The Moon Temple Read online

The Moon Temple

  By Mark Hare

  Copyright 2013 Mark Hare

  To Larisa

  I.

  . . . And the moon descended on the temple that was, illuminating the sea in colors of opal. Ruins broke the surface of the waves like pieces of broken teeth wreathed in foam while the rest lay indistinct beneath fathoms of reflections. Sharks glided among the remains, white and silent as death.

  Borne on the wind, a catamaran skimmed the waves, its single white sail upright and soft as the wing of a gull as it threaded reefs, shoals, and the skeletons of sunken buildings. Once, the ship bruised sharp coral or the remains of a roof, shuddering as wood protested and the hull thumped high, throwing everyone askew before coming down in waves of cold spray, rolling free like a great beast in the surf, then surging forward, wind spilling from the sail.

  Four persons – a woman and three men – stalked the deck that joined the twin hulls, watching the sea for hidden obstacles. Different reasons brought them to the sunken city of Angor Drava, where no one came even in daylight. Separate thoughts and fears walled each from the other.

  Of the four, Elsu seemed the least troubled as he perched on the bow, leaning out over the wind-ruffled water like an eager child. Tall as a spear, long hair thrown wild by the wind, bare skin bronzed by the sun, Elsu had the reckless poise possessed by the young or the fearless. Intense brown eyes searched the ruins. No doubt, only iron determination marked his features.

  The second man, who squatted after the mast, pretended to read scrolls by the bright moonlight, weighing down the corners with small stones, his mind unable to concentrate on the words blurring before his eyes. The sliding nighttime shadows did not hide Bane’s worry as he divided his attention between handling the lines when the pilot called a course change, skimming over his ancient scrolls, and watching with haunted eyes Elsu and Kai, the woman pacing the far side of the deck.

  Clothed in flowing hair alone and a necklace of shark teeth, her supple body tensed like a bowstring, the girl’s dark eyes, translucent as amber, concentrated on Elsu scanning the waves for submerged obstructions. The cool salty wind teased her black hair, throwing it across her face like a veil, though sometimes as the wind shifted, it lifted the hair in long streamers, revealing the suggestion of tears and an expression of stark fear.

  Like a brown carved idol, the ship’s pilot sat by the rudder. Akahele saw everything and said nothing. Sun and wind crinkled the map of his face, though his eyes still had a youthful glitter. Age powdered his hair and marked his thin, wiry frame, but the currents of air and sea and stars were open to him at a touch or a glance. Bracelets of gold and coral marked his rank, as did his kirtle of red and yellow, which he wore more as a symbol of rank than for modesty. He was a master mariner, a captain of great experience and unquestioned skill. Whatever thoughts crossed his mind, he kept them to himself.

  Indecision gave way to impulse as Bane abandoned his scrolls. “This is stupid!” he whispered to Elsu, reaching to touch his friend on the arm. “You don’t know what’s down there!”

  Elsu laughed, gave him a brief sour look, and waved a dismissive hand. “I must do this if I want to win Kai as my bride,” he said. Rankled, Bane bit back a hot reply and tried to think of a new argument, but failed. Elsu smiled and clapped him on the shoulder, affecting a cheerfulness Bane did not share. “Don’t worry! I’ll be fine. I’m sure the reputation of this place is more rumor than reality and I’ve done far more dangerous things…”

  Unconvinced, Bane retreated into the shadows and crossed his arms. He glanced at Kai standing alone at the railing, one graceful hand clasped on a rope line, her tall body tight with worry as she put her weight on the line and turned her head to look at the horizon. Bane sighed with the conviction disaster lay ahead. Elsu had been obsessed with Angor Drava since the Festival of Ascension and no one, not even Kai, could dissuade him from it. Bane counted it as the moment when everything went awry and the source of the reason they glided in cursed waters under the silver moon.

  The memories came unbidden, unstoppable.

