Curt Benjamin - [Seven Brothers 03] - The Gates of Heaven Read online

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  Copyright © 2003 by Curt Benjamin.

  All characters in this book are fictitious. Any resemblance to persons living or dead is coincidental.

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  First paperback printing, September 2004

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  —MARCA REGISTRADA

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  S.A.

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  This book is dedicated to the usual suspects: Mom and Dad and Erik and David. “Ben’s Groupies”—Barb and mom Charlotte—for their unflagging support and food for the soul. Bonnie, without whom this would have been written on stone tablets, and the Hoffmans whom I’m buttering up for their expertise on the next project. Tom and Cathy, who were there when Llesho was born and still give great advice. And of course the Free Library of Philadelphia, for slipping me the cool books.

  Raves forThe Gates of Heaven:

  “Benjamin masterfully unfolds the saga’s age-old scenario of good and evil through the characters by giving readers uncommon intimacy with them; one lives inside their heads throughout. The fascinating subtleties of body language and non-verbal communication among the characters intensify the enjoyment of an excellent heroic fantasy.”—Booklist

  “Building on the traditions and philosophies of the Far East, Curt Benjamin delivers an absorbing conclusion to his lively fantasy saga.”—Publishers Weekly

  “Features a cast of intriguing characters and a fluid approach to magic that is reminiscent of Asian folk tales.”—Library Journal

  “With realistic descriptions just shy of tasting the dust and hearing the jingling of the camels’ harnesses, Mr. Benjamin portrays a deposed prince’s coming-of-age journey.”—Romantic Times

  Don’t miss any of the exciting books in Curt Benjamin’sSeven Brothers :

  The Prince of Shadow

  The Prince of Dreams

  The Gates of Heaven

  Chapter One

  IN LLESHO’S dream, Dognut the dwarf tilted his head, inviting him to consider carefully. “Who, among the thousands who follow you, would you trade for the life of your best friend?”

  The dim light from false dawn hadn’t yet brightened the red canvas of their tent, but it had dulled the light of the lamp hanging from the tent pole. In the aftermath of the battle that had defeated the witch-finder, Hmishi’s murdered body lay on a pallet hidden in shadows with Lling an indistinct grieving heap at his side. Master Markko, through his lieutenant the witch-finder, had clouded Lling’s mind while he tortured her lover to death. Lling’s lover. Llesho’s best friend through all the struggles that had brought them from Pearl Island to this. He’d searched for them across the length of the Gansau Wastes and into the grasslands themselves. And now he’d found them, too late for Hmishi and too late for Lling in a lot of ways, too. She would live forever with the memory of Master Markko oozing through her mind, something Llesho shared in common with her. Almost, he’d been too late to save his brother Adar who lay sleeping, thanks to Carina’s potions, in a nearby tent.

  In the haze of morning, the lamp still caught the gleam of Dognut’s eyes. Llesho gazed deeply into them as the mortal god of mercy revealed himself in all his stern sorrow. Dognut was a tag-name dropped on him by the ignorant. Like a careful farmer, the dwarf cultivated insignificance in men’s eyes. Uncounted years ago, however, some mother and father had greeted him newborn and named him Bright Morning. Had they known then that they gave birth to a god? Or that in age his warm lined face would promise rainbows and scudding clouds and blue, blue sky?

  Llesho wanted to believe in Mercy, but the question—whose life in trade?—was a dangerous one. Hmishi had died in his service, one among the many who had perished to defend him since he’d walked away from the pearl beds with a quest laid on him by a ghost. Pearl Island and Farshore and Shan and Ahkenbad—he wore the names of their dead heavy around his neck like the pearls of the Great Goddess at his breast. He was supposed to be growing stronger under their weight, but he didn’t feel at all wise or kingly.

