Steles of the Sky (47 page)

Edene must have noticed. Her face revealed nothing above the high collar of her Qersnyk coat; she barely seemed to blink. But she let Buldshak sidle a step closer to Bansh, so the mares stood shoulder to shoulder and Edene’s knee pressed Temur’s. Temur was grateful, even when Buldshak sidled and tried to edge away from him.

No horse will bear you.

One of the Song functionaries had a better coat than the rest—brocade, and banded with orange and green embroidery. He was the one who stepped back beside the cart—it was drawn by a single white ox with ribbons trailing from its horns—and bent down to fold a set of steps from beside a curtained doorway. As he was drawing the curtain back, Hong-la arrived at a swift walk, his long legs covering the ground faster than many men could have jogged.

He stopped by Temur’s stirrup, between Bansh and Jerboa, and steadfastly ignored Jerboa’s intrigued licking of his black wizard’s trousers.

Temur said, “What is going on here?”

“There’s a dignitary in that cart, of course,” Hong-la said. Then, in a completely different voice: “Sage’s whiskers!”

Edene glanced down sharply. “What?”

Hong-la shook his head, visibly collecting himself. “The majordomo. It’s … somebody I used to know. Zhan Zhang. His name, I mean. Zhan Zhang.”

That majordomo—in his gaudy coat—stepped forward beside the monks. He spoke, in perfect Qersnyk—almost accentless: “Re Temur Khagan, Lord of the North! Allow me to present her radiance, the Lady Diao who comes as an emissary from her father, the Lord Diao!”

A figure framed herself in the doorway, crouching slightly until she could bend under the lintel and stand.

She was slender and tall, her hair blackened and oiled and twisted up into a jeweled pillar atop her whitened brow. It chimed with tiny stamped gold ornaments. She wore a tight ankle-length coat of silk the color of peach skin—pale gold, but catching the Soft-day sun with pale red highlights. It was slit up one side so she could walk, and a leg clad in white silk pantaloons flashed with each step she took, descending.

Despite her elaborate and constricting finery—and if ever there were a better assurance that no one meant to start a fight, it was that outfit—the lady Diao wore a gold-hilted sword thrust through her wide silk sash: Song-style, long and straight, with an ivory sheath and hilt and a filigreed oval guard.

Zhan Zhang crouched down quickly and with a practiced flare of his wrists, snapped a small carpet open even as the Lady Diao descended the three steps. Her slippered foot rested on knotted red wool, rather than the bare earth. She minced forward to the edge of the rug and bowed very low, her sword sheath sticking into the air like a stiff tail, her forehead almost touching her knees.

When she straightened again, her eyes rose to his face. Her voice was sweet and fluting, birdsong, rich with the harmonics of the eastern Song dialects. “My honored father sent me with an elaborate speech for your ears, Temur Khagan, and offers of alliance in return for certain considerations. But I perceive that you are a martial emperor, and would not waste your hours of light with flowery words and pretty postures. So I ask you plainly, Temur Khagan: will you receive my embassy?”

Hong-la turned his face to hide his lips when he spoke. “This is a marriage proposal, Temur Khagan. The lady looks you in the face.”

Temur didn’t nod; he knew. He returned her gaze, frank and appraising. He could not tell if she blushed under her formal painting of white lead, her lips reddened with cochineal.

Samarkar said, “If she’s staying, we need to break her of that face paint. It kills girls, you know.”

That, he had not. Hong-la added, “And makes them stupid. And infertile. I’ll have a full report on Lord Diao for you Soft-tonight, Khagan.”

While they spoke, Zhan Zhang was translating what Lady Diao had said with surprising deftness and accuracy. Temur took advantage of the extra time to consider his response.

But when he answered, he answered in her own language.

His Song was not as good as Zhan’s Qersnyk, but it sufficed.

“My Lady Diao,” he said, “you have traveled far and in difficult circumstances. Please accept the hospitality of my household, and when you have rested and eaten, we will—as you wish—take up this discussion again, in less formal circumstances. This is Tsareg Edene, mother of my son. She will care for your every need.”

He glanced at Edene to make sure of her and caught the edge of her smile. If there were any apprehension in Lady Diao’s expression, the paint hid it. She bowed low again and stepped back into her litter. Edene reined Buldshak forward, ready to lead them away.

