Dragon and Phoenix

by Joanne Bertin

  Joy spread over the messenger’s face. To be allowed to hear the Song without having made the full pilgrimage beforehand was a rare privilege. The man knocked his forehead against the floor three times. “Thank you, gracious lord!”

  He crawled backward, touching his forehead to the floor now and again, until he was at the door. Then the man stood up and left.

  The moment the messenger was gone, Haoro cupped the paper lotus in both hands.

  By this one’s color, he knew its message as if it had been set before him in the finest calligraphy.

  Be ready.

  So—the time had come for the realization of the ambitions he and his uncle shared. And what, Haoro pondered, has my revered uncle devised for his part?

  No matter; he would find out when his uncle made his pilgrimage to the Iron Temple. Jhanun would never set his schemes to paper; this would be for Haoro’s ears alone. Again he wondered what his uncle had planned. Whatever it was, it would be bold.

  The priest looked once more at the lotus. Had the messenger guessed the import of what he’d borne? The Eternal Lotus was by custom worked only in paper of the purest white. Therefore, this one could not exist.

  With a thousand regrets, Haoro let the masterpiece drift into the brazier and watched it burn.

  Many spans of days after he started his journey, Baisha stood beside a crude dugout canoe on a desolate beach on the northern shore of Jehanglan. He rubbed his forehead as if he could rub away the lingering effects of the illness that had delayed him. Damn that he’d ever caught the shaking sickness! It had made him late to leave Jehanglan.

  “You are certain the Assantikkan ship will be leaving shortly?” he said to the trembling man the temple soldiers had forced to kneel before him. “Answer me or they die.” He jerked his head.

  “They” were the man’s terrified family—a wife and a babe in arms—standing behind him within a ring of more soldiers. Swords pricked the hostages’ throats.

  “Yes, lord,” the man stammered. “They never stay very long—a few hands of the sun. You must hurry.” He tried to look back at his family. A soldier seized his long black hair and yanked his head around again. Tears of pain filled the man’s frightened eyes.

  It mattered not to Baisha. He looked over to the priest from the Iron Temple. “Did your master give you what I need?”

  The priest nodded and reached within his robes. When he brought out his hand again, a crystal globe filled it. Inside floated a golden image of the Phoenix. The captive whimpered at the sight of it.

  Baisha took it and hid it away inside the ragged and salt-stained robes he had donned a little while ago. “The rest?”

  Once more the priest reached into his robes. This time he brought forth a jar of ointment. “Smear this upon your face and hands, and all other exposed flesh. It will redden and irritate the skin so that you’ll look as if you’ve spent days drifting in the boat. Remember to smear some upon your lips, as well; they must be swollen and cracked as if from lack of water.”

  Grimacing, Baisha took the jar and removed the oiled paper lid. So he must look as wretched as he felt. With a sigh, he scooped some ointment out and smeared it on his bare arm. The priest signaled the acolytes who flanked him to aid.

  Soon Baisha was ready. He stepped into the dugout; two soldiers ran to catch the sides and push it out to sea. Baisha picked up the single paddle and set to work, cursing under his breath. The damned ointment was doing its work quickly and too well.

  The priest called out, “What about these cattle?”

  Baisha barely glanced over his shoulder. “Kill them, of course. We want no witnesses.”

  He ignored the anguished screams behind him and bent to his work.

  Four

  To rule the heart of the Phoenix Lord—that was power. Yet what was power if one lived confined? Though the bars of the cage were of carved jade, banded with gold and hung with silk, they were still bars.

  Shei-Luin noh Jhi turned from the screened window. Her silk-shod feet padded softly against the floor as she went once more to read the message on the desk.

  Such an insignificant bit of paper; the merest strip that would fit around the leg of a fast messenger pigeon. But all the world hung in its words.

  The emperor is dying. Come at once-Jhanun.

  Shei-Luin studied it, tracing the words with a long, polished fingernail. Her finger paused over the signature: Jhanun. Just that. No title, no seal, not even an informal thumb print.

