The Veiled Throne, page 98
“Are you ready, Grand Mistress Wasu and Master Giphi?” asked Séca.
They nodded grimly.
“Then may the most interesting restaurant win!” declared Lolo.
As the loser of the last round, the Treasure Chest had the choice to go first or last this time. Tiphan Huto, a believer in the military adage that it was better to strike first, chose to present before Widow Wasu.
“People of Ginpen,” declared Giphi, dressed for the occasion in a somber robe in a classical cut that had been popular perhaps fifty years earlier. The crowd quieted. “Ginpen is a city rich in history, and your reactions from the cooking competition told me how much history matters to all of you.”
“Sounds like they’re going to try to steal from us,” whispered Dandelion to Kinri. They were standing at the foot of the stage, near the front of the crowd.
Kinri nodded, his heart speeding up. If the Treasure Chest had learned from Dandelion’s weaving of history and the present into a compelling story during the cooking competition, that would make them formidable opponents.
Giphi took a deep breath and shouted so that he could be heard all over the square. “Today, we’re going to relive one of the greatest scenes in the annals of this city and the chronicles of Dara!”
* * *
As the loud trumpet blasts neared, accompanied by thunderous drumming, the crowd on the western edge of Temple Square divided like the ocean being parted by the prow of a city-ship. Soon, a wide avenue opened through the middle of the square.
Into this void came a parade. At the head of the parade were seven elephants from Écofi, draped in the colors of the seven ancient Tiro states. Beautiful young women and men—the staff from the Treasure Chest on the night of the service competition—scattered beach-rose petals and sprayed rose-scented water at the crowd, providing much-welcomed relief from the hot sun.
“By the Twins,” whispered Widow Wasu, who stood up onstage with Lodan supporting her. “I think I know where he’s going with this. I saw the model of this parade when I was a young woman in Zudi.”
Behind the elephants came a phalanx of marching men, their upper bodies bared to show bronzed and oiled muscles. They twirled swords so that they spun like steel-blue chrysanthemums in bloom.
“Cocru sword dancers!” whispered Dandelion to Kinri, leaning down so that she could be heard. She was sitting on his shoulders so that she could see over the heads of the crowd before them. “I’ve never even seen this many all at once.”
“I don’t know how they can twirl swords like that without hurting themselves,” whispered Kinri.
Behind the sword dancers came a group of young women, all of them exactly the same height and dressed in the same diaphanous silk that revealed their lithe curves. Gyrating seductively, they waved their long sleeves through the air, tracing spirals and arches that echoed the billowing fog shrouding the craggy cliff-walls of Boama.
More excited whispers throughout the crowd.
“Faça veil dancers!”
“I thought the art had been lost. I’ve only seen puppet versions….”
“The last time… was when Mapidéré passed through here….”
Phalanx after phalanx of dancers, musicians, jugglers, animal trainers, acrobats… marched through the square. Some displayed their skills on floats that displayed miniature scenes of the wonders around Dara: a fountain that was a scale model of the Rufizo Falls; Mount Rapa and Mount Kana constructed out of painted dough, with an ice-sculpted palace on one and a flame-limned castle on the other; actors and actresses dressed up as gods and goddesses drinking mead in a valley in the Wisoti Mountains, pointing into the distance and arguing as though they were debating the future of Dara; scholars on stilts walking and chanting passages from ancient Ano Classics….
Finally, near the end of the parade, came a giant bamboo-and-silk palanquin. Carried on the shoulders of fifty men holding crisscrossed bamboo poles, the palanquin itself was shaped like a smaller version of the Treasure Chest itself: divided into five stories, the lower four each painted to resemble one of the realms of Fire, Water, Earth, and Air. At the top, leaning back on a sitting cushion in thakrido like an august sovereign, Tiphan Huto waved at the crowd confidently. Around and below him, singers chorused the famous lines of Lügo Crupo, Prime Minister to the dread Emperor Mapidéré:
To the north: Fruitful Faça, green as the eyes of kind Rufizo,
Pastures ever kissed by sweet rain, craggy highlands shrouded in mist.
