The Forbidden City

by Deborah A. Wolf

  “I know you will. You are a good daughter, the best I could have asked for.” He smiled at her and stifled a yawn. “Let me walk you to your rooms, Daughter. I can manage that much, at least.” He did yawn then, and laughed. “Then it is to bed for both of us, I fear.”

  * * *

  By the time Sulema bid her father good night, she was as drained as he appeared, barely managing to stumble upright through the door and past the dragon’s-head hearth to her bedchamber. She paused to pinch out the few candles that had been lit for her, much preferring to rest in true darkness. As she did so, a pair of eyes appeared, pale green lanterns hanging in the air before her.

  Sulema squeaked and stumbled backward so that she fell into her bed.

  A single candle hissed to life, cupped gracefully in the palm of the shadowmancer’s apprentice. She frowned at the thrashings as Sulema tried to fight free of her bedding.

  “I have come to give you your medicines,” Yaela informed her, “and none too soon, it seems. You look like three-day-cold shit.”

  Sulema gaped at the girl—woman, she corrected herself, of an age with me, at the least—and extricated herself from the cursed linens. “I was singing with the king,” she said haughtily. “It is hard work.”

  “You were singing.” The lush lips quirked a little. “I thought you Ja’Akari spoke only truth. Ehuani, ta? No ka iko.”

  “My father was singing,” she replied, stiffly. “I was assisting.”

  “Of course.” All manner of laughter faded from Yaela’s voice as the girl drew nearer. She looked closely at Sulema’s face, tilted her chin down—she was a full head shorter than Sulema—peered into her mouth, pulled Sulema’s lower lid down and looked at her eyes. “In truth—ehuani, do—you were helping the king more than you know. You are feeling drained, are you not?”

  She could hardly deny that. It was nearly impossible to keep her eyes from closing.

  “The Dragon King’s song soothes us to sleep.”

  “Rat shit,” Yaela scoffed. “This is more than sleepiness, he pa no’e. You have been sucked nearly dry of power, as a bloodsnake drains a rat. You did not know? Permission was not given?”

  Sulema blinked.

  “Fffffft.” The shadowmancer’s apprentice wrinkled her nose, and she held out a vial filled with a clear liquid. “Drink this. It will help. No good, ta, to mix the king’s meddlings with that Araid oe no a’u.” She spat. “And you not knowing it. Fffft. You are like a small child, falling asleep by the fire while the elders make plans for your future. It is time for you to wake up.”

  She shouted that last as Sulema drained the vial. Aasah and his apprentice would bring her the loremaster’s concoctions whenever Rothfaust himself was too busy, and she swore they added something that made the stuff even more vile. Sulema jumped, choking on the draft and more than a little pissed off.

  “I am awake,” she said, and she scowled.

  “You are nah awake,” Yaela scolded. “Nah wey ta, and if you do not wake up, now”—she snapped her fingers in front of Sulema’s nose—“you will die-o. These men feed you sweetmeats and honey lies, and you eat their words up like Chuyuni eating the sun.”

  “Chuyuni?”

  “Raven god of my people. He will eat the sun so that we may leave the Seared Lands, some day. At least, that is what the bards tell us.” She shook her head. “Me, I do not hold my breath. I make my own way out of Quarabala, I make my own life. As should you, ta. These men, these patreons and masters, this king, they tell you dey and tey and you go where they point, never looking to see whether the path they put you on leads over a cliff.”

  “Do not step into a pit of vipers with your eyes closed,” Sulema said, slowly. She shook her head. “You sound like my youthmistress, and I am sure it is sound advice. Thank you. But my father would never—”

  “Would he not?” Yaela asked, softly, softly. “My father sold me into the Edge to save his own skin, and yours does much the same. He has told you that he is teaching you to wield his magic, his atulfah, ta?”

  “Ta,” she answered. “Yes.”

  “Fffffft. Has he told you yet that you cannot wear the mask of Akari? Have any of these men told you so?”

  “He—I—what?”

  “Have these men told you that although you are, indeed, the last daughter of the Dragon King, you are not the first?”

  Sulema sat down, hard. Her head was spinning.

  There are vipers in this pit, and I jumped in with both feet.

