The Dawn of Yangchen, page 16
“My duke was unable to keep some of the branch houses from defying the contract,” Lohi said. “He is a good man, but occasionally soft when it comes to his family. When it is my turn to lead the Saowon, I promise you I will enforce unanimity within my clan.”
A mere coincidence in his choice of words. And yet Yangchen had to struggle not to scream.
A servant brought her staff. She was going to have to fly fast. “Tell me something,” she said once she and Lohi were alone again. “The family heads who broke the agreement. Would they have listened the first time if I’d told them the treaty was the word of Avatar Szeto himself, and not mine? If I’d told them I’d communed with his spirit beforehand, and the terms were simply what he commanded me to put down on paper?”
She’d thought of the tactic after her flop in Bin-Er, too late to help her there and long after her first attempt to assist the Saowon. Speaking with the voice of her past life, the respected elder statesman could have helped her cause in front of Teiin and Noehi. It certainly wouldn’t have hurt.
But in the Fire Nation, Szeto’s name was a sledgehammer. Had she trotted it out, her decree to stay away from the sacred cenotes would have landed upon the Saowon with the force of a mother, a father, a sifu, the Fire Lord, all rolled into one. She could have leveraged her predecessor’s credibility, provided she was willing to acknowledge she had none herself.
Lohi’s pause was all the answer she needed. “. . . Did you?” he asked. “Did you talk to Szeto?”
Yangchen frowned, snapped the wings of her glider open, and took off.
THE DISPUTE
She wasn’t going to take Nujian to the largest cenote. Her companion could get jittery around spirits these days and had every right to be after the Old Iron incident. Yangchen flew over the humid jungles of Ma’inka on her glider, pushing the winds as hard as she could.
She spotted a clearing in the trees and landed on a woven floor of roots. It was necessary to proceed on foot for the last part of the journey, let herself be vulnerable, or else she risked flying back and forth over her destination wondering why she wasn’t seeing anything out of the ordinary.
Sunbeams combed through the tree trunks. She could hear chittering insects and screaming birds. The smell of life was also the smell of decay, overwhelming rot and fertility attacking through her nose.
Yangchen stepped from stone to stone and fallen branch to fallen branch. There was no such thing as a straight path under the canopy. She avoided using her staff for balance; the end would sink into the damp soil and ruin the tail fins.
Her disturbances sent squirrel-toads hopping in circles. Several of them decided to follow along and keep pace. Leaves fell from overhead. She looked up to see monkey-marmots trailing her through the trees.
“Shoo,” she said. The furry creatures, reminiscent of lemurs, blinked and waggled their head tufts. Yangchen sighed.
Animals were often drawn to her for no discernible reason. It was how she’d ended up with Pik and Pak. People envied her for it, but there were drawbacks. The other children had cried on Bonding Day when most of the bison calves flocked to Yangchen instead of distributing themselves equitably. She had to flee with Nujian before she ended up with a whole herd of companions instead of just one.
After a half hour of walking, she encountered the problem. The true reason why she was here.
A large plot of land had been cleared by slashing and burning. Inside the swidden was an encampment constructed on top of bamboo piles, giving it the thin-legged appearance of Jonduri in miniature. A network of sluice chutes sprouted outward from the village center. They led to nowhere, no vessels for containment, and had the slurry inside not dried up since the camp’s evacuation it would have spilled in waves over the jungle floor.
By following the chutes, she found the last piece of evidence, a derrick topped by a pulley, the setup for a drop drill. A blunt-force mechanism to smash away at the earth with an iron bit until substances that should have been deep and buried could be sucked to the surface. Either the rig had to be abandoned too quickly to hide, or the owners hadn’t bothered at all, thinking she wouldn’t know what it was if she discovered it. Air Nomads had no use for such devices, after all.
Somewhere along the chain of communication, from the disobedient branch families, to Zolian and Lohi, to her, the truth had been twisted. This wasn’t a farming plot. This was an excavation zone.
