Joanne Bertin - Dragonlords 2 - Dragon & Phoenix

Dragon &

Phoenix

Other books by Joanne Bertin:

The Last Dragonlord

Hi, Mom—

this one’s for you!

With thanks to:

The Navajo people for their good humor and patience with a traveler in their land, and their

generosity in sharing the beauty of that land with strangers.

Jennifer Lindert, who gave me crash space and hospitality while I was on the Navajo

Reservation.

Dee “Ardelis the Bloodthirsty” Dreslough and Paul Galinis for letting me use parts of

their names, real and SCAdian, for characters.

And once again—and always—the biggest thanks of all to Sam Gailey for fixing my

computer every time it tried to get me, and for keeping me (more or less) sane.

Prologue Midwinter * Year of the Phoenix 988 * Jehanglan

The old dragon stirred as something blazed like a shooting star through his

dreams.

Something new. Something…unbelievable.

He drifted toward waking. In all his long life he had never known such a

thing. He trembled with joy. The waters of the deep lake above him rippled,

echoing his movement.

Then, like a morning mist, the thought was gone, hidden once more from

him. He sank back into sleep, to dream the centuries away.

One

Year of the Phoenix 1008 *

The Harem of the Imperial Palace *

Jehanglan

Lura-Sharal was dead.

Shei-Luin bowed her head as her sister’s body was carried away for burning,

borne upon a litter of ebony by four burly eunuchs. A cloth of the imperial gold silk

covered the girl’s slight form. What did it matter? Lura-Sharal was dead.

Shei-Luin knew she should be proud of that mark of the emperor’s favor. But

all she wanted was her elder sister back. What would she do without the wise and

gentle words of Lura-Sharal guiding her?

She watched as the litter disappeared through the door. Tears streamed down

her cheeks, she wanted to run screaming after it, to hurl herself upon her sister and

beg Lura-Sharal to tell her it was but a jest, to hold her, to sing and dance with her

once more. She yearned to run away and ride the wide open plains again as

Zharmatians with Yesuin, their childhood friend. Ah, Phoenix, if only they could all

be free once more…

But now Yesuin was a hostage to the uneasy peace between his father’s tribe

and the Jehangli.

And Lura-Sharal was dead.

A hand came down with jarring force upon Shei-Luin’s shoulder. She jumped,

and looked up to find Lady Gei’s masklike face hovering over her.

“Come,” the lady said. Her voice held no sympathy “Come, the Phoenix Lord

has seen you and grants you the favor of his company. For you are also of the seed

of Lord Kirano; it is time to do your duty, girl. At thirteen you are old enough.”

“But I am n—” Shei-Luin broke off. To speak the truth would be to close the

path she suddenly saw open before her. Shei-Luin turned her head to hide her slip of

the tongue.

The fingers on her shoulder tightened like bands of steel. Empty inside,

Shei-Luin went where they led. Eyes filled with jealousy and hatred followed her as

she went deeper into the perfumed sanctum of the harem to be made ready. And

afterward…

She bowed her head. But only for an instant; she would not shrink from her

fate or from Xiane Ma Jhi, Phoenix Lord of the Skies. For she knew a thing that no

one else alive now remembered.

She stared straight ahead, her eyes dry now.

Two

Dragonlords—those who are both human and dragon. They come to Jehang-lan.

They will bring war to the Phoenix.

So said the rogue Oracle. And the words of an Oracle were truth.

But now his Oracle was dead. She would never See for him again.

Lord Jhanun pondered the prophecy once again. Had he known the girl had a

weak heart, he would not have ordered that she be given such a large dose of the

forbidden drugs. But her words had been so tantalizing…

His fingers smoothed the piece of red paper on the desk, discovering its

texture, gauging its precise weight. Each piece of sh’jin paper was subtly differ-ent.

A true disciple revered such individuality.

He made the first fold. “This is a true thing, these—” he hesitated over the

uncouth foreign word—“Dragonlords?” He glanced at the man who knelt a few

paces before the desk.

