Portal of a Thousand Worlds Read online

  “No. Keep talking.”

  “Then put the gun down.”

  She stared very hard at him for a moment before laying the pistol on the dressing table, probably believing it was within reach if she needed it. She had no idea how fast he was. The next few minutes were going to be interesting.

  “I am a Gray Brother, employed by your father as an assassin.”

  She nodded, as if she had known. “And did your work on his behalf include the massacre of my husband and half his household on the one evening I happened to be absent?”

  “Must you put it so crudely?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then yes.”

  She did not change countenance. “Why?”

  “Partly because he had arranged to have your grandfather assassinated, but mostly to make your father richer.”

  Now she reacted, but more with disbelief than shock. “My grandfather?”

  “Jade Harmony 6, may his ancestors cherish—”

  “Even if I believed that, what about my two stepsons and the rest? You killed all of them?”

  “It was necessary,” Silky explained patiently, untying laces now. “They would have inherited the money. An accident has to seem reasonable, my love.”

  “The distinguished guests and the servants who ate the leftovers?”

  “Corroborative detail to add artistic verisimilitude.”

  “The head cook was impaled for negligence!” Verdant was attempting to look nauseated, but she was not truly surprised, clever girl.

  “Certainly,” Silky said, tearing off an especially stubborn button. “His kitchen wasn’t any filthier or more squalid than most kitchens in town, but he should have noticed that one of the boys helping prepare the meal was a total stranger. Very careless! They should have sacrificed a few of the guards on the gate, too, for letting me in.”

  “All this to make my father richer?”

  “And because I wanted to marry you.”

  “You had never met me.”

  “I had orders to marry you and I obey my Abbot.”

  That surprised her. “You were ordered to seduce me?”

  “Yes. But I would have done so anyway, once I saw you. You’re everything a man dreams of, the perfect woman.”

  “How many other people have you killed?”

  “My tally so far is nine. Come and help me with these barbarian buttons or I’ll be here all night.”

  “Father knows all this?”

  “He knows most of it.”

  She laughed. She laughed! “This is incredible! Father employing an assassin? I never thought he had the balls.”

  “That was in doubt, briefly. When did you guess I was not a sand warrior?”

  “The third night, when you stopped pretending to be climbing the wall to my window. I realized that nothing about you was believable. And I had missed the food poisoning disaster so conveniently.”

  He grinned admiringly. “Verdant, my downy chick, you knew I was a merciless hired killer and you still let me romp in your bed every night?” The woman was a tigress!

  “You have mitigating qualities. So the mandarin is another imposter and Father knows that?”

  “Your father made a pact with the Gray Helpers, my darling. We will make him enormously rich and take a handsome cut, but in the meantime, he does as he is told.”

  “Including selling his daughter?”

  “He did that before he ever met us.”

  She shook her head in disbelief, but she was very close to smiling. “So now what really happens?”

  “You win your freedom, Most Glorious One. You do not belong here in this cage! I will show you the world.”

  “Your tongue is smooth as bean curd, Sublime Poet. Keep talking.”

  “You go through the fake wedding ceremony with the fake mandarin, and then you and I will embark on the sternwheeler River Pearl. Luminous will accompany us, because he knows a lot about land values. We will travel up the Jade until we reach Cherish, which is in the Fortress Hills, and the last town this side of the border. There, we will take up residence. You will complete that baby-making job I assigned you. Luminous and I will start buying land for you.”

  “Using whose money?” Oh, she was clever!

  “Yours. But the titles will all be in your name. Don’t tell your father that. We anticipate that it will increase enormously in value in a few years. Aha!” He had opened the robe enough to wriggle out of it.

  “And when you have made me rich,” Verdant said, “you will murder me, too, and inherit it all?”

  He shed lesser garments, tossing them around like confetti. “What an obscene suggestion! How can you even think that? I would never harm the mother of my child. Our marriage will be illegal, so I can’t inherit, anyway.” He trod down the last of his clothes, although the presence of that accursed gun was keeping him from achieving a decent erection. “And I love you madly.”

