Gunpowder Alchemy

by Jeannie Lin

“We’re being tracked,” Yang declared.

  Headman Zhou came up beside him. “Is it pirates?”

  A murmur rustled through the crowd. At the mention of pirates, every man on board had tensed. On a large ship equipped with cannons, I thought we wouldn’t need to fear pirates, but I was apparently wrong.

  Yang didn’t answer. He called for Liu, and a moment later, the engineer appeared above deck, squinting in the sunlight. Yang handed the older man the spyglass.

  “What do you think?” he asked, jaw clenched.

  The small outline in the distant sky had grown larger in the time it took the engineer to make his way above. I recognized the bird was a falcon with its wings outstretched, just as I’d seen yesterday. After staring at it, I had the unsettling feeling that it was the exact same falcon.

  How could I possibly know that? It was closer now and appeared larger, the details clearer to my eye. The outline of the bird appeared identical, as well as the markings on the head and tail.

  “Pirates wouldn’t have anything that intricate,” Liu declared, targeting the bird with his spyglass. At that moment, the falcon cut through the air at an odd angle.

  “The storm blew us off course,” Yang muttered. “Gave them time to catch us.”

  “Who?” I asked.

  With a sideways glance, Yang handed me the spyglass. It took a moment for me to focus it onto the dark silhouette in the sky, but when I did, I saw it wasn’t a falcon at all. Or at least not a live one. The skeleton was fashioned from rattan, the wings from panels of silk. I could just discern the line attached to the carriage that trailed downward before disappearing against the pale blue sky.

  It was a kite. An elaborately constructed kite.

  “I saw that same bird yesterday,” I told them, my chest tightening with dread. Yang swore beside me.

  I didn’t know what purpose the falcon served, but I knew someone was nearby, controlling it. Yang gave the order to ready for battle, setting his crew into motion.

  “We’re low on gunpowder,” Engineer Liu reported grimly.

  Yang barely blinked. “Use it for the engine.”

  I caught the wicked gleam in his eye before he went to join his men.

  The old engineer turned to me with a slight bow. “You should come on down below with us, Miss Jin.”

  Though he was trying to be delicate, I could hear the warning in his voice. I took one last look on deck to see the sailors working at the riggings to angle the sails. Yang with his eyes fixed on the horizon.

  “Are we under attack?” I asked, hurrying down the stairs after the engineer.

  Liu threw an answer over his shoulder. “Only if they can catch us. No need for cannons when we have a ship like this. Our engine is one of the finest there is. One of the fastest on the sea!” he said with a zeal that was far from humble. “Faster than those heavy iron beasts the foreign devils sail.”

  “Is that who we’re fleeing from?” I asked.

  Liu either didn’t hear my question or chose to ignore me. “Where is that lazy apprentice of mine?”

  Benzhuo stumbled from his bunk as we neared the engine room. He was no longer covered in soot as he’d been when I first saw him, though his hands were still stained black. I imagined anyone who worked down here quickly became coated in a layer of gunpowder.

  “More wood!” Liu barked. “We need to get the fire roaring again.”

  The lanky apprentice rushed out to obey his master’s instructions while Engineer Liu gestured for me to bring him the set of bellows leaning against the wall. Then I was given my first glimpse inside the inner workings of the engine.

  “This is a wood furnace?” I asked with a frown.

  “The fire needs to be hot enough to ignite the gunpowder. But in a controlled fashion. See those embers?” The tinder inside the furnace compartment had burned down, but there was a visible glow beneath the ash. “We keep that layer lit, so that we can awaken the beast quickly should we need it.”

  Liu took the bellows from my hands and began to fan the embers, the thick muscles in his forearms flexing. All the while, he kept on talking.

  “The devil ships use steam, did you know that? The real force behind them is the same as ours. They use fire to heat water. We use fire to ignite gunpowder. More power there! But takes a well-crafted machine to contain such forces. Engineer Chen knows that already.”