  “A warrior should know better,” Sulema said.

  “A warrior should know better. Are you awake now, nau’ilio?”

  Sulema shrugged her bad shoulder. The pain and numbness had subsided, somewhat. “I—”

  “Yes, or no?”

  “Yes.” She smiled, reluctantly. “You would make a great youthmistress.”

  “No thank you.” Yaela snorted. “I hate children. They taste terrible.”

  Sulema gaped for a moment. When she saw that lush mouth tremble with a suppressed grin, she burst into laughter.

  “Ah,” she said at last, wiping her eyes, “we should go drinking some time. There is this inn—”

  “No time for drinking. No time for inns, or lovers, or dreams, nau’ilio. A woman cannot wear the mask of Akari, but she can be drained of her life force to feed the one who does, and as he—”

  “My father would never do that. He loves me.” Sulema forced herself to unclench her fists, and lowered her voice. “If you—”

  “Did he love his other daughter? The one he made Baidun Daiel, a warrior mage? The one he drained until she was nothing more than an empty vessel to fill as he would? The one he killed on the day you were found?”

  Sulema clutched the front of her vest, and said nothing.

  “You are a fly,” Yaela continued, though not without a hint of pity, “walking along a spider’s web, thinking that you are a spider. You should fly away before you find the sticky strand, nau’ilio.”

  “If I go,” Sulema said, “Ka Atu dies without an heir… and the dragon will wake. Yet you tell me that I cannot wear the mask of Akari in order to wield atulfah, and sing the dragon to sleep. What is there for me, then? I cannot simply ride back to the Zeera and be a—a warrior.” Her voice faltered as she realized, fully, that such was indeed her fondest wish—and that it would never come true. “If I stay, you tell me I will be, what? Drained like a fly in the spider’s web? And eventually the king will die anyway, and the Dragon will wake.”

  “Yes,” Yaela nodded. “You understand.”

  “This is a steaming pile of horse shit.”

  “Ta.”

  “Fuck that.” Sulema let her vest hang open once more. “There must be another way.”

  “There is,” Yaela agreed. “You will not like it.”

  “I do not like any of this,” Sulema said. “What could possibly be worse than either of these impossible choices?”

  “You could travel to my homeland, to Quarabala,” Yaela told her, eyes shining with mirth, “brave the old paths to the ancient cities, find the mask of Sajani—”

  “The what??”

  “—find the mask of Sajani, learn to wear it, teach yourself how to use atulfah, and then return to Atualon, challenge and defeat your father, and become Sa Atu in truth.”

  Sulema stared at her for a long moment. Yaela smiled.

  “You find this amusing?”

  “I find many things amusing,” Yaela told her. “My master often tells me that I have an inappropriate sense of humor.”

  “Your master.” Sulema frowned, thinking. “Your master works for my father—”

  “With your father,” the apprentice corrected.

  “Your master works with my father because he has been promised land, am I right? A homeland for your people?”

  “Yes, that is correct, ta. If we can ever figure out a way to get them all out of Quarabala and across the burning sands at once. That is his dream.”

  “So why are you telling
me all this? Is this not working against your own master? I cannot offer you a homeland. I have nothing to offer you, at all.”

  “Aasah owns me not,” Yaela snapped, “and his dream is not my dream. I care nothing for the people who—I care nothing for those people.” Her pale jade eyes seemed to glow with poorly suppressed fury. Sulema felt her way as carefully as if she were stepping into a dark pit, feeling for vipers.

  “So. You would, what? Take me to your homeland, help me find this mask, and why? What do you want from me?”

  “I would not take you,” Yaela said. “I cannot. I am… khutlani? Your Zeerani word? I am forbidden to go.”

  “Exiled.”

  “Yes, exiled, but I can give you the name of a woman who could help you find your way to Saodan, deep in the dark heart of the Seared Lands—if you could break free of your father, which is impossible, and if you could manage to cross the Jehannim, survive the Edge, and find your way into Quarabala, which is beyond impossible.”

  “I am to make an impossible escape in order to undertake an impossible quest.” Sulema sat heavily on her bed, feeling so tired again that she could weep. “This really is a steaming pile of horse shit.”

