"No," he agreed. "We are all dead men."
"You don't look like a ghost!" cried Mai more strongly than she intended, still stinging from the realization that she didn't know as much as she thought she did. Then she took a breath. How stupid that comment sounded! And bad luck, too, maybe.
As he began to smile, she recalled bitterly how Girish had belittled her and how the family so often patted her head and called her "little orchid" and "plum blossom" as though she were no smarter than a flower. He saw the shift, perhaps even the anger, in her expression. She had betrayed herself. His smile faded as his gaze grew more intent. "I don't mean that I'm dead, only that we will all pass Spirit Gate in time. There is no point in fearing what is inevitable."
"I feel that I have passed Spirit Gate already," she said. "I am not what I was before, nor do I want to be."
Priya bent and took her hand. "Any great change is a Spirit Gate, plum blossom," she said fondly, and in her mouth the pet name did not cloy. "I crossed through a gate when I was stolen from my land and my people. I am dead now."
"Would you go back, if you could?" Mai asked, fearing to hear the answer.
Priya looked at Captain Anji, and they seemed to speak to each other in a language Mai did not understand, one that made her feel terribly young and naive. "The road that passes under Spirit Gate runs in only one direction, Mistress. There is no going back."
BECAUSE THERE WAS no going back, she had to go forward never knowing where the path led. By the tenth morning after they had left Kartu Town she was able to mount her horse and ride for half the day before the effort tired her. That night they camped within the ruins of a fortress so old that the wind had sculpted it into a complex beast half buried in the sand. A constant whistle sounded from the many holes where the wind sang through, changing only in pitch and loudness. They set up tents in the middle of the ruin for some relief from the sting of sand. Chief Tuvi made a shelter for himself in one corner and to Mai's surprise brought out a one-stringed musical instrument from a long leather case which she had all along thought contained a hunting bow. Yet the case proved to carry a slender instrument as well, which he used to draw music out of the string. A few of the men carried rattles or bells. With the wind as accompaniment, they played and took turns singing.
The bay mare rode down to me from out of the sky
She rode down to me from out of the sky.
A celestial horse! Best among horses!
The lord wants her for himself.
But I'll keep her for myself.
A celestial horse! Best among horses!
With the bay mare I rode east along the Golden Road.
This is what I saw along the Golden Road.
This particular song went on for a long time, with men adding verses as they pleased, describing sights they had seen in their journeys, north into the dry hills or south into the stone desert, west into demon country or east along the Golden Road. Mai sat on her divan beside Captain Anji on his stool. She sipped at yoghurt.
When she bent toward him, he, alert to her least movement, turned to smile at her.
"Why are you called east?" she asked daringly, aware of how close he was. If she swayed forward, she could kiss him!
He raised an eyebrow, always a sign of amusement in him. "I can't say."
"You can't say because you don't know or because you aren't allowed to tell?"
He laughed. She flushed, embarrassed, pleased, excited, too many feelings thrown together. It made her giddy, and she withdrew-just a little-to give herself breathing space.
"Shai," he said in a louder voice, still looking at her. "Come here."
Shai had been outside sparring with his weapons partners. When he appeared, sweating and dirty, he sat on a stool beside the captain. Anji signaled for the music to stop. The men put away their rattles, and Chief Tuvi sealed up his instrument in its case.
"We are come about halfway," said the captain, "the easy part of the road. This place was a town once, on an oasis, but the desert creeps close. The demons are hungry. They've eaten many towns that used to stand here, like this one, and even swallowed the old wells. We'll finish filling our water pouches tonight and press on as soon as the moon rises. We'll rest from midday to a hand's breadth before sunset and travel at night and into the morning. You'll be thirsty but must not drink more than your share. Any who fall behind will be left. Beware demons. They hunt here."
He stood. "Rest now. You'll hear the chief's whistle when it's time to ride out."
The men dispersed, but he stopped Mai as she rose. It was the third time he had ever touched her. His fingers on her wrist were cool, his grip light. "You must ride, Mai'ili. The slaves cannot carry you on this part of the road. We'll break the palanquin down and bring it as baggage as far as we can. But you must ride now. Do you understand?"
She looked at him carefully. His eyes seemed more lovely to her than they had eleven days ago when they had stood at the law court while the proper contracts were signed and sealed. He was, just slightly, breathing to an unsteady beat as he watched her. His lips were parted just enough that she might slip the tip of her little finger between them, and as if he had heard her speak such words, as if she had actually touched him so intimately, he flushed along his dark cheeks but did not release her.
"Will you leave me behind if I falter?" she asked.
A peculiar expression passed swiftly across his face: pain or anger or a smothered laugh. Something deeper and more complicated.
"You hide yourself," she said, bolder now. "Let me see you."
It was gone, fled as if on the wind. He smiled with that mild look of amusement he often wore. "You need only ask," he murmured, and she was burning, all a-tumble, overmatched.
Mercifully, he released her.
She slipped inside the palanquin, lay down on the wool batting, one last time. But she could not sleep. He'd not answered her question, and by not answering, he had answered.
He will leave me behind, if he must. He does not love me.
Yet her wrist burned where he had touched her. She had seen the light in his face, the flush in his cheeks. The story was still being told. Anything might come next. Was this not the truth of life, that until we pass beyond Spirit Gate we live always on the edge between desire and loss, joy and pain, necessity and regret?
Only as Priya sang to her, rubbing her shoulders and back, did she finally relax and sleep.
12
The company rode on at moonrise.
"The locals call this stretch of wasteland the Wailing Sands," said Chief Tuvi to Shai. "Demons roam here. If you hear your relatives calling to you from the desert, don't follow their voices. That's how they trick people into wandering out to where they can eat them."
Shai laughed bitterly. "I wouldn't follow my relatives anyway, if they called to me."
"They treated you badly?" Tuvi was a pragmatic man, entirely devoted to Captain Anji because of kinship ties Shai hadn't yet puzzled out. "If you aren't loyal to your kinfolk then they won't be loyal to you in return."
"I'm the youngest. There were plenty of other sons. I was just an extra mouth to feed."
"An extra mouth? No Qin commander scorns another warrior. Your people aren't fighters but farmers. That might account for it. Only so much land to divide up between you. Lots of quarreling, I expect."
"Isn't there quarreling among Qin brothers?"
"Why?" He gestured toward the road ahead, tracks cutting across a wide expanse of dry land with little more than tumble brush and rocks strewn across it. The hills rose terrible and dark to the north, and to the south lay the wild lands where the desert demons roamed. "There's plenty of land where my people come from. Good land, lots of pasture. If brothers quarrel, then the one can pack up his tent and herd his flocks elsewhere. But quarreling brothers are like single arrows, easy to snap in two. It's only when they hold to each other that they are strong."