Chapter 23

Shard Gingko spent a long day sitting on the ground with the rest of his companions just outside the army camp, watched over by a score or so of armed, distrustful soldiers. The antagonism waned soon after the Firstborn was led away, which indicated that he had been made welcome by the Emperor. The weather was pleasant, neither hot nor cold, windy nor dead calm, and the scenery was memorable. But the prisoners were not allowed to talk, and he dared not open his scribe’s box to write anything lest he be suspected of making notes about the army. The soldiers were having a day off, squad after squad running over to the river to splash and laugh and horse around. Even the horses were horsing around.

Bowls of rice were handed out at noon, but after that, the monotony returned. And then, without warning, the Firstborn returned, accompanied by the senior officer who had taken him away. Everyone jumped up—other than Shard, who scrambled upright with the help of Mouse’s strong arm. Their horses were being led back, already saddled and bridled, with a packhorse they had not seen before.

The Firstborn came straight to Shard Gingko and Mouse. He was smiling.

“All is well, Master?” Mouse said.

“All is well so far. His Imperial Majesty has agreed that he will not pursue if Bamboo’s followers disband and head for home. He will send some food wagons tomorrow to give them a good meal before they start. I have to witness that Bamboo himself has repented and recanted, but everyone else is pardoned already.”

Shard’s instant reaction was to wonder whether the Emperor could be trusted, or whether he was just hoping to catch the rebels off guard as they scattered. But if anyone could detect a lie, it must be the Firstborn.

The sun was setting as they came in sight of the caravanserai, where the three rebels already had a fire burning. They stood in a row, regarding the Firstborn’s party with dark suspicion while they dismounted. As Sunlight walked over to them, three of the Goat Haven men moved in around him as a bodyguard, hands on swords.

“I have spoken with the Emperor,” he said. “He pardons you all, provided you now turn around and go home. He will send wagons of food in the morning. The only exception is Bamboo himself. He has to recant his claims, and I must witness his oath of loyalty. After that, he too is free to go.”

Fair Visions and Ominous Scroll smiled broadly.

The one called Silent scowled. “How do you know he is the true Absolute Purity and not an imposter?”

The Firstborn did not lose his good cheer. “I know he looks quite like Zealous Righteousness, his father, and even more like his grandfather, both of whom I met. He has given us a load of dainties to brighten our diet, so that we may feast tonight, and bless his name.”

“A cheap bribe!” Silent shouted.

The Firstborn sighed. “Any man who has the Imperial Army at his back and flies the Golden Dragon banner is good enough for me. Don’t argue with him!”

“He is right, Silent,” Fair Visions said. “Let sleeping tigers lie. This is incredible generosity.”

“I don’t trust him!”

“Will you fight him alone?”

The Firstborn walked away, and his escort went with him, leaving the three rebels to argue it out among themselves. Shard had met fanatics like Silent before, men who could not allow any evidence to change their minds.

Everyone else was content. Only the Firstborn had seen the Emperor, but that was to be expected. Even to be close to him was the highlight of a lifetime.

Moonless darkness closed in. Stars glittered overhead like a river of diamonds, and seventeen men sat around a fading campfire, feasting on the treats the Emperor had sent from his own supplies—and drinking the best wine Shard had ever tasted.

Conversations were quiet and local. Shard felt again that sense of completion. His great adventure was over: He would retire to Goat Haven to complete his memoirs; the Firstborn and Mouse, his ever-faithful disciple, would go with the food train to Bamboo’s camp, and the world would roll along as before.

At last, the Firstborn rose, stretched his ropy arms, and yawned luxuriously. “I foresee a long day ahead tomorrow, so I bid you all good night and safe sleep. Don’t worry about noise. I can sleep through thunderstorms.”