  “Horse shit can be dried to make fuel,” Yaela reminded her. “I killed my husband, taught myself to shadowshift, and escaped from the Edge. All of these things were impossible.” She shrugged. “Are your tits smaller than mine?”

  They were, in fact, but Sulema ignored the taunt. “What is it you want from me? As I said, I have nothing to offer.”

  “You go to Quarabala, you find the mask, you return—and you bring to me my sister’s daughter, my little niece.”

  “You have a sister? Is she as much of a pain in the arse as you?”

  “My sister is dead,” Yaela said in a flat voice. “Her daughter is all I have left in this world. She is all I care for in this world. You do this, Ja’Akari—bring me my Maika—”

  The shadows in the room grew darker, darker, they grew thick and heavy and aware.

  “—and I will give you the Dragon Throne.”

  TWENTY-TWO

  To the shores and sandy beaches lead the sparkling Ka’apua

  Lead the roads of man, the hunting-paths

  Lead the coruscating stars.

  That this young man’s feet should take him down this path should be forgiven

  Though it end in tears and sorrow

  ’Neath the faces of the moons…

  —Nenren Zhang Hengli, Book of Two Moons

  Tsun-ju Jian, the pearl diver’s son, returned to his home village of Bizhan in the four hundred and ninety-ninth year of Illumination, during the final moons of the reign of Daeshen Tiachu.

  The new emperor’s historians maintain that Jian Sen-Baradam rode before an army of one hundred Yellow Daechen and thirty Black Daechen, each of them sworn by sword and by blood to place his life before their own, and that his wife Tsali’gei Sea-Born rode at his side, silent and beautiful as the moons. It is widely accepted that when introduced the two of them, soul-bonded at birth, fell instantly into a love so deep it was a kind of madness.

  A second school of thought, less heeded but still respectable, maintains that although the young Sen-Baradam was smitten, his bride was more reluctant, and violently spurned his early advances.

  —Bilbil Chagha’an, The War of Pearls and Twilight

  “Where is she going?”

  Tsali’gei—his wife—stood on tiptoe beside her brown spotted horse, shading her eyes against the midsun glare and watching the puffs of red dust fade away as Xienpei and her entourage rode hard for the city.

  “To Khanbul. She has been summoned to the emperor’s side.” A messenger had caught up with their group just that morning, and Xienpei had shocked Jian by sharing details of the man’s message. Even as the messenger lay thrashing in his death throes, mouth foaming green and blue and red from the poison capsule he had bitten, Xienpei had shared the good news.

  Emperor Daeshen Tiachu’s spies had uncovered a plot against him. Karkash Dhwani had plotted to murder the Tiachu and name as heir the emperor’s youngest, a girl infant still at her mother’s breast. Thus Karkash and a group of powerful sen-baradam might… influence… the child’s upbringing.

  Jian did not ask what part Xienpei’s network of spies might have played in hastening the emperor’s discovery. Her eyes shone as his yendaeshi gazed upon her future.

  “Even as the dawn rises beneath the Sun Dragon’s wings, Daechen Jian,” she had said to him as the lashai readied her horse, “so does your fortune rise with mine. It is a beautiful morning, is it not?”

  “Beautiful, Yendaeshi,” he agreed, ever dutiful, ever careful, and he did not share with her his mother’s wisdom regarding red skies in the morning. To bind yourself to the dragon, as the villagers said, is to court tragedy. Surely his fortunes had risen with those of his yendaeshi—but what would happen to him when the wheel of fortune ground them down again? What would happen to his dammati, and to his mother?

  * * *

  Now he glanced at Tsali-gei—my wife, he reminded himself for the millionth time that day. She was flushed with anger and the crisp mountain air. With one hand she clutched a necklace of sea-bear claws, and with the other she held her horse’s reins with a touch so delicate it broke his heart again.

  What will become of her?

  “To Khanbul,” she repeated, and a storm gathered behind her dark eyes. “To the emperor’s side. What dangerous waters have you dragged me into, Husband?”

  Jian had learned better than to remind Tsali’gei that their marriage was no more his choice than it had been hers. He wished neither to anger nor to hurt her—and, truth be told, in his heart of hearts he would have chosen her over any other girl in the world, as surely as the moons chase the sun.

