Tonken-Wu stood at attention, hands behind his back, feet together, spine straight. While he faced the zhan, he had placed himself where he could see the entire palace garden, a blank stretch of wall behind him. He attentively watched those working in and passing through the grounds. A threat might come from anywhere. His detail of men waited at four corners around Zhan Tin-Tsu, a respectful distance away. The zhan preferred to take meetings in the garden when possible. Tonken-Wu had tried to impress upon him the difficulty in securing the garden to no avail. He had resorted to paying the garden master from his own allowance to inform him of unusual behavior on the grounds. The old man spent every day in the gardens, rain, shine, snow, or sleet. He would know if someone unfamiliar appeared there.
Tahneff Rin-Lahee paused with her attendants several paces away. She seemed intent upon speaking with the zhan when he had completed his business with the councilor. She spoke briefly with the women and then walked toward Tonken-Wu. Curious what she might wish to say to him, he straightened himself as she approached. When she stopped before him, he bowed, placing his arms at his sides.
“My tahneff, how may I assist you?” Tonken-Wu rose from the bow and looked into the young woman’s face, attempting to judge her intent.
He had been pondering for some time the potential threat the soon-to-be zhan consort might pose. She would sleep with the zhan alone in their bedchamber. Poison drops in the ears, a blade stabbed into a chest in slumber. An open door or window to allow night daggers entrance. A traitorous spouse presented many ways to end a zhan’s life.
“Commander Tonken-Wu, may I speak with you a moment?” The tahneff briefly looked to the zhan.
“Certainly, my tahneff.” Tonken-Wu wondered what might bring the future wife of the zhan to speak with him.
“I must ask something of you.” Tahneff Rin-Lahee’s lips tightened as she spoke.
“How may I help you, my tahneff?” Tonken-Wu’s curiosity seemed a creature that might crawl out of his chest to question the woman. What did she want of him? What could he provide her?
“Where I grew up in the north, we did not have such a wide circle of acquaintances.” Tahneff Rin-Lahee gestured to the trees and flowers and ponds around them. “Our castle could fit in the gardens of the palace with room to spare. A small place for small people. Provincial is the word I hear whispered as I pass through the halls. An accurate appellation. I know no one here, with the exception of my family, most of whom will depart after the wedding ceremony. The few who will remain in palace posts are largely cousins I have hardly seen all my life. I have only one brother, and with my father’s death, he must return to our estate.”
Tahneff Rin-Lahee stopped, seeming to consider the direction of her words and what destination she truly intended for them.
“I do not understand, my tahneff.” Tonken-Wu resisted the urge to shake his head in confusion. It would be impolite to respond thus to a tahneff.
“Here in the palace court, I am a fawn among wolves.” Tahneff Rin-Lahee spoke with a smile, but her voice sounded weary and sad.
“I see, my tahneff.” Tonken-Wu did see, but did not know whether to believe his ears.
“Do you truly?” Tahneff Rin-Lahee lowered her voice as she stared at him. “I trust my future husband, because I must. And I trust him, because he appears to be exactly the man he presents himself as. Honorable. Devout. Generous of spirit. And I see the trust he places in you. I have decided to trust you, because he does so.”
“Thank you, my tahneff.” Tonken-Wu bowed his head, a sign of respect for her trust. Could he believe that trust or might it be a ruse to convince the zhan’s protector to lower his guard?
“Do not thank me.” Tahneff Rin-Lahee’s voice and face hardened, seeming to transform her from a young woman to an experienced matron. “To be trusted in these times is a burden, not a blessing. There has been an attempt on my future husband’s life and there will be more. My own life will no doubt be in danger as well. This does not worry me as much as the thought that the lives of our children may be threatened. While I will become the zhan consort, one of my children will eventually assume the ascendancy. I must ensure that they live long enough to do so. And so that means I must rely upon others. I must place my trust in them. But I am new to court and have no friends here. I would ask you to be the first of those friends.”
“I would be honored to be that trusted friend, my tahneff.” Tonken-Wu bowed his head slightly again. He did not know if he should trust the young woman set to become the most powerful female in the dominion, but he found that he desperately wanted to. He wanted to believe that another could be relied upon to put Zhan Tin-Tsu’s interests before all else. He hoped that reciprocation of trust would not prove a grave error of judgment.
“Thank you.” Tahneff Rin-Lahee inclined her head toward Tonken-Wu, a sign of appreciation.
“As that friend, I ask that you do what I cannot, my tahneff.” Tonken-Wu did not know if his words might give offense, but now seemed the time to establish the parameters of their new alliance.
“And what might that be?” The pitch of Tahneff Rin-Lahee’s voice rose in curiosity.
“That you watch over the zhan when I cannot.” Tonken-Wu looked to the Zhan Tin-Tsu still seated on the bench with Prime Councilor Kao-Rhee. “There are places and times where he will be with you alone, and where I cannot protect him.”
“As that is already my duty as his future wife, I assure you I will do all I can to keep him from all manner of harm.” Tahneff Rin-Lahee smiled as Tonken-Wu turned back to her.
“Thank you, my tahneff,” Tonken-Wu said. “That eases my mind greatly.”