Almost everyone else had risen out of respect, cutting off the firelight, so that no one foresaw the tragedy. Silent leaped forward and twisted a long dagger into the Firstborn’s belly. He cried out and fell. One of the Goat Haven men whipped out a sword, but Silent slashed his throat, incredibly fast. Other swords flashed, but it was Prince Silk Hand himself who dealt with the killer. Moving almost too fast to see, he grabbed Silent from behind and broke his neck with one quick wrench. How did he do that? Shard was appalled—snap a man’s spine with bare hands? But then he awakened to the real disaster, the wounded Urfather. Prince Silk Hand knelt at his right, Mouse at his left, and everyone else cleared out of the way to let the firelight reveal the awful scene. He was writhing in agony, struggling to suppress screams, and pouring blood.

“Master! Oh, Master!” Mouse cried. “Somebody help!”

“There is no help,” Prince Silk Hand said. “The demon knew how to strike.”

“You are right,” the Firstborn muttered through clenched teeth. “The wound is fatal. But this has never been my favorite way to die.”

“No!” Mouse roared. He leaped to his feet, turned to the mountains, and bellowed, incredibly loud. “Open! Open now! He is here this time, but you must be quick. Hurry!” Not even an echo replied.

“It isn’t the Year of the Firebird yet!” Shard protested. No one answered.

Mouse screamed the message again, louder then ever.

The ground shivered.

Mouse fell silent. Someone said, “Another earthquake?”

If it were another quake, Shard thought, they were in a very safe place, where nothing could fall on them.

Whatever it was, it was not stopping. Shard sensed a strange low rumble, somewhere between a noise and a shaking, something both heard by his ears and felt in his bones. He wondered if he was detecting landslides in the mountains. Then a knife cut of light exploded into the darkness, painfully bright. Men cried out in terror.

Lord Silk Hand said. “It can’t be! Not this year.”

Shard Gingko thought, Will you teach Heaven to eat rice? a saying of the Humble Teacher.

“No it isn’t, but he is here!” Mouse shouted joyfully. He stooped and scooped the Firstborn up in his arms as if he weighed no more than a rolled blanket.

The light was certainly coming from the Western Wall, a vertical slash on the cliff, the southern edge of the Portal. Across the valley, the Fortress Hills were bright as day.

The Portal was opening, pivoting on its north edge, swinging forward. The sepulchral rumble grew stronger, the light unbearable. Surely, the sun itself must be right behind that vast door. Now came waves of sound as trees and hillside were forced apart. Even to look across the campfire hurt now, so bright were the Fortress Hills.

“Oh, listen!” Fair Visions said.

Yes, there was music, very strange, very distant, growing louder. To Shard, it seemed to combine the essence of every timbre he had ever heard: gongs and bells, but also reeds, strings, silk, and brass. There were voices in it, and birdsong, and he thought that his ears could not detect all of its range, yet no other music would ever sound worthy again. It plucked at his heart.

The horses were shrilling in fear, racing around their paddock. Men whimpered in terror—and nothing had come out of that door yet.

“Do not be afraid!” Mouse cried. He alone was on his feet, holding the dying man, dribbling blood, yet balanced against the trembling of the ground. “They do not come for you.”

Who didn’t? What did he know about it?

Shard slid off the log he was sitting on and sat on the trampled grass instead. He couldn’t fall any further, although he could foresee himself being bounced if the earthquake grew any stronger. The Portal was wider now, and the valley southward was an unbearable blaze of reflected light.

Somebody—probably Ominous Scroll—was muttering “Bamboo!” over and over. The rebels must be more exposed to the intolerable glare than the Imperial Army to the north, but no one in the Great Valley could be unaware now that the Portal of a Thousand Worlds was opening. The glow must be visible as far away as Cherish.

The ground shuddered when the great door stopped moving, standing at right angles to the mountainside. The ground stilled, but the music grew louder, closer, denser. Shard had never been so frightened in his life. He was infinitely glad that he wasn’t just a mile or so farther south, where he would be able to see inside that gigantic opening.