  “Chen Chang-wei?”

  “Yes. Young Mister Chen. Another one of your father’s prodigies. Chen was in the engineering corps like me. He’s aware of the engine required to handle such heat. What he doesn’t have is this.”

  Liu held up what looked like a drum plastered with red paper over the ends. I knew what it was before he said anything.

  “This is the secret. Do you know the ancients used to mix all sorts of strange things in their powder? Realgar, saltpeter, honey . . . garlic, of all things! The alchemy of fire.” With each proclamation, his voice rose higher dramatically.

  I didn’t realize I’d been holding my breath. “What’s in this mixture?”

  “I don’t know. I just know to throw in the correct amounts and keep my head down if the situation looks desperate. I prefer not to touch the stuff myself. And you shouldn’t touch it, either,” Liu warned, waving a finger at me. “The making of weapons will not win this war. Your father learned that very tragic lesson, little one.”

  Benzhuo had returned with a wheelbarrow laden with firewood. He tossed a few of the logs into the furnace to feed the fire.

  “Now powder!” Liu commanded, taking hold of the bellows once more.

  The apprentice darted out of the room to collect more drums of gunpowder while I stood flat on my feet, wishing there was something I could do to help. After seeing that Engineer Liu was absorbed with his task, I followed Benzhuo to the far section of the cargo hold.

  “Why so far away?” I was out of breath.

  “The gunpowder has to be kept away from any spark that could ignite it, miss.”

  The old engineer and his apprentice seemed to wage an ongoing battle with fire; how to keep it alive, how to keep it from devouring everything.

  Inside the cargo hold, the gunpowder drums were stacked in crates with straw in between. With their earthenware containers and the red paper seal on top, they resembled jugs of wine. It occurred to me that Yang might very well have intended the powder to be disguised as a shipment of spirits.

  Benzhuo hefted up of the crates and headed off toward the engine room while I only managed to lift one drum. My arms strained against the weight, and as I struggled to find my balance, I heard an odd sound.

  At first I dismissed it as one of the creaks and groans of the ship as it rolled upon the waves. But I had become accustomed to those noises and this was different. Someone was thumping against the walls.

  The sound was coming from down here, somewhere nearby. Though the noises were muffled, I thought I could hear a voice. There were no words, just a low moan as if someone were in distress. I set down the drum of gunpowder and tried to follow the source of the sound.

  Outside of the storage area, there was a long, narrow corridor. I followed it, and the pounding against the walls became more pronounced. There was a chamber right beside the cargo hold. The door was unlocked, and I opened it with a trembling hand.

  A chill entered my blood. There were large cells with thick iron bars on each side. Cages, with enough space for a man to lie down inside, but little else. The cells were all empty except for two.

  At first, I thought these prisoners must have been locked down here for disciplinary reasons, but one of them stared listlessly, not even recognizing my presence. He was gaunt, the hollows of his face sunken and almost skeletal in appearance. I kept on telling myself to back away, get out, but my feet wouldn’t obey.

  The man closest to me slowly turned his head as if it took great
effort. His eyes were black and endless, and my skin crawled as I realized I knew that look too well. It was the same gaze my mother fixed onto me when she was looking, not at me, but through me.

  Without warning, he lunged at the bars. Startled, I fell backward and could do nothing but stare as his gaunt form came smashing at the iron cage. A bone-thin hand snaked through the bars to grasp at me. At that moment, the second prisoner also came to life.

  They were little more than animals in a rage. The men shook their heads furiously, rocking back and forth, clawing at the bars and then at themselves. The one who had started it all had his face forced against the iron, mouth gaping open. His tongue, gums, teeth, everything inside looked black as if doused with tar. His fingertips, beneath the nails, had also turned dark.

  I scrambled away, my hands scratching against the wooden panels in the wall as I tried to pull myself up. My limbs had forgotten how to function in the face of the horror before me, and I fumbled with the door for an eternity before I was able to drag it open.

