by Alyc Helms
The lights went out and the rear bay opened. I rocked back at the change in pressure and the wind, squinting my eyes as they started to water, and wishing I could cover my ears. The cold sunlight slanted into the jump bay, washing up the curve of one wall, but the rest of the windowless fuselage was in darkness. I gathered up all the shadow like net webbing, braced myself, and pulled.
It was like pulling on a brace holding back an avalanche. I didn’t so much take us across as that the Kestrel barreled into the darkness.
The sunlight cut out, as did the deafening sound of the wind. We were cocooned in a void so absolute that for a moment I feared I’d somehow killed us all, and this was death.
No. Cogito ergo sum. I bolstered myself with that thought.
And then I didn’t need to, because equilibrium made my stomach drop, like I was going over the edge of a roller coaster.
The carabiner strap cut into my wrist, keeping me from tumbling.
I drew in a breath, an incipient scream. It broke the silence, then more breathing from my right. Tsung.
“Are we falling?” My question came only a little higher than my usual tones. Darkness within, darkness without, and no sound of air or engines to explain the odd, weightless feeling. I gripped the strap, the only thing solid in this void.
The silence was broken by the sound of someone stumbling their way behind me. Tom. “We’ve lost power. No instruments. No engines. We make it across?”
“The darkness doesn’t give it away?”
“The New Wall. We make it across the New Wall?”
“I’ve no way to tell.”
“Right-o. Follow me.” Another click, followed by an explosion of light. Skyrocket flashed past us, the flare of his rocketpack blinding me. But it also gave me a direction to follow. I released my grip on the strap and managed a graceless run into freefall. Pulled my chute immediately because who knew how much altitude we’d lost in the darkness. I clenched my eyes as wind and gravity returned. Something flapped above me. I looked up in case it was a raptor or something worse. It rippled and spread, a slightly paler shade of dark. Then it caught, and my stomach lurched as I was pulled up short.
I rocked back and forth under the pale cloud of darkness, like an infant in a rough cradle, falling through the void. No, not falling. At least, not entirely. Now that I could see in every direction, I spied the lambent curve of the horizon, a few pockets of luminescence dotting the shadow landscape below, and above me, the cloud resolved into the pale rectangle of a parachute.
And then, off below me, a flash so bright it burned my retinas, and thunder concussive enough to make me flinch.
The Kestrel, making her final landing.
EIGHT
Family Matters
Then
My feet and back were killing me. I spared a longing look at an empty bench on the other side of the garden, but I couldn’t escape until I finished with the Shanghai contingent. I’d greeted Guardian Song Yulan and a host of lesser temple spirits from Shanghai, which just left me with Fang Shih, a spirit who escaped categorization, and who seemed determined to talk my ear off in a dialect I could barely follow. Keeping my groan purely mental, I returned to my silent catalogue of his features.
Fang Shih’s eyes bulged out over a flat, pushed-up, piggy nose, and his mouth stretched wide open in a perpetual snarl, which was useful for showing off his many rows of teeth. His burly head sat on an even burlier pair of shoulders, but then his body narrowed to cartoonish thinness and ended in a pair of delicate trotters. He swayed back and forth with such regular rhythm that I was starting to get motion sick.
Fang Shih paused; he must have finished his formal address. I smiled and bowed, thanking him with a similar formality, which included a string of memorized honorifics. His bulgy eyes bulged larger. Guardian Song Yulan placed a restraining hand on Fang Shih’s massive shoulder.
“I do not believe she meant it like that,” she said in Shanghai-accented Mandarin. I nodded, afraid to speak and make things worse. Whatever I’d mispronounced, I definitely didn’t mean it. My mind blanked on the proper way to say “Please don’t curse me back into the stone age.”
Jian Huo appeared at my side, his hand settling at the small of my back. He spoke in a series of whines and growls that I assumed was Fang Shih’s native speech. I smiled and bowed and tried to look apologetic.
