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Authors: Joanne Bertin

Dragon and Phoenix (62 page)

BOOK: Dragon and Phoenix
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Part of her mind wondered,
How many horses did he
—She squashed the thought.
She sat up, shivering, but not from the cold night air. Taking slow, deep breaths, Maurynna pushed back her horror.
He fights in a war begun long ago and not by his kind.
Wherever it came from, the thought reassured her. Miune Kihn had killed not for bloodlust, but because he’d had to. There had been no joy in the killing; of that she was certain. He had done it to protect her and Raven. And protect them he had, else they would be dead now—if they were lucky. The thought of how close they’d come to being Taren’s prisoners made her shudder.
Suddenly, with such an ally, the mission before her seemed not quite so impossible. It was not a rational belief, she knew that; the little waterdragon would not be there to help her in the end. But it comforted her nonetheless. Maurynna bowed her head for a moment and breathed a quiet prayer that all would be well, then lay down again, wondering what the next day would bring.
 
The funeral was a nightmare. Shei-Luin went through it like one caught in a fox ghost’s spell.
General V’Choun had not let her see Xiane’s body when it was retrieved from the little ravine, and the priests had carried it off immediately. “Remember him the way he was, my lady,” the old general said through his tears, and gently guided her away.
Now the earthly husk of the emperor of Jehanglan lay upon the lower altar in the temple where, so short a time before, Xiane had helped her get through her coronation. For nine days it would lie here, preserved by the power of the Phoenix, covered by a mantle of heavy gold silk. The costliest incenses burned at each corner of the altar.
For nine days she kept vigil before the altar, beginning at dawn, and ending at sunset; for, at dawn on the tenth day, Xiane Ma Jhi would go to the Phoenix, and his ashes would be interred with those of his ancestors in the vault beneath the altar.
The days had been the peaceful times. Shei-Luin knelt by the side of the altar, near Xiane’s head, and let her mind empty.
The nights … The nights had been hell. For night after night, Xiane came to her in her dreams. Sometimes he looked as she remembered him, with his long, horselike face and big teeth. Other times, the worst times, his face was swollen and lumpy, as if someone had slipped rocks under the skin. His eyes bulged grotesquely as they focused on her, and she knew this was the ruin that V’Choun had tried to spare her.
But fair or foul, each dream was the same: Xiane, standing in a mist that swirled grey fingers around him, wept, and said to her, “Why? Why did you kill me, Precious Flower? I loved you—didn’t you know it?”
“I had to, Xiane; I’m sorry, but I had to. What you planned would have cost
the boys their lives.” Each time, she wanted to cry, but no tears came forth. Each time, she tried to beg his forgiveness, but the words died on her tongue.
He would fade away then, though his voice stayed long enough to say, “All would have been well, Shei-Luin; all would have been well.”
She would awaken then, too wracked with grief and remorse to sleep again.
And now it was almost over. On this, the tenth morning, Shei-Luin went to the temple for the last time. She came before dawn, startling the priests who kept watch during the night.
The head priest himself came to her, all obsequious sympathy. “Imperial Majesty, you need not stand vigil this day, you know. In fact, you need not be here at all this day.” He looked annoyed that she should make such a mistake.
“I know,” Shei-Luin said. Her voice shook; for once she didn’t care that someone saw a weakness. “I came to bid Xiane farewell.”
“I’m sorry,” the priest said, his voice suddenly gentle. “I didn’t realize that—Of course you may bid him farewell.”
He led her to the altar and shooed the other priests away. “I will leave you alone, Phoenix Lady.”
For the last time, Shei-Luin stood by Xiane’s body. Despite the priests’ spells and the clouds of incense, she caught the first hint of the sweet, sickening smell of decay.
Ignoring it, she bent over the shrouded lump that was Xiane’s head. “I’m sorry, Xiane,” she whispered, “truly sorry. Please …” The words that would not come before, came to her now. “Forgive me. I didn’t want to kill you, and I wish I could have loved you the way you loved me.”
She remembered how, the night of Yesuin’s escape, he had looked, sitting on her bed, his black hair hanging loose upon his shoulders. That was how she would remember Xiane Ma Jhi. “Perhaps—perhaps one day I could have.” She bent and kissed the silk covering his brow.
“Phoenix Lady.”
The words were the merest whisper. She turned.
The head priest stood at the bottom of the stairs. “I’m sorry, my lady, but the dawn comes, and we must give him to the fire.”
The first tears coursed down her cheeks. “I understand.”
She was still crying when she returned to the palace.
 
