by Jasmine Walt
“You,” I said. “It helps you if we keep this silent. Because you want to build on this land.”
He stared. “Is that really what you think?”
“For all intents and purposes, I’ve just ground truthed this site. I’ve validated the findings here. I’ve dated the artifacts. It’s of historical record. When the antiquities society learns about this place, it’s going to put a wrench in your plans of progress.”
“You are the wrench in my plans, Theta,” he shouted, his anger echoing off the walls of the cave. “It’s always you.”
I stood still until the echoes died down. “So this is about us?”
“There is no us.” He turned as though to leave, but then stopped and turned back. “Do you think you’re the only one of us who has ever done something they regret? You chose to forget. Our memories are a choice. Especially for you, who chooses to write everything down. Did you write about us?” He didn’t wait for a response. He shook his head in answer and continued. “No, you didn’t. Because you wanted to forget. You can’t dig up someone’s history in the present and drag everyone through the past.”
He glared at me, but those obsidian eyes were transparent. The pain on his face tore at my heart. It loosened more memories of him. Hazy images of him looking down at me with the glow of adoration on his face. But then he shuttered himself, and the window into my past closed.
“Whatever,” he said. “Take what you want, but I’m bulldozing this place in a couple of days.”
“Not so fast, Mr. Mohandis.”
The entryway I’d stopped paying attention to was now filled with the hunched frame of Mr. Xu.
“Well done, Ms. Van Alst,” said Mr. Xu. “You’ve brought her exactly where I wanted her.”
25
My head whipped around to my new friend. “What the hell, Loren?”
Loren removed her hand from my back, and I wobbled. She held up both her hands, but not in a stop motion. This time, it was in a move that looked like a bid for patience.
“I told you,” she said. “He recommended I bring you here to ground truth the site and decipher the bones. I don’t know why he’s here now or how he was able to get down through the forest at his age.”
Xu straightened himself from his hunch. He cracked his neck left and then right, and stood at his full height. It was as though fifty years shed off his person. His hazy eyes twinkled and his perpetually cheerful grin transformed into something dark.
“Oh, great,” Loren muttered. “More super humans. Exactly what my day needed. If he starts howling at the moon, I swear I’m outta here.”
“You are so like your father,” Xu said to Loren. “He snuck into these caves trying to exploit my heritage as well. My sons sent him out empty-handed.”
“Your sons?” Loren asked. “The ninjas?”
Xu nodded. “It’s a shame what happened to your father’s reputation.”
Loren’s fingers gripped the strap of her saddle bag. It wasn’t the Vintage Gucci she normally carried. This one was nondescript and well-worn. It looked old and well-used. It also looked like it belonged to a man and not a woman. It had probably belonged to her father.
I had an idea of what might be inside the bag’s depths. Reaching over to put a hand to Loren’s wrist as she went for the bag’s latch, I gave her a meaningful look. She gritted her teeth, but she heeded my warning.
“We’ve had a few visitors to these caves but never the one we wanted to return. Until now.” Xu’s gaze turned to me.
He approached me without his cane. I had to stop myself from taking a step back. The prickling sensation I’d felt every time I was around him increased like bees buzzing in my ears. On the walls of the cave, under the waning light of the sun peeking in through the opening, I saw shadows moving. We were being surrounded by men dressed in black with sashes tied around their waists. Dozens of blades glinted in the fading sunrays.
I felt Tres close in on my right side. Loren flanked my left. I faced Xu.
“Pa Shui, you are home at last.” Xu executed a perfect bow to me. “Do you know who I am?”
I stared into his eyes, searching for recognition. “I have to assume you are who you said you are, which is the descendant of the Xia people.” I waved my hand vaguely at the wall of names behind him.
Mr. Xu shook his head. “I’m not a descendant of those people. I am those people.”
I stared at him, trying to figure out what his words meant. My brain knew the answer, but once again, I shut my eyes to the truth. The reality was far worse than any nightmare.
