Golden Daughter (20 page)

And the girl gasped as though, when he spoke, she saw them herself for the first time. Then she whispered, “The Highlands, I believe. I have never—” Her voice gave way, and her footsteps faltered. When Jovann turned to her, her head was bowed and her shoulders shook. He wondered for a moment if she wept.

Then she looked at him, and he saw that her eyes were dry and distant. “I have never seen them,” she said. “I have heard, but never seen.”

Was that anger lacing her words? But then she was pulling him on, and he followed her lead without resistance. Who would want to resist one such as she?

The great mountains vanished after a time, replaced by a different range of mountains altogether. And these looked much more like the snow-capped peaks bordering his homeland, save that the sky above them was orange and pink and purple, moving like liquid in gorgeous swirls. Jovann drank in the beauty of them, but the girl scarcely saw them. She dragged him on with increasing urgency.

“Where are we going?” he asked at length, for they were now moving at a near-run, though there was no need for running in this place. “Do we search for something?”

When she spoke, he could hear a lie in her voice. He hated to admit it, for he did not like to think of someone so beautiful as capable of lying. But when she said, “The Gate to Hulan’s Garden,” he knew it was not the truth.

Even so, the moment she spoke, he felt a certainty rise up in his heart. Once more he recalled the wood thrush’s promise:
A Path will be given you.

It was just as the wood thrush had said; for no sooner did the girl mention Hulan’s Gate then Jovann felt a tugging on his soul, a knowledge that he had not possessed a moment before.

“The Gate is this way,” he said, and altered their course, turning the girl to the right. How he knew to do this, he could not say. It was as though a voice called to him across the unknowable distances of the Dream, and he knew what he would find.

They turned and saw in the middle-ground between them and the faraway mountains, standing alone on a solitary plain, a gate. A round Moon Gate which, from that distance, looked no bigger than any humble shrine decorating the landscape of Noorhitam. Nothing more.

The girl gasped. If not for her grip on his arm, Jovann thought she would have sunk to her knees.

“What is wrong?” Jovann asked, concerned. He reached for her upper arm, but she shook him off, releasing her hold on him and backing away to stand on her own, swaying like a young tree in a gale. “What is wrong?” Jovann repeated.

“That gate,” she said. Then she whispered, and her voice was very young. “It is like the shrine in my mother’s garden. I have not seen it since . . . since . . .”

And she was running. One moment she stood swaying; the next, as is the way of dreams, she was many paces ahead of him, running, her long white sleeves and black hair billowing behind her.

“Wait!” Jovann cried, and set off after her. But the ground seemed to grab his feet, to hold him, and the air became thick and clinging. He scowled and shook himself, shook the shape he had assumed. His limbs were freed, and he ran harder, no longer hindered. The girl was far ahead of him, but his legs were long, and he thought he could catch her.

The gate grew. Or rather, the closer they came, the bigger they saw it was. This was no simple shrine. It was a giant’s portal, as great as the Lady Moon herself, each stone perfectly carved to set into the next. And through it, he could see, not the landscape of the plain surrounding them, but brilliant, many-colored light. But it was still so far away, so unreachably distant.

The girl stopped. She stood frozen in place, still as stone. Jovann, panting, though he did not think it right to pant in dreams, caught up and turned her to face him. “Umeer’s daughter?” he said urgently. But she would not look at him. Her eyes rolled this way and that.

“Do you hear them?” she said.

As soon as she spoke, Jovann heard a dark, deep chanting. At first he thought it was the drone of a low horn blowing to call the worshipful to prayer. Then he realized it was no horn but many voices surrounding them. Human voices.

He turned. In the distance, approaching through the far gray mist, he saw dark figures. He spun in place and saw more of them on all sides. They were far away as yet, but their chant was as close upon his ears as though they stood mere inches from him.

They blocked the path to the gate. And they were coming closer.

“Anwar blast it!” The girl spat out the curse like poison.

“Who are they?” Jovann asked.

“Devils. Blights,” the girl said, her face distorted by a snarl. “Always they come. Always, the fools!”

“Should we turn back?” Jovann suggested. The chanting was unnerving and, he thought, evil. It was also, in a horrible way, familiar. But he could not—or would not—place it.