Morning came, and with it, company.
The first to hear the intruders was Miune.
*Horses,*
he said. He heaved himself from the ground.
After listening a moment, Maurynna said, “I hear them now, as well. Your people, Shima?” She looked to the Tah’nehsieh. “Whoever it is, they come openly.” Still, she kicked back her blankets and stood up.
“No one should be seeking us,” he replied, frowning. “And the Jehangli don’t ride this land. Not openly. Not unless they come to rai—”
A soft neigh from the depths of the winding entrance cut him off. Stormwind answered it and trotted quickly across the grass. He disappeared into the gap in the rock.
Raven, crouching by the fire, laughed as he fed twigs into it. “Rest easy. Hear how happy he was? Must be the Two Poor Bastards.”
“Who?” Shima asked with a quick shake of his head as if uncertain he’d heard correctly.
Maurynna debated trying to explain and took the coward’s way out. “You’ll see.”
She watched the opening. Both Shima and Raven came to join her. A short while later Stormwind appeared once more, followed closely by Jhem and Trissin. They neighed a greeting and went straight to the pool.
As they passed Shima, Trissin swiftly turned his head. For a moment Maurynna feared that the Llysanyin thought Shima was Jehangli and would attack him. But the danger passed in a heartbeat, and Trissin followed his brother to the water.
Shima stared after them. At last he asked, “They’re more of your horses, aren’t they?”
“Llysanyins, yes,” Maurynna answered.
“They’re beautiful,” he said. There was an odd note in his voice.
“Hm,” said Maurynna as she eyed the Poor Bastards with a critical eye. Where they weren’t covered in mud, they were plastered with the red dust of this land. Their thick manes and tails were filthy and tangled, and the feathers of their feet were a mud-caked disaster. Beautiful? Hardly.
Then she recognized what she’d heard in Shima’s voice: the same longing as in Raven’s when he’d first seen Boreal.
I daresay a horseman can see beneath the dirt
, she thought. Then:
they look like Shan did the first time I saw
—
No ; she would not let her thoughts stray there. But useless tears pricked her eyes anyway.
Calling herself sixty kinds of a fool in every language she knew, Maurynna cursed under her breath and knelt to roll up her blankets. She yanked the lacing tight with a savage tug.
If only this were over.
“As soon as the Poor Bastards are cared for and have rested and eaten, we move out,” she said.
She must have spoken more vehemently than she’d meant to, for Raven and Shima looked at each other and went meekly to tend to the newcomers.
 
 
They came into the village late in the afternoon three days later. Maurynna leaned back against the high cantle of the saddle. While she guessed that, as the crow flew, the distance from where they’d camped that first night to Shima’s village was not that great, the roundabout route they’d taken had added miles and candlemarks onto the journey.
Shima had apologized for it. “Because we fear invasion by the armies of Jehanglan, there are no direct trails to my
mehanso
,” he said. Then, with a wry smile, he added, “Not that there are any direct routes anywhere in this country. It’s not an easy land, this.”
Maurynna remembered those words now at the end of the ride. She thought of the stark beauty of this country, the mountains rearing abruptly from the desert soil to stand proud against the turquoise blue bowl of a sky that went on forever, the tough, scrubby, needle-leafed vegetation grey-green against the red of rock and sand. A young land this, angry and proud, its hard edges not yet worn to gentleness by wind and rain. Even the mountains around Dragonskeep, high as they were, were not so fierce as these.
No, not an easy land at all. But one where the gods might walk.
And now they were come to Shima’s home. She’d guessed
“mehanso”
meant village. With growing wonder, she saw how wrong she was as they entered the valley at one end. For rank after rank of mud-brick houses lined the cliff walls, most tucked back into caves like gouges in the stone, perhaps twenty feet deep or more, and running the length of the cliff on both sides the valley. Judging by the number of houses, there were enough people here to populate a fair-sized city in the Five Kingdoms.
Remarkably few people came out of their houses to see the strangers. Perhaps, Maurynna thought, they were occupied with other things. But there should be more children than this, surely? Younglings always knew something was afoot even before it happened.
“Shouldn’t there be more people?” she asked as Boreal followed Shima’s little Pirii along the hard-packed trail that ran between the cliffs. Stormwind came close behind, with Trissin and Jhem trailing him. Their destination seemed to be a kind of large oval courtyard encircled by a low wall with openings at the narrow ends.
Shima waved a hand at the mud-brick houses above them on either side. “The valley can’t support all those who could live here, were they here all the time; many of these homes are empty most of the year. Their owners are away with the flocks,” he answered as he brought his pony to a halt in the courtyard, “or working the fields scattered throughout the land. Only a few of the farmers who tend nearby fields, and many artisans, live here year round. The rest of us come back for the four Great Fesitvals. Then the
mehanso
is crowded indeed.”
And now the first of the valley dwellers met them: the children, in the lead
here as they seemed to be the world over when there was something new at hand. They pranced around the horses, caroling greetings—(Maurynna assumed from the happy faces)—and shouting questions that Shima answered with a laugh. The Tah’nehsieh man jumped down from his horse. Children swarmed over him.
A few detached themselves to stare at the strangers. Maurynna dropped the reins on Boreal’s neck, steeling herself to dismount. Would she never get used to riding the day long? To put off the dreaded moment a little longer she studied the children gathering around the Llysanyins.
They were slightly darker of skin than Shima, with hair the blue-black hue Maurynna had seen throughout Jehanglan. All, regardless of sex it seemed, wore only a short, kiltlike garment. Their soft voices fluted like tiny birds as they whispered among themselves, dividing their attention between humans and horses. They giggled behind their fingers when she greeted them in Jehangli.
She smiled back at them; the smile froze a little when she realized she really couldn’t put off dismounting any longer. Not unless she wanted to eat and sleep atop Boreal. Ah, well; might as well get it over with. She raised herself in the saddle and swung her leg over the high cantle.
To her surprise it was easier today.
Maybe there’s hope for me after all,
she thought, as she gently lowered herself to the ground.
Shima moved to help her; Raven jostled him out of the way. Maurynna stood a moment, shocked and angry.
That wasn’t just rudeness. How dare he assume that only he’s allowed near me?
“I don’t need
any
help, thank you,” she snapped, glaring at Raven.
He stared back sullenly for a moment. She braced herself for an explosion. Then he turned and strode back to Stormwind.
 
“They’re with my mother now, resting before the feast this evening.”
Shima sat with his back against the rear wall of his master’s house in the village. The side and front walls of the house were built of mud brick; but this wall was the living rock of the mountain itself, the house itself tucked under an overhang in the cliff. In his hand he held a clay beaker filled with cold, sweet water from the upper spring, and sighed. He wished they were at the hut tucked away in the tiny meadow on the mountain.
Or that Raven was. It didn’t much matter to him who was where, as long as there was a ridge or two between them. He shook his head and grimaced, then drank.
BOOK: Dragon and Phoenix
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