  Were I as stupid as you hoped, Jhanun, it would have worked. And you would have wrung your hands over my death, vowed vengeance against whoever used your name, and grinned like the dog you are in private.

  She could well believe Xiane claimed he was dying; that did not surprise her. A stomach ache from green mangoes and Xiane Ma Jhi, august emperor of the Four Quarters of the Earth and Phoenix Lord of the Skies, squalled that he was poisoned.

  She’d seen it too often to be frightened anymore.

  But whether Xiane were dying or not, it would mean her death to approach him before her time of purification from childbirth was over. Which was exactly what Jhanun wanted. He had lost much of his former influence over the Phoenix Emperor since Xiane had become enthralled with her.

  Was Jhanun mad that he thought she would obey—or did he think her a fool? No matter. He would learn. She was not to be taken by such ploys. Fool he was, to place such a weapon in her hands; if Xiane saw this, Jhanun would not escape banishment a second time. She would keep this safe to use one day if necessary.

  But that the emperor’s former chancellor thought to order her as though she were still a simple concubine—that was arrogance.

  And arrogance was not something she need tolerate. Not even from one as powerful as Jhanun nohsa Jhi—Jhanun, second rank servitor of the Jhi. Not when she herself was noh, first rank. Not when she was the mother of the Phoenix Lord’s only “heir,” born just three weeks ago.

  A cloud of black hair spilled over her shoulder as she bowed her head at a sudden thought. Her hand clenched on the fan beside the note.

  Was all well with her son? Xahnu was with his retinue in the foothills of the Khorushin Mountains, sent there to avoid the lowland fevers that carried off so many children every hot season. He should be safe. Even those as ambitious as Jhanun or the faction he headed would never dare harm the emperor’s heir—the Phoenix would destroy them.

  Even so, she wanted her baby by her side. Tears pricked at her eyes.

  No! She must not be weak. Her breath hissed through clenched teeth. She must be the coldest steel—especially if the emperor were truly dying. There would be a throne to seize did that come to pass. A throne that Shei-Luin already had ambitions for.

  And Jhanun must be taught a lesson. That he thought to fool her by so transparent a trick angered her. He must be removed from the game that was the imperial court. Without him the Four Tigers would be masterless, scuttling in every direction and none, like a centipede with its head chopped off. They would cease their endless attempts to manipulate the weak-willed emperor. More importantly it would end their attempts to depose her.

  “Murohshei!” she called. Her voice rang in the airy pavilion like a bell. At once she was answered by the slap of bare feet against the polished wood floors of the hall as her eunuch obeyed the summons.

  Murohshei—slave of Shei. Idly she wondered if even he remembered what name he had carried long ago, before being given to the then-child Shei-Luin for her own.

  The eunuch entered the room. He fell to his knees before her, forehead pressed to the floor. She stood silent a moment, pale hands clasped before her, holding the fan of intricately carved sandalwood and painted silk like a dagger.

  “Murohshei.” Her voice was clear and sweet.

  The eunuch looked up at her.

  “Murohshei, I desire the head of Jhanun.”

  “Favored of the Phoenix Lord, Flower of the West,” Murohshei said. “It shall be done. However long it takes, it shall be done.
” He touched his forehead to the teak floor once more.

  Shei-Luin smiled. She imagined Jhanun’s head on a pike outside her window. It would look very well indeed.

  Then, as it had done all too often of late, the earth trembled violently. Shei-Luin staggered, would have fallen had not Murohshei sprung to her aid.

  The Phoenix was angry once again.

  Five

  The dragon flew rapidly to the north, urgency in the rapid beating of its wings. Soon it dwindled to little more than a speck in the brightening sky.

  Maurynna paused in the doorway to the balcony, wondering which Dragonlord was abroad so early and with such pressing need. She knew it for one of her kind and no truedragon; whoever it was, he—or she—was much smaller than her soultwin Linden’s dragon form. And even he, she’d been told, was no match for a truedragon.

  She finished wrapping the light robe around herself and continued into the new day, considering what this early-morning flight might mean.

