Portal of a Thousand Worlds Read online

  Twilight just shook her head. In a house as small as the priory of Sheep Rocks, paternity would always be debatable.

  “Well, after tonight’s disaster, we can’t wait,” the Empress Mother announced ominously as she reached for the door handle. “As soon as you feel better, you will go back and fetch him. It’s very urgent.” Darkness fell; the door closed.

  Twilight went back to sleep.

  Snowy Owls was one of the Empress Mother’s favorite festivals, one of the great social events of the calendar, both in the palace and throughout the Good Land. There were receptions outdoors, if the weather was cooperative, and many more of them indoors, where one could eat and drink to one’s heart’s delight and still watch the fireworks.

  This year’s was an epochal catastrophe. After weeks of cloud and snow, the sky cleared at sunset just in time for everyone to see the thin crescent of Wolf Moon, the sign that the Year of the Nightingale had begun. That was hailed by Court Astrologer as a very good omen. Old fool! But no sooner had the sky darkened than the demons came, even before the Emperor had lit the first firework to start the festival.

  Of course it was not the Emperor who rode in the curtained palanquin to the Tower of the Four Quarters to light the first fuse. Any loud noise threw Absolute Purity into fits of screaming terror, so that every year he had to be drugged senseless before the fireworks started. His stand-in for the lighting ceremony was Court Astrologer. After so many years of that substitution, very few people were aware that it was a substitution and the others assumed that there was some continuing ritual reason for it—the lack of any official explanation merely showed that they ought to know what it was.

  The Empress Mother presided in the Hall of Tiles, greeting the guests after they kowtowed to her. The turnout was thinner than she had expected because many invited guests had been unable to manage the roads. And the hall was so cold that everyone had to stay muffled up, hiding their spectacular robes under cloaks of sable, ermine, and sea otter. The formal procession was just lining up to emerge onto the Heavenly Terrace and see the start of the fireworks when some woman glanced out a north-facing window and started screaming.

  Demons! Demons dancing in the northern sky—green demons mostly, with flashes of red. Lines of them swirling, marching, suddenly vanishing and just as suddenly returning. Another eruption in the south … Soon they covered the dome of Heaven from skyline to skyline. Howls of terror and despair.

  “Start! Start!” the Empress Mother yelled. Men and eunuchs ran to light fuses. The carefully planned choreography of the display was forgotten in the desperate need to frighten away the demons before they could work their evil. Sky spirits were baleful at any time, but never more so than at Snowy Owls, when they could blight a whole year. With booms and starbursts, the palace fought back against the diabolic invaders. Every flunky in Sublime Mountain, every thief and beggar in Heart of the World, had found a pot to bang or a bell to ring. Every lung screamed defiance and spells of exorcism.

  The demons ignored it all. They danced in draperies, in plumes, fires, fountains. They wore green or red or violet—blue or white, demons of all colors and aspects joined in the frenzy of evil. Even the blessed stars could barely shine through their brilliance.

  Eventually, the supply of fireworks ran out, long before the normal climactic firestorm. The Empress Mother sent word for the guards to fire their muskets, the army to fire their cannons! Fire bombards! Fire anything! Still the demons swirled and marched and danced.

  It was hopeless. Half frozen in her chair under a mountain of ermine fur, the Empress Mother quit the field. She ordered her bearers to take her back to her quarters immediately, as fast as they could run. In a melee of guards and bearers and miscellaneous flunkies, her train rushed through courtyards and halls. Never could she recall an omen so obvious and so terrifying. The whole nation would panic, even if the demons had been seen only in Heart of the World. This was where the Emperor was, and the message was intended for him.

  The dynasty must be trembling on its foundations, and the fault was her son’s, for being a mental cripple, a useless idiot. The Empire needed an Emperor. Heaven and ancestors could not be deceived by an endless series of substitutions; they were not being honored properly, and now they were showing their displeasure and threatening to withdraw their mandate, if that had not already been done.

