subterranean lake, she felt the Brand pulse eagerly, as though it were a living thing.
“You,” Tsung Po said, rising from the throne on his grey staff, and he whistled sharply. “You came all the way down here?”
“You insulted me,” Silvermoon said, and tried to keep her voice from shaking. “You scorned my father's hospitality, you slew his honoured guests, and you cheapened the ceremonies for my betrothal. What else was I going to do?”
“And now what?” asked Tsung Po. “You think to discipline me, like an unrepentant child? Go home, foolish girl. You have no idea what you're doing.”
The great blue frog perched on his staff stretched out its tongue to snatch a luckless insect in mid-flight, and then it gulped.
“I will not,” said Silvermoon. “Submit to my father's authority, or I will strike you down, I swear.”
“Submit,” Tsung Po repeated. “Are you touched in the head? Would you drain the ocean from the city, too? Take back Lao Feng? Steal my home, as your over-eager suitors stole my daughter's only possessions? I punished some ill-mannered thugs, is all. You're lucky I didn't do the same to you.”
“Punished?” Silvermoon retorted. “You called up nightmares, had them torn to pieces –”
“You are touched in the head,” Tsung Po said. “I didn't kill anyone.”
“Lies,” Silvermoon whispered. “Lies!” And the Brand leapt forward, dragging her across the room, and she fought to keep her balance as the sword came down in a scything blow towards Tsung Po's head.
Tsung Po brought up the staff just in time to block the Brand, then flung the length of grey wood up again and again as the sword repeatedly lunged for him in the princess's grasp. The frog croaked in alarm and clung tighter to its perch.
“I'm guessing your father hasn't even bothered to investigate what happened,” the white-haired regent panted. “There were no bodies, remember? Those idiots saw... nightmares, yes, but nothing worse than what haunted them every day. Honest? Would you like to know what secrets they were hiding?”
He ducked back as the Brand swung past, but slowly enough the point drew blood from his chin.
“Secrets worth driving a man mad?” Silvermoon gasped. She tightened her grip on the sword as it tugged her back across the floor.
“That fat ogre?” Tsung Po asked. “Old Pig, was it? There was some poor barbarian woman he'd bedded, the last time he travelled across the border into Hengist, and last year he discovered he'd got her with child. The boy was already grown, and Old Pig couldn't face the shame of being the father of a blue-eyed bastard, so he abandoned him in the forest. Left him to be eaten by wolves. To meet the son you murdered would drive most men insane –”
“Pitiful,” Silvermoon panted, as the Brand hammered against the staff once more. “First forbidden magic, now you're slandering the dead?”
“Why would I bother making up a story like that?” Tsung Po demanded. “If I were in league with dark powers, surely I'd just ask them to stop you in your tracks? And that westerner, Three Strides, the one you were making eyes at. Oh, the liberties he takes with his position! Smuggling in refugees and selling them on to slavers to fight to the death in goblin market bear pits, or worse –”
“There was a wind,” Silvermoon protested. “A smell. Stank to high heaven.”
“Partly magic, yes, but the little worm broke into the old sewer system below the palace to escape,” Tsung Po said, and parried another blow as he retreated, gathering his robes about him. “Did no-one think to go down into that hole?”
“And Saffron?” Silvermoon asked. Her hands were streaming with sweat, and she wiped them one by one on her skirts as the sword paused momentarily, bobbing in the air like a twig floating in a slow river current. “Poor Saffron? I saw the blood. Tell me, what did he do?”
“He,” said Tsung Po. “He, you say?” And the white-haired regent laughed, and Silvermoon realised it was not mockery but genuine amusement, and she blushed hotly in the shadows without understanding why.
“You honestly never noticed?” Tsung Po asked.
I meant no harm by coming here, Saffron had said.
And suddenly Silvermoon saw that midnight speech in an entirely different light. Strictly speaking there was no law that forbade one woman to have relations with another, but society wouldn't approve if she wanted to court the daughter of a regent.
Silvermoon squeezed her eyes tight shut, furious with and ashamed of everything and nothing all at once. What had Saffron seen in her own nightmare visitation, if Tsung Po was telling the truth? What was she guilty of? Was it really as bad as Old Pig or Three Strides' crimes had been?
For some strange reason, Saffron's plight upset Silvermoon the most. Not so strange, perhaps: murder and corruption were abstract concepts to her, almost unreal, while hopelessly unrequited love felt far more powerful.
