Eternal

by Grant, Alasdair

  She pulls up a second stool.

  “Sit.”

  Lily stumbles forward, and the healer examines her the same way she examined me.

  “That pompous fool,” Mistress Tianshi mutters, not even trying to show the respect Master Yao is supposed to receive. “It’s a wonder both of you didn’t faint. Did he at least give you short lavatory breaks or allow you to eat or drink?”

  We shake our heads, and her eyes smolder.

  “I’m going to brew a special tea for the swelling and muscle pain,” she says. “While it’s heating, I’ll find you something to eat. First, though, I’d like to check one more thing.”

  She lifts my chin again and rests the first two fingers of one hand against my left temple. I notice a change in her breathing—a slow, meditative inhaling and exhaling like Lily and I used during our last amplitude training.

  “That’s interesting,” she murmurs. “Unusually strong. Especially along the—”

  “Wanshang hao, Mistress Tianshi.”

  The healer drops her hand and spins. She looks more than startled. Her face is white with fear. She looks as if she’s been caught doing something forbidden.

  “Master Ning,” she gasps, staring uncertainly at the new arrival before dropping into an awkward bow. “It’s…it’s an honor. To what do I owe the unexpected pleasure of this visit?”

  “Rumor has it,” Master Ning says in his slow, serene way, “that two of our academy’s brightest pupils are suffering unfortunate side effects from a particularly severe punishment.”

  Mistress Tianshi nods. If she were a cat, I think her hackles would be rising.

  “Their so-called punishment,” she says, eyes lowered respectfully but voice still quivering with anger, “in my most humble opinion crossed the bounds separating punishment from torture.”

  Master Ning strokes his forked beard.

  “I concur with your opinion. It seems our discipline officer was overly zealous in his duties. Unfortunately, by imperial edict all matters of educational discipline are left to his discretion.”

  Mistress Tianshi bows again. “Yes, Master Ning.”

  The Master turns to Lily and me.

  “I understand neither of you received any meals today.”

  We nod.

  “I have taken the liberty of asking my housekeeper, Mistress Yi, to prepare a hot meal for you. If Mistress Tianshi will allow it, I would be honored to have you dine at my pagoda with me.”

  He looks at Mistress Tianshi. She hesitates then nods.

  “I was just about to brew some healing tea,” she says. “If they wish to accompany you, I can deliver the tea to your pagoda.”

  “Thank you, Mistress Tianshi.”

  He dips his head in a crooked half-bow.

  “Student Lily? Student Jade? You must be famished. Shall we be on our way?”

  I feel Mistress Tianshi’s eyes on the back of my head as I follow Master Ning out the door. She knows something strange is going on. I can only pray to my ancestors she doesn’t suspect a connection between my fainting spells and my altered Fifth Amplitude. I’m already in enough trouble. In this world and Jenna’s. I don’t need any new problems swooping down on me.

  TWENTY-FIVE

  二十五

  JADE

  Mistress Yi has laid out a sumptuous feast. Rice bowls, steaming meat platters, colorful fruit trays, and a porcelain soup tureen jostle each other for elbow space. The delicious odors rising from the table make my mouth water and my stomach rumble. One aroma in particular strongly affects me. The soup.

  Mother and I used to make mushroom soup. I helped her gather the mushrooms from the forest and then we sliced them into tender strips to be simmered in a rich, dark broth.

  I close my eyes and slowly inhale the memory-stirring scent.

  “It tastes even better than it smells,” Master Ning says.

  I snap my eyes open, face warming.

  “Please seat yourselves and eat as much as you would like,” Master Ying invites. “Both of you look completely famished.”

  We each choose a place at the table, and Master Ning turns to his housekeeper.

  “Mistress Yi, would you be so kind as to close the doors behind us?”

  The housekeeper bows, steps into the hallway, and quietly swings the doors shut. I notice how each door is paneled in burgundy leather, each panel cushioning a jade dragon at its center. Didn’t Mistress Song say something about jade and leather blocking amplitudes?