  Each spring before the rains swept over the Great Eastern Archipelago, a mass of ten thousand islands spread in a giant crescent from Madripoor to the Empty Sea, the Twelve Clans of the Whale joined with the Clans of the Dolphin and Seal to celebrate the seasonal harvest of shellfish and the coming-of-age for the young. The Festival of Ascension was a time for youths to don their first robes of adulthood and celebrate; their parents to give gifts and radiate pride; and for the old to reminisce. Amid torches, songs, drums, incense, and the light of twilight stars, maidens and boys who had reached the age of sixteen – a lucky number – would circle huge bonfires in a dance so old no song told of when it began. The boys went first, brandishing spears and colored nets, wearing short kirtles made of imported fabric dyed in rainbow hues. The girls sat around the fires dressed only in jewels, shells, or feathers, and watched while the boys, to the sound of music or with impromptu poems expressing their love, cast their nets before those they wished to court. Once presented all nets, the women chose the net of the boy they liked best and draped it around their naked bodies as swirling cloaks. They would dance for their prospective husband and toss it over his head, capturing him for their own. A few girls returned no nets, finding no face to please them, sometimes keeping nets they liked as good-luck tokens until the next festival, when perhaps they might choose a mate.

  After the dance, the women led away the man they chose. In a quiet place, they would wait for the rising moon, decking themselves with flowers and jewelry of coral, shell, pearl, gold, or the occasional gem brought from the island continent of Madripoor far to the west. In melting haiku’s set to flutes and timpani, the women gave the terms of their courting. It ranged from the bloom of an orchid found on the island of Kiku; a tusk of the deadly White Hunters that stalk the seas of ice at the rim of the world; to a song, a promise, or a smile. The simpler tasks ended with the happy couple retiring for the night to enjoy each other’s pleasures. For the rest, the coming months would be a time of waiting and wondering as the men fulfilled their quests and many promises. As a rule, few remained unwed after the Festival of Ascension.

  This year, all eyes watched Elsu, the son of a chieftain from the Whale Clan. Elsu’s wise father had sent his son out to see and learn all that a future chieftain should know. Elsu, in company of his uncles and a few friends, had sailed the far horizons for over three years. Through the Great and Minor Archipelagos with their ten thousand islands, up the eastern coast of the main continent, along the Arctic Circle to the north, and down the long west coast of Madripoor, they circled the known world. They rested for a time in the magnificent gardens of the Royal Lady of the West, ruler of the southern half of the continent of Madripoor, before sailing home in triumph.

  Bane smiled at the memory. Elsu cut a splendid figure with his skin darkened to bronze and his ornaments of beryl and gold won as prizes or gifts during his odyssey. A kirtle of stingray leather and set with designs outlined in pearl and chalcedony draped his loins. While handsome as a young god, quick with a jest and a gracious winner at every game, his daring and competitive spirit won the admiration of the men and many lingering looks from the women. Who else would climb the sacred mountain of Tanis on Dragon Island to steal the shell of a dragon egg? Sargarund, the old Dragon Emperor, had been furious and then amused by the outrage. He invited Elsu back up the mountain for an evening of songs, deep wine, and laughter like the gusts of a hurricane before giving Elsu his name, which meant “high-flyer” in the Dragon tongue.

  A few muttered that Elsu was reckless and headstrong, but few cared. The women sighed and wished that they were old enough, or young enough, or prett
y enough to win him for their own. The younger men looked up to him as a hero; the elders smiled with pride, wishing to have sons like him. Elsu was the center of every crowd, laughing in a burst of sunlight, telling over and over the stories of what he had seen and done. It was hard not to like him and impossible to hate him.

  Bane trailed Elsu like his shadow. An odd pairing, the muscular, energetic, reckless Elsu contrasted with the shorter, squatter, older, more cautious and literate Bane. Childhood friends, Bane did not mind being second to Elsu, worshipping him with awed admiration. Bane never resented it when Elsu made fun of his stout body or bookish habits. However, Elsu was not malicious by nature: if sometimes thoughtless, Elsu could be kind and possessed a rare quality of leadership that inspired his men, making each feel wanted and special. Neither jealousy nor outward envy formed part of Bane’s genial temper and he strutted like a rooster as he told everyone about Elsu’s exploits while downplaying his own. Bane never mentioned that the Dragon Emperor also gave him a name for chasing off a flock of wyverns when they threatened a dragon hatchery.

  Sometimes, on nights like this one, Bane remembered the adage that those given Dragon names seldom lived long or happy lives and shivered.

