Veiled Rose (39 page)

Lionheart was just picking himself up from the street when a sharp voice at the gate demanded his attention. He brushed himself off and turned, with as much dignity as he could muster, to see a finely dressed man, a minister of some sort or perhaps merely a high-end servant, standing at the gate with, of all things, a peacock under his arm. He was saying something very fast, and Lionheart could catch only a word now and then. He stepped back up to the gate and tried to convey to the man that he didn’t understand, and could he please speak more slowly?

“For you,” said the man as though speaking to an idiot. “From the Imperial Glory, Khemkhaeng-Niran Klahan. For your performance.”

Much to Lionheart’s surprise, the peacock was plopped in his arms.

“I say!” he cried. The bird hissed at him, showing a gray tongue, and he nearly dropped it. “I really don’t want this!”

“Your humble gratitude will be conveyed to the Imperial Glory.”

“But . . . but what am I supposed to do with a dragon-eaten
peacock
?”

“And your wishes for his prosperous and eternal reign. Good night!”

The gate slammed.

Lionheart looked at the peacock. The peacock looked at Lionheart.

“If you’re not a stew by the end of the week, it won’t be my fault,” Lionheart said and rolled his eyes heavenward. “Why me?”

There was nothing for it, though. With the heavy bird under his arm, trailing its ridiculous tail behind, he set off down the hillside and into the lower streets of Lunthea Maly. He’d gone no more than a few yards before the peacock suddenly struggled wildly. Lionheart lost his hold, and it darted off down the road, screaming as it went in an all-too-human voice:
“HELP! HEEEEELP! HEEEEEELP!”

If that didn’t attract every thief and vagrant in the whole dragon-fired city, nothing would.

The following morning found jester and peacock sequestered away at the end of an alley in the room that Lionheart rented at exorbitant rates. The bird had decided to take his rickety bed, so he’d spent the night on the floor, staring at the ceiling.

What was he supposed to do now? The sylph had been very specific all those years ago. Find the oracle in Ay-Ibunda.
“She will tell you what you wish to know.”

But honestly, he reasoned with himself, what did a captive Faerie creature know?

Nevertheless, it was the only clue that had presented itself in the last several years of Lionheart’s travels. During the voyage with Captain Sunan, he had visited port cities in the kingdoms of Aja and Dong Min and dozens more where the Noorhitam Empire began. In each city he had practiced his juggling and clownery for peasant crowds and done what he could to seek out the fortune-tellers and mystics, those who lived closer to the Far World than everyday folk. He found few. Those he did find could tell him nothing of how the Dragon might be destroyed . . . and some refused to answer at all but ordered him from their premises at once.

So he’d doggedly proceeded to Lunthea Maly as the sylph had said, there laboring to make ends meet and to find some word of the Hidden Temple. There were hundreds of temples in Lunthea Maly. He could have taken his pick! So why, of all the temples and oracles to be found in all the East, must he require Ay-Ibunda? Ay-Ibunda, which could be found only by the emperor.

The emperor, who had refused to aid Lionheart.

There was something sickening, after a long night of fretful turning on the hard floor, about waking up to the peacock’s beady eyes glaring down at him from his own bed.
“Help,”
the bird said, more out of principle than with any real feeling.

“I wonder how much your feathers are worth?” Lionheart growled as he sat up. Every muscle in his neck and shoulders screamed ill usage. “I could sell them after I pluck you for stew.”

The peacock hissed at him.

At that moment, there was a knock at the door. Lionheart never received visitors. He had made no friends in Lunthea Maly, since most people assumed he must be mad—and he felt inclined to agree with them more often than not. The only person who ever came knocking was his landlord, who showed up like clockwork once a week. But he never came at such an unholy hour of the morning. . . .

Lionheart slugged himself to the door and opened it, blinking like the undead in the face of the rising sun. A man in beautiful red and green garments stood there. How did anyone manage to look that fine when the day had scarcely begun? Lionheart, who was still wearing his jester’s clothes from the night before, tugged at his shirt self-consciously. “Can I help you?” he asked in halting Noorhitamin.

