Golden Daughter (54 page)

The Chhayan heartbeats all around were no temptation to the raven as it followed the Seh Clan warriors along their Path. The warriors had marched this Path too many times, and there was too much death in their hearts. The raven liked living hearts pulsing with living blood.

A tongue flickered between the cruel curves of its beak, tasting the bloodlust all around. Its master had given it no duty or task, so it had taken to the air and followed the warriors, eager to have its own part in the night’s coming terrors. It was no great beast like the brilliant young dragon, and its feathers were not armor-plated. But it knew that where they were going it would find plenty of soft flesh. Plenty of young beating hearts.

“The Kitar dogs must die!” rang the battle cry. But the raven did not care for that. Nor did it concern itself with tactics or strategies. It merely watched for the doorway nearest to its goal. And when the portal opened, it darted ahead of all the others into the mortal realm.

It was a little surprised to find that the portal opened into black, close, underground space. But its surprise did not last long. It liked blackness, and while it didn’t care for the confines of stone and dirt all around, it could feel the faint wisps of air flowing down from some opening above. It would find access to the upper world.

So the raven flitted ahead of the Chhayans into the winding dungeon passages. And it was first to realize that it was a trap.

The raw shriek of the raven startled the Kitar men braced in the narrow passage behind many layers of shields, but they held their ground. And the next moment they saw by the dim light of the lantern at the end of the passage the first shadowy forms of their oncoming enemies. So the impossible had happened! Somehow the Chhayan dog-men had found a breach beneath the temple walls and infiltrated the dungeons! It was no hoax, no distracting ploy, but a real threat. And one for which they were, however unwillingly, prepared.

The first of the shadows stopped in its tracks. He had no chance to cry out a warning to the brothers at his back before he was cut down by the waiting Kitar soldier forefront in the line.

Then the battle truly began. The lantern swinging up above cast the blood-spilling in rage-hewed highlights, and the roars of furious men deafened the ears of all within the dungeon passages. Chhayans poured from the lowly chamber into which their portal had opened, refusing to retreat, pressing up against the wall of Kitar warriors until the bodies of both sides were piled too high. But the Chhayans grabbed the dead by their ankles and tossed them back through the portal into the abyss of the Dragon’s Path, and so cleared a way for themselves.

The battle spread, for the Chhayans were far more determined than the Kitar had expected, pushing back the defenders into the dungeon passages. Torches were lit to illuminate the fight, and many men were burned in the close confines, while others clung to the darkness which, while blind, was somehow safer. But though the Chhayans battled with a will, they could not breach the Kitar front and gain access to the temple grounds above.

The raven watched all from a secret alcove, violent eyes searching out the first opportunity it might seize. The bodies of the slain littering the passage floor did not tempt it in the least. They were dead and unappetizing. Nor did it crave the hardened flesh of warriors.

Suddenly, the raven’s serpentine tongue caught a taste on the air that it liked much better. A living taste and much younger, much softer. Its gaze pierced through the heavy mortal darkness and saw a figure darting into the near-deserted passage in which the raven hid.

Sairu, her forehead boasting a line of blood from a either a Kitar or Chhayan weapon—it was impossible to tell in the dark—slipped around the corner of the outer passage, her eyes wide with a terror that was new to her: the terror of battle in close spaces. Had she known, had she realized into what horror she plunged, she would never have found the courage to enter the dungeons beneath the Crown of the Moon, no matter how driving her need.

But she had done it. And somehow, though it should have been impossible, she had slipped through both the Kitar defense and the Chhayan assault, navigating narrower passages though which the armored men could not fit. It was as though a path were made especially for her, and no one could follow her, no one could intervene. The cat, she knew, was somewhere close, but she could not see him when she looked, so she focused her gaze ahead.

The din of battle and the roar of Long Fire explosions up above rang in her ears. But with some sense deeper still, she felt or heard the nearness of the portal, the nearness of other worlds. If the Chhayans were indeed using a portal in the dungeons to access this world (and Jovann wouldn’t lie . . . he wouldn’t!), surely that same portal must lead back from whence they came.

Back to Ay-Ibunda.

She paused as she entered the passage, nausea threatening to overwhelm her at the sight of the carnage between her and the cell door she must achieve. But there was something more, something even more dreadful than all this near death.

