by Henry Lien
I skate to them. I never minded Hisashi’s lack of the traditional physical traits desirable in boys his age. Now I’m grateful for it, because he’s showing Cricket that a boy who doesn’t have a rumbling voice and a muscled form can still be a champion of wu liu. He’s showing Cricket that heroes come in all shapes and sizes.
I babble at Hisashi and I’m saying something about “My gratitude—” and “What you did for Cricket—” and “The beauty of your wu liu—” and he’s turning so red that he looks more girlish than ever, but I don’t care, because I’m telling him he’s “the bravest, truest boy I’ve ever met—” and at this moment, I worship this boy, this “generous and humble and brave—” boy, not for the courage of his wu liu, but for helping Cricket see that those gifts are still alive in himself and just waiting to be born.
I stop, because my eyes begin to mist, and Cricket’s eyes begin to mist, and I don’t know if Hisashi’s eyes begin to mist, because I’m too emotional to look him in the face.
I simply say, “Thank you for what you’ve done for my brother.”
“Did you do well in the third Motivation?” he asks.
“Yes.” I start to tell him the details, but I’m suddenly ashamed, because I would not have done as well as I did if Doi and Suki hadn’t been eliminated.
“I need to go see how your sister is doing,” I say.
As I ride the rail leading from the Conservatory of Wu Liu, it hurts me to think of Doi believing for one moment more that she’s unappreciated. I’ve decided that I’m going to be her friend. Even if she refuses to be mine. That’s her business.
There is also a part of me that realizes that if I gain her trust, she might tell me whom she was talking to about a “hostage” and what she might know about what the Empress Dowager is actually doing with Kenji and Aki.
As I skate down the dormitory hall, I hear Hisashi cry out behind me, “Wait! She won’t want to see you. She’s probably not even in her chamber.”
“She has to be. Sensei Madame Liao ordered it.”
Hisashi pauses and says gently, “She’s my sister. Let me talk to her first.”
Hisashi and I skate to Doi’s door. It feels like we’re approaching a tiger to make it take a pill it doesn’t want to swallow.
Hisashi knocks softly. There’s no answer. “Doi,” he says as he slides the shoji open a crack. His voice is kind, like the sort of brother every girl could admire. He slips in and closes the shoji behind him. I can’t see their silhouettes or hear their voices.
Mere moments later, the shoji opens. Hisashi hurries out and closes it. His face has gone pale.
He puts his hand in mine and leads me away from Doi’s dormitory chamber.
I ask him what Doi said. He doesn’t reply. He’s protecting me. He doesn’t want me to know what she said about me.
He takes me to the Hall of the Eight Precious Virtues, the highest structure on the academy campus. We fling ourselves up each of the hall’s ten tiers of roofs. He directs my gaze to the city of Pearl across the water. It spreads in cream terraces from the waterfront up the side of the mountain so completely that no green is visible.
“Peasprout, you were kind enough to tell me Cricket’s story,” Hisashi says finally. “So I’d like to tell you Doi’s story. When my sister was ten years old, she became the youngest person ever to win first ranking at the Season of Glimmers Pageant of Lanterns Wu Liu Invitational because of her routine, ‘The Dragon and the Phoenix.’ She played the phoenix. A train of skating taiko drummers with black lacquered drums formed a twisting, thundering dragon chasing after her.”
Immediately, I think of Doi in her bird costume.
“The moves she invented for the phoenix became legendary. Little wing flutters and furtive glances behind her. Crossing her feet and taking little steps on the points of her toes. Pulling her arms and one leg back up behind her in a spin, like a spiraling blossom. Baby phoenix Doi.
“Just a few years ago, that whole city out there cheered for Doi. Except for one person. Do you understand?”
No wonder the costume was tight on her. It’d been years since she’d worn it. She wanted her father to see her in it. Why wouldn’t he stop to see her?
I don’t know what their family history is, but I know how it feels to be unappreciated. I know what it is not to be seen for what you are.