  Not all eyes watched Elsu alone. From the islands of Iona came a maiden named Kai who was as beautiful as a sunset on the ocean. Long raven hair reaching down to the small of her back floated on the breeze, framing a perfect oval face crowned with a slight diadem of coral. Older than usual for her first Festival, her protective father had waited until she was eighteen to send her out so she was more mature than most of the other maidens, causing malicious chatter Kai ignored. A cloud of sheerest peach muslin wreathed her slender form, inciting murmurs of envy and consternation among the women, even those who were more beautiful, for the fabric was hideously expensive, the gift of an indulgent father, making her beauty exotic. A thin belt of white gold and a necklace of opals around her throat accented the white flowers in her hair and circling each wrist. Cool amusement glittered in Kai’s flashing black eyes as men measured her measuring them. The soft pleasures promised in the curves of her young body attracted most men; her aristocratic charm and quick laughter captivated the romantics; a few saw her father’s orchards and iron mine, one of five in the known world. Beauty, personality, and wealth formed a dangerous combination that snared half the men at the Festival before it started. Neither Elsu nor Bane were immune to Kai or her charms, although both had known women before, including the courtesans of Jerhyll and the maidens of the Sea Peoples, who lived under the deep waters of the Eastern Reaches.

  Kai was old enough to recognize the hungry, lingering looks of the men, but too innocent to understand how those looks concealed darker impulses running like veins of hot coal deep beneath the surface, waiting for a spark to set them afire. Her world had been one of manners, whispers, and restrained emotions, leaving her unprepared for the Festival and all that came with it.

  The twin concepts of modesty and privacy meant little in their world, but experience and knowledge never guaranteed wisdom, a thought Bane now contemplated as he watched triangular shark fins cast shadows across the waves. Perhaps if Kai and Elsu had been wiser, but less experienced... He let the thought die away as Kai sat on the deck across from him, her back against a teak chest secured to the deck, her eyes closed, face drained of emotion, and he remembered the first time he saw her.

  Bane’s heart leaped in his chest the moment Kai stepped from her father’s galley. When the great golden ship entered the bay, oars dipping hard into the water, the sail full and blood red, he lingered by the dock out of curiosity. Galleys were rare. Few came so far east into the Ten Thousand Islands. Impractical in the deep ocean and expensive to operate, they were playthings of the wealthy and privileged. Bane wondered who could be important enough to rate one. As soon as the gangplank thwacked the stone pier, orange robed guards escorted her ashore, a statement of wealth if also practical necessity. Pirates were not unheard of and they prized beautiful maidens for the illegal slave trade to the nomads of the Andurim Wastes in the small island continent south of Madripoor. Kai had smiled at Bane, for whatever reason, and he took it to mean it was for him. It did not occur to Bane that she smiled at everyone out of nervousness.

  All that afternoon until the feast at sunset opening the Festival, Bane entertained hopes and dreams he did not know he possessed. Elaborate fantasies built a scaffold of dreams and half-formed longings gradually consuming Bane even as he despaired she would never notice. He had almost decided lay a net for Kai when Elsu came back from fishing on the other side of the island. As usual, Elsu staged a grand entrance. The pageantry and the baskets of fish he brought drew instant acclaim.

  The cooks were glad for the extra fish. Unexpected crowds attended the opening ceremonies. The women were glad for the chance to examine the men, weighing the virtues and attributes of each. The men were glad of the bounty of their catch, because it increased their standing as providers, giving them a chance to flirt with new faces. As custom required, the women took turns singing during the feast. The men always assumed the women sang out of vanity. The women merely wanted to see if any faced ignited a spark, which might become love or simple lust.

  Kai’s voice snared Elsu before he saw her face. If words could be silver and song could be gold, that was the sound of her voice, or so Elsu told Bane often enough for him to tire hearing it, though in secret Bane agreed with him. Any fool could see Elsu lost his soul the moment he looked on her. Bane, wrapped in his own thoughts, did not realize it until he heard the muttering, the laughter, and saw Elsu’s hot stare tracking Kai’s every move. Ashes dusted his mouth. Envy ignited a flickering ember of jealousy inside his heart. It was the first time Bane had ever thought ill of Elsu and it left him sick.

