The Veiled Throne, page 30
Once the turtles were back in the ocean, they hoped that the great belt current would carry them on their yearly migrations back to Dara, where some curious fisherman would capture one of them and perhaps bring the message to the intended recipients. Théra had crafted the carving in such a way that it would not arouse suspicion among the Lyucu in Dara should one of the turtles be caught by them, and yet the message would be unmistakable to the one person in the Islands who would understand how to read it.
“I know that you love her,” said Takval. After a pause, he added, “I’m sorry.”
Théra turned to him. “The heart isn’t a fixed pool like a water bubble in the grass sea; it grows and swells like the ocean. Your mother has become my mother, and your people my people. I will never stop loving her, but that doesn’t mean I haven’t begun to love you.”
“You’re my breath, Théra, the mirror of my soul.”
Théra leaned up and whispered something into his ear. Startled, Takval put his hand on her belly. She smiled and kissed him.
The turtles dove under the waves, leaving only the eternal sea under the bright glow of the moon.
PART THREE RAIN-LASHED SAPLINGS
CHAPTER FIFTEEN CAMERA OBSCURA
PAN: THE SIXTH MONTH IN THE EIGHTH YEAR OF THE REIGN OF SEASON OF STORMS (KNOWN AS THE EIGHTH YEAR OF THE REIGN OF AUDACIOUS FREEDOM IN UKYU-TAASA, AND THE EIGHTH YEAR SINCE PRINCESS THéRA DEPARTED DARA FOR UKYU-GONDé).
To a common maid or day laborer going about their business in prosperous Pan, the Imperial palace was simply a sprawling compound of imposing towers and solemn halls with sweeping roofs and gleaming gold tiles, hidden behind a wall as thick and strong as the walls of the city itself.
But behind the towers and halls, beyond the Wall of Tranquility, beyond the winding stream that separated the administrative portions of the palace from the private quarters of the Imperial family, was a garden, a secret world within a world, a hidden pool of serene nature amidst the hustle and bustle of the booming capital.
Here, Emperor Ragin had once tended to a small rice paddy to remind himself of his origins as the son of farmers; Empress Risana—Consort Risana back then—had entertained the Imperial children in a winding hedge maze full of fantastical surprises conjured by her smokecraft; and Empress Jia had kept an herb garden, complete with a shed modeled after a Cocru medicine shop in which she had plotted the downfall of the great Lords of Dara who had fought to secure an empire for her husband.
The rice paddy had long since been filled in, and the hedge maze razed. In their places were more gridded plots of herbs, hothouses cared for by teams of servants around the clock, and terrariums and cages housing exotic insects and animals with medicinal properties. Empress Jia’s favorite pastime had taken over the Palace Garden, much as her presence had taken over the Dandelion Court.
One particular corner of the garden, however, showed the hand of someone other than the empress. Blue orchids and poppies, cerulean hydrangeas and irises, cobalt lotuses and periwinkle peonies—special varieties that had taken generations of Dara’s horticulturalists to breed true—filled the grounds like a varicolored sea. Out of this floral water rose rock formations extracted from quarries and lake bottoms all across the realm, shaped into models of the Islands.
And on these rock formations were miniature replicas of the geography and civilization of Dara: waist-high mountain ranges with salt-tipped peaks favored by squirrel mountaineers; looming cliffs weathered by paintbrush and draped in delicate ivy and morning glory vines, favored haunts of sparrows that seemed as large as garinafins in scale; shield volcanoes about the size of pot lids, sculpted out of hardened dough by the cake decorators from the Imperial kitchen; tiny porcelain versions of Pan, Ginpen, Müning, and Çaruza, each painted with such detail that it was possible to find another version of the Palace Garden inside the model of Pan, about the size of a bull’s-eye.
In equal measures childish and refined, meticulously crafted and adolescently imagined, who was responsible for this shrunken version of Dara?
* * *
Dawn.
Dewdrops hung from the tips of blades of grass, and the rising sun cast long, dark shadows that enhanced the glow of the glistening flower petals, gilded with a golden light that would not last long.
