Spirit Gate: Book One of Crossroads (25 page)

“Yes.”

They walked on, east—always east. It was slow going. The way was dim and the world shadowed, and she had no idea where they were or where they were going. Yet as long as she kept her gaze fixed on Captain Anji’s straight back, as long as she glanced frequently at the track, gleaming slightly in the moonlight, she managed. They reached the crest of a barren hill and paused to survey the vast wilderness and the impossibly depthless sky. The stars burned each one as brightly as the chief’s lamp. The heavens were a field of dense flames, each one the shard of a soul released from its earthly suffering, so the Merciful One taught. So many, without counting. The land on all sides was a ghost land, intangible under moonlight, like gauze and darkness. Only in the north was there any solidity, and that because the far horizon was black where mountains rose.

It was as if she had wandered into the landscape known in song, a place present on no map, reached by no true road, where the daily round of life had no meaning. She shivered.

“Are you cold?” Anji asked softly.

“No,” she whispered, afraid to speak in a normal voice. “It’s beautiful.”

“Ah.” Nothing more than his sigh.

Her cheeks blazed with heat. She reached and found his hand, surprising him as she twined her fingers between his. He did not speak, but his breathing shifted and quickened, as did hers.

Chief Tuvi whistled the advance.

“Oh!” she murmured, annoyed.

Anji chuckled, brought her hand up to his lips, turned it over, and kissed the inside of her wrist, then let go and set off again. She followed him, but with that brief kiss the night had come alive. The curl of wind teased her. The movement of his shoulders as he walked drew her on. Once he looked back over his shoulder and grinned, and she burned burned burned. They walked across the land in silence broken only by the jingle of harness, the fall of hooves and feet, and the occasional mutter of one of the soldiers to a comrade; broken by the many soft noises made by the desert, which seemed dead but was alive in a hundred hidden ways. The path was rugged, and twice they had to backtrack when the trail Tuvi picked led them into a dead end up a gulch, but they never faltered nor did any horse take a fall or man stumble.

As the moon set and it became too dark to keep moving, the chief picked out a sheltered overhang for a temporary camp.

“We’ll rest here until just before dawn,” he told the soldiers. “We’ll move on again before dawn, and rest again during the heat of the day, and leave again before dusk. Any man who violates rations will be killed.”

They watered the horses and each drank his measured allotment before lying down to rest, careful not to disturb tufts of vegetation and scatters of rock that might shelter poisonous slumbering creatures. Shai sat with head on knees, arms
wrapped around bent legs. She was still angry with him for the way he had treated Cornflower. Maybe if he had been nicer, the girl wouldn’t have run into the storm. And yet, why cling to anger? There was no way to change what had happened. Poor Shai looked so miserable.

Mai went over. “How are you holding up, Shai?”

He looked up. All she could see of his face was pallor. His voice scraped, dry and anguished. “Will we ever come free of this place? Or will we be carried off by the demons as well?”

She touched him gently on the shoulder. “Captain Anji knows what he’s doing.”

“Does he?”

“Of course he does! How can you doubt him?”

“We’ve not been told where we’re going. They tell us nothing at all. You’re not scared? Not at all?”

“No,” she said. Then thought about it, hard, closely. No poisonous worm ate away at her insides. Her hands didn’t tremble. She shook her head. “No, I’m not afraid. We can trust Anji.”

The simple words, like a torch, led her footsteps to the long-awaited destination. She left Shai and found Priya settling down to sleep on stony ground. She knelt beside her. “Priya! Hsst! Where’s my chest?”

The slave sighed sleepily. “The chest, Mistress? O’eki took it off the packhorse, over there, you see where the luggage is stacked. Mistress?”

“Go back to sleep.”

She found it more by feel than by sight, opened the mechanism that locked the clasp shut, and had just tipped up the lid a hand’s span and reached inside when she heard him walk up behind her.

“Mai? You should be resting.”

Her breath caught in her chest. Her heart hammered. The silk slipped smoothly under her hands, cool and lovely. She caught hold of one edge and eased the banner out of the chest. It unfolded as it emerged, draping over her knees. Even in darkness, with only the stars to light them, the silver threads picking out the eye and mane of the black wolf shone, perfectly visible although there was no reason they ought to be.

