by Matt Larkin
When the man gave them to him, Naresh sat inside an ancient temple, writing letters. He’d have to have them taken to the nearest village and delivered from there. It would take time for the others to reach this place, if they came.
Chandi would come, of course, if the letter found her on Swarnadvipa. Semar and Kertajaya, it was hard to say. Semar would understand what was at stake, but Kertajaya never seemed to look past his own self-interest.
Of course, right now, defending this place was in everyone’s best interest.
Ketu had used the Astral Temple to throw all the Isles into chaos. Naresh didn’t want to imagine what Rangda could do with it.
CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED EIGHTY-TWO
Bendurana’s ship, the Long Awaited Dawn, bucked on the unruly seas, but it was certainly more stable than the rowboat had been. Phases had passed, dawn had come, and still the elements raged. They seemed to obey the command of that dragon. Such an odd creature. And she claimed to be Malin’s wife. If anyone deserved such a title, it was Pohaci, not some dragon he may or may not have known in another lifetime. And really, he married a dragon? Inside her, the crocodile shifted, feeding on her rage. If she wasn’t careful, it would seize control. It knew only one way to sate anger—with blood.
Pohaci was the one who had been by Malin’s side in all his struggles against Rahu and Ketu. She was the one he loved. The only one.
Not some creature.
The waves surged again, and Pohaci had to grip the gunwale to steady herself. The stormy sea was no place for a crocodile.
A sudden spray of water erupted from the ocean, and the sleek turquoise creature soared up, landing on the ship’s bow. The impact, or at least the weight, caused the ship to rock forward, angling the deck in a way that made Pohaci’s stomach lurch. The dragon seemed to notice, because she stalked closer to the center of the ship, allowing the dhow to stabilize.
“Ah, my… lady?” Bendurana said. “Such a prestigious guest has rarely graced the deck of my ship. Certainly not of this ship, although I’ve had a goddess or two ride some of my other decks.”
The dragon snarled at the Serendibian, who quickly backed away, then turned to Landorundun.
“What happened to him?” the creature demanded.
“They tell me he was possessed by a ghost from Kahyangan. The spirit of Rahu, former War King of the Lunars.”
“He wasn’t just possessed,” Pohaci said, advancing. “He was taken after the sacrifices he made to destroy the lunatic! We have to free him.”
The dragon didn’t look at her. “You let this happen,” Tioman snapped at Landorundun.
“This happened long before she got here,” Pohaci said. If Malin’s supposed wife thought she could ignore her, she was in for a shock. “You want him? Maybe you should have been there fighting Rahu with us.”
And maybe then the ghost would be in her instead of Malin. Actually, a possessed dragon would probably be a bad thing.
Now Tioman did look to her. “You are bold, girl.” The dragon sniffed her. “And possessed yourself. Moon Spirit?”
“I am Buaya Jadian.”
“I don’t know what that means,” the dragon said.
“It means—”
“I also don’t care.” Tioman turned back to Landorundun. “Can you drive the spirit out?”
“I don’t know,” the Solar said. “I didn’t know about any of this.”
Chandi moved beside the Solar. “The only way to get Rahu out is by killing the host.”
“No!” Pohaci said. “We’re not killing Malin!”
Tioman turned back to her again. “You … You love him?”
Oh shit. It was done now. Pohaci lifted her chin and looked the dragon in the eye.
“You think you can take my husband away from me, you … you tramp!” The dragon’s eyes flared red. She snatched Pohaci with one claw around her waist.
“Stop!” Chandi cried.
But Tioman pulled Pohaci in closer and tossed her into the sea. The ocean washed over her and sucked her under. It had grown too tumultuous for her to swim, at least as a human. Water stung her eyes and filled her nose. She couldn’t shift in daylight. She flailed about, struggling toward the surface. Then arms reached around her and hefted her upward.
She sucked in a mouthful of air. Another woman held her around the waist, keeping her on the surface.
“Breathe,” the woman said.
A heartbeat later a surge of water lifted her up, carrying her over the ship like she was flying.
Crocodiles were not meant to fly.