In the middle of the largest rock formation, meant to represent the Big Island, was a pool shaped like Lake Tututika. In this pool lived a school of colorful carp, with graceful long tail fins that rivaled the legendary dyran’s. The largest carp was golden in color, and its slow, meandering trips around the pool were endowed with as much solemnity as the fabled tours of Emperor Mapidéré.
Two large ravens, one black and one white, landed next to the pool. They gazed into the water, where the rising sun broke into a thousand pieces in the ripples bouncing from one end of the pool to the other. The golden carp swam up to them. As the ravens cawed and the carp blew bubbles near the surface, one could almost imagine they were having a conversation.
- Little sister, what have you been doing with your charge? She spends her days painting and singing, embroidering and making up logogram riddles, strumming the zither and playing the flute, going to the theater and penning poems about actors she fancies—
—practicing calligraphy and working on this absurd garden, visiting new restaurants and gushing over trinkets in the market, attending parties and sampling every type of beer, gossiping about boys and reading tales of romance—
- Sounds to me like she’s just living the life of a young lady of wealth, Rapa and Kana.
- But she’s not just an average young lady, Tututika! What about preparation for war? What about the study of politics? What about honing her talents in the service of Dara? At her age, Gin Mazoti had already taken up arms against Mapidéré—
—and Zomi Kidosu had already distinguished herself in the Grand Examination—
- Why must everyone live a life of politics and war? Is the life of a coral-reef shrimp any less beautiful than that of a majestic cruben? She fills her life with the pursuit of beauty, and who’s to say that isn’t her destiny?
- Beauty, beauty, beauty! Can’t you talk of anything else? There will be war! The treaty that has kept the peace in exchange for tribute to the Lyucu will last only two more years!
- Beauty is my domain, sisters. Besides, you have your charge, and he thinks of nothing but war and politics. I rather agree with Kiji that we should not act as though war is the only choice in the future of Dara—a self-fulfilling prophecy—and your cawing won’t persuade me to change my mind. Let me guide her the way I want to, and you can devote yourselves to her brother.
- You’re making a grave mistake, little sister. War cannot be avoided by withdrawing into art, and beauty isn’t worth much when the spear-storm strikes.
* * *
A shack of unusual design stood in the middle of the floral sea, surrounded by the miniature islands. Cylindrical in shape, it resembled nothing so much as the stalk of a gigantic mushroom. However, on top of the stalk, instead of an umbrella-like cap, was a slender chimney bent in the middle like an elbow. If one were to crawl inside the flared mouth of this horizontal chimney, as the squirrel mountaineers in the garden were wont to do, one would find a gigantic mirror nestled in the angled joint, slanted to direct the light gathered by the flared mouth down into the shack.
The chimney was an eye, constructed along the same lines as one of the light-bending mirror tubes found on a mechanical cruben.
But instead of a human observer at the end of the tube, the light gathered by the mirror was directed into a tiny hole at the base of the chimney, in which was installed a piece of polished glass bulging in the middle, and through this lens the light entered the dark, obscure interior.
The inside of the shack’s cylindrical wall was carefully lined with layers of thick fabric to ward off light leaks, and in the middle of the floor was a circular table with a pristine white sheet of paper on top. A cone of light pierced the darkness within the shack, the tip of the cone at the hole in the ceiling and the base illuminating the sheet of paper like the full moon on a cloudless night. Dust motes drifted lazily through the light cone.
The lens in the ceiling projected the scene outside onto the paper screen: islands, mountains, volcanoes, harbors, and cities, everything awash in the vivid and vibrant colors of the golden dawn, with sharp angles and contrasting shadows. A solid world was reduced to a flat image, and planes and lines contorted through perspective to evoke volume, with a precision unmatched by even the greatest painters of Dara—for this was the work of the gods, a painting of light that no mortal eye or brush could ever hope to replicate.
But that didn’t mean mortals wouldn’t try.
