Dragon and Phoenix Read Free

thousand regrets, Haoro let the masterpiece drift into the brazier and watched it burn.
     
    Many spans of days after he started his journey, Baisha stood beside a crude dugout canoe on a desolate beach on the northern shore of Jehanglan. He rubbed his forehead as if he could rub away the lingering effects of the illness that had delayed him. Damn that he’d ever caught the shaking sickness! It had made him late to leave Jehanglan.
    “You are certain the Assantikkan ship will be leaving shortly?” he said to the trembling man the temple soldiers had forced to kneel before him. “Answer me or they die.” He jerked his head.
    “They” were the man’s terrified family—a wife and a babe in arms—standing behind him within a ring of more soldiers. Swords pricked the hostages’ throats.
    “Yes, lord,” the man stammered. “They never stay very long—a few hands of the sun. You must hurry.” He tried to look back at his family. A soldier seized his long black hair and yanked his head around again. Tears of pain filled the man’s frightened eyes.
    It mattered not to Baisha. He looked over to the priest from the Iron Temple. “Did your master give you what I need?”
    The priest nodded and reached within his robes. When he brought out his hand again, a crystal globe filled it. Inside floated a golden image of the Phoenix. The captive whimpered at the sight of it.
    Baisha took it and hid it away inside the ragged and salt-stained robes he had donned a little while ago. “The rest?”
    Once more the priest reached into his robes. This time he brought forth a jar of ointment. “Smear this upon your face and hands, and all other exposed flesh. It will redden and irritate the skin so that you’ll look as if you’ve spent days drifting in the boat. Remember to smear some upon your lips, as well; they must be swollen and cracked as if from lack of water.”
    Grimacing, Baisha took the jar and removed the oiled paper lid. So he must look as wretched as he felt. With a sigh, he scooped some ointment out and smeared it on his bare arm. The priest signaled the acolytes who flanked him to aid.
    Soon Baisha was ready. He stepped into the dugout; two soldiers ran to catch the sides and push it out to sea. Baisha picked up the single paddle and set to
work, cursing under his breath. The damned ointment was doing its work quickly and too well.
    The priest called out, “What about these cattle?”
    Baisha barely glanced over his shoulder. “Kill them, of course. We want no witnesses.”
    He ignored the anguished screams behind him and bent to his work.

Four
    To rule the heart of the Phoenix Lord—that was power. Yet what was power if one lived confined? Though the bars of the cage were of carved jade, banded with gold and hung with silk, they were still bars.
    Shei-Luin noh Jhi turned from the screened window. Her silk-shod feet padded softly against the floor as she went once more to read the message on the desk.
    Such an insignificant bit of paper; the merest strip that would fit around the leg of a fast messenger pigeon. But all the world hung in its words.
    The emperor is dying. Come at once-Jhanun.
    Shei-Luin studied it, tracing the words with a long, polished fingernail. Her finger paused over the signature: Jhanun . Just that. No title, no seal, not even an informal thumb print.
    Were I as stupid as you hoped, Jhanun, it would have worked. And you would have wrung your hands over my death, vowed vengeance against whoever used your name, and grinned like the dog you are in private.
    She could well believe Xiane claimed he was dying; that did not surprise her. A stomach ache from green mangoes and Xiane Ma Jhi, august emperor of the Four Quarters of the Earth and Phoenix Lord of the Skies, squalled that he was poisoned.
    She’d seen it too often to be frightened anymore.
    But whether Xiane were dying or not, it would mean her death to approach him before her time of purification from childbirth was over. Which was