Sky of Paper: An Asian Steam-Driven Fantasy Tale

by Matthew Seaver

  He picked up the cup, taking in its aroma. "Tiger's breath, sun peach powder and . . .” He took a sip. “Judging by the taste, a hint of snow lily, an interesting combination of ingredients. Unfortunately, this tea is not to my liking." He poured the cup’s contents onto the ground. "You have wasted some very expensive teas and herbs young student. For your sake, I hope you give more care and attention to my son, than to your skills in tea making."

  He turned his back and continued to supervise the students below. "I’ve already sent Masa back to the Stream Temple. Be sure to treat him well."

  Without so much as looking over his shoulder, he waved me away. Paya grasped my arm fiercely and lead me out of the room. Though she was intent to hurry me out of the room she paused when she slid open the door to find a proud, broad-shouldered man dressed in a military uniform, the same person I had seen at the dinner last night, standing in the doorway.

  "General Fung," she said surprised. "We weren't expecting you until next week."

  "I have political matters to discuss with Master Lu that cannot wait." he said in a low, rumbling voice.

  Without wasting another second, he strode in with great purpose and approached Master Lu, who suddenly seemed apprehensive by the man‘s arrival. It was as if he were greeting a an escaped tiger that had somehow wandered in. Spurned by the general’s arrival, Paya quickly shoved me out of the room and told me to return to my class before abruptly shutting the door.

  I went down the stairs filled with both anger, and a feeling of hopelessness. How could I convince Masa to change his convictions when he had already chosen his path. It would be like telling the clouds which shape they should have or which air currents they should follow. After the terrible things that had happened during our first meeting, how could I face Masa again? As I went through tea room, I felt as though I were being mocked by the piercing gazes and smirks of the temple servants who had laughed at me earlier. I wanted to confront them, throw stones at them, anything to appease my frustrations, just as I had once did when I first met Mr. Takaya.

  Just as I left the kitchen and entered the main room of the Great Hall, I heard a voice call out to me.

  "I hear footsteps. Is that you Paya?"

  To my surprise, she appeared to be the young woman I had stumbled across, lying sick in Master Lu's quarters on the airship yesterday. She sat at one of the dining tables, alone in the empty room. She looked much healthier, even happy as she sipped her tea at one of the tables. Her ear was turned in my direction, but her pale, brown eyes neglected to look directly at me. I thought perhaps she didn‘t consider me worthy enough to look at.

  "I'm not Paya," I said, still fuming.

  Training would be starting soon, so I quickened my pace.

  "Wait."

  Reluctantly, I stopped at the doorway and faced the young woman.

  "Please tell me who you are."

  Her voice was very gentle, and though I was in a hurry, I couldn’t help but answer her. "I'm no one important. Just a student assigned to serve tea to Master Lu."

  "So you're my father's new tea server." She gave a small, sincere smile, that was just enough to make me momentarily forget my troubles. "He told me that you’d be working for him starting today. Your tea preparation skills must be quite impressive to be serving someone like him. "

  "Actually, I don't know how to make tea."

  She grew quiet and blinked repeatedly, as if she were trying to make sense of what I‘d said. Then she captivated me with a brief giggle.

  "Then perhaps he has other reasons why he wishes you to serve him. Still, if it's not too much work for you, I would very much like to try some of your tea someday."

  She tilted her head slightly, lowering her stone-like gaze, as if she were infatuated with the wood-grains on the table’s surface.

  "Are you blind?" I asked innocently. I expected her to be offended, but instead, her face lit-up, as if she’d been eagerly waiting for me to present the question.

  "Yes I am. Is it that obvious?" Her expression seemed delicate and content, which accented the gentle curves of her face.

  I nodded, only to realize, she couldn‘t see my gestures. "I mean, it's not that obvious."

  "Then we'll keep it a secret, just between you and me," she teased. "My name is Ai. May I ask yours?"

  "Terr. I'm a student at the Stream Temple."

