmen mounted on these curious beasts had greeted Undutu and D’zan at the wharves, guided them on the quickest route through the metropolis, and now granted them access through the King’s Gate.
The city itself smelled of sea winds, ripe citrus, and the smokes of spicy cooking. Within the walls of the Jade Palace these odors were replaced entirely by incense redolent of jasmine and purple lotus blossoms. Murals in a thousand colors decorated every surface, from floor to walls to ceiling. Precious stones gleamed in swirling arabesques and glyphs between pillars of smoky quartz, ruddy chalcedony, or the ever-present jade. Slaves in gaudy robes dropped to their knees as the mainland Kings passed through the palace halls.
Tiny red monkeys skittered up and down the pillars wearing jeweled collars. Young nobles gathered the tittering beasts on their shoulders and made way for the foreign delegation. A sense of urgency hung in the air stronger than the smoke of incense that burned in ubiquitous braziers. Sunbeams fell through cleverly designed skylights, bringing the colors of the palace to life in all their splendor.
King Zharua was a fat man with tiny eyes. He sat upon a throne of pale jade–what else?–carved into the likeness of a thirteen-rayed sun above his round head. His hair was black, cut short, and his eyes were dark slits above brown cheeks and a tiny chin. A wisp of mustache fell from either side of his broad-lipped mouth. A necklace heavy with topazes and opals hung on the breast of his silk robe, and his tall golden collar rose higher than his golden crown. Khama marveled at the crown’s simplicity, given the opulence of everything else in the Jade King’s domain. A single emerald was set directly at the center of Zharua’s forehead.
A black tiger slept at the Jade King’s feet, its collar chained to a ring at the base of the throne. A bevy of beautiful women lay upon cushions spread across the royal dais. Zharua kept a harem that was the envy of the world. Beauties from every kingdom lounged about the monarch and his tiger; they stared at the visiting Kings with heavy-lidded eyes. Yet many of these concubines were natives of the Jade Isles with flowing black hair and olive skin. Khama had heard an old saying: “To be born beautiful in the Jade Isles is to be the King’s treasure.” Now he saw the truth of the adage. He thought of Emi’s dark eyes staring into his own, and he looked from the harem girls toward the emissary of Zyung.
Seven Sorcerers: Book Three of the Books of the Shaper Page 7