The Anzu's Egg 1

by J F Mehentee

  His pride in her stopped me from telling him Biyu and I had started dating. I thought he might want his daughter to marry another graduate. The day he’d tattooed the last ward onto my forearms, elevating me from apprentice to healer, he rid me of that misapprehension.

  ‘I know no better man than you to marry my daughter,’ he’d said. ‘I know you love her, and I know you will take care of her.’

  ‘Biyu!’

  The voice came from the third-floor balcony and echoed around the atrium. A woman waved down at us.

  ‘Keisha,’ Biyu called back, before dashing to the staircase next to the lift. The soles of her sandals clacked against the purple-brown marble tiles.

  Other heads appeared over the balcony’s edge. Several of them bobbed towards the stairs.

  I didn’t move, unsure if I should follow or give Biyu some room for the reunion. So, I gazed up at the building’s interior. Ironwood pillars supported the five whitewashed levels, each one opening out onto a balcony. Teak doors and windows lined the first floor. Plants, mostly vines, hung from the edge of the balconies, as if I were standing in a giant hothouse. The practice, by comparison, had to be claustrophobic.

  I’d come here for both of Biyu’s graduations: her bachelors and her masters. A sigh threatened to escape my throat. If not for my prayer, I’d have come back a third time to watch her receive her doctorate.

  Biyu mounted the steps. Not wanting to appear sullen and let the place get to me anymore than it already had, I followed her.

  Halfway up the flight of stairs, Biyu waited, her open hand held out for me. I took it and thanked her.

  She tilted her head.

  ‘What for, Jaybird?’

  I didn’t want to tell her that, thanks to her, I felt less of an outsider now than when I’d entered.

  ‘For letting me come with you,’ I said, instead.

  She shook her head, her mouth ajar.

  ‘You weirdo.’ The third eyelid of her right eye scooted across and back—Biyu’s dragon version of a wink.

  I’ve never got used to seeing that.

  Sofas and armchairs cluttered the balcony, most of them occupied. People leaned over coffee tables and studied the books and documents covering them with such intensity, the noise the small crowd made as they greeted and hugged Biyu didn’t trouble them. Those who’d visited the practice waved or shook my hand. Most asked Biyu what she was doing here. Someone asked if she was returning to work.

  ‘I’m here to see Supervisor Pak.’

  The group fell silent. Brows furrowed and a few eyebrows rose.

  ‘I don’t think he’s in,’ someone said.

  ‘He was meant to give a lecture this morning,’ said another. ‘It’s not like him to miss one of those.’

  A woman I recognised from several visits to the practice—Safia I think her name was—said, ‘I heard the door to his office close a quarter of an hour ago. Maybe he’s back now.’

  My shoulders sagged when no one suggested it might be a bad idea to interrupt him.

  ‘Thanks,’ Biyu said. ‘I’ll go up. We’re on a tight schedule.’

  ‘Ooh,’ Safia said, her eyes wide. ‘Got a lead on a juicy relic?’

  Biyu canted her head from side to side.

  ‘That would be telling,’ she said, then took my hand. ‘I’ll see if he’s in.’ She waved. ‘See you later.’

  We climbed to the next floor. Even though Biyu held my hand, the walls closed in on me.

  While searching for a counter spell, you’ve had to learn a lot of relicology, I reminded myself. You’ve no reason to be intimidated by Pak.

  It didn’t work, because when Biyu reached the corner at the top of the steps, I stopped.

  ‘Are you sure about this?’ I said. ‘You haven’t seen each other in a while.’

  Biyu’s eyes narrowed.

  I’m fed up with avoiding him, she said. Asking for his help is an olive branch. She shrugged. Someone has to make the first move. She loped to the door nearest to her.

  You idiot, I told myself, and headed after her.

  Something bumped against my shoulder. Qi brightened my tattoos. Whatever it was, I’d drawn energy from it. With nothing in front of me, I spun round. A man dressed in a beige hooded raincoat headed for the lift. He clutched a pink folder to his chest. Three things struck me as unusual about him. His trousers, shirt, shoes and what I took for a jacket were the same shade of beige as his raincoat. When he’d looked back, his hood had fallen away, revealing a buzz cut. His eyes, the epicanthic folds, were wrong.

