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  “No, no, Kai needs to rest,” says one old monk, a rival of Kai.

  “He should ask the King’s permission,” says another.

  “That old fart!” says one of the warrior monks. “Let him sit at home and make earrings!”

  Kai’s voice rumbles from the fire within. “We go now. We go slowly, because if I am distracted I will burst into flame.”

  The young men exclaim: we take nothing! Just clothes, swords, stout shoes. A blanket against the cold in the mountains. We will hunt our food and cut it down from trees.

  “More like you’ll steal it from the poor peasants,” growls Kai’s rival.

  “You mean like the King does?” The thrill of rebellion has made the acolytes forget respect.

  They bustle their packs together.

  The boy who Kai bought creeps forward. “Can I come as well?” Arun asks. His name means Morning Sun.

  Losing focus, beginning to crackle from heat, Kai can only shake his head.

  “Please.” Arun begs. “I am so bored here. I learn nothing. I just sweep.”

  Eyes closed from concentration, Kai nods yes.

  So the acolytes, proud sons of significant people, are joined by the slave. “Boy,” they say, “Carry this.”

  Kai growls. “He works for me. Not you.”

  The acolytes bow and withdraw. They generally do, when faced with power.

  They leave that night in the rain. The raindrops sputter and dance on Kai as if on a skillet.

  “Swiftly” in a country without roads or waterways can mean many things.

  It means you are welcomed in a village, and feted, and asked to wait so that you can chant at the wedding of the headman’s daughter. You abide some weeks in preparation.

  Arun says, “Teach me how to focus against the heat, Master. That way I can still massage your shoulders.”

  To Kai’s surprise, he does.

  One of the young men falls in love with one of the bride’s sisters. It takes another week to persuade him to leave.

  “Swiftly” means waiting out the rainy season as the plains of Kambu are milled into dough. It means the toes of the young men rot as they squelch through mud.

  It means they wait all afternoon under a covered bridge as raindrops pound on the roof.

  “Swiftly” means being lured into a welcoming village and then held as bandits, accused of theft and berated for rape.

  The trial lasts weeks as all the ills of the village are visited on your head. The wretched people really think they can revenge all the wrongs done to them by killing you.

  Kai practices forbearance, calmly pointing out that they were not in the village when the wrongs were done. He looks at the headman playing with Kai’s own sword. He waits until the headman tires of admiring it and lays it to one side.

  Then Kai stands up and says, “I am so sorry. I am afraid there’s nothing we can do now except become another great wrong done to your people.”

  Kai can sing a note that makes his sword throb in harmony. The sword wobbles, weaves, and bounces itself into his hand.

  “Many apologies,” he says, and slices a pathway through the villagers, leading his acolytes out the door.

  The dry season comes and the rivers shrivel. Kai’s men march far out to the muddy borders of the lake, looking for a boat. They are told it will return from the city of Three Rivers within the week.

  You swiftly wait sitting in mud, slipping in mud, catching frogs for supper. Each day, the lake is farther way, and you must walk again further out.

  Arun says, “Let me oil and clean your sword, Master, so that it does not rust.”

  The hissing sword does not burn Arun’s fingers. Kai thinks: this Arun has talent.

  The noble acolytes look at the fish and frogs they have caught. Must they eat the frogs raw?

  “No,” says Kai, and cradles the frogs in his hands, passing them back crisp and brown.

  Finally the boat comes and sets out through winding channels between reeds. It gets mired behind the abandoned hulk of a bigger boat, and starts to settle sideways in ooze.

  Kai walks to the abandoned hull, and blesses it chanting, and where he touches it, the wood catches alight. The wreck burns bright as a torch, down to the waterline. The monks wade in the next day, and clear it.

  Their boat proceeds to Three Rivers, the graceful capital.

  Their voyage is made even swifter by messengers from Kai’s rivals. They rode all night and day to warn the King.