To the west: Alluring Amu, the jewel of Tututika,
Luminous elegance, filigreed cities surround two blue lakes.
…
“He’s literally re-creating Emperor Mapidéré’s victory parade through Ginpen,” muttered Widow Wasu. “How can he possibly think this a good idea?”
The older observers among the crowd were mostly silent, gazing at the parade with complicated expressions. A few looked furious and shouted at this display that seemed to make a mockery of the heroes of the rebellion who had resisted Xana tyranny both before and after the unification.
But they were quickly shushed by the younger audience members, who were, for the most part, impressed by the spectacle. They cheered and gawked and clapped and talked excitedly about the wonders before them.
Dandelion’s eyebrows furrowed.
“Mapidéré was a despot, wasn’t he?” asked Kinri. At least this aspect of the court-appointed tutors’ teaching seemed to be generally accepted in Dara. He was confused by the way so many in the crowd cheered and hooted, with some shouting, “Long Live Tiphan Huto!” It sounded like they all thought they were participating in a joke, part of some farcical play.
“Tiphan is more clever than I thought,” said Dandelion softly. She climbed down from Kinri’s shoulders. “I knew he would go all out and try to overwhelm the crowd with a display of power and wealth, but I hadn’t counted on how he would tap into an old story and breathe new life into it.”
“What do you mean?”
“Listen to the singing. Huto changed the words.”
You bow down, bow down, bow down to Dara, Zenith, Ruler of Air,
Why resist, why persist against Anojiti in strife you can’t bear?
“So he’s turned Xana into Dara…” muttered Kinri. “But it’s still a song praising a tyrant.”
Widi, who had been listening to the exchange, broke in. “Emperor Mapidéré has always been a figure of controversy. The House of Dandelion began as rebels against Xana tyranny over the Tiro states, but when the rebellion succeeded, instead of restoring the world to separate Tiro states as the Hegemon had wanted, Emperor Ragin re-created the Xana empire under a different name, albeit a much gentler and well-ordered version.”
“He did it to avoid the trap of the warring Tiro states again, and because he thought he could continue those aspects of Mapidéré’s grand task that benefited the people while avoiding aspects that were bad,” said Dandelion, sounding a bit defensive.
“Of course,” said Widi. “I’m not saying Emperor Ragin was wrong. I’m just pointing out that the House of Dandelion couldn’t condemn the whole of the legacy of Mapidéré, and that left an opening for Tiphan.”
“How can so many people celebrate a parade that hearkens back to a tyrant?”
“There’s always a tendency for those who didn’t personally experience suffering to romanticize aspects of the past that seem better than the present,” said Widi. “Under Mapidéré, Dara was united and powerful. Indeed, Dara could send out an expedition to look for legendary immortals beyond the Wall of Storms. Compare that with today, when two of the Islands are under barbarous Lyucu occupation, when the empress maintains the peace by paying tribute—”
“When veterans from the wars, especially the war against the Lyucu, are forgotten,” said Mota, standing nearby.
Kinri remained studiously silent through this exchange. Mapidéré and the horrors he had unleashed upon the Lyucu in the form of Admiral Krita were at the very core of Pékyu Tenryo’s heroic legends.
Widi nodded. “Yes. The empress regent seems to disdain all military institutions and martial strength. After comparing the strength displayed by Mapidéré then and the weakness shown by the empress now, it’s easy for people to become nostalgic for him and everything else associated with him, more so if you have no memory of his reign or only vague recollections from childhood. Tiphan is clever to evoke the time of Mapidéré as a proxy for the people’s yearning for a strong Dara.”
As if in response to this, a new float appeared after the throne-pagoda of Tiphan Huto. On a large wheeled platform with papier-mâché fencing, rows of men knelt with their arms bound behind them, stand-ins for war captives. They were dressed in furs and skins, and around them were heaps of axes, spears, and clubs made of bone, apparently the spoils of war.