Pohaci landed on the deck with a thud. A naked woman landed down beside her. No, not a woman, a duyong—a mermaid. The mermaid’s tail became legs, and she shakily stood. Pohaci shook her head. She was afraid the dragon alone might not have made for a memorable day. Now she had a mermaid to ensure she never forgot this trip.
“Dewi?” Bendurana said. “How did you …? Ah, my lady, you never cease to surprise me.”
The dragon turned on the mermaid, snarling.
The mermaid shook her head. “These are still my seas, dragon. You know who I am? Do you really want to see which of us has greater control?” The mermaid reached her hand out toward the ocean and the tumult grew eerily still, despite the biting winds.
With a last glare at Pohaci, Tioman leapt off the ship and dove back into the ocean, showering the deck in seawater as she vanished.
“Thank you,” Pohaci said to this Dewi. The woman, or spirit, rather, was pretty. But these things could be deceiving. Pohaci hadn’t ever heard of anything good coming from Kahyangan. Still, she’d saved her from the sea—and from that dragon. What had Malin been thinking, getting involved with the creature? “Who are you?”
“The better question, my dear,” Ben said, clearing his throat, “is would you be interested in some clothes? If not, fear not, we don’t judge. But it would be remiss of me not to offer.”
Landorundun disappeared into the forecastle, and came back a moment later, flinging a baju and sarong at Dewi’s face. “What are you doing here?”
“You’re welcome,” the woman said, then walked over to Ben without putting on the clothes. “You always manage to find danger, Ben … If I couldn’t have you, at least I could save you.”
Ben’s mouth opened, but it took a moment for words to come out. “What are you saying, my dear?”
“I did it for you. She wasn’t in her anymore,” Dewi said, indicating Landorundun. Her voice almost broke. “So I called to her again. I thought, she wanted my body once … If I took her back …”
Landorundun pushed her. “What do you mean you did it for him? Who asked you to—”
Ben stilled her with a hand on her shoulder. Pohaci took off her baju to wring it out, ignoring the stares of the crew. Jadian had better things to care about than modesty.
“I took her back to protect him,” Dewi said. “To protect you all. My body, my life for the power.” The last she said so softly the humans might not have heard it.
Ben embraced her, and suddenly Landorundun’s scent went from cold anger to very hot wrath. But the Solar said nothing.
“I wanted to protect,” Dewi said. “I just didn’t think I’d need to this soon. How did you manage to anger a dragon?”
“My dear, she was not angry with me,” Ben said. “Women the world over hold only love for dear Ben.”
“I know,” Dewi said.
Ben threw a glance at Landorundun, who was scowling, then hugged Dewi again. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry for everything, Dewi.”
The woman shuddered and returned the embrace.
Pohaci leaned against the gunwale. If the mermaid had calmed the seas, she was welcome here. Even if this little dhow was getting crowded.
CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED EIGHTY-THREE
A crenellated wall surrounded the Astral Temple, but Naresh didn’t have nearly enough men to guard the entire perimeter. If Rangda came with leyaks, the wall probably wouldn’t make much difference, anyway. The things could fly
—at least at night, when the heads detached from the bodies.
Naresh walked along the length of the wall now, inspecting Tua Pek Kong’s troops. The admiral had made Naresh an honorary officer in the Tianxian military, which was a great honor. Many of the Tianxian soldiers had mechanical bows that could propel a bolt with extreme force. The one advantage the wall gave them was height. From their elevated positions, they might have a better shot at the leyaks. Unfortunately, the flying demons were fast—maybe too fast for many of the crossbowmen to hit.
“Sir,” a soldier said in Tianxian. “A small party climbs the paths up the cliff.”
Naresh nodded, then Strode down to ground level outside the wall. A small group meant it wasn’t an attack, so, with luck, reinforcements had arrived. The Tianxians had braced the wooden gate with bands of iron. It probably wouldn’t do any good against the forces they’d face, but Naresh hadn’t wanted to disabuse them of whatever slim hopes they held on to.