  The King’s men await them along the marbled waterfront. They greet Kai with distanced politeness and invite him and his men to the Palace. The King himself spares five minutes to greet them. In a silky voice, he insists they must stay and rest.

  The acolytes escape the Palace in darkness by running up and over its high walls.

  Kai stays behind to rescue Arun, who cannot run up vertical surfaces. He loads the boy over his shoulder and walks toward the main gate.

  A Neighbor wearing only a loincloth awaits him.

  “You dress like that at this time of night?” says Kai. “You must be chilly. Or are you just trolling for trade?”

  The Neighbor whispers with disgust, and there is a smell of spit.

  But once you have been magicked, it is very difficult to magic you again.

  Kai says, “Let me warm you.”

  He embraces the Holy Warrior. He holds the man until his arms have burnt to the bone. A burning fist over his face stifles his screams and will scar his mouth permanently closed. Kai and Arun walk flickering with unfocused flame into the night.

  Then Arun throws up.

  Most swift of all, are the Cardamom Mountains.

  There was once a great trade route east through Cardamom, to the Tax Haven of the Others. But the Neighbors magnanimously protect the Sons of Kambu from the Others (and most particularly from any haven from taxation). They closed the trade route.

  Where once there were broad clear pathways through the forest, Kai and his acolytes have to hack their way through vines, undergrowth, and stinging thorns.

  After two months of hacking, mosquitoes, bad water, and ill wind, it becomes evident to even the meanest intelligence that something out of the ordinary is going on.

  Steep paths snake their way up a hill, only to end up back at the bottom of the valley.

  Kai’s followers turn a corner and find that the last man in their caravan is now walking ahead of them all.

  Kai cuts his name in the bark of a tree with one long flowing swordstroke.

  They pass that sign again two days later. Kai throws down his sword.

  “We stop walking,” he says. He sits in meditation thinking about what has happened.

  Even trees mislead,

  The worn path bends the wrong way

  Undo cries the air, undo says the wise men,

  And the trees open up.

  Kai stands up and shouts, “Undo!”

  Up and down the valleys, the air echoes, “Undo!”

  Trees crackle as they unwind, and stand straight. Paths grind as they heave their way back into shape, finally going somewhere.

  The air yawns open from relief, being allowed to stretch at last.

  Suddenly the path leads to a building, a simple building of red varnished wood. It stands out over the hillside on stilts. Beyond it, on the other side of the valley, rice terraces rise up thousands of feet.

  A dog barks. The young nobles advance.

  Kai groans. He sinks to the ground and starts to weep. Arun goes to him, takes him by the shoulders, and his hands leap back. Arun says, “He’s not hot! The spell is broken.”

  There is a whole village built on stilts over the hillside. There are shaky wooden walkways and windmills. The rice fields go up this side of the valley as well, forming a natural amphitheatre. Sounds boom and roll or seem very close to your ear.

  The air smells of mud and sweat and smoke.

  Kai shudders, then chuckles, and stands up. “There’s no magic here.”

 
From out of the houses creep people with terrible broken teeth, spots, and age marks. The younger and more able-bodied of them stand with swords that look like pig iron, cast once and never smelted. Some of the men bear flint scythes that will shatter at the first blow.

  “Hello,” they say, glumly. “What do you want? We’ve not got much to take, we can tell you that for free.”

  Kai smiles with inner peace. “We want to see your machine.”

  They grin. They need dental magic urgently.

  They lead Kai to a stone wall that shores up the cliff face. The whole village is in imminent danger of collapse.

  Far below is a circular valley, where perhaps once a whirlpool wore away the rock. In that cavity, as red as tiles, a huge coiled tube stretches at least two hundred arm’s lengths across.

  “You’re welcome to try to loot that,” the locals say.

  “Please,” adds one of them, and they all laugh.

  “Turning the thing off would be a start,” one of them mutters.

