The Veiled Throne, page 106
“Tell me about them,” said Kinri. It felt odd to connect “love” with the name “Zomi Kidosu.” In the official accounts of the court historians of Kriphi, Zomi Kidosu was a dangerous witch, whose devious mind the resourceful Tanvanaki had to overcome to protect the paradise that was Ukyu-taasa—a false myth did not lose its power overnight.
“This scroll is from my teacher,” said Zomi, caressing the silk scroll filled with childish copies of the model logograms. “He taught me much about books and philosophy, but the most important lesson of all”—she moved her hand to the bundle of sticks next to it—“was how I was in charge of the path I walked, not the starting place the gods assigned me at birth.”
“I, too, had a teacher in Ukyu-taa—in Rui.”
“Had?”
“She was killed… by Pékyu Vadyu after a false accusation of treason.”
Zomi looked at him strangely. “False?”
Kinri didn’t know how to explain. Certainly Nazu Tei was no loyal hound of Tanvanaki, but she had acquiesced to Lyucu supremacy and showed no defiance until the very end. He realized that his old master’s passivity and acceptance of the Lyucu conquest would bring her nothing but contempt in the eyes of his sister. “She was a learned scholar,” he said feebly, as if that explained everything.
Zomi waited. And when it was clear that Kinri would say no more, she said, in a hard-edged voice, “Tanvanaki is her father’s daughter,” as if that explained everything.
It is impossible for us to speak even of our loves with open hearts, he thought, and the agony of that realization made him gasp.
To cover up the truth, he added in a rush, “She also taught me much about the beauty of the culture of Dara, and to look beyond the stories told by the thanes and court historians.”
“A great teacher is the shaper of our mind, as much as our parents are the shapers of our bodies,” said Zomi reverently. “What was her name?”
He gave it.
Zomi nodded. “I know the name, which is listed in the Hall of Mutagé. To be truthful, I had not thought her worthy based on the little I knew of her official record. You must tell me some of her deeds of courageous resistance and defiance against the Lyucu so that we can properly commemorate her at the next Grave-Mending Festival.”
There seemed to be no topic on which they could converse without bumping into awkward, invisible fences. He tried again. “What about these?” he asked, pointing to the turtle shells lining a shelf. “Why do they have the sign of the garinafin? And what about those?” He pointed to the teacups on the desk. “Why do they have the same design?”
A gentle, longing smile softened Zomi’s face. “That tea set is taken from a pub, the Three-Legged Jug.”
Kinri nodded. Just as Arona had explained.
“That pub was where I first met the woman I love,” said Zomi, “and also the place where we spent a very special night.”
“What happened to her?”
A melancholy shadow fell over Zomi’s face like a veil. “She left to be the bride of another.”
“I’m sorry to hear that,” said Kinri. He searched his mind for some suitable words of comfort. “But the heart breaks and heals, much as the tides wane and wax.” It sounded false even to his ears.
Despite her sorrow, Zomi smiled at this. “You sound like a doddering matchmaker. What do you know of heartbreak at your age?” A look of sudden understanding flitted across her face as she stared intently at Kinri, who turned away, flustered.
Zomi took a deep breath. “Anyway, it’s not like that. She didn’t leave me because her feelings changed; she went beyond the Wall of Storms because she needed to do grand deeds.”
“Beyond the Wall of Storms?” asked Kinri, shocked. “You mean she is—”
“Yes,” said Zomi, her voice full of pride. “My teacher, Luan Zyaji, was the first man of Dara to go beyond the Wall of Storms with determined purpose, and my lover, Grand Princess Théra, was the first woman of Dara to do so.” She looked over at the painting hanging on the shelf across from her.
Kinri looked at the portrait that resembled Dandelion, and a terrifying realization threatened to break through his consciousness. He turned away from the implications of that understanding with all his strength, like a man closing his eyes before a looming tidal wave. It’s impossible. It can’t be.
“And you didn’t go with her?” he croaked, to distract himself.
“No, I stayed because I had other dreams I wanted to make real here.”