The raven in the shadows breathed a hiss of delight. Sairu could not hear it. But she felt it, and she brandished her knife just in time as the raven swooped down at her head. The blade caught among black feathers and tore several away even as the raven altered its course, dodging a more fatal blow. With a roar that was not at all avian, the raven pivoted in midair and dove again, aiming for Sairu’s eye.

Sairu ducked, avoiding the blow that would surely have torn her eye from its socket. But her foot caught on the body of a fallen warrior, and she fell, tumbling among the corpses. Her knife was lost, never to be found again.

She rolled with difficulty, her hand reaching up her sleeve for her second knife. She would not have drawn it in time, for the raven was even now in its dive, this time aiming for her beating heart.

But suddenly there was a flash of golden eyes. The cat leapt up and caught the raven between its paws, dragging it down to the dungeon floor in a mound of black feathers and orange fur. The raven shrieked, and the cat yeowled, and the light of the lantern flickered so wildly that Sairu could not see what transpired.

There was a dreadful stillness. Then: “Dragons blast it all!”

“Monster?” she gasped, pulling herself up from among the fallen dead and searching for the cat.

“I lost it,” the cat growled, his eyes glowing with their own light as he turned them up to her face. “It slipped my grasp and fled up the tunnel. Nasty demon, not what I expected to find down here! Should I pursue it?”

“No,” said Sairu, turning even as she spoke toward the cell in which Jovann had been so recently held captive. “We’re too close. Hurry.”

The cat sprang up and followed at her heels, crying out as he did so, “I think I know your plan! It’s a fool’s errand at best, but I’ll follow you to the end. I swear it!”

Sairu made no response. She leapt over bodies and nearly fell, catching herself on the doorway into the cell. She gazed inside and once more nearly lost her courage.

The crack in the worlds was open still, though no more Chhayans passed through. Sairu had never imagined—could never have imagined—what it would be like to stare out of her world into another. Everything she knew, the tower of training and precision she had built in her mind over all the years of her life, crashed down in ruins, leaving her, for a moment at least, truly insane. For a mortal cannot look upon such a sight without tasting of insanity.

But with the madness came a rush of something like courage. Gripping her remaining knife tight in her hand, she leapt across the cell and through that crack, and the cat sprang through behind her.

The moment Sairu passed through the gate, she plunged into darkness. She tried to scream, but her voice was stolen away. She thought she would fall forever, that she would never find her footing, tumbling through eternity, through this space between the worlds. Falling and unable to accomplish the purpose beating in her heart.

But then she found that she was walking. She could not remember the end of the fall, could not remember finding solid ground. She was walking where she had been falling. For a moment her spirits lifted. There was a Path at her feet, and she could navigate through this strange Between. All was dark and shifting horror around her, but she could walk. She could follow this Path to its end and there, she hoped, find this Ay-Ibunda of which both Jovann and the cat had told her.

Time meant nothing here, and she could grasp no sense of passing minutes or hours. Again the change was so sudden that she did not realize it had happened until long afterward. For she walked in her own personal hell, and it overwhelmed all else.

She saw the face of the Chhayan man. The man she had killed. She knew now, though she could not say how she knew, what his name had been: Chakra. Chakra, whose life she had ended. He stood before her, behind her, on all sides. And she saw him screaming in the torment of an afterlife that was no rest, no peace, but utter, eternal, hopeless pain. And it was her fault! She had sent him here! She felt his pain as though it were her own, felt it searing her spirit. All was lost! All was endless! His face shifted and became that of Idrus, whom she had not slain with her own hands, but whose death she had brought about. He too was screaming, for there were no angels here to make his sins right. The blood of innocents flowed down his face, and it burned him, and it burned Sairu. The other slavers were there as well, the men who had lost their lives that night. And they were Idrus, and they were Chakra, and they were Sairu herself.

She screamed. But when she opened her mouth it was choked with blood. Falling on her face, she knew she could not walk a single step more on this road, this Dragon’s Path.

But suddenly there were arms around her, strong arms drawing her close. She fell into them, leaning against a warm heartbeat. She heard a voice she recognized, felt it flowing over her like a covering, a shield, a protection.

“Beyond the Final Water falling,

The songs of spheres recalling,

When all around you is the emptiness of night,

Won’t you return to me?
”

“I don’t know how to return,” Sairu moaned. “I don’t know the way.”

