The warning was quite late, and arrived from three different sources.
Kati was sleeping, and suddenly the emerald eyes were there as they'd been years before, the times before her travel in the gong-shi-jie.
Kati!
She awoke with a start, and kept her eyes closed.
Mandughai! Is it you?
Yes, dear. I would have come sooner, but hesitated because I knew you'd been warned of our transit.
I've talked to your daughter, Mandughai. It wasn't a pleasant meeting. Her agenda is clearly the conquest of Shanji, and I will not allow it. This war will be fought with more than sword and bow.
I know. I wasn't so soundly asleep as she thought. I've said nothing to her; you know something about her, now, and I did warn you that she's different from you. She fears your powers, Kati, but will never admit it. I fear them also, but only because I want minimal loss of life in our engagement. My purpose is change, not killing. You were angry when you spoke to Yesugen, and your threats were clear. Do you still feel the same way?
You're like my mother, Mandughai, but you've forced me into a war I don't want. My people aren't prepared to meet trained soldiers in battle, and I'll do anything I have to in defending them. Yesugen and I have discussed the terms of battle.
There was a long pause. Kati sat up in bed, eyes tightly close, fists clenched in her lap.
I understand, Kati. I can only ask you to control your anger, and remember my intent to break off the attack when I see a unified force against us. I still have some control over that, and if you show willingness to use your powers my hope is that Yesugen and her supporters will see the futility of attempting a conquest of Shanji. The details of strategy are up to Yesugen, but I'll tell you she plans a two-pronged attack: one division coming up your northern valley, and another moving south along the sea before heading east towards the city.
When?
We're coming into orbit within a day. My guess is two to three days until we land. I can tell you nothing more.
And there's nothing more I can do to prepare for war, Mandughai. I'll fight alongside my soldiers to meet your attack.
I've always expected it, dear. It's a risk I'm willing to make in light of your abilities, but my heart's desire is to see you alive and well when this is over. Remember that.
I will.
The emerald eyes were gone with a blink. Kati jumped from her bed, and began to dress in her leathers.
Mengmoshu! Are you there?
No answer.
FATHER! Answer me!
Nothing.
She dressed without care for her appearance, and rushed from her rooms, taking the elevator to her father's floor and hurrying past an astonished guard to pound on his door.
The door opened, and he was there in a robe, hair disheveled. "Stop shouting, and come in! I had to talk to First Mother, and now you and Huomeng are screaming at me! One at a time, please!"
Kati followed him into the small office he kept in his suite and saw Huomeng's face on a console screen there. "Kati, are you there? I heard a voice—"
"I'm here!" she said as Mengmoshu sat down at his desk again.
Instrument panels glowed behind Huomeng. "We saw them over an hour ago, but our resolution's so terrible I thought it might be an asteroid. In an hour they're nearly on top of us, and braking hard. I can see the glows of ionic drag on every ship, and they're huge! The ships must be several times the size of our mother ship, and there's over a dozen of them. I can't be sure yet, with this lousy resolution we've—"
"Keep watch; get the exact number, and size of each ship if you can," said Mengmoshu. "I have to inform the Emperor right away. First Mother has talked to Kati, and me. We have a good idea about what to expect, but an estimate of force strength would be useful."
"As soon as I can," said Huomeng. "Kati, are you all right?"
"I'm ready," she said.
"Good, because I'm not. I'm stuck in this mountain, and I want to see you again."
"There will be time," she said softly.
"But not now!" growled Mengmoshu. "Keep an eye on those ships! I'm going to the Emperor!"
It was her father who broke the connection with Huomeng, and she scowled at him.
"Later!" he said, and went into his bedroom to dress while Kati waited by his desk.
"I have to warn Goldani!" she called out. "One prong of the attack will be coming their way!"
"I'll take care of it! Stay here until I get back. I have to convince the Son of Heaven an attack is coming, and he's barely aware of his surroundings. I might be dealing with Shan-lan tonight."
"What can I do?"
"Nothing for now, except wait for me and relax, even sleep. It might be the last sleep you get for days. You're the center for all of this."
Mengmoshu came out of his room unbuttoned and rumpled. Kati fussed over him until he pulled her hands away, giving her a dark look.
"It begins, child," he said, then kissed her on the forehead and hurried out of the room.
There was no sleep that night, and little the next. Kati spent the entire time in her father's office after his return. The Emperor had been more than coherent, but Shan-lan had also been there. Officers were awakened from sleep, and troops were spilling out of their barracks well before dawn to stand on alert.
