A Day of Fallen Night (The Roots of Chaos)

The stranger had been asleep for two days. By the time Dumai towed him from the snowstorm, blisters had bubbled up on his fingers, and the cold had bruised his nose and cheeks.

Unora had gone straight to work. After so many years on the mountain, she knew how to save any part of the body that had not yet died. She had redressed the stranger and slowly warmed his frosted skin.

The cough was mountain sickness. In the summer, he would have been taken back down, but until the snow passed, he would have to endure. So would their Kuposa guest, who Dumai had glimpsed only twice, from a distance. Unable to attempt the summit, she kept to the Inner Hall.

Dumai wished she could welcome her, but her mother had taught her to never approach visitors from court. The palace is a twisted net, snaring even the littlest fish. Best you stay free of its tangles, Unora had warned her. Keep your mind pure and cast your thoughts high, and one day, you will stand in my place.

There was sense in that. Court was all gossip and artifice, according to everyone who had been there.

After her chores, she decided to check on Unora, who had been with the sick traveller ever since his arrival. Dumai had led the procession in her stead. On the porch, she took off her boots and replaced them with slippers, then went to the room where the stranger lay.

Kanifa was on his way out, carrying a cauldron. ‘How is our guest?’ Dumai asked him.

‘He stirs now and then. I think he’ll wake soon.’

‘Then why do you look worried?’

The line between his eyebrows was deeper than usual. He glanced down the corridor. ‘Our guest from court,’ he said in a low voice. ‘Apparently she’s been asking questions about the Grand Empress. How she finds life at the temple. Whether she ever plans to return.’

‘She did rule Seiiki. Climbers are always curious about her.’

‘This one is an ambitious Kuposa. She may be trying to curry favour with the Grand Empress, or involve her in some intrigue,’ Kanifa said. ‘I mean to keep an eye on her.’

‘Yes, I’m sure you would be happy to keep a close watch on a beautiful woman.’

Kanifa cocked a heavy eyebrow, a faint smile on his lips. ‘Go to your mother, Dumai of Ipyeda.’ He continued down the corridor. ‘She will cleanse you of such earthly thoughts.’

Dumai screened her grin behind her hair as she stepped into the room. She teased him, but in truth, Kanifa had never expressed interest in anyone. The mountain was his only love.

The traveller lay on a mat, covered to his chin with bedding, feet snug in a heat trap. He was about sixty, grey woven through his thick hair, which framed a brown and solemn face.

Unora was nearby, watching a kettle. While there were guests in the temple, she was obliged to wear the grey veil of the Maiden Officiant, even outside the rituals she led.

The Maiden Officiant acted as the understudy and representative of the Supreme Officiant. While the latter was always a member of the imperial family, the former was usually not of noble birth. Her veil symbolised the waterline between the earthly and celestial realms.

‘There you are.’ Unora patted the floor. ‘Come.’

Dumai knelt beside her. ‘Have you found out who he is?’

‘A saltwalker, from his collection.’ Her mother motioned to a dish, full of shells of rare beauty. ‘He woke for long enough to ask me where he was.’

For a saltwalker, he was curiously unweathered. They were wanderers who tended to the ancient shrines – only ever washing in the sea, dressing in what they found on its shore.

‘And the climber?’ Dumai said. ‘Did you learn why she came so late in the year?’

‘Yes.’ Unora took the steaming kettle from the pothook. ‘You know I can’t share her secrets, but she made a choice she fears may cause a scandal at court. She needed to clear her mind.’

‘Perhaps I could talk to her, give her some comfort. I think I am about her age.’

‘A kind offer, but it was my counsel she sought.’ Unora tipped the boiled water into a cup. ‘Don’t concern yourself, my kite. Your life is on this mountain, and it needs your full devotion.’

‘Yes, Mother.’

Dumai glanced at the saltwalker. A chill grazed her spine. Not only was he now awake, but his gaze was hard and stunned on her face. He looked as if he had seen a water ghost.

Unora noticed, stiffening.

‘Honourable stranger.’ She moved between them, the cup between her hands. ‘Welcome. You have come to the High Temple of Kwiriki. I am its Maiden Officiant.’ The man did not utter a word. ‘Mountain sickness . . . can shadow the sight. Can you see?’

Dumai was starting to feel nervous. Finally, the man said, ‘I have a thirst.’

His voice came deep and rough. Unora held the cup to his lips. ‘Your head may be very light for a time,’ she told him as he drank, ‘and your stomach may feel smaller than usual.’

‘Thank you.’ He wiped his mouth. ‘I dreamed the gods called to me from this mountain, but it seems I was too weak to answer.’

‘It is the mountain’s will, not your weakness, that prevents you climbing any higher.’

‘You are kind.’ As Unora took the cup away, he looked back towards Dumai. ‘Who is this?’

‘One of our godsingers.’

Dumai waited for her to be more specific. Unora only served more of the steeped ginger.

