The Art of Legend, page 48
Some silly people even fell to their knees as Taishi passed, which made her uncomfortable. It was one thing to disguise herself as a dowager nun. It was entirely another to falsely claim the honor and trappings of one. Taishi was so preoccupied that she didn’t notice when she reached an intersection and smacked into another monk who had just turned the corner, falling over. She cursed her weakened body and looked up to see a monk wearing senior initiate robes.
The young man blinked in horror when he recognized her garb. He pressed his palms together, bowed his head, and at once dropped to his knees. “Forgive me, dowager. Please allow me to serve penance!”
“Just help me up, oaf,” she muttered.
The young man blinked, grabbed her forearm, and helped Taishi to her feet. Her rump ached, but not as much as her pride. “May I aid you further, dowager? Can I escort you to your destination? I can serve as your page and mule, as penance, for the next three days.”
The man was too earnest. Taishi waved him off. She dusted off her shoulder and chest. “Just be careful next time. Off you go.”
He slapped his palms together and bowed.
Taishi sucked in a breath and considered. “Excuse me, initiate.”
The young man turned and tried to do the whole bowing and dropping to the ground ritual. “My name is Pengzo, dowager.”
“Stop bowing so much.”
He stopped mid-bow. “Yes, dowager. How may I serve?”
Taishi leaned in as if she were about to sell state secrets. “Do you know where I can get some wine?”
The initiate looked scandalized, and then his expression became worried, as if he were wondering if this was a test he was about to fail.
Taishi pointed at her chest. “I am a Black Orchid battlenun. We like to…” She made the motion of tipping a cup to her lips. “I just came here from Jiayi after months of battle, so spit it out. I know you know.”
He gulped. “The Nine Regrets. I can lead you to it.”
The two kept a low profile as Pengzo led Taishi off the main street, into one of the many zigzag alleys that ran across the settlement. Hengyen had few main roads and far too many side streets, which made getting around confusing and cumbersome. Their path dipped beneath a low bridge. Taishi would have missed it on her own.
The two continued to a door at the underbelly of the bridge. He knocked on the rusted iron door. The eye slot slid open. “Who’s that?”
She stood taller and turned so he could see her robes. “I just want a drink.”
The door swung open.
Taishi turned to the initiate. “Thank you, young Pengzo. I trust you will honor my discretion?”
He nearly fell to his knees. “I would never dream to betray the Tiandi so, dowager.”
Taishi watched him scamper to his feet and flee, but she turned her attention to more pressing matters. The interior of the tea shop known as the Nine Regrets matched its title. Taishi had entered a small bare room with low ceilings partitioned by white paper walls. Small lanterns hung from the ceilings above, bathing the tight space with a warm glow and creating silhouettes through the translucent paper dividers. The place was eerie, the shadows barely moving.
A thin woman, body covered from neck to ankle in heavy robes, wearing a face piece that looked like a curtain of small white pearls, walked past carrying a tray with one gourd and one cup. She stopped at the table next to Taishi and sank to her knees, presenting the drink as if this were part of a sacred ritual.
The damn place felt like a murderers’ confessional. The monks and nuns present—their numbers unsurprisingly skewed toward the latter—looked miserable, hunched over their tables, exuding guilt. No one met her gaze as she walked past. Taishi couldn’t stop staring at the shame porn until one of the masked servants approached and bowed.
“You honor us with your presence, holy lady. Please, this way.”
Taishi nodded, refusing to hang her head. She was led to one of the empty tables. The moment she sat down, two more servant girls came. Both sank to their knees and hung their heads as one held a menu toward her. Taishi looked it over.
“Chilled rice wine,” she said before handing it back.
There was the whole ritual again of getting back to their feet, and then the two disappeared, leaving Taishi to study the silhouettes on the other side of the paper wall as well as the monk sitting across the aisle from her. It was all a bit much. These clergy were here to drink alcohol, not the blood of virgins.