“I’ll not turn back,” said the girl. “I’ll not turn back!” she repeated with more vehemence. She pulled herself free of Jovann’s hands and marched toward the gate, toward the advancing phantoms.

Jovann’s heart lurched in his breast. He knew, though he could not say how, that whoever the chanting phantoms were, they meant her harm, terrible, terrible harm. They were closing in, still distant, but an ever-tightening snare. He hastened after the girl. “We must go back,” he pleaded.

“No!”

Suddenly the chanting vanished, overwhelmed by a potent scent, a spice Jovann did not recognize. It filled his nostrils, filled all his senses, drowning out sound, sight, taste, touch, leaving room for nothing but that scent.

He heard the girl scream a long, inarticulate wail as though lashed by great pain.

Jovann’s head cleared. The scent vanished, and he sought the girl. He found her beside him, but she was no longer solid. When he reached out to her, his hand went through her shoulder, through her arm.

“No!
No!”
she screeched like a wild bird of prey.

She was vanishing from the Dream.

“I’ll find you,” Jovann said, though he knew she could not hear him above her own screams. “I’ll find you! In the waking world! I’ll find you on the other side, I swear!”

Then she was gone.

He stood alone on nothing. Absolute, white nothing. Even the chanting phantoms had disappeared.

Acolytes and priests startled in surprise as the handmaiden tore past them, out the infirmary door and across the temple grounds. They leaped from her path as though avoiding an oncoming stampede, then turned round-eyed to each other and shrugged. Women! Who understood such creatures?

Sairu pounded down the winding paths, back to the hall extending from the main temple building, where Lady Hariawan’s quarters were found. She remembered each twist and turn as though she had spent all her life in Daramuti rather than having just arrived earlier that same day. The sun was setting fast, and the white stones beneath her feet glowed orange in its fading light.

My mistress! My mistress!
her mind cried out, though she could not say why. Something was wrong. Terribly, terribly wrong! Why had she left Lady Hariawan’s side? Why had she allowed herself to be pushed away? She should have resisted even the direct orders of her lady. She should have insisted, should have stayed nearby, especially now, in this unknown place, surrounded by strangers, however holy those strangers were purported to be!

She burst into the building and charged up the corridor, ignoring the young acolytes pressing themselves against the wall to give her room. She reached the first door of Lady Hariawan’s chambers and prayed she would find it bolted from the inside, forbidding her access.

But it opened.

“Anwar’s elbow!” she hissed through her teeth and raced across that first chamber, ignoring the stares of Tu Syed, Tu Domchu, and the others as she darted past them to the door on the far side. That door was open as well. Despite her urging, Lady Hariawan had not bolted a single one behind her departing handmaiden. Anyone could enter her chambers, anyone at all!

Within the second chamber, Sairu found Dumpling and his fellows huddled in a corner, trembling, whimpering, their bellies pressed flat to the floor. Her brave lion dogs who never showed fear, reduced to such a state.

Without pause, she hauled open the final door to her mistress’s sleeping room and dashed inside, her hands up her sleeves to remove the daggers hidden there, prepared for anything. She whipped her weapons free and stared around the dark room.

Lady Hariawan lay upon her bed, the curtain drawn back, allowing the last of the fading sunlight to fall through the window and touch her sleeping face. Otherwise, the only light in the room came from two low braziers. The unmistakable scent of harimau filled the room like a living presence.

All was silent. The room was empty.

Sairu stood still, her heart ramming in her throat. She did not believe it. Not for a second. Her senses were too alive, too full of shouted warning. Something was wrong. She knew it. She knew it!

Someone was right behind her.

She whirled around. But there was nothing. No one there. Not a breath, not a moving shadow.

Whatever it was, it was still behind her.

She whirled again, lashing out with one of her knives, ducking low to the floor in a deep crouch. Still nothing. No one.

“
Don’t trust your eyes, Sairu
.” The voice of Princess Safiya came to her as though across the leagues. And she saw in her memory that great lady approaching, a blindfold in her hand. “
Don’t trust your eyes, or you will surely die
.”

Despite all the years of careful training, Sairu felt her spirit rebel against what she knew she must do. But her training won out.

