“I have never killed a man,” Sairu said, a knot forming between her brows. “We make a point not to, generally speaking. We are protectors, not killers.”
“But you could kill.” Lady Hariawan’s face was empty, faraway.
“You needn’t worry about that, my mistress,” Sairu said. “You needn’t worry about anything. I am here, and I will protect you, and no one and nothing will harm you.”
“I do not worry,” said Lady Hariawan. But she put up a hand to her cheek. One long finger lightly traced the shape of the burn.
Suddenly Lady Hariawan put her bowl down before Sticky Bun and said, “Eat, dog.”
Sticky Bun did not wait for a second invitation. He fell to with a will and was soon joined by both Dumpling and Rice Cake, eager to share in such bounty. Sairu stared, surprised. She never spoiled her dogs, never slipped them tidbits, but obliged them to wait until after she had eaten before receiving their own meals. She opened her mouth, wishing to protest but unable to. A lifetime of careful training killed the words on her lips. A Golden Daughter did not contradict her master. Or mistress.
“What a thing it is, this loyalty of theirs. This love,” said Lady Hariawan, watching the dogs as they ate. “They would die for you. In time, perhaps they would die for me. We are like gods to them. We control their lives, their deaths. What a thing it is.”
Sairu’s mouth went dry.
“Would you teach me how to kill?” Lady Hariawan asked suddenly, looking up from the dogs and fixing Sairu with her inscrutable eyes. “I should like to know.”
Sairu did not wait to consider her answer. “No, my mistress,” she said.
“I thought not.” Lady Hariawan shrugged and sank into herself. Her gaze remained upon Sairu for some moments but at last slid back to study the flames. “So I walk helpless among my enemies. But they will fear me in the other place, so long as they do not find me in this.”
“Study each face,” Princess Safiya had told Sairu long ago. “Read each soul within the eyes, read each heart. People will always tell you something about themselves, some truth behind the words they speak.”
What was Lady Hariawan saying behind her words?
“You speak of another place, my mistress,” Sairu said, her voice gentle, soothing, as though she spoke to a frightened animal. “Do you mean . . . do you mean the Realm of Dreams?”
But it was no use. Lady Hariawan sank back into silence which she did not break for many days.
The cat watched the campsite, sitting upwind where the dogs could not catch his scent. His ears cupped to catch every word exchanged, then flattened with consternation at what he heard.
Somewhere in the darkness, a day bird sang a song incongruous in the night. The cat turned toward that song, gazing up into the branches of a young pistache tree. He saw the bird alight upon a lower branch, its white breast illuminated by the glow of the moon above.
“She didn’t like me,” the cat said, speaking in the language of his race. “I thought she’d say, ‘Oh, look at the fluffy sweetness!’ and fold me into her arms. Instead, she drew a knife on me.”
The bird ruffled its wings and tilted its head to one side. A bright eye gazed down at the cat.
“I know, I know,” said the cat with an irritable sniff. “I’ll do my part; that I promise you. I’ll make certain they meet, just so long as you get him well on his way. Can’t be two places at once, now can I?”
The bird chirped. Its song held something of a question.
“Of course I trust you,” said the cat. With those words, he bowed his head, his chin sinking into the white ruff around his neck. “I trust you, and I will obey. But she might be a little more obliging when all’s said and done!”
The bird hopped along the branch of the pistache tree, which swayed delicately, wafting tremulous leaves. Then, with a sudden spreading of its wings, the bird took flight and vanished into the night, following the blue glow of the North Star.
How swiftly did the songbird fly across that night-bound land? It would be impossible to say. No mortal eye could follow its flight. It crossed over farm country, wild country, cities, plains, rivers, and forests in the twinkling of an eye, and not even the Lady Moon in her heavens above could keep her great white gaze fixed upon it. It soared over mountains ancient and asleep, their highest peaks shrouded in snow, their deepest crevices lost in shadows. It followed no road, no guideposts, no signs, but the shimmering radiance of the North Star seemed to create a path before it, and it flew straight and true, faster than a streak of lightning.