“Hush,” said the voice, which was like the cat’s voice and yet unlike. “Hush and listen. He will show you the way.” He rocked her as he might rock a baby, still singing softly. And as he sang, the faces of Chakra, Idrus, and the others faded, and the blood and the gore vanished from Sairu’s vision. The Dragon’s Path itself dissipated, giving way to a new Path, a clear Path, shining white and gold. When she dared look up, Sairu saw the wafting of green leaves, the sturdy trunks of tall trees. The Wood surrounded them, opening up before them and pointing clearly straight ahead.

She heard the silver voice of the wood thrush, which she had heard before without recognizing. And it sang:
“Won’t you follow me?
”

Sairu was on her feet in an instant. The stranger was gone, and the cat was beside her. She looked down at him, and her face almost took on its customary smile, though not quite. “We will find her, Monster,” she said. “We will find my mistress.”

“I hope so,” said the cat. He fell into a loping stride beside her, and the two of them ran down the Path, following the light, following the birdsong. Within a few paces the Wood gave way around them, replaced by swirling, formless mist. A few paces more and they stepped out into the wasteland of the Dream.

The cat came to a halt. The fur along his spine and up his tail stood on end. “Lumé love us!” he said. “This is it. This is the place, the very edge of the Between. This is where the temple was built. Ay-Ibunda.”

Sairu stood very still. She had come to accept the notion of other worlds. She had come to accept the strange truth of the Dream Walkers and the art they practiced. She had seen the lovely opal stones Jovann brought back from the Gardens of Hulan, and she had felt the presence of phantoms she could not see, touch, or perceive with any ordinary senses. She knew there was more to life, to the world, than what she and her small reason could comprehend.

Nevertheless, the sight of the Dream stretching out before her was enough to stop her heart. She wished she could have come here in spirit only, as Lady Hariawan did, leaving her physical body behind. For her physical body did not want to exist here. One false step and she feared all the particles of her being would split, shooting off and away from one another, dispersing her across this terrible, mist-murky waste.

But the need of the Masayi was strong in her heart. She must find her mistress.

And perhaps, when she found her mistress, she would also find Jovann.

“Where is the temple?” Sairu asked, turning to the cat, relieved to see his orange face upturned to hers. He, at least, appeared solid and real, and her eyes clung to him as desperately as her hands might have clung to a lifeline.

“I do not know,” the cat admitted, one white paw curled as he took a tentative step forward. “This is the Realm of Dreams, my girl, and I do not know the laws here. It is more dangerous by far than the Wood, for it is the very edge of the Between. Ay-Ibunda is supported by the dreams of men, but those dreams might be tossed about anywhere across this landscape. You would do well not to search for the temple.”

“What then?” Sairu demanded. “What do I do? Tell me, Monster!”

“You know the answer to that already,” the cat replied. “You know the Path you must follow.”

He was right. She did not want to admit it, but he was right. There was only one Path that could lead her through this dreadful dreamscape. There was only one Path she believed would guide her safely.

She closed her eyes. It made no difference here, for the Dream was in her head. But she was a Golden Daughter, and she knew how to calm and quiet and finally silence each of her senses, one at a time, until only one remained. She blocked out sight, sound, hearing, even taste and touch. She blocked out everything and felt only the beating of her heart.
My mistress!
she thought.

And then, more softly still,
Jovann . . .

Her eyes opened, and they were bright in the strange light of the Dream. “This way!” she said, and moved with confidence across the wasteland, taking in miles with each stride. The Path opened beneath her feet, guiding her, and the cat hastened along behind. Overhead, shapes began to form. Clouds gathered, black and then burning red. Hail fell in fiery stones that glowed through the swirling mist and burned it away, revealing dust on all sides. Still Sairu walked without pause, and the hailstones could not touch her. Far away she saw mountains high and green. But the red clouds gathered and roiled more thickly than ever, blocking these from her sight. They could not block the Path, however.

Then the ground broke. With a gut-wrenching thrill, Sairu found herself flung up suddenly on a jutting strip of rock which shot to the heavens even as the landscape all around fell away, plunging far and gone. She fell headlong upon the ground and felt empty drop on either side, and wind and clouds beating at her head.

“Monster!” she cried, but the cat was nowhere near. Perhaps the break had carried him from her. “Monster!” she cried again, and the searing clouds filled her mouth, burning her throat. She coughed and gagged.