“Leonard of the Tongue of Lightning?”

“Yes?”

“Yesterday evening at the great coronation of the century, the Imperial Glory, Khemkhaeng-Niran Klahan, bestowed his favor upon you in the form of a rare and reverenced bird like unto the incarnate image of the Mother as a Firebird, beautiful in plumage, graceful in deportment.”

“Help!”
said the peacock. It hopped down from the bed and strutted over to stand beside Lionheart’s knees. The gorgeously clad gentleman looked down upon it and bowed gravely. He would never have considered giving Lionheart that homage. The bird hissed at him too.

The man turned to Lionheart again. “The gift of the reverenced bird was offered in a symbolic nature.”

Lionheart took a moment to try to translate this in his head. He responded with the Noorhitamin equivalent of “Huh?”

“You were not supposed to accept the bird.”

Another moment. Then Lionheart flung up his hands and swore in every language he knew. “Fine! Take the bird too! Do I look like I mind?”

“Your veneration and devotion will be conveyed to the Imperial Glory. . . .”

“HELP! HELP!”

“And your prayers for his eternal and prosperous reign . . .”

Lionheart picked up the peacock, receiving several nasty pecks to his hands, shoved it and its wretched tail into the other man’s arms, and slammed the door.

No stew tonight. And no profit from peacock plumes either. What wretched, wretched luck! He flung himself down on his bed and only then realized that the bird had used his blankets for more than sleeping.
“Dragon’s teeth!”

Another knock at the door. Probably the landlord, coming to charge for the disturbance. Lionheart, busily wiping off his jester’s smock, stomped back to the door, muttering as he did so, “Dragons eat that wretched Imperial Glory and all his wretched Imperial Gloriousness! And all peacocks too—”

He opened the door and found himself looking down into the delicate face of the emperor.

At least, that was Lionheart’s first thought. His second was that he must be mistaken. The little boy in front of him was dressed in peasant’s rags, with mud smeared over his cheeks and his hair covered in a ratty old hood. He could be the emperor’s doppelganger for sure, but certainly not the emperor himself.

Then the boy spoke, and all doubt was banished. “I have come to repay my debts, Leonard of the Tongue of Lightning.”

He spoke in a smooth Westerner’s dialect with only the slightest trace of an accent. This could be no beggar boy.

“I . . . wha—Your Majesty. Your
Imperial
Majesty!” Lionheart sputtered in Noorhitamin—or, what he thought was Noorhitamin—and bowed deeply. Then, on considering, he went down on his knees, prepared to prostrate himself as was considered right in the presence of the Imperial Glory.

But the emperor, trying to hide a smile, spoke hastily in Westerner, putting out his hand. “No, no, I am incognito! And perhaps it will be best if we speak your tongue when there is no one present. I will laugh otherwise.”

Lionheart staggered up from his knees, his heart racing. Any moment he expected soldiers to leap out of the doorways down the alley and run him through for daring to speak to the emperor, to even look upon him in such a humble state. “You . . . Your Imperial—”

“Don’t call me that,” the Imperial Glory said rather sharply. “Klahan is enough. I have come to repay my debt, but we must go swiftly.”

“Your . . . I beg your pardon, Your—Klahan. What debt?”

“I promised anything that was within my power to grant,” said the boy. He backed away from Lionheart’s doorway, looking carefully up and down the alley. It was quiet enough at this hour of the morning. The dregs that lived in this quarter were all passed out asleep and would be until evening. The emperor did not look concerned but wary. “We must go quickly,” he said.

“Where?”

“Ay-Ibunda, of course.”