  “In this room,” Master Ning says, interpreting my gaze, “one can speak freely—no matter how sensitive the topic. But, before we talk…” He waves a wrinkled hand over the food. “Please. Fill your empty stomachs.”

  The High Master seats himself and slowly ladles soup into three bowls. He slides one to each of us, and, as Master Yao instructed us in our mandatory culture classes, we wait for our host to test his soup before we try ours. The soup is almost as delicious as Mother’s. Mistress Yi is a very good cook.

  After the soup, Master Ning serves us meats and rice. The herbed rice has been given flavor and color with bits of carrots, green peas, and tender bamboo shoots. The meats are even better. We have a choice of glazed sweet-and-sour duck, soy-marinated venison, or seasoned trout fillets. The fillets taste like lemon, mint, and sage. I don’t think I’ve ever eaten this well in my life.

  I eat and eat. I’m so famished I don’t realize Master Ning has stopped eating until I’m half finished with my third bowl of rice. It’s considered unlucky—and impolite—to leave even one uneaten rice grain in your bowl, so I self-consciously empty it before sliding the bowl and chopsticks to one side.

  Lily takes even longer than I to realize what’s happening. She’s hungrily eyeing a slice of light green melon when she notices the Master and me folding our hands on the table. Reluctantly, she folds her hands, too.

  “Mistress Song tells me the two of you made good progress during your first training session together.”

  Unsure how to respond, we demurely nod.

  “At this point it’s natural to have questions. Now would be a safe time to ask.”

  Lily and I exchange glances. We definitely have questions, but they’re all about the thing I wasn’t supposed to discuss.

  “Too soon perhaps?”

  A different question forces itself out of my mouth. I’m not sure whether it’s Jenna asking it or me.

  “What is the Seventh Prophecy?”

  His gray eyes darken with concern. He seems about to say something, but the dining room doors swing open, slamming against the inner wall.

  “Bingmayong!”

  Mistress Yi holds a hand over her heart. She’s gasping for breath.

  “Bingmayong! And…and dream hunters!” she says. “Here! Now!”

  We rise from our seats.

  “Follow me,” the High Master commands. “I think it would be wise to get both of you out of the pagoda before they notice you’re here.”

  A second visit from the Emperor’s minions in just a few days. Something terrible is about to happen.

  TWENTY-SIX

  二十六

  JADE

  He takes us into a small kitchen where he gives quick instructions to Mistress Yi.

  “Take them out the back door and around to the dormitories. The rest of the students will be gathering there. You know what to do if the dream hunters show interest in either of them.”

  Mistress Yi nods. Her face is grim, and beads of perspiration glitter on her forehead. Master Ning’s robes whirl around his ankles as he turns to leave, and Mistress Yi steers us in the opposite direction.

  “Walk quickly,” she says. “Do whatever I tell you, and don’t stop to question.”

  We nod. She leads us out a narrow door into the twilit evening.

  A mango-colored skyline scudded with shadow-black clouds ripens into darkness over the mountains. There’s still enough light, however, to make out the expressionless visages of the hundred or more terra cotta automatons
encircling the pagodas.

  “There,” Mistress Yi commands. “Mingle with them.”

  She’s nodding toward a crowd of frightened girls. Most of them are clad in silk dressing gowns, and they huddle, pale-faced, near the Pagoda of Amplitudes.

  “Whatever else you do,” Mistress Yi says, “don’t draw attention.”

  If I could, I’d shrink to a beetle’s diminutive stature and hide myself under a rock. But that’s not possible, so Lily and I slide in among the girls while Mistress Yi stations herself at a watchful distance. Master Ning now makes his appearance, calmly descending the Pagoda of Reason’s front steps.

  A Fourth-Year girl standing in front of me gasps and points. She isn’t pointing at the High Master. Her attention is aimed in the opposite direction where six dream hunters, restrained by long red leashes, trot across the campus.

  The hunters have the lean, short-haired bodies of sighthounds—broader at the chest, tapered to nearly hipless hindquarters. Their faces are what unsettle us most. Flattened to almost human proportions, they resemble the wizened visages of large-eyed old men.