And then a gateway opened in the sky, and it crossed from this world into the Between where the silent Wood stands tall.
The Wood is bigger by far than any mortal mind can comprehend. It is not a world in itself but rather the seat of worlds, containing within its vastness doorways into every realm and demesne, mortal and immortal alike. One would think, upon stepping into the green shadows of its byways, that there could be nothing more than the Wood, nothing beyond. Yet this is not true, for beyond its endless borders is an endlessness greater still. Beyond the Wood lies the Dream. And beyond the Dream lies . . .
But these thoughts are not meant for mortal minds to fathom. And even Faerie kings and queens, immortal and beautiful, standing upon the threshold of understanding, turn away at the last for fear of losing their sanity in the burning enormity of all that lies beyond Time, beyond Space. Perhaps not even the Wood itself fully comprehends the great Secrets hinted at in the songs of the Sun, the Moon, and their children.
The Wood is a living presence. But it does not live as a mortal lives, nor does it perceive life as a mortal perceives life. Indeed, were the Wood to turn its enormous collective consciousness (if consciousness it may be called) to consider the plight of mortals, it would scarcely believe such creatures to live at all. How could anything so small, so isolated, so trapped in a single, linear stream of Time be said to be alive?
And how could anyone ever care for such a sad collection of beings?
This thought is as incomprehensible to the Wood as, to a Faerie king or queen, is the thought of All That Is Beyond All That Is. So the Wood (if it can be said to think) turns away from such wonderings and, on the whole, ignores mortals unless forced to do otherwise.
Since mortals remain, for the most part, unaware of the Wood’s existence, they are never particularly hurt by the snub.
The songbird passed into the Wood, and the Wood trembled at its coming, a tremble not of dread but of pure delight. The Wood knew this bird and what that small, brown, winged body contained within its delicate frame. So the trees themselves bowed and waved and even laughed together as the bird—a thrush, and a handsome representative of its kind—flitted past, darting from shadow to light as quickly as light itself. The thrush sang as it flew, and its voice, like a silver bell, chased darkness into hiding. A path opened up before the thrush’s song, leading to a tall, solemn grove that stood rather close to the edge of the Wood, though no end could be seen to the forest green.
A certain tree stood in the center of this grove, a gnarled grandmother of an oak with a twisted base so broad it would take four grown men standing with their arms wrapped around it, fingertip to fingertip, to span its girth. The soft grass growing at its base swelled with the spread of its mighty roots. The Grandmother was too old and too mighty for other, younger trees to dare approach, so the shadowing spread of her branches marked a clear circle all around her. And still, her boughs were too thick to allow so much as a glimpse of sky or sun, so that one standing beneath her must wonder if there were indeed any sky above.
The thrush alighted in the branches of the Grandmother, which spoke a greeting in the language of trees. This language is impossible to translate, but the thrush understood, and it sang an answer which pleased the Grandmother from her leafy crown to the very deepest reaches of her roots. Though there was no wind, her branches moved, groaned, and swayed in a solemn tree-dance, and her leaves whispered a song in response to the thrush’s
own music.
Their song, combined, reached out from the Between into the mortal world to touch the ears of a young man who sat alone and frustrated in a dark bedchamber.
Jovann sat quite still upon the bed the old servant had made up for him in the guest quarters of Dok-Kasemsan’s house. These were fine quarters indeed, hung with elegant wall-hangings, carpeted in woolen hook-rugs dyed in fantastic patterns. The bed itself was a massive structure, larger than the average Khla gurta. Carved posts, painted scarlet, rose up from all four corners, and three sides were closed in with scroll-work screens shaped in a variety of Pen-Chan figures. These figures indicated pleasant dreams, good luck, longevity, and happiness, though Jovann could read none of them. To him they looked strange and possibly unfriendly. The bedding itself was, he suspected, silk. He couldn’t say for certain, having never encountered silk before.