I say slowly, “The Empress Dowager’s hair has never been cut. Once a year, it’s woven strand by strand into the tapestries that adorn her throne. The throne is composed of living tortoises that are trained to stack themselves together for her to sit on. She only sits on it once a year to name the Peony-Level Brightstar. All that for me. But now, here, in this place, people laugh even at my soap. So yes. I understand.”
CHAPTER
SEVENTEEN
“I need to say something to you,” says someone behind me.
I haven’t heard her hoarse voice in weeks.
After missing the third Motivation, Doi dropped to twelfth place. Every time I tried to talk to her, she would skate away. And this is the sister of the boy who helped Cricket bring his ranking up to eleventh place after the third Motivation, because of the special weight given to pairs scoring in boys’ moves. It’s true that I wanted to try to get the truth out of her about why she was talking to someone about a “hostage.” But I also did want to thank her.
“Doi! I’ve been trying and trying to talk to you and tell you how profoundly sorry and grateful and humbled and—”
“Shut up, please. No one makes my choices for me. I only want to say something about the luckieth Motivation.”
“Yes, I know your performance will be legendary,” I cut in. “As soon as Supreme Sensei Master Jio said we would be doing Iron Fan Dance, I knew that you would excel because the fans are like knives when folded up, but they can be snapped open and thrown, like flying metal saws with the handles weighted on one side so that they arc back to the thrower, and I saw how you handled Suki with the opening and closing of her parasol, and I knew that—”
“Shut up, please. I just wanted to tell you that I’ve decided what my Multipliers will be and—”
“And the Multipliers are so important,” I agree. “Our entire score is going to be based on how many hits each of us blocks and how many we score on our opponents before being disarmed or falling, and they apply one negative Multiplier for every piece of armor, so the less we wear, the more we risk, but the more we score and the higher—”
“Peasprout, shut up! What I’m going to do during the luckieth Motivation will make up for what happened with the third Motivation if I do it correctly, but I’m—”
I stiffen, but I do the right thing and say with dignity, “I will not resent you at all if you take first place. You have my blessing. But just in this Motivation.”
“Will you shut up and listen to me! I’m going to pay a price for what I plan to do. I want you to know that I know what I’m buying with it. And that it has nothing to do with you.” She bows and says, “May we meet here in the New Year.”
“May we meet here in Pearl,” I reply.
As I watch her skate away from me, so hard, so determined, I’m certain that a price that others would call too costly, too desperate, she would call necessary.
* * *
What could Doi be planning for the luckieth Motivation? Iron Fan Dance will be the most dangerous Motivation that we’ve done so far, especially because it’s the Season of Spirits. The thick cloud cover that haunts the ground will hide the flight of the deadly fans. We’ll have to learn to use the clouds as a central element of combat, so our sense of hearing will be critical in predicting and defending against attacks.
Boys don’t do Iron Fan Dance because only girls are lithe and nimble enough to do it. Boys would be cut into ribbons.
At least my knee continues to hold up due to the Chi healing sessions with Cricket, although the exchange leaves us both so drained. As for my injured wrist, there’s no way to deny that it’s bad. Just the pres
sure of doing the fastens on my skate boots every morning makes it throb with pain. It’s not going to be better by the luckieth Motivation.
I try an additional session of Chi healing on my wrist with Cricket. He almost passes out from exhaustion in the middle of it.
“Cricket, what’s wrong?” He looks like a shriveled husk.
“I just need to rest a moment.”
“We have to stop. You need to save your strength for the next Motivation.”
“It’s all right. We’re just doing Emperor’s Second. It’s just a race and not even for first place.”
“You’re going to be doing ten laps inside the Palace of the Eighteen Outstanding Pieties. Have you seen how big it is in there? And then you’re going to fight a mass battle at the finish line.”
“Everyone will be fighting to push someone over the finish line and then leap for second place. I’ll just stay off to the side and sneak … sneak over … when it’s…” He closes his eyes, and his head begins to hang in utter depletion.
