Then she sat down on a rock nearby, and waited for the fall of night.
A man came to her, as the sun was just dipping behind the western mountains.
“Your pardon, lady, but the carnival is closing. You must be away from here.”
“I was hoping,” she told him, “that I might speak with the estimable Weng Hao.”
“Master Weng Hao is a busy man,” he said. “I can bear him a message, perhaps. But it is not possible to speak with him.”
“I must insist,” she said, rising to her feet. “Perhaps, if you tell him what I have shown you, he will wish to talk?”
“You have not shown me anything, lady,” the man said.
In response, Yi Qin reached inside the bag she carried, and withdrew a tablet. The last rays of the setting sun caught the embossed symbols carved on it. The man bowed, very low.
“Your pardon, noble lady. Please, forgive me. I did not know you were an emissary of the Emperor.”
“There is nothing to forgive,” she told him, tucking the tablet back into her bag. “But you will tell Weng Hao that I wish to speak with him, concerning the Box of Beautiful Things?”
“I will tell him, noble lady,” the man said, and bowed again.
Yi Qin sat down again on her rock, and waited. The sun slid below the horizon; First Moon followed it down, while Third Moon shone big and pale in the eastern sky.
“I am honored,” a voice said from nearby. “An emissary of the Emperor himself, come to my humble carnival! Truly, this is a blessing. How may I be of service, noble lady?”
Yi Qin rose, and bowed toward Weng Hao, who was approaching, bearing a lantern.
“I would talk, Weng Hao,”
“By all means! I love to talk!” He laughed, expansively. “But this is no place for it. Come to my pavilion! I will offer you food, and rice wine, and listen eagerly to what you have to say.”
“I would prefer, Weng Hao, to talk here, under the eye of Third Moon.”
He bowed. “If that is what the Emperor’s Emissary wishes, then that is what shall be! As a loyal subject…”
“Are you a loyal subject of the Emperor?” Yi Qin asked, mildly.
Insofar as it was possible to tell, behind the smooth face and inflated cheeks, Weng Hao looked surprised. “Do you doubt it?”
“If I may speak frankly, Weng Hao; then yes, I doubt it. I have seen certain things, today, which give me cause to doubt that you are a loyal subject of the Emperor. Which make me doubt, even, whether your name is truly Weng Hao.”
“And why do you doubt these things, lady?”
“Because you are a charlatan, Weng Hao.”
“A charlatan? If so noble a person as the Emperor’s Emissary tells me, then it must be so; and yet, I do not understand. I would be grateful beyond measure if you could explain this to me.”
“A thousand people come to your carnival every day, Weng Hao. They come because you have a tent in which there is a Box of Beautiful Things. But the box is empty, Weng Hao. There is nothing beautiful in illusion; in conjuring.”
“In conjuring? And how, pray enlighten me, did you discern that the Box of Beautiful Things was empty?”
“By revealing the truth.”
“And this truth was revealed by what means? By conjuring, perhaps?”
“Just so,” she said, with a small tilt of the head. “But it is truth, nonetheless.”
“If only the truth were so simple. A thousand people came to my carnival today. All but one have left with gladness in their hearts. They will remember for many years all the beautiful and wonderful things that they have seen at my carnival.”
“That they believe they have seen.”
“And what is stronger than belief? Go to them, Emissary. Ask them what they saw. Tell them, if you wish, that it was but conjuring; a trick. They will not believe you. They believe what they have seen.”
“They believe a lie.”
“And the truth is so valuable? What is the virtue of truth, Emissary? Can you say that you have never told a lie, in all your life?”
“I have told many lies,” she admitted. “Where it has been necessary. You lie, sir, purely for your own convenience. You lie to draw people to your carnival. You have fine tigers, and nimble acrobats, and talented storytellers; but there are a dozen carnivals which can boast such things. It is trickery and illusion that draws people to come here, and to place a quarter-teng piece into a bowl. You are a wealthy man, Weng Hao, but your wealth has come from lies.”