  "It's nice meet you Terr. Judging by the stomping sounds you made, you seem to be in a hurry. I won't keep you any longer."

  I bowed, forgetting again that she could not see me. Her presence, however, had finally left me mute. Regretfully, I left without saying good bye.

  Chapter 6

  Training was broken into four classes. The first, was second sight training, which helped us attune our most important skill: the ability to see and predict what the masters called, the Ocean of Ki, a force whose presence was invisible to everyone, but us. The second, was tamma reading, which taught us how to understand the directions and flow of the ocean’s currents by reading the arrows and signs that appeared in our glass balls. The third, was called Kaikua, which was the name of the strange dance style used by shyo mu to convey to their shyo mah partners how and where to direct their energy and focus, in order to change the motions and the directions of the ethereal currents. The fourth was music. I thought it strange at first that we were all required to learn an instrument. But we were told that we were also sacred keepers of Rui Nan traditions and as such, it was our duty to perform with music and dance in certain ceremonies and festivals.

  It was during our first class, second sight training, that I saw Masa again. I would have gladly agreed to serve tea to Master Lu all day, if it meant avoiding him. He had a stubborn, disappointed look on his face, probably as the result of a scolding he received from his father.

  We were all seated outside on one of the smaller courtyards.

  In front of us was a smooth stone wall that sat underneath the canopy of a sprawling everbloom tree. The Boar paced back and forth along its length, smoking his slender pipe as he studied each one of our faces. He stopped and gestured his pipe at one of the students.

  "You there, Nobu. Why is this class so important?"

  Nobu hesitated, looking around as if one of us were hiding the answer from him. "Because we can see strange blue light moving around us, when other people can't and we must learn as much as we can about it."

  "You are partially correct Nobu, but since all of you are young and barely know anything about this discipline, I do not expect you to answer me completely. Ori, what is your answer to this question?"

  Masa interrupted before Ori could answer. "Master Ichiro, the objective of this class is two fold. Our purple eyes are are too weak to see the whole Ocean of Ki. That is why we only see bits and pieces of it. This class will discipline our eyes so that we may be able to see the whole ocean in greater detail. That is the first part. The second, is to learn how it moves, how it flows, rises and falls so that we may better understand how it affects the things around us."

  The Boar gave a deep, smoke-filled grunt. "Masa, though your father may have taught you some things before attending the temple, do not think for moment that there is nothing here for you to learn. Furthermore, even though your answer is correct, I called on Ori, not on you. Ori, answer my question."

  Ori stood up and gave an answer that was much the same as Masa's. Masa sat quietly, his arms crossed, looking as though he was pleased with himself.

  "Very good," the Boar said after Ori had finished.

  He paced in front of us again, puffing away as he took his time. "Each and everyone of you has purple eyes. While this may be something special to you or your family, it means very little to me."

  He clapped his hands and a boy appeared from behind the wall. He was slightly older than us and his eyes gleamed a soft yellow. "This student can see and predict things much more clearly than any one of you."

  The Boar nodded to the yellow-eyed boy who promptly took a piece of cha
lk and stood on one of the many stone blocks lodged at the base of the wall. He studied the edges for a moment, then reached up and drew a crude line from the top of the wall, to the very bottom, making zigzags and curves as he went. Afterwards, he gave a small bow and stepped aside. The Boar took a very long pole and tapped one of the overhanging branches from the tree above. A leaf was shaken loose, and as it fell, it followed the path of the chalked line perfectly, following every zigzag and curve.

  A surprised murmur rose among the students.

  Han leaned towards me and whispered. "If there‘s one thing this temple doesn‘t lack, is show-offs."

  "Until your eyes are the same color as that student‘s," The Boar said in a much more serious tone. "You will not be allowed to continue to the River Temple. Every morning we will meditate on the motions of the air and sky until you are able to more clearly see the invisible forces that drive it. Your final test for this class will be this wall. We call it, the Wudan Wall, named after a very famous mountin in Kin Ju. Each of you will be required to chalk lines every day, until you can predict the path of the leaves from this tree. Do not think for one moment that this will be easy. For most of the students second sight training is often the only class they fail."