Whatever Jian Huo said, it worked. Fang Shih roared and grabbed my hands, pumping them up and down several times, baring every tooth they had and nodding its ridiculously-sized head. It was like receiving a blessing from a Jim Henson Muppet. Still roaring, Fang Shih allowed Song Yulan to lead their party off, leaving Jian Huo and myself in a small pocket of solitude for the first time that day. He smoothed my wispies, brow furrowed.
“Are you well?” he asked. “That mistake was not like you.”
“How bad was it?” Though I was too exhausted to care.
“You called him a dung heap.”
I shot Jian Huo a skeptical look, certain that he was messing with me. I didn’t get so much as a brow twitch. He was serious. I tried to muster some horror, but I choked on a laugh instead.
Jian Huo frowned. “You find the possibility of angering a Fang Shih amusing? Their curses are legendary.” He might have gone on, but my laughter cut short as a spasm of pain twisted my lower back. Disapproval became concern. “Are you well?”
“I’m fine,” I said, waving away his concern. “It’s just that my back aches and my feet are swollen and I’m feeling vaguely nauseous. All I want to do is eat Chef Boyardee ravioli and watch cable, neither of which you can get here.” Yes, I was cranky, but I’d been socializing for the past several hours, and I had eight more days of it to look forward to.
Nine days. The nine day long ceremony of Zi Gong Hu, the public introduction of myself as the mother of Jian Huo’s children. I’d railed long and hard about how insulting I found the entire thing. I was little more than a walking womb. Jian Huo’s children – I gave myself a mental shake – our children were not even born, but some of our guests didn’t even bother to address me, they just spoke to my belly.
It was a healthy dose of culture shock. For some of the spirits, this was traditional. I tried not to take offense because I was the intruder here. There were others who disapproved of me; they treated me like a womb because while they had to acknowledge Jian Huo’s children, they wanted to ignore my existence as much as possible. That made it hard to remain diplomatic.
Since the Shanghai contingent had been the last of the day’s arrivals, I recited the lines welcoming our guests to the house and gardens like a good little marionette. Jian Huo took one look at my grumpy frown and escorted me to the empty bench I’d been eying.
I sank down onto it. Rather, I maneuvered my bulky form onto it. When we’d discovered that I was going to have twins, I had been excited. It was like double-the-pleasure, double-the-fun. Now, so near to term, my enthusiasm had waned. I felt twice as huge, twice as uncomfortable, and I was certain the birthing would be twice as long and twice as painful. Growing up, I’d heard all sorts of romanticized bullshit about women loving being pregnant and glowing and such. Now I knew it for what it was: propaganda designed to make sure the human race was propagated. Being pregnant sucked donkey balls. I just wanted it to be over.
But first, I had to get through my nine-day baby shower.
It didn’t help that the ceremony was a thinly disguised test to see if I could behave for the duration. Anything I did wrong, any insult I offered, could cause a powerful spirit to curse our children. On the plus side, every being that I impressed had the choice to offer their blessing. It was like I was stuck in the fairy tale of Sleeping Beauty, seeing it from her mom’s perspective. I was terrified of making the tiniest misstep. Again with the donkey balls.
Jian Huo bore the brunt of my unhappiness with draconic equanimity. Now, as I tried to find a position that would relieve my cramping muscles, his hands settled at the base of my spine, and he kneaded aw
ay the tension. I sighed and shifted so I could lean back against him.
“How much longer do we have today?” I asked.
“There is the banquet this evening, but you may stay ensconced on your pillows. For the next two days, all those who wish to address you will come to you.” Well, that was a relief. I was a waddling cow, but as long as I could sit, I could attempt to be charming.
“On the fourth day the great spirits will arrive. We will greet them as we greeted the lesser spirits today.” I pulled a face; he ignored it. “Then more banqueting. On the seventh day…” He drifted off, fingers stilling on my back.
“The seventh day?” I pressed.
“Traditionally, that is the day for Dragons to come and bless the children.” He didn’t need to give an explanation beyond that. Neither of us expected his siblings to make an appearance. He’d never gone into detail on why they’d exiled him, but I’d been here long enough to figure out that it was over my grandfather and the champion issue. It hadn’t been quite as pretty a romance from Jian Huo’s perspective, and I was torn between fury at my grandfather for forcing Jian Huo to leave Shambhala and annoyance at the other dragons for punishing their sibling for doing the right thing.