“It is, lord. There are a certain few, far to the north, who are born with the

joined souls of dragon and human,” Baisha said.

Fold, crease, fold. “And these weredragons—they are able to change forms

as do the weretigers that haunt the mountains?” Jhanun asked.

“Yes, lord. But they may change form whenever they wish, not just at the full

moon.”

Jhanun ran one end of his long mustache through his fingers and shuddered.

Abomination! He must calm himself, else the paper would sense his distur-bance.

Fold, fold, a quarter turn of the sheet...“The creature now beneath the mountain—it

is not one of these…?”

“No, lord; it is a northern dragon, else it would have Changed and escaped as

a human.”

“I see,” Jhanun said, thinking.

One alone—the Hidden One—means the end of the Phoenix. But four will

give you the throne—

A pity the girl died with those words; more would have been useful. How was

one more dangerous than four? he wondered. He would get no more; he must

gamble with what he had. The crisp red paper hummed as he slid a thumbnail along a

creaseJhanun said, “The Phoenix must live. You will lure these unnatural creatures to

the sacred realm. You know the prophecy; you know what must be done and the

best way to do it.”

After all, according to the prophecy, the vile creatures were coming no matter

what. He would merely make certain that it would happen in the most advanta-geous

manner—for him.

Turn, fold, crease, fold.

Baisha smiled to the precise degree allowed a favored servant to his master.

The hands resting on his thighs suddenly turned palm up. They were empty. Then he

pressed them together and brought them up to touch fingertips to forehead. Then he

laid them palm up in his lap once more.

This time a silver coin lay in one hand.

The Jehangli lord nodded in understanding; the creatures would be tricked.

“You’re certain they will come?” asked Jhanun.

“Yes,” Baisha replied. “They will come, the noble fools.”

“So be it.” He studied this, one of his three most faithful and trusted servants.

Pale skin, yellowed now, wrinkled and lined; a bald head fringed with thin

white hair bleached by the powerful phoenix of the sun: A baisha, a foreigner

indeed.

The Jehangli lord went on, “I raised you from slavery. I covered you with the

hem of my robe though you were not one of the children of the Phoenix. I gave you

what your own people denied you.

“Now I give you this task. The journey will be long and hard, the task difficult.

Do not fail me.” A final fold, a last crease, and a paper lotus of a certain style lay

before Jhanun.

“It will be done, lord. I will bring you the required number of Dragonlords.”

Baisha rose and bowed. His eyes burned with fervor. “I know what will bring them. I

won’t fail you.”

Stirred by such devotion, Jhanun rose from his desk and came around it.

Bending slightly, he rested his fingertips on his servant’s shoulders, a mark of great

favor. “I know you will not fail. Now go; there’s much to be done.” He let his hands

drop once more to his sides.

Baisha bowed once more, backed the required three steps, then turned and

strode to the door.

With a satisfied smile, Jhanun folded his hands into his wide sleeves.

It was beginning.

Shei-Luin fanned herself as she watched the tumblers with their trained dogs and

monkeys performing in the open space between the two gazebos. She sat by the

railing of the Lotus Gazebo in the choicest spot, as befitted her current status as

favorite concubine. Her eunuch, Murohshei, stood at her left shoulder, keeping the

lesser women from crowding her.

The Lotus Gazebo and its companion, the Gazebo of the Three Golden Irises,

stood in the heart of the Garden of Eternal Spring. Winter never came here; the

leaves of the plum and peach trees never withered from cold, the bright green of the

grass never turned sere and brown. The might of the Phoenix ruled here, a gift to its

royal favorite, the Phoenix Lord of the Skies. Or so said the priests who chanted

here at the solstices.

To one side sat the Songbirds of the Garden. A group of boys and young

eunuchs chosen for the incredible purity and beauty of their voices, their sole

purpose was to sing for the emperor whenever he chose to visit the Garden. They

were silent now, except for giggles as they watched the performers. They were, after

all, just boys.