“Dreams grander than being with the woman you loved?” He pressed a hand against the handkerchief she had given him, now pinned securely over his heart. He couldn’t think of being apart from her—as long as she could see beyond his Lyucu heritage once she found out, as long as she wasn’t… no, he refused to think of it.
Zomi sighed. “I suppose the love poets would call ours a tragedy of ambition and vanity, for in their verses there is nothing grander than romance. But Théra and I both understood that there are other grand ideals in this universe worth pursuing, and being apart is not the end of a love that is true.”
Kinri wondered if Zomi truly believed what she was saying or if she was merely trying to comfort herself, but either way he held his tongue. He knew that Grand Princess Théra died in the Wall crossing; everyone knew.
After a moment, Zomi went on. “Later, I bought the tea set from the owners to remind me of her because I was too foolish to ask for something of hers before she left.”
“It’s possible that you didn’t ask for anything because you didn’t quite believe that she was going to be gone forever,” said Kinri, thinking of how he had not asked for something from Master Nazu Tei before they parted for the last time.
“You may be right about that,” said Zomi. “But the gods have taken pity on me. She isn’t gone forever.”
“What?”
“Though Théra is on the other side of the Wall of Storms, she isn’t beyond the River-on-Which-Nothing-Floats.” She pointed to the turtle shells. “These have arrived from Ukyu and Gondé, and I know they’re from her because the sign of the kunikin, the three-legged jug, holds a special meaning between us.”
The idea that Théra had not died but managed to invade Ukyu was another shocking revelation, but by now Kinri was feeling numb from the barrage of surprises. He felt himself stiffening, like the thasé-teki caterpillar after the fungus had ramified within the body. Dimly, he wondered if Tanvanaki and his mother had seen similar turtle shells from beyond the Wall and understood what they really meant.
“The princess is clever,” said Zomi. “She must have carved the signs into the carapaces of dozens of turtles, if not more, and sent them into the great circular belt current, hoping that a few at least would make it through the Wall of Storms. And even then, in order to avoid detection by the Lyucu invaders, she wrote her messages in an ambivalent way. Only I would know why the turtles carry the three-legged jug.”
Kinri tried to imagine what Tanvanaki would make of the signs. Would the pékyu think the garinafin a cry for help from the Lyucu in Ukyu? Or would she think they signified another reinforcement fleet?
A new, growing sense of unease gnawed at him. What Zomi was telling him were state secrets, the very kind of information his mother and the pékyu were desperately in need of. That Zomi was telling him these things freely, the way family members would confide in one another, showed that she had no doubt about his loyalty, thought of him as one of the people of Dara. She believed the claim of blood was clear, the tenor of his allegiance obvious. But did he share her feelings?
Worse, what would happen to him if he didn’t want to be a subject of the Dandelion Throne, one of the people of Dara? What would she do if he refused to take her side?
“I’d like to add this one to the others,” said Zomi, holding up the shell on which Oga had carved his family and the map of Dara. “This place, if you like, can be your refuge as well, filled with love.” In her voice was the yearning for kin and hearth, for the consolation of family.
Kinri stared as Zomi placed his shell next to the other shells bearing the messages from Grand Princess Théra. His mind was blank. Oga’s family portrait contained Zomi but not him—did that mean that Zomi had the better claim to the shell? But the shell was also the last thing his mother had given him, and he could not bear not to have it next to his heart, the same place where he kept the handkerchief from Dandelion.
“When you’ve recovered, I shall bring you to see the empress and the emperor, and the intelligence you have of the Lyucu will be most welcome.”
Was he really going to see the empress and tell her everything he knew about the Lyucu? Was he really going to betray the pékyu and his mother? What about his mission, the mission he thought Goztan and Tanvanaki had assigned to him?
“I’d like to hold on to the shell a little longer,” he croaked.
She looked at him oddly, but soon, the frown relaxed. “Of course. You’ve only just found out he’s your father. It’s natural to want to spend more time with him.”
She handed him the shell; he accepted it without contradicting her.