Mengmoshu made call after call, asking the return of favors given years before. Elite troops of the Moshuguang came out of the mountain tunnel and were loaded into flyers, six men at a time for shuttling to the western border. Appearances had to be kept, and only ten flyers could be used, shuttling back and forth all night and day, then night again.
Huomeng called again before dawn. "The first ships are going into orbit. I count at least twenty, now; they're coming in clusters of four, and they're all monsters, Mengmoshu. We could have ten thousand or more coming against us."
"As soon as they begin landing, Her weapons crews in space will be on alert. I can't risk using flyers for trooper movement after that," Mengmoshu warned Kati. "You should take a flyer to the border today or tonight, to meet the attack on your people as you promised you would."
"No! I'll stay here awhile."
"You only want to see Huomeng again! He won't be coming here until the invaders have landed!"
"No, I said! I don't trust Yesugen. She could change her attack plan and I'd be stuck at the border with only a horse to get me back here. I want to see her movements first."
It was only a partial truth, and he saw it.
But Kati was dismayed when she saw the final result of trooper transfer. When Huomeng called in to say that the twenty-eight ships of First Mother's force were now in orbit and spewing forth their landing shuttles like wasps from nests, the flyers were on their way back and fewer than three hundred elite troops had been taken to the border.
"Three hundred? I told them a thousand!"
"With the border guards, it's four hundred! I can't do more! I'm grounding the flyers, at least temporarily."
"I promised! You were there!"
"Too much! Use what you have. We have to consider our field commanders; their job is to defend the city! You'll need them when this is over. We must have their support for you. Quit thinking like a Tumatsin, and think like an Empress!"
The rebuke hurt her to tears, for she knew he was correct.
She could only wait, as new word came in. The eyes of the mother ship were now on Shanji. Huomeng reported lights glimmering from a broad peninsula jutting into the sea only a few kilometers from the northernmost ordus of the Tumatsin. A small river entered the sea just south of the peninsula, and lights were also scattered along the floodplain there. A quick march east over rolling hills and the invaders would be in the valley leading to the Emperor's city, totally bypassing the mountains. A sprint south along the sea could take the major ordus in a day, and give them access to the plateau for a pincer move against the city. A simple plan, but clear, and there was no longer time for waiting.
"I want to leave before dawn tomorrow," she said to Mengmoshu. "Can you get a good mountain horse for me?"
"Yes, but no remounts. It'll be saddled and ready by the city gate. Our men will wait for you at the border, and Goldani will be notified. Women and children are being loaded into boats and sent out to sea, and the home guard is mobilized. Everyone saw the shuttles coming down, but they're still waiting to see what will come. The home guards remain in the ordus when they should be moving north!"
"They protect their own homes, father. They've never fought as a single army before. I don't know if they can do it."
Mengmoshu embraced her hard. "Say it again—what you call me when we're alone."
"Father." Her hands caressed his back.
Mengmoshu kissed her neck. "Kati, take care of yourself. Don't get trapped by your agreement with Yesugen, or First Mother, and use your powers to the fullest. You can destroy them all with a wave of your hand!"
If she could bring herself to do it. It was no time for argument, no time to talk about the honor of an agreement, or self-doubts, or using her powers to prevent her people from doing what was required of them. She had a pact with her people, but there was also one with Yesugen—and Mandughai.
"I'll do my best," she murmured, kissing her father on the cheek. And then she left the room, without looking back at him.
* * *
It was late afternoon when she returned to her rooms, planning to eat and then retire early. Weimeng wasn't there, for the Emperor had requested her presence at his bedside, and she now spent most of her time there. Tanchun brought her food, and Kati ate alone in Weimeng's suite. She went back to her own suite along the silent hallway and locked herself in. Apprehension was growing, and the food felt sour in her stomach. She took a long, hot bath and rubbed herself down until her skin glowed, then put on a light robe and sat down before her shrine to light the candles, incense and sweet grass in the little bowl there. The smoke curled upwards, and she drew it to her nostrils, closing her eyes.
Quiet, and peace. Her skin felt tingly, and warm. She breathed deep, with long, slow exhalations, hands in her lap, feeling the apprehension melting away as she repeated a phrase of self-assurance over and over to herself.
I am Kati, a person chosen by Mandughai. I am Mei-lai-gong, a ruler of Light. The light comes to me, and goes from me. I use it in the service of Mandughai, and my people.