  He was just a boy, sad and weary, whose best friend had died of such terrible injuries that Llesho’s heart squeezed in sympathetic pain. Not anymore, though. Hmishi’s pain was gone. And Dognut—Bright Morning—was offering what? A trick? Choose a lesser life to die, and return your friend to merciless agony that would leave him crippled inside and out for the rest of his pain-filled life? Or did the dwarf offer something more seductive: the return of his friend to life and health in exchange for an innocent sacrifice and thus, Llesho’s corruption. What kind of test was it this time, and how was this mercy of any kind?

  “Who would I give, to see Hmishi alive?” he repeated in his dream, though the event had gone much more quickly in real life. His answer remained the same, however: “No one.”

  He remembered the Dinha’s words—“Spend my Wastrels well”—and knew she didn’t mean this. The gods and warriors who traveled in his company were his responsibility, not his property. He could spend their lives—had done so in this very battle—but their deaths had to buy more than a friend’s laughter.

  “It’s just . . . he’s one too many, you know? I need a reason to keep going. I thought that Kungol was it—home, and freedom, a kingdom—but they’re just words and a world away.

  “The cadre—Hmishi and Lling, Bixei and Stipes, and Kaydu—have been my only home for so long that I’ve lost the knack of imagining another.”

  When it had happened for real, his brother Balar had been there, and Master Den. Bixei and Stipes had stood guard at the entrance to the red tent. His dream had stripped the memory of their presence, and of his admission that he did not find in his brothers the home he sought.

  As in life, however, Bright Morning agreed: “The mortal goddess of war did good work when she bound your cadre to each other, though its strength was never meant to last beyond its usefulness.”

  “A broken sword wins no battles.” His own argument could go against him. He thought he had some value to these mortal gods because the Great Goddess cared for him as a beloved husband. But would she love him still if he were so easily broken? Would his guides and mentors abandon him if she didn’t?

  The dwarf dropped his hands into his lap. “You ask too much.”

  He’d said the very words himself, to no avail. The gods kept asking for more anyway; he figured it was time they knew how it felt. Bright Morning read the thought in his face and shook his head. In the end, it came to a simple truth: “Your heart needs rest.” With that, the mortal god of mercy took up a silver flute and set it to his lips.

  This time, the dream had been kind to him. The music had lightened his heart and stirred Lling from her sleep. “What’s happening?” she asked, her eyes on Llesho but her ear cocked in the direction of the music.

  “I don’t know,” Llesho began, but the silver tones of the flute lifted him with unreasoning hope. When he looked on his dead friend, Hmishi’s breast rose and fell, rose and fell, almost imperceptibly at first, then growing stronger with each breath, until his eyelids fluttered and opened.

  “Hmishi!” Lling fell to her knees, her arms enclosing him. Between her sobs she repeated his name, “Hmishi, Hmishi, Hmishi.”

  Llesho watched them. Although
he stood close enough to reach out and touch them, his heart no longer felt a part of the joy of his companions. The tent itself seemed to have grown as large as the khan’s great traveling palace, and Llesho found himself in the lowest place near the door. He’d wanted this, asked for it, had thought himself the hero of this tale of sacrifice and redemption. In the end, it wasn’t about him at all.

  Hmishi’s eyes roamed without focus or comprehension until they fell on Llesho, then his brows knotted. “Am I dead?” he asked.

  Hmishi had asked him that before. This time, Llesho had smiled and answered, “Not anymore.”

  “Good.” With a contented sigh, the dream Hmishi closed his eyes, which seemed like a signal for Llesho himself to leave sleep behind.

  He rubbed his face with the palms of his hands and, as he did every morning on rising, checked his pack for the safety of the sacred gifts he carried as part of his quest. The spear he left for later, going first to count the scattered pearls of the Great Goddess’ necklace, the “String of Midnights” that he hung in a small bag from a thong around his neck. Six, not counting Pig, who dangled from the silver chain of the Tashek dream readers. Everyone from the Jinn to the mortal goddess of war had insisted he find the pearls, each as big as the knuckle of his thumb and as black as its name indicated. Touching them usually soothed him, but their hypnotic mystery couldn’t dispel the dream that lingered in the air of the red tent.

