by Derwin Mak
She stepped closer to her man, their shoulders touching. Her childlike eyes were beautiful, almost as beautiful as Mei’s. She reminded him of the old Mei, who used to be as protective and loyal to him as this woman was to her gray man. If Mei had become the gatekeeper and Zian had been the one on the streets, would she have found a way to help him regardless of the risks?
“We have no choice,” said the girl. “Sorry about having to take your barge.”
A twinge of fear ran through Zian. The master could be cruel to those who failed him. “You haven’t heard about what’s happening to the building you deanchored, have you?” he asked.
“I hope it came crashing down,” said the gray man in a cold voice. He was cradling his stump again.
“It’s flickering. Wavering between here and there.”
“Where?” asked the girl.
“Where do you think? The gangs are already charging for entry.” That gave it legitimacy. The couple’s eyes widened with hope. “All you have to do is come back. I can get you past the gangsters.”
“Why would you help us?” asked the girl.
“Let’s just say you two remind me of some kids I used to know. My master will eventually forgive me if I fail to find the missing anchor. The city’s a big place to search, and I’m just one person.”
They looked at each other, unsure.
Zian looked directly at the monk. “It’s your best option.” He left her some dignity in front of her friend by not saying out loud what they both knew: It was her only option if she wanted to live. The River of Lost Dreams was not kind to those who were desperate.
She nodded. Zian waited for the sense of triumph. They believed him. He was about to stabilize the city, to restore order and maintain the balance. His master would be impressed.
But the only thing he felt was a heaviness in his chest.
They walked back toward the center of the city. Zian let the man shuffle out of earshot before whispering to the girl, “Why did you throw away everything for him?”
She kept walking without looking at him.
“He wouldn’t do the same for you,” he said with certainty.
“Of course he would.”
“You took care of each other on the streets, didn’t you?” he asked. “Before you were chosen to be a monk and he to be an anchor? You gave him everything.” He let himself steep in his thoughts. “And yet, if by some miracle, a master came to him and told him they would save you but not him, do you know what he would do?”
She feigned disinterest but clenched her jaw.
“He would tell the master that he’ll fetch you. He’d run to get you, you being the one person he loved. But along the way, his footfalls would get heavier. His stride slower. And before he reached you, he would turn around. He’d curse himself ten thousand times but he would still turn around.” The words ripped through Zian’s throat, leaving it raw and ragged.
“He’d go back to the master and tell him you refused his offer,” said Zian. “That you begged the master to take him instead. Your loyal friend would get on his knees and beg the master to save him instead of you.” His nails dug into his palms until the pain was all he felt. Until the pain almost blotted out the memories. “And without ever telling you of your salvation. Without even saying goodbye. He would leave you to rot on the streets. That is what he would do.”
She glared at him. “He’s not like that. Only the worst filth would do that.” She walked ahead to join her friend.
Zian watched her walk away from him. “You’re right,” he whispered to himself. “Only the worst filth would do that.”
When they returned to the city center, the tower was severely flickering. The tower’s tip was already gone with a dark shadow bleeding down from the missing chunk like a spreading bruise. A crowd pushed against the gangsters, who had multiplied tenfold. They were taking payment as fast as they could grab, their pockets stuffed and overflowing with shimmering wisps of precious dreams, some of which floated away in the wind, drifting into the sky. The ones who had sold their last hope to get past the gangsters wandered away as often as they wandered toward the building, no longer remembering they wanted to escape Shadow City.
Zian pushed his way through the crowd, making sure the monk and gray man followed. The gangsters left them alone when they saw he was a gatekeeper and she a monk.
Inside, the building rumbled and creaked like an old man breaking in the river. “This way,” he told the couple as he led them to the basement. He had only moments to put the anchor back into place. The gray man hesitated, fear and distrust coming over his face.
“Do you want to go to Sun City or not?” Zian asked.
The man looked to the girl who nodded. The man who used to be an anchor hesitantly led the way back to his prison. The girl shot Zian a suspicious look.