I grasped his hand, bringing it to my lips and then resting my cheek against it. One of the twins took a whack at my cervix. I moved Jian Huo’s hand down to feel it. Thinking about the children always cheered him up.
We sat in quiet contentment as our guests mingled. It was the largest gathering of spirits I’d ever seen, and exhausting just for that; I’d grown accustomed to our hermitage. But there was still the feast tonight to get through. I needed to recharge my batteries. I shifted away from him. “Do you think I could manage to slip away for a bath before this evening?”
Jian Huo’s hand had crept up to brush the underside of my breast. “I had hoped we might manage to slip away together instead,” he said with a half-smile and a lift of one brow.
I shook my head at his one-track mind. “I’m as big as a house! I’m due any time here. I wouldn’t be surprised if I popped in the middle of one of these formal greetings.”
“Is it terribly wrong of me that I want you so much in this state?”
“I gotta admit that your thing for pregnancy sex is kinda kinky, but since I’m the one benefiting from it, I’m not going to complain.” Another spasm hit my lower back, and I grimaced. “But if you want me to be on my game tonight, I think hot water is going to be better for me than hot sex.”
Jian Huo’s brow drooped, but there was sympathy in his smile as he smoothed my hair back. He helped me rise from the bench, and we made our way through the gamut of our guests. I let Jian Huo take the lead on pleasantries. Most of the guests had already blessed my womb, but a few more deigned to do so as we passed. I half expected my belly to start glowing like the Holy Grail.
* * *
I loaded my bathing things into a basket and made my way to the hot springs, anticipating a quiet hour to myself with the warm water soothing my cramping muscles. I didn’t expect to run into someone else already bathing. I didn’t recognize the woman, but I’d greeted so many people that I might have forgotten her. I hesitated at the edge of the grotto, still wanting my bath but reluctant to disturb her. She turned and smiled a welcome.
“Good afternoon, Lung Xin Niang. I am sorry if my presence is an intrusion. If you wish time for yourself, I will leave. Or, if you allow me to remain, I promise I will be undemanding company.” Her words were so polite that they rounded the corner into mocking. She regarded me with sly, golden eyes that held just a hint of playful malice. Steam had darkened her hair, but dry it would be a russet shade near my own. How on earth had I forgotten her?
But had I? Something about her was familiar. “Do I know you?”
She inclined her head. “It may be that I am known to you.”
That was all I needed. The woman might be unfamiliar, but I’d recognize that mocking head-tilt anywhere. My bath things went tumbling into the pool.
“Holy shit. Huxian?”
“Even so.”
“You’re… uh…” I gestured, not sure I was more thrown that she was woman-shaped or that she was naked. As long as I’d been here, the spirit world still had the ability to throw me on a regular basis.
“I am many things. Shall I leave you to contemplate them?”
I wasn’t up for our usual sparring. “Look, if you’re willing to be undemanding company, then I’d be happy to set aside our usual guest/host, spirit/human, trickster/trickee crap to just relax and chat.”
I didn’t wait for her agreement. I couldn’t bend down to recover my bath things, so climbing into the pool was my only option. I shucked my brocade robe and slid into the heated water, groaning in rapture as my cramping muscles responded.
Her smile turned from sly to bemused. “I have always wondered what Jian Huo sees in you. I believe I begin to see it now.”
She couldn’t be talking about my body, not as pregnant as I was. Had to be something else. I was curious to see if she’d say what.
“Really? Do you mind sharing? Because it has always baffled me.” I leaned forward, as if offering a secret confidence, and she responded as predictably as any human would, leaning in to catch my stage whisper. “Poor guy doesn’t even mind that half the spirits here are laughing behind his back.”
She pulled back and blinked twice. She had to know it was true, but I don’t think she expected me to point it out.
“I believe you must have some fox in you, Lung Xin Niang.”