Kneeling next to the screen was a young woman of eighteen. Fair-skinned and flaxen-haired, she had the appearance of a noblewoman from the highlands of Faça. Her brows were knitted in deep concentration as she wielded a wolf’s-hair brush dipped in paint, trying to capture the work of the gods stroke by stroke, dab by dab.
But a series of loud thumps against the door of the shack broke her concentration. She yelped and dropped the brush on the paper. She stared at the ruined painting for a second, her expression forlorn.
“Didn’t I explicitly say that no one is to disturb me in here?” she shouted.
There was no answer.
“All right,” she muttered to herself. “Guess it’s not meant to be. It’s more fun to paint the way I want to rather than copy the work of the gods anyway.”
She got up and opened the door to the cylindrical shack.
A young man stood outside, regarding her with twinkling eyes and a playful smile.
He was in his twenties. Broad-shouldered, dark-complexioned, hair straight and black, he showed more of his father’s Cocru heritage than his mother’s Arulugi origins. He was dressed in the armor of a Dara army commander, though as he was in the palace, the armor was ceremonial and made of paper and silk.
With a squeal, the young woman leapt into his arms. “Hudo-tika! You didn’t write to let me know you were coming!”
The young man was indeed Phyro Garu, son of Kuni Garu and Risana, these days also known as Emperor Monadétu of Dara. But since Empress Jia, his aunt-mother, held the Seal of Dara as regent, he seldom used that name. The young woman was his little sister, Princess Fara, daughter of Kuni Garu and Consort Fina.
“I decided to come to Pan at the last minute,” said Phyro. “It’s because—never mind, you wouldn’t be interested. What were you doing, Ada-tika, all shut up in that dark shack? Teké and Comé said you’ve been in there since before sunrise.”
“I see nothing in this palace escapes the notice of the Dyran Fins,” said Fara, sounding a bit miffed. Then she brightened again. “No matter—it’s not as if I’m keeping a secret. This is called a camera obscura, an old Patternist invention designed for studying form and perspective, and for training painters. Here, let me show you.”
She pulled her brother into the shack, shut the door, and showed him how the light-chimney at the top could be turned in different directions to project different views of the surroundings onto the painting screen.
They came back out of the shack, Phyro looking impressed. “Do you have detailed plans for the construction of this camera obscura?”
“I’m sure you can find them in the Imperial Library. I just had Aya help me—wait, don’t tell me you’re thinking of taking up painting?” Fara knew her brother enjoyed learning about all sorts of machinery, including stagecraft and the tricks of street magicians, but he had rarely shown much interest in art. “Praise to Tututika! My big brother is realizing that life consists of more than learning to ride fire-breathing monsters!”
“No, no! I was thinking that such a device, properly deployed from a submerged mechanical cruben, would allow a cartographer to draw accurate coastal maps in advance of an amphibious assault—”
Fara rolled her eyes. “Can’t you think about anything other than war and fighting?”
“Fine. Let’s discuss… you. So were you studying how to paint true to life? I thought your style tended to be more abstract and less representational. You gave me a whole lecture on the genius of Lady Mira’s impressionistic portraits of the Hegemon the last time I visited Pan. What was it you said? ‘A nimbus in the wake of a stride, a moonbow the aftermath of strife—’”
“‘You and I, both fate misunderstood, need no shared history for this duet,’” finished Fara.
Both went quiet for a moment. The lines, composed by Ro Taça of Rima centuries ago, described the poet’s encounter with a coconut lute player after he had been demoted by the King of Rima for giving advice that rubbed the royal ear the wrong way. Fara had appropriated the lines to characterize the power of Lady Mira’s abstract embroidery portraits, but Phyro had seen in them a depiction of the smokecraft art of his own mother, Empress Risana.
“If anyone can teach a beauty-blind dullard like me the meaning of art, it’s you,” said Phyro, to break the somber air. “Trust your own style.”