My poor little Cricket. I can’t put him through any more of these sessions to heal my wrist. I’ll just have to work around it.
Thus, it is with great joy that I listen to Sensei Madame Liao explain that the most critical skill in Iron Fan Dance is defensive strategy.
“You think you’ve used defensive moves in the first three Motivations,” she says. “Your understanding of defensive strategy is trash! Defense is more than wearing armor and employing tortoise-school moves and using your skates to block.”
When she mentions this, Suki and the House of Flowering Blossoms girls start tittering and smirking at me.
I can’t afford to use my skates to block. They could get chipped and ruined. Also, the weight of any armor on my arm causes pain in my wrist. It’s even more painful when I receive a blow on my armor. I can’t afford to get struck on that arm with or without armor. I’m going to have to rely on dodging maneuvers for the Motivation.
“Some of the most powerful moves in all of wu liu are defensive,” continues Sensei Madame Liao. “The Dian Mai are a class of moves used to neutralize an attacker through disruption of Chi. I demonstrate for you the five-point bone-shatterer hollow fist. Come here.” She points to Mole Girl, who skates forward slowly.
Sensei Madame Liao makes a loose fist, faces Mole Girl, and says, “If I strike the five essential meridian points on her body with a hollow, not closed, fist, I could immobilize my attacker until I could seek help to bring her to justice. Come. Attack me.”
The poor girl looks at Sensei Madame Liao, then at all of us in a silent cry for help. Sorry, Mole Girl. You’re on your own with this one. With a face full of misery, she cries, “Yah!” and raises her arm to do some sort of simple chop. Before she’s even begun to bring her arm down, Sensei Madame Liao executes four swift but soft strikes on Mole Girl.
“If,” Sensei Madame Liao lectures us, “I were to strike the fifth essential meridian point, every bone in her body would shatter if she takes six steps. Thus, she would be locked in an invisible, wall-less prison. For, as ancient Pearlian wisdom teaches us, ‘the steps of an honorable person lead through walls; the steps of a dishonorable person become a prison.’”
Mole Girl freezes.
“It’s all right,” says Sensei Madame Liao. “The meridian points don’t lock if the fifth one isn’t activated right away.” Mole Girl slowly returns to our ranks and appears ready to faint.
I raise my hand and ask, “Venerable and mighty Sensei. What if you had completed the five strikes? How would you remove the Dian Mai?”
“Only the most powerful instruments of Chi retuning can remove the Dian Mai. However, use of Dian Mai moves is strictly forbidden to students and punishable by expulsion. I raise them as an example only to make you appreciate how worthless and completely without qualities your understanding of defensive strategy is.”
Suki follows me after class and says, “Are you worried about how to remove the five-point bone-shatterer hollow fist Dian Mai when they imprison you for attacking Pearl Famous?”
“Suki, why are you so obsessed with me? Get a hobby.”
* * *
In the final week leading up to the luckieth Motivation, I concentrate on my defensive wu liu practice. The pain in my wrist decreases with twice daily Chi practice, but my ability to bear armor with that arm is still compromised. I start to think about the Dian Mai. Could whatever ominous thing Doi is planning for the luckieth Motivation involve Dian Mai somehow? Could she be planning to take down Suki in front of the whole academy in some spectacular way, even if she gets expelled for it?
Maybe she’s planning on not using any torso armor to goad Suki into dropping her torso armor, too, so that she can hit her in the five essential meridian points and perform the five-point bone-shatterer hollow fist on her? I don’t think she’s that rash, but what do I know about her except that everything she does hits me as a surprise.
Then I realize what this would mean for me.
If Doi uses the Dian Mai on Suki during Iron Fan Dance, that would take out both of my opponents again. Doi would be expelled or arrested. And even if Suki weren’t sliced to ribbons while immobilized and they could retune her Chi somehow, she would be knocked out of the Motivation. There would be no way that she could recover and overtake me.