Crossbowmen leveled their weapons at a group cresting the rise up to the plateau. Chandi was at the group’s head. Naresh ran for her. Thank Surya! When reports came that Malin had taken Bukit …
Chandi started running for him too and leapt into his arms, wrapping her own around his neck and her legs around his back.
“Chandi!” He buried his face against her neck and held her close. “You got my letter?” he said after holding her a moment.
She shook her head when he set her down, then kissed him. Her soft, warm lips brushed over his, speeding his heart. He ran his fingers through her hair. Not a scratch on her.
“Ah, Naresh, your romantic efforts have improved,” Bendurana said. “I’m comforted to see you have begun to master life’s most important lessons.”
Naresh looked up to see Ben, Pohaci, Dewi Kadita, and … Landorundun?
He squeezed Chandi’s hand, then walked toward Landi. They stared at each other for moment, then he clapped her on the shoulder. “I should have known you were too stubborn to die.”
“Damn right.” She wore her hair down, as she had done back in the Academy, and it blew in the breeze.
Naresh caught himself smiling. Damn. It was really Landi.
He turned to Dewi Kadita. The former harem girl held herself straighter now, and her eyes didn’t back down from his for a moment. “What are you doing here?”
“I would not see Rangda have her way with this world. My business with her is not quite finished, though our last encounter weakened me. I still claim the South Sea as my domain.”
Naresh raised an eyebrow. Well, that was different.
“Ah, Naresh,” Ben said, “she’s Nyai Loro Kidul. Some of the time. You get used to it, for the most part. By which I mean not really.”
“We are both here,” Dewi—or Loro—said. “We have an understanding.”
“Better her than me,” Landi said.
Pohaci snorted, then stalked off through the gate. Naresh waved at the Tianxians to let her pass. None of the soldiers seemed to know what to make of the odd gathering, and Naresh couldn’t blame them. He led everyone inside, then took Chandi’s hand.
“What’s wrong with the werecrocodile?”
“A lot happened,” Chandi said. “She’s … my sister.”
What? “How?”
Chandi shrugged. “My father had this whole other life.”
Well, he supposed they did look a bit similar, but thinking she was related to a Jadian seemed odd. “I guess that means she’s my sister-in-law, then?”
Chandi crooked a half smile, shaking her head. “What are we going to do, Naresh?”
He sighed. It was easy to pretend he needed them all here because he missed them. He did miss them all. But Rangda and Rahu were still out there, and his forces had been depleted badly. Word had not yet come from Semar or Kertajaya, so he had no idea if he could count on them to defend this place.
“The Witch-Queen attacked here,” he said. “I killed her, but we lost all our ships, too. Fewer than eighty men remain to guard this place.”
And he had lost more than men. The memories were irreplaceable, but more than that, he’d lost years—years of his life he could have spent with Chandi. She was here, brilliant and young and vibrant. And now she would outlive him by decades. And telling her would only break her heart. It almost broke his.
He drew a deep breath. He couldn’t dwell on this. She’d see it in him. “What happened on Swarnadvipa?”
Chandi stroked the back of his hand with her thumb, while she spoke of searching the island for clues about Pohaci. She told him they learned her father and Rahu had perpetuated a conspiracy to bring the man into Lunar society, a conspiracy far deeper than they had thought at first. And Rahu, now in near full control of Malin, had attacked them.
The part about the dragon seemed pretty unbelievable, but Chandi said it with a straight face. And, Surya knew, he himself had been through some rather unbelievable things lately.
“Is Pohaci well?” he asked.
“As well as can be expected. Finding out your lover is married to another woman can’t be easy. Finding out she’s a dragon and she plans to eat you wouldn’t help your mood much, either.”
No. He imagined it wouldn’t. “I’ll speak to her,” he said. He’d spent enough time traveling with the Buaya Jadian that maybe she would listen to him. He was going to need her strength before this was over. And if she was Chandi’s sister, she was family. “Bring everyone to that temple,” he said, indicating an unused one beyond Tua Pek Kong’s command post, “tonight after the evening meal. We’ll decide what to do.”
