The Forbidden City

by Deborah A. Wolf

  Holuikhan gave the gateposts a wide berth—and the side-eye—as she and Anmei crept past them, but they never moved. Not while she was watching them, anyway. The tracks they followed showed the pig’s great suffering—here he had fallen and dragged himself, there he had scuffled with the chinmong, leaving a mat of blood, hair, and raptor feathers to tell the tale. His steps were heavy and staggered, and his hind legs dragged at the last. Holuikhan wept to think she had caused such pain. She wiped the tears from her cheeks with the back of one hand.

  Such a baby, she chided herself. Crying over a pig.

  “Ssst,” Anmei whispered, her voice as soft as mist, “never be ashamed to cry over an animal you have killed. If you cannot feel sorrow for taking a life, you should not be hunting.”

  The tears came. Holuikhan allowed them to do so, and smiled at her sister’s back.

  At the last her boar had fought off the alpha raptor—there was no mistaking those long green-and-red feathers—but he had gone down, and a wide smear of gore marked his final hiding place. A heavy curtain of vines, glossy leafed and heavy with green berries, had grown across the path. The pig had dragged himself through this green door.

  Strangely, the chinmong milled about on the path hissing, trilling in distress, and refused to pass. Anmei hesitated at the vines, faint lines of worry creasing her brow. She flashed her palm outward, fingers spread.

  Stay.

  Holuikhan nodded. A girl should be wary of any place that raptors feared to tread.

  Anmei stepped up to the vines, peering closely at the leaves, again at the berries, and craned her neck to look high at the branches from which they hung.

  No itch leaf, she signed, no snakes. Safe. Come. She raised her hands to her mouth and whistled for the chinmong.

  The alpha female tilted its head this way, and that way, then shook its feathers as if ridding itself of mites. Its scythe claws dug into the soft earth, and the message it sent was very clear.

  Anmei whistled again, sharper. Louder. Her eyes flashed at the raptor’s defiance. The big female shook its feathers again, bobbed its head with a strange chick-like peep, then melted away into the forest. The others went with her.

  Anmei blinked, and then blinked again.

  Holuikhan’s mouth fell open. Chillflesh raised the hairs on her arms.

  We go? she signed, already rising up on the balls of her feet, ready to run back across Cold Spirit Stream, up the mountain and back down again, all the way to their village without stopping. Raptors were never afraid, even when they should be.

  Anmei hesitated and then firmed her mouth. No, she replied. Come. She pulled aside the vines and stepped through. Holuikhan, not being a raptor, did not have the courage to defy her sister, and so she followed.

  It was as if the vines tried to hold her back. Almost before she had fought her way through, a hand clamped over her mouth and an arm snaked around her waist, pinning her arms. She was dragged from the path and behind a hoary old baobing tree, so surprised that at first she forgot to struggle. When she remembered, she tucked her chin to prevent a stranglehold, just as her sister had taught her.

  Anmei! she thought, terrified.

  Holuikhan kicked back, hard. Her heel collided with her captor’s shin, and she was rewarded with a pained grunt.

  “Sssst,” her sister hissed into her ear.

  When the shock passed and Holuikhan was able to stop flailing, the hand against her mouth eased up, and the arm around her waist loosened.

  Yes, Holuikhan signed, still breathing hard through her nose. Yes, okay.

  Anmei released her hold and stepped back. Her eyes were as round and white as the big moon, and Holuikhan’s stomach dropped. Anmei was never afraid, even when the raptors were.

  Then she heard it, a cry that rose up on the winds even as the moons rose over the hunters, the baobing, and the stream of the drowned dead. It was the cry of a human child. Abruptly Holuikhan’s feet dragged her forward, all unwilling. Her hands pressed against the rough bark, and she peeked around the trunk of the tree—though she willed none of these things to happen.

  Stop! Anmei gestured sharply, but it was too late.

  When Holuikhan’s mind finally spoke to her of the things her eyes were seeing, she clutched at the ancient tree. It stood at the very edge of a great clearing, ringed with round stone buildings, empty-eyed and crushed like old skulls. Baobing had grown around and into the structures, their roots reclaiming thatch and stone and wood, but not one had ventured into the clearing at the center. Nothing grew there; not tree nor fern nor blade of grass, and Holuikhan knew deep in her heart that nothing from the forest ever ventured forth to peer into the old stone well.