“I need some time by myself,” he said. “I think I’d like to stay here and read.”
Zomi nodded sympathetically. “You haven’t explained to me how you escaped from the clutches of your cruel mother and the wily Tanvanaki, but I can already tell it’s a tale of great trauma and suffering. Time will soothe your scarred heart.” Pride came into her voice, as though she were imagining Kinri’s brave escape from the Lyucu. “Know that you’ve already shown great courage in making your way here, and that they’ll never be able to get their hands on you again—”
Kinri broke in because Zomi’s misdirected patter was proving intolerable. “May I… see Dandelion?”
Zomi chuckled. “So that’s the name you know her by?… Ah, how the gods love to play jokes… putting the two of you together.” She shook her head and turned serious. “Do you really not know who she is?”
He shook his head. There is no avoiding the inevitable.
“And your feelings for her are sincere?”
He nodded, harder than he had ever assented to any query.
The last trace of concern fled from Zomi’s face. “The young woman you’ve been wooing is Fara, Imperial Princess of the House of Dandelion. She is… a bold and free spirit, and gives everyone who loves her plenty of headaches. I’m certain she’ll be relieved to know that you’re not actually a Lyucu. I have a feeling she’s been fretting over that.”
Long after Zomi was gone, Kinri sat in the cubby, the shell in one hand and the handkerchief in the other, as still as a reef buffeted by too many waves of unexpected truths.
* * *
Over the next few days, Zomi interrogated the other members of the Blossom Gang in depth. Although Princess Fara vouched for them strenuously, Zomi did not quite trust them. Still, knowing that they had not, in fact, been duped by a Lyucu spy, but had befriended and given aid to her brother, softened her toward them considerably.
After she had gone over the competition between the Splendid Urn and the Treasure Chest in detail, she came to see the gang in a different light. The curiosity that drove them was not so different, after all, from her own thirst for knowledge as a simple fishing-farming girl of Dasu.
“Secretary Kidosu,” said Rati Yera, “now that you know Tiphan Huto to be a traitor working with pirates to abduct engineers and skilled workers for the Lyucu, can you also send people to rescue Mozo Mu’s family? I’m afraid that—”
Zomi held up a hand. “That, you don’t need to worry about. On my way here, I received a report from the empress’s expedition against the pirates. They raided Tiphan Huto’s shipyard in the Silkworm Eggs and rescued numerous hostages. I’m sure your friend’s family are among them.”
Fara clapped her hands in joy. “I knew Aya would come through!”
Zomi lifted an eyebrow. “More schemes? I really need to keep a closer eye on you.”
She asked Fara, Rati Yera, Widi Tucru, Arona Taré, and Mota Kiphi to explain the inventions, stratagems, and performances, walking through the trickier parts with models.
Fara was glad to show off her accomplishments, and the gang, though uncertain of the intent behind Zomi’s interest, obliged. Rati did explain that she could not reveal the details of the self-driving carts, and Zomi, well aware of the custom of secrecy among street magicians, did not press the point.
Delving into these wondrous machines gave her much mind-pleasure. So long had she been surrounded by the deafening noise of pushing and pulling the levers of power in bureaucratic competition, the piercing screeching and grinding of the gears of plots and conspiracies in espionage and counterespionage, that she had almost forgotten how much she loved the clean, calming poetry of engineering, the first language she had learned from Luan Zyaji, her beloved teacher.
“All these inventions are ingenious, but I am most impressed by the teachable carts, even if I’m not privy to the principles of their operation,” said Zomi. “Do you realize what you’ve done?”
“We… won the contest?” offered Rati Yera timidly. She was still awed to be speaking to one of the most powerful—perhaps the most powerful—official of the empire as well as an inventor of great renown, and the idea that a raye woman could offer anything valuable to the government besides labor and suffering was unimaginable.
“No!” said Zomi, chuckling. “Well, yes, you did, but that’s not what I mean. You’ve invented a way to record and play back a precise sequence of movements.”