  Although Kai noticed Elsu, he did not stand out. She counted him as one of a dozen who caught her eye: she was too busy flirting and enjoying herself for anyone to leave a real impression. Deemed a beauty from childhood, Kai knew there was a special magic in her appearance and reveled in the power it gave her. Closeted on her father’s estates, given everything except freedom, she had longed for a world not bound by endless protocol and decorum, where she could indulge a whimsy as simple as buying a fan without having three chaperones express opinions. While her youth passed securely and gaily without shadows or upset, the falseness of her life weighed her and she sought escape. She might have remained a captive in a silken cage if her father’s councilors had not persuaded him to send her to the Festival of Ascension. Her father preferred the Festival in Madripoor, where the sons of the Great and Minor Houses would attend, but Kai had insisted on the traditional choice of the Eastern Archipelago, surprising everyone, including herself, by her obstinacy. With much grumbling and scowling after many scenes of high drama, her father at length agreed when a councilor pointed out that the sons of the Clan chieftains would be there. For a merchant, even a rich and powerful one, marriage into one of the Clans was tempting: they carried a social influence the Great Houses respected. If the Clans were poor in wealth or privilege, Kai’s father was clever enough to see other usable coin. Eager to rise in society, hoping to win a place at the Imperial court, he reckoned a chieftain of the Sea Clans would be easier to control, opening doors at court without the price tag demanded by a son of a Great House.

  After weeks of intense drilling, Kai’s many tutors at last deemed her ready for her debut on the islands. Her father excused himself from the trip on the grounds of pressing business negotiations and unwisely entrusted her care to his advisors. To the dignified horror of her chaperones, Kai exploded in kittenish energy once at the Festival. Although she tried to act like a young lady, considering herself no longer a girl, she attempted to see and do everything at once, copying her late mother’s walk and manner as she made the rounds of the festival market.

  Overwhelmed by the lights, colors, music, and attention, she drank the sights as i
f to live a lifetime in a single hour. There was no time or chance to process it all, leaving her to swim in deep waters. The whole point of the Festival was for her to choose a husband, but Kai did not wish to hurry. The vague notion that marriage might be an exchange of prisons sounded as a dim echo in her thoughts, appearing and vanishing like the tinkle of bells or the flutter of wings, readily dismissed as unreasonable fears. She turned aside Elsu’s efforts to charm with a quick laugh or a wide smile, feeling grander for frustrating him, judging him shallow and unimportant.

  Intoxicated by Kai, Elsu swore to everyone who would listen he had never seen a more beautiful woman, even though it was not necessarily true, just what his heart decided was true, or so Bane mused in growing sourness. By then, Bane had begun to stand apart from Elsu, taking solace in the scrolls he had brought from the great temple, brooding over love’s injustice, laughing to himself at how Elsu seemed the fool, wondering if he was just as great a fool. Too little experience with love left Elsu unprepared when it struck, sudden and bright like the stomp of lightning. Kai’s light-hearted rejections touched his pride as well as his desire. The rejection gladdened Bane and he took sour comfort from it.

  After several days, Elsu’s mood changed, clouding his happy nature with a dark anger liable to erupt without warning. The anger worried Bane because he had never seen anything like it in his friend. In secret, he hoped Elsu would take the hint and give up. Elsu persisted, dogging Kai’s steps, relentlessly wooing her, earning the enmity of her guards, becoming an object of derision among the others at the Festival, which spurred his efforts even more. Kai reacted with confusion, irritation, and then anger, exploding in a fierce speech when she had enough. Impressed, Bane thought she was the first person ever to call out Elsu and have him listen, a feat not even Elsu’s mother could claim. Elsu spent the rest of the day deep in unfamiliar thought. The effort put a strain on his face, pinching it tight and hooding his eyes. That evening, when he approached Kai, he offered a sincere apology, gilded with unusual humility and flowers in one hand. She accepted both flowers and apology, behaving as required of a young lady, and thought no more of it. Elsu tried again, changing tactics, attempting a light touch that came off as awkward and contrived if honest.