  Until now.

  It was the perfect setting for a nightmare. A ring of—of things—crouched and swayed around the outer edges of the clearing. Manlike and naked, pale-skinned, glitter-eyed, and their limbs shone bright and hard as a night-widow’s carapace in the moonslight. They swayed like grasses in the breeze, though there was none to be felt, and they sang in voices high and brittle.

  That was not the worst of it. A smaller ring of creatures flowed back and forth around the well…

  Witching well, she thought. Oh sweet Akari, that is a witching well…

  These beings, though almost manlike in their bearing and posture, were less human than the baobing, less human than the pig she had hunted, or the old stone houses. They had extra arms, two sets apiece—corpse arms, she thought, sewn to their bodies as her mother might sew an extra pocket onto an apron. These arms dangled and twitched and moved as of their own accord as the not-men chanted and shuffled round and round in a terrible dance.

  The worst of all was a man—or perhaps he had been a man once, when the baobing was a sapling and Cold Spirit Spring was sweet and pure, and bore a kinder name. Tall and proud and still as shadows beneath a dying moon, he was broad of shoulder and narrow at the waist, like the emperor’s own soldiers. Something about him, some compelling air, made a part of her that was almost old enough to think of kissing wish that she might creep closer for a better look. The rest of her, the best parts of her, wanted to run screaming into the night.

  Her sister’s hand closed warm and steady upon her shoulder.

  “Let us go,” she breathed into Holuikhan’s ear, quiet as flower petals on a spring morn. She gave a little tug. “Sister, come away.”

  Holuikhan meant to, she did. Her fingers let go their hold of the tree’s rough bark and she prepared to push away, to melt into the forest with her sister, and never return to this place again. Then the man of nightmares raised his face to the pale moons. He wore a mask of leather scraps and jagged metal and shattered things, and he raised up both arms, as if in prayer. In one hand, the man of nightmares held a weapon, a wicked thing with a half-moon blade.

  In his other he held a babe.

  Newborn, or close to it, the poor thing kicked its tiny legs and wailed, piteous cries beneath the pitiless moons. Quicker than thought the blade flashed, up and down. The babe screamed, the shuffling priests chanted louder, and the bug-men chittered like soldier beetles scenting blood.

  Up, down, the blade flashed, glittering in the moonslight like the bug-men’s eyes, and it seemed to Holuikhan that it laughed. Up, down, and the babe stopped shrieking, stopped kicking, stopped. The man of nightmares—

  I know you, she thought, Nightmare Man.

  —brought the tiny, limp body to his mouth, and…

  Holuikhan screamed. It was a tiny sound, scarcely a breath, but its echo in her heart was vast. It was this that the Nightmare Man heard. It was this sound that made him look up, mouth dripping, and smile.

  “Get her,” he growled in a voice as sweet and deadly as mad honey. “Bring her to me. Bring her to me!” The priests stopped their dancing, the bug-men stopped their singing, and as one they turned toward her.

  “Go!” Anmei shouted. She tore Holuikhan away from the tree and flung her into the forest, back the way they had come. “Go!” she s
creamed, and she drew the knife from its sheath at her hip.

  “Anmei,” Holuikhan cried out. “Anmei, no!”

  “Run!” Anmei screamed, even as the first of the bug-men leapt. “Sister, run!”

  She ran.

  ONE

  “Go on.” Xienpei handed him a long bundle draped in yellow silk with a heavy red fringe along its edge. She flashed her teeth in the new light, mocking his hesitation. “It will not bite you. Not today, at any rate.”

  He took the bundle and tugged away the silk, letting it fall upon the floor even as his mouth fell open.

  “A sword?”