  She sent word to the Small Council to assemble immediately in the Abode of Wisdom. She had her servants strip her of much of her state-occasion finery, especially the absurd shoes that made walking near impossible. When she was capable of moving more or less normally, she settled in her chair and called for the bearers. Chief Eunuch came waddling in ahead of them. He minced odiously close to whisper in her ear that Lady Twilight had returned.

  Indeed?!

  The Empress Mother gave orders that she was to be taken first to Twilight’s quarters. Then to the Abode of Wisdom.

  By the time she reached the Abode of Wisdom, she had recovered from her first shock. The Empire might tremble, but it need not fall. Thanks to Twilight’s good fortune, they could yet have an Emperor. It might take a month or longer to fetch the boy and smuggle him into the palace, but his presence would immediately bring everyone else into line. He could reign and she would continue to rule.

  The Small Council had assembled, all kneeling and facing the throne—First Mandarin, Chief Eunuch, Supreme Guardian, Court Astrologer. A few young eunuchs were running around lighting lamps, and others were bringing in braziers to warm the hall, but it was still very dark and icy. Not tonight would the Empress Mother hide in anonymity behind the Emperor’s Eye. Nor would she presume to take the throne, although that was her privilege as sole surviving member of the regency committee. No, she had her chair carried right in among the assembled councillors and set down there. Never mind cold and dark! She was warm enough under her fur robes. She barked at the bearers and they fled, while the startled ministers rearranged themselves to face her unexpected location. The last door closed.

  “Court Astrologer! What is the meaning of this obscene demonic exhibition?” The gunfire had almost stopped. Even the pan bangers seemed to have given up in exhaustion.

  The old man wailed and wrung his spidery hands. “It means trouble ahead, Your Majesty. Disease, famine, unrest.”

  “I do not need you or all the demons of the nine hells to warn me of that! For the last four months, the weather everywhere has been disastrous! Flood here and drought there, storms everywhere … Of course, we must expect famine and plague and unrest!”

  “But the harvest was good,” Chief Eunuch wailed. “Many governors reported it bountiful. The unusual rain did not begin until after the harvest was gathered. Next year’s crop should find ample moisture, surely?”

  Even if he was just terrified by the demons, that quivering bag of fat had no right to interfere in a subject that was not his responsibility. Supreme Guardian and First Mandarin exchanged glances to see who would get the pleasure of puncturing the wind bladder this time.

  “The harvest was indeed bountiful in many provinces,” First Mandarin explained patiently, “but then unseasonable rains turned the roads to mud and the rivers to torrents. In many places, there was no way to move the crops to market. Heaps of grain rot in the fields while cities starve.”

  “The demons!” the Empress Mother shouted, whipping them back on topic. “Why so many demons on the portentous Night of Snowy Owls? What does it mean? Tonight you proclaimed the sighting of Wolf Moon a good omen, and then with the words barely out of your mouth, this happens! Why did you not warn us, Court Astrologer?”

  His watery eyes bulged like a dragon’s and he pawed at his snowy beard. “The demons themselves are a warning, Majesty, of course. I cannot warn you of warnings, or the second warning would be superfluous, indeed redundant, and therefore not necessary. And if there were to be no second heavenly warning, how can I be expected to foresee the
need beforehand …” Evidently, there was enough light in the hall for him to understand the terrestrial warning in her expression. Brought to bay, he tucked his hands in his sleeves and sat back on his heels with a bland smugness. “It means that the Portal of Worlds will soon open.”

  In all the years she had known the old moth, the Empress Mother could not recall him ever making a solid, unequivocal prediction like that. The other councillors were staring at him with unmasked terror.

  “You are certain of that?” she demanded.