Xu turned his attention to Tres with less reverence. “And the consort who perpetually breaks your heart, causing you so much pain.”
Tres huffed and rolled his head skyward. “You got the wrong one.”
I actually wasn’t so sure that Tres had broken my heart. I couldn’t remember him, but I was remembering what had happened here two thousand years ago.
I remembered sitting and watching it all play out before me as I lay bound to the altar. I’d come back to find Vau and Epsilon’s home empty and deserted. There was no information about where they might have gone. Vau always left me a sign so that I could find her.
It had been nearly one hundred years since my last visit. That would mean at least two generations of humans had been born, and more transitioned. I had doubted if this new generation still worshiped the dark-haired goddess who came from the river.
I was wrong. They remembered Vau. They took one look at me and thought I was the goddess returning from death. It didn’t strike me at first that they’d think Vau had died. Humans couldn’t understand our immortality.
“When you came to our shores two thousand years ago, it brought forth a time of great prosperity for the Xia,” Xu said. “Your death signaled the end of those times.”
“It wasn’t a death,” I said. “It was murder.”
“You were reborn,” Xu insisted. “As a goddess, you can never truly die. The waters rebirthed you, and now you’ve come back to us once more.”
That was what the middle bone had told, that these people believed that their River Goddess would be reborn after her sacrifice. But Vau hadn’t sacrificed herself to the waters for the people. She had sacrificed her immortality for love.
I remembered it all now. I’d returned to China with a broken heart of my own to find that Vau and Epsilon had grown weak from staying together and loving each other. They’d lost their immortality and their strength. They’d become human.
The next year, when the floods came, neither Vau nor Epsilon had the strength to keep the people safe. Many lives were lost to the flood. The following season, the people turned on their gods. That was the story I’d written on the bones. I had come back to find that the people had sacrificed Vau and Epsilon.
Love makes you weak.
Epsilon and Vau had loved each other. They’d sacrificed their power to be together, and they’d paid the ultimate price. And when the new generation of Xia saw me, they thought I was her. They thought they were saved. They’d overpowered me and strapped me down to that altar.
My eye flicked to the altar. It was all coming to pass. For hundreds of years, I’d been afraid of this very scenario, of being trapped in this cave and surrounded. I’d sweated it out in my sleep and woken up to guilt and shame. I’d believed I had deserved those wretched emotions because I had done something wrong.
Now, looking at the maniacal glint in Xu’s eyes, I saw the truth. The true history had been twisted and distorted until it looked nothing like the facts. But it still didn’t explain how Xu and these ninjas had gained their strength and long lives.
Then I remembered what the Lin Kuie would say to me. I remembered the apothecary back in Beijing offering me that teacup steeped in dragon bones. Your bones for our blood.
“It was the bones,” I said. “You drank Vau and Epsilon’s bones.”
“The Xia began the practice of drinking dragon bones,” Xu confirmed. “My ancestors drank your bon
es out of respect. They did not expect you to gift us with your powers.”
“What?” Loren gagged. “Ew, ew.”
So Xu and his family had a touch of immortality in them. It was why they’d been able to go toe to toe with me. It was why I felt weak when I faced any of them, including the children.
“But the power wanes generation to generation,” he continued. “We were overjoyed when you came back to us two thousand years ago to bless us once again with your bones … until your consort came looking for you.”
Again, Xu’s ire turned to Tres.
“I was a child when you came through and massacred my entire race. I remember the glint of your blade slicing through my father’s neck. The blood that ran like water. I remember watching helplessly as my mother held me tight to her chest and ran for our lives.”
Tres shook his head. “Wasn’t me.”
It hadn’t been Tres. I remembered the angry roar of the warrior who wielded that blade. I remembered his eyes. I remembered his long fingers as they slashed torsos and necks as expertly as he drew a line with a pencil or chipped away at marble. I saw his lip, that usually curled in a devious smile, contorted in a sneer of outrage.