More loud cheering from the crowd, with cries of “Great Dara!” “Long Live the Anojiti!” “Save Dasu and Rui!”
Kinri looked away, unable to gaze upon this caricature of his own people’s defeat. His hands balled into fists at his sides. Tenryo fought to free the Lyucu from a tyrant, and he came to Dara to free you from more tyranny! he wanted to shout. But the sentiment felt hollow, and he dared not make a sound. Rage, hatred, doubt, and the pain of being misunderstood warred within his breast.
But then he snapped his eyes back to the “prisoner wagon.” Something about those weapons…
“They’re real!” he blurted.
Dandelion turned to him. “What?”
Kinri took a moment to compose himself. “The bone clubs and axes… they look genuine. I’ve seen many bone weapons in… Unredeemed Dara, and I know that each has a distinct design based on the clan and tribe of the owner. Those bone weapons aren’t props; they’re real.”
“They may still be props,” said Widi, “just well-made props.”
“Why would Tiphan spend the resources to make authentic-looking Lyucu weapons?” asked Dandelion. “No one—except Thasé-teki here—would even know the difference. Tiphan doesn’t strike me as someone too concerned with accuracy.”
“That’s true… and thus out of character,” Widi mused. “Maybe it’s not him… rather, he hired as his designer a refugee from Unredeemed Dara who is familiar with Lyucu weaponry.” But he didn’t look too convinced by his own explanation.
“We need to look into this,” insisted Dandelion. Then, frowning, she returned to the larger theme of the parade. “History is always a story retold through the present. And now Tiphan has told a story that the people of Ginpen, especially the young, crave—”
The rest of what she had to say was drowned out in an eruption of deafening cheers as a fleet of sleek airships decked out for war appeared overhead.
In reality, these airships were used for transporting quick-spoiling freight for the Tiphan clan’s commercial empire, and had only been painted to resemble military ships. Still, they evoked legends and memories of a time when Dara had flown massive airships, powered by pure lift gas that came out of pristine Lake Dako, striking fear into all who dared to attack her; instead of today, when airships were modest vessels suitable only for transporting time-critical cargo and ferrying wealthy passengers, powered by weak, flammable fermented manure gas, posing a danger to anyone who wanted to fly.
Indeed, ever since the core islands had lost access to the sole source of lift gas in Rui, old Imperial airships were grounded or had to be retrofitted and weakened to use the new manure gas. Empress Jia apparently considered military airships a potential provocation to the Lyucu; therefore, she and the Inner Council refused to allocate funding for the construction of new airships and starved the air force of the funds needed to maintain old airships. It was rumored that Than Carucono had been forced to reduce Imperial air force drills to an absolute minimum, and aviators had to practice maneuvers in models on the ground, with no chance to take to the air.
Everyone from the Splendid Urn looked up at the painted mock warships. It couldn’t have been cheap to repaint and redecorate so many freight vessels in such a short time, or to pull them away from their commercial routes for this show. Tiphan Huto had clearly been given free rein by the elders of the Huto clan to do whatever it took to win.
The painted freight airships didn’t fly as high, as far, or as fast as the old military airships, and they looked far more clumsy due to all the safety features needed for civilian use. Still, to people who hadn’t seen the glory of Imperial airships in ages, the sight of these imitations elicited sighs of wonder and admiration. Many in the crowd wiped their eyes and swallowed the lumps in their throats. A few whispered words of complaint against the timid empress and yearned for bold Emperor Ragin and fearless Marshal Gin Mazoti.
“Well, that kind of ruins a key part of our show,” said Rati Yera.
“Yes,” said Widi Tucru. “We knew they would go for ostentation, but tapping into the people’s emotions… I have to admit that’s smart.”
“Every story has a counter-story,” said Dandelion. “We just have to tweak our story to be better.”
Kinri looked at her, and the two locked eyes as an unspoken understanding passed between them.
He took a deep breath. Dandelion calmed him. Whatever his feelings about Tiphan Huto and the crowd that cheered on the defeat of the Lyucu, Dandelion’s smile was always a ray of sunshine.
