Shanghai Steam

by Calvin D. Jim

  Shanghai Steam

  Edited by Ace Jordyn, Calvin D. Jim, and Renée Bennett

  Copyright © 2012

  All individual contributions copyright by their respective authors.

  E-Book Edition

  Published by

  Absolute X Press

  An Imprint of

  HADES PUBLICATIONS, INC.

  CALGARY

  Notice

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. It may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each reader. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of the author(s).

  * * * * *

  This book is also available in print

  * * * * *

  Acknowledgments

  Our deepest gratitude goes to Brian Hades at EDGE Science Fiction and Fantasy Publishing for boldly steaming ahead into the world of wuxia.

  Thank you to those who contributed to the editors’ vision including Anna Maria Bortolotto for her help with the anthology and unceasing enthusiasm; Tereasa Maille for her knowledge of Chinese language, history and culture; Celeste Peters of Elegant Edge Website Design for the website design; Jay Lake for a great introduction; James Ng for the incredible Chinese steampunk art that graces our cover and Janice Blaine for taking that art and creating a breathtaking cover.

  Special thanks to family and friends for their encouragement including Jennifer, Yoshi and Tosh for giving Calvin the time to live in a martial arts-steampunk fantasy world and patiently waiting for him to return to earth; and to Doug Cooney for his support.

  And finally, thanks to fellow writers at IFWA (Imaginative Fiction Writers’ Association) who are an inspiration to writers everywhere.

  When Worlds Collide

  Jay Lake

  Talking about writing is always an act of approximation. Perhaps not so extreme as dancing about architecture, as the tools of both fiction and critique are still words, often uttered by the same people in the same conversations. Still, we grope our way toward understanding with the same tools that we use to grope our way toward satori through fiction.

  All that being said, one of the things writers say about writing is that a story is an intersection of two ideas. Conflicting agendas. Characters in adversity. Worlds colliding. Cat and mouse.

  Wuxia and steampunk.

  Shanghai Steam is precisely that intersection. The classic Chinese tradition of wuxia draws from hundreds of years of morality tales and political epics grounded in martial arts and the role of the individual-as-hero. Steampunk has been all the rage this past decade and more, drawing on pseudo-Victorian technology and culture to interrogate our own contemporary social evolution, permanently stuck as it seems to be on fast forward. Together, they fight crime!

  Well, okay, not fighting crime. But together, the two forms seem capable of taking on almost any other task. The stories in Shanghai Steam have settings ranging from Mars to ancient China. They move from microcosmic journeys of individual courage to epic (if pocket-sized) landscapes of mechanical autonomy and cultural clash. Like any good volume of stories, these snag at the mind like nets cast into the stream of imagination.

  Likewise, Shanghai Steam brings established writers such as New York Times bestseller William H. Keith and the incisively brilliant Camille Alexa together with new story-tellers just emerging, such as Amanda Clark and K. H. Vaughn. A range of talents, viewpoints, and cultures is represented here.

  One of the particular joys of this book for me was reading the capsule biographies of the authors. There are a number of writers in Shanghai Steam of Asian ancestry, some resident now in Asia, others living in the United States and Canada. Given the perpetual tension in the speculative fiction field between the imperative to write the Other and the need to provide balanced, nuanced views of multiple cultures, it’s gratifying to see editors Ace Jordyn, Calvin D. Jim and Renée Bennett stepping forthrightly up to provide a table of contents that acknowledges cultural authority and life experience.

  Action? Adventure? Bare knuckle brawling? Exotic technology? China — ancient, modern and future? It’s all here in Shanghai Steam.

  I hope you enjoy this book as much as I did.

  Jay Lake

  Portland, OR

  August, 2012

  The Fivefold Proverbs of Zhen Xiaquan

  Tim Ford

  Li Sen sat beside his master, the great poet and philosopher, Zhen Xiaquan, watching him die. For his entire life of eight and twenty years, Li Sen had faithfully followed every command, saw to every need, and fulfilled every promise. Yet now, in this, his final vigil, he saw no way to succeed.

