A Day of Fallen Night (The Roots of Chaos)

Dumai allowed her new attendants to enfold her in a sleeping robe and comb her hair. They shut her into her boxlike bed, where she lay sleepless, listening to their snores and fidgets.

On Mount Ipyeda, she had trusted everyone. Here, she could only trust Osipa, at least until Kanifa arrived. Osipa was meant to sleep alongside the other handmaidens, but Dumai had ordered her bedding to be placed in the antechamber, where she coughed in her sleep.

Dumai coughed, too. The earth sickness refused to let them go.

Deep in the night, Dumai suddenly tasted steel, as if she had bitten her tongue. She crawled to her chamber box and retched over it, sweating ice. Something is wrong. She knew it like she knew the paths her veins took through her wrists. The world is changed . . .

The tremors were still racking her when Osipa came. ‘Dumai.’ A bony hand touched her back. ‘A messenger is outside. His Majesty wants you to come to the East Courtyard.’

Dumai wiped her mouth.

Osipa lit an oil lamp for her. In the gloom, Dumai fastened her robe, feeling weak and strange, and draped a mantle over it. Her attendants were still asleep in the corridor. She padded outside, to where moths clung to the lanterns, and followed the messenger.

Emperor Jorodu waited for her in the starry dark. Dumai was surprised to find him with only one attendant, carrying a lantern.

‘You were the saltwalker,’ Dumai said softly.

‘I was.’ The attendant bent into a bow. ‘Epabo of Ginura. Good to see you in your rightful place, Princess Dumai.’

‘Epabo is my loyal servant. He goes where I cannot,’ Emperor Jorodu said. ‘Dumai, forgive me for disturbing you. You must be very tired . . . but even the Kuposa sleep.’

‘I could not.’ Dumai drew her mantle close. ‘You wished to see me, Father?’

‘Not only to see you. To show you.’

****

There was a discreet way out of the palace. Two ox-drawn carts waited beyond. Enclosed in hers, Dumai could not see where they were going. By the time she stepped back down, the clouds had moved, so the full moon shone bright as the sun on fresh snow.

‘Nirai’s Hills,’ her father said. ‘This area is forbidden to all but the imperial family, and those they choose to invite.’

The peaks formed a boundary of the Rayonti Basin. They concealed a grove of sundrops, with leaves that stayed gold all year long. In turn, those trees encircled a lake that lay quiet and still as black stone, its shore seamed by a milky glow. According to Unora, that was a sign of a sleeping dragon in the water.

‘Dumai,’ Emperor Jorodu said, walking towards it, ‘I did not sleep once at the temple, such was my remorse.’ The corners of his lips turned down, matching his long moustache. ‘I loved your mother. I would have left you on the mountain in peace, were you not my only way to fight. If our family loses power, Seiiki will have no affinity with the gods.’

‘I understand, Father.’

‘Do you?’

‘Of course,’ Dumai said. ‘Snow Maiden earned their trust and respect. We cannot lose it.’

They walked down the incline after Epabo, who carried the lantern towards the lake.

‘Our family were dragonriders once. In the centuries after Snow Maiden, we ruled the sky and sea and land,’ Emperor Jorodu said. ‘But then our dragons grew distant and mournful. One by one, they chose to enter the Long Slumber . . . and we lost our ability to ride. But they can still fly, if they choose. They have simply chosen to conserve their strength.’

‘Why did their strength wane?’

‘If a godsinger does not know the answer to that question, surely no one living does.’

An old boardwalk led into the lake, to the small island at its heart.

‘The gods are benign,’ Emperor Jorodu said as they crossed, ‘but they are not of our world. They prefer not to involve themselves in the politics and conflicts of humankind. Even if they were awake, they could not help us counter a threat like the Kuposa. That is why I needed you.’

‘Why have you brought me to this lake?’

‘I brought the elder of your two brothers first. In the Empire of the Twelve Lakes, the Imperial Dragon chose a worthy heir from the House of Lakseng, when she was still awake. Here, the firstborn usually succeeds their parent, but I think the Lacustrine had it right. After all, we are made of water, and there is no better judge of water than a god.’

Dumai stopped when she saw what waited on the island. A large bell, cast in bronze.

‘Father,’ she said, ‘it’s forbidden.’

‘Not for us. In fact, there is a way for us to wake them all, if Seiiki ever had great need. You lived beneath it your whole life.’

‘The Queen Bell.’

‘Yes. If the Queen Bell rings, there are people across Seiiki who will strike all the others.’ Her father laid a hand on the bronze. ‘It has been centuries since a dragon was born in Seiiki. The last one to hatch – Furtia Stormcaller – chose to withdraw into this lake.’

‘Did you wake this dragon when you brought the Crown Prince here?’

‘Yes. I wanted to see what she made of him.’

‘What did she say?’

‘That his light was faded. I assume that she could sense the sickness that would kill him. Now I would like to see what Furtia Stormcaller makes of the child I found on the mountain.’

He nodded to Epabo, who struck the bell. Its call was clean and richly deep; the night seemed to resound with it.

The lake bubbled. Dumai watched, certain she was in a dream.

First came the pale shine of the crest, spreading through the water; next, the giant horns, the wild eyes and the snout. A shimmering river of black scales followed, and then the mane, like thundercloud. Dumai slid to her knees. She heard her own blood in her ears, her shuddering breaths that verged on laughter. Her father came to kneel at her side.

‘Son of the Rainbow,’ Furtia Stormcaller said, cold and sonorous. ‘How long has it been?’

Dumai tried to catch her breath, tears soaking her face. The dragon sounded like the bell.

‘Eighteen seasons, great Furtia.’ Emperor Jorodu signed with both hands as he spoke, for dragons heard on land as humans did in water. ‘I trust your sleep has been peaceful.’

‘Do you wake me now to hold the fire at bay?’

Emperor Jorodu faltered. ‘I see no fire tonight, great one,’ he said. ‘Am I blind to it?’

‘It rises from the restless deep, beneath the broken mantle.’ Furtia Stormcaller regarded him. ‘Why have you come?’

‘I seek wisdom, if you would grant it. Since we last spoke, my two sons have been taken from this fleeting life. I believed I was left with but one young daughter. I was wrong.’

Earth child, do you hear me?

Dumai slowly looked up. This time, the voice was in her head, which suddenly ached. Furtia gazed back at her. Though her crest had dimmed, her eyes remained luminous.

Yes . . .

‘Great one, I have learned that I have another child, my firstborn,’ Emperor Jorodu said. ‘This is Noziken pa Dumai, Princess of Seiiki, and I wish to know if she is a worthy heir to the Rainbow Throne.’

Dumai shook all over as the dragon lowered her enormous head.

‘This one’s light, I can see clearly,’ Furtia Stormcaller concluded. ‘This one holds a woken star.’