He did not like it.
How could a man be expected to sleep in a room so large? Any number of enemies might hide in the shadows beyond the small circle of his lamplight. And yet if an attack were made, there would be little room for maneuvering. No exit either, save through the one door, for there were no windows, only painted hangings made to look like windows, depicting fantastic landscapes from Pen-Chan epics.
A Khla man would never submit to closing his eyes in such a chamber. He would sleep in his own small, secure gurta, his face to the opening, a hidden escape hatch at his back, and his weapon by his hand. That, or he would sleep under the sky with all the world in which to maneuver should need arise.
Jovann considered his Chhayan comrades, all of whom had opted to sleep outside with their buffalo and gurta. The cold did not bother them, nor the hard stones of the courtyard, so unlike the warm, grassy plains of their homelands. Better cold and stones than confinement! How tempted Jovann had been to join them.
But he had seen the sneer on the old servant’s face, and his pride had urged him to accept hospitality he did not crave.
After all, if the Chhayan people were to take back their stolen land, they would have to learn to live in houses and palaces. They would have to learn to trade with people whom they had only ever plundered. They would have to learn the arts of politics and subtlety in place of heaving axes and throwing spears. They could not expect to establish a credible hold in this modern world if they clung to their traditional ways.
If they were to succeed in their re-establishment, they would have to lose their hearts.
Jovann frowned, a deep line marring his brow. He sat cross-legged in the center of the bed, facing the opening, a knife across his knee. He had left his bow and sword with his comrades, of course, for it would be the very end of all rudeness to bring such weapons into his host’s house, even with the master away. But he did not trust the winding passages of this great structure, which seemed to him like an evil labyrinth. So he had kept his knife hidden in his boot. He held it now like a child clutching at its mother’s hand, seeking comfort.
There could be no comfort, ultimately.
My people will never give up the plains, he thought. So why not let the Kitars keep their cursed cities?
This was treasonous thinking. If his father, mighty Juong-Khla, ever knew that his son entertained such thoughts, he would cut him off without hesitation and name some more promising warrior his heir. The Kitars were dogs—No, worse than dogs! They deserved to be run from every shelter across the whole Noorhitam Empire! Better to see their cities burned and the ground on which they stood sown with salt than to let Kitars live on what should be Chhayan land!
The line on Jovann’s brow deepened, and he bowed his chin to his chest, closing his eyes. He must not forget to hate his people’s enemies. He must not forget the thirst for vengeance that had driven the Chhayan people for the last two hundred years. He must not forget. He must not forgive. He must not . . .
A voice called to him from across leagues unimaginable:
Will you follow me, Jovann?
Suddenly Jovann no longer sat on that barge of a bed in that stifling chamber. His body remained where it sat, cross-legged, a knife on its knee. But his mind soared quite suddenly out of the lamp-lit chamber and into a pure white light. He felt his heart ease, as though he had been liberated from a cage. For he knew where he was bound. He had made this journey many times before.
Will you follow me? the voice called, and it was the voice of silver.
At first, all was white and empty around him. Then Jovann saw two trees standing tall with their branches and roots entwined, forming a gateway. He moved toward this gateway, his mind assuming a shape with which he was familiar: his own body, his own limbs. In this realm he could take any shape or no shape, he knew, for he was outside his body and not limited by its restraints. But he felt more comfortable in a familiar form.
The nearer he drew to the two trees, the more trees he perceived around him. Indeed, he looked ahead into the great Wood, though behind him he still felt only white emptiness. He moved toward the Wood with confidence and stood beneath the two trees, gazing into a clearing in the center of which stood the enormous Grandmother Tree. Beyond the clearing, the Wood went on and on forever, Jovann believed. Forever and forever . . .
Jovann’s earliest memory was of the Wood. From the time he was a small boy, scarcely able to walk on his own two legs without the support of his mother’s hand, he would hear the voice calling to him from far away. The silver voice that spoke always in song. And he would follow that voice through the white, through the gate, and into this clearing before the Grandmother Tree.
