Paradise Tales Read Online Free PDF Page B

trap.
    Kai stands on the new battlements of what he has renamed the City of Likelihood. 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.
    How stupid, the Neighbors seem to say. These Kambu wanted to rain down rocks on our heads and waited until we were all through!
    The beauty of the Machine, thinks Kai, is that it is not a presence. It is an absence. There is nothing for the Neighbors or any of their mages to sense.
    Then a cry goes up from the Neighbors.
    They have cast their first spell, and it hasn’t worked.
    The stones settle with a crash and a raising of dust, closing the pass. The Neighbors cannot get out.
    There is no magic here, only swords. The Neighbors are unarmed.
    The ten acolytes of Hero Kai leap from the battlement walls onto the single silken threads, and they slide down. They balance holding out two singing swords in each hand, outstretched like wings. They somersault onto the ground.
    Then they whirligig their way across the plain, spinning into the soft and real flesh of the Neighbors.
    The monks, the farmers, and the sons without titles advance.
    To be sure of victory, the Neighbors sent three thousand of their finest warrior sorcerers.
    Within five minutes, all of them are dead.
    Again, Kai cries like an eagle and flings his swords over his head. Blood whips from the blades in midair as if the weapons themselves are bleeding.
    The Sons of Kambu cheer. They run to Kai and pat his back. They dip and hold up their hands in prayer toward him. Some of them prostrate themselves on the ground to him, but laughing, he shakes his head and helps them stand.
    “We have all won!” he cries, and all the valley tolls like a giant bell of stone, ringing with many voices.
    Kai laughs and turns, and he runs up the silken thread. True he slows somewhat near the summit, but he gains the top of the battlements and all the citizens roar all the louder.
    He hops down from the wall in front of the King. The King looks like a skeleton.
    Kai knows from the man’s face. He had thought his only duty was to stay in office. This King liked the Neighbors because they kept him in his palace.
    “You