If Doi uses the Dian Mai on Suki, my path to first ranking for the whole year and the lead in the Drift Season Pageant is cleared.
What am I saying? I can’t believe I’m considering this. I want to win. But there’s no honor in winning like this. I consider what Hisashi would think of me using his sister this way and I’m ashamed. He makes me want to improve my character. He would want me to do something to try to stop Doi.
I put the thoughts of trying to capitalize on the rivalry between Doi and Suki out of my mind and concentrate on my defensive practice in the final days before the luckieth Motivation.
* * *
The night before the luckieth Motivation, my emotions are uncollected. As I lie on my bed, I suddenly realize how I can help Doi.
Students can volunteer to serve as attackers to gain extra points during Iron Fan Dance. Most girls don’t want to because the additional points aren’t worth the risk of injury. But it’s too late to sign up. I’ll have to be prepared to jump in and interrupt the Motivation if Doi starts to perform the Dian Mai. I don’t know if I could be punished for interfering with her performance. Also, perhaps if she sees me trying to help her, I can win her trust and get her to tell me why she was talking to someone about a “hostage.”
I don’t know if Doi is my friend or my enemy, but tomorrow, I might have to fight my friend or my enemy for her own good.
I don’t realize I’m asleep until I’m wrenched out of it by the sound of shrieking from the hallway. I wrap my robe around myself and fling open the shoji door. The clatter of metal balls within the walls begins vibrating through the air over cries and the sound of shojis slamming open.
Girls are streaming out of their dormitory chambers in the dark, racing down the hall with their futon-side lanterns swinging, making shadows pitch and yaw like reaching ghosts.
“What happened?” I ask a girl skating past.
“The Palace of the Eighteen Outstanding Pieties!”
“What about it?”
“There’s been another attack!”
When we approach the Palace of the Eighteen Outstanding Pieties, I see plumes of vapor billowing out of the top. We skate into the palace. Sensei Master Bao, Sensei Madame Liao, and other senseis are in furious discussion.
I follow their gaze to the roof.
There’s a hole torn in it, large enough to sail a ship through. Its edges aren’t jagged and ripped. They’re smooth, like rock formations sculpted by drips of water over uncountable ages. The edges steam with tendrils of vapor that rise up into the dark sky through the hole.
Below, rows of rough, featureless mannequins of straw wrapped in white-plastered cloth have already been stationed arou
nd the racetrack laid out on the skating court for the boys’ luckieth Motivation in the morning. They stand like a ghostly, silent army.
Parts of several mannequins lie crushed around the track. Straw has burst out on the pearl in front of their faceless plaster heads, sprayed in the patterns of fans.
A great wedge from the ruined ceiling as large as a carriage has fallen with such impact that its point is buried deep in the track, right at the starting line.
CHAPTER
EIGHTEEN
How did Suki do it? Even if those trinkets are explosives and she could get her hands on large amounts of them, why didn’t we hear anything? And explosives wouldn’t make a hole whose edges look like they’ve been licked apart, not ripped.
Two vandal attacks now. And the Empress Dowager’s threat to bind the hostages’ feet if she doesn’t get the secret of the pearl. And Pearl Shining Sun waiting for enough evidence from Suki to write my name and Cricket’s across the sky for everyone to read.
I don’t know how she attacked the palace, but her purpose was clearly to upset me right before the luckieth Motivation, to get her revenge. And she’s succeeded.
“She could have killed someone!” screeches Suki. “She’s threatening to kill us if we don’t give the Empress Dowager the—”
“You’re the one trying to kill us,” I yell back.
“Silence!” says Sensei Madame Liao.
We’re sent back to our dormitory chambers to try to sleep until morning comes, but I lie awake all night.
* * *
In the morning, Supreme Sensei Master Jio announces that the boys’ Motivation must be postponed. However, the girls’ Iron Fan Dance luckieth Motivation will go forward this morning as planned.