“I am accounted a wealthy man by some,” he admitted. “But wealth is a relative thing. I force no one to come to my carnival. It is the word that brings people here, the word of mouth. People speak of the beauty they have seen. ‘You must go to Weng Hao’s Grand Carnival of Curiosities,’ they say. ‘You must see the Box of Beautiful Things. Such beauty, such wonderful things, as you cannot imagine!’ This is why they come, Emissary. They pay but a quarter teng to see things that they will remember for years to come; things they will tell even to their grandchildren. They buy beauty, and the memory of beauty.”
“They buy lies,” Yi Qin maintained.
Weng Hao shrugged. “If you say so. But I wonder, perhaps, if they see a truth that you cannot. You did not wish to see beauty, when you came here, did you? You wished only to uncover your truth; but your truth is a sad, mean-spirited thing. You would deprive the world of beauty, Emissary. You would steal its dreams.”
Yi Qin said nothing. The night folded itself around the carnival tents. Geckos barked to one another in the dusty plain.
“Show me the Box of Beautiful Things,” she said, eventually.
Weng Hao smiled. “But of course! Come, let me enumerate its wondrous contents.” He rose, and carried on speaking as they walked to the tent where the Box of Beautiful Things was kept. “There is the most magnificent gold filigree, jewelry that surpasses the work of even Grand Master Lin Fu! There is porcelain, so fine that it is translucent, so delicate that even the Emperor has none to equal it. And the silks…colors, my lady, that you have never seen; colors that only your dreams have ever held.”
“Please,” she said. “Do not recount these things. Let me see for myself.”
He ushered her through the opening of the tent, and followed her inside. The lamps had been extinguished; but he lifted the lantern he held, and its orange light spilled into the open box.
Yi Qin, her arms folded together under her sleeves, looked into the Box of Beautiful Things.
A necklace of gold filigree, delicate as a spiderweb, bright as the morning sun on Mount Yang. A jade dragon, smooth as water, cool as a blessing. Silks, as vivid as dreams. Porcelain, pale as milk. Pearls and rubies and feathers. Shapes and colors and textures that made her heart ache.
She knew none of it was real. Her thumb pressed, lightly, against the dart under her sleeve; but so lightly that it did not pierce the skin, and draw forth blood.
She looked into the Box of Beautiful Things for a long time.
Then she sighed, and pressed her thumb hard onto the point of the dart. With swift, precise movements, she withdrew her bloody hand, and reached forward, and inscribed the First Unspoken Word onto the beautiful black, lacquered wood.
The First Unspoken Word: The Word That Releases Hungry Flames.
Weng Hao shrieked, and flapped his sleeves in alarm, but there was nothing he could do. In a moment, the lacquered box was ablaze; spitting and crackling and consuming itself. Flames leapt to the heavy drapery, and in a moment the whole tent was alive with fire. Yi Qin walked, very calmly, out into the night air, and stood aside, watching the tent burn, watching Weng Hao’s men bustle uselessly around it, for there was not enough water, here in this dry place, to have the slightest hope of quenching the fire.
Weng Hao stood in front of Yi Qin and cried.
“Why have you done this? You have destroyed it! You have destroyed the box! You have destroyed my livelihood!”
“You have a carnival, Weng Hao,” she answered him,
quiet and adamant against the torrent of his emotions. “You have a carnival like any other, with tigers, and acrobats, and storytellers. Settle for that, and make your living without the Box of Beautiful Things.”
She was sure that, if she had not been an Emissary of the Emperor, he would have killed her where she stood; or would, rather, have attempted it. Instead, he merely dropped to his knees. Tears spilled out onto his enormous cheeks.
“You have destroyed beauty,” he wailed. “You are wicked, Emissary. Wicked beyond measure! These are not just my tears! These are the tears of thousands, who will come to my carnival, because they have heard tales of the Box of Beautiful Things, and wish only to see it for themselves; and I must tell them that it is no more. That it was burnt. That the beauty is gone, forever.”