  By the fourth day of the festival, Kai’s opinion of Elsu began to shift, in part because several of Kai’s new friends told her of Elsu’s many exploits and because of the kindness and gentleness he displayed, which suited him far better than his usual arrogance. When an elderly widow complained of damage to her roof from a storm earlier that week, Elsu volunteered to help fix it. Kai and her friends, with two guards hovering near, sat in the shade and watched him and others repair the damage, refusing payment when finished. It impressed Kai that he treated the widow with great respect and worked without complaint under the blazing sun.

  Afterwards, when he wandered over to talk, Kai asked him to accompany her to a feast that evening; she was vain enough to know she would turn heads if accompanied by a handsome young man, a figure of legend. Over dinner, remembering her many lessons of social etiquette absorbed through a lifetime of formal dinners, dull affairs where pretense and appearance counted far more than authenticity or sincerity, Kai took a mild interest in Elsu, flattering and dazzling him with her intelligence, wit, and mordant humor, leaving him at a loss. Elsu’s sudden shyness amused everyone except Bane. When Elsu at last found his voice, it held a jarring note of self-deprecation. Bane looked twice to make sure Elsu spoke and not another. The tone did not last long: neither humility nor modesty was in Elsu’s nature.

  Before the meal was over, restraint faded as Elsu spun the threads of his life in a flood of words that swept Kai away to worlds she never imagined existed outside of books, her one great solace in the halls of her father’s mansion, or the tales of her governess. Elsu could show the touch of a natural storyteller, able to spellbind an audience as if by instinct, and that night he was in top form, dominating the entire table. Now on familiar ground, Elsu relaxed, revealing an unexpected talent for making make Kai laugh. When after supper they escaped from the heat of the fire to walk along the beach, enjoying the cool breeze, her heart beat faster when he looked at her. Impulsively, she caught his large, rough hand in her smaller, smoother one and together they paused in the lee of a palm tree. There was a moment she thought they might kiss, but it passed and instead he made her laugh with several funny stories and acute observations. They passed the night in conversation and she fell asleep with her head on his shoulder.

  The romance between Kai and Elsu enchanted everyone at the festival and it became a favorite topic. Kai’s chaperones were ecstatic for Elsu was a better than expected catch. He was handsome, rich, brave, and socially respectable, if headstrong and arrogant, excusable faults in their eyes because they expected it of a future chieftain. Politically, Elsu had caught the eye of the Empress with his exploits and the Whale Clan held important, if seldom used, functions at court. The only person unhappy with the lovers was Bane. Everywhere he went Bane could not escape the murmurs or the questions of the curious, at last retreating to their boat, immersing himself in books and scrolls to avoid another whispered comment or pointed finger, hurt by the shy, mounting affection for Elsu he saw in Kai’s eyes.

  The highlight of the Festival came on the fifth day. To the cry of horns, the metallic echo of bells, and shouts of the women, the Master of Ceremonies summoned the men to dance. Elsu and Kai each withdrew to prepare for the next part of the festival. Elsu painted himself in the colors of a dragon, all red, gold, and green, and donned a kirtle made of wyvern scales that shimmered like gems. A few muttered at the choice, but since he was Dragon-named, the mutters were not loud, which did not stop the other men from darting sharp glances at Elsu for his presumption. Many counted wearing the colors of a dragon a bad omen at a marriage festival. In contrast, Bane wore the black of his totem, the raven, and the feathered cape woven by his mother and sisters. Kai chose a simple diadem of amber, quartz, and carnelian to hold back her long straight hair, complemented by a flower over one ear and gold bracelets bearing the seal of her house.

  The maidens knelt on the sand before the bonfires, bare skin adorned in ornaments of bronze, shell, coral, and pearls, with flowers or feathers in their hair. The crackling fire cast bright lights and dark shadows over their naked bodies. They waited and watched the men dance under the new moon. Bronze spears, flush with the heat of the fires, reflected the light of stars and moon. The dance enacted an old story, one every child knew, of a young king who, many and many a year ago, went fishing, slew one of the leviathans, the great dragons of the deeper seas, and, exhausted by his efforts, became caught in turn in the nets of a princess of the Sea Peoples. To save himself from death, the king solved three riddles posed by the maiden. To win her love, he romanced her with songs, poems told beneath the moon, and performed impossible tasks. At last, she yielded. Once joined, the two lovers remained true to each other, despite the efforts of an evil sorcerer. When the sorcerer tried to separate them by death, the Creator set their souls in the heavens, becoming twin morning stars lighting the dawn with their love.