  “A sword, Daechen Jian. It is a virgin blade, still warm from its maker’s fires, so take care you do not blood it yet.” She took back the weapon, still in its plain lacquered scabbard, and belted it at his waist. “Here, keep this cord tied just so, lest the emperor’s soldiers take offense. No blade is to be drawn during the Napua, and no blood spilled. Some idiot always does, and some always is, and if you are that idiot I will leave you to rot in the dungeons. Do you hear me?”

  “Yes.”

  “Yes…?”

  “Yes, Yendaeshi.” Jian suppressed an impatient sigh and resisted the urge to roll his eyes. His yendaeshi could keep him in his rooms all day, if she was of a mind, and he desperately wished to be free of her, if only for a few hours. “Will the others…?”

  “Today the yellow Daechen will walk among us armed. Akari willing, you will not cut yourselves shaving. I assumed you would wish to give your dammati their blades, so the servants will be by later with ten more blades for you.”

  “Sixteen.” Jian kept his face still. “Sixteen have sworn their blood to me.”

  Xienpei blinked. “Indeed?”

  He said nothing. The remaining half-dozen of his bloodsworn would have to accept their blades later. He would make amends to them in private.

  “Sixteen it is, then.” She flashed her jeweled smile again, teeth sharp and hungry. “You have been busy, boy.” Jian let the insult slide past.

  “I would like to get dressed now,” he said. “By your leave, Yendaeshi.”

  “Of course,” she nodded, still smiling. “I will have the lashai deliver those swords to you presently. Enjoy the festival while you can, Daechen Jian.”

  * * *

  When Jian had finished bathing, the ever-present lashai bound his hair up into a prince’s knot and strapped him into a set of yellow lacquered armor. It was lighter than the practice armor to which he had grown used, and newer. It fit him well, though they had to loosen the shoulder straps and the waist was uncomfortably loose. Still, he imagined that he cut a fine and imposing figure, and hoped—not for the first time—that his mother might see him.

  She had always loved the festival of flowers, and surely would not pass by this opportunity to pay him a visit. Though the Daechen were discouraged from associating with former friends and family, it was not expressly forbidden.

  Jian emerged from the bathing chamber pressed, dressed, and eager to go. He allowed one lashai to belt the bright new sword at his waist, even as there was a knock at the door. Three of the servants entered, bearing the swords for his dammati, and laid them out upon the bed.

  There were twenty-two of them.

  * * *

  The Gate of the Iron Fist had been thrown wide, and the bloodstone path scrubbed till it shone. Though none but the daeborn would be allowed to pass through into the heart of Khanbul, the Forbidden City, it seemed as if every man, woman, and child of Sindan had turned out on this day to cram into Supplicant’s Square, hoping to receive the emperor’s blessing.

  It had been years since the emperor himself had come down from his palaces to bless the people, but there was always hope.

  The two gigantic stone warriors flanked the gate. The golden one stood, helmeted, arm upraised, while the red warrior knelt bareheaded across the gap, jeweled tears on his face. They were as bedecked with flowers as any of Khanbul’s finest citizens. Ropes and necklaces and blankets of flowers had been draped upon the stone giants until it seemed as if their frozen tableau was not a scene of bloody victory and defeat at all, but of romantic love between two great warriors. Perhaps the kneeling man was proposing marriage to the other.

  Jian smiled on the inside, and wished them well.

  The moat was filled with flowers, so that it seemed as if a person could walk across it. The water was thick with food wrappers and lost hair-ribbons, as well. Here and there a blossom had tucked itself into the wall, between the blades of the vanquished—carried there by the wind, perhaps, or tossed down from on high. Jian watched as a village youth in plain brown farmer’s garb snatched the crown from a girl’s hair and, laughing, sent it sailing out across the perfumed waters, to land with a splash and a ripple. The girl squealed and punched him on the shoulder, and they shared a laugh.

  Jian wished them well, too, though he had more in common now with the stone giants than he did with the village people.

  “They look so plain,” Perri remarked. His eyes flashed yellow in the hot midsun. “Were we ever like them?”

  “Yes,” Jian answered, and touched the still-unfamiliar sword at his waist. “And no.”

  “You are starting to sound like Xienpei,” Perri complained. “We are, but we are not. It is always, always this way… except when it is not. The cat is both dead and…”

  “Shut up,” Jian advised, “or I will toss you into the moat for the zhilla.”

