The Grass King’s Concubine

by Kari Sperring

  She looked. He stood in front of her, closer than she liked, something bright in his hand. He held it out to her. An earring. Not the mate for the one Liyan had fixed in her ear, but another one, larger and far more valuable. A single dark blue pearl hung from a fine white gold chain. The mistress of the duke of the Southern Reaches, back in the Silver City, had a necklace of blue pearls, but hers were small and uneven. This one was the size of a walnut. Sujien reached for her face, and she flinched. “Stand still. I won’t hurt you.” He reached again, and this time she stepped back.

  He said, “Don’t be ridiculous.”

  She did not want him to touch her. She said, “I can do it myself.”

  “Ah.” Something flickered across his face, something knowing and sly. “Very well, then,” he said, and handed her the earring.

  The pearl was cool and silky under her fingers. She fastened it in her earlobe and said, “There.” And then, “I’m thirsty.”

  “You should have remembered that in the bathroom.” But he let her return there and drink the tepid water while he paced and muttered. She lingered, letting the water slip between her fingers, pretending to be more thirsty than she really was. His impatience could not bode well for her. If she dragged her feet, fumbled, lingered…Perhaps Shirai might come in search of them, or Qiaqia. Liyan, even. He had given her the knife.

  The earring was still in her lobe. She touched it, and it rang, a faint sweet note. She looked up and found Sujien watching her, his eyes wide. Water trickled from her palm, dripping into the bath. Clear water…Aude gasped. The flow from the tap was still rusty. For the water to have changed…Crossing the room, Sujien knelt by the bath and held his fingers in the running water. Then he touched their wet tips to her lips. She flinched, and he smiled at her.

  Not that cool knowing smile, not this time. This smile was open and awed and—yes—kind. He said, “I knew it…I was right. I was.” He dried his hand on his sleeve, then held it out to her, like a beau with his lady. He said, “Please, come with me.”

  She stood, ignoring the hand. He raised his brows at that, but dropped the hand in silence. He opened a door off the dressing room and ushered her through into a shady bedroom with green-washed walls and a curved, timbered ceiling. It held little, save a great bed, laden with rich brocades. Aude swallowed, reaching for the knife.

  Sujien said, “Lie down.”

  She drew the knife and held it out before her, edging away from him. “No.”

  “I told you: I’m not interested in that. Now lie down.”

  Once again, he was between her and the door, and the windows were all closed. She said, “Why should I believe you?”

  “Why not?” His puzzlement sounded genuine.

  “You kidnapped me, you assaulted me, you locked me up, you kept on abusing me and blaming me…”

  Sujien shook his head. “You’re a captive. That’s appropriate for a captive. Other matters…” He hesitated. “Other matters are not.”

  He was embarrassed, she realized. Somehow, her fear of rape had embarrassed him. A giggle began to rise up her throat, and she battened it down, hard. If she started to laugh now, she might never stop. She said, instead, “I’ll sit on the bed. Will that do?”

  He looked at his feet. “Perhaps.”

  “Well, then.” Eyes fixed on him, she moved toward the bed.

  “The other side!”

  She blinked. Sujien cleared his throat, said, “It needs to be the other side. Away from the lamp.”

  “As you wish.” The words were dry. She perched on the very edge of the bed and eyed him, ready for him to try to push her, to take the knife and hold her down. “There.”

  He did nothing, only stood and watched her. The brocade coverlet was stiff and cold though her silks, even slightly damp. She put her empty hand down on it, fingers spread. Yes, damp, despite the dryness of the air. Her confusion must have shown, for Sujien said, “She hasn’t gone, not completely. She greets you.”

  She! Aude jumped to her feet, rubbing the hand on her side. She had been sitting on someone. In someone. A shudder worked its way up her back. Like the bed in her rooms in the Courtyard of the Concubine, this one held a fragment, a shadow. She said, “That’s disgusting.” The cramp in her gut tightened, and she set her teeth against it.

  Sujien said, “Why?”

  Not human. She glared at him and said, “Because it is. Can I go now?”

  “Yes. We’re done here.”

