A Moon Rising White

PROLOGUE

They had been between hunting grounds when the Coast People attacked. It was far from the first time that had happened but the enemy had come so much further inland than usual that a skirmish had not been expected. Chaos ensued.

Erreni was cut down in the first moments and, though he had a clear route to escape, Kiide turned back to defend her body--they'd known each other since birth, grown to adulthood together. They had been partners for years after, had children together. Leaving her behind was intolerable.

He made them regret what they'd done to his soulmate, killing or crippling a half-dozen of the attacking men. But the Coast People were a multitude both in their strange camps with the tents made of stone and here in their warband. He was soon bleeding out next to Erreni and his final thought was a prayer that, impossible as it was, they not be separated for long.

ONE

The night was as dark as only desert nights can be, the earth covered in shadow but the sky lit up with a flood of stars. The inn at one end of the oasis had been lit by lantern and candlelight earlier, but now it was late enough that those had been extinguished and blackness had drawn around it completely. The moon had set some time before but the stars' brightness above revealed an adjoining lake and dunes that loomed on all sides.

A door opened and a lantern was extinguished before a shadow exited the building and stepped out onto the sand. Despite the gloom it moved furtively, keeping to the desert poplars which straggled along the water's edge as it walked down to the far end of the oasis. Not long after it had passed the door opened again and a second figure followed the first.

The original presence reached the lake's remotest point and stopped in a stand of reeds that hid that stretch of water from view. The lantern was placed on the ground and re-lit, its wick cut short to allow only a glimmer of flame. This was still enough to reveal a caravan guard dressed in a Greek manner rarely seen on this stretch of the Silk Road: a shirt of small metal plates over a yellow woolen tunic, light blue cotton trousers strapped with strong leather, and a red cloak held in place by a large, silver brooch.

The second shadow stopped at the far side of the little swell of sand that separated the reeds from the desert behind it and took a position so it could see without being seen in return. The guard's cloak was placed on the ground and had the rest their outfit placed on it--helmet removed, armor lifted off with a groan of relief, then the tunic and trousers. To the surprise of the person peering over the dune, the guard was a woman.

Any doubt of this was erased when she shed her final article of clothing. Before that it was at least possible that "she" could have been a eunuch, but now she unpinned a tightly wound length of cloth that been binding her breasts. There was another grateful sound, and then the woman froze as she remembered that she was trying to remain unseen. After a short while, and satisfied that no-one had heard her, she stretched then ran a hand through her hair, trimmed short to fit a helmet and stiff with dried sweat. Even the guttering lantern let the spy behind the dune see the dust that coated her body wherever a gap in her armor or a seam in her clothes had let the desert touch her skin. A long scar crossed the inner corner of one eye and over the bridge of her nose, and the clinging dust couldn't cover other, lesser marks on her arms and body. Turning to face the lake, the woman waded in then dove, swimming underwater for some distance before surfacing and starting to scrub herself clean.

The indistinct figure that had followed her crept over the dune and into the same patch of reeds that the guard had left behind. The swimmer had left her sword on the cloak too, so with the object of her attention well off-shore there was an opportunity to escape if the next few minutes turned dangerous. The bathing woman had only just begun to be aware that something was not right when a voice called to her from where she had left her possessions.

"I knew there was something about you when you would not even take off your helmet in this afternoon's heat," it called to her in Khotanese--by the accent not a native language, but one the swimming woman had been overheard speaking with her caravan's leader. She went very still, eyeing the small and half-hidden watcher now just visible in the light of the lantern. There was no alarm on her face; instead she gazed coolly toward the shore. Something odd passed between them, a feeling like recognition that struck both of them still. The woman in the lake broke free of it first, muscles beginning to coil for a lunge back to shore.

The spy shook off her own puzzlement and spoke again. "I will run if you start swimming toward me. Those long legs of yours might let you catch up eventually, but I will have a considerable head start. And you will have to dress first or else everyone at the inn will see what you are trying to conceal."

"I admit your strategy is sound, though I'd beware if I were you. What do you want, boy?"