Having grown up surrounded by calligraphy scrolls written by Lügo Crupo, Lady Mira’s embroidery, Dasu knotwork headdresses from centuries ago, Adüan idols and masks, oversized torrent-script logograms said to have been carved by Üshin Pidaji with a sword, ancient bronze ritual vessels from the early days of the Tiro states, and all sorts of other rare art objects in the Imperial collection, Fara had always been proud of her artistic taste. “Well, I do—or rather, did. It’s all because of Gimoto. Last week, there was a tea-tasting party at the palace with some of the younger nobles at court. They begged me to show a few of my paintings. I brought them out…. Everyone was complimentary, but Gimoto said they showed no craft. ‘I could have done this when I was three!’ he said. ‘That gourd looks like a baby’s behind.’ It was humiliating—”
“Forget about Gimoto,” said Phyro with a frown. “He’s a fool. I suppose he considers himself an expert on gourds because he resembles one: a polished head with nothing inside except air.”
Prince Gimoto, the eldest son of King Kado Garu, Kuni Garu’s elder brother, was making quite a name for himself in Pan. He was often seen visiting the manors of various government ministers bearing gifts, and he spent lavishly to acquire rare herbs and medicines of longevity for Empress Jia, claiming that he loved her as much as he loved his own mother and wished to fulfill the duties of a son to her. Rumors ran rampant in the capital that Empress Jia was considering taking the throne away from Phyro and making Gimoto emperor.
“He is a fool,” said Fara. “But all these princelings and ladies at the party rushed to agree with him—”
“They agreed with him only because they think he’s important. Had he pointed to a stag and claimed it was a horse, they would have vied with one another to praise the smoothness of its undivided hooves and the stiffness of its antler-like mane.”
Despite the lingering embarrassment from Gimoto’s criticism, Fara laughed. Hudo-tika did always have a way of cheering her up. “Still, it stung, and I realized that I probably should pay more attention to technique. I made Aya help me build this camera obscura so I could practice.”
“Shouldn’t Aya be devoting herself to studying the Martialist classics if she wants to advance? How does she find the time to goof off with you?”
Fara stuck out her tongue at her brother. “She has to look all serious and studious in front of you and Zomi, but with me she can be her real self. Look at this sitting cushion she made for me. Isn’t it neat?”
Fara ducked into the shack and retrieved the sitting cushion, pointing out the patterns Aya Mazoti had embroidered in glowworm silk so that Fara could find it easily even when the inside of the shack was completely dark. (“Aya actually wanted to use a lamp powered by silkmotic force, but the Dyran Fins said those things were too dangerous.”) She also pointed out the clever ventilation slots that let in air but sealed out light, and the silk wrapped around the cords for controlling the light-chimney so that Fara’s hands wouldn’t be injured by the rough hemp.
“That’s certainly a lot of effort devoted to making this painting studio comfortable,” said Phyro.
“Aya has always been good with ideas for how to make things a little more comfortable. When we were girls, she used to make the most amazing furniture for our pet mice—”
“I wish she put as much effort into learning how to lead an army,” said Phyro. “Comfort will be the last thing on her mind when she’s out on the battlefield—”
“But it’s you and Zomi who are always pushing her to lead an army. What makes you think she wants to?”
“Of course she wants to,” said Phyro, aghast. “She’s the daughter of Auntie Gin!”
Fara sighed. “Forget it. You are home so rarely that I’m not going to spend the whole time arguing with you.”
“Then let’s go back to art. I can assure you that I prefer your paintings to anything Cousin Gimoto can do. Why, even if he studied nonstop for eighty years, he would fail to come within one-tenth of your skill at capturing the subject’s spirit—”
Fara waved him off. “Enough. Enough! You know as much about art as I do about war. I’m sure you think I’m silly to obsess over this.”
“I just want you to be happy.”
A look of sorrow flitted over Fara’s features, but she banished it with a determined smile. “I’m fine. But you… hmm… I bet you’re here to attend a session of the Inner Council. Don’t let me keep you from your important business.”
“There’s nothing more important than family,” said Phyro.