  There was a great door set into the wall of the suite’s central room, made of black wood and bound in tarnished brass. She looked at it, and Sujien shook his head at her. “Not even I can open that door. Not at present. You can check it, if you like.”

  He was not to be relied on. He had some plan that she could not unravel. She tried the door with her free hand and found it immovable. She looked around for another exit. Perhaps behind one of the wall hangings or concealed in the plasterwork. He stood in the center of the room, watching her and once again smiling. He said, “We leave the way we came.”

  “But…” Aude said, and caught herself. “Let me guess: It’s the only way?”

  “Yes. Come.”

  They went back out onto the terrace. Aude looked around once again, searching for any landmark. The roofs and occasional towers were all too alike—her courtyard could be anywhere. Away to her left was a dark squat smudge that might perhaps be the water clock. She went to the edge of the terrace and looked over. At least three stories up. She did not like her chances of climbing down safely. She put up her chin and turned to Sujien.

  He said, “Put your arms around my neck.”

  She did not want to touch him. She did not want to relinquish her grip on her knife. Her sole alternative would be, it appeared, to stay here. She bit her lip and tucked the dagger into her sash. “If I must.” She put her arms around him, cautiously, standing as far away as she could. He laughed and swung her up into his arms. And then…

  He exhaled. Perhaps that was it. Something changed about him—he thinned out or grew lighter or…She did not know. She knew that he began to rise, taking her with him, and the air held them as he walked on it. Not human. She had known that from the beginning. She had not really grasped what that meant until now. He might have been on a stairway, treading on nothingness with complete unconcern, step by downward step. The air around them was still, as if it traveled with them, held them, perhaps. She asked, “How?” and fell silent. Perhaps he needed to concentrate, to do this. Perhaps it was dangerous to distract him.

  “I lead the Air Banner.” The tone was matter-of-fact. “It’s what we do. Indeed…” And he smiled at her again, that warm, real smile, “It’s what I am.” As he spoke, he began to fade, skin and hair and garments growing pale, turning translucent.

  She found herself in midair, still moving, all alone. She gulped. A trick, that was all, she would not panic, she would not scream. She could, she told herself firmly, still feel his arms supporting her. It was all right, he was still there…

  The arms vanished. Resolutions forgotten, Aude shrieked and shut her eyes. This time she really would fall. He had tricked her, yes, but to her death and…She could hear laughter. She opened her eyes and found him once more solidly there, holding on to her. She said, “Don’t do that,” and realized that she sounded like a petulant child.

  He brought them to land in one corner of a great square. Long arcades bounded two of its sides, and the third was closed by a wall and a tall gate. Along the fourth, a wide stairway led to a dais and a deep, pillared hall. The stone shapes of guardsmen were everywhere, standing in pairs in the arcades, at the gate, on each step. Heaps of fabric lay crumpled across the court and along the dais. Bright glimpses of bones peered out from amid them here and there. The air was heavy, filthy with the stench of yeast. Aude coughed, burying her face in Sujien’s shoulder, but he pushed her away from him, setting her on her feet on the broken pavement.

  She pressed her sleeve to her face, breathing as shallowly as s
he could. The air clogged her lungs, dragged at her, pulled and tugged and oppressed her with every breath, as if it sought to reshape her from within. Her eyes stung. She coughed again, and the strength of that brought her to her knees. Sujien grabbed her arm and pulled her upright; she sagged against him, too choked to do more. Into her ear, he murmured, “Not much longer.” She fumbled for her dagger, found her fingers too stiff, too clumsy to hold onto it. Step by step, Sujien towed her across the court, and her feet tripped and stumbled in his wake. Her lungs cried for air, yet no breath she took provided it. Around her, the world swam, out of focus, out of all sense and understanding. They reached the foot of the stair, and her feet failed her, too starved of air to obey. She fell again and lay there, sprawled across the first five or so steps. They were cool and hard against her cheek, the air down here perhaps a fraction cleaner. She closed her eyes, savoring the solidity, the certainty of stone. Above her, somewhere in the murk and acridity, Sujien said, “It has to be so. Do you see?” She did not see anything, nor understand. She wanted only to go on lying there, where all was solid and unchanging.