  Three times the men circled the great bonfires. Heat and the exertion of dancing made sweat glisten on their oiled skin. The women watched from the corners of their eyes, catching glimpses of those they favored and smiled at them, a quiet welcome the men rewarded with a net thrown high to spread at their feet. The women would pretend to examine each net with a casual, diffident air, though the glint in their eyes signaled when one in particular aroused their fancy.

  Then it was the men’s turn to stand silent as the women donned the nets and swirled in their fishnet capes. A few women, Kai included, staggered under the weight of nets they wore, discarding the extras until left with one, and for that one, they danced with all their passion. It surprised no one when Kai draped Elsu’s net about his broad shoulders and smiled at him. It took a single, long hilarious moment un
til Elsu realized whose net he wore and then he could not stop laughing.

  Bane left his net where Kai dropped it and moved to the edge of the crowd, unable to watch Kai dance for Elsu or drape her cape about his shoulders, cinching it tight before pulling him away to the laughter of the watching elders. Restless and distracted, he found a jug of wine and sat under a palm tree. An elderly priestess came over to see what was wrong, but found him inconsolable and wandered away, sad and puzzled. Unable to explain his bitterness even to himself, Bane ruminated on the power of illusion as he watched the sparks from the dying bonfires arc into the night sky like meteors.

  At last, it came time for the verses to seal the union. With a candle to light her way, Kai led Elsu to a grove further inland, away from the crowds, far from the sea, leaving the net crumpled in the sand. There they paused and looked at each other in the dappled shadow of the pale moonlight. Enamored stars peered down through the trees. A representative from each of the three major religious orders waited at a discrete distance amid the quiet shadows to observe and, if necessary, to intervene. Bane sat behind a rock, unable to decide if he wanted to spy, and simmered in the darkness. The temptation dirtied him, causing his skin to twitch as if unclean.

  Kai held the candle and looked up at Elsu, shading the flame with her hand. The reflected light warmed her face, the curve of her neck, and breasts, darkening the white of her skin. An awkward grin split his face. His usual daring confidence deserted him and he seemed young and shy as a colt. Kai smiled back as she put the candle aside. The faint silver moonlight gave the darkness a sensation of velvet that softened the amber illumination from the candle. A playful breeze caught a strand of her black hair and she pushed it back with laugh, lifting a bare breast with the rise of her arm. She bit lip as she ransacked her furtive memory, choosing at last a haiku, one of hundreds, suggested by her tutors.

  The song gleams like fire.

  Feathers shine with moon and sun.

  Now, shall we dance, love?

  She paused. Elsu had to guess the meaning and respond. It mattered not if the guess was right or wrong; it depended upon how he framed the reply. Like life itself, substance mattered more than form; intent meant more than action.

  Elsu frowned, puzzled. Though his mother had tried to teach him the proper response to similar poems, he never had the patience for it, leading her to remark he had the attention span of a monkey. He took her hand and said, “If gifts would prove my love, then no task you set would be too high. If it’s a bird of paradise you want, to sing for you in the evening and in the morning, I will go to the Misty Isles and fetch you one locked inside a golden cage.” Kai blinked in surprise, thrown off balance by the response, and tried to pull back her hand, but Elsu gripped it tight. “A bird of paradise would match your beauty. Consider it a pledge of my willingness to do anything you ask.”

  Kai put one foot behind the other, attempting to wriggle her limp wrist free of his iron grip. Bird of paradise? Rather than stop to think about his interpretation of her haiku, she went on to the second, her voice quavering with uncertainty.

  It moves in still light.

  Rose petals float on the waves.

  Ivory tears flesh.

  She let the words die in the still air. The odd, hungry gleam in his eyes unnerved her and she felt naked for the first time in her life. Her mind filled with confusion, she moved into shadow to hide it.