She closed her eyes and crouched in the darkness. One by one, she turned off her other senses, allowing the unexplored senses of the brain and the heart to take over, to tell her what she needed.

And she heard without her ears a deep, low chanting. Across her mind flashed the image of the hand-shaped burn that marred her mistress’s cheek.

The next moment Sairu was across the room, overturning the braziers of harimau. They fell and scattered their delicate embers across the floor, and she grabbed a cushion from off Lady Hariawan’s bed and beat them out. The scent was almost overwhelming, so full of heat and wildness and distance. She beat the embers and kicked one of the braziers across the room.

Suddenly a hand grabbed her wrist, twisting painfully. Sairu turned, a knife upraised, and found herself looking into Lady Hariawan’s furious, torch-lit face.

“
What are you doing?
” Lady Hariawan screamed.

“My mistress!” Sairu cried. “Were you dream-walking? You should not do it! You mustn’t! It’s dangerous!”

Lady Hariawan screamed again, inarticulate in her rage. She dropped Sairu’s wrist and scrambled on all fours across her bed, bending down to grab the second of the braziers. It was hot, and Sairu knew her lady’s fingers must burn at the touch. “Don’t!” she said.

But Lady Hariawan picked up the brazier and flung it at Sairu with all the force in her slender arms. It did not hit its mark but fell with a clang upon the floor, rolling and echoing as it landed. “Get out!” Lady Hariawan roared. “
Get out of my sight!
”

Sairu stared, horrified. Then, bowing low, she backed from the room and slid the door shut.

Anwar shone gently down upon the mountain temple, smiling at the comings and goings of the priests. His rays peered through the windows of Lady Hariawan’s chambers but could find no glimpse of the lady herself, secluded away in the deepest shadows. He sought instead the white head of the abbot, who put up his hood and, cursing the brightness, hobbled away to the sanctuary of his prayer chamber where the very orb to whom he allegedly prayed could not find and annoy him.

Thwarted again, Anwar turned his languid golden eye to the face of the girl standing at the infirmary window, and he thought she smiled up at him a smile full of secrets and—sad to witness in one so young—cynical disbelief. Of the wounded man in her care, Anwar could see nothing at all.

He moved on across his sky, blinking slowly whenever clouds should chance to drift across his face. Then he opened wide his great eye and stared. Any observer paying attention (it is amazing how few, even among his worshippers, pay any heed to the Lordly Sun flying in blazing glory overhead) would have thought that he shone a little brighter, that his flames lashed and burned with laughter in a voice indiscernible to mortal ears. For Anwar did indeed laugh loud and long at what he saw:

A pack of waddling dogs pursuing an orange cat across the grounds of Daramuti.

They ran through the kitchen garden, the cat screaming out feline curses, the dogs responding in vicious snarls. The cat used the bent back of an unlucky acolyte at work as a springboard to gain himself access to the kitchen window. And so he would have achieved his escape, save that a priest opened the kitchen door at that very moment, and all three dogs darted through between his feet, nearly tripping him up so that only his grasp on the doorframe kept him upright. The chase was hidden from Anwar for a few moments, though he heard, even from high in his heavens, the ringing and clatter of kitchenware.

Back out into the garden streaked the cat, between the legs of the poor priest just righting himself in the doorway. The dogs followed in close pursuit, moving with much more speed than their size and shape might suggest. Lettuces flattened, squashes squished, and acolytes threw their gardening tools after the furious furry terrors.

The cat gained the garden wall, up and over, pausing on the other side in the few moments granted him to slick down the fur between his ears (for these things are important, even on the very brink of yipping death). But the dogs found a crumbling low place, and they were through in trice, redoubling their snarls.

“Dragon’s
teeth!
” yowled the cat, and he was off again, making for the nearest open window. He leapt through, landing squarely in the lap of Brother Tenuk, whose already less-than-holy prayers were made less holy still by his cry of “Anwar’s bruising elbow!”

Anwar himself took no notice, however, intent as he was upon the dogs barking beneath the window. They had lost their quarry for the time being, but they sniffed and snorted, running back and forth under the window, determined not to give up. Their determination was rewarded when, the next moment, the cat appeared in the window again, this time held by the scruff in the trembling hands of the enraged abbot. Brimming with righteous wrath, Brother Tenuk dropped the cat into the midst of the dogs, who leapt upon him, teeth bared.