  Court Astrologer smiled modestly. “As certain as I can be at this stage. I first began to suspect that an opening might be coming when a guest star was seen in the Constellation of the Wagon, back in the year of the Osprey. It seemed too early to alarm Your Majesty, so I did not speak up at that time. However, Your Majesty will recall that I did mention the possibility when Celestial Rose breathed fire in the Year of the Crow. That is not necessarily a portent that the Portal of Worlds will open, but it is guidance to us, a warning to be vigilant. All this unreasonable weather is another. Plus, of course, earthquakes and civil unrest. There was that earthquake in Jingyan last Thunder Moon, with substantial loss of life. And the Bamboo Banner rabble has not been returned to obedience.” He blinked moistly over his glasses at Supreme Guardian to indicate whose fault that was.

  “Demons at the Snowy Owls Festival foretell an opening?” the Empress Mother demanded.

  “One of the most reliable portents, Majesty. There are many listed in the archives, not all of which are restricted to warning of the Portal of Worlds opening, and not all of which, it appears, are necessary. But the weight of evidence has now become quite convincing.”

  The Portal opened only in Firebird Years, so the old scoundrel had three clear years before he could be proved wrong. At his age, that must seem like a lifetime. If he were wrong, it would be his lifetime.

  “And what does the opening itself portend?” Dynasties fell when the Portal of Worlds opened. The Third had, she knew, and the Seventh, and a couple of the minor ones. Barbarian hordes emerged from the Portal. One Emperor had vanished inside it, taking his army with him.

  “Ah, Your Majesty, I am interpreter of the future; I defer to the historians who are custodians of the past.” Court Astrologer aimed a poisoned look at First Mandarin.

  “Disasters,” the old man murmured and waited until everyone had a chance to shiver. “But history is full of disasters. The careful scholar always questions his sources, and the one fact that seems quite indisputable is that the records become unreliable for a time after the Portal opens. There are huge gaps. We believe that it has opened five or six times since the count of years began, but not on any regular schedule. We suspect that the breaks in the record are caused by widespread panic, but we are not certain even of that. There are tales of great slaughter, all unexplained. We know that the Third Dynasty fell, but we do not know the true name of the Emperor who founded the Fourth, or when he claimed the throne.”

  “It is unfortunate, then,” the astrologer said with a smirk, “that my advice about the Firstborn was ignored. You may recall, Your Majesty, that back in the Year of the Osprey I ventured to remind your council that the Urfather, as the vulgar call him, perished in the 246th cycle.”

  He hesitated, as if wondering whether to remark that Emperor Zealous Righteousness had ordered the pest put to death before he could grow up and start causing trouble again. Discretion won; he didn’t.

  “Thereafter, of course, he would be reborn in the ensuing Year of the Phoenix, as always, and by Osprey would be old enough to be recognizable. I suggested that all provincial governors be directed to make inquiries. Even now may not be too late. He must be coming up to, hmm, fifteen this year? Being ageless, he should be able to tell us exactly what happens when the Portal of Worlds opens.”

  First Mandarin was looking to the Empress Mother for permission to respond. She gave it with a bitter nod.

  “If your warning in the Year of the Osprey seemed to be ignored, Court Astrologer, it was because I had already reported to Her Majesty on the possible significance of the guest star and had made the same obvious suggestion regarding the Firstborn. He was duly located in Qiancheng during the Year of the Eagle and has been a guest of His Imperial Majesty ever since.”

  Court Astrologer bared a few yellow fangs in fury at being so imperially crushed. Furthermore, First Mandarin was not qualified or authorized to interpret omens. Chief Eunuch and Supreme Guardian watched with amusement.

  “What progress does the warden report, First Mandarin?” the Empress Mother inquired. She knew yesterday’s answer, but matters had changed since yesterday.

  “Still none, Your Majesty. It is a mistake, in my opinion, to think of the Firstborn as a boy. He may look like a boy at times, but he should never be treated as one. The warden has applied all the pressure Your Majesty permitted, but the prisoner still refuses to cooperate.”

  If Zealous Righteousness had considered the freak revenant such a pest that he had ordered his execution out of hand, without even the chance of a hearing, why should she change imperial policy? “Unleash your warden, Eminence. Let him question without mercy or limit.”

  First Mandarin bowed his head with a satisfied smile. “To the death?”