Shei-Luin hid a smile behind her fan as she glanced at the youngsters. Many

rocked back and forth, holding their laughter in lest it disturb his august majesty in

the Gazebo of the Three Golden Irises. One boy eunuch, Zyuzin, the jewel of the

Garden, had both hands clapped over his mouth as he doubled over in mirth; his

three-stringed zhansjen lay forgotten on the grass before him as he watched.

For one of the tumblers ran in circles, waving his arms and crying

exagger-ated pleas for mercy as a lop-eared, ugly, spotted dog chased him. Each

time the dog jumped up and nipped at the man’s bottom, the man would grab his

buttocks and leap into the air, squealing like a pig with a pinched tail.

The Songbirds giggled and pinched each other in delight.

A loud, braying laugh shattered the air. Shei-Luin winced delicately, careful

that no one should see it, and looked into the opposite gazebo.

Xiane Ma Jhi hung over the railing, laughing as the ugly dog persecuted its

master. He called encouragement to it, slapping the shoulder of the man stand-ing by

his side and pointing at the tumblers. The man grinned and said some-thing in return.

Shei-Luin’s heart jumped at the sight of the second man. He was Yesuin,

second son of the temur of the Zharmatians, the People of the Horse, the Tribe;

Yesuin, once her childhood love and now hostage to his father’s good behavior.

How she’d cried when he first came to the palace, knowing what it meant to him to

lose the freedom of the plains. She’d remembered all too well what she’d felt when

the walls of the imperial palace closed around her. But his misfortune had become

her salvation.

Between the Phoenix Emperor and Yesuin was a certain resemblance; the

concubine who had borne Xiane had been a woman of the Tribe.

Yet such a difference! Yesuin was all fire and grace; Xiane…Bah; Xiane does

not bear thinking about, Shei-Luin told herself. He looks like a horse and brays like

an ass.

As if he sensed her thoughts on him, Xiane looked across the lawn into the

gilded structure where Shei-Luin sat with the other concubines and their eun-uchs,

the only males allowed there beside the emperor himself. Their eyes met. He made a

great show of licking his lips and leering at her. Shei-Luin’s stomach turned; she

knew that look. Unless he drank himself into oblivion, he would come to her

chamber tonight.

She pretended modest confusion and hid behind her fan, gaze lowered. Later

she would send Murohshei to bribe Xiane’s cupbearer into seeing that the Phoe-nix

Lord’s wine bowl was kept full.

The other concubines tittered. Shei-Luin considered ordering them all flogged.

But no; she had not the power for that yet. She must become noh, a servitor of the

first rank; she must give Xiane an heir.

An heir that he could not give himself. But she had found a way; for she alone

knew the ancient secret of the palace. And then…

The scene before her changed. The tumblers and their animals gave way

before the female wrestlers that were Xiane’s current mania. Shei-Luin sat up

straighter.

Not because she enjoyed the wrestling. Far from it. She thought these women

hideous beyond belief. They were as ugly as the women soldiers who guarded the

harem; big women, solid as oxen, and muscled like them, too.

But this was the fourth troop of wrestlers in the past span and a half of days,

and if Xiane remained true to form…She watched the women, naked save for loin

clothes and breast bands, grapple and struggle with one another, and waited as

patiently as she could.

At last! Xiane stood up. A servant ran to take the robe he shrugged from his

shoulders. The loose breeches beneath came off next and the emperor of Jehanglan

stood clad only in his loincloth. He vaulted over the railing, calling over his shoulder,

“Let’s have some fun!”

Laughing, the other young men in the gazebo followed suit. For once they

were freed of the restrictions of the imperial court, where every move was ancient

ritual, every word and glance noted, debated, dissected for insult or weakness.