  With the camp coming to life around him, he set the little bag of pearls over his heart where they belonged and drew out the jade wedding cup that the Lady SienMa had given him back before he knew she was the mortal goddess of war. It was a promise; he knew that at the end of his quest the Great Goddess waited for him. He wished she was here now, to take away the dreams that haunted him. This one had been milder than some. In the worst of them, Hmishi woke screaming in agony and Llesho knew, in the way one does in dreams, that his friend would suffer the terrible pain of his wounds forever. In another version, Lling had gazed up at Llesho with a look so near to worship that he squirmed under the heat of it.

  “Don’t thank me; I didn’t do it.”

  “You interceded with the gods. I know you did.”

  He didn’t want her thanks. He’d done it for himself; not for Lling or even for Hmishi, but because he wanted to hold onto the friends he had left. Lling’s adoring gratitude, however, warned him that they were followers now; he’d already lost them as companions. Unlike the dream of never ending pain, this one was true.

  Mercy had lived up to his name. Hmishi still needed time to rest and heal, but the mortal god called Bright Morning had mended the worst of his injuries when he’d brought him back from the dead. And his friends now treated Llesho more like a deity than they did the real gods who wandered among them. Dognut had watched him come to the realization with one of those deep, patient looks and Master Den had worn his teacher’s face. Apparently that was the lesson he was supposed to learn out of this. It could have waited until he’d had a chance to savor the joy.

  Even now, he didn’t have a quiet moment to steal a might-have-been. The sounds of waking outside the tent had grown to include angry voices at the entrance. As he put away the jade wedding cup, he heard Bixei’s greeting and the Harnish prince, Tayyichiut, shouting something back at him. Llesho couldn’t make out the words, but the anger and hurt were plain to hear.

  “Let him in,” he called out to his guards—if Bixei was on duty, Stipes would be nearby—and climbed off his cot, braced for bad news.

  “He’s dead!” Prince Tayyichiut burst into the tent, his shirt and tunic disheveled, his braids coming undone so that his hair flew wildly as he paced. Word of Hmishi’s return from the underworld hadn’t spread in the camp yet, but the Harnish prince didn’t know him. He hadn’t been their only loss, of course. Tayy himself had lost a friend in the fighting. He’d grieved, but not like this.

  This new loss had shaken Tayy to the center of his soul, however, which meant Llesho needed reinforcements. He snapped Bixei to action with the urgent command, “Get Master Den and Bright Morning. My brothers, too. And Carina.” It might be too late for her healing services, but as a shaman she was an expert at unraveling the mysteries of the underworld. She would know what had happened, what was to be done.

  Bixei gave a bow to acknowledge his orders. Before following them, however, he called on a pair of Gansau Wastrels to replace him in front of the tent. Taking up their station, the Wastrels reminded Llesho to take nothing at appearances. Once he’d thought the desert warriors his enemy, but they had fought and died for him, not only at Ahkenbad, but here, against the stone monsters as well. Dread shivered through him at the memory; he had a feeling he was going to need them again before long.

  It took just a moment to set the guard, and then Bixei was gone. With a nod of acknowledgment, Llesho turned again to the distraught prince.

  “Who’s dead?”

  “My father. Chimbai-Khan.”

  “Oh, no.” Llesho sank back to his cot, stunned by the news. Balar had warned him the universe would demand balance for the return of his friend’s life. How much harm had he caused to the Harnish people and their prince with his one selfish wish?

  Tayyichiut heard only the concern of a friend in Llesho’s exclamation. “Yes,” he confirmed with a bob of his head, “Dead in his sleep of snakebite, Bolghai says. I will miss him greatly.”

  “What kind of bite?” Llesho asked, though he knew already.