The building flickered, making Zian’s heart skip a beat, making him lose his breath, and confusing his thoughts until they finally neared the basement.
A low moan rose as if the basement itself was in pain. It was only then that Zian remembered that he had no glowworms and would have to scamper around in the dark. But a glow rose up from the basement through the stairwell. The light shifted the way it does with glowworms, only it would take thousands of them to make this much light.
Zian ran down the stairs. A burst of light flashed below him. A statue groaned as glowworms burst from his eyes, mouth, and nose. The statue glowed with a thousand worms, like rays of sunshine bursting out of him. Through his skin, the telltale illumination of glowworms slid along his face, arms, and feet.
The anchors were still alive. If the anchors had been enchanted stone like the rest of the building, the worms would have harmlessly crawled around looking for a host, then died when they didn’t find any. The anchors couldn’t move, couldn’t even cringe away. How aware were they as the worms crawled leisurely up their legs and chewed their way into their stomachs?
For every fortune, there is an equal and opposite fortune. Fifty anchors were dying in the most horrible way. And he had caused it. He had to keep it from cascading. He had to restore the balance.
If he didn’t equalize it, something freakishly happy would happen in Sun City. Maybe fifty people would come back to their families from the dead. Or maybe a bunch of old ladies would suddenly find themselves young again. He didn’t know the details, but it would be miraculous enough for the rest of the Sunshiners to want it to happen to them too. They would pressure the masters into causing more disasters in Shadow City of equal or greater proportion to what just happened. And soon, this level of horror would be the norm.
“Stay here,” he said to the couple. “You can leave the basement but stay in the building.”
They looked at him in confusion and distrust.
“You’re going to be Sunshiners,” said Zian. And this time, he meant it. He ran out of the building. He had to be careful that the final outcome would be balanced. If the end result was positive for Shadow City, Sunshiners would complain, and the masters would hunt the Shadow refugees and bring them back. The balance had to be just right.
Outside, the accountant was furiously scribbling in his ledger while keeping a keen eye on the transactions. “How many have gone into the building?” asked Zian.
“Forty-two. And these two have almost paid their price,” said the accountant, pointing his quill at two addicts who leaned their heads toward the gangsters to let them scoop another dream out of their heads.
Zian had seen two disappear, plus there were forty-three in the building including the old lady who lost her husband. So forty-five people were on their way to Sun City. “I’m taking them,” Zian said. “And this one.” He pointed to the nearest person. Forty-eight.
Those around him stirred and began reaching out to him, yelling, “Me! Pick me!” Zian scanned the crowd, trying to find Mei, but the people near him grabbed and pulled on his robe, yelling for his attention. He backed off behind the gangsters where the crowd wouldn’t dare pass
.
“Mei!” He yelled into the crowd but his voice was drowned out. “Mei!” Time was running out. The dying anchors couldn’t hold the building for much longer. He motioned for the chosen people to step forward, which they did with trepidation, despite their desperation.
“Let these people into the tower.” He handed the accountant his bag of dust. He wouldn’t need it where he was going. A half bag of dust could make the accountant a gang boss if the others didn’t kill him first. “No one else comes into the building.”
The accountant took the bag as if in a dream. But he had to tug at the bag before Zian could make himself let go.
“Mei!” He yelled one last time but wasn’t sure if his voice carried beyond the edge of the crowd. There were two more spots—one for him and one for her. Fifty anchors eaten alive. Fifty Shadowers freed in an impossible bid for freedom. Zian hoped it evened out. In Sun City, he wouldn’t need to worry about punishments, and she wouldn’t need to fear the streets. Where was she?
“Mei!” His voice drowned in the crowd. She was nowhere to be seen.
He finally pointed to a grimy child with hair so tangled it seemed like a single mass. He nodded, letting her know she had been chosen. She ran toward the tower with hungry eyes.
The chosen ones rushed into the building. A roar of despair rose behind them from the crowd as they entered the flickering doorway. Zian turned to follow them.