  The Emperor himself, or so it’s said, oversaw this breed’s evolution. His prodigious amplitude skills influenced their gradual physical deformation and gave them their dream-seeking capabilities. It would be an interesting phenomenon if I weren’t so frightened. Terror squeezes my lungs. My terror increases when one of the hunter’s slowly swings its head my direction.

  “We weren’t informed the provincial offices would be conducting search drills.”

  Master Ning stands in the dream hunters’ path, forcing their handler to bring them to a halt.

  “This is no drill,” the barrel-shaped handler gruffly replies. “We’re here to investigate evidence of Fifth Amplitude infractions. A list of names will be read. Those called will immediately step forward.”

  He turns to a smaller, thinner man behind him—a tired-looking individual wearing an imperial scribe’s green and black robes. The nervous man unrolls a scroll, clears his throat, and begins calling out names.

  “Cliff Felsen…Lakota Grande…Sage Chan…”

  They shuffle hesitantly out of the crowd.

  “Lily West…”

  My heart constricts. I grasp Lily’s fingers, but she stares straight ahead, lips tight, face expressionless.

  “…Jade Hua…Flint Sun…”

  I’m so numbed by Lily’s selection I stand motionless for several seconds before I realize the scribe has also called my name. I glide forward in a trance. I’m not sure how many more names are called because the scribe’s voice becomes a hollow echo that barely cuts through my daze.

  When the list finally ends, I search for Master Ning and Mistress Yi. The little housekeeper casts the High Master a questioning look, but he responds with an almost imperceptible head shake. Whatever he first expected her to do, the circumstances have changed. Lily and I are on our own. This realization sends a chill through me.

  The line of summoned students now creeps across the rounded path to almost touch the huddled crowds on each side. On one side our fellow students shield themselves behind a terra cotta Qin Shi Huang statue. On the other, they press around the endlessly burning Eternal Flame. One would think we were highly contagious.

  The dream hunters strain eagerly at their leashes. I force myself to look away from their grinning mouths and deformed eyes.

  “Search!”

  The handler drops the red leashes, and the nightmare hounds fan out along our trembling line. There’s something utterly disturbing about the way their long pink tongues loll out of their leering mouths. They pant excitedly as they examine one cringing student after another. It’s impossible to hide my terror, but, fortunately, everyone else is just as terrified. Everyone but Flint. For some reason, he seems meditative—oddly calm.

  One of the hunters walks past us and locks gazes with Lily. She stares back transfixed. Perspiration beads up on her forehead, plastering strands of loose hair against her pale face. Her throat spasmodically tightens and loosens, but she keeps her posture straight.

  The hunter moves on. Lily slumps. So far none of the six hunters have shown anything more than a passing interest in me. Maybe the jade pendant protects me. Maybe I’ll completely avoid their attention.

  As if reading these thoughts, a hunter crosses in front of me, stops, and peers up at my face. My stomach churns. A second hunter joins the first. A third lopes over to join them.

  Their handler, grinning now, steps forward. Something uncomfortable is happening in my brain. There’s a sensation inside my skull like dry hair building up a static charge—the crackling sensation that immediately precedes a painful electric jolt. This feeling, however, is even more invasive. Like a fungus’s fibrous tendrils, multiple intrusions creep through my mind, probing nooks and crannies I didn’t realize existed.

  I push against the dream hunters’ prying thought waves. If I don’t break loose, they’ll unlock every memory in my head. In fact, they’ve almost managed it when something distracts them.

  They withdraw, casting about with their bulbous noses to the earth, snuffling the dirt around their paws. Scowling, their handler snatches their loose leashes and attempts to steer them back to me. They resist him and pull further down the line.

  Unable to salvage the mind search, the handler snarls in disgust, whips his hideous hounds with their own leashes, and starts dragging them away.

  “There’s nothing here,” he snorts at the scribe. “If there was, they’d have found it already. Make a note. This place is clean. We have better ways to occupy our time than investigating nonexistent threats from half-trained children.”