Xu had it all so twisted. I didn’t know how to start unraveling it all. He’d confused me with Vau. He was confusing Zane and Tres. The two favored each other a bit, but if Xu had been a child over a thousand years ago, it would be easy for him to forget the details. I’d lived longer than that and I’d forgotten Tres entirely. Zane, too, it would seem.
“Your bones will rejuvenate me,” Xu said, “and fuel the blood of my children long into the future. We will be the gods who walk the earth. The Xia will reclaim our dynasty and take our rightful place in the world.”
“Your bones for our blood,” the Lin Kuie all said in unison. And then they moved in. There were at least fifty of them, likely more.
I felt Tres at one side and Loren at the other. There was a sea of men dressed in black. Their faces were uncovered. They all had the same face, like they were clones.
“These are my sons,” Xu said. “You’ve met many of them in the past. They tried to bring you here peacefully.”
“By attacking me under the cover of night so that you could sacrifice me and drink my bones?”
“Sacrifice? No, this is worship. This is an expression of reverence to our goddess.”
No. No, it wasn’t. I knew what it was like to be worshiped. But then, I had to scratch that. The man who had purported to worship me had committed genocide in my name. I didn’t want that brand of admiration either.
But I’d have to deal with him later. First, there was the horde of ninjas advancing toward me. They claimed worship, but they were as good as tomb raiders, only the tomb they were trying to raid was my entire being. Not happening.
I rolled my neck. The twinge between my shoulder blades increased as the ninjas moved in. Their tainted blood pressed in on me. I heard Vau’s laughter in my ears. I saw her eyes light as she turned the wheel of a ship. And then her voice was silenced in the wind of the sea.
“Loren, stay behind us,” I said.
“Yeah, right.” She snorted, flipping the latch of her father’s pack. “I’m no one’s damsel. And they’ll make me as dead as they plan to make you.”
She had a point.
She reached into her pack and pulled out her cane. With a hard shake, it extended. With the push of a button, a blade speared through the tip. Yeah, Loren was no damsel in this moment of distress.
The three of us stood in a loose triangle.
Tres took a step back. His heel planted beside mine as he sank himself into a horse-riding stance. I found that comical when he’d had so much trouble with his mount for the past two days. Coming toward him were the two guides Xu had provided for our trek.
Tres didn’t wait for them to approach him. He took two steps, and that was all the distance his long legs needed to cover to strike first one guide, then the other, in the jaw with his booted heel. The two men’s heads spun 180 degrees in opposite directions. Blood and teeth spurted across the floor as their bodies collapsed. They were no match for the strength of an Immortal his age.
The problem was they were only two out of dozens. The ninjas advanced from all sides.
I reached down for the sais at my hip just in time for the first attacker. He flew at me—literally leaped into the air and flew at me. I ground my heel into the dirt as his blade clanked against mine. With my energy drained, he actually was able to nudge my stance a foot backward.
He retracted his blade and sliced at me again. I leaped back and narrowly missed the tip of his sword. Behind me, I heard a clatter. Out of the corner of my eye, I caught two more ninjas advancing with their blades raised.
I ducked the first attacker’s blade, dropped my sais, and reached into my boots. Coming up with daggers in both palms, I threw them at the two advancing fighters. The daggers hit their mark.
But a second later, the wind changed and I felt the boot of the first ninja in my back. I had to roll to evade his sword. Unfortunately, my sais was behind him. His blade glinted as he rose it above my heart.
My life didn’t flash before my eyes. That would’ve taken too long. Instead, I heard Vau’s laughter. I saw her smile. I remembered all the times we stood by each other when times got hard and our hearts grew heavy. A terrible ache opened in me as the memories of the friend I’d lost and forgotten returned to my mind.