There is never any reason for happiness. Yet it exists. It shines.

For an eternity he did not move: not to touch her, not to speak, not to glance around the camp and the soldiers and slaves and horses who surrounded them. At last, she let the lid close and the clasp catch. Its
snick
jolted him. He caught her hand and drew her upright with the banner caught under her left arm. Quickly, he led her through camp, pausing only to fish a rolled-up length of heavy cloth from his saddle-bags.

“Captain?”

“Keep the camp quiet, Chief.”

“Hu!” said Tuvi, but he didn’t laugh. Sengel and Toughid faded back toward camp, and Tuvi’s form receded into the night, vanishing in the shadows that were everywhere, except in her heart.

They climbed out of sight of the camp to a bare swell of ground mounded
among the many hidden clefts and river washes. The brilliant heavens were their roof, and the unrolled tent their bed. They were both filthy, and their kisses tasted of grit, but desire and the night wind cleansed them. The immensity of the empty lands sheltered them, who were alone in the whole wide world, no one else, not even ghosts or scorpions, daring to disturb them, they two, who were now one.

Such a small thing, really, to mean so much.

Two qualities Shai possessed in plenty: He had endurance, and a high tolerance for physical pain. Father Mei had never been able to beat the stubborn anger out of him. One quality he sorely lacked: He’d never gathered enough courage to stand up to his elder brothers. Not as Hari had. Bold Hari, best of brothers.

In the early-morning twilight as he trudged along at the rear of the company among the silent tailmen, his thoughts returned doggedly to the subjects he didn’t want to think about: We’re out of water. We’re all going to die if we don’t find water soon. Dead like Cornflower. No. Nothing to be done about that. If Hari is dead, then why didn’t he pass Spirit Gate? Why is he still chained to earth?

With a stumble and a quiet, sad whuffling noise, a horse collapsed. The company halted. The grooms examined the horse, shook their heads. While life still breathed in it, they opened a vein in its shoulder and drained its blood. It was a salty brew, invigorating. Everyone got a swallow, even the slaves. When Mai drank, the blood stained her lips with red, like a cosmetic meant to beautify.

As the beast failed, and died, they made ready to move out.

“Aren’t we going to butcher it?” Shai croaked. “For the flesh?”

“Take too long, need water more, oasis ahead,” said Chaji, his voice cracked and ragged. Then he cackled. “You can stay, fight the vultures and demons, if you want.”

His feet must rise and fall, rise and fall, but he was by no means the weakest. They all struggled. The bearers were strong men, but at length some were aided by the others; they refused to let any of their number falter and fall behind. Mai walked alongside Anji. Everyone walked, to spare the horses, who suffered most. Over the course of that morning, two more horses failed, and the blood of those horses gave strength to the living. Thus, Shai supposed, did demons feast on their victims, sucking the spirit out of them. Was that what had happened to Hari?

The sun rose higher, but the air changed. He felt it as a kiss on his cheeks, as an ache, an exhilaration, in his chest. Long before they could see it, the horses smelled it and pulled eagerly, anxious to move faster. The people inhaled its promise through nostrils and parched mouths.

Water.

Discipline held. They marched in good order into an isolated oasis guarded by a surly group of twenty Qin tailmen.

“How long will you stay here?” the chief of the garrison asked them as they filed in.

“Two days,” said Anji. “We all need a rest and the horses must be well watered. There are a couple too weak to go on so we’ll slaughter them and feast tonight. If you send a few men back on our trail, you’ll find two dead horses, not too far, to add to the feast.” He walked away to where Mai was seated, washing her hands and face in water Priya had brought from the pond.

“At least we don’t have to feed your men, just the horses,” grumbled the garrison chief. “You don’t know how hard it is keeping supplies out here!”

“The worst assignment,” laughed Tuvi, slapping the man on the shoulder. “When I was a young lad just come to the army, I had a posting like this.”

“Did you?” replied the chief, whose frown curved upward at this companionable talk. “We’ve enough to eat and drink. I think it’s the boredom that kills you. All this rock and sand! No women and no pasture to admire!”

“Let me tell you about a posting that near did me in!”