Over and over, she repeated it, and there was only darkness before her. She was not yet in the gong-shi-jie, did not rush to it this time, but reflected on what was there: the power to create a universe, the power to destroy it. The swirling clouds of purple were only a signature of the coolest light, like the vortices of planets and stars, so immobile, so cold. But where she saw the purple, there was The Other, the light of purple beyond purple, beyond even the vision of her special mind, a light of unimaginable energy. How much she'd drawn on it in her exercises, playtime and magic tricks was a mystery to her, but what was necessary was always there. She needed only to imagine the scale, and think the thought, and it was always there.
The matrix of bright points opened at her command, and she was surrounded by purple chaos. The vortices of green, red, and yellow leading to things were more organized, more real, with size and shape, and time. She hovered there, urging herself to probe beyond the purple light, to see what was beyond, but the sight wasn't there, only the instinct, the consciousness of The Power, waiting for her command. She called up a vision of the mother ship above Shanji, and was instantly there in real space, drifting near it, a phantom unseen by Huomeng's instruments.
There were others who saw the mother ship with her.
The ships of Mandughai's army were there, a long line of them in a single orbit higher than the mother ship's, but close to it. Round balls bristling with superstructure bearing communications, shuttle docks, ion scoops and weapon manifolds with the long cylinders of microwave lasers capable of scouring continents. There were twenty-eight, as Huomeng had said, each of them easily five times the size of the mother ship. As she watched, a shuttle detached itself from one of them; a spurt of gas aft of the wedge-shaped craft, and it was dropping into the atmosphere of Kati's planet, deploying stubby wings for a gliding descent along a helical path.
She could reach out, and let the light come; the occupants of the craft would feel warmth, then searing heat in the instant before their organs boiled and burst. She held the thought, savored it, was tempted by it. The great transit ships tempted her even more with the challenge of their size, but it would be the same. Light of purple beyond purple, energy beyond light making the particles that were the basis for all matter, all would come to her, penetrating the thick hulls and reducing everything to fundamentals with a single thought if she willed it. The thought intrigued her, excited her, and she resisted it also with great effort. She wondered if Mandughai could see the storm in her mind, the sudden anger at self-limitation, of holding back to meet a threat she'd not asked for, a threat that could, no, would kill people she cared for.
Kati could stand it no longer; the temptation was too great, too close to fulfillment, and again there was the flash of transition, the mindless, instantaneous flight to the gong-shi-jie, away from her enemy and to the whirlpool signature of herself, diving into it.
She opened her eyes with a growl, face drawn taut and flushed with heat, the canines pressing back on her lower lip. Her fingernails had drawn blood from the palms of her hands, and there was a pounding in her ears that went on and on, a pounding, then a voice.
"Kati! Let me in! Kati!"
The door. The pounding came from the door to her rooms, and she knew who was there. She rushed to the door, crying out hoarsely as she flung it open to see Huomeng standing there. He was startled, flinching backwards half a step, but only for an instant. He grabbed her shoulders hard with both hands, and pushed her back, kicking the door closed behind him, then crushing her to him so hard she grunted.
His hands moved over her back, her buttocks. He kissed her neck, her cheeks and forehead, murmuring, "Kati, Kati. Oh, Kati. Mengmoshu told me. It's too soon! Tomorrow is too soon!"
For one instant, she was terrified. His face was so close, his hands now on her cheeks, and here she was, looking like a—
Huomeng ran a finger over her canines, then her lower lip, rubbing the inside of it, and touching her tongue. "There's no time," he murmured. "We only have tonight."
Kati moaned as he swept her up in his arms and carried her to the bed, dumping her hard enough to bounce. She was only dressed in her robe, was quickly ahead of him and helping him to peel out of his white uniform, her breath coming in growling gasps. The muscles in her arms knotted large and hard as she clutched his waist to pull him down on top of her, opening her mouth wide to receive his.
In seconds, she noticed how deftly he avoided her teeth, wedging his lips between them, and pressing so hard she thought he might swallow her. He entered her quickly, erect and hard, to move urgently with her. He brought her to the brink once, then twice, each time closer, and her growl was a continuous thing stifled by the press of his mouth. She shrieked as they came together, and still there was no sound that could escape the doors of her room. The shock was electric, up and down her spine and throughout her groin, and suddenly her energy was gone. She felt his release, the sudden warmth within her as he shuddered again and again.
His lips left hers, and pressed to her neck. She touched his face, and his cheek was wet. His body still shook, and Kati suddenly realized he was crying softly against her neck.
"Shhhh," she whispered. "Just hold me. Love me."
"I do," he whispered. "Always, Kati. I'll always love you. There can never be another. Ever. Just you."
"Forever," she murmured. "I want you with me forever."
