Tears once again stung Junari’s cheeks and, once more, she ignored them, her lips breaking out in a smile as her mouth tasted the salty blessings of the joy overfilling her heart. The Goddess Moaratana called to her, and Junari longed to meet her.
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THE FUGITIVES
LEE-NIN
THE DARKNESS held no shadows, only sounds — the cries of men dying.
Lee-Nin squeezed Sao-Tauna’s hand where they stood behind the false wall of the farmhouse. She wanted to whisper words of comfort, but could not make her throat form the tones. The dread of utter blackness and the feeling of the walls pressed close around her amplified the terror arising from the noise of the fight taking place mere paces away.
She had gasped as the warden swung his sword at the farmer’s neck, certain she would be heard, knowing the farmer would be killed. Then the lamp went out, and the screams began. How could the ugly farmer have survived the inevitable blow of the blade to his neck? How could he defeat five armed wardens even if the sword missed him? The farmer’s enormous size gave him an advantage, but not seated. He might have grabbed the meat knife from the table to defend himself, but such a small blade against swords portended a quick death.
The cries of the wardens became fewer and then ceased. Only moments had passed since the lamp failed. How did it flutter out? A breeze from the open door? Could the farmer have blown it out?
Flame danced along oiled cotton as the lamplight filled the room beyond the crack in the wall before Lee-Nin’s eyes. An inky blackness — a living slate-colored cloud — seemed to hover around the flame, momentarily blocking its radiance. Then the lamp glow revealed the aftermath of the previous darkened seconds.
The farmer stood beside the table, his fingers pressed to the cover of the book he had been reading. The wardens lay dead on the floor around him. Two bled from wounds — their own swords protruding from their chests. One leaned against the wall, his neck at an unnatural angle. Another lay at the farmer’s feet, his head bent backward to touch his heels. The leader, the one who had interrogated the farmer, lay across the table, his head hanging over the edge of the wood, unbloodied, undamaged, but his eyes empty of life.
Sweat dripped from Lee-Nin’s scalp to run along her neck and down between her shoulder blades. Her heart seemed frozen in her chest, her breath trapped in her lungs. How could one man, no matter how large, do such deadly damage and suffer no wounds?
As though hearing her thoughts, the farmer turned toward the false wall, seeming to look Lee-Nin in the eye. She pulled her face back from the crack in the wall, blinking to clear her mind. She looked at Sao-Tauna, noticing for the first time that the girl’s breathing had returned to normal. She softened her grip on the child’s hand, realizing she had been crushing her tiny fingers.
She heard footsteps come closer to the false wall. A moment later, the logs before her slid outward. The farmer’s head filled the opening.
“They are dead. I will need your help.”
He turned and walked back toward the table. Lee-Nin took a deep breath to calm her fears, exhaling quickly as Sao-Tauna pulled her by the hand into the lamplight.
The farmer stood near the door with two dead wardens draped over his shoulders, bearing the weight as though he carried sacks of wool. One of the bodies he held had been the leader of the wardens.
“How many more hunt you?” the farmer asked.
Lee-Nin swallowed, her throat dry.
“I don’t know. Another hand at least. If they had been close enough to count, we would be dead.”
The farmer grunted as he looked between Lee-Nin and Sao-Tauna.
“I will put the bodies in the cellar in the barn. Pack all the food you can find.”
The farmer turned sideways, carrying his burden through the doorframe and into the night. The sound of the dogs’ whining grew quieter as they ran from the farmer.
Lee-Nin guided Sao-Tauna to the bed and released her hand to sit her on the edge of the mattress. It smelled, oddly, of lavender and mint.
“Stay here.”
Sao-Tauna nodded, her face calm, her eyes showing a simmering excitement.