  “Specifically to the death. He’s been there often enough before. Meanwhile, what are we going to do about the demons?”

  “I presume to suggest, Majesty, that the Emperor issue a decree of fasting and penance and blame the omen on the unrest down in Dongguan, the so-called Bamboo Banner. The demons are a warning that they must be returned to obedience. His Majesty has been tolerant long enough.”

  She thought about it, waiting to see who else might contribute. Up until now, she had been reluctant to glorify a few rioting peasants with the status of a rebellion, despite First Mandarin’s repeated pleas that Supreme Guardian be ordered to march the army south and crush what the old man persisted in calling an uprising. Something must be done about the demons, though, and it would be better to have people blame them on an insurgent rabble than on the government. On the other hand, with famine impending, she was going to be short of tax money, and the cost of moving the army anywhere was appalling. Nothing must be allowed to delay her rebuilding of the Water Palace!

  They were all waiting on her decision.

  “So, Supreme Guardian, it appears that you will get your chance to earn glory in the field.”

  The old warrior sighed and shook his head. “I fear the chance has passed, Your Majesty.”

  Even in the icy room, she felt a sudden chill. “Passed? What do you mean, passed?”

  “I mean that it will be months before we can assemble the materiel to move the army. Traffic on the Grand Canal and the major rivers is already unable to carry enough food to nourish starving areas—they cannot transport the army as well. And after tonight’s expenditure of powder, we should be reduced to fighting with bows and arrows, if any of His Majesty’s troops knew how to use them. We spent about half of the entire army’s supply shooting at demons.”

  “Powder? Gunpowder, you mean? Well, buy some! Where does gunpowder come from?”

  Supreme Guardian ran a finger over his dangling mustaches. She had a horrible suspicion that he was trying not to smirk at her.

  “Powder, Your Majesty, is made of enormous quantities of sulfur, specially prepared willow charcoal, and three times as much niter. Niter is extracted from animal droppings in a process that takes about two years. It can also be mined, but the Good Land’s only niter mines are down in Dongguan, and thus under the control of the rebels. Also, I have reported several times recently, Your Majesty, on the alarming desertion rate, which will certainly continue to rise unless the troops receive their arrears of pay, which in many cases is now a year overdue. I see little prospect of being able to move against the rebellion until summer at the earliest, and even that will require a very s
ubstantial increase in funding.”

  How infuriating! At this rate, she might not live long enough to see the Water Palace completed.

  “First Mandarin, find some adequate source of revenues. Report to me at noon. You are all dismissed.”

  Chapter 2

  The Army of Admirable Cause was dying. Imperial forces led by Brass Knife had driven it back against the river and set the forest upwind of it ablaze. Now Brass Knife’s archers were shooting at random into that mass of choking, blinded men, with every shaft finding a target. The Firstborn was blinded, also. Last night, he had gone on his knees to Brass Knife, begging him to give the Army a few more days to return to allegiance. Refused, he had returned to the peasants, who would have done better to have called themselves the Army of Lost Cause, or the Army of Starvation. He wept again with them. Very soon he would die with them, although that meant less to him than …

  Someone was speaking.

  “Firstborn! Urfather! Holy One!”

  The prisoner pulled his mind forward a few centuries and forced open crusted eyelids. He tried to smile. “I thought I was, er … Sunlight now?” His voice was a croaky whisper that even he could barely hear.

  The man kneeling over him gasped with what sounded like true relief. “Yes, no, not to me, Holy One. We have doctors. We have food and warm bedding. The blacksmith is coming to release you.”

  The Firstborn tried to lift his wrist, but pain stopped him. The flesh there had been abraded by the manacle until it was ulcerous and infested with maggots. The rest of him was little better after months of semistarvation and lying on stone, which in places had rubbed through his flesh to the bone. His body and clothes were falling apart. When winter came, they had given him a single, louse-infested blanket, thin as paper.

  “Which do you need first, Holy One?”

  “Warm soup? May I bless you?”