‘I apologise,’ the saltwalker said to Dumai. ‘I thought you resembled someone I knew.’ He rubbed his eyes. ‘You are right, Maiden Officiant. It must be the mountain sickness.’

A creak sounded in the corridor. ‘Ah, here is Kanifa,’ Unora said brightly. ‘He has dressings for you.’ Her face turned back towards Dumai. ‘Will you help Tirotu cut some more ice?’

Slowly, Dumai rose, meeting Kanifa on her way out. She brushed straight past him, making him look after her.

****

‘What did you dream?’

Dumai kept her eyes closed. She was kneeling on a mat, hands resting on her thighs. ‘I dreamed I flew again,’ she said. ‘Above the clouds. I was waiting for the night to fall.’

‘For the sun to set, and the moon to rise?’

‘No. It was already night, though moonless.’ Dumai reworded it: ‘I was waiting for the stars to descend from the sky. Somehow I knew they were supposed to come to me.’

‘And did they?’

‘No. They never do.’

The Grand Empress nodded. She rested on the kneeling stool she often used in the cold months.

Once, she had been the shrewd and beloved Empress Manai – until some unknown malady had left her frail and confused, baffling her physicians. When she could no longer work around her decline, she had seen no choice but to abdicate in favour of her son and withdraw to Mount Ipyeda, to take the vacant post of Supreme Officiant of Seiiki.

Her illness had mysteriously faded on the mountain, but by then, her ordainment had precluded her from returning to court. It was she who had welcomed a destitute and friendless Unora when she came to the temple, swollen with Dumai, and asked for sanctuary.

Since her abdication, the boy left on the throne had grown into a man. Emperor Jorodu had never once visited the temple, though he did occasionally write to his mother.

The Grand Empress watched the woodfall breathe in the brazier. White streaked her short grey hair, as if she had combed snow through it. Dumai longed for hers to be the same.

‘Did you have a sense of what would happen,’ the Grand Empress said, ‘if the stars did not fall?’

Dumai pressed her hands flat, remembering. In the shapeless place between sleep and waking, she had dreamed her sweat was silver.

‘Something terrible,’ she said. ‘Far below, there was black water, and in it, there was doom.’

The Grand Empress tucked in her lips, her face creasing. ‘I have thought long on these dreams,’ she said. ‘Kwiriki is calling you, Dumai.’

‘Am I called to be Maiden Officiant?’ Dumai asked her. ‘You know this is my only wish.’

‘I do know it.’ The Grand Empress laid a hand on her head. ‘Thank you for sharing your dream. I will continue to dwell on them all, in the hope I can unravel the message.’

‘I wonder if . . . I might ask for your guidance on another matter. It has to do with my mother.’

‘What of her?’

Dumai wrestled with herself. It was not for a child to question a parent. ‘It is a very small thing,’ she finally said, ‘but earlier, she chose not to tell a stranger that I was her daughter. She referred to me simply as a godsinger. I know it is uncommon for a Maiden Officiant to have children, but . . . there is no shame in it.’

‘You speak of the man who arrived in the night.’

‘Yes.’

The Grand Empress seemed to consider.

‘Unora brought you into this world. Our parents’ love can take strange forms, Dumai,’ she said. ‘See how the sorrower pricks her own breast, feeding her young with drops of her blood.’

Dumai had already seen. It was why she held such affection for sorrowers.

‘As my representative, Unora must guide and comfort the climbers. You are not yet prepared for her role,’ the Grand Empress said, ‘but if they knew you were her daughter, they would likely see you as a way to her. Unora wants to keep your mind free of the ground . . . until you have spent long enough on the mountain that you can resist the allure of the earth.’

‘I have been on this mountain for almost as many years as my mother. I have never stepped from it. How can I be tempted by something I have never seen?’

‘Precisely.’

Dumai digested this. Like stones on a board, pieces shifted in her mind, forming a clear line, unbroken by doubt.

‘Thank you, Grand Empress,’ she said, rising. ‘Your wisdom clears my eyes.’

‘Hm. Sleep well, Dumai.’

Dumai slid the doors shut behind her. A visit to these quarters always eased her mind.

The Grand Empress was right, of course. Unora had lived away from the mountain, before Dumai was born; she knew the distractions and hardships below. It made perfect sense that she would want to separate Dumai from all of that, to protect her.

Dumai turned to leave the corridor. When she saw the woman in the gloom, she startled.

‘Forgive me.’ A soft voice. ‘Did I scare you?’

The guest stood as still as the walls, wearing the dark robe the temple offered to all guests. Its plainness only served to call attention to her face, pale and fine-boned against her black hair, which was drawn into a scallop tuck, the simplest of the courtly styles.

‘My lady,’ Dumai said, recovering. ‘I’m sorry, but guests are not permitted on this floor.’