"Boy?" The figure moved a little more into the light and hands lifted a shirt, revealing two small breasts. "These are nothing like what you have got,nǚrén," she said, "But they are still enough to prove that we have both been wrong in the same way." The swimmer relaxed a little and settled into the water, treading ripples, while the woman on the shore covered herself again.

Then, tilting her head, the smaller woman considered both the swimmer's question and the questioner: older than her, though not yet to the point that she should have retired from the Road. Broad shoulders, well-earned muscles, remarkably tall. Not beautiful, but attractive in an exotic way. Pushing that last unbidden thought away, the spy came to a decision and said, "The way you kept to yourself I thought you might have been a smuggler or the associate of bandits so I wanted to talk to you alone. About business. I did not expectthisbut I think you will suffice anyway."

"This isn't a place to be discussing business, but I'm for hire again. Is that what you want? You don't look like you own a caravan, not even a little bit."

"This is not a place to discuss it, as you say. When you are finished your bath, go to the night clerk and tell him you would like to rent Ji Qing for the night. I have a room for that kind of work, small but private. We can talk there until the morning if need be."

"You are Ji Qing?"

"Yes."

"A prostitute dressed as aboy?"

"That would sell quite well, I think. But no, only when I am prowling," she said, a hint of a smile on her face. "At other times I look like this." Reaching up, Ji Qing took off her cloth hat, letting long black hair cascade down and transform the boyish lines of her face into fine-boned beauty. Dark eyes glittered in the lantern light as she watched the older woman. The swimmer's breath caught, feelings stirring before she could press them back down again.

Ji Qing noticed and pretended not to. "Will you meet with me?"

"I...yes, I will. Ji Qing?"

"Yes?"

"My name is Aljis."

The younger woman nodded again and melted back into the darkness. Aljis finished bathing then waded to shore to don her things and follow. She did not see a ghostly figure which had been watching the encounter from beginning to end standing atop a dune some distance away.

TWO

There was a knock at Ji Qing's door and she opened it to let Aljis enter. While she latched the door shut her guest looked dubiously around the tiny room. "It is small, yes," Ji Qing said, "But I will sit on the stool. If you take it your knees would be up to your chin." Gesturing at a long wooden alcove built into the wall she said, "The bed is big enough for even the tallest man who might visit me. You should fit...I think."

Aljis tried sitting on the edge of it but had to hunch her back to do it. "Er...it is assumed anyone in it will be horizontal," Ji Qing continued. "You will be staying until dawn, so you might as well be comfortable."

"I would prefer to leave once our business is done."

Ji Qing looked surprised for a moment, then said, "The room is rented by the night and as you are here now they will have already given your cot to someone previously consigned to the stables. Besides, if you leave before dawn I will likely be beaten for not fulfilling my duties."

"Ah. You're a slave?"

The other woman colored then said, "Only recently. Will you not lie down?" While waiting for Aljis to arrive she had already begun preparing for the night, but now she shucked her disguise's dark brown jacket, removed her hat to let her hair flow freely again, and sat down on her stool wearing only a dark gray cotton shift that hung down to her knees. Reluctantly, Aljis started doing the same, soon ending up in a tunic that was more colorful but otherwise matched her host's. She inserted herself into the sleeping alcove, turned onto her hip so she faced the room, and pulled the bed's coarse sheet over herself.

Ji Qing was sitting uncomfortably close, in Aljis's opinion, but there was little choice. If she were still in the doorway, she was sure she could stretch her arms out and touch both walls. Her potential employer was tiny and the room suited her but Aljis felt like a horse in a stall. A particularly large horse. Resolving to make the best of it she said, "You have work for me?"

"Yes. I need someone to protect me on the road as I go west. To Kucha, then north to the mountains."

"Shouldn't your master assign you a guardian for this trip?"

"He would if he knew I were going there. Or intended to come back."

"Huh. I can't do it, then. If we're caught they'll accuse me of stealing a slave. That's a death sentence in most places and I assume here too."

"Cannot, or will not? It would be lucrative, far beyond regular pay for a bodyguard. I need to tell you a story to explain."