  As soon as I was out, I slammed the door shut, pushing my entire weight against it. The banging and snarling continued on the other side.

  I ran down the corridor, trying to escape from the stench, the cages, the mindless rage. I saw Benzhuo at the door to the gunpowder room, staring at me. “We’re not supposed to go back there.”

  His words barely registered in my ears. My thoughts were like a riot of crows seeking escape. All at once, I could see Yang in his laboratory. The vials of blood locked away in the storeroom. The extra portions of food that Cook always set aside.

  Yang had imprisoned those men down below. He experimented with opium in his lab, but maybe it didn’t stop there. Those two prisoners, the blankness of their eyes . . .

  I didn’t need to know what was happening to know there was something very wrong. I shoved past Benzhuo. Behind me, I could hear the captives shouting, their grunts more animal than human. Liu emerged from the engine room as I reached the stairs.

  “Soling, wait!”

  He kept on calling after me, trying to calm me down, but I took the steps as fast as I could. Even when I broke out onto the main deck, I couldn’t stop running. Only the edge of the ship and the long drop to the ocean below stopped me.

  Yang was mad. He was gifted and brilliant, but he had become insane in his fervor. I gulped in deep breaths of salt air as if I could cleanse myself.

  There was shouting all around me as a great shadow coursed overhead, blocking out the sun. It was then that I finally glanced up and then over the water.

  For a moment, I had forgotten that we were under attack. Another ship had appeared and had navigated close enough for me to see the red sails of the imperial navy. The prow had been carved into a dragon’s head whose gaping mouth was aimed directly toward us.

  The glider continued to circle overhead. Now I could see there wasn’t a single cord attached to the rattan frame, but many lines that controlled the movements of the falcon as if it were a puppet rather than a mere kite on the wind.

  The crew was focused on the approaching ship as well as the contraption circling us. No one paid me any attention, but when I searched out Yang he was looking right at me. There was a question in his eyes. His lips moved, and though I couldn’t hear him above the shouts of the crewmen, I recognized the words.

  Chen Chang-wei.

  I recalled the elaborate rattan skeleton in Chang-wei’s study. The glider was his work. Yang had probably recognized that fact the moment the giant falcon appeared in the sky.

  A few of the crewmen attempted to throw a spear through the glider, but the silk bird dipped and banked out of harm’s way. A moment later, an orb dropped from the rattan frame and shattered onto the deck, not unlike the shell of an egg. A blue flame spread out from the remnants.

  By the time crewmen gathered to douse the flame, another orb had been dropped on the opposite side of the deck. All the while, the dragon ship sped closer, black smoke spewing from its sides from vents hidden in the scales.

  “Fire!” Yang ordered.

  The boom of a cannon shot shook the deck. I staggered to my knees, hands pressed to my ears as I searched for cover. Rather than answer with cannons, the falcon released more of its incendiary orbs, splitting the efforts of the crew between controlling the flames and manning the cannons.

  I ducked behind the main mast, realizing a moment later that my strategy wasn’t sound. The falcon began attacking the sails with its firebombs. The engine remained silent beneath us. Engineer Liu hadn’t gotten his “beast” fully functioning yet.

  The next time Yang’s ship fired its cannons, there was an answering volley from the approaching boat that shook the deck. The air filled with the tang of sulfur and the sound of splintering wood.

  What if they destroyed each other? What if each ship dragged its crew down into the black waters?

  Through the rush and roar of the battle, I heard my name.

  “Soling!” The cry came again, louder this time.

  The imperial ship now loomed large before us. I thought I saw a figure wave at me from the opposite deck.

  “Get on,” Chang-wei shouted.

  The falcon glider swooped low across the deck right before me, clearing a path through the swarm of crewmen. As the men leapt away, the glider arched up into the air, sailing high before diving back down toward the deck.

  “Get on,” he said again. Chang-wei was asking me to do the impossible.

