The Prince of Shadow (61 page)

The Golden River Dragon, vastly larger and more terrible than the magical apparition that Master Markko had created, fell in a steep dive aimed right at the magician. The dragon's roar spat fire into the marketplace, and Shannish citizens as well as Harnish raiders fell to the ground, cowering with their hands over their heads. Markko's beast roared an answering challenge.

The two unearthly creatures met, the long and sinuous body of the dragon tangling with the lashing tail of the beast in the air above the market square. As they tore at each other, the patched-together beast of Master Markko's creation struggled frantically for the advantage. The larger and more powerful Golden Dragon thrashed its tail in anger. Up, up, they flew, until they were just glittering specks in a sharp blue sky. Then a path of flame reached out, and the fiercely struggling monsters were falling, growing larger and larger. A scream rose to shatter the sky, and the beast that was Master Markko vanished.

With a last trumpeting bellow of victory, the Golden Dragon circled lightly on a thermal created by his own fiery breath. Lazily he floated to a soft landing in the square, and lowered his head at the feet of Carina, the young healer, on the temple steps.

“Father.” She kissed him between his smoking nostrils, and tapped him sharply where she had placed the kiss. “Time to let Mother go.”

The dragon's eyes sparkled in the sun, a deeper glint than his golden scales. He opened his huge mouth as wide as the temple doors, and belched. From his throat a querulous voice drifted.

“Wretched beast. I don't know what I ever saw in you. Put me down.” Mara, but as they had never seen her before, walked out of the dragon's gorge and stood on his tongue, arms folded over her singed and smoking garments, while he gently put her down. She looked taller than she had in the forest, her back straight and her hair black instead of gray. She did not look young, but neither did she look old. In fact, traveling in the belly of a dragon seemed to agree with her.

“Thank you, Father.” Carina hugged her mother and patted the giant head of the Golden River Dragon.

“Where is your sister dragon, old husband?” Mara asked the dragon.

Llesho did not find out if the dragon could in fact answer the question, because at that moment the silver queen descended lightly at the foot of the temple steps. His vision blurred, and Llesho wiped his eyes, leaving a bloody streak across his forehead. “Am I hallucinating?” he wondered. No silver dragon stood beside the golden monster, but Kwan-ti, the healer he had thought lost at Pearl Island.

“Llesho. You look awful.” She brushed his hair out of his eyes and pursed her lips in displeasure. “Three healers standing about while the young prince bleeds unattended.”

“You were dead—” He resisted her urging toward the door. “This is some kind of trick!”

“Never dead,” she answered with an enigmatic smile. “A trick, yes, but the same trick it was when you knew me as Kwan-ti.”

“You saved my life.” Llesho remembered the sea dragon that had come to him when he had tried to die in the bay. It was not a moment he wished to relive, and Kwan-ti acknowledged it with a bow of her head, but did not intrude the memory upon him further.

“The children have returned to Golden River, brother,” she addressed the Golden Dragon with a sad droop to her shoulders. “The sea around Pearl Island still reeks of death. You will take care of them until it is safe for them to come home?”

The dragon nodded his head in an affirmative. With an affectionate snort of curling smoke, he hauled his body into the open square, picking his way carefully among the fallen, too many dead for Llesho to count in his dazed condition. Survivors helped their more severely wounded brethren out of the dragon's path, more frightened of their terrible ally than they had been of the battle.

When the Golden River Dragon lifted on his powerful wings, the wind he created in his passing nearly knocked Llesho to his knees. Falling down seemed like a good idea, but while he could stand, he needed to find his companions. Shokar sat at the head of the bear who had saved Llesho's life, stroking the fur between Lleck's ears. The prince did not seem to have any physical wounds on him. Shokar was no soldier, however; the horrors of battle had almost broken him.

Slowly, the living converged on the temple. Stupid with the shock, Llesho watched them ascend the wide steps and enter the sanctuary. Though weary and bleak, Kaydu and Bixei seemed unhurt as well.

“You must come inside,” Mara reminded him. “Those wounds need tending.”

“Soon.”

Carina and Kwan-ti had already entered the temple, following the wounded who would need their care, but Mara waited at Llesho's side as Kaydu drew up before them to report.

“Did the general make it?”

“I don't know.” Kaydu shrugged, not indifferent, but helpless to offer greater assurances. “Maybe he's already inside.”

Bixei took Shokar by the arm and drew him away from their dead companion. Together the four entered the temple, where the wounded were laid out in rows on the floor. Llesho scanned the rows, seeking Adar as he had with scrapes and minor hurts when he was a child.

“Llesho, you've been hurt.” Adar came to them, and touched his arm.

“The brother. Good.” Mara nodded with satisfaction and left them to offer aid among the injured groaning on their mats.

The tension in the pit of Llesho's stomach relaxed. “When you have time.” He waved a careless hand and dropped it to his side again, suddenly realizing that he was brandishing the short spear in his bloody fist. “I just need to sleep.”

Adar used his hold on Llesho's arm to guide him deeper into the temple. “Now,” Adar said. “Before you bleed out on the priest's nice floor.”

Llesho hadn't realized he was still bleeding, but he accepted Adar's word, and followed him to the bandaging station. “I'm glad you're alive,” Adar told him, and Llesho let his head drop on the curve of his brother's shoulder.

“I'm so glad I found you,” Llesho agreed. And then he fainted.

Chapter Thirty-six

SHADOWS moved through the darkness, broken only by the dim glow of scattered lamps and the weak moans of the wounded. At Llesho's head, a heavier darkness sat, solid and reassuring. Shokar snored lightly. Tomorrow, the healers said, Llesho could leave the makeshift infirmary set up in the Temple of The Seven Mortal Gods. He would be taking with him his brother, who refused to leave his side, and his guards, who refused to accept any defense of his sleep but their own. Bixei had assumed guard duty at the front entrance to the temple and Kaydu had watched over the secret entrance into the side alley. Torn between his duty and Lling who had joined them after the battle at the palace, Hmishi had spent days pacing the length of the long hall from her bedside to the entrance onto the square and back again.