  “My words must not die,” whispered Zhen Xiaquan from cracked, dry lips. “Do not let me be lost to memory.”

  Li Sen reassured him, “Your words are recorded on the scrolls of the Imperial Archive, great thinker. They are preserved in the memories of all China.”

  Zhen shook his head. “Paper is weak. It frays apart, burns, turns to dust. Just as my body will turn to dust. I have seen the future, my loyal servant. The future is in iron.”

  “Iron?”

  “Yes.” Zhen coughed harshly, spitting a glob of blood onto his chin. “There is a village on the outskirts of Canton, where an artisan of great skill, Cao Fan, resides. She is the only one who can help us.”

  “What shall I do, Master?”

  “Find Cao Fan. Have her build an automaton to record my words. Build it in my image, to carry on my legacy.”

  Li Sen bowed and left his master’s side. He had no idea what an automaton was or how it recorded words. He didn’t know what village Cao Fan lived in or even what she looked like. Despite all this, Li Sen would not let his master down.

  Li Sen took a large sack of coin, Zhen Xiaquan’s portrait and his best walking stick, and set out for Canton down the Emperor’s Road. He passed through a dark forest, where insects bit him and rain soaked him to the bone. From the deep shadows of the trees, animals howled and snarled at him. “All this hardship and more I endure for my master,” Li Sen proclaimed. “I will make the journey, no matter the cost!”

  The gods look kindly on loyalty, but less kindly on arrogance, and so Li Sen’s words were quick to bring down their judgement. Three bandits sprang from the woods.

  “Hold!” cried the leader. “You are travelling through our lands. As such, you must pay us a toll.”

  “This is the Emperor’s road,” Li Sen said.

  The bandit leader wagged a finger at him. “No, I’m quite certain this belongs to me. I have lived here my whole life. Be a good boy and give us what is rightly ours.”

  Li Sen stepped back, prepared to turn and run. Instead, he slipped in the mud, scattering his master’s coins. The bandits scrambled after the coins and Li Sen fled.

  Now penniless, the faithful servant carried on with his mission. It took him two days to reach the outskirts of Canton, and another to discover where the famed artisan, Cao Fan lived. He found her house as it had been described: a simple one-story wooden home, with a yard filled with bits of metal, clockwork, and other machine scraps strewn about.

  Li Sen picked his way through the yard, taking care not to disturb anything. He had been warned that Cao Fan was a woman of short temper who preferred to be left alone. Li Sen puffed up his chest to look important when he knocked on her door.

  The woman who answered was much smaller and older than he had expected. Li Sen bowed and said, “I seek the great artisan, Cao Fan, on behalf of my master, Zhen Xiaquan.”

  The woman crossed her arms. “You have found her,” she said.

 
; Li Sen explained his mission. “But I have no money,” he said. “Bandits stole it from me.”

  “Then why should I work for you?” she asked.

  Li Sen fell to his hands and knees. “I ask for my master. He lies dying, and we must save his great words for the people.”

  “I do not know your master or his words. What meaning do words have to an artisan such as myself? No money, no automaton.”

  Li Sen would not see it end like this. “I will work for you then.”

  Cao Fan was genuinely surprised. “Work?”

  “Whatever you require. I know how to clean. I can cook … a little. Until you feel you have been paid sufficiently.”

  Cao Fan considered this to be reasonable. For many days, Cao Fan set Li Sen to various tasks: bringing buckets of water from a nearby stream, organizing the scrap metal she had strewn about her home, cooking her meals, cleaning her floors, mending her roof … on and on and on.

  One day Cao Fan took him into the woods. After a short walk, they came to a clearing in the woods where a massive boulder sat, collecting moss but otherwise doing very little.

  “I want you to move that rock,” Cao Fan said.

  Li Sen’s jaw dropped.

  “I need it for the raw ore. Of course, if you no longer want the automaton…”

  Li Sen scowled. His hands were raw from scrubbing floors, his back ached, his sandals were crumbling apart and he knew he could not move the boulder. But, loyalty to Zhen Xiaquan and his own sense of honour demanded that he try. With a grunt, Li Sen set himself against the boulder. He groaned and heaved, strained and pulled, pushed and begged the heavens to give him more strength.