‘I apologise.’ Her eyes were large, a bright brown that reminded Dumai of copper. ‘I was looking for the refectory, but I must have taken a wrong turn. How thoughtless of me.’

‘Not at all. The temple can be confusing.’

The woman regarded her with clear interest. Dumai lowered her chin, so her hair moved to conceal some of her face. The people of the ground shared a habit of looking too hard.

‘I take it you are a godsinger,’ the woman said. ‘What a fulfilling life that must be.’

‘I find it so, my lady.’

‘I wish I could see the summit myself, but it seems the snow has trapped me here.’

‘I hope that does not disappoint you too much, and that you will still find some peace among us.’

‘Thank you. It has been some time since I last had peace.’ The woman gave her a radiant smile. ‘Do you have a name?’

Dumai had never seen a face like hers, one side precisely the same as the other. Kanifa said that was how you told a butterfly spirit from an ordinary woman.

She was about to answer truthfully when she paused. Perhaps it was the way the saltwalker had stared at her, but a sudden, unnerving sense of danger prickled at her nape.

‘Unora,’ she said, trusting it. ‘And you, my lady?’

‘Nikeya.’

‘Please, follow me. I was going to the refectory myself.’

‘Thank you, Unora.’ Nikeya cut her gaze towards the doors. ‘You are too kind to this poor guest.’

They walked to the bottom of the stairs and along the corridor, the old floorboards creaking under their slippers. Nikeya took in her surroundings with open curiosity. Dumai had expected her to be withdrawn, given her troubles at court, but she was the picture of ease.

‘I hear the ordained who serve in this temple never eat of the sea,’ Nikeya said. ‘Is that so?’

‘Yes. We believe the sea belongs to dragonkind, and we should not eat what is theirs.’

‘Even salt?’ She laughed a little. ‘How can a person live without salt?’

‘There are Lacustrine merchants who send it to us from Ginura. Theirs comes from salt wells on the mainland.’

‘What of pearls and shells?’

‘Shells can be found on the shore,’ Dumai pointed out. ‘Climbers often leave pearls at the summit for the great Kwiriki.’

‘So you believe the emperor and all his courtiers – myself included – to be thieves, since we do eat of the sea?’

Dumai dropped her gaze. Already her foot was caught in the fishnet. ‘That was not what I meant, my lady,’ she said. ‘We all serve the gods in whatever manner we think best.’

Nikeya laughed again, light and misty. ‘Very good. You would make a fine courtier yourself.’ Her smile waned. ‘You were with the Grand Empress just now. Do you attend on her?’

‘No.’ Dumai governed her expression. ‘Her Majesty has just one attendant, who came with her from court.’

‘Tajorin pa Osipa.’

‘Yes. Do you know Lady Osipa?’

‘I know of her, as I know of many people. Including you now, Unora.’

They soon reached the refectory. At this time of night, it was always thick with templefolk, their voices drowsy after a long day of work and prayer. Nikeya turned to Dumai.

‘It was a pleasure, Unora,’ she said. ‘In a short time, you have taught me a great deal.’

Dumai inclined her head. ‘I wish you a pleasant stay, my lady.’

‘Thank you.’

With another charming smile, Nikeya went to join one of her attendants, who had already finished her meal.

Across the refectory, Kanifa was serving bowls of buckwheat, the sleeves of his tunic fastened at his elbows, baring his lean brown forearms. Dumai caught his eye. He followed her gaze to the two women, then gave her the smallest nod.

Nikeya should not have been anywhere near the Grand Empress. Kanifa could yet be right in his suspicions. He would make sure she was escorted straight back to the Inner Hall.

Dumai decided to check on the saltwalker. In his room, she found the shutters flung wide, letting in thick flurries of snow. Hurrying to the window, she stared into the night.

A trail of footprints led away from the temple.

‘Come back,’ she cried. ‘It’s too dangerous!’

Only the wind answered, burning her cheeks. Little by little, Dumai made out a shape, a darkness on the snow. No sooner had she realised what it was than she was running.

She rushed through the temple, down the stairs and along the corridors. Tirotu was quenching the lamps.

‘Leave them,’ Dumai called as she ran past. ‘I need the light!’

Tirotu stopped at once and came after her.

On the porch, Dumai flung a pelt over her shoulders. Her boots ripped into the deep snow outside. She trudged away from the temple, holding up a naked hand to shield her eyes.

Do not goad the mountain, Dumai.

A gale whistled in her ears, making them ache. She was still within reach of the lamps, still on snow painted with light, and she knew this ground well. Going much farther would be a risk, but it might also save a life.

When she reached the crumpled form, she went to her knees and cleared the snow from their head, expecting to find the saltwalker. Instead, she saw a face she had not seen in days.

‘Mother,’ she croaked. Unora was cold and ashen, her lashes frosted, breath weak. ‘Mother, no. Why did you follow him?’ She turned her neck and screamed towards the temple, ‘Help me!’