Lee-Nin walked around the dead wardens and retrieved the small sack she had been planning to use to rob the farmer of his food not so long ago. Now she stuffed the thin burlap bag with food at the same man’s behest. He had saved them. Somehow. And now he sent them away with food for their journey. She imagined the other wardens following their companions to the farmhouse and meeting the same fate. Her and Sao-Tauna’s future now seemed like one they might live to witness.
But why did the farmer do such a thing? Why did he risk his life to save a stranger and a child? And how? How had he killed the wardens? Did he possess The Sight? Did this explain why he lived so far from others in solitude?
She stuffed the bag with leftover dinbao and dried meat and a small round of hard cheese as she tried to forget her questions. She closed the sack with a string she found hanging on the wall and looked around for anything else she might use. Then she took the meat knife from the table and slid it into the crook of one of her boots. As she stood up, the farmer came into the room.
“Take this.” He handed her a clay jug with a cork stuffed in the opening. The reek of sow-fat lamp oil curled her nose. “Pour it over the blood and light it on fire. Douse the flames with a blanket from the bed.”
The farmer hefted two more bodies to his shoulders.
“Why?” Lee-Nin held the jug of oil and stared at a pool of blood where one of the wardens had died with a sword through his chest.
“It will disguise what happened. And confuse the dogs.” The farmer again walked into the cool night air.
Lee-Nin glanced at Sao-Tauna before uncorking the jug and pouring lamp oil over the bloodstained floorboards. She held two pieces of splint wood from the tinderbox on the windowsill in the flame of the lamp before tossing them in the puddles on the floor. She watched the fire lap up the blood, the heat first congealing the liquid, then turning it to pasty, black ash. As the fire spread beyond the bloodstains to clean boards, she turned to the bed, finding Sao-Tauna holding a thin woolen blanket. She thanked the girl and unfurled the bedcover, laying it flat on the floor and stomping it with her feet to extinguish the flames.
As she bent to grab the blanket, she caught the still-open eyes of the final dead warden, leaning against the wall. His face looked frozen in surprised terror. A face he would wear now for all eternity, if the writings of the Prophet Lan-Tau were to be believed.
Hearing the farmer approach, she stood up, folding the singed blanket in neat squares. The farmer gave Lee-Nin and the blanket a quizzical glance before picking up the body of the final warden and slinging it over his shoulder. He extended his hand toward Lee-Nin. She looked at his hand, uncertain for a moment, then passed him the blanket. He said nothing, carrying the final dead warden out into the darkness.
Lee-Nin stood looking through the doorway, out into the black, seemingly impenetrable night. Had it been so dark when she and Sao-Tauna fled through the woods? Was it only the difference in light that blinded her to the night, the lantern’s glow making the world beyond the tiny farmhouse appear immersed in the blackest of molasses? For a moment, the desire to stay in the house overwhelmed her. She had been running for so long. Long before that eavesdropped conversation on the balcony. Long before the palace. As long as she could remember, she had been fleeing or desiring to flee or planning an escape. Even secure in her position in the palace, she kept coins sewn into her clothes, a bag of necessities packed in her room, a stash of valuables hidden beyond the palace walls. The ache and weariness of running weighed at her bones, pulling her down, her legs sagging with the load.
As Sao-Tauna’s tiny fingers enclosed her own, she shook off the melancholy mood that afflicted her so suddenly. Where was the farmer? Should she wait? Should she tha
nk him? Or should they flee again before he returned from hiding the bodies?
As she made her decision and stepped toward the blackness beyond the doorframe, the farmer walked in, brushing past her without a word. He carried a large burlap harvest bag with a strap, half filled with what could be rocks, or apples, or potatoes, slung over his shirtless back. He must have discarded his bloodied clothing with the bodies. Lee-Nin could not help noticing the scars that marked his well-muscled back and chest — white-red lines mapping the history of a violent past. What farmer had such scars? He opened a wooden trunk near the bed and pulled another shirt over his head. Then he removed a long dagger from the trunk and slid it between his belt and trousers.