  "What happens to them?" Nobu asked innocently.

  The Boar glared at him, as if warning him at how dangerous his question was. Surprisingly, it remained unanswered.

  Though the Boar was charged with watching over us, he only taught the first of our four classes. The other three were taught by masters who also watched over other groups of students, but were assigned to teach based on their expertise. Of the other three I found Master Wa's tamma reading class to be the most boring. He was a very large, obese man that made breathing sounds that sounded like a rasping animal on the verge of death. Class was held in the temple gardens where he claimed the ethereal currents were the strongest, which would allow us to train with our tammas much more efficiently. I imagined that he chose that place because the temple gardens were closest to the kitchen.

  "In this course," Master Wa announced with a face that looked much like a puckered fish. "You will learn how to properly use your tammas. Even though you can see the Great Ether, you will come to learn that sight alone is not enough to guide an imperial ship through the sky. Only your tamma can tell you the directions of the currents and how fiercely they move."

  The teacher pointed at Han. "What do you see in your tamma?"

  Han had in fact dozed off, but I think Master Wa must thought he had dipped his head to look at the glass sphere on his lap more closely. I could hardly blame him for falling asleep. In Master Boar's class, we were kept active, by wandering around the everbloom tree and drawing chalk lines on the wall. But in Master Wa‘s class, we hardly moved at all. We were expected to sit for hours inspecting the tammas on our laps and listening to the husky man‘s lectures. It didn’t help that he was also a soft spoken man, who’s voice carried more like a lullaby than like an authoritative instructor.

  I nudged Han, and he immediately looked up at the teacher. "Oh, umm. . . I don't see anything at all Master Wa."

  "I do," Masa interjected. "Mine is showing one very bright blue needle pointing west and a dimmer, weaker one pointing northward."

  His detailed description caught my curiosity and he seemed to revel in my reaction as he glanced in my direction with a teasing smile.

  "Very good young student. Masa is it?," Master Wa said, impressed. "I‘ll be keeping an eye on you. For everyone else, if you don’t see anything in your tammas, then you’ve already disappointed me. I don‘t care how weak your second sight is. You should still be competent enough to at least see some glimmer of a needle appear in your glass orbs. Be mindful that the needle points in the direction the ethereal currents’ flow."

  He gave a respectful nod to Masa before continuing. "Hold your tamma's into the air. Let it catch the currents."

  We did exactly as he told us. We held the spheres high above our heads, long enough to feel our arms start to tingle and grow numb.

  "Now put your tammas back down onto your laps, " he said finally. "Stare at them and relax your eyes. Pretend as though you aren't really looking for anything. Do not force your tammas. Instead, you have to respect it. Eventually, it will return that respect and show you what you need to see. If it reveals to you more than one needle like it did to Masa, then you’ve been blessed by the heavens, because that means, you can predict the movements of not just the strongest of the currents, but the other, weaker ones as well. The dimmer and smaller the needles are, the weaker the currents. Now, who here sees more than one needle and can tell me the directions they are pointing?"

  "I do master," I said, standing up. "I see three needles in mine."

  One of the teacher's eyebrows curved upwards and his puckered lips began to thin, until they looked like small slivers of raw meat. It was obvious he doubted me, and unfortunately, he had every right to be. I was lying. Truthfully, I could only see one small needle, but I yearned to be favored by the teacher, just as Masa had done. The superior look on Masa’s face was a challenge. He was daring me to be better than him. If he could see two needles, then I would tell the teacher that I could see three. Even now, the arrogant boy across the room was still mocking. It was as if he had seen through my lie and was on the verge of bursting out in laughter.

  "What is your name?" the teacher said.

  "Terr of the Stream."