Then he saw her.
Mei was arguing with the gang woman, pleading, with her hand extended. Her palm sparkled in the flickering light. Clever Mei. Through unfathomable willpower, she had saved her dust. Held it in her bare palms, fought the siren’s call of her addiction. All so she could trade it with the gangsters for a once-in-a-lifetime passage to Sun City.
The gang woman shook her head, her neck jiggling, and pointed at Zian. The flickering was so fast now that it looked to Zian that Mei turned her head to look at him in a series of still images. What had taken her so long to get here? Had she taken a grain of dust and lost time? More likely, she had to defend her precious dust against others who might have sniffed its tantalizing scent.
It should have been her. Mei was always the smart one, the deserving one. But there was only room for one more if he was to keep the balance.
In his mind, Zian waved for her to come. He imagined her ecstatic face as she ran past the crowd toward him. They would run together, holding hands just like in the old days. When they reached the flickering door, she’d say, “I forgive you.” And he’d let her go inside while he stood outside. He’d let go of her hand just before the building flickered out for the last time.
Afterward, only a gaping crater would sit in its place, charred and twisted with broken roots. An open wound in the city’s foundation. The buzzing would fade along with the flickering light, leaving him eternally alone on the streets of Shadow City.
Zian came back to the moment and met Mei’s gaze across the dirt gap. She stood half hidden in the crowd, behind the fat woman blocking her way. An endless sea of suffering surrounded her—jagged elbows and scuffed knees, starved faces full of desperation, people waving their skeletal arms to catch Zian’s attention. Mei’s eyes shined an intense hope he hadn’t seen since she was a child. Her body tensed, fully loaded to run toward him as soon as he gave the word.
“I’m sorry,” he said. He didn’t know if she heard him.
“I just can’t ...” He turned away, but not before catching a glimpse of her hope crumpling.
His chest felt weighted, his fingers icy. He cursed himself ten thousand times for being the worst kind of filth as he walked toward the tower with his head hung low.
But somewhere before he reached the door, his footfalls got heavier, his stride slower.
His hand blindly waved Mei to come forward.
He never saw her face as she ran past him and into the building. But just before the tower flickered out, just before the chosen ones disappeared, Zian managed to lift his head to see Mei look back to meet his eyes.
The Water Weapon
Brenda W. Clough
THE arching glass roof of the Crystal Palace was wonderfully high. But it was not high enough for the Chinese dragon, which had to be housed outside the Great Exposition of 1851. Throngs of English and foreign visitors crowded close to gape, even daring to extend a hand to feel the steam-hot wood. Its sinuous neck, cunningly jointed and riveted, flexed with a creak of bamboo against bamboo. When steam shot from the red-painted nostrils, the mob groaned with amazement.
“Oh, my stars!” Mrs. Grace Stulting held her bonnet onto her head and leaned back to look as the carved head swayed above.
“Purely mechanical.” Mr. Bucket wagged his head tolerantly. “You can see the metal gears, moving the neck. And the stokers for the steam.”
“Still, it’s a marvel,” Grace sighed.
Mr. Bucket drew her gloved hand through his arm. His tweed coat was too warm for the London summer and shiny at the elbows. He looked like the elderly uncle taking a country cousin to see the Prince Albert’s Great Exposition of 1851. “Let’s pay attention to the job here,” he said quietly. “That monster’s just a show—a fancy steam engine. Scotland Yard’s got a tip about some bigger magic here. So now we’re going to edge in closer, Mrs. S, and you keep your ears sharp. Those Chinese, they won’t be expecting a young white lady to understand their lingo. They might let fall something we need to hear.”
In her happy excitement, Grace hardly listened. She has been recruited into this jaunt merely because the preferred candidate, her husband, was busy addressing the Anglo-American Mission to the Orient Society. But Hermanus would have dismissed the Great Exposition as frivolous time-wasting, unlikely to further the spread of the Gospel. Now, on a legitimate patriotic mission with no less than the famous Inspector Bucket paying the entrance fee, Grace intended to enjoy herself.