“As you have eased mine.” Tahneff Rin-Lahee looked to the zhan, then back to Tonken-Wu. “It seems my future husband will be engaged with his adviser for some time to come. Please tell him I will find him later. There are wedding details I must attend to with the mother zhan.”
“As you wish, my tahneff.” Tonken-Wu bowed formally with the tahneff’s departure and return to her attendants. They walked with her as she continued through the garden and back into the palace halls. Tonken-Wu watched them go, wondering what pact he had entered into with the future zhan consort. He decided it did not matter. Whatever it turned out to be, he would use it to fulfill his duty. To protect the Zhan Tin-Tsu from all potential foes, and from himself when necessary. Not that the man could not protect himself, but even a man such as Zhan Tin-Tsu could only fight so many adversaries at once. Tonken-Wu saw it as his responsibility to battle those the zhan could not, particularly those who might attack before being seen. Which raised again the question that the tahneff’s conversation had echoed — who in the palace could Zhan Tin-Tsu trust, and who would attempt to kill him next?
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THE PHILOSOPHER
SKETKEE
A FLY buzzed in the warm air, trapped beneath the canvas arched over the wooden rims covering the wagon that jostled along the pockmarked lane. Sketkee ignored a dark, primal urge to snatch the insect from the air and swallow it whole. Such things were marks of a savage rakthor that had reverted to unenlightened ways. She leaned back against the wall of the covered wagon, stretching her legs out between two crates and several sacks of supplies. Kadmallin sat next to her, his eyes closed, not dozing, but resting from a long night spent before a blacksmith’s forge.
“Not long now.” Kadmallin did not open his eyes as he spoke.
“Yes. Soon.” Sketkee found it best to respond briefly when Kadmallin followed his human inclination to verbally narrate the events transpiring around him. “I believe…”
“Don’t tell me,” Kadmallin interrupted.
“You do not know what I was about to say.” Sketkee marveled at his presumptuousness.
“You were going to tell me the odds that our plan worked.” Kadmallin lowered his voice.
“Yes.” Sketkee frowned. Were her actions becoming predictable? An unsettling thought. “How did
you know?”
“You find calculating odds reassuring,” Kadmallin said. “I find it depressing. Especially since our odds are rarely better than forty-forty.”
She noted his use of the rakthor numerical system but did not comment. He did so no doubt to surprise her.
“I suspect our odds are better than that this time,” Sketkee said.
“Humpf.” Kadmallin adjusted his position against a crate as the wobble of the wagon’s passage over the rough road cast a sack onto his head. “It might have been easier if we simply tried to steal it for real.”
“Those odds looked long indeed.” Sketkee’s plan had required Viktik to believe they intended to steal the device when in actuality, they hoped to be taken captive and transported along with it. Originally, she had assumed Viktik would travel back to Taknaht, but since the discovery that the device had been altered, a more promising possibility existed. Soon the wagon would reach a forking in the road and either proceed south to the coast and eventually a vessel back to her home realm, or west toward the Forbidden Realm. The direction would determine how the second phase of Sketkee and Kadmallin’s plan would advance.
“So, if we head south at the fork, what do you think happens to me?” Kadmallin raised an eyelid as he turned his head to Sketkee.
“That is uncertain.” She had been pondering that very question herself, ever since Viktik left them in the blacksmith’s shop the previous night. “There is no precedence that I am aware of for someone from the Iron Realm being tried for a crime against the Central Governing Committee of the Sun Realm that allegedly occurred while in the Iron Realm. There may even be a case to make that the crimes were actually against Viktik as an individual, not as a representative of the Sun Realm, and therefore must be adjudicated in the Iron Realm. Unfortunately, my knowledge of rakthor legal philosophy is slender.”
“So he might just kill me.” Kadmallin opened both eyes.
“That is a possibility, although I suspect he would wait until reaching the Sun Realm so as to ensure my cooperation in transit.” Sketkee began to calculate the chances of Viktik killing Kadmallin at some point before reaching the Sun Realm, if they headed in that direction. She abandoned the effort after a moment, as much because Kadmallin would not wish to hear the odds, as because she did not herself entirely wish to know them.
“If he kills me, make sure you roast him alive.” Kadmallin closed his eyes again.
“If he kills you, that will be the last of many things I will do to him.” Sketkee found the notion of Kadmallin’s death oddly unsettling. She greatly enjoyed his presence and realized his absence, unlike that of anyone else she had ever known, would be actively unpleasant.
“I thought rakthors didn’t believe in revenge,” Kadmallin said.
“Revenge, no. Justice, yes. Your death would be a great injustice.” Sketkee decided to stop considering such possibilities. The disturbing nature of the exercise did not warrant continuation.
“That’s sweet of you.” Kadmallin’s lips seemed to quiver on the verge of a smile.
“It is neither sweet nor any other taste.” Sketkee shook her head, suspecting that Kadmallin deliberately chose incongruous things to say in an attempt to vex her.