Then another name, one she had heard spoken only once before, appeared in her mind, swelled upon her tongue. She tried to resist speaking it. Why should she? It was not a name she knew. But the sucking depths on either side thrilled her with terror. In desperation she whispered:

“
Lumil Eliasul.
”

The ground leveled out. With no motion or shift, she found herself once more on the wide plain, standing firm upon her Path. The cat leapt to her side and put his paws up on her knee. “Are you all right?” he demanded, gazing up at her. “For a moment there I was afraid the Dream had taken you!”

Her limbs shook, and she feared that if she spoke she might melt into a puddle of cowardice. So she only nodded. Then, setting her jaw, she proceeded up the Path, the cat at her heels.

Once more the ground broke. But this time it did not carry Sairu with it. Instead she found she had come to the edge of an enormous chasm which had been invisible on the flat landscape until she stood just above it. The vastness of the drop swept over her, and she felt heat rising with terrible intensity. But the Path led her right to the edge, so she crept along until she stood upon the brink. Her arms out for balance, she looked down.

Below her lay a molten lake. In a spidering network across the surface, lines of black rock shifted and groaned, shot with cracks of heat. Otherwise, all was roiling red, and she could not tell from that height if it was water, blood, or magma. It might have been all three at once here in the Dream. She did not wonder at this for long however, for something else caught her gaze.

She saw Hulan’s Gate.

She knew it at once, for she, like all children of Noorhitam, had been raised with the little Moon Gate shrines. Many such shrines decorated the gardens of Manusbau and the Masayi, and Sairu had been made to pray before them and offer gifts back when she was young, back before she lost her faith. But this gate was as different from those shrines as the emperor’s powerful warhorse differed from a child’s painted stick pony. This gate was old, older than Time. And through it Sairu could glimpse the brilliant lights, in so many colors beyond what her own eyes could perceive, of Hulan’s Garden.

“Lights Above, spare us!” whispered the cat. “The Dragon!”

Only then, when the cat spoke, did Sairu see the form like a man standing before that gate. And at his back, balanced upon the black, shifting stones floating on the surface of that fiery lake, stood the Chhayan priests. And they dragged the enormous Gold Gong behind them, as though there were no lake beneath their feet. Indeed, they did not perceive any of the same sights Sairu saw, neither lake nor cliff, but instead walked on flat, empty plain.

The gong gleamed like the sun, shining in the reflected glow of the lake’s heat. It was supported upon two black pillars shaped like dragons. The Chhayan priests brought it to rest right before Hulan’s Gate. Size and perspective were so distorted here in the Dream that to Sairu it seemed as though the gong were as great as the Gate itself, though this could not be possible. She saw that words were etched in the gold, but she did not try to read them for fear of the evil they might spell. Instead she searched the gathered crowd.

“My mistress!” she exclaimed. “Monster, look. It is she!”

And indeed there stood Lady Hariawan, appearing from behind the bulk of the Dragon. She was tiny, but Sairu could not have mistaken her at any distance. How frail and weak she appeared, and blood stained her shoulders and arms.

She stood before the Dragon. And then she bowed.

“No,” Sairu whispered. “No, my mistress. Don’t!”

With this cry, Sairu flung herself down on the edge of the chasm and swung out over the fiery gulf. Scrabbling for any handhold or foothold she could, she began the descent. “Sairu!” the cat called to her. “Don’t be a fool!” But she could not hear him. She slipped and nearly fell, felt the plunge in her gut. But somehow she held on and scrambled down a few more feet. Heat rippled up from below and pushed against her. She almost believed that if she let go, the rising air would catch in her robes and buoy her up into the churning sky.

It was hopeless. She could not make herself move faster. Hanging precariously by one hand, she turned and looked again at the vision below.

Lady Hariawan remained before the Dragon. She straightened from her bow and lifted one hand, allowing the sleeve of her leper’s robe to fall back, baring her arm. She offered this hand, palm up, to the Dragon. He took it, holding it delicately with his own claw-tipped fingers.

Then he raised it to his mouth and bit, sinking poison into her veins.

Lady Hariawan’s cry of pain rang throughout the Dream, across the burning lake, up into the crimson clouds above. Sairu shouted furiously in ineffectual protest, her voice lost in the pain of her mistress. Once more she tried to descend and felt all the resistance of fire beneath her.