Only in this garden and among the troupes of entertainers that he delighted in,

could the emperor of Jehanglan, Phoenix Lord of the Skies and Ruler of the Four

Quarters of the Earth, relax. Shei-Luin felt a momentary pang of sympathy. The

Phoenix was cruel, setting this man upon the Phoenix throne instead of making him a

performer.

But that moment was lost as she watched Yesuin run lightly across the lawn to

stand beside the emperor. Her heart hammered in her chest; it was a wonder that all

could not hear it.

They might almost be brothers, they look so much alike standing together!

But similar as the men were in build, it was the thought of Yesuin that thrilled

her. The memory of Xiane’s body on hers made her feel ill. It amazed her, how

differently she could react to two men so much alike.

Neither was tall but both were well-made and athletic. Xiane’s skin was the

paler, legacy of his imperial father, and smooth; Yesuin’s scarred here and there

from the battles he’d fought before coming to the imperial court as hostage. Some

of the courtiers cast glances of mixed admiration and disdain at the sight of the

scars; when those gazes fell upon the Zharmatians thigh and the brown birthmark

there, they were pure contempt.

So the People of the Horse don’t kill their children for every little blemish,

Shei-Luin thought fiercely, dismissing those contemptuous glances with an

un-conscious flick of her fan. They’re not the cowards you are. They don’t fear

your demons.

She watched him, and him alone, as he wrestled first with the women, then

with any of the courtiers brave—or foolish—enough to challenge him. She knew

what was to come.

It happened all in a heartbeat. Yesuin and Ulon, one of the courtiers, rolled

across the lawn as they grappled; Yesuin caught his opponent in a choke hold. As if

by chance he looked over Ulon’s head and into the Lotus Gazebo where no man’s

gaze but the emperor’s might fall. Shei-Luin was ready.

She dropped the fan. Tonight, she mouthed, quick as a thought. He blinked.

Then Ulon twisted, and he and Yesuin rolled away once more.

It was enough. She would be ready.

Three

As he warmed himself by the brazier at his feet, Haoro, priest of the second rank,

received the messenger in the outer room of his private quarters in the Iron Temple.

Before kneeling to Haoro, the man bowed to the small image of the Phoenix

that adorned one wall of the plainly furnished room. Reaching into his wide sleeve,

the messenger carefully withdrew a single sheet of rice paper, folded in the form

known as Eternal Lotus. A red lotus. It was exquisite. Every graceful line spoke of a

master sh’jer’s touch.

So, Haoro thought as the man held out the message with both hands, careful

to never let it sink below the level of his eyes, it is time.

He took the paper lotus and held it up, admiring it. His uncle had exceeded

himself this time. He would have to congratulate Jhanun. With eyes only for the

flower resting on his palm, Haoro tossed the man a token and intoned a brief

blessing. “You may refresh yourself at the inn of the pilgrims,” he said negligently.

“You also have my leave to attend the dawn ceremony tomorrow in the inner temple

if you wish. Tell the lesser priests I said so.”

Joy spread over the messenger’s face. To be allowed to hear the Song

without having made the full pilgrimage beforehand was a rare privilege. The man

knocked his forehead against the floor three times. “Thank you, gracious lord!”

He crawled backward, touching his forehead to the floor now and again, until

he was at the door. Then the man stood up and left.

The moment the messenger was gone, Haoro cupped the paper lotus in both

hands.By this one’s color, he knew its message as if it had been set before him in the

finest calligraphy.

Be ready.

So—the time had come for the realization of the ambitions he and his uncle

shared. And what, Haoro pondered, has my revered uncle devised for his part?

No matter; he would find out when his uncle made his pilgrimage to the Iron

Temple. Jhanun would never set his schemes to paper; this would be for Haoro’s

ears alone. Again he wondered what his uncle had planned. Whatever it was, it

would be bold.

The priest looked once more at the lotus. Had the messenger guessed the

import of what he’d borne? The Eternal Lotus was by custom worked only in paper

of the purest white. Therefore, this one could not exist.

With a thousand regrets, Haoro let the masterpiece drift into the brazier and

watched it burn.