  The machine is smooth and huge, like a serpent that has swallowed its tail so that both ends merge. There is a series of bolts closing what look like long sideways windows. From this great height, Kai can see that along the top, one window has been left open and unbolted. What look like stars dance over the opening.

  “It’s never been properly turned on,” says one old man.

  “Don’t give him any ideas,” grunts a younger. He uses the tip of his little finger to pump out gross amounts of pus from his ear.

  The air and the distance all whisper like defeat.

  Kai slumps to the ground. “We can’t move it,” he says. “We can’t take it to fight the Neighbors.”

  It is a year to the day since he set out on his quest.

  Do whatever is necessary

  At the gates of the royal palace, Kai hugs another Neighbor. He burns the man right through the middle.

  This time Arun maintains his countenance. “Almost surgical,” he says.

  Kai’s noble followers dance through the gates more silently than settling dust.

  Two court officials approach in deep discussion, wearing purple cloth with gold-embroidered flowers.

  With a whisper, swords slip through them. The cuts are so thin that blood seeps slowly. The bodies are arranged on cushions to look as though they are still in conversation.

  Kai and his men whisper into the Sycophancy Salon. The Staircase of Effective Entrances sweeps up to the Royal Chambers.

  Two strong Sons of Kambu guard the top of the steps.

  Kai somersaults up the staircase, gathering speed like an avalanching boulder. He rolls to his feet and elbows their swords out of their hands. He holds his own sword close to their throats. He has lost focus, and the sword, even its handle, glows cherry red.

  “You are Kambu,” says Kai. “We don’t want to hurt you. We are here to defeat the Neighbors. To do that we must get the King out of their clutches. Are you with us?”

  They say yes. All Sons of Kambu, they say, want the King safe from influence and out of Neighborly attention.

  The noble warriors surf up the balustrade of the staircase.

  Among them is Arun. “I’ll take that,” he says and relieves one of the Kambu of his fine imperial sword.

  A sword must be either inherited from a master or taken in battle. Arun grins and licks the sword’s black laminate.

  “Now, Master,” he says. “I look to you for training.”

  In the royal apartments, the rooms are stuffed with foreigners—Neighborly advisers who run things, observers who write interesting reports, or guest troops who kill the enemy, i.e., the Sons of Kambu.

  Kai and his ten are like a bladed whirlwind. They spin through the rooms, harvesting heads.

  When they are done, five of the Ten stand guard outside the main doors.

  Five plus Arun and his master go into the royal chamber.

  The King is hunched over a tiny spinning steamball. “Remarkable this, don’t you think?” he says, and only then turns around to look at the swordsmen. “But what use is it, I wonder?”

  He is a beautiful man, tall, willowy, and graceful, with long thin fingers that look as though they could pluck heartfelt melodies out of the air. His eyes are full of sympathy for their plight. “Have you come to kill me? You will be reborn as toads.”

  “We’ve come,” says Kai, “to take you home.”

  The King flutes some kind of mellifluous reply. It is muffled in Kai’s ears. He cannot quite hear what the King says, rather as though his majesty was talking with his mouth full.

  Then Kai remembers that he is immune to magic. This includes the magic of charm, of sweetness, of sympathy—the magic of kindly deception.

  Whuh, whuh, whuh, the King seems to say. It is not entirely meaningful to say that Kai squints with his ears, but that is more or less what he does. He can just make out the King saying, “You surely don’t want to hurt your King. It’s a very humble thing to be a King. Your body mirrors the health of the nation. Hurt me and you hurt yourself.”

  The young men are drawn. “No of course not, Father. Not hurt you. Help you. Get you away from these Neighbors.”

  “Ah, but these Neighbors are our friends… .” Kai lets the words unfocus back into blah, blah, blah.

  Everyone is entranced. Kai keeps his eyes on them all as he steps carefully backward. There is a cabinet with crystal doors full of items under purple silk. Kai looks, then strikes. His sword cuts through the bolts.