  “I will not let anything happen to you,” he said with far more confidence than truth.

  “Oh?” She arched a brow at him and grabbed her horse’s black mane. “Xienpei holds your leash, Jian Sen-Baradam, as surely as you hold mine. Your fortunes rise with hers, they will fall with hers, and I have no choice but to follow you like—”

  “The moons follow the sun,” he finished, heart pounding in his chest as her words echoed his thoughts. “I would not leash you, Tsali’gei. I would set you free, if I could.” They both knew that he meant the words, he was certain, and they both knew that it meant nothing. Tsali’gei bit her lip and stared hard at him, eyes bright.

  “Well,” she said finally, “that is something, I suppose.”

  She pulled herself into the saddle, graceful and strong as the sea, and rode on ahead without looking back. Jian mounted his own horse, a fine high-stockinged bay with a white blaze and fire in his step, and followed at a safe distance. Perri urged his mount to catch up with that of his Sen-Baradam.

  “How is married life?” Perri asked, as if asking what it might be like to catch a wyvern by the tail.

  “If I live to be as old as the emperor,” Jian muttered, “I will never understand the first thing about women.”

  “Ah, Sen-Baradam.” Perri grinned and winked his remaining eye, “Finally you speak wisdom.”

  “As you say, bai dan,” Jian agreed, and he laughed as Perri responded with a rude gesture. They rode on a red sky morning to Bizhan, at the head of a respectable army, the triumphant return of princes to a land which had once driven them to Khanbul as slaves.

  * * *

  Jian was reminded of the magician Hafou in one of his mother’s stories, who could neither sleep nor die until he had unburdened his pockets of gold and his heart of regret. As the magician shed his wealth and his sins, his heart grew lighter and lighter until at last he flew up into the sky and away to the land of peaceful dreamings.

  “See that eddy, with the three white birches?” he told Garid Far-Eye as they crossed a small cold stream. “That is where I caught my first redfish. Dao-dao’s father taught us to make little canoes out of birch bark, but ours were not very good, and we all got
wet.

  “Here,” he told Tsali’gei, “I would come with my mother to collect wool from the blue goat. See how it clumps in the blackthorn? I was the only boy in my village with a cloak of blue goat’s wool.”

  “In the Twilight Lands,” she told him, “we collect the golden fleece, and our old men weave it into tunics for our honored hunters, as the old women sing songs of glory and luck for the hunt.” Her smile was beautiful, but faded quickly. “They collect the golden fleece, I should say. I will never do so again.”

  Jian had heard stories of the golden flock, and the great ram who guarded it, but Tsali’gei’s eyes were far away and full of sorrow, so he did not press her for more. Still, it was more than she had said to him since their meeting, and he decided to take this as a good sign.

  I would hunt the blue goat for you, he wanted to say, and the golden ram, too, if it would make you smile at me like that.

  Here, he thought as they passed the old rice mill, is where I tried to convince Faizhui the miller’s daughter to kiss me. He had not been successful in his quest, but since that time he had learned enough about women to keep that memory to himself.

  The land had not changed much—an old apple tree that Jian had loved had been felled, a new vineyard planted, but these were ordinary things—but the people of Bizhan were not at all as Jian remembered them. They melted away at the sight of the emperor’s troops, driven before the Daechen princes like schools of silverfish before hunting serpents, blown away like chaff separated from the wheat. The pig farmers, the miller’s family, even the fishmonger’s boys so full of vinegar and swagger fled at the sight of banners, and armor, and horses.

  Bizhan had seemed the world to Jian, in the long-ago days of his childhood and up until this very spring. Looking at it now through the eyes of a Daechen prince, he saw it for what it was—a poor and unimportant province of Sindan, filled with poor and unimportant slaves of the empire, small people with even less power than he could claim.

  Jian found, to his secret shame, that this suited him very well. You reviled me not a year past, he thought at their retreating backs, you spat and cursed my name. “Daemon spawn,” you called me, you spat upon my shadow and drove me from your midst. Now I am returned to you as Sen-Baradam, you and your lands are to be given over to my control, and you flee from the sight of me. Am I so different from the child you cursed, from the youth you cast aside?