She watched as he went to the false wall at the back of the room and retrieved the dust-covered sword and the small leather satchel Lee-Nin had stood beside in silence for so many long minutes. He wiped the cobwebs from the sheath and satchel with a rag from his pocket and then slid them both into the harvest sack, pulling the opening closed with a drawstring. He tossed the rag into the hiding space and pushed the fake wall back into place. When he turned around, Lee-Nin stood in the doorway facing him, sack of food in her free hand, her voice quiet but firm.
“Thank you. For helping us.”
The farmer nodded but said nothing.
“You saved our lives, but if we do not leave now, your actions will have been wasted.”
The farmer nodded again.
“When the others come, what will you do?” Lee-Nin could not say why she asked this question. She did not know the farmer, but he had helped spare her life. A part of her wanted assurance that he would be safe. Another part of her knew that the real danger awaited the approaching wardens, not the tree-sized farmer with the scarred face and body.
“I will not be here when they arrive.” The farmer crossed the room to stand beside the table.
Lee-Nin considered the farmer’s words. This explained the sack and the sword then. The farmer would flee as well. This came as good news. Two trails might split the pursuing wardens even further.
“We seek a road toward the nearest town if you could point us in that direction.”
The farmer picked up his ruined book from the table, examining the hole through the cover and inner pages.
“The road lies behind us.” The farmer gestured with his thumb. “An hour’s walk. The town is two days to the east.”
“Thank you. Again.” Lee-Nin made to turn and leave, but curiosity and practicality stayed her feet. “Which way will you go?”
The farmer looked at her with a moment of surprise, as though realizing for the first time that he had been speaking a foreign language during their exchanges and she understood little of what he intended to convey.
“Toward the road and the town.” The farmer closed the cover of the heretic text and clasped it between his hands. “I flee with you.”
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THE THRONE
TIN-TSU
SLIPPERED FEET preceded the hem of a royal-blue silk nightgown across a polished marble floor out onto the smooth clay tiles of a balcony. A man of thirty-three years gripped the carved stone railing, leaning out to look over the palace gardens, his close-shaved head and angular face tilting skyward, his eyes glaring at the impudent scarlet drop of light shining beneath the sister moons.
High Tahn Tin-Tsu, heir to the ascendancy of the Daeshen Dominion, soon to be named zhan, grasped the edge of the balcony and gritted his teeth. A new star. A demon sign for certain. He knew the dreams to be a sign — a sign of wickedness, of a false temptress goddess’s infection spreading among his people, leading them to abandon their faith and their own true god for a pilgrimage to a land that would surely kill them. He thought of these pilgrims as sheep gone astray in the fields, needing the hand of a good shepherd to guide them back to the flock. He did not consider himself to be the shepherd. Only Ni-Kam-Djen could lead those who had lost their devotion back into his embrace. Tin-Tsu would pray for them and try, as best as possible, to correct them in their foolish thoughts and actions.
Who, now, would pray for him? Who would correct the tahn who dreamed the pilgrim dream? Who would rectify his mind as he woke from that dream to see the star it foretold? Who would adjust his deeds should they alter in the face of the dream that plagued him? How dare he assume to lead a nation beset by decades of war and torn apart by rumors and dreams of a new god if he fell prey to the sickness of this dream himself? A zhan did not follow the furrows set before him. A zhan must fashion a fresh path through the world, a new imprint for others to pursue. This was what his father had always said.
Thinking of his father reminded Tin-Tsu of their last words so many years ago. Words that at the time appeared cruel, but now seemed loving, like the words of the Great Father himself.
“Do you know why I send you away?” His father, a powerfully built man, had held Tin-Tsu’s shoulders firmly.
“I have shamed you and the faith.” Tin-Tsu had stared at his feet, unable to meet his father’s eyes.
“Yes,” his father said. “But I send you away not to punish you, but to give you the chance to create a new path for your life, one far from the palace and your family and … friends. You will make of yourself something else. Something purer.”