Samarkar laid her fingertips against Temur’s elbow. In the lowest, clearest voice he’d ever heard, she said, “Accept her suit or send her home. But do not keep her like a trophy in a crystal bell.”

He smiled sideways at Samarkar to hide the pang he felt for her, for her own youth and her chance at children lost to politics. For the revenge she had taken. “I hear your counsel, Wizard,” he said. He turned to Edene. “You will see to her, my heart?”

“She will be well-accounted for.” She touched Buldshak forward, and Temur stopped her with a lifted hand.

“Still well?” he asked, with a gesture to her hand and the damned ring on it.

“No worse,” she answered. She handed Ganjin in his cradleboard across to Samarkar, and then she reined her mare away.

As she left, followed by lady Diao’s carriage and the white ox that drew it, Zhan came forward, walking smoothly, and joined the small group of monks that included Brother Hsiung. Temur gave Hong-la instructions to make them comfortable and find them places to camp—Hong-la and Jurchadai between them, with their collective genius for organization and administration, would manage everything far better than Temur could. It was complicated by the fact that Jurchadai had come to Temur and told him:
You must keep secrets from me now. There are shaman-rememberers who support Qori Buqa’s son.
But they made what use of him they safely could.

Then he singled out the medium-sized fellow, not much bigger than Temur, wearing a furrowed brow and the cropped hair of all the Wretched Mountain Temple Brotherhood, who had been identified as War-zi.

Temur glanced at Samarkar and made a small gesture with his hand. She would know what he wanted, and make it happen without disturbing protocol. She reined Jerboa forward two steps and spoke to the monk directly. “Master War, with your permission, Temur Khagan would like to speak privately both with you and with your acolyte Brother Hsiung. Will you join us while Hong-la makes your retinue comfortable?”

Master War inclined his head. His arms were folded inside his sleeves, hiding the stump of one hand as he incrementally bowed. “I come at the Khagan’s pleasure,” he replied.

*   *   *

It was a relief to let the door drape fall between the interior of the white-house and the muddy, cold world without. Temur embraced Brother Hsiung—the monk accepted it stolidly, but gave him a little extra squeeze—then gestured him and Master War to places among the cushions. Samarkar settled Ganjin in a corner, then blew up the coals in the brazier and added more fuel, preparatory to making tea.

Temur settled himself on the camel saddle that served as his perch until he reclaimed his grandfather’s Seat. He folded his arms on his knees and addressed Master War. “My gratitude to your order, and those of your brother monks. You are an unlooked-for relief.”

“We have not come for the Khaganate,” Master War said. “I must be plain. We come because my novice has convinced me that a greater evil walks the world. We are here to oppose al-Sepehr.”

“We bless your coming,” Temur said. “Whatever motivates it. Samarkar, will you bring paper and a brush for Brother Hsiung?”

She did, then returned to measuring tea and waiting for the water. Her kettles always boiled the fastest, and Temur was sure she used wizardry to cheat them along. The first slow steam already curled from the spout.

Hsiung wet the brush in his mouth, scrubbed it on the inkstone, and after a glance at Master War quickly wrote,
I have shared the truth with War-zi and the other masters, as I know it. He has been kind enough not to turn me out, though I deserved it. I have used the winter to continue my research on Erem.

The characters his brush made were small in size and spaced unevenly, lost in the midst of a sea of white. Temur thought of his former elegant calligraphy and bit back a sound of protest. A Khagan did not moan in despair. At least, not in public.

“Hsiung,” Samarkar said sadly, frowning as she poured water over tea.

He glanced at her and shook his head. Something pushed the flap of the white-house aside; Temur looked up, ready to discipline whoever it was—but he was met by the steady brown regard of the great mastiff Sube. The dog walked around the circle, careful not to scorch his shedding coat on the brazier, and promptly lay down and threw his head in Hsiung’s lap, heedless of ink and brush and papers.

Hsiung looked up helplessly.

“We say they’re the reincarnations of good monks,” Temur said. “Maybe he was a friend in a past life.”

Hsiung bit back a chuckle. With a shrug, he balanced his paper on the dog’s broad skull and wrote again, while Master War sipped the tea Samarkar handed to him and Sube grumbled disgruntledly.

I have not felt al-Sepehr’s magic often this winter. I believe he bides his time and husbands his strength. But I have learned something that I must share. Something worth my sight and even my life.