The affronted phoenix-eels had made their displeasure clear. The longhouses and bamboo scaffolds had been crushed in several places, narrow stripes of destruction that looked like they could have been caused by falling trees. But there was nothing in the wreckage except for great splashes of acidic discoloration, extending from the broken buildings to the vegetation around them. Channels of dead vines and unnaturally yellowed shrubs led deeper into the forest.
Yangchen shuddered. The village was a scar crossed out by another scar.
She exited the clearing on the other side, in more ways than one. Her animal followers did not come along, one of the first signs the encampment marked a boundary, the start of a new country where the common laws of reality binding the Four Nations loosened their grip. At her presence, the sour wind through the branches made a low moan, the kind that began in a throat.
Her eyes burned with unchecked sweat running down her shaven head. The forest no longer spoke with animalistic chirps and howls, but in the fluttering of tongues and whispers of nonsense much too close to language for comfort. Yangchen knew at this point, turning around and heading straight back would not take her to the camp or to the Saowon manor or to any human land at all.
Tendrils of unknown plants drifted around her knees as if she were walking along the floor of the ocean. She ignored their slimy touch, the way they sometimes closed tight, just missing ensnaring her legs as she walked. Off to her left stalked a presence, a shadow out of the corner of her eye, long-limbed and muscled like a puma-goat. It was at least twenty feet tall. She dared not look at it directly, and slowed down to let it cross her path. Once it had gone, she saw giant handprints left behind, shaped like a human’s down to the palm lines.
After more walking she came to the edge of a hole a mile wide, the center so dark and deep it tugged on her throat and made the level ground under her feet feel like a slope, down, down into the emptiness. A great fall waited without the relief of an impact.
Little egg.
With her weight on her heels so she wouldn’t topple forward, Yangchen called out. “I am here. We must talk.”
Spirals of water rose out of the hole, winding higher like ivy. The liquid took on color and definition, grew a beard of beaks underneath a face full of glowing red eyes. The phoenix-eels. A braid of competing heads and thoughts, only unified when wronged. And they were unified before Yangchen.
The first time she visited these spirits on behalf of the Saowon, they had not darkened to such an extent. They resembled animals from the physical world, glowing with energy, sunbeams full of dust. Back then the phoenix-eels had snapped the piles of encroaching settlements, flooded portions of fields, carried off heads of livestock. Their sole intent was to warn humans off portions of Ma’inka, their actions almost mischievous. Negotiating with them was still possible.
Under the terms the Avatar brokered, the spirits got what they wanted. To a degree. The humans got to expand. A little. No side was fully happy, an outcome Yangchen could live with.
But evidently, some members of Zolian’s family could not. Now the phoenix-eels had only punishment in their hearts. Yangchen felt the anger and hatred emanating from their forms, hot as coals, stoked by betrayal.
Spirits were not humans who could watch an act of bad faith and figure they would get theirs back in the future. They were sharpened rails, signs before the cliff drop, harsh tutors who swatted your hand the moment your brushstroke swayed. Parents always forgot the lessons they told their own children. Don’t touch that flower or you’ll be pricked by the thorns. That’s just what happens; if you don’t like it, don’t touch it. Stay away from those woods or the spirits will take you. That’s just what will happen.
The phoenix-eels undulated and coiled, dripping water down shimmering scales. Snakes curled before they struck too. Hollow shell. Little egg, with no yolk inside. We know why you are here.
“If you know why I am here, then release the children from their sickness.”
She dares. Against her own word, she dares.
A monstrous beak came rushing at Yangchen, snapping shut in front of her face. It was too large, filled too much of her vision for her to react with the proper fright. But had she been standing a foot closer she would have lost her nose.
She blinked slowly, one of the few shows she was allowed, while her heart bounced up and down. The price they exacted for losing control could vary beyond comprehension.
The phoenix-eels understood why she was being silent. You come with nothing. You stand on nothing.
True. This was an escape attempt by the Saowon, a go at the most human of follies—trying to avoid consequences. “The people who broke their promise have displayed a willingness to atone. They have shown their dishonor.”
