Bad Prince Charlie Page 9

  “Prince Charlie, Regent of Damask,” said Charlie, without waiting to be asked. He showed them his signet ring.

  The two monks nodded. The one with the list turned to Pollocks. “And you?”

  “His Faithful Family Retainer,” said Pollocks, showing his FFR card. The guard unlocked the door. The guide led them down a twisting passage, rough hewn out of rock, so narrow that their shoulders brushed the wall on both sides. It was dim. Only a few candles burned in widely spaced alcoves, and a few shafts of sunlight fell from above through small ventilation holes. There was a distinct smell of burning herbs and sandalwood incense, that grew stronger as they continued. The shafts of sunlight abruptly cut off, which told Charlie they were underneath another building. Sure enough, the passage led to another set of stairs, with another door, this time unguarded, at the top. Their guide paused with a hand on the knob. “The High Priestess of Matka,” he murmured, and gestured them through.

  They were in a round room, again with a domed ceiling. It had no windows, but a dozen candles were spaced along the wall, lending the room a soft, ethereal light. A door at the far side was covered with draperies. Smoke wafted up from vents in the floor. The scent of incense and burning herbs was overpowering. In the middle of the room was a granite boulder, about waist high, with a flat top. On this rested a strange chair of a type Charlie had seen only once before, essentially a bag filled with dry beans. A young woman sat in the lotus position, cradling a stringed instrument. Charlie wasn’t sure if it was a sitar or a zither. She raised her hand. Pollocks dropped reverently to one knee. “The High Priestess,” he whispered.

  The girl studied the back of her hand, then the front. She made a fluttering motion with it. “Oh wow,” she said. “Listen to the colors.”

  “What?” said Charlie.

  He strode forward until he could see the girl clearly. She was slim, with light brown skin, and straight black hair that fell to her waist. She wore an ankle-length cotton skirt, a choker of tiny beads, and a shirt with gaudy splotches of color. Her face was round, her eyes were almond shaped, her teeth were straight and white, and her eyes were jet black, although it was hard for Charlie to tell because her pupils were so dilated. She strummed a few chords and murmured, “Like, the whole room is in harmony with the music.”

  Pollocks came up behind him. “You see, she’s called the High Priestess3 because she’s usually . . .”

  “I get it,” snapped Charlie. “I get it, okay? Don’t run it into the ground. Dammit, Pollocks, you brought me all the way up here to meet a stoner?”

  “Don’t underestimate her until you hear what she has to say.”

  “Fine. I’ll hear what she has to say and then I’ll underestimate her.”

  “The smoke is the breath of the earth. She inhales it to expand her consciousness and become one with the universe. It allows her to see the interconnectedness of all things. Here.” Pollocks rummaged inside his pouch and came our with a greasy paper bag. “You should make an offering. Try these salted corn chips.”

  From behind the curtained doorway came the sound of low voices, perhaps chanting. The girl plucked the sitar, producing an atonal melody that might charitably be called music. The prince took the bag with some reluctance. He walked to the edge of the rock and held it out. Presently the girl focused on it. She took the bag from Charlie, poured some of the yellow chips into her hand, stuffed them into her mouth, and crunched them for a while. Then she swallowed, gave Charlie a big smile, and said, “Hey, thanks. I have got the munchies like you wouldn’t believe.”

  “Can I get you anything else? Some cherry wine, a serape?”

  “No, I’m fine. So, Charlie—do you mind if I call you Charlie?”

  “Go ahead. And you are?”

  “Xiaoyan Yang. But just call me Xiao. So, Charlie, you are the Prince Regent of Damask, soon to be crowned, or so everyone thinks, but you hold many secrets, am I right?” She didn’t wait for an answer, but changed her focus to a point over his head and continued. “I see the paths, Charlie. There are many paths open to you, and it is important that you choose your path carefully. For the High Priestess of Matka can foretell, but she cannot compel. You control your own destiny. Your future depends on the choices you make. Should you choose one course of action, your future will end badly, but if you choose another, you will be really, really screwed.”