Aljis leaned back and studied the younger woman. "I'll listen."

"When I was young, I was sent to the Pear Garden in Chang'an," Ji Qing began.

"That's the capital of the empire to the east of here? Is half of what I've heard about it true?"

"And more--it is the most remarkable city in the world. In any case, when I was young it was noticed that I could sing well, very well, and the Garden is devoted to teaching poetry and music. Theater. Dance.

"The school is new but the building it occupies is old. It was a place of rest for high officials and some of it has barely been touched since then. Years ago I was exploring some of those rooms and I came across a loose floorboard concealing a compartment. There was not much in it: a few coins, a pretty stoppered scent bottle. But there was also a flat placard of wood that had been written on. I had been taught to read by then and what it told me was a short but interesting tale. A successful siege in the far west, and a ruin to the north of it where some of the plunder was left by the writer. Below his writing was a crude map of what the hiding place looked like and how to find it."

Aljis looked intrigued and said, "You recognized the location?"

"Not then, but it interested me. Truly, what young person can resist hidden treasure? We were encouraged to read widely and the Garden has many histories in its library. It took me a long time, but...a story within a story now....

"In the time of Emperor Zhang," she continued, "The general Ban Chao pacified the petty kingdoms along the Silk Road to the west. This included the city of Kucha, which became the headquarters of his army. After the campaigns had ended he returned to Chang'an--not the capital then but still a great city. The emperor was in Luoyang, but that was 800lito the east and the general was expected to be near if rebellion broke out in the new Protectorate. He died a few years later having never returned to Kucha. If he made the map it would have been given to his son Ban Xiong, but he too died not long after his father.

"One of them wrote the placard, I am certain of it. The map shows the road between Chang'an and Kucha. You and I are currently along that route, ten days travel from Kucha. The plunder was hidden at the foot of the mountains to the north of that city and neither father or son could have retrieved it...."

"And you want me to help you escape and protect you on a journey to find it?"

"In return for half of whatever is there, yes. There is no other pay but, please: in the three days since I arrived here I have only had to work as a servant, but my body is for rent if someone wants it. So far that has not happened and I want very much to leave before it does."

Aljis spent a moment considering the offer.I travel the Road for the interesting things it brings...and rescuing a delicate lady in this particular strait?. There was something else too, something she couldn't put to words: that odd feeling that had touched her for a moment when she'd first seen Ji Qing. Something to explore later, perhaps, but it decided her. "Very well. I'm in your service."

Ji Qing smiled in relief and relaxed shoulders that had gone tense during the exchange. "This is wonderful. Thank you," she said. "I suppose I cannot say I have not spent the night with a traveler anymore, not with you here. Tell me...it seems you dress as a man and you do a man's job." Her voice dropped to a more conspiratorial level before she added, "Are you like a man in other ways too?"

Aljis looked at her with suspicion. "I'm brave and I fight well."

"That is not what I am asking. I will be more plain: do your eyes linger on handsome men or beautiful women?"

"...I don't favor men or dally with women," was the reply.

"Carefully phrased to seem like an answer to my question, but not. In truth, I already know the answer." Ji Qing stood and pulled her shift over her head, leaving her slim body bare before her guest. She approached the alcove, lifted the sheet, and glided under it.

Pressing her body against Aljis with only a the older woman's tunic between them now, she said, "Here, I will tell you a secret. The students at the royal academy learn together, girls and boys, but when one reaches adulthood and begins to perform for the Emperor and his court we are segregated from the other sex to maintain our purity. I lived for some time in a dormitory with nine other women. Our nights wereveryinteresting."

She paused for a moment but Aljis lay quiet and unmoving so Ji Qing continued. "Ten of us: full of life, trained as actresses and musicians, but subtly taught to be courtesans if we caught a powerful man's eye, can you imagine? I was so curious about what I could hear those first nights I lay in my new bed in the dark. Barefoot creeping, stifled cries of joy. I soon learned what it was about: the pleasures of warm breath in my ear, a soft tongue circling my nipples, kisses on the inside of my thighs. I enjoyed my time there very much." Ji Qing felt her bedmate shiver in response, so she leaned her head into Aljis's ear and whispered, "Would you like me to do those things for you?"