  “Bamboo snake.” Tayyichiut spoke with the calculated gravity of one who said more than met the ear. “Somehow, it made its way into his bed while the khan slept heavily with fever. Serpents will sometimes do that, looking for warmth, though Bolghai says bamboo snakes are rare in this area and they are more inclined to stay in the trees than to visit sleeping men in the night.”

  No accident, then, but murder. In his dream travels Llesho had seen the bamboo snake resting on the khan’s breast. She had spoken to him with Lady Chaiujin’s voice.

  “A tragedy,” Llesho agreed. “And the Lady Chaiujin, his wife, mourns her loss, no doubt.” He’d had his own encounter with the lady, who had offered the peace of the underworld in her arms and in the form of a snake had poised with tooth at his throat. He would have ended up like Chimbai-Khan if not for Master Den’s timely arrival. He wished now he’d said something, but the khan had been safe from her tooth since their marriage and he hadn’t seen the dream for the warning it had been.

  “She weeps for the loss of her husband and for the unborn son who will never know his father,” Tayyichiut said, answering the words with the ritual responses though he marked the irony of the sentiment with a knowing drop of his lashes. As the inconveniently full-grown heir, he would be next on her murder list. Then she would claim the khanate for herself in the name of her dead husband’s unborn son. If such a son existed, which Llesho doubted in spite of her claims. As a snake, she’d shown no sign of carrying a human child. He didn’t think the Harnish clans would follow a khan hatched from an egg, however valid his claim by descent.

  Llesho’s reinforcements arrived then and he welcomed the newcomers with a jerk of his chin. It said much about his adventures that he drew comfort from the trickster ChiChu, who traveled as the servant and teacher Master Den. The god filled the entrance to the tent with his huge bulk and set down Bright Morning, who had ridden to the war counsel in the crook of his arm. His brothers followed, except for Adar, who remained in the hospital tent. He had sent his blessings with Carina.

  “I will be Adar’s eyes and ears,” she promised. “He chafes at his confinement but cannot hide his moans when he tries to move about. Still,” she assured them quickly, “he is recovering, and will be on his feet soon enough.”

  Fixing a concerned frown on Tayy, who continued his agitated pacing in the crowded tent, she added the question they all had come to ask: “What has happened?”

  “The khan is dead,” Llesho told them. Since the lady could be anywhere in her serpent form, he care
fully refrained from stating aloud the obvious conclusion. Lady Chaiujin had murdered her husband and would do the same to her stepson as soon as the opportunity presented itself.

  “My uncle says, ‘have patience,’ but how can I?” Tayy exclaimed. “Between one summer and the next I have gone from the most favored son of my mother and father to a homeless orphan!”

  “Mergen will protect you,” Llesho assured him, though he wondered about that. Did the lady lay her plans alone, or did she scheme with her husband’s brother to take his place on the dais of the khan?

  “I know he will,” Tayy agreed. “In fact, I have to go to him now. He awaits with Bolghai. The ulus will have to elect a new khan.”

  “I’ll go with you,” Kaydu offered, “Little Brother has missed you.” Little Brother had traveled on the prince’s back the day before and was notoriously fickle about his attentions to anyone but his mistress, so they all took her claim for what it was. Tayy had his own band of young followers who acted as his bodyguard, of course. Until they knew in which direction the khan’s brother would move, however, the affection of Kaydu’s monkey familiar for the Harnish prince would give her an excuse to stay close.

  “I’ll go, too,” Carina offered. “Bolghai will need help to tend the body.” She bowed her head in sorrow for the dead khan, remembering that the shaman’s own son had lately died as well.

  Llesho couldn’t help but notice that death followed wherever his quest took him. He would have handed himself over to Master Markko on the spot to save the people around him from harm, but he knew that wouldn’t work. Heaven itself was at stake, and the mortal kingdoms both waking and sleeping, if he failed. The magician would loose the demons of hell itself, releasing chaos from the gardens of heaven to the underworld, sweeping the worlds of men along in their fury. He had to believe that the khan had died to save all the grasslands from that coming storm or he would go mad.