As she readied a more critical reply, the wagon shifted direction. Kadmallin opened his eyes again and turned to face her, a wide smile dividing his face. They headed west. Toward the city of Tanjii and the Zha Ocean and the Forbidden Realm. The first part of the plan had worked. Now they would need to implement the second part of the plan — steal the device for real and escape. She had a good idea of when and how to accomplish that goal, but it would have to wait for the proper moment. Fortunately, rakthors tended to be extremely patient.
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THE WITNESS
HASHEL
BIRD CALLS and bright sun chased away dreams of far-off lands and unknown people and stars and stones, revealing instead the sight of a forest valley — green dew-misted leaves sparkling in the golden light of dawn. Hashel woke to the reassuring solidity of firm ground, a welcome change from the stomach-churning rhythms of the waves beneath the ship he and Ondromead had fallen asleep upon the previous night.
“A beautiful day to awaken on dry land.” Ondromead seemed to voice the thought in Hashel’s head. That happened often, but Hashel didn’t mind. He didn’t speak his thoughts aloud himself, so he appreciated it when the old man occasionally expressed them.
Hashel sat up, Ondromead beside him, the broad branches of a tree shielding them from the sun at the edge of a mountain clearing. A valley below stretched out for several leaps, a river flowing along the course between the mountains. Two towns sprawled along either side of the river, stretching nearly the length of the valley. He noticed that women worked the fields and tended the animals, distinguished by their dresses. The men swung swords at each other in open mountain fields or marched in large groups.
Hashel watched as Ondromead took the black book from his satchel and began to write.
“Any guesses where we are?” Ondromead dipped the quill in the bottle of ink. Hashel shook his head at the question.
“See those two mountain peaks there?” The old man pointed with the metal tip of the quill. “Those are called Patnontes and Motnontes. It means Father Mountain and Mother Mountain. The valley is said to be their offspring. Can you guess which dominion we are in?”
Hashel nodded his head. He remembered his parents mentioning the mother and father mountains up north. He started to feel the wave of black sadness engulf him as he thought of his parents. He held his breath and blinked and focused on Ondromead’s voice until the wave receded and it felt safe to exhale and breathe again.
“Indeed, we are in northern Atheton.” Ondromead spoke as though Hashel had voiced his conclusion as to their whereabouts. “Any guesses what we are seeing?”
Hashel shook his head again. The sight in the valley below made no sense.
“Do you remember the tales we overheard in that inn about a plague striking towns in Atheton and leaving the inhabitants wandering in a living death, and how the towns were purged with fire to cleanse the land and spare others from the same fate?”
Hashel nodded. He had found those stories profoundly sad and had been very happy they had not awoken to witness any villagers dying of sickness.
“I had wondered why we heard accounts of the dead but had not seen the deaths for ourselves.” Ondromead put quill to paper again, his odd scratches decorating the page in circles and lines of black. “It is because they are not dead. They have been spirited away to this remote valley to form an army. A secret army. Now what do you think that will mean?”
Ondromead looked up from the book, and Hashel sighed.
“Yes. Indeed. More war. On top of the war that already rages for years. Which is the point, I suspect.”
Ondromead closed the book, sealed up the bottle of ink, and returned them with the quill to the satchel.
“Well, we have the whole of the day to ourselves, I believe. This is what we were intended to see, I think. Let us wander down to that endless town straddling the river and see if we cannot find something to eat.”
Hashel stood up and then helped the old man to his feet. This had become a morning ritual, Hashel first to his feet and then helping the old man to his. Hashel started it to be useful, so the old man would not leave him behind, so he would not wake alone one morning in the same place he had fallen asleep. While he now knew the old man would not willingly abandon him, he liked to help Ondromead all the same.
After performing their morning stretches, they walked down the mountainside, hand in hand. Hashel wondered if all the things they saw would make sense to him one day. As he looked up at Ondromead, he decided he didn’t care. Having a friend to rely on held more importance than understanding the world.
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INTERLUDE
FOUR SAILING vessels anchor beyond the wind-sheltering bay of an uncharted island in the middle of the Nang Ocean, far off the eastern coast of the Iron Realm — a tiny smudge of emerald in a vast cerulean plain beneath an all-enveloping cinereal sky. A rakthor, a wyrin, a yutan, and a roagg stand on the small island near four rowboats lodged against the rocks of the slender coast.
The wyrin female looks between her companions. There has been enough talk. It is time for deeds and the planning of deeds.
“We are in agreement, then?” the wyrin says.
The elderly yutan female folds her hands behind her back. How can such a thing be decided by a mere four people? She sighs. Because they must.
“Our options are few.” The rakthor male nods in apparent agreement. The survival of all peoples depends upon what we do here today.
“It is the only course of action.” The roagg male straightens to his full height, chest thrust out. A harsh sacrifice in hopes of salvation with little forbearance for mistakes.
“If it is to be done, it must be done swiftly.” The wyrin female looks once more at each of the others. They nod to her in turn.
“Then we are all in agreement.” The wyrin female looks from her companion conspirators toward the ocean and the Iron Realm far over the horizon. “May the future dead forgive us for what we will do to save those who survive our war.”
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The Dragon Star (Realms of Shadow and Grace: Volume 1) Page 69