“Until you find another conjuror,” Yi Qin said, quietly, calmly, “who can work such magic for you. It is not, I think, as if you lack the money to pay for such a thing? But next time, Weng Hao; next time, I advise you this. Create a little less beauty. Create colors that are wondrous, but which people have seen before. Create jewelry that is no more than the equal of the work of Master Lin Fu. You have reached too high, Weng Hao. The Emperor does not care to think that, in all his realm, there is such beauty owned by another.”
Weng Hao stared at her.
“The Emperor is jealous? You have burnt my Box of Beautiful Things because the Emperor is jealous?”
Yi Qin said nothing. There was nothing she could say. She simply turned, and walked away into the night, and remembered beauty.
Afterword by Brian Dolton
1—The Title
Titles come from all kinds of places. There’s a Scottish singer-songwriter called Jackie Leven who has some really great song titles (and some really great songs, though the two don’t always match up). One song is called “Burning the Box of Beautiful Things” (which itself, I believe, is borrowed from a book by Alex Seago—see, we just get our ideas from other people!), which I just thought was a great image. I knew I wanted to write a story about the box. I just didn’t have a clue what the story was…
2—The Story
Online, I hang at a writing group called Liberty Hall, run by the wonderful Mike Munsil. The site features writing challenges; you get a trigger, which may be a word, a quotation, a picture…anything. And you get ninety minutes to write a story. Yep; a complete story in an hour and a half. It sounds absurdly daunting, but it’s a great way to get sat down, stop thinking about stuff, and actually write. Of course, it helps that I can dump between two and three thousand words onto a page in that time…
The trigger that resulted in this story was a picture of a doll, with a porcelain mask and a gold and purple robe. I looked at the trigger and, as I usually do, I didn’t sit back and think, I just started writing, thinking as I went. Under ninety minutes later, I had the story. Critiques by the other members of the group helped me to hone it into the right shape, and voilà!
Just in case this all sounds ridiculously easy, I’ve written stories for more than thirty of these challenges (as well as a dozen others, for fortnight rather than ninety-minute deadlines). Some of them will certainly never, ever see the light of day. Others have taken weeks of thought and careful polishing, or even complete rewriting, before they’ve gone wandering out to market. But there’s no doubt that I’ve been a far more productive—and, I hope, far better—writer as a result of these challenges.
3—The Character
Heh. That’s another story. Indeed, that’s a lot of other stories. I’m really hopeful that everyone’s going to be seeing a lot more of Yi Qin. But IGMS was her first ever appearance (and my first ever sale), and I’ll always hold it dear.
Taint of Treason
BY ERIC JAMES STONE
“Just be sure of your stroke, son.”
Only I could hear my father’s words over the jeers of the crowd. He knelt down before me and nodded to indicate he was ready. Calmly he raised his head, extending his neck to give me a wider target.
My right arm felt suddenly weak, and my grip on the sword my father had given me for my fifteenth birthday was becoming slippery with sweat. I knew he was no traitor. No one had served King Tenal so faithfully, so long, as had my father. Even as others whispered that the king had fallen to madness, Father’s lips formed no ill word. He had lived to serve the king, but now stood condemned to die, convicted of treason by the mouth of the king himself—no trial necessary, no appeal possible.
I did not feel I could do this. But what choice did I have?
The son of a traitor has the taint of treason in his blood, which can only be cleansed if the son executes his father. If the son cannot do it, he proves his own treason and joins his father in death. But my father had foreclosed that option: “You must remove the taint of treason from our family so that you can care for your mother and sisters. It is your duty to them, and the final duty you owe to me.”
Perhaps the king was mad, but my father was his oldest friend and closest advisor. King Tenal had been like an uncle to me; as a child I’d sat on his lap countless times as he told me stories of the battles he and my father had fought together. He wouldn’t really make me kill my father. I refused to believe that.