The two servers returned a moment later, one carrying a drinking vase and the other a cup. They repeated their ritual before pouring her a drink and then departed, finally leaving her alone.
Taishi held the cup between her forefinger and thumb. For some reason, she felt the need to dredge up her past. “To Yinshi and Munnam, mam and ba, Sanso and Jian, my two boys, and Zofi, because why not. To my hearts and hated, my lovers and enemies, I drink to you this life.” She drained her cup in one gulp.
A different server from the three she had met so far appeared as if by magical summoning and refreshed her drink. “You made a mess of things, old woman,” she muttered to herself, tossing that back as well. “Why didn’t you throw Jian on the first cart out of Vauzan the morning of the invasion?”
Taishi had made more than her share of mistakes, and now she was running them all through her mind. She held up the next drink. “I’ll figure a way to get you out, Jian.” She threw that back too.
Still another server appeared. Taishi shooed her away before she could fall to her knees. There was too much bowing in the world. “I still have one good arm. I can pour my own drink.”
Taishi drained three shots before the liquor made its way to her head. She closed her eyes and again felt the need to speak her thoughts, as if expunging them from her body. “You made a mess of things, you old hag. So many decades, and you still haven’t learned to hold your tongue. Now you’ve acted like a fool to the only friends you have left in the world. Face it, Taishi, you need them.”
She held the drink up and wondered what she should toast to next. “I spoke rashly, Bhasani. I will make amends tonight.”
The past few months had been overwhelming, from the invasion of Vauzan to Jian revealing himself to the world to his near-death injury and now to losing him. It was as if she had squeezed a hundred terrible lifetimes into one compacted, terrible year. All her worries and woes spilled from her mouth and, surprisingly, she felt better, like a drunk purging last night’s revelry. It felt good to finally get it all out. She was so exhausted with life. Some part of her ached for the peace of a cold slab. She didn’t want to die, but she wouldn’t have minded it either. She was just so tired.
Taishi wallowed a while longer, sipping her drink at a more measured pace. She studied the slightly yellow liquid in her cup, swirled and sniffed it, feeling it bite the back of her throat. She looked up, now understanding why this establishment was called the Nine Regrets. Taishi had gotten it wrong all along. These monks weren’t ashamed to have snuck in here to drink. They were here to confront their remorse.
She had not expected to have to deal with her emotions. She had just wanted to numb her pain, and this had always been the easiest way. Now, however, the alcohol was affecting her differently, and it was not fun. Still another masked server arrived with a new drinking vase. Taishi plucked it from the tray before the server—an older boy this time—could fall to his knees.
Taishi held her cup and was digging deep in her wallow when there was a commotion at the door. She leaned to the side from where she sat to see a figure storm inside. The Nine Regrets was dimly lit, and her vision wasn’t what it used to be, but that looked like…
Taishi squinted. “Bhasani? How did you find me?”
The drowned fist’s eyes scoured the room. Her gaze locked on Taishi, and she stomped over, her face twisted with fury.
Taishi rose to her feet. “Listen, about earlier,” she said, once Bhasani was within arm’s reach. “I want to say I’m sorry for being a bitch. That was a shit thing I said—”
Bhasani reached out and gripped her fingers around Taishi’s neck. “How dare you!”
Taishi struggled with the drowned fist’s firm grasp. What was going on? Surely her insult hadn’t escalated to a duel, had it? “Bhasani, stop. You’re choking…”
Still holding on to Taishi’s neck, Bhasani backhanded her with a slap that spun her body. The left side of Taishi’s face stung as she reeled backward. She tasted blood and her vision swam. She was already precariously close to losing consciousness. A few more hits would finish her.
Bhasani raised her arm to strike her again. Taishi managed to twist out of the drowned fist’s iron grip to block the attack. She threw a low and then a high kick, her foot shattering and ripping the thin paper walls. The two exchanged several more attacks. Taishi’s bones rattled with each impact, but she managed to stand her ground. At one point, both women threw punches that met halfway between them. The collision sent them both stumbling. Taishi gasped several deep breaths. Everything hurt, but this was the most fun she’d had in months. In fact, she was doing well, all things considered.
