The Prince of Shadow by Curt Benjamin Page A

“Show the seal at the gates, it will give you safe passage. But come back as soon as the message is delivered. No dawdling.”
    â€œThank you, Master Den.” Llesho bowed low in gratitude, and Den sighed.
    â€œIn the long run, it may comfort you to know that you did your best to help your friend. But learn this lesson well: only a warrior who suffers failure with fortitude can accept the accolades of success with grace and humility.”
    â€œYes, Master.” Llesho bowed again, but in his heart he admitted no possibility of failure. Then he turned and ran, through the laundry and the leather works, across the practice yard, and to the first gate, where the guard looked at him with suspicion and inspected the rolled parchment from every angle to assure himself that the seal was authentic and had not been tampered with.
    The outer gate was easier. Madon was on duty, and waved Llesho through with a cursory glance at the seal. Madon was no fool, and if he had any suspicions about the message, he kept them to himself. He merely pointed to a less worn path leading away from the compound, suggesting, “You could take the long run, but this is a shortcut to the bay.”
    The shortcut required greater concentration, since it was less well tended and air roots and trailing vines frequently snaked across the path to trip up the unwary. Llesho had to make a few incautious leaps to avoid a twisted ankle, but he reached the longhouse in short order, and unseen. To his dismay, however, he could not find Kwan-ti. His own quarter-shift mates were at work in the bay, but he asked the divers on quarter-rest, and the old men who fished and the old women who gathered fruits and vegetables to flavor the grain food Lord Chin-shi supplied for the cookhouse. No one had seen Kwan-ti since the night before. All the boats were accounted for, so she could not have left the island, but still, no one could find her.
    Finally, taking his courage in his hands, Llesho approached the witch-finder, who curled in a brooding huddle beneath his palm tree.
    â€œI have a message from Master Den for the healer,” he said, pretending not to know of Tsu-tan’s nocturnal visits to Master Markko. “Did you see where she went?”
    â€œI did not,” Tsu-tan snapped. “And if you don’t want to roast on a spit yourself, you will mind your own business, pig food.”
    Llesho thought the witch-finder’s voice shook a little. If Tsu-tan was afraid, so much the better. But Llesho refused to believe what he heard whispered in the longhouse: the witch had gone, called a dragon from the sea to take her away from the Island and the witch-finder and his virtuous Lord, Chin-shi. Once, a water dragon had rescued Llesho, convincing him without words to cling to life and to his faith. The creature had laughed her joy with him, a human sound, with the voice of the healer. He could believe no evil of Kwan-ti, but he could not deny that she was gone, and by her own power, not spirited away to await death at the hands of the witch-finder and his employers. How or why, he refused to think, for fear of where his own evidence would take him.
    Still carrying Master Den’s message, Llesho returned to the compound. Madon still guarded the gate and waved him in with a smile. A new man sat at the inner turnstile, however, someone he knew by sight, who delivered a message of his own.
    â€œOverseer Markko wants to see you as soon as you return.”
    Llesho nodded to acknowledge the order, but his heart froze. What did the overseer know of his errand, and what would he do about it?
    â€œI have done nothing wrong,” Llesho reminded himself, “I only acted as a messenger, as befits my station, to deliver Den’s message—” He would be lying to himself as well as the overseer, he realized: was this what Den had meant about suffering failure? He knocked on the door to the stone cottage, determined to answer