Many spans of days after he started his journey, Baisha stood beside a crude dugout

canoe on a desolate beach on the northern shore of Jehanglan. He rubbed his

forehead as if he could rub away the lingering effects of the illness that had delayed

him. Damn that he’d ever caught the shaking sickness! It had made him late to leave

Jehanglan.

“You are certain the Assantikkan ship will be leaving shortly?” he said to the

trembling man the temple soldiers had forced to kneel before him. “Answer me or

they die.” He jerked his head.

“They” were the man’s terrified family—a wife and a babe in arms—stand-ing

behind him within a ring of more soldiers. Swords pricked the hostages’ throats.

“Yes, lord,” the man stammered. “They never stay very long—a few hands of

the sun. You must hurry.” He tried to look back at his family. A soldier seized his

long black hair and yanked his head around again. Tears of pain filled the man’s

frightened eyes.

It mattered not to Baisha. He looked over to the priest from the Iron Temple.

“Did your master give you what I need?”

The priest nodded and reached within his robes. When he brought out his

hand again, a crystal globe filled it. Inside floated a golden image of the Phoe-nix.

The captive whimpered at the sight of it.

Baisha took it and hid it away inside the ragged and salt-stained robes he had

donned a little while ago. “The rest?”

Once more the priest reached into his robes. This time he brought forth a jar

of ointment. “Smear this upon your face and hands, and all other exposed flesh. It

will redden and irritate the skin so that you’ll look as if you’ve spent days drifting in

the boat. Remember to smear some upon your lips, as well; they must be swollen

and cracked as if from lack of water.”

Grimacing, Baisha took the jar and removed the oiled paper lid. So he must

look as wretched as he felt. With a sigh, he scooped some ointment out and smeared

it on his bare arm. The priest signaled the acolytes who flanked him to aid.

Soon Baisha was ready. He stepped into the dugout; two soldiers ran to catch

the sides and push it out to sea. Baisha picked up the single paddle and set to work,

cursing under his breath. The damned ointment was doing its work quickly and too

well. The priest called out, “What about these cattle?”

Baisha barely glanced over his shoulder. “Kill them, of course. We want no

witnesses.”

He ignored the anguished screams behind him and bent to his work.

Four

To rule the heart of the Phoenix Lord—that was power. Yet what was power if one

lived confined? Though the bars of the cage were of carved jade, banded with gold

and hung with silk, they were still bars.

Shei-Luin noh Jhi turned from the screened window. Her silk-shod feet

pad-ded softly against the floor as she went once more to read the message on the

desk.

Such an insignificant bit of paper; the merest strip that would fit around the leg

of a fast messenger pigeon. But all the world hung in its words.

The emperor is dying. Come at once—Jhanun.

Shei-Luin studied it, tracing the words with a long, polished fingernail. Her

finger paused over the signature: Jhanun. Just that. No title, no seal, not even an

informal thumb print.

Were I as stupid as you hoped, Jhanun, it would have worked. And you

would have wrung your hands over my death, vowed vengeance against who-ever

used your name, and grinned like the dog you are in private.

She could well believe Xiane claimed he was dying; that did not surprise her.

A stomach ache from green mangoes and Xiane Ma Jhi, august emperor of the Four

Quarters of the Earth and Phoenix Lord of the Skies, squalled that he was poisoned.

She’d seen it too often to be frightened anymore.

But whether Xiane were dying or not, it would mean her death to approach

him before her time of purification from childbirth was over. Which was exactly

what Jhanun wanted. He had lost much of his former influence over the Phoenix

Emperor since Xiane had become enthralled with her.

Was Jhanun mad that he thought she would obey—or did he think her a fool?

No matter. He would learn. She was not to be taken by such ploys. Fool he was, to

place such a weapon in her hands; if Xiane saw this, Jhanun would not escape

banishment a second time. She would keep this safe to use one day if necessary.