  ‘Sanjay!’

  I wrenched my attention from the strange-looking man as he pounded the lift’s call button with the heel of his hand.

  I ran to Pak’s office.

  Biyu stood in the middle of a room, its walls hidden by floor-to-ceiling shelving. The chair behind the supervisor’s desk was empty. Books filled the shelves on the back wall and on my right. The shelves on my left had housed archive boxes. Half of those boxes lay on their sides, their contents—mainly folders and most of them pink—strewn across the floor.

  5

  ‘That man,’ I said as much to myself as Biyu, ‘he was carrying a pink folder.’

  I dashed out of the office before Biyu could question me.

  Thanks to my quickening heart rate, qi lit up my tattoos, amplifying my energy, making me faster, stronger and heightening my senses.

  Still jabbing the lift’s call button, the man noticed my approach. He reached into his raincoat.

  I zigzagged towards him, Biyu’s steps on the concrete floor behind me reaching my ears.

  A shot went wide. I swung round.

  Biyu’s raincoat, shirt and trousers crumpled to the ground. The space surrounding her clothes shimmered and darkened as the light Biyu drew into her fuelled her transformation.

  A winding shape, no longer than three inches, shot out from her shirt’s collar. The dragon’s size increased exponentially.

  ‘He’s got a gun,’ I shouted.

  Mr Beige fired a second round.

  I called out her name when a bullet nicked a scale. Biyu’s roar shook dust from the building’s exposed rafters. Her sinuous body floated as she drew air into her lungs and readied to rain dragonfire.

  Not in here, I warned. Not enough space. Wait until he’s outside. I’ll chase him out the building.

  As if on cue, the lift door dinged open.

  I turned. Someone inside the lift screamed. Mr Beige raised his pistol and indicated with its barrel for the occupant to get out.

  ‘Bugger,’ I said, not moving, not wanting to spook him. Please don’t take a hostage.

  A woman, her back to me, edged out of the lift. She raised her arms and books fell to the floor with several slaps.

  Mr Beige stepped past her, his pistol now aimed at me. I ducked at the same time he disappeared into the lift.

  I decided against taking the stairs.

  ‘It isn’t enough to dare.’ I said, reciting one of my father-in-law’s many sayings. ‘There must be resolve,’ I added as I sprinted for the balcony. My leap drove me a foot over its edge. I fought the urge to close my eyes and focussed on thickening the muscles around my legs, hips and spine. Instinct softened my bones.

  Bright golden light erupted from my hands and the soles of my feet, rupturing my shoes. I landed to the sound of splintering. The burst of energy had broken my fall and had shattered the marble floor tiles.

  Yells and screams filled the atrium as Biyu corkscrewed down. She shrank to her humanoid size, the air shimmering and darkening as her limbs lengthened and her trunk and tail shortened. She exited the building’s entrance, and I turned to face the lift.

  My muscle density hadn’t yet returned to normal, which made moving faster than a shuffle impossible. Just as I began to move more freely, the lift dinged. I crouched before the doors opened, ready to spring and cover the twelve feet between us.

  The empty steel interior made me hesitate. My sharpened hearing alerted me to th
e whine of a lightening pistol.

  It took a tenth of a second to generate the charge required to vaporise the water in a bullet’s shell and send its lead slug spinning my way.

  I dived to my left.

  The bullet skimmed the right shoulder of my raincoat.

  My shoes were ruined and now my raincoat.

  I charged into the lift and felt the back wall buckle under my assault. I slid down the wall and landed on my arse. The ear I hadn’t mashed against the steel wall heard footsteps dashing for the entrance.

  ‘Chameleon cloth,’ I said. ‘The bugger’s wearing chameleon cloth.’

  I remembered my tattoos glowing as I bumped against Mr Beige upstairs. My tattoos had drawn energy from the magic powering the chameleon cloth and glitched it. The realisation gave me an idea.

  I curled my right hand into a tight ball and used my other hand to pull myself up. Energy gathered round my fist, causing it to glow. Outside the lift, I took aim and hurled the ball of energy at the building’s double doors.