  “As you say, Sen-Baradam.” Perri bowed, laughing. “Though I do not think they would thank you for such a meager feast.”

  “You are kind of bony.” Jian stepped onto the Path of Righteousness, setting himself even more apart from the common folk. None but the booted feet of the daeborn were allowed upon the blood-red road.

  “Some of these skulls are new,” Perri whispered. “Where do you think they get them?”

  Jian averted his eyes from the clean white bone. “Not from the Daechen,” he said.

  One could always hope.

  A commotion drew their attention. A girl—a pretty girl with a long face, wrapped in red and pink silks like a plum blossom—was leaning far over the moat. A pair of her friends laughed as they held the edges of her robes to keep her from falling into the bloom-laden water. Her tongue stuck comically out of one side of her mouth as she dragged a crown of blue lilies from her hair and flung it as if she were playing ring-toss in the gardens.

  Perri started forward. “She should not do that.” His brow furrowed with concern.

  It was a lucky toss. The crown of flowers caught a gust of wind and was carried up and over the wide waters. It sailed high and far, arcing down at last to touch the very walls of the Forbidden City, and was caught upon the hilt of a sword.

  The girl was transformed. In triumph, she had become a warrior. She shouted, fists in the air, a shout that turned quickly to a high squeal as the fabric of her robe tore. Then there was a weeping sound, a sound that would echo in Jian’s dreams for many nights to come. The girl fell forward, toppling down the bank and into the water with a soft splash.

  Her friends tumbled like wheat beneath the scythe, laughing.

  A pair of guards who had been chatting at the foot of the golden stone giant shouted and ran for the girl, waving their arms. Perri turned to Jian, yellow eyes round as an owl’s, mouth open as if he would ask his Sen-Baradam to save the girl.

  But it was too late, all of them were too late.

  Even as the girl struggled to her feet, raising her skirts with both hands and spitting out a mouthful of wet hair, the waters of the moat rippled. One of the guards flung himself belly down on the upper bank and shouted, red-faced with the effort. His voice was lost in the roar of the crowd. The girl set one foot upon the shore and reached for his outstretched hands.

  A fountain of bubbles and ink erupted some distance from the girl, and the many-ridged shell of a zhilla broke the surface of the water, fouling the flowers and the hair-ribbons of lost girls. It rolled
so that the creature’s bony hood appeared, drawing back so that its mouth and mass of writhing red tentacles were exposed. The thing hissed and spat. Flat silvery eyes as big as shields flashed in the sunlight as it focused on its prey.

  Jian opened his mouth, and perhaps he shouted. It seemed as if every person in Sindan was shouting at that moment, and the noise was deafening. The girl lunged forward, and her fingertips brushed those of the guard, but it had been too late for her since the moment she had tumbled into the water.

  The zhilla’s longer tentacles found her. They touched the foot that was still in the water and curled upward, sliding around her calf and up her skirts like a lover’s caress, and she screamed. They all did. Even the emperor’s own guard cried out as the girl’s hand slid from his grasp, as she gasped and jerked when the zhilla’s venom bit into her.

  She slipped beneath the waters, lost to them all.

  The surface of the moat ceased churning. The guard who had tried to save her was helped to his feet by his companion, who seemed to be yelling at him. They arrested the girl’s friends as the crowd milled about, filling the space where they had stood, even as the flowers and ribbons and feast-day trash floated back to cover the place where the girl had died.

  “Ah,” Perri said, and he closed his eyes.

  A low chuckle caught their attention. It was Naruteo, and he twisted his face into an ugly grin at Jian’s look.

  “Looks like sushi for dinner again, hey?” He laughed. “How many girls have you eaten, sea-thing child? Were they as delicious as that one?”

  Perri grabbed Jian’s wrist. Only then did he realize he had grasped the hilt of his sword.

  “He wants you to draw,” Perri whispered. “Look there, Sen-Baradam, he has set a trap for you.” And indeed, five or six of Naruteo’s bloodsworn had emerged from the crowd and watched Jian with hungry looks on their faces.