But that the emperor’s former chancellor thought to order her as though she

were still a simple concubine—that was arrogance.

And arrogance was not something she need tolerate. Not even from one as

powerful as Jhanun nohsa Jhi—Jhanun, second rank servitor of the Jhi. Not when

she herself was noh, first rank. Not when she was the mother of the Phoenix Lord’s

only “heir,” born just three weeks ago.

A cloud of black hair spilled over her shoulder as she bowed her head at a

sudden thought. Her hand clenched on the fan beside the note.

Was all well with her son? Xahnu was with his retinue in the foothills of the

Khorushin Mountains, sent there to avoid the lowland fevers that carried off so many

children every hot season. He should be safe. Even those as am-bitious as Jhanun or

the faction he headed would never dare harm the emperor’s heir—the Phoenix would

destroy them.

Even so, she wanted her baby by her side. Tears pricked at her eyes.

No! She must not be weak. Her breath hissed through clenched teeth. She

must be the coldest steel—especially if the emperor were truly dying. There would

be a throne to seize did that come to pass. A throne that Shei-Luin already had

ambitions for.

And Jhanun must be taught a lesson. That he thought to fool her by so

transparent a trick angered her. He must be removed from the game that was the

imperial court. Without him the Four Tigers would be masterless, scuttling in every

direction and none, like a centipede with its head chopped off. They would cease

their endless attempts to manipulate the weak-willed emperor. More importantly it

would end their attempts to depose her.

“Murohshei!” she called. Her voice rang in the airy pavilion like a bell. At once

she was answered by the slap of bare feet against the polished wood floors of the

hall as her eunuch obeyed the summons.

Murohshei—slave of Shei. Idly she wondered if even he remembered what

name he had carried long ago, before being given to the then-child Shei-Luin for her

own. The eunuch entered the room. He fell to his knees before her, forehead

pressed to the floor. She stood silent a moment, pale hands clasped before her,

holding the fan of intricately carved sandalwood and painted silk like a dagger.

“Murohshei.” Her voice was clear and sweet.

The eunuch looked up at her.

“Murohshei, I desire the head of Jhanun.”

“Favored of the Phoenix Lord, Flower of the West,” Murohshei said. “It shall

be done. However long it takes, it shall be done.” He touched his forehead to the

teak floor once more.

Shei-Luin smiled. She imagined Jhanun’s head on a pike outside her window.

It would look very well indeed.

Then, as it had done all too often of late, the earth trembled violently.

Shei-Luin staggered, would have fallen had not Murohshei sprung to her aid.

The Phoenix was angry once again

Five

The dragon flew rapidly to the north, urgency in the rapid beating of its wings.

Soon it dwindled to little more than a speck in the brightening sky.

Maurynna paused in the doorway to the balcony, wondering which

Dragon-lord was abroad so early and with such pressing need. She knew it for one

of her kind and no truedragon; whoever it was, he—or she—was much smaller than

her soultwin Linden’s dragon form. And even he, she’d been told, was no match for

a truedragon.

She finished wrapping the light robe around herself and continued into the new

day, considering what this early-morning flight might mean.

She’d caught only a glimpse, just enough to tell her that the dragon was dark,

either black or brown. Jekkanadar or Sulae, perhaps? She knew they were both black

in dragon form; but then so were a few others. If brown, well, there were too many it

might be to hazard a guess. Maurynna pursed her lips in frustration. She was too

new at Dragonskeep to know her fellow Dragonlords by sight in both of their forms.

Ah, well; no doubt she would find out eventually. She would put it from her

mind and enjoy the early morning. It had always been her favorite part of the day.

The thought brought back a memory of the sea and the feel of her ship

beneath her feet; she pushed it away and concentrated on what was before her. This

was her life now.

The mountain air was still cold with the passing night; she shivered but made

no move to go back inside. Instead she marveled at the colors of the mountains as

Joanne Bertin - Dragonlords 2 - Dragon & Phoenix

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