  The impact blew the doors open and tore one off its hinges.

  An unbidden voiced whispered, They’ll bill you for the cracked floor, the dented lift and that door.

  The thought of our already limited savings dwindling almost tripped me as I raced to the entrance. Either my energy ball had missed Mr Beige, or he’d already left the building before my energy ball had struck the doors.

  Outside, I smirked when raindrops pattered onto my raincoat. Water and chameleon cloth weren’t a good mix. Mr Beige would reappear farther up the road and on his way to the University’s exit.

  Above me, Biyu, much bigger now, her scales a vibrant green and her underside the colour of clarified butter, coiled through the air. I sent out a mental call to her.

  Can you see him?

  Her impressive size cast a shadow over the lawns and trees between the buildings.

  The sight of Biyu flying was commonplace in our district. I wasn’t sure how those on the campus would react, however. A scared student calling the emergency services wouldn’t be a bad thing. If Biyu couldn’t, maybe the police might catch Mr Beige.

  I see him, called Biyu. I’ll head him off.

  With no obvious shortcut, I followed the road the taxi had taken.

  Five steps later, the space ahead of me quivered. Two silhouettes appeared and then resolved into figures; hoods hid their faces. As one, they reached into their raincoats

  Click. Click.

  They’d flicked the safety off their matt-grey lightening pistols and had activated them. In the second before the weapons generated sufficient charge to fire bullets, I surged upwards.

  And misjudged the jump.

  High enough to avoid being in the line of fire, I was also too high to reach the pair with my feet.

  I landed in a crouch behind them. With my back facing them, I’d make an easy target as soon as they turned. Unaware of the distance separating us, I spun and barrelled into them. I collided with what I took for the backs of their legs. One of them groaned under my weight as I rolled forward and into a crouch again.

  In front of me sprawled a man and a woman. The woman was the first to regain her feet. She did it with one hand while she pointed her lightening pistol at me with the other.

  She fired, and I screamed.

  Instinct drove my reaction. I didn’t know if the energy blast would produce a shield strong enough and fast enough to stop a bullet. And like my jump, I overdid it. I used up so much qi I passed out.

  Rain spattered against my cheek. Cold concrete chilled my hands as I pushed myself up. A lightening pistol lay an arm’s length from me. My joints felt like jelly as I stumbled forward for it. With the weapon in my firm grip, I looked up. I saw a prone figure, his limbs splayed. Over on my left, ten feet away, lay the other. I locked my knees, the pistol held out before me. My breaths made my chest quiver as I checked on the man before me. He wore a three-piece suit similar to Mr Beige’s, but his was a monotone lead grey. His eyes were closed, but his chest rose and fell. From the zig zag of his right leg, he looked to have broken it in two places.

  The woman hadn’t fared so well. She lay face down and didn’t move. I couldn’t find a pulse.

  Biyu’s father, Master Lee, had taught me Qishu, a martial art every healer learned. It helped familiarise me with the flow of qi through my body and how adjusting the flow could affect my health and vitality. By knowing how to control my body’s qi, I could apply this understanding to controlling a patient’s.

  My Qishu training had taken over, guided my instincts. And I’d killed a woman.

  The man choking dragged my attention from her. Her partner was conscious. I hurried over to him, a dizziness threatening to make me vomit.

  A chain I hadn’t noticed before hung from his neck. He held the remains of a vial in his hand, the intact part of it secured to the chain he wore. Small pieces of broken glass glinted on his lower lip. Veins protruded from his forehead and bulged along his temples. The man wheezed and opened his eyes. Like Mr Beige, he had strange-looking epicanthic folds. His eyes strayed to the pistol I held, his pistol.

  ‘We never surrender,’ he spluttered, his accent thick.

  Blood-flecked foam coated the corners of his mouth. His eyes rolled back into their sockets. He exhaled his last breath.

  I’d treated patients with a terminal illness, and I’d helped to ease the pain of those ready to start their next incarnation. But I had never witnessed someone take their own life.

  Confused and lightheaded, I didn’t hear Biyu’s arrival. She had reverted to her humanoid form. I took off my raincoat to cover her nakedness. There was a small dark smudge on her forearm where Mr Beige’s bullet had grazed her.