  Elsu laughed. “My love, is that all?” He let his hand trace a line from collarbone to collarbone just above her breasts. The touch of his finger made her bare skin prickle and she shivered, both from the touch and from the way it teased, unable to decide if she was offended or not. The constant training she endured suggested she should storm off in anger, but instead she stiffened and watched him, wary like a mouse before a lion. “I shall put a row of shark teeth in a necklace around your throat in the all the places where I would love to bite!”

  Kai shook her head, wondering if they spoke the same language.

  The observers looked at each other, unable to understand why Kai chose archaic formulations or why Elsu seemed so dense. No one had used those obscure phrases in centuries. Kai did not know that her tutors had prepared her for the festival in Madripoor, where it was the current fashion to indulge in complex word games and metaphorical allusions. The expensive tutors, sure of the superiority of the culture they represented, never imagined the rules would be different elsewhere, might change over time, or that Kai might fall in love with someone who cared nothing for those things. None had bothered to investigate the rituals of the Festival of Ascension. Nor had any of the councilors attended the festival since it was for peasants and fishermen, leaving Kai unaware of the local traditions and customs.

  Elsu took Kai at her word, unable to see that she played the shadow of a game. Kai did not comprehend him because he did not play the game the way she expected and it worried her. She knew she had fallen in love, but Elsu did not see it because he remembered how she treated him earlier, ignoring all the signals she now gave. He chose to prove his love by giving her what she asked instead of looking deeper. Bane understood it all despite the buzz of the alcohol. Because refinement and sophistication often existed at the expense of simplicity, there lay the chance for misunderstanding, or so a teacher once told Bane. Because tradition forbade him to interfere – the penalty meant exile or worse – he clutched himself in apprehension and waited.

  Now frustrated, Kai recited an ancient haiku, unaware of the dread it held, and believed what her tutors claimed. They said it signaled unquestioned love. No one bothered to tell Kai or her councilors that its meaning outside Madripoor was different. She spoke in a low voice:

  Diamond eyes glisten.

  Lost under luminous waves.

  City in the Sea.

  The three watchers stiffened in alarm, as did Bane, but it was too late. There was one City in the Sea and its name was a terror. The elders turned to Elsu, hoping he had sense enough to realize Kai asked the impossible and frame a sensible reply, for deep oaths compelled him to deliver on whatever he promised. Bane shook his head and hunched behind his rock, his alarm turning to something cold, hard, and lumpy in his chest. Dismayed, the eldest watcher, perhaps understanding with the fatal clarity of hindsight, cursed Kai for her inexperience and Elsu for his arrogance. As if lost in a nightmare, Bane knew what would come next. He had heard the exchange and appreciated the meaning of the words. He climbed on unsteady feet, but the three watchers, aware now of his presence, gestured him to silence, and he closed his mouth.

  Elsu widened his eyes for an instant, then he took her hand and said, “By all that’s holy, I’ll fetch you the eyes of the dragon from temple of Angor Drava! When I earn your love, you won’t doubt my own!”

  A wind blew out of a night-shadowed cloud, chilling Kai. “No, you don’t understand ... that isn’t what I meant!” she gasped. Bewilderment twisted her face. “I love you! I...”

  He laid a finger across her lips. “Don’t worry, I won’t fail you!” He ran fingers along her cheek, letting it drop down her neck, along her breast, before pausing on her hip. “When I come back with a prize worthy of your beauty, then we can be married!” Kai saw a feverish gleam in his eyes she misliked and drew back, but his grip tightened. She tried to speak, but he interrupted. “How perfect! Oh what an adventure! The eyes of the dragon from the temple in Angor Drava! They’ll sing about this for centuries! And I can’t think of a better way to win your love!” he added, kissing her brow, no longer listening to her.

  For a moment, Kai thought the kiss might turn into something more, wishing for it with all her heart and body, thinking his touch on her flesh would erase the alarm that itched her skin and fill the aching void opening up inside, but instead he pulled back. “No, love, there’ll be time once I’ve put the diamonds on a necklace and wound them around your neck,” he told her, adding a gentle kiss to the forehead. “I won’t was
te a moment for your sake.” With a bow, he hurried away with fierce eagerness, not stopping to look back, leaving Kai alone in darkness, slim hands covering her face to hide her tears.

  The three watchers comforted Kai until the moon set. Bane vanished into the palm trees and got drunk.