  “Uh-huh. You’re harshing my mellow, Xiao. Do any of my possible futures end happily?”

  Xiao stared into space for a long time, silent and motionless. In fact, Charlie had just about concluded that she had zoned out, and was getting ready to take his leave, when she suddenly looked at him again and shrugged. “Sorry, no. Badly and disastrously, that’s all I see.” In a quick, lithe movement, she hopped down from the boulder and patted him on the shoulder. “Bummer, dude. I feel for you.” She took him by the hand and led him to the curtained doorway. “Let’s get a brew. All this smoke dries out my throat. Pollocks, wine is your tipple, right?”

  For a woman who seemed totally spaced only a moment ago, she seemed remarkably sharp all of a sudden. Charlie made a mental note that once again Pollocks seemed to be correct—this was a girl he should not underestimate. He was even more surprised when they passed through the curtained door. For Xiao had an immense staff.

  The curtained door led into a long room that contained row upon row of desks. The walls were lined with maps of the Twenty Kingdoms, and great stacks of file folders were piled everywhere. In contrast to the smoky room Charlie had just left, this one was brightly lit and full of people. Each desk not only had a monk sitting at it, but two or three more standing around it, talking in low but intense voices. The monks at the desks were furiously writing on little slips of rice paper, then passing them to the standing monks for review and discussion. The standing men had their arms full of notebooks and clipboards. They did not stay long at one desk, but came into the room through another door, stopped briefly at a number of desks to give information and review the predictions, then went back out.

  Xiao waved a hand. “This is where it all comes together.”

  “This is where you really make the predictions?”

  “Oh no. I, and the other priestesses, make the predictions back there in the smoke room. Here, these men take a simple, straightforward extrapolation into the future and turn it into ambiguous mush. Right, Li?”

  “Right,” said the monk. “Here’s one from a merchant who’s invested heavily in a trading ship. It hasn’t come back. He wants to know if it’s going to return or if he’s going to suffer a heavy loss.”

  “So,” said Xiao, “we tell him something like—let me think—‘difficulty in the beginning leads to ultimate success. ’ ”

  “Right,” said Li. “If the ship doesn’t come in, he’ll interpret that as the difficulty in the beginning and he’ll have hope for the future. If the ship does come in, he’ll interpret that as the success, and the difficulty was getting the money to make the investment. Either way, we’re right.”

  The prince looked disdainful. “The man would have to be a fool to take this stuff seriously. He should take one look at an answer like that and know you haven’t the slightest idea of what happened to his ship.”

  Pollocks and Xiao and Li all looked surprised. Pollocks said, “But, Your Highness, they do know.”

  “Sure,” said Xiao. “We saw the ship delayed by unseasonable storms. It should reach port in another ten days.”

  “But if you know the fate of his ship, why don’t you just say so?”

  “Because we . . .” Xiao started to speak but was interrupted by a voice from another desk.

  “Excuse me, Priestess Xiao, but we need your input here.”

  The voice came from a group of men who were gathered around a desk in a corner. They were going through some open files. Pencil sketches of an attractive young woman lay on the desk. The monk who had called Xiao over had written out a number of rice paper slips, then crumpled them up and dropped them on the
floor. “It’s about that woman Demesne. She was here two months ago. She wanted to know if the man she was seeing was the right one for her.”

  “A common question for women to ask,” explained Xiao. “And one we definitely have to answer in an ambiguous way. It’s an unanswerable question, after all. We can see if they’re going to get married. We can see if they’re going to stay married. But who can say, even if a couple stays married for fifty years, that they are ‘right’ for each other? So we tell them something like, ‘if he is not as he should be, there will be misfortune.’ ”

  “We didn’t bother to look into her future more deeply,” said the monk. “It’s such a common question. A month later she was back.”

  “And she had a completely different boyfriend. We gave her another vague answer.”

  “And now she’s back. Same question, different boy.”

  “She must like your answers,” said Charlie. “You’re getting repeat business.”

  “Uh-huh,” said Xiao. She drummed her nails on the monk’s desk. “Okay, give her a little more information. Tell her I see whips, chains, baby oil, and leather wrist cuffs in her future.”

