Soldiers Live

14 The Land of Unknown Shadows: Khang Phi

Swan and I stood looking out a window outside the conference hall where we would engage the File of Nine in negotiations. Eventually. It took them a while to sneak into Khang Phi, then change their disguises so their identities would remain unknown. We saw nothing below but mist. Swan did not waste his stone. I said, “I thought I was back in shape. I was wrong. I ache all over.”

Swan said, “They say some people here go their whole lives without ever moving more than a floor or two after they finish their apprenticeship and get their assignments.”

“Kind of people that balance out you and me,” I said. Swan had not traveled as far as I had but at a world’s remove an extra few thousand miles does not seem important. I tried to make out the rocky ground we had traversed approaching Khang Phi. The mist just seemed darker when I looked down.

“Thinking about taking the easy way back down?” Swan asked.

“No. I’m thinking being isolated like this might leave you with a very limited worldview.” Not to mention the impact of the scarcity of females in Khang Phi. The few there are belong to an order of celibate nuns who care for the donated infants, the very old and the very sick. The rest of the population consists of monks, all of whom were donated and all of whom are sworn to chastity, too. The more fanatic brothers render themselves physically incapable of yielding to temptation. Which makes most of my brothers shudder and consider them more bizarre than Tobo’s shadowy friends. No soldier likes the thought of losing his best friend and favorite toy.

“A narrow view can be as much a strength as a weakness, Liberator,” a voice observed from behind us. We turned. Sleepy’s friend, Surendranath Santaraksita, was joining us. The scholar has gone native, adopting local garb and assuming the Khang Phi haircut—which is no hair at all—but only a deaf and blind man would take him for a local monk. His skin is more brown and less translucent than that of any native and his features are shaped more like mine and Swan’s. “That mist and their narrowness of vision allows the monks to avoid forming worldly attachments. Thus their neutrality remains beyond reproach.”

I did not mention Khang Phi’s one-time role as an apologist for and collaborator with the reign of the Shadowmasters. That embarrassing dab of history was being expunged by the acids of time and relentless lie.

Santaraksita was happy. He was convinced that in this place learned men did not have to prostitute themselves to temporal powers in order to remain scholars. He believed even the File of Nine deferred to the wisdom of the eldest monks. He was unable to see that if the Nine acquired more power Khang Phi’s relationship to the File would soon lapse into subservience. Master Santaraksita is brilliant but naive.

“How’s that?” I asked him.

“These monks are so innocent of the world that they don’t try to impose anything on it.”

“Yet the File of Nine presume to speak from here.” The File enjoy issuing bulls which are, more often than not, ignored by the population and warlords.

“They will, yes. The Elders want them to. In hopes that a little wisdom will rub off before their power becomes more than symbolic.”

I said nothing about leading horses to water. I made no observations concerning the wisdom of backing a cabal of secret masters in preference to one strongman or the remnant aristocracy of the Court of All Seasons. I did admit, “It does look like they’re trying to do what’s best for Hsien. But I don’t trust anybody who’ll bet their pot on guys who hide behind masks.” No need to tell him the File have no secrets from us. Little that they do or discuss goes unremarked by Tobo’s familiars. None of their identities are secrets to us.

We operate on the assumption that both the File and the other warlords have placed spies among our recruits. Which explains why there is little resistance to our recruiting amongst the Children of the Dead.

It is not difficult to identify most of the spies. Sleepy shows them what she wants them to see. Being a spiteful, vengeful little witch, I am sure she plans to use those spies cruelly at some later time.

She worries me. She has her own old hatreds to redress but their objects escaped life unpunished a long time ago. But there is always the chance she might choose somebody else to take the heat, which would not be to the Company’s advantage.

I asked Santaraksita, “What did you want?”

“Nothing special.” His face went coolly neutral. He is Sleepy’s friend. I make him uncomfortable. He has read my Annals. Despite what Sleepy has dragged him through he cannot yet come to grips with the cruel realities of our sort of life. I am sure that he will not go home with us. “I did hope to see Dorabee again before you went into conference. It could be important.”

“I don’t know what happened to her. Shiki’s missing, too. They were supposed to meet us here.” Local mores made it impossible for women to share quarters with men. Even Sahra has to room separately from Murgen, though they are legally married. And Shikhandini’s presence saddled Sahra with special obligations. She wanted the holy men distracted but not to the point where they went berserk. Just enough, maybe, so they would give way on a subtle point or two. Though distraction would not be Shiki’s principal mission.

Master Santaraksita wrung his hands briefly, then folded his arms. His hands disappeared into the sleeves of his robe. He was worried. I looked closer. He knew something. I glanced at Swan. Swan shrugged.

Murgen and Thai Dei puffed into the room. Murgen demanded, “Where are they?” Thai Dei looked worried but said nothing. He would not. The man seldom says anything. It was a pity his sister could not learn from his example.

Thai Dei knew something, too.

“Haven’t shown yet,” Swan said.

“The File of Nine will be angry,” I added. “Are Sleepy and Sahra dealing some kind of game?”

Santaraksita backed away nervously. “The Unknowns aren’t here yet, either.”

My companions were a diverse bunch. Once Sleepy arrived we would include five races. Six counting Santaraksita as one of us. Sleepy believes our sheer diversity intimidates the File of Nine.

Sleepy entertains other notions even more strange.

I do not know why she thought cowing them would mean anything. All we needed from them was their permission to research the knowledge needed to mend and manipulate shadowgates. The monks of Khang Phi were willing to share that knowledge. The stronger we grow the more eagerly the monks want us gone. They are more frightened of the heresies we propagate than they are of any armies we might bring back later.

The latter dread keeps the warlords awake at night. But they do want us gone, too, because the stronger we grow here the more real and immediate a threat do they perceive. And I do not blame them for thinking that way. I would do so myself, in their boots. The entirety of human experiences argues on behalf of suspicion of strangers laden with weapons.

The womenfolk made their advent. Willow Swan spread his arms wide and declaimed dramatically, “Where have you been?” He struck a second pose and tried the line another way. Then he went with a third. Making fun.

Sahra told Thai Dei, “Your daughter kept flirting with the acolytes we encountered along the way.”

I glanced at Shiki, frowned. The girl seemed almost ethereal, not at all vampish. I blinked but the fuzzy quality did not go away. I blamed my damaged eye. The girl seemed more a distracted ghost than a boy in disguise having fun with a role.

In Hsien’s eyes Thai Dei passed as Shiki’s father because it was well known that Sahra had just the one son. Her brother, Thai Dei, has managed to remain so obscure that even at the Abode of Ravens the locals never raise a question about the fact that the seldom-seen Shikhandini would have had to have been born while her father was buried beneath the plain. Nor did anyone seem much inclined to ask what had become of the girl’s mother. She could be dismissed with a few vague, angry mutters.

Shiki was always empty-headed, always in minor trouble, always considered a threat only to the equilibrium of young men’s minds.

Shiki solidified. She pouted. She said, “I wasn’t flirting, Father. I was just talking.” Her words should have been argumentative but just sounded flat, rote.

“You were told not to speak to the monks. That’s the law here.”

“But Father...”

The act never stopped once it started. There might be watchers. But it was an act. And a pretty good one, at least to those of us unaccustomed to dealing with very young women.

Master Santaraksita kept whispering to Sleepy. He must have said something she wanted to hear because her face lit up like a beacon. She did not bother to report to the Annalist, though. These Captains are all alike. Always playing their hands close to their chest. Except for me, of course. I was a paragon of openness in my time.

Thai Dei and his daughter continued to squabble till he issued some loud diktat in heated Nyueng Bao that left her sulking and silent.