Her mind raced as she imagined the possibilities. Machines amenable to instruction, which could replicate the motion of experts, presented a breakthrough that could transform the very way that work was done in Dara.
“In the kitchen, you had machines copying the cook’s moves,” said Zomi. “In the restaurant itself, you taught machines to follow a particular path. Could you have combined the two principles to instruct the machines in the kitchen to cook the dishes on their own, without a cook to hold their hand?”
Rati considered this. “In theory, perhaps. But that would require a great deal of precision and refinement. I would have to experiment and tinker—”
“I’m not asking if you can make it work right now, but only what is possible in principle,” said Zomi, her voice rising in excitement. “Assuming we can overcome the engineering challenges, you could take a dish that has to be prepared by a master chef by feel and instinct and reduce it to a precise sequence of instructions carried out by dozens of machines, multiplying the work of one adept a hundredfold.”
Rati still looked doubtful, but her eyes also began to glow with the excitement of imagined possibilities. “This is a process that could be extended to the making of all kinds of things: the weaving of complex patterns, the painting and glazing of china for the kiln—”
Zomi joined her. “The hammering of steel and iron, the fashioning of uniform rings and scales for armor, the transportation of goods through no-man’s-land—”
I need you to find me men and women of talent.
Abruptly, she stopped. Had she, by happenstance, stumbled upon exactly the people Phyro needed?
She had been fretting over Phyro’s letter ever since she received it. Much as she sympathized with the emperor’s frustration, much as she wished for the empress to take a harder line against the Lyucu, what the emperor was asking for was treason. She could not condone it. Jia’s reasoning was sound; her system worked; Dara had never prospered as it had under her reign. People of talent must serve the Throne, not a private army founded in defiance of the Throne, however just the cause. She pushed the intruding thought away.
“Luan Zyaji, my teacher, spoke of engineering as a kind of poetry. What you’ve done is to devise an entire new way to compose mechanical poems. The ability to record a master craftsman’s transitory movements and to replay them back exactly is akin to the invention of writing to record ephemeral speech, and no less momentous!”
“I… never thought in such grand patterns,” said Rati Yera, bewildered by Zomi’s breathtaking vision. “We’re simple men and women who only wanted to pursue knowledge that we loved.”
As her mind continued to churn, Zomi spoke with each of the gang in turn about their inventions: Widi’s legal and investigative tricks that allowed the poor to have some protection against the powerful; Arona and Mota’s performances that entertained and illuminated, much as Consort Risana’s smokecraft; Rati’s mechanical wonders that echoed the creations of the academies but also broke new ground.
As Farsight Secretary, besides espionage and counterespionage, she was also charged with discovering men and women of talent so that they could serve the Dandelion Throne and the people of Dara. Outrage and gratitude both filled her heart as she realized how the Blossom Gang would never have come to her attention except for this fortuitous encounter.
“You should all be working for the Imperial Academy and the Imperial laboratories, or as officials in the civil service!” said Zomi. “How can men and women of your talent live in obscurity, like pearls hidden in the sea?”
“Are you suggesting that we should take the Imperial examinations?” asked Arona in disbelief.
Zomi thought she understood the source of Arona’s objection. “The examinations no longer must be conducted solely in logograms. You may write in zyndari letters—”
“That’s quite an assumption to make!” objected a red-faced Arona. “I’ll have you know, Secretary Kidosu, that I can certainly read and write, and I probably know more about ancient drama than most of your firoa. I just don’t care much about the words of the sages.”
“And I am a toko dawiji,” said Widi. “Yet I have no desire to advance further in the examinations at all. Essays that don’t say anything practical bore me. I much prefer to wield the writing knife and my sharp tongue to achieve practical results for my clients.”
“If the objection is to the format of the exams,” said Zomi, “we can reform them further. You can help! Though I can no longer meddle in the examinations, I can pass your ideas on to the officials in charge. Instead of essays on general topics, perhaps the tests can also probe for knowledge in specific subjects like mathematics and engineering. You could write about your passions and real problems you’ve solved—”