No penance, what can be forgotten with time. We will feast on their eternal regret. They will watch their line come to ruin.
The statement was a statement. The facts, not a ploy to get more from Yangchen. The spirits began to descend, slithering back into the abyss.
Out of desperation she dredged up her first success, if the destruction of a city could be called that. “Old Iron listened!” she shouted. “And in return he received perpetual obeisance!”
WE ARE NOT OLD IRON! came the scream. WE DO NOT LOVE. WE DO NOT RELENT. The slithering coils stopped their descent. Rage kept them from leaving the table. They would hurt Yangchen now, for offending them. But at least they hadn’t disappeared.
A wall of red eyes lowered before hers. The phoenix-eels still had features conceivable in the human realm, which meant there was a remnant of light in them yet. She could detect the flickering shadow of the fully darkened form it might take, a spherical cluster of beaks and fins, unable to choose a direction to exist in.
For now, though, there was still hope, as long as she was willing to suffer their punishment. Yangchen steadied herself. A wispy tendril of the spirit, smoke made life, touched her on the forehead where the arrow point was.
The pain did not take the form she expected. Instead of suffering, she saw.
She saw wandering shadows, threaded in a weft of agony. Human beings staggering in base, groaning lowness. Wounds, all of them self-inflicted, spilling from lips and ravaging lungs like burning, choking chyme.
They cried out to the mist. And there was no answer. No substance for an echo to bounce off.
Everything was malleable in the Spirit World, including point of view. Yangchen had seen through so many eyes before. She’d been jarred from place and time into her past lives, locked into shackles made of moments long gone.
This was different. With the help of powerful spirits, she had been granted a different person’s perspective for once. Jetsun’s.
The tendril withdrew back into the phoenix-eels. Yangchen was on all fours, as prostrate before them as Zolian before her.
“Le—” She slammed the bottom of her fist repeatedly against the stone ground, as if pounding a heartbeat back into her own chest. “Let her go. Let her go!”
We do not have her. Nothing has her. Nothingness has her. Do you like your gift? It is what she sees and will see, forever.
It was an illusion. It had to be. Jetsun was dead. Yangchen had been there when her heart stopped beating.
The wall of scales before her began to move in opposing directions. The phoenix-eels were uncoiling to depart. Yangchen could barely think straight, let alone remember why she had come here. Her ragged mind leaped between every plea, every prayer.
“Wait!” she cried. “The children of the Saowon! They’re—they’re not punishment enough!”
The spirits came to a stop, intrigued.
“What you want is a truer humiliation, isn’t it?” Yangchen said. “Let the children sleep to death and their parents’ grief will burn out in a lifetime. There are other, better ways to exact a toll. A lasting toll.”
This was no longer a negotiation but the doctor fetching a hot iron to burn a spurting artery closed. She was going to have to harm the Saowon in order to save them.
Let us talk about inflicting pain, little egg, the phoenix-eels said. Together.
When it was done, Yangchen found herself standing by the edge of a stone cavern in the ground, large but not mind-bogglingly vast. Healthy green vines dangled down the sides, pointing at blue water clear enough to see through. The bottom of the cenote was jagged with rock formations, but otherwise empty.
The physical world had become predominant once more. It might stay that way, depending on the Saowon’s reaction to the news she bore. Her glider lay on a flat-topped boulder, placed like an offering. Spirits could be as cheeky as humans sometimes.
Yangchen opened the wings to inspect them for water damage. She found none and took off immediately for the manor.
Lohi had the decency to wait for her return himself. He was the lone figure in the manor’s courtyard, by the edge of a waterless fountain. The sun was fading, but that meant little for determining how much time had passed.
“How long was I gone?” Yangchen asked him. She examined his face for signs of aging, a precaution less ridiculous than it sounded. “What day is it?”