  It was not permitted. Once again, Sujien heaved her upright, slipping an arm under both of hers and around her back, and guided her like a puppet up the flight of stairs. There was no more to her than that anymore—the stone underfoot and the rush of silk against her scratches; Sujien’s grasp and the unending desperate laboring of her lungs. She could see nothing, hear nothing save the thunder of her heart in her ears. She was luggage, nothing more.

  He dumped her. She sprawled across the floor—tile, now, not comforting stone—listening to the pounding of her heart. She was fading—she could feel herself beginning to slip, to slide away into the fug of yeast and poison that filled her. She had no way to fight it. Cold crept up her limbs, binding them even more tightly to the floor. She was sinking, the tiles turning soft and liquid beneath her…Yeast—tainted moisture trickled under her clothes, washed into her wounds, teased her stinging eyes and sour mouth. She was drowning on dry land, in the heart of this arid palace; her body was melting into it, washing away, inch by slow fluid inch. Doughy tendrils surrounded her, teasing their slow sticky way over her garments, under the hem of her trousers, up her sleeves. Someone, somewhere, was keening, a thin high shriek of fear and pain. She could not tell if it was her.

  Something brushed her cheek, and her eyelids flickered. A flash of orange, a trick, no doubt, of her oxygen-starved brain. Another brush, and a high-pitched humming played counterpoint to the drum of her heartbeat. She could not concentrate; she was too misty, too moist and dilute and lost. From far away—too far to contemplate, some place beyond her, beyond all of her—a voice cursed, and a blast of ice-chill air rushed over her. That was…She labored to focus, and the last shreds of her supplied a name. That was Sujien, troubled by something.

  Troubled by something. That was supposed to be to her advantage, if she could but concentrate—if she could but breathe. The humming grew louder, and the brush repeated itself, soft and determined, over and over. Someone calling her name, Aude! Aude! Aude! She mustered the very last of herself and lifted her head. A thud of footsteps on tile and a blur of gray and brown, and that voice, that voice that had spoken to her before through every boundary.

  Jehan.

  30

  The Grass King Is Angry

  THE STONES OF THE RICE PALACE woke Shirai. They pulled at him, taut and fragile, as only stones can be in the last moments before the earth shifts and breaks itself. He was on his feet, sword in hand, almost before they had finished speaking his name, his old name, that silent sound that the Grass King had invoked back at the start of things when he drew Shirai from the living rocks. The urgency of the call propelled him from the quarters of the bannermen to the center of the palace at a brisk walk, while servants scuttled out of his way, flattening themselves against walls or stepping into doorways,

  Something was wrong, and the Grass King knew it. Something, a hint, a shadow, an alien flavor, shivered over the court and its personnel. It hovered in the voices that rose in his wake, a shadow of trouble and uncertainty. It waited in dark corners, stirring up disquieting notions. Something is happening. Sujien speaking of infringement, of incursion. Liyan’s mechanism. Tsai dancing alone for the Grass King.

  The captive in his small chamber with his papers and his weaving and the scurrying services of the ferret twins.

  Something is different, something is changing. The air was chill; Sujien’s restless mood infected everything. Chill and dry. Shirai increased his pace. Something was wrong; something was not as it should be. In the antechamber to the Courtyard of the Clients, two of his banner greeted him, their eyes wide and uncertain, tension riding the line of their shoulders. He saluted them without speaking and passed on, through the hidden door and up the dark stair that led to the Tower of Meditation. The call redoubled, and the tower shook around him. He took the last steps at a run.

  The Grass King stood at the top, gazing out the east window. His back was to the staircase; beneath his feet, dark cracks spidered through the flagstones. His fingers, broad and strong, sank into the stone of the window frame. On every side, Shirai could feel the earthquake stir.

  He said, “Sire, do not.”

  The Grass King turned, and Shirai dropped to his knees, eyes fixed on the floor. In the voice of the tumult, the Grass King said, “Do not think to command me in my own realm.”

  “Your pardon, Sire.” The tower shook again, a reminder that WorldBelow had been born in turmoil. Shirai sent what reassurance he could back through the structure of the palace, and he lifted his head. He said, “Sire, the palace woke me and sent me to you. It fears your displeasure.”