It was all as familiar to him as his mother’s face, as his father’s gurta, as his own hunting bow.
The Grandmother Tree spoke a greeting in the language of trees, which Jovann did not understand. But Jovann bowed respectfully as he approached, walking in the deep green shadows of her branches. On a high branch sat the songbird, and it too spoke in a language Jovann did not know. But its words, when they struck his ears, shifted and changed and became something he could understand.
“Greetings, Jovann,” said the bird.
“Greetings, my Lord,” said Jovann. He did not know if the bird was indeed a lord, but it had always seemed to him wisest to address with respect a creature so obviously unlike any he encountered in his own world.
As Jovann drew nearer, the bird fluttered to a lower branch until they could look one another in the eye. “Will you see the future?” the bird asked.
“I will, my Lord,” Jovann replied, even as he always did when he came to this place. He stood quite near to the Grandmother now and could count every speckle on the songbird’s breast. “I will see what you will show me.”
“If you see,” sang the bird, “you will become caught up in the course of events. You will not be able to hide.”
“I do not wish to hide,” Jovann said. “Let me see.”
“Look then,” said the bird.
And the Grandmother’s branches shook as though in a tremendous gale, and gold and green leaves fell down upon Jovann and continued falling in torrent, but never piling up about him, always vanishing before they touched the ground. Jovann stared into the whirl of light and shadow, and he saw . . .
He sees his father, Juong-Khla, and there is fire at his head and he cradles fire in his arms. He rides on a beast that Jovann first takes for a horse but then realizes is the Tiger. Juong-Khla rides this beast, driving it with spurs that bloody its flanks, driving it down a dark, shadow-strewn path, and the only light is the fire he carries.
Before him suddenly appears a man upon a throne, a man Jovann has never before met but whom he recognizes immediately: the Emperor of Noorhitam. The Kitar monster, the Chhayan’s great enemy.
And Jovann, in the dream, sees his father hurl the fire in his arms at the Emperor, who screams and bursts into flame.
The leaves ceased to fall. Jovann stood with his shoulders back and his head upraised, gazing into the branches. The songbird, perched upon its branch, sang down to him:
??
?Did you see, Jovann?”
“I saw,” Jovann replied. “But you have shown me this vision before, my Lord, and still it does not take place.”
“It is the future sung by the stars according to the Song I have given them,” said the bird. “But the Song may yet be sung anew.”
Jovann shook his head. “No. No, that cannot be. This future must take place! And I know how it will happen. The fire I see my father bearing is the Long Fire of the Pen-Chans. My brother will give me the secret, and we will use it to kill the emperor.”
“The Song,” said the songbird, tilting its head to one side and studying Jovann with a single bright eye, “may yet be sung anew.”
There was a whir of wings, and Jovann had but one more fleeting glimpse before the humble brown bird vanished, disappearing into the vastness of the Wood. He stood alone with the Grandmother Tree.
“I have seen the future,” Jovann said, glaring at the tree. “I have seen it, and it must be as I have seen. It must!”
The Grandmother offered no comment. Her silence struck Jovann as disapproving.
“Anwar blight it,” Jovann cursed and turned away from the tree, proceeding back the way he had come, to the twined tree-gate. Beyond the gate he could see more Wood. But once he passed through, the Wood was gone, replaced by the white light. Through this he hastened.
And then he was opening his eyes, seated once more upon the enormous bed in the dark bedchamber of Dok-Kasemsan’s house.
Juong-Khla had long ago forbidden Jovann to speak of the Wood and these strange out-of-body experiences. For a time Jovann had wondered if perhaps it were all nothing more than an invention of his imagination, and he even doubted his own sanity. But he did not doubt anymore. He knew the Wood, he knew the songbird, and he knew the Grandmother Tree. He knew the visions he received, and he believed in them as he had never believed in Anwar or Hulan.