When Lohi gave her the answer, Yangchen swore under her breath. If she left Ma’inka now, she’d be more than three days late for her check-in with Kavik by the time she reached Jonduri. Still, she’d gotten as lucky as she could. There hadn’t been a leap of weeks or months as reported by some unfortunate storytellers who’d wandered between worlds. “The children will be released from their illness,” she said. “Provided more conditions are met.”
Lohi shuddered in relief. “I’m glad the spirits accepted our sacrifice. This was a devastating blow to our clan’s honor, but with time we may put this unpleasantness—”
“You may not regrow your hair for fifty years.”
“—behind us . . . I’m sorry, did you say fifty years?”
“Five hundred moons, to be exact. That is how long the spirits of your island declared you must hold your dishonor. You do not get to reset the scales after a single act of penance. And there’s more.”
While Lohi was still caught up in his initial shock, Yangchen listed the taboos the Saowon would have to observe in order to appease the phoenix-eels. Some of them inconveniences. Others, serious hits to their coffers, or quirks of behavior that would most certainly exclude them from the rituals and celebrations of power in the Fire Nation.
Lohi reeled as if she were kicking him in the stomach with each decree. “We’ll be humiliated for a generation!” he cried in sheer disbelief. “We’ll never be able to contend at court! Our rivals will dance on our heads! You were supposed to fix this!”
Forgotten were the children. Lohi’s hands curled into shapes that once fully formed, could lead to regret. “You can’t do this to us!” He took a step forward he didn’t need to take.
There it was. The calm young man who would likely describe himself as the most rational member of his clan had turned into a slighted bundle of raw nerves. Yangchen sliced downward with her hand, and the weight of the sky dropped on his back, forcing him to halt and stoop.
She leaned down and spoke directly into his ear, so he could hear her over the rushing wind. “I have done nothing to you. We arrived here through your clan’s actions. You were in control the whole time. And you can undo the bargain in an instant. Simply violate the boundary again. Let me know what form a twice-betrayed spirit takes.”
Yangchen let up the torrent. While his face was still lowered, Lohi took a deep gulp of still air and composed himself. He rose, wearing an apologetic mask. “Forgive me, Avatar. It’s just . . . unbearable to think about. The Saowon will be much diminished.”
“But the next generation will live. With enough time, they might flourish. Is that not worth it?” Yangchen would have to swallow a dose of humility herself. “You have lost the melon,” she said, pulling out a proverb. “Hang on to the sesame, no?”
The spark of recognition flickered in Lohi’s eyes. It was an obscure saying of Avatar Szeto’s, not often heard outside the Fire Nation. Sugaring the choice with her predecessor’s wisdom would make it more palatable.
“I will talk to the other clan leaders,” Lohi said. “It will be the most difficult task of my life, but I will talk to them.”
Difficult. She wanted to laugh. Would he fault the members of his family who thought they had impunity, went against their word, and angered the spirits? Or would he lay the blame at Yangchen’s feet? She knew which option was more convenient, and convenience ruled kings and peasants alike.
Yangchen asked to be shown to her bison. She had to get out of here and check on Kavik. The more she thought about it, the less likely it was that a boy who would wriggle through a block of sheer ice and follow a strange girl to the other side of the world would be the type to sit quietly and not get into any trouble.
Nujian waited for her in an outdoor pen, surrounded by stable hands. Yangchen dismissed Lohi and the attendants, neither she nor the young nobleman in the mood for a formal farewell. It occurred to her that he’d waited for her alone not out of any sense of personal duty, but so he could control her message to his clan.
She leaped onto Nujian’s withers and heard a crinkle. Patting underneath her, she found a piece of paper, folded into an envelope but without a seal. She frowned and looked around before opening it.
Greetings, Avatar. Chaisee here.
Yangchen sprang to her feet on top of the saddle. She spun on her toes, searching the grassy field again for watchers. She had been gone long enough for a hawk to travel from Jonduri to Ma’inka, and long enough that anyone could have planted the letter, even Lohi himself. The zongdu who did not trust birds had no qualms about violating her own rules.