  Pollocks made a face. “Is that true?”

  “Of course.”

  “Is she on the giving end, or the receiving end?”

  “Oh, she knows the answer to that already. She just doesn’t know she knows it. That’s why she keeps coming back looking for answers.” Xiao took Charlie by the arm. “Come with me, Your Highness. Your retainer can wait here.” She led Charlie down a quiet hallway. “You have questions for me, and I have much to discuss with you.” At the end of the hallway, two more monks guarded another heavy door. They nodded silently to Xiao and opened it for her. Charlie followed her inside. It took him a moment to realize, with some surprise, that he was in her bedchamber.

  It was decorated in a way that was embroidery-intense. It held a large, low bed with an embroidered coverlet, embroidered cloth hanging on the walls, and an oil lamp with an embroidered lampshade hung from the ceiling. An intricately embroidered dressing screen separated a third of the room from the bed. There was a low, round table of highly polished dark wood, but no chairs. Around the table were sitting cushions—embroidered, of course. A single candle in a carved soapstone holder burned in the middle of the table. It sat on an embroidered cloth trivet. Surrounding the candle, spread out across the table, was Xiao’s equipment for reading the future.

  There were two crystal balls—a large translucent white one about the size of Charlie’s head, and a smaller, fist-sized one with a pink hue. It was set on top of a leather carrying case, embroidered with the words Palm Divinizer III. Spread around it were a deck of tarot cards, a book of the I Ching (with both yarrow stalks and an assortment of coins for generating hexagrams), a black onyx scrying bowl half filled with water, a pair of empty teacups with wet leaves in the bottom, a basket of fortune cookies, an astrological chart, and the early edition of tomorrow’s newspaper. Standing at the end of the table was a water pipe, a bulbous contraption of glass and beaten copper, with silver trim. It was unlit, but a linen bag half full of herbs leaned against it. Charlie presumed these generated the same smoke the priestess breathed in the oracle room.

  Xiao gestured at the table. “Choose your method, Your Highness. I am an expert in all forms of divination.”

  “Really?” Charlie looked her up and down. “How can you be an expert in anything? You’re no older than I am, and it took me this long to learn that that I know very little.”

  “One needs no training,” the young woman said solemnly. “The methods teach themselves to those with true understanding. For one gifted with the sight, all sources of information are accurate. Except for the newspaper, of course.”

  “Right,” said Charlie, equally solemn. “Then my favorite method of divination is goat entrails.” He waited for a reaction and, when he didn’t get one, added, “You can read entrails, can’t you? Good. Just call for the entrails of a freshly slaughtered goat and we can get started.”

  Xiao looked at him with her hands on her hips, not certain if he was ridiculing her. Charlie looked back with his best deadpan expression. Finally Xiao shrugged, opened the door, and said to one of the monks, “Sing, bring me a platter of goat entrails.”

  “No goat entrails today, Miss.”

  “Sheep entrails? Pig entrails? Any other type of entrails?”

  “Fresh out of entrails.”

  “Well, what have you got that’s close?”

  “We’ve got some nice barbecued spareribs.”

  “Those will do. Send them along.”

  “You get two vegetables with that.”

  “Coleslaw and black-eyed peas.”

  “Coming right up.”

  Xiao closed the door, crossed in front of him, and disappeared behind the screen. “Excuse me while I slip out of these clothes.” The long skirt and tie-dye blouse were flipped over the screen. While she was undressing Charlie cracked one of the fortune cookies and read the slip of paper inside. It read, Made from butter, salt, sugar, flour, egg whites, natural and artificial flavorings. Dicalcium phosphate added to preserve freshness.

  He watched the shadowy motion behind the screen. “How long have you been doing this? You must have started very young.”

  “Two years,” said Xiao. “I became High Priestess when I was sixteen. Not so young.”

  Charlie was surprised. “Pollocks said my father had been getting advice from you for many years.”

  “He was seeing former High Priestesses. I was a lay priestess then, and before that I was an acolyte. I was brought here when I was twelve.”