Chandi smirked, then kissed him.
“What?”
“You’re starting to act like a real prince,” she said, still smiling.
No, he wasn’t. Shaking his head, he walked through the temple compound. Pohaci drifted among the pillars, just beside the bowls leading to the lower levels. This werecrocodile was Chandi’s big sister. Naresh folded his arms. The light rain had soaked through the woman’s hair, leaving it plastered against her face. Her hair was a bit shorter than Chandi’s, at least in the front, where she cut it off just under her ears. But they had the same features, really.
“Are you going to stand there staring,” she said, “or do you want something?”
Naresh walked to her side and put a hand on her shoulder. “I’m sorry for what happened with Malin.”
“I can still get through to him.” She shrugged free of his hand and leaned against a pillar. Surya’s pillar, if Naresh remembered correctly.
“I hope you’re right.”
“Rahu has taken so much from me. I will not let him keep Malin.” She met Naresh’s gaze there, a fire in her otherwise sweet face. “The man, the foreigner came here and destroyed everything. My family, my home. And finally he’s taken my love. I’m going to destroy him, no matter what it takes.”
Naresh frowned. According to Chandi, Malin claimed Rahu and Kala had come through the Astral Temple from some foreign land. She also said Semar had hinted that Rahu’s old country had built the Astral Temple and maybe other ruins across the Skyfall Isles. It didn’t make any sense. There was a piece of the puzzle he just didn’t have, and he was beginning to think the only way he could hope to stop all this was to understand it.
Rahu and Kala. Their war with each other had spilled over into Kasusthali, into the Skyfall Isles. And through it, they had ruined both dynasties. Oh, now he could see the corruption had been there before. Ken Arok’s betrayal of the Radiant Queen and his own assassination proved that. Maybe the empires would have fallen eventually even if Rahu hadn’t come here. But maybe they could have been saved.
“Brother,” Pohaci said.
Naresh turned. Lembu Ampal had called him that, though Naresh had never had any true siblings.
“Chandi said Malin would rather die than be a slave to Rahu.”
“You two know him much better than I ever did.” Naresh had seen more of Malin than he ever wanted to, but he wouldn’t say he knew him.
“She’s right.”
He nodded. There was no easy way out of this. Something had come into the world from Kahyangan, and it had no intention of going back.
He clapped her on the shoulder, then walked away, strolling the compound, until a sound caught his ear. A flute, played from somewhere up on the ramparts. He Strode toward the sound, finding Landi sitting on the edge of the wall, playing a Tianxian flute. It was her song, but it was different. It had become mournful and joyous at the same time. The song had always been complex, but now, something lurked beneath the surface. A rising tension, like a dam about to burst, and that tension filled him and flowed through him, until he realized it wasn’t tension. It was anticipation. She had tried to put hope itself to music.
And if he could hear it, feel it, she must have succeeded.
He closed his eyes and drank in the song, turning his face to the sky and letting the rain wash over it. He didn’t open his eyes until she stopped playing.
“Chandi told you about Hainuwele?” he said at last.
Landi drew a deep breath, but said nothing. Naresh and Chandi had gained a sister in Pohaci, and Landi had lost hers.
“I’m so sorry, Landi.”
She shook her head, still looking over the edge of the cliff, not meeting his gaze. “I’ve lost the Sun Brand.”
Naresh started, then turned to face her directly. “How is that possible?”
“I don’t know. I guess when Loro was in me, her battle with Rangda burned it out somehow.”
If he ever lost the Sun Brand it would be like losing a part of himself. After so many years, the Sun Stride had become second nature. He could never imagine how Landi must feel. “You are still Arun Guard, you know. You’re still one of the finest warriors in the Isles.”
She sighed. “And I have this,” she said, raising a keris. Ken Arok’s keris. Damn, he’d thought the Isles were rid of that thing.
“Landi, that sword is cursed.”
“I’ve noticed. It makes me strong, but darker. Still, we may need it before the end.” She hesitated, then turned to face him at last. “You say I’m such a fine warrior. What if I don’t want to be a warrior anymore?”