I’d heard the honorific from our other guests, but I didn’t expect it from her. The huxian was the closest thing I had to a friend these days. “I’m not good enough to be Miqian anymore?”
Her gaze faltered away. She shaped a bit of foam that floated on the surface of the steaming pool. “You are now Lung Xin Niang. It would no longer be appropriate for me to be so uncivil.”
Ah. That explained the shift in her manners and the reduction in mockery. I outranked her.
“Then call me Missy, please,” I said. “And maybe I do have some fox in me. It’d be British fox blood of course, but my grandmother had red hair, and people used to call her a vixen all the time.”
“Missy,” she nodded. “And you may call me Si Wei.” It was a minor pact, this exchange of names, but at least now the fox-woman was meeting my eyes. “I have heard tell of your grandmother. It was she that your grandfather chose over Jian Huo, was it not? He gave her Jian Huo’s pearls?”
“That’s her.” I wondered if this was some sort of huge insult, but Si Wei just nodded her head as if a puzzle had finally come together.
“Then she must have fox blood in her. No other woman could entice a man away from his dragon-lover.” This conclusion eased whatever other reservations she had had about me. Probably because if I had fox-blood, Jian Huo’s interest in me was more understandable. I was happy to take what truce I could get.
“You’ve known Jian Huo a long while, then?” I asked.
“I have known him since I first ceased to be a fox and became Huxian. It was shortly after his first altercation with his elders.”
“Ah… the writing incident?”
“He has told you of how he defied his siblings the first time?”
“A little. He doesn’t like talking about it much.”
“I believe that if he had not defied them then to give the knowledge of writing to the peoples of China, or if the results of that gift hadn’t turned out so badly – at least in the eyes of his siblings – then his more recent defiance of them would not have resulted in such a harsh punishment. But of course, he refuses to admit that the two events might be linked.”
“I had wondered about that. It seems a bit extreme to exile him just for training my grandfather, but there are always so many nuances that I just don’t get.”
“You seem to be doing well in spite of it.”
I smiled my thanks at the compliment. “What’s funny to me is that he’s so
proud of it. The whole writing thing, I mean: as if it’s proof that he’s a man – or rather, dragon – of the people. I can’t quite figure out how to tell him that giving people a written language with a gajillion characters isn’t doing them any favors.”
She laughed at this. “I believe his reasoning at the time was that they would only appreciate the results if they had to earn it.”
“That explains so much,” I groaned. I didn’t expect her to understand the meaning behind my cryptic statement, but her foxy mind snapped right to it.
“Long courtship, was it?” she asked with another sly grin, but I sensed no malice in this one.
“You have no idea.”
“And do you appreciate the results?”
I just smiled and changed the subject.
* * *
The next several days were a slog, but I managed to make it through the informal conversations without insulting anyone, and I even managed to soften up some of the hard-liners. At least, they started talking to me instead of my belly.
Fang Shih, who I mentally referred to as Mr Dung Heap, took a particular liking to me. He took over Jian Huo’s workshop, and I sat with him as he crafted dozens of little toys and trinkets for the children: schools of sunset-hued carp and phalanxes of hard-shelled turtles, a miniature army and a palace for them to guard. I anticipated a lot of hopping and cursing in my future when I ended up stepping on the tiny wonders.
While he worked, he made it his personal mission to drill me in my addresses. Every so often he would repeat my “dung heap” mistake and roar in what passed as laughter for him. We even made a game of his instruction, figuring out ways to mispronounce the honorifics so that they became horribly insulting. The realization that I was a diphthong away from calling Tiger a mangy, fig-eating herbivore did wonders for my pronunciation.
Si Wei and I also became good friends, much to Jian Huo’s dismay. At first I paid some heed to his dire warnings that fox-women, Si Wei in particular, couldn’t be trusted – that her friendship was a pretense for some other design. But I’d developed some keen insight into reading Jian Huo, and I suspected that his reservations were just the normal reservations of a guy who didn’t want his current girl talking to his ex. It was cute in a normal kind of way, and after the first few dire frowns, I just smiled away his surly warnings, kissed him on the cheek, and waddled off to gossip with my new girl-pal.