  ‘I heard your scream,’ she said. ‘Are you all right?’

  She should have continued chasing Mr Beige, but I was glad she’d returned.

  ‘I killed her,’ I said, nodding in the woman’s direction. I pointed at the man in front of me and the shattered glass vial he clutched. ‘And he poisoned himself.’

  My mental shield fell, and Biyu leaned into me. I dropped the pistol and returned her embrace.

  We stood like that until Security arrived. Their stun wands hummed, and they ordered us to put our hands up.

  6

  The Shani, Zadrinesian Intelligence, detained Biyu and me at the University for two hours. They interviewed us individually first and then together to check if we corroborated each other’s statements. When they’d let us go, an intelligence officer who’d interviewed me—a short, stocky man with beady eyes and a receding hairline, caught up with us and offered me his card. Except for his name, Susilo Tarigan, and a telephone number beneath, the card was plain.

  ‘You’re both smart people,’ he said. ‘If you hadn’t already realised the three suspects were Leyakian agents, you’ll have figured it out from our questions. Their weapons and the chameleon cloth their clothes were cut from confirms what we already suspected: they’re using our own magic—Zadrinesian magic—against us. Trying to defend seventy thousand islands against invasion is impossible, which is why the government wants to keep alive the possibility of a treaty with the Leyakians. It can’t be seen to endorse or help the Resistance.’

  I wondered why he was telling us this, instead of sending us off with a warning to keep our mouths shut.

  ‘Supervisor Pak went missing two days ago,’ Tarigan continued. ‘From your statements, it’s obvious to me the Leyakians poisoned Resistance Fighter Rahmat, and they are out to stop anyone searching for anzu eggs. You’ll be doing Zadrinesia a great service if you find an egg and save Rahmat’s life. As a gesture of goodwill and our gratitude for not saying a word of this to anyone, the Shani will meet all costs for the damage to University property caused by Mr Chopra.’

  Biyu, who had been allowed to gather her clothes and dress, squinted at Tarigan.

  ‘A bribe isn’t necessary. We’re not rumourmongers, and we won’t incite panic.’

  Tarigan
smiled.

  ‘It’s not a bribe. It’s just a favour—my way of keeping the Shani at the forefront of your minds. With the Leyakians stealing our magic, we need your expertise right now. We’ll also need it in the future. If I’ve insulted you, I’ll withdraw the offer.’

  I cupped Biyu’s elbow. ‘Thank you, Mr Tarigan. That won’t be necessary,’ I said, and began to lead her towards the doors, one of which was being rehung. ‘I’m sure you’ll contact us if you require further help.’

  Tarigan performed a shallow bow.

  ‘If we find anything useful among the files in Pak’s office, I’ll send it your way. Good luck.’

  Out of earshot, Biyu twisted from my grip.

  ‘What the frit are you playing at, Chopra? You just took a backhander.’

  I pointed with my chin at the damaged doorway and the spiderweb of cracks I’d made in the marble floor tiles.

  ‘The elevator’s also a mess. Bee, we spend most of our savings on relic hunting. We don’t have the money to pay for any of this.’

  We exited the building. Just ahead of us, two triangular-shaped flags on sticks marked the areas of grass where the two Leyakians had fallen.

  ‘A fritting Leyakian stole one of Pak’s files, shot me and tried to murder you,’ Biyu said. ‘The University should be compensating us for Security letting Leyakian spies sneak past them.’

  ‘Oh,’ I said. My vision blurred as giddiness overcame me.

  I wasn’t sure if expending so much energy earlier or the sight of the flags had triggered my light-headedness.

  Biyu hooked an arm around me, her dragon strength supporting me as we shambled past the flags. She didn’t press the matter of the bribe any further.

  Inside the taxi and on the way home, I glanced at the stalls of Underpass Market. Regardless of the rain, people went about their business haggling, chatting and laughing—oblivious.

  I unshielded my mind by whispering the word of energy that locked and unlocked it. I didn’t want the taxi driver to hear what I’d say next.

  Leyakians could be lurking out there, and those people don’t know it. I shared a description of the Leyakian’s strange epicanthic folds with Biyu.