  The Grass King said nothing. Shirai continued, “It feels your anger. It knows not what it has done.”

  “It has hidden things from me.” The earthquake was still there. Shirai could feel it, the anger and alarm spreading out in all directions. “It has reshaped itself without my permission,” the Grass King said. “It has allowed ways to be opened to WorldAbove. Look,” and his hands fell, heavy as boulders, onto Shirai’s shoulders. Shirai held steady. “Look,” the Grass King repeated. “Go to my window and tell me what you see.”

  “Sire.” Shirai rose, despite the weight of those hands, and went to the east window. The Grass King had opened it onto some settlement of humankind, a ragged cluster of mud brick houses and ragged enclosures. To one side, a group of humans gathered around a makeshift shelter, listening to one of their number reading from a book. A slight figure stood beside him, wrapped in long robes and carrying a bundle of more papers. Shirai frowned. Something about that shape…The scene shifted, opening on a larger settlement. A stall stood in the shade of a great tree, piled high with books and pamphlets. Two forms moved around it, offering the books, speaking, or so it seemed, to those who passed. Two forms in long robes, their faces hidden behind pale yellow scarves.

  Yellow. One of the figures shifted, and Shirai saw its eyes, deep amber and slitted like those of a cat. Not human, those eyes, but the eyes of bannermen.

  Of Fire Bannermen.

  “You see, Mo-Shirai,” the Grass King said. “Liyan flouts me. He deals with humans. He gives them things made in my realm. He breaks his duty to me. He breaks our boundaries.” The tower shook a third time, and this time Shirai heard the sound, somewhere, of stone tearing. The Grass King continued, “Liyan flouts me. And Tsai…Tsai is gone.”

  Dry air, dry and bitterly cold…Shirai turned. The palace shivered under his feet, begging him for protection. The Grass King was angry, the Grass King and, from that icy air, Sujien. He said, “Sire, do not harm the palace for Liyan’s deeds.”

  “The palace knew and did not tell me,” the Grass King said. “The palace lied.” He gestured again at the windows, and the scenes they showed changed again. On every side, now, Shirai saw the palace walls. Everywhere, amid the painted scenes, humans appeared, dancing, weaving, harvesting. “My palace reflects them,” the Gras
s King said, “and my Firehand encourages them. I will not have it.” The earthquake spoke though his last few words. The tower groaned and swayed. Shirai held himself firm against it, so that his strength, such as it was, might keep the tower intact. The Grass King said, “Don’t disobey me, Mo-Shirai.”

  “No, Sire.” And Shirai again bowed his head. “But…” and he hesitated, felt the fear that gripped the palace, “Sire, you made me to hold this place firm. I ask you for it. I ask you not to harm it for what Liyan has done.” The shaking that had troubled the tower infected him now, working its way from his limbs to his core. He set his teeth against it. “Sire, when you summoned me, this is what you said: ‘First, I name you, and soundest. Keystone and guardian.’ Sire, in the name of my making, I ask you: do not destroy what you have made.”

  For a moment, he was sure he had failed. The weight of the Grass King’s anger grasped him, tossed and tumbled him to the floor. He steeled himself for it, the wrench of unmaking. But then…All around him the shaking stilled. “So,” said the Grass King, and his voice was tight. “You remind me of myself. Very well.” A pause. Shirai raised himself to his knees. The Grass King said, “You test me, Mo-Shirai.”

  “Sire, forgive me.”

  “You test me, and you speak for those who have angered me. But,” and the Grass King’s tone softened at last, “thus I made you. Very well, let it be as you wish, for now. Fetch to me the Firehand, Mo-Shirai, and the captive human with whom he has plotted. And bring them swiftly, before I change my mind.”

  Alarm shook Julana awake. She bounced to her feet, every hair tense and saw her concern mirrored by her twin. Something wrong. Something very wrong. Something had changed since the night before, something had brought danger. The air was full of it, ice crystals and ozone and anger. Anger in the air and in the earth. The walls of Marcellan’s room resounded with it, telling fear through every line and crack. The dim darkness held no comfort, no shelter.