  Finally, Cao Fan said, “Stop.”

  Li Sen collapsed against the boulder.

  Cao Fan smiled for the first time in all the days he had been with her. “I am impressed, little man,” she said. “Your loyalty to your master is firm. Such loyalty deserves to be rewarded. I will create his automaton.”

  Li Sen grinned like a mad fool.

  While Cao Fan built the automaton Li Sen gladly cooked her meals and cleaned her home. The finished iron figure looked just like Zhen Xiaquan. Its limbs moved just as Zhen Xiaquan did when he spoke to his people, arms spread wide as if embracing the whole world. Inside of it was a recording cylinder made of polished steel that would record Zhen Xiaquan’s wisdom and then play it back.

  “But only five proverbs,” Cao Fan warned him.

  “Only five?”

  “Yes. If you record more then you risk losing them all. Now, you must go. Your master is waiting.”

  Li Sen bowed and left. He strapped the heavy automaton to his back, and in four days, walked back home. He immediately went to his master’s side and told him what had happened. Zhen’s eyes filled with tears of pride and gratitude.

  “You have done well, my loyal friend,” he said. “Now, my words will live on.”

  Li Sen looked ashamed. “But Master,” he said, “you must know that only five proverbs can be recorded.”

  “It is all right,” said the wise poet. “Five proverbs will grant me immortality. Please, help me choose.”

  So, late into the night, the great philosopher dictated all of his proverbs. Li Sen basked in Zhen Xiaquan’s infinite wisdom and his soul was uplifted by the glowing prose. Bit by bit, they whittled that body of work down to five pieces:

  1) A cherry blossom late in bloom may hold the greatest beauty.

  2) The cornered rat knows when to play dead.

  3) The mightiest army is only as strong as its weakest soldier.

  4) All jade begins raw; only through polishing does its true worth shine through.

  5) The sun rises and sets on young and old alike.

  Li Sen recorded the five proverbs as Cao Fan had instructed.

  When the final character was dictated, he played back the recording. The automaton whirred and waved its arms and recited the proverbs perfectly. Nevertheless, Li Sen was unhappy. The journey for this machine had been so difficult. He had been robbed, deceived, and abused. Surely, Li Sen reasoned, it couldn’t hurt to add just one more proverb?

  Praying to the gods for forgiveness, Li Sen dictated one more proverb, then played back the recording. The result was flawless. Li Sen was overjoyed. Then he considered the list in his hand once more. So, he recorded another. And another. Li Sen admitted that he might be pushing his luck. On the other hand, nine was a very lucky number … so he recorded one more. The machine recited the proverbs flawlessly, and Li Sen grinned, at last pleased.

  Zhen Xiaquan smiled sagely at his servant. “Thank you, Li Sen,” Zhen said. “I go now to join my ancestors, knowing that my legacy lives on.” And so the Great Philosopher Zhen Xiaquan died with dignity and grace.

  The next day, Li Sen took the automaton into town for it to recite Zhen Xiaquan’s nine proverbs. Without hesitation, the automaton said:

  “A cherry blossom late in bloom may hold the greatest beauty. The cornered rat knows when to play dead. The mightiest army is only as strong as its weakest soldier. All jade begins raw; only through polishing does its true worth shine through. The sun rises and sets on young and old alike.”

  And then it fell silent. Only five of the nine proverbs had been recited. Li Sen waited, but Zhen Xiaquan’s likeness remained silent and still. Li Sen sidled up to the machine and gave it a tiny kick.

  “All cornered rats begin raw.”

  Li Sen’s eyes widened. The crowd muttered in confusion. Li Sen reset the machine and played it again. This time, the automaton said:

  “The polished sun late in bloom is the mightiest army.

  “A cherry blossoms true worth shines on young and old alike.

  “All jade knows its weakest beauty.”