The ninja on top of me doubled over with an “Oof.” The whooshing of a cane slicing the air sounded from above, followed by a loud crack as Loren struck the man down. She kicked my sais to me, gave me a wink and a grin, and then turned to head back into the fray.
I grasped the end of my sais and stood on wobbly feet. Three more ninjas made their way to me. As I prepared to face them, everything slowed down as I looked out at the scene before me.
Tres kicked and punched out at a group of five ninjas. Heads rolled, blood splattered, screams ricocheted across the cave’s walls. They fell one by one like toy soldiers. But another regiment swiftly moved in to take their places. This time, there were ten. And another ten stood at the ready behind them. There was no way Tres could take down that many skilled fighters with Immortal powers.
Loren struck one ninja in front of her, but a second man caught her at her waist from behind and raised his dagger, aiming for her neck. Mr. Xu waited patiently by the altar, his eyes on me. And still the three men made their way toward me.
There was no way out. I couldn’t wake myself from this nightmare. I was trapped in the truth of this reality. And the worst part, aside from the imminent death of my new friend and the sacrificing of the lover I was just starting to remember, was that no one would know. My voice was about to be silenced, and there would be no one to tell my story.
26
They locked my hands and feet with steel and then tied me to Tres, who was similarly bound in steel. It was a smart move, as we had an aversion to each other. But even though I felt weak from the abundance of Immortal half-breeds surrounding us, there was a comfort in Tres’s warm heat at my back.
There were still a good twenty or so ninjas who had survived the battle. They went about the cave preparing for the sacrifice. They built a fire in one corner. Another group brought in water from the outside. It looked like they were going to get their drink on right after the sacrifice.
Tres sighed, leaning his head back. “This is why we keep the secret of our existence. Humans can’t handle the fact there is anything higher than them on the food chain.”
“So you’re like some kind of goddess?” Loren lay in front of me. Her arms and feet were tied with ropes. Her bound hands rested on her belly. She looked up at the crack in the top of the cave where the sunlight spilled in. The sun was moving lower on the horizon. It would be nightfall soon.
“Immortal,” I answered. Despite what Tres said, I figured Loren might as well know the whole truth now that we were about to die. “We’re not gods, but we’
re not exactly human either. We don’t know what we are.”
“So, Broody Banks over here broke your heart?” Loren jerked her head to Tres.
“Broody Banks?” protested Tres.
“Then, when you were reborn, he came to find you here a couple thousand years ago, saw them trying to sacrifice you, and went crazy on these people?”
I felt Tres huff behind me. “I did not—” But then he slumped and gave up.
“We don’t reincarnate,” I said.
I paused, realizing I had no idea what happened when we died. I wondered if Vau and Epsilon had been reborn and were now somewhere on the planet trying to find each other. Maybe Vau was even trying to find me.
“It wasn’t me they killed,” I continued. “Xu’s got it wrong. His parents’ people sacrificed two other Immortals, and he thinks it’s the two of us. It’s all twisted up in his old mind. I can’t really blame him. It’s hard enough trying to keep things straight as an Immortal. Mix us in with humans, and it would appear you get a psychopath.” I leaned back into Tres. “I’m sorry you got involved in this.”
I didn’t think he was going to respond, but after a moment, I felt him shrug. “You’ve blamed me for plenty of stuff in the past—stuff I actually did do. Being blamed for something I didn’t do? This is new.”
“She blamed you for something you didn’t do?” Loren asked with false incredulity. “Glad it’s not just me. Did you think I Keyser Söze-d you? You’re the one who didn’t tell me there were real ninjas after you.”
“She didn’t tell me either,” Tres said.
“Well, you didn’t tell me that it was ninjas who chased you out of here,” I aimed at Loren. “And I haven’t seen you in hundreds of years,” I threw over my shoulder to Tres.
“So which one of you has a plan of escape?” Loren said as she jackknifed her wrists in their bindings. There wasn’t any give in the rope.
Neither Tres or I said anything as we watched her struggle.