  She’d caught only a glimpse, just enough to tell her that the dragon was dark, either black or brown. Jekkanadar or Sulae, perhaps? She knew they were both black in dragon form; but then so were a few others. If brown, well, there were too many it might be to hazard a guess. Maurynna pursed her lips in frustration. She was too new at Dragonskeep to know her fellow Dragonlords by sight in both of their forms.

  Ah, well; no doubt she would find out eventually. She would put it from her mind and enjoy the early morning. It had always been her favorite part of the day.

  The thought brought back a memory of the sea and the feel of her ship beneath her feet; she pushed it away and concentrated on what was before her. This was her life now.

  The mountain air was still cold with the passing night; she shivered but made no move to go back inside. Instead she marveled at the colors of the mountains as the light spread across them, reaching bright fingers across the great plateau to the Keep.

  First came the grey of the mountains’ granite bones peering through their skin of earth. Then, as the growing light flowed down the mountainsides, it revealed the pine forests standing guard between frozen peaks and living valley below, hidden now in the morning mist. Below their windswept green ring blazed the autumn leaves of maples, oaks, aspens, and many other trees Maurynna couldn’t name, turning the valley walls into a tapestry of frozen fire that inched downward day by day.

  Autumn in Thalnia, her home country, never announced itself with such a fanfare of color, nor did it begin so early. Maurynna refused to think of what was to follow: snow that would bury the passes until the spring, trapping those who could not fly inside Dragonskeep. She would not think of that; she would think only of the beauty before her.

  Remember how you dreamed of this when you were a child listening to Otter’s tales before the fire.

  How she’d dreamed, indeed—and now it was real. Joy blazed in her heart. She, Maurynna Erdon, was one of the great weredragons.

  Maurynna Kyrissaean, a sleepy voice corrected in her mind. Your dragon half would not like to be neglected, the voice added with a chuckle. She’s a most opinionated lady—for all that she won’t speak to me, Rathan, or anyone else.

  Maurynna made a wry face at the reminder, then concentrated; mindspeech was another thing new to her. I’m sorry. Was I shouting again? As always when she used mindspeech, she felt what she could only describe as an “echo” buzzing in her skull. It made her want to open her head and scratch.

  Only a little; no further than me, anyway. You’re doing much better. What are you doing up so early, love?

  On the heels of his words, her soultwin Linden Rathan padded out onto the balcony in his bare feet. Linden’s long blond hair was tousled, his dark grey eyes still heavy with sleep. He rubbed at them, yawning. Maurynna caught a glimpse of the wine-colored birthmark that covered his right temple and eyelid—his Marking. He wore only a pair of breeches against the chill.

  Maurynna shivered at the sight and shrank into her robe.

  One eyebrow went up as he smiled. “Are you cold? Silly goose, did you forget you could call up a heat spell now? Come here.”

  She went happily into his arms, turning in them so that she could look out over the mountains once more. Sometimes there were advantages to forgetting one was a Dragonlord, she told herself smugly as she pressed her back against her soultwin’s broad chest. Linden must have called up a heat spell even before getting out of bed. Someday such things would become second nature to her, but for now she was content to stand with Linden’s chin resting on the top of her head, his arms warm around her, and gaze out at the mountains that were her new home.

  Yet try as she might, she could not think of them as home. They were beautiful, yes. But they were not the refuge of her heart. She admitted it to herself: she wanted the Sea Mist back.

  I’d only just become a captain, she thought sadly. It was still all bright and shiny and new.

  And the thought of being trapped in the Keep for the long northern winter nearly made her scream in panic.

  Though she knew it would do her as much good as beating her head against the proverbial stone wall, she had to try once more. “Must we stay here? I’d like to see my family and friends in Thalnia one last time. I never had a chance to say good-bye to them.”

  Linden sighed and rubbed his cheek against her hair. “I’m sorry, dearheart, but you know what the Lady has decreed. She’s concerned because you can’t Change; she feels it’s safer for you here. Besides, there is the matter of Kyrissaean.”