  Li Sen silently cursed himself. Not only was it not playing all nine proverbs, it was now mixing up the five. Some of the crowd started to boo, others picked up rocks to throw, but then one voice called out: “New proverbs! New proverbs!”

  Li Sen raised an eyebrow.

  A skinny boy in the crowd excitedly jumped up and down. “Don’t you see?” he said. “Zhen Xiaquan is in the machine. His spirit remains!”

  The crowd dropped their rocks and cheered wildly. Li Sen smiled. Who was to say that there was no wisdom to be found in folly? Perhaps that was the true spirit of Zhen Xiaquan’s philosophy.

  “The mightiest army rises on the old rats,” the automaton said.

  “Well,” Li Sen said. “Truer words were never said than ‘what they don’t know, can’t harm them.’ Let that be the proverb of my own life.”

  “Dead cherry blossoms hold the greatest raw beauty,” confirmed the automaton.

  So he left the machine to the people to spread his master’s unique and wondrous wisdom. Years later, people everywhere remembered Zhen Xiaquan and his wonderful automaton, though no one recalled the name of Li Sen. Which suited that most loyal of servants just fine.

  * * * * *

  Tim Ford is a half-Chinese, half-Scottish author and playwright from Calgary. His plays have been staged by indie theatre companies Mob Hit Productions and Sage Theatre, and his short stories have appeared in several publications including Crossed Genres and Neo-Opsis Magazine. He currently resides in Toronto.

  Qin Yun’s Mechanical Dragon and the Cricket Spies

  Amanda Clark

  Qin Yun flattened herself against the wall of great grandfather’s lab, as she still liked to call it. Her father had turned it into it a cricket hatchery. A waste. A complete waste. He hardly ever let her build anything.

  Except for the little distiller for making baijiu. That he had use for.

  A piercing screech cut the air as Qin Yun’s mechanical dragon swooped past again, this time straight for the cricket cages, hovering over the one holding eight fat ones. Then it dove and latched on to the bamboo bars. It shoved its snout in between two of them and screeched frustration.

  Worse than a steam engine with a damaged piston.

  “Hush! You’
ll wake Father!”

  The little dragon ignored her and forced its snout deeper between the staves.

  Qin Yun dropped down and scrabbled over the stone tiles behind the massive marble-topped island in the center of the lab. It’s first words had been a shock, coming, as they had, straight into her mind.

  What do I eat?

  It should have been obvious. A mechanical woken by qi would think itself flesh and blood, and be hungry. That would have been a good time to keep her thoughts to herself.

  I don’t know, maybe a fat juicy cricket…

  She heard the pistons in the dragon’s tiny steam engine chug faster, emitting fumes of burning baijiu. Then the dragon hissed. Qin Yun popped her head up as the creature’s filmy metallic wings whomped the air and dragged the cage off the shelf. The eight crickets, owed to a client the next day, chirped in terror.

  “No!” she cried, springing up.

  The dragon gave a mighty pull and flew out of reach. Then it flapped twice more before sinking toward the workbench.

  Straight for the distiller.

  One wingtip grazed the flame under the boiler and the thing screeched, banking. Dragon and cage plummeted downward.

  Qin Yun dove to catch them but they crashed to the floor, then bounced down the sloping walkway out onto the newly laid marble courtyard. Usually only laowai in the French concession could afford marble courtyards but this was a gift from the Emperor, to show the status of their Shanghai shikomen estate. Qin Yun slipped and fell when her feet hit the marble.

  The cage tumbled on, dragon still attached, toward the sandalwood gate. Qin Yun lurched up after the rolling cage.

  The dragon and cage bumbled faster, finally slamming into the massive sandalwood gate. The cage latch sprang open and the cricket chirps shifted from fear to jubilation. Four of them sprang out, leaving four behind. Father would be furious if she didn’t catch the escapees. Eight had been promised to an official in the Imperial household!

  Then with clickity-clacking precision the dragon unwound its sinuous body from under the cage and pounced on the first of them. It gobbled down that one and the next, crushing the other two under foot. That left four still inside the cage, cheeping the code for “no, no, no!”.