Turning away from my father, I knelt before the king. “Your Majesty, by your word is my father condemned to die at my hand. He has accepted your sentence, and has not spoken against it. Does this not prove he is loyal to Your Majesty? Will you not show him mercy?”
The jeers trickled to silence. The king’s eyelids closed, and he muttered while bobbing his head. Snapping his eyes open, he said, “Are you…questioning the justice of our sentence?”
My heart fell. There was no mercy in that stare. Knowing I was a knife’s edge from joining my father, I said, “Your Majesty’s word is law. At your command I will slay my father.”
Suddenly, King Tenal’s eyes rolled up, his eyelids fluttering. A shudder ran from crown to boot and his back arched in a spasm. Two of his guards reached out and grabbed his arms to prevent him from falling out of his throne, while the royal omnimancer swiftly clapped a hand to the king’s forehead and began muttering.
Then, as abruptly as it had started, it was over. He returned his gaze to me as if nothing had happened. “You spoke of mercy,” he said. “Yes, perhaps it is time we showed mercy.”
I stood motionless, hardly daring to breathe. Was it possible that the omnimancer’s treatment had brought the king back to some measure of sanity?
Standing unsteadily, he seized a goblet from a courtier. “We will let the gods decide whether this traitor deserves mercy. We will pour this goblet of wine over his head. If he does not get wet, we shall spare his life.” The king giggled and snorted as he came toward my father and me. Courtiers laughed hesitantly, but the crowd roared as the king upended the goblet, the wine spattering like blood over my father’s upraised face.
“Well, it appears the gods have spoken. Execute him.” Dropping the goblet, the king returned to his throne.
I stood before my father. Though wine ran in rivulets down his face, there were no tears to dilute it. “Tell your mother I love her and was thinking of her. Now carry out your duty.” His voice was low but steady.
Blinking the tears from my eyes so I could see clearly to strike, I positioned my sword by his neck and drew it back. If I struck swiftly and cleanly, he would feel no pain.
I held my sword high, waiting hopelessly for a final word from the king to stay me.
“Do it.” The king’s words were taken up as a chant by the crowd.
I swung my sword. My father was not a traitor. The blade sliced smoothly through his neck. My father had not been a traitor. His head fell back as his body toppled forward, his blood spraying my legs—his blood untainted by treason. For generation after generation, my family’s blood had never been tainted by thought of treason.
Never.
Until now.
Afterword by Eric James Stone
This story bega
n as an exercise in a creative writing class taught by Caleb Warnock: Show, don’t tell, a person with dignity.
I thought about various situations in which a character might show dignity, and I decided on a man facing execution. I started writing the scene without knowing much about any of the characters, except for the fact that the man being executed was going to show dignity.
As I wrote, I decided that the executioner would be a young man, new to the business of execution. The prisoner would be an old man, and would actually give friendly advice to his executioner. So I wrote the line “Just be sure of your stroke, son.” (I later moved that line to the beginning.)
And then it hit me—this was not just an old man calling a young man “son.” This was a father talking to his actual son.
But why was the son executing the father? I came up with the idea that it was to cleanse the taint of treason from his family, and the rest of the story flowed from that.
Originally, I envisioned a much longer story, one that followed the young man over several years as he planned and eventually carried out his treason. But Caleb pointed out that nothing in that plot could match the power of the moment when the son is forced to kill his father. So I ended it there.
The inevitable overthrow of the king is left as an exercise for the reader’s imagination.
Call Me Mr. Positive
BY TOM BARLOW
Day 1,688
It was my watch. Every time I wake from deep sleep, I have a moment of panic, convinced I’ve slept through some event that has changed the course of human history. My father never forgave himself for falling asleep in his recliner and missing the president’s announcement of our first contact with an alien race. Fortunately, though, most human change is as agonizingly gradual as interstellar flight.
Orson Scott Card's InterGalactic Medicine Show Page 28