Aljis cleared her throat and said, "No, I can't..."

"I believe you are tempted. Tell me I am wrong."

Aljis huffed but gave way slightly. "You are very pretty but I'm declining with good reason. If it were discovered that I am a woman, no-one would ever hire me again. I really should dress again in case someone comes in."

"No-one will. Few are even aware you are here and anyone who knows it thinks you are an ordinary man, trading coin to polish his staff. Still, I will accept a compromise. May I give you one kiss?" Ji Qing propped herself up so she could look down on Aljis. Her hair fell down around the older woman's face, a black curtain that blotted out everything else as they lay next to one other. She got no reply to her question but saw no resistance. "I will take that as a yes."

Ji Qing leaned down and kissed her. It was almost chaste, for fear she was wrong and it would tip the other woman into rejecting her. But after it ended and she raised her face again she watched as Aljis tried to look stern and failing.

"Perhaps two kisses,nǚ shén?"

"A second...would likely not cause me any more trouble than one."

This made Ji Qing move in closer, so that her breasts pressed against her bedmate's chest. Their second kiss lingered and she could feel Aljis's heart pounding. Once done, she lifted her face once more, so that they were looking at each other up close.

Aljis put her hand on Ji Qing's cheek and levered herself up to kiss her seductress back. Thrilling in her victory, Ji Qing sat up and swung one leg over the other woman, straddling her waist. The bed sheet slid off her shoulders and down her back so that she was revealed to her new conquest.

"You can touch me if it would please you," she said.I'm going a little fast, even for me. Why does she affect me like this?

Aljis put her hands on the other woman's waist and tentatively slid them up her sides. Ji Qing took them lightly and guided them instead to her breasts. Aljis traced her fingertips around the other woman's areolae so reverently that the younger woman could hardly bear it. Reaching down to the hem of Aljis's tunic she took hold of it and pulled up. Her bedmate meekly lifted her rear and then arched her back, letting Ji Qing slide the garment up to her shoulders.

"You bound your breasts again. You must be very uncomfortable."

"Of all the things I do to keep my secret, it's the one I dislike the most."

Ji Qing touched the cloth strap that held the binding in place and at Aljis's slight nod she deftly undid it. The older woman pushed herself up slightly so that Ji Qing could pull the fabric's ends around and behind her until it was entirely unwound. Brief respite at the lake notwithstanding it had been biting into Aljis since early that morning, and her bedmate traced her fingertips along the angry indentations in her skin.

"That's nice," Aljis said.

Now nothing remained between them and Ji Qing began caressing the other woman the same way as Aljis had been touching her. Aljis moaned at the touch, nipples stiff and sensitive already. "It seems to me that you do not allow someone to please you nearly often enough," the younger woman said.

She lay down on Aljis and brought her legs together on top of the other woman's. While she was no longer supporting her own weight she had little fear of crushing the breath out of the broad chest beneath her. Ji Qing kissed her on the lips again, then on her neck, then slithered down a little so she that she was pressing her mound on one of her lover's hips. She laid her head between the other woman's breasts and sighed theatrically. "Perhaps you would consent to being my pillow while we travel," she said playfully, fingers tweaking a nipple inches away from her face. Aljis's palm moved up and down her bare back, awkwardly at first but soon falling into a lazy rhythm.How can she be so soft?

Lifting her head again, Ji Qing placed her lips over the hard nub she'd provoked, pulling Aljis's breast into her mouth to suckle while sliding her tongue across its sensitive tip. Letting go after a while she pulled back to admire the goosebumps she had raised, then switched sides and did the same again.

Aljis alternated tilting her head back in pleasure and bending her neck down again to watch her bedmate tease her. She thrilled at Ji Qing's hair brushing her skin and she could feel the woman's thighs squeezing against her and relaxing rhythmically. It dawned on her that this beautiful creature was aroused by her, was pleasing herself on her. The realization made her feel drunk.