  “Oh dear,” says the King. “I’ve been meaning to change those locks.”

  Kai gathers up the things. The King’s voice is entirely unintelligible to him now. It drones like a call to prayers.

  His own men turn around and face him, swords drawn.

  Kai has a voice as well. “Nobody will hurt you, Father. Isn’t that so, boys? We don’t want to hurt the King. But he will have to follow these.”

  The King’s eyes go wide and tearful.

  Kai hugs to himself the Sacred Sword, the palm-leaf Royal Chronicles, the cymbals, the earrings, and the cup.

  “All of this paraphernalia means you are king. Without it you can’t give titles and buy the support of nobles. Without it you can’t work your magic. Where these go, you have to follow. Or you are not king.”

  The King falters, looks sad and lonely, an old man, too frail for travel. What Kai has said is true.

  Kai strides out of the room with all the symbols of his power, and the King trots after him. Kai can make out his tones of sad complaint. Kai’s own men stand their ground. Their swords are still drawn.

  “Earplugs,” sighs Kai. He snatches up four candles, tosses them into the air, and slices them into eight with his sword. He catches them between his toes, and they light themselves from his heat.

  Then Kai spins himself into the air, hugging the royal paraphernalia to his chest. Before even his trained acolytes can ward him off, Kai has filled their ears with melted wax.

  “Now you can sing as sweetly as you like, King.” He smiles.

  His acolytes shake their heads, blink in confusion and then shrug.

  Kai says, “King, if you call for help, I’ll spit down your throat. Your vocal cords will be scalded and you’ll never speak again.”

  Then he and his men jog through rooms soaked in blood and out into the courtyard. All of them run up the walls of the Palace, including Arun, although he carries a king.

  Heroism is revealed not by victory but by defeat

  The Neighbors fall for it.

  They need the docile Kambu King. He is oversubtle where he should be bold, precise where he should be roughshod but quick.

  The horrors of the Palace have shown them that they face a formidable adversary. They abide.

  Finally, they hear where the King’s new forced capital can be found.

  Cardamom.

  And so, drawn, they march their magic army into the trap.

  Kai stands on the new battlements of what he has renamed the City of L
ikelihood. Air moves, eagles fly overhead, and far down below at the mouth of the valley, the Army of Neighbors marches.

  They number only three thousand. All of them are already through the narrow pass, which looks particularly ragged at the top. The hillside is crowned with heaps of rubble, with logs among them.

  Kai smiles.

  The Sons of Kambu face the Neighbors in ranks across the valley floor.

  This is no rag-tag revolt of corvéed labor. These Kambu troops wear armor and carry weapons. The smithies of Likelihood have been busy. The corvéed labor hobbled hundreds of miles to find the new capital, but they have had time to rest and time to train.

  Many sons of nobles have come as well, because there is no way for them to get a title but to receive it from the King.

  And in flaming orange is a battalion of Kambu warrior monks. They have crossed into Likelihood as well, crying, “Undo!”

  The King stands beside Kai now. Without his magic, the King looks stooped, wizened, and frail. “Are you sure this is a good idea?”

  Kai smiles.

  Someone must have given the Neighbors the word Undo. That someone hopes to be rescued.

  The best argument is action not words. Kai does not answer him.

  Down from the battlements to the valley floor are fine threads of silk, invisible to the Neighbors because they are too real.

  Kai utters one piercing shriek, like an eagle’s call.

  On the distant hillsides, over the pass, teams of oxen drag the great logs. The tree trunks turn sideways, which is all that is needed.

  The trees will open.

  Oxen hauled those stones up the hillside, but love spurred on their masters.

  You could say therefore, thinks Kai, that love moves mountains.

  The rocks pour down.

  Slowly like a lady’s hand putting down her fan, the rubble falls the great distance. The Neighbors have time to turn, elbow each other, and clutch their sides. Their thin laughter wafts across the distance.