Seventeen years had passed since that chilly winter day. Seventeen years of prayer and training in the most remote mountain temple in the dominion. Seventeen years of trying to regain his father’s respect, to forge a new path, to become pure in the eyes of Ni-Kam-Djen. Seventeen years of effort brought to futility by a dream.
No one besides his father knew the true reason for his banishment. To the palace and the dominion, he left to follow his long-stated desire to join the priesthood, and he had never returned because of his extraordinary devotion. This was true. While he longed to see his parents and brother and sister again, after a few years, he grew unable to imagine a life beyond the confines of the temple walls and the mountain valleys outside them. He had not even come home for his father’s funeral, preferring to recite his prayers in private rather than participate in the public mourning.
His elder brother’s death in battle, leading an offensive against the Tanshen apostates to the south, necessitated leaving behind all he knew and cherished to return to the world he had abandoned in his quest for purity. Now, here in the palace once more, surrounded by forgotten familiarity, he would need to abandon his vows to fulfill his familial duty. As the remaining male heir, he must claim the ascendancy and be named zhan of the Daeshen Dominion.
He, the man who had worked so long to purify his heart, would need to lead men into battle. He who had given his life to his god would be forced to reclaim that life and offer it up to his people. He who had been so devout to the ways of the temple would need to be equally ardent in learning the practices of the palace court. He who had dreamed the heretic dream would need to lead the cause against the new false god and her easily deluded pilgrims.
Tin-Tsu did not understand what the dream meant, nor the star, nor why his god allowed such things to occur in his earthly dominion, but he did know one thing he could do about it. He could turn to the refuge that had brought him so much solace in his years away from the palace.
Tin-Tsu bowed his head and recited the words that had filled so many of his waking hours over the years.
“Great Father, protect me all my day and through my night. Guide me in my thoughts, inspire me in my words, help me to fulfill the promise of my actions. Draw near to my loved ones. Shelter them in your arms. Cast away my enemies. Unburden me of my travails. Grant me strength to follow your path even when the way is clouded and unclear. I bind myself to you now and for always, Ni-Kam-Djen, Great Father, Guardian of the Innocent, Slayer of the Wicked, Ruler of All.”
Tin-Tsu opened his eyes, his heart lighter, his mind clearer. He now knew what he needed to do. Even
if he did not know how, he would learn how, through the guidance of his god.
He bowed his head and closed his eyes again as he began to recite the words of the Protection Prayer once more, intending to pray until sunrise, as he had done for so many years in the temple.
“Great Father, protect me all my day and through my night…”
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THE FUGITIVES
ING-KU
ING-KU STOOD between the small farmhouse and the barn, looking out over the field of spring barley, watching a ruby glittering between parting veils of wispy vapor in an ink-black sky. The new star filled him with unease. He had heard of the dreams, and even heard a few people foolish enough to admit to having them. At least until the punishment for the dreams became known. The dreams had not come to him. He hoped they would not. His devotion to Ni-Kam-Djen surpassed even his dedication to the zhan, may he live forever, and the Tanshen Dominion he ruled, may it flourish and defeat its enemies.
How a seven-year-old girl could be an enemy of the dominion, he could not fathom. However, he did not question it. He had his orders, given to him from Zhan Taujin Letan-Nin’s brother, Tahn Lin-Pi. Unnatural. A danger to all. The words the tahn used to describe his daughter.
The woman, the child’s tutor, seemed more dangerous to Ing-Ku. How had she escaped the prison cell and fled the palace without drawing attention? How had she gotten out of the capital city of Tsee-Kaanlin so quickly? Where had she come by the coin to pay for food and transport? What tutor knew how to do such things? Was she a spy of the Daeshen Dominion? He would ask the woman these questions. When he found her and the child. Finding them, however, once again proved a more difficult task than he had assumed.
The Dragon Star (Realms of Shadow and Grace: Volume 1) Page 8