“Oh, look! Souvenirs!” Exotically dressed Chinese attendants were coming forward with wide baskets. Eager hands reached for the gifts.
“For free? Huh.” Bucket snagged one for his companion. “A paper toy. What’s that in aid of, I wonder—they could easily charge halfpence.”
“It’s cute! Look, the little stick makes it stand up!” A bamboo skewer served as a handle, to support a red and black paper copy of the steam-powered giant dragon.
“Come along then, let’s get closer.” They edged forward through the crowd. Bucket had brought a pair of gilt opera glasses, through which he pretended to examine the gears and wooden joints of the construction towering above him. “Now, Mrs. S., ears sharp. What’s that johnny saying? He’s no coolie. From his robe, he’s a magician, right?”
“Yes, that’s what the tassels on his cap mean. Three gold ones mean he’s a wizard at the Imperial Court.” Grace gazed fixedly at the Chinese stokers shoveling coal into the furnace that heated the boiler. “He says English people are very quiet. So true! In Nanjing the cacophony would be immense.”
“Don’t waste energy on commentary, Mrs. S.,” Bucket reproved her. “Quick—what’s his pal saying?”
Ruffled, Grace said, “He’s agreeing, that’s all. Says Englishmen are like zombies.”
The glasses slipped from Bucket’s upraised hand, rescued from disaster only by their silk cord around his wrist. “You’re sure of that?”
“My Mandarin is excellent, Inspector.”
“Now don’t take my manner wrong, Mrs. S.,” Bucket said. “You’re doing the British Empire a vital service here ... Is that the princess?”
“Lady Mei,” Grace corrected him. “She’s not really a princess. She’s the granddaughter of the last emperor and a concubine.” Along with everyone else they gaped at the splendid silk-clad figure in the gold sedan chair. Carried in full panoply through the Exposition, the exotic lady drew even more crowds to view the dragon. Half the ragtag and bobtail of London seemed to be following her, all the poorer people who had bought the cheap end-of-season tickets into the Exposition. The servants filtered through the pr
ess, distributing paper dragons hand over fist.
The foreman in charge of the stokers shouted in Chinese, “Back, all of you! He’s going to go!”
Suddenly the Chinese were in retreat, scurrying past them. Grace grabbed Inspector Bucket’s tweed arm. “Inspector, let us step back. I think there are problems with the boiler.”
“The way they were stoking it, the pressure must be terrible. Look nonchalant, now. Talk to me about your husband’s mission work.”
“Our plan is to start a school in Nanjing—” Grace felt the tug on her skirt instantly. A lady always has to be aware of her surroundings—in addition to pickpockets and purse-snatchers, there were always unsavory men who tried to get too close to women in public. And then even a street-length skirt was always getting caught in things or picking up dirt. Pulling surreptitiously with one hand had no effect. She shot a quick glance back. “Oh, sweet Jesus!”
An enormous brass-tipped claw had speared down, pinning the flounce of her skirt to the earth. Hot humid steam puffed around her, and a huge hissing voice huffed in Chinese, “Little foreign-devil lady. You understand me. Do you not?”
Grace gaped up at the tremendous bamboo head, big as her own body, swaying above her. The red eyes, which she had taken for panes of tinted mica, were lit not with flame but with life. White steam shot from the carved nostrils. “You’re alive!” she blurted in Mandarin.
“Behold me, the new Prometheus,” the dragon hissed, very low. “It’s a poor magic that can only reanimate dead flesh, eh?”
“By Jove, the clockwork’s amazing clever.” Bucket, trapped in monolingual ignorance, let go of her arm and stepped back to stare upward.
With another huge hiss of steam the dragon lumbered forward. Suddenly, Grace was divided from the Inspector and the rest of the crowd by the coil of an enormous hot bamboo tail. It occurred to her that if the dragon encircled her completely, she would boil like a Christmas pudding. “Inspector!” she called in English, before he was shoved out of hearing. “It talks!”