Temur sat back. Samarkar had set a bowl of tea near his knee. He picked it up now and blew across it. “Hsiung—”

Master War said, “Though my brother is in disgrace for other reasons, he is not incorrect. Novice Hsiung, if I may?”

Hsiung lowered his eyes, and laid paper and brush aside. Sube, seeing his opportunity, crawled farther into his lap. The dog weighed as much as the monk; the effect was ridiculous.

Temur could not have found a laugh.

Master War continued. “Brother Hsiung has discovered certain necromantic sorceries of Old Erem that can be used not merely to animate the corpses of the dead, or call their spirits up as blood ghosts … but to call back the dead to possess and inhabit the living.”

Even as Temur thought of the mysterious green glow of Hsiung’s eyes, and the bouts of compulsion that attended it, Samarkar jumped to her feet. “He’s been trying to call his filthy demigod into Brother Hsiung?”

Master War sat, imperturbable. “Brother Hsiung believes that is not the case. The sacrifice must be a willing one, and there must be widespread belief in the resurrection. Also, the tithe in souls he has been making—the number of deaths—”

“Whole cities,” said Samarkar. “Whole nations, practically.”

Master War nodded. “There is power in that sacrifice to elevate his dread demigod and prophet until the Carrion King, the Joy-of-Ravens himself, reaches the level of the Sages, the Mother Dragon, or even the Scholar-God of the Uthman Caliphs.”

“Oh,” Samarkar said. She sat down hard, beside Temur. “That’s why the rumors of the Carrion King’s return. That’s why the skinned corpses. That’s why—”

She glanced at Temur, and did not say
your dreams,
but he heard the words as clearly as if she had spoken.

He reached out to steady her. She covered his hand with her own. Her fingers were cold. “Al-Sepehr means to
become
the Joy-of-Ravens.”

War-zi inclined his head. The stump of his arm thumped softly against his thigh for emphasis. “We will fight.”

“We will fight as well,” Temur said.

“The monks will need horses to fight cavalry.”

“Can you fight on horseback?”

“We have our ways.”

“Horses, we do not have.” Then Temur felt a bolt of excitement. “But perhaps we have the means to get some.”

“Temur?” said Samarkar. Hsiung, perhaps picking up on the shift in mood, raised his head. His fingers burrowed into Sube’s dirty ruff, deep enough to vanish there.

Temur said, “I need to talk to the dragon.”

Samarkar touched him now, a fingertip brush against his thigh. “It’s not the equinox yet.”

“Surely not even a dragon minds getting his gold a little early.”

Master War blinked. “Dragon?”

*   *   *

As if he could not perceive the thunder of Hong-la’s heart in his throat, Zhan Zhang walked beside him in a mutually regarded silence, observing everything Hong-la did until Hong-la was satisfied that Jurchadai could handle the rest of the billeting arrangements. That done, Hong-la took up his courage and turned to Zhang and said, “Will you walk with me?”

Zhang, mildly, nodded. And followed him out of the camp.

The roads were too muddy for much walking, the woods still full of snow—so Hong-la brought Zhang to the spiral stair up the rock pinnacle, and together they climbed it. Thirty years had not slowed Zhang much: he made the climb with as much ease as Hong did. Finally, they reached the landing, and found themselves alone on that bright spire. Hard-day sun streamed down around them, and the bare trees gave no shade, but the view was amazing.

Hong paused a moment, surveying for the first time the full extent of the young Khagan’s army. It was … reassuring.

“Thirty years,” Hong said.

Zhang said, “Twenty-nine.”

“Did you know I was here when you agreed to accompany lady Diao?” Hong asked, at the exact same moment Zhang said, “So it’s Wizard Hong now, Dragonfly?”

The old nickname struck him, stuck him, like a pin driven through the body of that namesake insect. Hong closed his eyes, even though he looked out over emptiness and not at Zhang at all.

Hong said, “You don’t know?”

“I looked,” Zhang said, “but it had to be carefully. Without my father knowing. And it seemed to my resources then that you might as well have wandered off the edge of the wide world.”

“Anywhere in the wide world was too close to you,” he said. “But Tsarepheth was farther away than most places.”

“I don’t blame you,” Zhang said. He touched Hong’s arm with the back of his hand. “Bad as it was when you left, at least I could hope you were safe. If you had stayed, my father would have … You, and your brother’s family.”