Taishi stopped. That was impossible. She was doing too well. That meant Bhasani wasn’t actually trying. She was putting on a show, but for whom? She rubbed her jaw. “Why did you hit me so hard?”
The drowned fist’s voice boomed inside her head, between her ears. “I had to disrupt your mind patterns.”
“Why?”
Bhasani looked around. “Have you felt the sudden urge to confess everything?”
“What a strange thing to say. Of course…” Taishi’s breath caught. “Oops.”
Bhasani homed in on one of the paper dividers, which still hid a silhouette. The other monks had already fled when she had started the ruckus. The drowned fist punched through one of the paper squares and pulled a man through. He was dressed in strange Tiandi garb with a high collar and darkened eyepieces bound around his eyes.
“A truthsniffer,” Taishi hissed. That was the lunar court’s name for the Tiandi religion’s secret police. They were a small sect that held authority over every sect and reported only to the high seats. It was said that they could smell the truth. Everyone hated them, especially within the lunar court.
Bhasani punched the man in the gut, doubling him over. She looked up at the ceiling. “Forgive me, my love.” A quick chop to the back of his neck put him down for good. “I don’t know what he was able to glean from you.”
Taishi understood. She had been careless and allowed herself to fall into a sniffer trap. “Come on, we’ll get out through the back. How did you find me?”
Bhasani led her behind the counter and then into the rear of the building. “I followed you. Was going to give your bony ass a good beating for insulting my parenting. I saw your encounter with that young monk. It was such an obvious trap, I couldn’t believe you fell for it.”
“I just wanted a drink,” Taishi mumbled. “How did they find us?”
“Maybe when you waved at the guard this morning, I don’t know.” They burst out into a needle-thin alley with those zigzagging turns. “But probably because they’ve had a tail on you since you barged into the hospital, which means they’ve identified everyone on the roof.” They reached the end of the alley, which opened back up to one of the main streets. “Come on, head toward the edge of town. The men are returning to the inn. We’re assuming everything’s compromised. The Tiandi will be on the lookout for us. They’ll have our faces on bulletins all over the settlement tomorrow. It’ll be difficult to escape Hengyen, let alone break into Skyfall Temple.”
Taishi pulled up short. “I’m not leaving Jian.”
Bhasani stopped and faced Taishi. “I wouldn’t have abandoned my baby either. You were right to point that out. More often than not, the smart and easy thing to do isn’t necessarily right. I promise, on my honor, we will not leave Hengyen without Jian.”
Taishi hadn’t been ready for that response. She almost had to blink back tears. Almost. She reached out to embrace her old friend, her old enemy. “Thank you, Bhasani.”
“The men aren’t wrong either,” added the drowned fist. “We can’t attack Skyfall Temple to get him out, especially now that they will be on the lookout for us. Fortunately, I have an idea.”
“Care to elaborate?”
Bhasani offered her best knowing smirk. “Our heirs are good for other things than doing our laundry.”
Taishi was taken aback. “You trust yours to do laundry?”
Chapter Forty-Eight
War Prelude
Qisami stood at the observation nest of the Nezra Rides and watched as the two fleets, the Exiles Rebellion and the Liqusa clan capital city, lined up and charged each other. She did not know what to expect, so when the attack began before dawn, she found a prime seat at the bow of the Nezra Rides and watched with morbid fascination as two Katuia clans in their big moving cities lined up to slaughter each other. The Nezra Rides happened to be in the middle of the action, being the city at the heart of the Exiles faction.
The other city pods were arrayed in loose formations that stretched out to both sides, with the Nezra Rides at the center a few rows back. The massive city pods, while impressive and threatening, moved at the speed of a comfortable jog. So watching the front lines of giant machines crawling toward each other in the tall weeds of the Grass Sea was anticlimactic. It took almost the entire morning before the vanguard of each fleet reached artillery range.