  As he finishes his sentence, he glares at Master Yao, who stands under an apricot tree, apart from the other teachers. Master Yao looks away, but not before casting a suspicious, narrow-eyed glance at Lily and me.

  Without further comment—with no apology—the handler and his frightening entourage fade into the night. Lily and I collapse against each other. On the girls’ side of the path, we hear high-pitched whispers and a few scattered sobs. From the boys come nervous laughs and subdued murmuring.

  “To your dormitories!” Master Yao exclaims. “The excitement has ended! Go directly to your rooms!”

  Flint walks past, brushing so close to me I smell the warm, musky fragrance of his clothing and hair. I remember what he did at the lion statue, and my heart beats faster.

  “They were in my brain!” Lily says, pulling my attention reluctantly away. “Like…like worms…chewing holes through my mind!”

  “I know,” I reply. “They were in my head, too.”

  She stares at me. She wants to say something, but she bites her lower lip and turns away.

  Maybe she’s having second thoughts about our training. Maybe she’s thinking about turning back before it’s too late. It was too late for me the moment I saw Jenna and her mother in my forbidden dreams.

  If Jenna is listening to these thoughts, I hope she knows how sorry I am.

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  二十七

  JADE

  I’m walking across the campus. The moon is draped in jagged, rag-thin clouds. I don’t know why I’m not sleeping, I just know there’s some place I need to be. It’s urgent enough that I didn’t bother changing out of my sleeping robes.

  I think I’m dreaming, but it’s not about Jenna. What does that mean? This question stops me in my tracks.

  I feel confused. I shake my head.

  Master Ning’s library.

  That’s right. That’s where I need to be. I have no time to stop and worry about trivial things like my Jenna dreams.

  My feet start moving again. I’m reminded of Jenna’s midnight excursion across her neighbors’ lawn. She was confused too—uncertain whether it was really happening or not. Something gnaws inside me, and I stop again. My brain feels sticky. Why did I get out of bed? Why am I walking toward Master Ning’s pagoda?

  “Book,” I murmur.

 
My voice is thick and slurred. There’s a book in Master Ning’s library. I’ll know it when I see it, and I must bring it back to the dormitory.

  Why would I want to steal one of the Master’s books and take it to the girls’ dormitory?

  “More than anything else, your own feelings will warn you when your mind is being tampered with.”

  Mistress Song said that. She also said something about feeling confusion. I freeze in the shadows of Master Ning’s pagoda.

  My mind is being manipulated!

  Something moves behind me. I reach up my sleeve and remove the bone-handled dagger strapped there. I spin and stab wildly into the shadows.

  A sweaty hand encircles my wrist and twists my arm. My attacker swings herself behind me and clamps her free hand over my mouth. I bite down, and I’m rewarded with a stifled cry.

  “Jade!”

  Lily’s voice is tight with pain.

  “Jade! Snap out of it!”

  I struggle to turn the knife toward her.

  “Jade!” she whispers again. “Please! Someone is controlling you!”

  I already know that. So why am I still allowing it?

  I feel the knife in my hand and remember the boy with his amplitude bomb. My legs lose strength and I crumple to my knees. As I fall, my hand jerks free, the dagger slips, and it’s razor-sharp blade slices across my fingers.

  Mental clarity rushes back like a tidal wave.

  “Oh!” Lily drops down beside me. “Your hand!”

  Blood drips everywhere.

  Lily turns my wrist, examines the wound.

  “Lily?”

  “Yes, it’s me. We have to get you back to the dormitory and do something about your hand.”

  “Dormitory?”

  I shake cobwebs out of my brain.

  “Lily? What are we doing out here?”

  She’s not listening. She’s still staring at my blood-slicked hand. Her eyes are wide so it must be serious. Reluctantly, I follow her gaze.

  Lily rubs her thumb across my fingers, but I feel no pain. Blood smears over otherwise unblemished flesh. The slice is gone. But…but all the blood… How could… Where…