She realized too late it was the wrong thing to say. He was crying again, holding desperately onto her as if she might suddenly be gone.
Kati shushed him gently, kissed his face, neck and shoulder, her hands moving all over him. He was still in her, and they stayed that way for a long time, breath slowing, bodies cooling as they caressed each other without another word. Finally getting drowsy, she rolled him gently onto his side, and saw that he'd fallen asleep. She kissed the wetness on his cheeks, held him, watched him, felt the ooze of his seed from within her.
"Forever," she murmured, and then quickly fell asleep.
* * *
She awoke to find Huomeng's face against her shoulder, an arm draped across her. She slid beneath it, got out of bed without disturbing him, then picked her leathers up from the floor and dressed quickly in darkness. The guards in the hallway looked especially alert, and snapped rigidly to attention as she came to the elevator. Both Moshuguang, their masks still failed them. She saw that they knew the reason for her early rising, and they feared for their own lives in the coming defense of the city.
Outside, it was cold and dark, all the city lights shut down. She walked alone down the steep, narrow street beneath the monorail, her breath making little puffs of fog as she quickened her steps. Ahead, and below, were the lights of a thousand torches around the barracks, the gate, and the fields beyond, glimmering fireflies in blackness. As she drew closer, she could see figures moving, the blue auras of men and horses, clouds of fog from their breath hanging like smoke in the torchlight.
A mountain horse stood by the gate, held there by a trooper, and she went straight to it. The trooper heard her approach, and turned.
It was Lui-Pang.
He was in leathers and armor, a helmet and faceshield, and he held another helmet in one hand.
"Master Yung saw you coming," he said. "He was just here."
"Where is he?"
"Out there, in the darkness. He left something for you—in the saddle. He wouldn't wait to talk to you."
Kati walked around the horse, prepared to sheath her sword in the saddle-scabbard there. The scabbard was already occupied. Brass gleamed in torchlight and the emerald glow of her eyes. Kati withdrew a sword with a pristine, curved blade, tested its balance, jabbed with it.
"He said to tell you the sword is a thousand years old, and made by an ancient master. It has never been used, and it's yours. He says there is nothing more he can teach you. You're no longer his student, and you're to remember who you are when you use the sword. And then he went away."
Kati sheathed the sword, and tied her old one on the back of her saddle with the bow and quiver there. "Tell him I'm honored by his gift and his teachings. Tell him I understand what he says."
She mounted the horse, and took the reins from Lui-Pang. Their hands touched, and the light of her eyes reflected brightly from his faceshield.
"You will fight today," he said.
"Yes. I fight for Shanji."
Lui-Pang smiled, and took a step back, coming to attention. "I fight for the city, and for the Empress who will govern it. I want her to wear this helmet to protect her green eyes from a scattered laser burst, if she will accept it."
Kati took the helmet, and put it on. "You know," she said.
"The secret was leaked weeks ago," he said, then stepped forward to put a hand over hers on her knee. "I'm not alone in wanting to see you return," he said softly. "Take care of yourself, Mengnu."
"And you," she said, as he withdrew his hand.
Beyond the two of them was silence and gloom, faces dim in torchlight, perhaps a thousand, many of them her classmates, and Master Yung was among them. He would not, or could not talk to her at this moment, and so she would give him a sign. The Change had not left her since the evening before, yet Lui-Pang had touched her hand, and said gentle words. She would touch them all in another way.
They could not see her aura, their attention now held only by the twin beacons of her eyes, but the aura was there, a great fan of gold with radiating streamers in red. She only touched the gong-shi-jie, bringing forth the coolest light to outline her auric field and mingle with it; the ground for meters around her was suddenly illuminated in purple and deep blue.
A collective sigh came from those who watched her.
Kati faced the crowd of troopers, and withdrew her new sword with a sweep of her arm to hold the blade over her head.
"SHANJI!" she cried out hoarsely.
A thousand blades appeared in the light, and the chorus of male voices thrilled the soul that wandered the place of creation.
"SHANJI!" they replied.
Kati returned the sword to its scabbard, turned her horse, and walked it through the gate and along the torch-lined lane without looking back. She walked it up the steep, rocky trail in darkness to the place where an ordu had once stood, then into the mountains, past the peaks with a meadow near their summit, and flowers that a child's horse had been named after. When she reached the broad expanse of the plateau, it was still dark. She leaned over, and whispered into the little horse's ear as the muscles in her legs bunched hard.
"You are a mountain horse, Now, you fly!"
The animal obliged her, heading west towards the sea.