  I glanced back at Yang, then traced the path of the falcon’s flight over the water. Yang and Chang-wei were both keeping secrets from me, but when I considered the emaciated prisoners with their mouths stained black, I started running as fast as I could.

  I heard my name once again right before I intercepted the glider. It was Yang this time. I should have kept my focus upon the glider and my one chance at escape, but something in his tone made me pause.

  There was no threat there. No anger. It was merely an entreaty and . . . something more.

  I turned to see the mystery box held out in Yang’s palm. The steel surface gleamed in the sunlight. With a heft of his wrist, the cube was sailing through the air at me.

  My arms closed around it out of reflex. I pulled the box protectively to my chest and felt the hard steel edge against my breastbone.

  A moment later the falcon flew in front of me. I reached out and hooked my arm onto the rattan frame, pulling my feet into the carriage beneath the wings. In the next breath, I was flying.

  The air rushed out of me and I clung to the frame as tight as I could. The skeleton formed a cage around me, and the flutter of the silken wing and tail feathers drowned out all sound. I could feel the rush of air over my face, and my heart thundered inside my chest. Louder than the cannons below.

  I was in the air, inside a contraption that I knew was nothing more than a collection of silk and sticks. Yet weren’t bones and feathers just as humble of materials? I wanted to squeeze my eyes shut in fear, but I also wanted to throw them open as wide as I could and stare at the two battling ships below, the tiny crewmen aboard them. The endless water all around. I was flying.

  Gradually, the glider was being reeled in. As the imperial ship became larger and larger below me, I noticed that the cannon fire had stopped on both sides.

  Chang-wei was there waiting for me as the falcon lowered to the deck. He held the control apparatus in his hands. It looked like a skein of cords wrapped around a sunburst of wooden knobs.

  Several of the crewmen came forward and reached up with long poles to hook onto the frame to pull it the final distance. Chang-wei handed the controls aside as I lowered my feet to the deck.

  “Are you all right?” he asked, reaching out to steady me as I untangled myself from the glider. My knees buckled when I tried to stand on my own and Chang-wei held on to me to keep me from falling.

  “I thought we�
�d lost you.” Chang-wei’s hands lingered on my waist as he spoke.

  When our gazes met, his expression was full of concern. Then something flickered in his eyes, and he quickly let go of me as if remembering we weren’t alone.

  “It is good to see you’re safe.”

  His tone had become formal, and he took a step back for good measure.

  “Shall we commence fire?” one of the navy men asked.

  There was no chance to reply. I looked across the water to Yang’s war junk and watched as some sort of netting was released from just beneath the ridge of the bow. White powder rained into the sea, which immediately began to churn and froth around the ship.

  Yang tipped two fingers toward us in a brief salute before the entire ship and the surrounding waters became enshrouded in a thick, smoky mist. With a roar, the engine started up and the scent of gunpowder filled the air.

  Old Liu had done his part, and the junk sped off, the whir of the engine fading away behind the curtain of fog.

  “We can track them down again,” suggested a man who appeared to be the dragon boat captain.

  I glanced down at the mystery box, still hugged against my chest. Chang-wei watched silently as I found the trigger and set the gears spinning. The panels of the box folded open to reveal a square of folded paper inside, covered on both sides with neatly written notes and formulas. I couldn’t decipher the script, but Chang-wei seemed to comprehend.

  “There’s no need to pursue them,” he replied, turning the sheet of paper over. “We found what we were looking for.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  The captain’s quarters on the imperial dragon boat were luxurious compared to the cabin on Yang’s vessel. Chang-wei brought me there so the two of us could speak privately, and I took a seat in one of the rosewood chairs. I still had my puzzle box in my hands with Yang’s gunpowder formula tucked safely inside. Chang-wei had returned them to me after a brief inspection. Despite how eager the crown prince and his cohort were to seize the secrets, Chang-wei hadn’t seized possession of the papers.