The two men walked away, taking turns sucking at a pouch of an alcoholic brew, to make a circuit of the low fortifications that surrounded the well, the pool, and the scattering of vividly green trees and vegetation.

Shai waited his turn to drink with the rest of the men. The horses went first and so sullied the pool that what he drank tasted more like mud than water, but like the rest he made no complaint. Water was life. Life was better than death. He lay down in the shade of a frond tree and fell asleep at once.

“Shai. Shai.”
Would Hari’s ghost never leave him alone? It had been weeks since the day Anji had given Hari’s wolf’s-head ring to Father Mei, since Shai had touched that ring and sensed Hari’s fate. Now it seemed that Hari, like Girish, meant to plague the only person who could still hear him.

“Shai. Wake up.”

The hand pressing against his chest had weight. It was insistent, plucking at his clothing.

“Eh. What? Mai!”

“Hush. Shh.” She displayed a yellow globe of fruit, twisted it so it split open, and showed him how to scoop out the seeds so he could eat the succulent flesh. As he ate, the juices dripping down his chin, she whispered, “I’m still very angry about Cornflower. You treated her badly. But Shai, you’re my uncle. We’re kin. We can’t fight like this. We have to hold together, don’t you think?”

Hu! Who could resist Mai when she was in this mood? He could!

“I’m riding with the tailmen. Cornflower was my slave. You had no right to interfere.”

“Don’t be so stubborn!”

“You don’t want me anyway. Look at you, flying that Qin banner now. Don’t think the others don’t talk around me just because I’m not Qin. I know what it means.”

The blush on her cheeks brightened her. Even worn and exhausted, she had a shine that made the world a more pleasing place. No one could stay mad at her.

“Are you happy?” he muttered.

“Oh. Shai.”

She was happy.

He sighed. He grasped her hand with one of his own, now sticky with juice. “We won’t fight.”

“Good.” The plum-blossom softness vanished, and she bent close, fixing him with a gaze as sharp as that of any merchant bargaining hard in the marketplace. “Listen, Shai. I may only have this one chance to tell you this. Do not breathe a word. Now that—well—now that—well—” She flushed. She hid a smile behind a hand. She giggled, shut her eyes, sighed heavily, smiled again, and finally sucked in a deep breath and fixed him with a remarkable glare. “I asked. And he told me.”

“What?”

“What! Where we’re going! It’s because we’re past the desert now. We can’t possibly go back, or tell anyone.”

Or he offered knowledge as payment, thought Shai, but he said nothing.

“Anji is to be a general. He’s been promoted. We’re riding all the way to Tars Fort, on the eastern border between Mariha and the Sirniakan Empire. Anji will command the fort and an entire border garrison, an army, much larger than this small company. What do you think?”

The muddy water and sweet fruit churned uneasily in his stomach. He felt a little sick. “Isn’t the border a dangerous place to be? Now that the Qin have conquered the Mariha princedoms, that border lies right up against the most powerful and largest empire known. What if there’s a war?”

“Why would there be a war?”

“Mai! Don’t be stupid. Why do the Qin need an army and garrisons along the border if they don’t think there’ll be a fight? I would bet that the Mariha princes didn’t think there was going to be a war twenty years ago, when the first Qin rode out of the west. The Mariha princes are all dead now.”

“The Qin can defeat the empire if they want to. Don’t you think?”

“Now you are being stupid.”

Defending her husband, she looked positively fierce. “It’s no more than Anji deserves!”

“No. No. Of course not.” Indeed, Tuvi had told him as much, in almost the same words, although he thought it better not to mention this to Mai. “He must be an important man, to be promoted to such an important position.”

Her anger faded, and she looked thoughtful instead. “Yes. I suppose he must. I wonder who his kinfolk are. He’s never told me.”

Shai squeezed her hand in warning. “Be cautious of asking. Don’t ask too much, too quickly.”

In that moment, as their gazes met, understanding flashed. She smiled, and a knot that had been tangling in his heart, eased.

“I’m not stupid, Shai.”

That connection still flowed between them. He glimpsed, then, how much it bothered her to be thought of that way. “No, of course not. Of course not, Mai.” He saw, then, that he and the rest of the family might never have understood her at all, that he didn’t know her, not really. She was a mystery. She had hidden herself well.