The cat shook them off and was again a streak of orange, like rippling sunlight himself, dashing across the temple grounds and making for the last shelter available to him.

There was one place in all Daramuti where the dogs dared not go. For their mistress—their beautiful, their beloved, their deified mistress—had stood in the doorway and told them, “Stay out!” in tones that defied all but one interpretation. They never forgot her commands, and they would not disobey.

Thus, when the cat, scrambling, shedding half his coat, and shrieking out curses in a high, incensed howl, dashed through the open door of the infirmary, the dogs followed him to the step . . .

And there stopped. As though they had struck an enchanted wall.

They snuffled. They snarled. They barked their disapproval of this coward’s trick! It was no use. The cat had clean got away. They would have to wait until next time.

The cat, his sides heaving, crouched against the wall across from the door, his eyes darting bright hatred. But when he saw that the dogs would indeed honor their mistress’s command and not enter, he drew himself up.

“Villainous, unmuzzled toe-lickers!” he meowled, and laughed at their answering yaps. “Chase me down, will you? Like a common alley-mog? Well, what do you think of
this!
” He arched up on his toes, turning sideways, his ears pinned back. The dogs yelped in good-natured terror and darted away, hiding in the bushes outside the infirmary door.

“Ah ha!” said the cat, and allowed the fur of his tail to smooth down once more. “Can’t bear the look of me
sideways
, now can you?”

He felt a pair of eyes upon him. Assuming what he hoped was an aspect of cool serenity, he turned and blinked at Sairu.

She knelt in the shadows across the room, her hands folded neatly in her lap. The slave, still unconscious, lay before her. In a voice all too pleasant, all too sweet, she asked, “Out for a stroll, my good Monster?”

The cat flicked an ear. Then, tail swishing, he padded toward her and sat on the other side of the slave. “You should control your hedge-pigs,” he said, beginning to groom a paw. “They’re an embarrassment.”

“To whom?” Sairu replied.

The cat glared at her. Then, hoping to direct the conversation away from his disgruntled dignity, he asked, “How’s our patient?”

“See for yourself,” Sairu said, indicating the slave with a turn of her eyes. Otherwise she remained perfectly still. Perfectly controlled.

As though she feared that with even one wrong move she would snap.

The cat turned to observe the young man, though he was much more interested in watching Sairu herself. They had been three days in Daramuti now, and she had scarcely left the confines of the infirmary. When she did leave, it was to go plead at her mistress’s door for admittance. But Lady Hariawan refused, answering only in utter silence. So Sairu was obliged to direct Tu Syed and the other temple slaves to see to her mistress’s needs, and she herself, feeling the full burden of her disgrace, kept out of sight.

The separation was telling on her, the cat could sense. There was a pinched quality about her doll-like face, a hard twist to her mouth even when, as now, she smiled.

It was strange, the cat thought. One would almost believe that the girl loved her mistress and now suffered the agony of her censure. But he could see that Sairu did not love Lady Hariawan. Lady Hariawan was not an individual anyone would find easy to love. Indeed, the cat knew of only one person he thought might be capable of the feat—and that person had proven herself able to love dragon’s spawn and devils, so she hardly counted.

No, it wasn’t love Sairu felt for her mistress, but something deeper, something stronger. Golden Daughters never loved, for that emotion was too volatile to serve their needs. But she was devoted; down to the very core of her being she was devoted. Her heart and spirit were linked to her mistress by a chain which, if broken, would leave her stranded in a pit of chaos.

Sairu had vowed her service. And she must enact it at any cost.

“He’s getting better,” she said as the cat sniffed hesitantly at the slave’s dirty hair. “The fever has broken. He will recover.”

“Good!” said the cat and began grooming his other paw, watching Sairu through half-closed lids. “Aren’t you glad now that I brought you two together?”

“No,” she replied.

“Oh come!” he insisted. “If not for my interference, he surely would have died in his chains, and how would that make you feel?”

“Nothing whatsoever,” she replied. “I should never have known of his existence, and therefore how could I have cared?”