  “Maybe.”

  “Definitely. I never lie to you. You know the whole truth. You seduced me as much as I seduced you, but you kept me on after you guessed what I was. Didn’t you?”

  She nodded. “I found that nothing in my life seemed to matter except bedtime. Not just the sex, but the talk, the teasing, the fun … You saved me from going crazy.”

  “So you forgive me for playing rough to get you?”

  “I suppose I do.”

  “Good. You are not just marrying beneath you, my love. You are marrying beneath anyone—marrying filth from the gutter, trained to murder and lie and cheat. But I love you and I will make you the richest woman in the Good Land. Right now, as you can see, Noble Lance urgently needs to celebrate our forthcoming union, fake or not.”

  He walked forward. She moved as if to take up the gun again, but he continued until he was close. “Are you going to shoot me or lay me? That’s your choice.”

  She sighed. “Did not the Rose Teacher say, The scum always comes out on top?”

  Howling with laughter, he grabbed her and carried her over to the bed.

  Verdant’s second wedding went very well, with all the aunts and cousins writhing in jealousy and her mother inflated like a blowfish—not just a high rank mandarin, but a prefect! Half the merchant elite from the city seemed to be there, including some Verdant had never even heard of. Father was grumpy, of course, but anything expensive made his belly ache. When it was all over, the bride and her official husband embarked in palanquins and were borne off in triumph to board the sternwheeler River Pearl. Verdant watched Brother Luminous embark in the first palanquin, she watched it precede hers all the way to the docks without stopping, and yet the man who emerged from it at the docks was Silky, almost unrecognizable in the garb of a merchant.

  “How did you do that?” she demanded as he offered a hand to lead her up the gangplank, she being cluttered with excessive finery.

  “Do what, my rose?”

  “Switch.”

  “Switch what?”

  The River Pearl was smaller than she had expected, a smelly, smoky, and excessively noisy contraption whose cramped cabins-for-the-rich were barely large enough to hold their bedbugs, Silky said. There was scarcely room for the two of them to stretch out side-by-side on the sleeping mat, so they got even less sleep than usual.

  In the morning, she discovered Mandarin Effulgent Brushwork was aboard in the guise of another merchant, Gold Luminous. He and his son—Silky, of course—were on their way to Cherish to meet an incoming caravan, traveling with their concubines, because no honorable man would take his wife on a long journey. Verdant found this new state amusing, almost laughing aloud every time she wondered what her mother would say if she heard. The other girl, Plum Blossom, was a Gray Sister incognito. She was pretty and witty but too quick to smile at any man under forty, including Silky.

  The food was appalling and, on
dry nights, even the cabin passengers often preferred to sleep on deck among the smelly riffraff, but none of that mattered. Silky had extraordinary ideas about a man’s responsibility to organize his womenfolk’s lives—as far as he was concerned, he told her, she was free to do anything she liked except bear children for other men, and at the moment, she had one of his in the pot. Verdant felt truly free for the first time in her life. She talked with complete strangers, tasted new food—mostly very strange—and discovered new scenery. She knew it could not last long. A month or less would bring them to Cherish, and by then, her condition would be starting to show and lovemaking would have to stop.

  The idyll stopped sooner than that. Six days out of Wedlock, the boiler exploded, killing several sailors and leaving the ship to drift until it ran aground. Verdant and her companions found themselves stranded in a ratty little town called Humble Duty. The only room they could find would be unworthy of a traitors’ prison. Plum Blossom stayed there to guard what remained of their baggage while Luminous went in search of the rest and Silky went out to hire a boat and sailors. Verdant felt unsafe without Silky, so she went with him.