Lionheart stared. For a long instant, his world froze, and he thought nothing. Then it rushed into motion again, and his mind was awhirl. At last! At last, he would get answers! He was out the door in a moment, scarcely remembering to lock it. (Not that it would do any good one way or another. One did these things out of principle, not practicality, in this part of Lunthea Maly.) The emperor was already moving, and swiftly for his age, back up the alley toward the street on the far end. Lionheart pelted after him, gasping as he went, “But I thought you refused!”

“Naturally,” said the Imperial Glory. He spoke the word so gracefully. Lionheart would probably have hated the boy had they met when the same age; everything about him was so carefully put together, every word spoken with such care. At age nine, it was not a manner that would win him friends among his peers.

It might win the respect of an empire.

“The location of the Hidden Temple of Ay-Ibunda may be known only by the master of the Noorhitam Empire. Should I be seen by all the assembly to give you access to that secret, I should have been forever stamped as weak. As too willing to give up those precious things that set the Imperial Glory apart from mere men. I would be dishonored in the eyes of my people.”

He turned left at the street and started again at a brisk walk, weaving between the urchins and beggars who were already swarming the city. Lionheart had to be nimble on his feet to keep up. “Besides,” the emperor said over his shoulder, “my uncle would have been furious.”

“So why have you changed your mind?” Lionheart asked.

“I have not,” said the emperor. “I always intended to bring you to the temple. I made you a promise, and it would dishonor me to go against my word when what you asked is within my power to grant.”

“But . . .” Lionheart frowned. “But you said you would be dishonored if you granted my wish.”

“In the eyes of my people.” Khemkhaeng-Niran Klahan turned his grave black eyes upon Lionheart. Those eyes seemed far too old for that young face. “But I should be dishonored in my own eyes should I refuse.”

No doubt about it. The boy Lionheart would have hated this child.

The exiled Lionheart, struggling to fulfill a quest that was, he knew deep in his heart, impossible, could not help but be grateful. And he was curious too. After all, if the emperor was willing to disguise himself and show up at his door at such an unmentionable hour, then Ay-Ibunda must, in fact, exist. Yet Lionheart could have sworn he had combed every street, every nook, every alley in the last several years, desperate to find it. As far as he could gather, it was not to be found. He still wasn’t entirely convinced it was real.

Perhaps this strange child was leading him somewhere else entirely. This could be a trap. Lionheart cast the emperor sideways glances as they proceeded up one street, turned, and started down another. This one led past a market square where vendors were already setting up their wares, calling greetings and insults to each other, half of which Lionheart could understand (the insults especially).

“Have you been to the temple before?” he asked the boy.

“No,” said the Imperial Glory.

Now, that was a surprise.

“Then . . . how do you know where it is?”

“The same way I knew where to find you.” The boy gave him another of those enigmatic looks. “I am the Imperial Glory of Noorhitam. The Paths of my empire are open to me.” He grinned mischievously. “But don’t let my uncle know!”

As he didn’t understand what this meant, Lionheart had no reply to offer. He followed the emperor, trying to tell himself that they were not crossing the same streets over again, that they weren’t wandering in circles. The emperor was only a boy, after all. He could easily be mistaken—

There was no lurch. There was no flash of light. There was no discernable sensation. One moment they were walking up the market square, listening to the shouts of fruit sellers and fishmongers; the sun was swiftly climbing and shining hot upon the streets, baking those who moved about their lives.

The next, the world was shrouded in mist, and they stood at the gates of a temple.

Lionheart stopped and stared. The emperor proceeded to the gate. It was not an iron gate, merely wood. But somehow, Lionheart knew that no assailants could penetrate here. The posts were painted blood red, and above the doors were many words written in Noorhitamin characters, which Lionheart could not read. As he drew nearer, rather timidly behind the emperor, he saw that the left-hand post was carved like a dragon, and the right-hand, like some fantastic plumed bird.

The Imperial Glory raised his voice and spoke in Noorhitamin. “Open to me, Ay-Ibunda,” he said. He sounded so young standing there before that great gate in the dark mist. Why should so powerful a portal open at the word of one so small?