When the companions paused in their vigilance to meet the new princes and tell their stories, Shokar had listened with avid horror. Alternately, he'd berated Llesho for the chances he had taken and scolded Adar to check Llesho's wounds for proper healing and signs of lingering damage. Llesho forgave the healers their unseemly relief at his recovery; his protectors were starting to get on his nerves as well. And, much as he loved his brother, Shokar's worry was driving him mad. These few moments of contemplative silence while his brother slept nearby were precious. Not as dear as the opportunity to speak with Adar, however. The healer sank to the floor beside him with a wry smile mellowed by the lamplight.

“He just wants you to be safe.” Adar gave the sleeping prince an indulgent smile.

“I love him, too.” Llesho sighed. “But there is no safety anywhere for us. And I am not a child he can protect from the truth.”

Adar laughed softly. “Convincing Shokar that you are no longer a seedling of seven summers will take stronger magic than either of us possess.

“As for the danger,” the healer shook his head, sorrow creasing his features, “Shokar has always blamed himself that he was not in Kungol when the Harn attacked.”

“The raiders would have killed him.” Shokar could have rallied the Thebin people to his cause; the Harn would never have let him live.

“He's not a coward,” Adar said, as if that needed explaining, “but he is a man of peace. A farmer. And when he saw you in the countinghouse, he truly believed the goddess had given him a second chance at redemption. If you died, it would surely destroy him.”

“I do understand.” Llesho closed his eyes, weary and achy, and unwilling to think about it anymore. “But I can't stay.”

Adar patted his shoulder. “Sleep,” he said.

Llesho decided it was just too much work to open his eyes. In the distance he heard the soft voices of the priests, and a name—ChiChu, god of laughter and tears—called. And it seemed that the god answered in Master Den's voice. But that must be a dream, and then it was a dream.

 

 

And then it was morning, and Master Den was standing at the foot of Llesho's pallet, roaring for him to get up, no time to waste on sleeping. He dropped a stack of linen beside him, and Llesho noted that the clothes were day wear of her ladyship's household, neither the uniform he had fought in nor the house pet disguise he had worn on the day of the battle. And he did not know where Lleck's pearl had gone. Llesho moved stiffly, and the sharp pain when he lifted his arms to slip into his shirt was explanation enough of his pallor. General Shou had advised him to confide in Master Den, but he could hardly do so while surrounded by his well-meaning companions. But if he could discover the whereabouts of his other possessions, perhaps he would find the pearl there as well.

“My weapons?” he asked. “And the gifts her ladyship returned to me?”

Den had not been there when her ladyship had given Llesho the short spear and the jadeite cup, but he knew of them nevertheless. “In your room at the palace,” he said, “with whatever other valuables you may have acquired on your journey.”

That sounded like Master Den knew more than he was telling, but he couldn't ask about it here.

“General Shou?” he said, one thought turning on another, “Was he hurt? Has anyone seen him since the battle?”

Kaydu shifted Little Brother in her arms and shook her head. “The last time I saw him, he was exhorting us to hold the square.”

“I saw him in the palace before I joined you here,” Lling added. “He seemed unhurt, and was directing the Imperial Guard in a street-by-street search to rout out the last of the Harnish spies.”

Llesho had known the fighting wasn't over with the first battle, and he felt foolish for feeling let down that the man hadn't come to see him.

“And Mara is well?” He still had trouble believing that the healer had lived through what had seemed like certain death on the Golden Dragon River.

“Mara will say nothing about her travels in the belly of the Golden Dragon,” Lling offered, “but she smiles rather more than seems appropriate for someone who has met a horrible fate at the hands of a monster.”

Llesho laughed, whether at Lling's indignation or Mara's satisfaction with her travel arrangements he wasn't sure. He'd thought laughing would hurt his chest more than it did, but apparently he really was getting better. If he could erase the memory of the terrible beak digging at his chest to tear his heart out, he would consider himself well served.

As it was, he wished with all the heart that remained to him that he could talk to Master Den. The washerman sensed something that Llesho was thinking. “Let's get you back home,” he said, and dropped a hand on Llesho's shoulder. Llesho wondered what home he meant, but decided he would settle for his room at the palace.

The market square was bright with morning sunshine and the sound of clashing cymbals and ringing bells. A crowd had gathered, and Llesho craned his neck from his place on the temple steps to see what was passing. Carina stood on the step just below his, a shawl held tightly at her throat. She looked a lot like her mother, cloaked in the same strength and dignity, but it was softer in the younger woman. Everything about Carina was softer, even her hair, which she wore in a long braid wrapped around her head. Llesho realized he wanted to touch the shining braid, but he restrained himself with some horror at how improper such longing must be in a young prince.

“The emperor is passing,” she told him with a bright smile that did funny things to his insides that Lling's voice had never done, even when he considered being to her what Hmishi had become.

It took an effort of will, but he turned his eyes away from her face, and looked out into the square, where troops of Imperial Guards were passing in review. At their head, in a gold-encrusted chariot, rode the emperor, his robes so richly decorated that Llesho wondered if the man inside of them could move at all, or whether he just stood like the center support of some elaborate statue. The royal headdress of the Shan Empire was no simple crown, but an ancient helmet that covered the sides of the face and the chin, and flared at the shoulders and over the forehead to protect the wearer's face. The helmet was black, with gold and jewels worked into it. So dazzling was the display of wealth and power that Llesho almost didn't recognize the man under it.