“Explain the blood,” Silvermoon whispered.
“If she had to change her clothes that hastily,” Tsung Po said. “Well...” and here he sounded almost embarrassed. “Come on. You're a grown woman, yes? Or do your nursemaids take care of everything for you?”
“This is ridiculous,” Silvermoon breathed. “You confuse me. Fill my head with nonsense, so you can work your magic on me. Well, even if you manage to cloud my mind, the Brand will stop you.”
“You really are still a girl,” Tsung Po said gently, and there was something in his voice that Silvermoon could not bear to hear, and the sword shot forward so violently it almost jumped out of her hands.
“Demon!” Silvermoon screamed. “Demon! You ruined everything! Ruiner!”
As she hacked remorselessly at the staff she realised with a thrill Tsung Po could not fend off the Brand; the power within the sword was too strong for him. With one more blow she cut straight through Tsung Po's staff. It split in half, and he stumbled backwards, tripped on the steps below the throne of brass and fell to the floor. Silvermoon yelled in triumph as the Brand swung up towards the ceiling, ready to bury itself in the white-haired regent's skull.
A dazzling, roseate light flared overhead and Wu Bei flew down towards the princess, teeth bared and her fingers stretched out into claws. Part of Silvermoon shrieked in terror and darted back ready to defend herself, yet part of her clamoured frantically; this is a child! Distracted by this hysterical argument she could only bring up the flat of the Brand, but the impact batted Wu Bei clean across the room, even so. Silvermoon raised the sword again, ready to stab past those clutching, sorcerous hands.
Then she became aware Wu Bei had not moved to rejoin the fight, and lay crouched across the white-haired regent's body, weeping pitifully. This was a child, indeed; nothing more than a little girl terrified for her father.
“What are you?” Silvermoon whispered. “A demon?”
“I don't know,” Tsung Po said weakly.
“But everyone says the city used forbidden magic,” Silvermoon insisted.
“Someone did,” Tsung Po said. “But not me. People wanted to consult the Black Libraries to help hold back the tide, but I forbade it – I set men to tunnelling past the lowest tier, to work on flood defences. Only we never dreamt the sea would be so angry. The water rushed through the lowest tier in moments, and kept on rising. Too late I tried to order the populace to flee, and then over the screaming I heard the sound of bells.”
“Sorcery?” Silvermoon said.
“Sorcery,” Tsung Po agreed. “I saw the air grow dark, felt the ground tremble, and then everything went black. What am I? I woke up to this. A dead face, wandering a dead city, decades of solitude where I saw no living soul save Wu Bei... I don't know how I didn't drown. Many times since then I've wished I had. Ah, Lao Feng, my Lao Feng!”
“Is Wu Bei your daughter, then?” Silvermoon asked.
“She is,” Tsung Po said. “I found her buried in the ruins of my home, beside my wife's body. My wife was dead, but Wu Bei? Grievously injured, but alive – I nursed her back to health, then built the eye, enchanted the diadem, and gave life
to the hands. But I could do nothing about the havoc the magic had wreaked on her. The ruin it left of her mind.”
He sighed.
“She carved her teeth herself,” he said. “I almost went mad when I found her, crouched in some forgotten tunnel, feasting on bats and hissing when I drew near.”
“Why not leave?” Silvermoon asked. “Seek help for her?”
“You saw how those idiots toadying up to your father reacted,” Tsung Po said. “If I presented my daughter to some snot-nosed paladin fresh out of the grand seminary and still wet behind the ears, what do you think he'd do with her? I'd be lucky if they didn't throw me on the pyre too. No, I stick to walking the Nape with her, now and again. Down here she hardly even needs me around.”
He stroked the little girl's matted hair and smiled sadly.
“But you were Lord Regent of Lao Feng,” Silvermoon said. “You were nobility –”
“And I condemned more than two hundred thousand people to their deaths,” Tsung Po said.
“Condemned?” Silvermoon said. “You didn't kill them.”
“I could have let them go!” Tsung Po said. “Ordered them to flee, even! But oh, no. I thought the city could hold back the tide. I thought I could, and in my hubris we turned the lower levels of this place into a charnel-house, Lao Feng and I. Beneath that black lake, through those windows, lie enough bones the sight of them would make a brave man claw his own eyes out.”
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