“Kinri and I will rewrite the script,” said Dandelion, and at this Kinri was startled. “Rati, how much time do you need to modify the machines to suit?”
* * *
Because putting on a spectacle for the public required many disruptions to city traffic, Magistrate Zuda had asked that the two competitors produce their shows on different days lest Ginpen come to a complete standstill.
Since the Treasure Chest had chosen to go first, this gave the Splendid Urn an extra week to prepare.
On the day of the Splendid Urn’s presentation, excited crowds once again streamed into Temple Square. Some speculated that fifty folk opera troupes had been hired to put on a grand pageant; some thought there would be a fireworks show the likes of which had never been seen in all the Islands; some thought Widow Wasu would finally use her connections with the Imperial family to bring in a member of the House of Dandelion for a surprise appearance. Rumors piled on rumors, and expectations were at the highest…
… until they saw what the Splendid Urn had actually built.
There was a tent in Temple Square, about the size of a lecture hall in one of Ginpen’s academies and shaped like a cylinder with a cone top. Around the tent was a wide circular fence of bamboo and silk that concealed the base and the entrance from view, keeping the crowd at a distance.
The tent was large, to be sure, but it was hard to imagine what kind of wonder could be shown inside an enclosed space that could hold no more than one of Ginpen’s old theaters. It was clear that there would be no fireworks, no airships, no parade of thousands. Amidst scattered groans of disappointment, memories of the grand pageant put on by the Treasure Chest a week ago seemed even more vivid, and many wondered aloud if the Splendid Urn had given up and was about to concede.
“The entertainment provided by the Splendid Urn today requires a stout heart and a steady mind,” announced Lolo. “Grand Mistress Wasu expresses her regret that, for your own safety, you must be at least this tall to view the show.” She held up a stick with a red line marked three-quarters of the way up.
“Wait,” said one of the judges, a famous scholar of Morality. “That would exclude most children…. Don’t tell me that Widow Wasu has put on a show that relies on titillation and vulgarity! That would be contrary to the admonition of the One True Sage—”
“I promise that this isn’t about appealing to prurient interests,” said Widow Wasu. “Due to the time constraints, we couldn’t get it to work for wheeled chair users or those who are not tall enough. But we’ll definitely make the attraction more accessible so that it can be experienced by everyone who wants to in the near future.”
Widow Wasu’s confident tone and mysterious words got the crowd excited again.
Séca announced that the show could accommodate fifty visitors at a time. The judges and members of the public would line up outside the screen fence and be admitted in waves.
* * *
Pimié couldn’t suppress the excitement as he finally stepped through the gate in the long fence—he was just tall enough to reach the red mark on the stick (helped by the fact that Lolo was too distracted to notice he was on tiptoes).
Inside, he saw a team of workers with carpentry tools, buckets of paint, silkmotic generators, and other implements. It looked like they had finished building whatever was inside the tent at the last minute and were kept around for repairs.
Nervously, he peeked in at the dark opening of the tent, hesitating. Dandelion, noticing his trepidation, came over.
“Scared?” she teased.
“No,” he said, swallowing uneasily. Earlier visitors had emerged from the tent with dazed expressions, and when pressed for details by those waiting outside, they shook their heads and told them that they just had to wait and see for themselves.
“Sometimes it’s fun to be scared,” said Dandelion.
Along with the other visitors in his cohort, Pimié was guided into the tent, where they were directed to climb up a very long ladder. It was so dark inside that he could barely see anything. By the time his eyes had adjusted, he realized that the spacious interior of the tent was filled with a bamboo lattice, and partitioned into large compartments with hanging silk curtains. There was a long rail constructed from wooden beams that wound its way through the lattice, rising and falling like the body of a serpent. The rail reminded him of the kind of tracks used in mines to bring carts in and out without having to grade roads.
At the very top of the ladder, Pimié found himself and the others standing on a platform with railings. They were very high from the ground, up near the ceiling of the tent. Before them was a cart with rows of seats riding atop the long rail.