Then the first arc of the flaming artillery took flight and hell was unleashed.
The jungle foliage they rolled through was tall and dense. The larger pods rose above the grass, but many of the smaller lancer pods were hidden. The only way to track them was to detect the wake of the parted grass as they slithered through the giant weeds.
In hindsight, Qisami would have recommended against anyone taking part in one of these pitched battles. She had had her share of wild fights and violence, but what unfolded on this battlefield was sheer chaos. Thousands of people riding giant metal monsters lobbing death at each other was the craziest thing she had ever seen, which was saying something.
Red and gray streaks began to cut through the open sky as the land around them exploded. The ground shuddered as a concussive burst of flaming pitch just missed the Nezra Rides, exploding on the ground and sending plumes of smoke and sprays of water everywhere. Some parts of the Grass Sea caught fire, spreading to the land around it.
Qisami stared, wide-eyed, sometimes squealing with exhilaration and fascination as the foremost pods traded projectiles and arrows as they advanced. Once they were close, the two pods would circle each other, closing in until they finally locked horns. Then they unleashed their warriors. That was when the real dying began.
Qisami couldn’t look away. As the city heart of the fleet, this pod was too important to throw into the first few waves. Nezra Rides had stayed nearly at the edge of the enemy’s artillery range as the rest of the fleet’s pods rolled past.
Nearly, however, still wasn’t good enough.
An explosion and a withering wave of heat hit her from behind, causing her to stumble forward. She caught the railing before the force sent her toppling over the side. Qisami dropped to a knee as a section of Nezra Rides erupted in flames. She looked through a charred hole on the main deck to the gear level below. Something down there had caught fire, sending a gray column of smoke drifting out. Dozens of clan members rushed to put out the growing fire. She noted how most of the volunteers were not crew or warriors. They were the ones who would otherwise hide below deck during battles: the young and the old, the laborers and the peaceful folks. Everyone took part in some way.
Daewon stood at the control platform, screaming at the top of his lungs. She had the impression that he was the one steering the ship. Several crew and tinkers worked their stations in a frenzy of activity. Malinde, on the other hand, was at the foremost building near the front, a few feet away from Qisami. She could hear the woman’s voice as she directed artillery.
“Find out who just spat on my house!” she yelled.
A lookout on the port side pointed toward a giant pod in the distance that looked like it was wearing a rib cage for a hat. A woman next to Malinde who Qisami recognized as the clan’s calculator yelled out new angles, and then the catapult crews pushed the spokes of a circular platform, turning a catapult to their desired angle. Malinde gave the order and sent a hail of head-sized rocks flying through the air, with about half hitting their marks.
The battle continued for several hours. The action wasn’t fast, but it was frantic. At one point, Qisami had to step away from the railing to catch her breath, but for what reason she wasn’t sure. Just watching the battle made her tired, and she hadn’t even gotten to her part in it yet. The battlefield was vast and the pods far apart. Every time the Nezra Rides focused on a Liqusa pod, it would take five minutes for them to change direction to line up. Then it would take five more minutes for the artillery to turn their platforms, and then five more minutes to fire. And most of the shots would miss! It was an inefficient way to kill people.
Eventually, the pods waded deeper into battle, intermingling as they fought on all sides. If the Nezra Rides was approaching on its tracks, focused on one target, there were certainly at least two more enemies taking potshots at it from the sides. After an hour of watching these exchanges, Qisami decided that she was bored and went to the lower gear level. She found a private nook and was soon curled up like an alley cat taking a nap. That was one of her special abilities; she could sleep anywhere, through just about any situation. It was what made her stay at the Happy Glow so bearable.
It was midday, at least six hours into the fighting, when Marhi and Wani found her. Qisami woke and waved at them the moment the girls got within ten paces. “You two look so fancy and pretty. Do you have a special place to go?”