  The sun had almost set, but it was certainly not yet dark, thank Heaven, as they hurried along a cramped and busy alley. Two knife-bearing youths blocked their path. Everyone else in the alley turned and fled. There was a third thug behind her with a club, but she did not know that just then, and everything happened so fast that she was never quite sure what she saw. Silky threw her out of the way, so she fell; he pulled a knife of his own, parried the first man’s thrust, dodged the second man’s, kicked the first assailant in the crotch, and then twirled the second man around and rammed him into the third man, so he took the blow from the club. He dropped that one, got the third from behind in some sort of lock that left him helpless, and ran him face-first into a bamboo wall. The boy screamed, but he was rammed again and again, until he stopped screaming, then dropped. By that time, one of the others was trying to rise. Silky kicked him in the face, once to drop him, and several times more while he was on the ground. The third man had hobbled away, doubled over, so Silky cut the other two’s throats to make sure they were dead. Then he helped Verdant up.

  “You all right, love?” He wasn’t even breathing fast.

  She just stared at him, unable to speak. The alley had been quite busy before, but the only people in sight now were the two corpses.

  “Are you all right?” His face was so twisted with rage that she hardly knew him. She nodded, but she was shaking too hard to stand without assistance.

  “Let’s go back to the room, then,” he said. “Do I have to carry you?”

  “No,” she squeaked.

  Gripping her arm, he raced her, stumbling, along the alley.

  “Did you kill them?”

  “Yes. They deserved it, incompetent trash. I promised I would show you the world. I didn’t promise you would like it.”

  He had bragged of killing nine people, and she had thought she believed him, but now she realized that there were different levels of believing. Now she had seen the reality of deliberate murder and knew that the man she slept with was an animal, a monster. Would she ever sleep again without dreaming of the bloody pulps Silky had made of the youths’ faces?

  “Well?” he said. “Would you rather I had let us be robbed, slashed, probably murdered?”

  She licked her lips. “No. Thank you. Well done.”

  Chapter 11

  The so-called Lord of Ten Thousand Years was brushing his concubine’s hair. Probably no Emperor in centuries would have dreamed of doing such a thing in his worst nightmare, but this one had learned his lovemaking from the Gray Sisters, who were all experts. He did not see why he should be the only one to enjoy the ridiculous performance necessary to create an imperial heir, and he knew how most women reacted to having their hair brushed by a man with no clothes on.

  He was sitting on the edge of the great bed. Snow Lily sat on a stool between his knees, wearing no more than he was. She had luxurious, gleaming black hair as long as any he had ever seen, and the process was working as well as usual—on both of them. His free hand clasping her breast to steady her could detect her nipple hardening, and his own body was reacting to her reaction, signaling its readiness for another try. He wondered if she could feel that, pressed against her.

  “I love you,” he whispered.

  She jumped. “Your Majesty!”

  “How often have I threatened to have your head cut off if you call me that in private?”

  She chuckled. “Horse, then. Stallion of Ten Thousand Mountings! You must not confess to human frailties, like falling in love with a mere woman!”

  “Then who am I supposed to love?”

  “Just yourself, I suppose. Everyone else does.”

  “Love me or love themselves? Silly child, I love you much more. I would do anything for you.” And that was strange, because the Emperors’ extravagance rewarding their favorite concubines’ families was an age-old grumble among the Gentle People, and Novice Horse had always agreed with that sentiment. Now he had discovered he would do anything to win a smile from Snow Lily, even raise her family to the nobility, which is what he had recently done. “Did your father receive the rescript?” The imperial bureaucracy moved slower than a tortoise.

  “I have not heard yet, Your … my beloved Horse. But I know he will be ecstatic, and Mother will hug the moon.”

  “Good. Hard on the moon, though. Now what about your brothers? How many of them are of age?”

  “Three, but you don’t need to—”

  “No, I don’t need to.” The great imperial hand slid across to caress her other breast. “But I want to! Tomorrow you must make out a list of them, and include the younger ones, also. And describe what would make each of them as happy as your parents will be. Military commands, estates … anything in my power.”