  “What happened to the old ones?”

  Xiao stuck her head out from behind the screen. “Nothing happened to them. When we turn eighteen, we are retired from the job. We leave the temple and return to the Old Country. In fact, we are banished from the kingdom, never to return, nor even to contact anyone here again, on pain of death.” Her hand scrabbled on a vanity table until she found a makeup brush, then pulled back.

  Charlie thought this over. “Because an independent adult priestess would be too dangerous, is that it? Because of all the secrets you’ve learned?”

  “Correct. Do you want tea or coffee, Your Highness? I almost forgot you gave up drinking.”

  “It wasn’t hard. The beer in other countries is awful. I don’t know how people can drink it. Horrible, bitter stuff. For some reason Durk’s is the only brewery that makes good . . . glup!”

  He made a series of sounds that indicated his heart was trying to climb out of his throat, and his tongue was beating it back down only with difficulty. For the Xiao that stepped out from behind the screen was completely naked.

  It is a well-known feature of the Twenty Kingdoms that all their princesses grow up to be beautiful. Something in the milk, one presumes. Xiao was not a princess and she was not from any of the Twenty Kingdoms. Nonetheless, Charlie rapidly concluded that if she was the type of girl the Far East was exporting these days, the babes they kept for domestic consumption must be super indeed.

  She was slim and narrow-waisted, with small, high breasts. An intricate tattoo encircled her navel. Every trace of body hair had been shaved away, and her smooth skin, coated with a scented lotion, gleamed in the candlelight. She held a bottle of almond oil, which she proffered to Charlie. “Would you mind terribly doing my back?”

  Charlie took the bottle in a daze. Nothing in his life had prepared him for a sight like this, but he was not a man who let control of his wits slip away for long. Indeed, he had almost got his voice back when Xiao turned around, letting the backs of her thighs brush against the front of his, and stretched her arms behind her head to lift her hair out of his way. This action lifted her breasts even higher, a sight which once again forced Charlie’s vocal cords into paralysis and caused most of his neural pathways to shut down. Like a sleepwalker, he took the bottle, poured some oil into his palm, and began rubbing it onto her shoulder blades. Smooth l
ittle muscles rippled under his hands.

  Eventually the fog in his brain began to lift. A light, musical voice penetrated into his eardrums. He realized that Xiao was talking, that she was describing to him just what the gift of “sight” was supposed to be.

  “. . . multiple universes,” Xiao was saying. “Divination implies predestination, which contradicts the idea of free will. But if you accept the multi-universe idea, the paradox is resolved. Every decision that we make, every choice that confronts us, results in a new universe splitting off. Our journey into the future involves blindly choosing a path that leads through the many possible futures. But a priestess of Matka can see the paths.”

  “Uh-huh,” said Charlie. He had reached the small of her back, and was wondering if he dared lower his hands to her bottom. The smooth, round globes were already well oiled. Momentarily, he let his hands rest on her hips.

  Xiao squirmed sensuously beneath his hands. “Mmmm. Now you know why we cannot give unambiguous answers to the question we are asked. For once you have seen your own future, the possible universes collapse into one. Your path is now determined, but that may not be the path you would have chosen. Our answers are couched so that all those who seek the path are always left with a choice. Do you understand, Your Highness?”

  “Sure,” said Charlie. He had slid his hands around her waist, to her smooth, flat stomach, and was now letting them drift toward her thighs.

  Xiao suddenly turned within his arms and faced him. Her nipples grazed his chest, causing his pulse to add another ten beats per minute. Her face was turned up toward his, her eyes closed, her lips wetly parted. “It’s wonderful to think of it,” she whispered. “An infinite number of possible universes, all different, means there are infinite possibilities for all of us. Anything can happen.”

  Her lips were only inches from his. Charlie’s hormones had wrested control away from his brain, and he spoke automatically, without thinking. “Not really,” he murmured, bending his head so his own lips approached hers. “It’s more likely you would have a converging series, where each successive universe is only infinitesimally different from the last one.”