Something had emerged. It was hidden for a moment by the door, but the light had grown even brighter. Then the new source of that light moved forward and was visible—except that human eyes could not bear to look at it.

It … He … She … The figure was as bright as the sun and stood as high as a mountain, impossible to comprehend. And yet, squinting through a slit in his eyelids and a narrow gap between his fingers, Shard had a sense of shining feathers, or iridescent tiles, or butterfly wings, all the colors he knew and more beside, but not clothes. Nothing so gorgeous would hide its beauty under garments. It was bipedal but not human. Every step it took made the world move slightly, giving under its weight like a cheap wooden floor, and the forest crunched below its feet like grass. It seemed to peer around, as if looking for something, and it uttered great choirs of sound, not a voice or music or birdsong and yet somehow all of these and sweeter yet. But even at that distance, Shard had to clap his hands over his ears or be deafened. Echoes roared back as the mountains sang in chorus.

“Come!” Mouse shouted. “He is here at last.”

The Firstborn was trying to speak, apparently protesting what Mouse was doing, but clearly in terrible pain.

“Peace, Master,” he said. “The time has come. You are forgiven!” Mouse alone was upright, and only he seemed able to stare right at the vast apparition towering over the valley. He began to run, carrying his burden as if it were weightless.

He grew larger, shouldering his way through the trees.

The gigantic visitor’s music became unbearably sad and began to fade as she, or he, turned away, back toward the Portal, as if giving up. Tears ran down Shard’s old cheeks and he wanted to shout to the vision not to leave.

But now both Mouse and the Firstborn were changing, their clothes flying away in shreds, their skin shining like opals or pearl. Mouse ran toward the Portal, growing visibly, shining brighter, towering over the treetops until he trod the forest like turf, and the world shook with his every step. The rhythm changed; there were two of him, the Urfather running at his side. They called out in the same gigantic song-voice-music as the visitor had used.

It heard, and turned, and the three of them flowed together in an unifying embrace. Their glorious chorus soared to the stars. Still singing, they went in through the Portal clasped together, all three of them. Then they were gone.

The light began to fade.

The world trembled again as the Portal swung and reverberated as it shut. A moment’s pause, then the whole side of the mountain collapsed in a gigantic rock fall, like a curtain falling. Boulders rolled and bounced through the forest, almost as far as the caravanserai. A brief gale swirled dust through the camp.

At last, the night was still again, but darker than a cavern. Yet Shard’s vision was full of shapes and colors. His eyes hurt. It might take days for them to recover, he thought. But his writing could wait until they did—he would never forget what had happened.

Mouse? He thought how Mandarin Sedge Shallows had so conveniently found a boy who could pass as the Urfather, even if only at a distance. He remembered the death warrant that disappeared so that Sedge Shallows never got to read it. He thought of the cave, where the Firstborn almost died before Mouse brought help, and how Mouse’s strength had brought them here.

Everyone was still blind, of course. No one was talking. Eventually, Fair Visions began muttering about Bamboo again. The rebels would have seen more of what lay behind the Portal. It would be astonishing if they had not fled in a terrified mob from that intolerable brightness. Perhaps the Imperial Army had done the same. The inexplicable absence of historical witnesses was explicable now.

And then two powerful hands grabbed Shard Gingko’s shoulders and hauled him upright. He was helpless in the grip of Prince Silk Hand.

“What happened?” Prince Silk Hand bellowed, right in his face. “What did I just see?”

“I don’t know, my lord! I saw it, too, but …”

Prince Silk Hand shook Shard Gingko like a rug. “You’re the scholar, you must know. Tell me what I just saw.”

“I saw it also … It’s just … Just that … Some questions have no answers in this world.”

“Ah.” The viselike hands released him. “Who said that?”

No one had. Well, Shard Gingko himself had, but he was nobody. … “The Humble Teacher, my lord.”

“Then I suppose it must be so.” His Lordship turned away.

But Shard Gingko would write it all down and his name would be remembered for it.