  Everything was, of course, in the Empress Mother’s power. Butterfly Sword would approve the list of donations, but the eunuchs would run it past her first. She would agree without a thought, because she approved of such prodigality. For one thing, her world did not include such a thing as thrift, and for another, the news would spread and help counter the Bamboo’s campaign of whispers that there was no real Emperor. Next week, the Lord of the High and the Low would look after Snow Lily’s sisters’ dowries.

  Enough! He was as hard as rock just thinking of her delight. He threw away the precious gold-and-tortoiseshell-backed hairbrush and flopped back on the bed, pulling Snow Lily on top of him with both hands. She squealed in surprise and shot her legs in the air, which let him put his feet on the stool, improving an uncomfortable position. He nuzzled her hair while his hands explored. …

  A sudden thought of Moth made him shiver.

  Snow Lily felt it, of course. “What’s wrong?”

  It was subtle, but there was a change in the shape of her belly. Moth had shown him when it had happened to her.

  “You are with child!”

  Snow Lily squirmed around, in a great tangle of limbs, so she could kiss him. “I hope so. Even the eunuchs are not sure enough to tell the she-dragon yet.”

  Had he completed his assignment? It would be months yet before the child’s sex was known. His seed had brought death to Moth, but this time, it might bring death to him.

  Chapter 12

  Silent had been bragging when he told Man Valor that his cadre worked twice as hard as the others, for that would not have been humanly possible. But what he did make them do was not humanly possible, either. When the Pearl Army shifted camp, as it did every three or four days, the patriots ran for a couple of hours singing the Bamboo song and carrying only staves and canteens. Men of the Silent Cadre did that with sacks of rice on their shoulders, and then went back for another load. They sang on both trips.

  They did everything harder, faster, and farther, and Sile
nt’s three knots were always out there ahead of them.

  On any task or journey, the last man to finish was subjected to extra labor or public humiliation, usually the spitting ritual. They ate like horses, chewed three or four yang leaves a day, and could fall asleep while bathing in cold water. When they boxed, they fought until their knuckles bled. The worst torment of all was Silent himself, that weedy, juvenile, ugly, arrogant, obnoxious turd who worked as hard as any of them.

  All this harshness was not to make them invincible, Silent insisted. They were invincible already. Any man who doubted that could ask to be shot at and he would arrange it; none ever did. The purpose of the Silent Cadre was to turn them into leaders, to serve Bamboo. Just do as he did, Silent said, but even the best of them rarely managed to equal him.

  NOT sticks nor stones can break my bones …

  The group’s number varied from twenty to about forty. Some obviously could not keep up; they vanished without explanation. Some completed the course and were sent off to be promoted at the third proving, but the men of the Silent Cadre did not waste training time attending the ceremony, although other cadres did. Every man worked, ate, and slept in a crowd of strangers, for no one ever spoke. They chanted lessons or sang hymns to ancestors or the accursed bamboo song. That was all. They knew one another’s faces, but never their names.

  Man Valor missed the comfort of simple talk, of telling stories, of laughing at jokes. He even missed women, to his shame. Once or twice a month, back in Face to the Sun, he had taken a bowl of rice around the corner to a local widow, Blue Harmony, and she had let him make the blossom of eight petals with her, but spilling his seed weakened a man, and the patriots had dedicated all their strength to Bamboo. Fortunately, no women were available to tempt them.

  The Pearl Army was moving steadily inland, heading westward and northward, into cooler hill country. There were several armies in the Bamboo Banner—the Pearl Army, the Jade Army, the Agate Army, and probably others, with the exact number being a secret—and they would join up or divide as tactics required. Most towns wisely left their gates open and suffered little. Those that resisted were besieged. No siege lasted longer than three days before a swarm of patriots came over the walls. Then the looting and destruction were much more serious. The governor and his helpers were beheaded or impaled. Willing young men were enlisted. Women were treated with respect and must not be touched.