  "Well then Terr. You say that you can predict the flow of three ethereal currents. Very well. Which direction are they flowing?"

  I pointed in the direction of the only needle I could see.

  "Westerly," added the teacher, looking into his own tamma to confirm my answer. "The easiest one to predict since that is the path of the strongest current. Where are the other two?"

  I bit my lip and looked at Han and Kidou, vainly hoping they knew the answer. Han shrugged, but Kidou tried to help by nudging his head in a certain direction.

  I outstretched my arm and pointed.

  "You are pointing west again. We‘ve already confirmed that," Master Wa sneered. Kidou lifted his hands in apology. "Perhaps it would be better if you paid more attention to your tamma, than to your classmates."

  I took a guess and pointed in the opposite direction.

  "I see a small current flowing south east," I said half-heartedly.

  The teacher sighed in disappointment and ordered me to sit down. "What I hate, above all things, are people who intentionally lie to me. Especially if it’s a student. If the ethereal currents flow in one direction, it’s almost impossible to have another flow against it in the same place. My tamma tells me there is no such current flowing south east. Tell me the truth. Do you actually see three needles in your tamma?"

  I looked down, hoping that by chance, the glass ball in my lap would reveal to me the directions of the other two currents.

  "Answer me," he demanded.

  "I do not Master. I only see one needle, and it points west."

  Afterwards, he took away my tamma, and I was forced to sit in the corner for the rest of the class, reading text and studying old scrolls, as well as memorize hand-drawn maps of the ether‘s worldly flow. Though I was certainly humiliated, I was glad to be doing something other than sitting listlessly for hours, staring at a glass ball and listening to a fat, old man's senseless ramblings.

  At the end of class, Masa came up to me with a look of pity on his face.

  "I also lied to the teacher," he said. "I didn’t see two needles in my tamma. In fact, I saw ten."

  The rest of the day I found myself puzzled. Masa had already made it clear to me that he had no intention of being a chienkuu ko, but here he was, excelling at every class, a prodigy with no desire to keep his talents a secret. In Lady Doan's Kaikua class, most of us stumbled about like clumsy beetles while we tried to learn even the most basic of movements, but Masa moved with such grace and skill it was as if he had learned the secret to melding dance and mar
tial arts together into one single form.

  In music class, we were given the chance to choose our instrument. Some chose string instunents and flutes while I decided that I would learn the drums. Masa stepped up to Master Thien, the music teacher, and without any regard for his position, he casually asked if he could be dismissed from class. Of course, this angered the teacher. He told him he could be dismissed only after he had proven that he had mastered every instrument in the room. . . and that is exactly what Masa did. For the rest of class we listened to Masa play the winds, the percussions, and the strings. He performed each so well, that the teacher had no choice, but to honor their deal and reluctantly let him leave.

  There was no question that most of us were impressed by Masa‘s talents, but Han and I watched him carefully and with great suspicion. We even went as far as to assume that he might have been plotting something. It wasn’t long before Kidou shared our thoughts regarding the strange change in his behavior, but I also couldn’t help, but wonder if he was somehow envious of Masa, maybe even intimidated. Kidou‘s passion for being at the temple was obvious, but to see someone excel so well with very little effort, and with no heart or respect for the craft, was enough for him to shove Masa aside that day while we were leaving class.

  "Do you think showing off makes you better than the rest of us?" Kidou said abruptly, pressing a firm hand on Masa's shoulder.

  I’d never heard Kidou speak in such an angry tone before, but watching him pressing Masa against the wall, in front of the entire class, made me worry. The calm and disciplined Kidou that I had come to know was now making a shameful display of himself.

  "Answer me, " Kidou continued. "Do you think that just because you have a little talent, that you can make a mockery of the rest of us? Is that what you're trying to do, make our class look like a bunch of idiots?"

  Masa refused to speak. He simply smiled, as if daring his aggressor to do more than just babble insults. Han stepped in to put an end to his friend‘s outburst, but not before he threw Masa to the ground.