  Ah, yes; the matter of Kyrissaean. The recalcitrant, irritating, inexplicable dragon half of her soul. Who refused to speak to any Dragonlord or even another dragonsoul, yet always lurked in the back of Maurynna’s mind. Who would not let Maurynna Change, who kept her earthbound and chained to the Keep.

  Damn Kyrissaean. It would be long and long indeed before she forgave her draconic half.

  Maurynna fumed. “I hate being coddled. And you’re coddling me—all of you.”

  “Yes,” Linden agreed equably. Maurynna wondered if he guessed how tempted she was to kick him for it. “We are; I am,” he went on. “It’s been far too long since there was a new Dragonlord. And I waited far too long for you, love. Bear with us.”

  And if you all drive me into screaming fits because you’re smothering me? Then what? But she held her tongue; the last thing she wanted to do was fight with Linden first thing in the morning. Especially not when he nibbled her neck so gently.

  Eyes closed, she let her head fall back against his shoulder to make it easier for him. His hands slid upward. Oh, yes; a fight could wait at least until after breakfast.

  But when, much later, they reached the great hall where the meals were served, something drove all thoughts of argument from Maurynna’s mind.

  A young man stood with his back to her. As tall as Linden, though not as broad of shoulder and chest, he conferred with Tamiz, one of the kir servants. His hair glinted red-gold in the late morning sunlight that poured through the tall, narrow windows. He wore it in the Yerrin fashion, as Linden did his: shoulder length save for a long, narrow clan braid hanging from the nape of his neck and down his back. But where Linden’s braid bore the four-strand pattern of a noble and was bound with the blue, white, and green of Snow Cat clan, this man sported Marten clan’s black and green tying off the three-strand braid of a commoner.

  Curly, reddish hair was common among Yerrins, and Marten a large clan. It might be anyone. Still …

  Tamiz nodded, a sudden grin appearing on her short-muzzled face. She beckoned the man to follow. The set of shoulders and head was distinctive, but it was the horseman’s walk that gave him away beyond a doubt.

  “Raven!” Maurynna gasped. Then, louder, “Raven—what are you doing here?” She ran across the wide floor.

  Raven stopped, looked back over his shoulder; his face lit up at the sight of her. “Beanpole!” he cried as he caught her in a hug.

  Maurynna hugged him back, forgetting that she was no
w much stronger than she had been as a truehuman.

  “Ooof!” Raven wheezed in surprise.

  “Oh, gods, Raven—I’m sorry. I forgot,” Maurynna said, laughing in delight. What was her best friend in all the world doing here?

  Raven avoided her eyes. “So did I,” he said at last. “I’m sorry, Your Gr—”

  Maurynna went cold. Not from Raven. Please—not from the boy she’d traded black eyes and heartfelt secrets with all her life. She couldn’t stand it.

  “Finish saying it, lad, and you’ll be lucky if all she does is knock you down,” Linden said as he came up. He clapped Raven on the shoulder. “Remember me? We met when you were a child. When did you arrive?”

  “Late last night, Dragonlord.” Raven bowed, then stared a moment before blurting out, “But you’re not as tall as I remember, my lord.”

  Linden laughed. “And you’re not as little as I remember. You’ll certainly not be sitting in my lap any more. Otter warned me a while ago that you’d grown. Speaking of him, isn’t your disreputable great-uncle awake yet?”

  “I kept him up last night,” Raven said with a smile.

  “No excuse for him—not today,” Linden said. “Lazy wretch. Tamiz, if Otter’s playing slugabed this fine day, tell him I said you could pour a bucket of cold water over him to rouse him. Dragonlord’s orders, in fact.”

  Tamiz laughed and went off. There was a wicked glint in her eye.

  Oh, my—she wouldn’t, would she? Maurynna turned back to find Raven staring at her.

  “So it’s true,” he said.

  “Yes.” She swallowed. Why was her mouth suddenly so dry?

  Linden said nothing, only shifted so that their shoulders lightly touched.

  “I used to tease you about your eyes, that they were a Marking because they were two different colors,” Raven said. His voice was flat and tight. “I never thought I was right.” A long silence, then, “You won’t ever come home again, will you?”