“But you do know now, which is the same thing as knowing then, unless you insist on a
linear
view of time, which strikes me as rather simplistic.” The cat finished his paw and moved on to his large white ruff. Silence held the space between them captive. Then he said, “A lot of bullying ruffians those beasts of yours are!”

Leaving the cat grooming himself beside the slave, Sairu rose and went to the window, looking out on the grounds once more. Her dogs were piled up in a tangle of sleep nearby, ever her faithful guards. Priests and acolytes moved to and fro across her line of vision, busy about their various tasks. But she spared no glance for them, gazing instead across to the main temple building and the low window in the western wing.

The window at which stood Brother Tenuk.

It shouldn’t matter, Sairu told herself, smiling grimly. Whatever interest the abbot might have in the nameless slave shouldn’t matter to her in the least. Her concern was only for her mistress, and her mistress was safe in her chambers.

And yet that instinct—that wretched, niggling, unpleasant instinct—worried at the back of Sairu’s brain. She felt, in a place deeper than thought, that Brother Tenuk’s interest in the slave somehow meant danger.

Danger to Lady Hariawan.

As she stood at the infirmary window, questions rose up inside Sairu, threatening to disorient her with their need to be asked. But she crushed the questions down and did not ask them. Not yet.

“Umeer.”

“Oi!” said the cat, standing and looking over his shoulder at Sairu. “I say, our handsome stranger seems to be waking!”

Sairu stepped away from the window, out of Anwar’s sight, and back into the pool of light created by her one low lamp. The nameless slave stirred, and she could see that his sleep was light indeed, on the very edge of waking. She felt his brow. It was cool beneath her hand.

He turned his face toward her touch, and his lips moved. “Umeer,” he whispered. Then, with more strength even as his eyes began to struggle open: “Umeer’s daughter?”

“No, sorry,” said Sairu. “My father’s name is Kuda. Purang-Kuda, though no one ever calls him that now. I don’t know any Umeer.”

A few blinks, and then unfocused eyes stared up at Sairu. At first they saw only the smile, so he asked again, “Umeer’s daughter?”

“Still wrong,” said Sairu. “There’s no one here by that name. Was she your sweetheart back home? I think not, since you’re obviously Chhayan, and Umeer is an old Kitar name. Though perhaps you’ve fallen victim to an ill-fated romance and thus found yourself trussed up as a slave? A charming story, but somehow . . . .” She studied his face. It was quite a nice face, as faces go. The features were strong, despite the interfering softness of youth, with fine cheekbones and a deep brow. A square face, not beautiful by Kitar standards, which preferred narrow jaws and daintier features. But Sairu thought it pleasant.

She realized that she wasn’t talking, but was in fact staring at the nameless slave. And she realized in that same moment that the cat was watching her and grinning.

She replaced her smile with a stern frown and continued in a cold voice, “Somehow I don’t think your story is quite so charming as all that. You’re probably a debtor and sold yourself to pay your debts. Much more likely, and hardly the stuff of ballads.”

The slave gazed up at her, his eyes spinning at the swiftness of her words. Then he said a third time, “Umeer’s daughter.”

“No, she’s not here, whoever she is,” Sairu said. “You are a thick one, aren’t you? No Umeer and no daughters. You’re a long way from your home, a long way from any sweethearts. And you’re Hulan-blessed to be alive, I’ll have you know! You took a number of beatings from your enslavers, proving, I think, that you are indeed quite thick. Was one bad beating insufficient to teach you good manners? Did you not see that continued bad behavior would only earn you more of the same?”

His eyes focused briefly. Then he squeezed them shut and groaned. Sairu saw his shoulders and arms tense, and knew he was about to try sitting up. “Oh no, no!” she said, pushing him gently back down. “You’re full of orenflower medicine, and it’ll make you sick if you elevate your head too quickly. It’s good for the pain but not for the equilibrium, you understand.”

He glared at her then, his eyes flashing wide, and propped himself back up on his elbows. But the orenflower was true to its reputation, and even that small movement made the room spin. He closed his eyes again but refused to lie back down, merely holding his head still until the room settled back into its proper orientation. Then, slowly turning to look at Sairu, he asked in a voice that was carefully controlled so as not to slur any words, “Who are you?”