by Henry Lien
“So you’re just going to skate out of this chamber and confront Suki, and she’s going to break down and confess? As you’re writhing in pain with every bone in your body broken to bits.”
“You want me to just await my fate and hope the tribunal won’t agree with the Chairman’s interpretation? I can’t just stand by and do nothing! I’m going to find a way to get out of this Dian Mai.”
Fury flashes on Doi’s face before she pushes it down. She calmly turns and skates away from me to the shoji.
She hesitates there and looks back. Her eye is twitching. I can feel the tremendous pressure coming off her Chi. With a cry, she chops her hand down on my desk, splitting it in two and sending the halves crashing into each other.
I’m shocked by her violence.
“Why did you even come here?” I say. “Why are you so upset? Because I’m willing to take a risk to find the truth? I’m taking more of a risk by sitting here and letting other people decide my fate. I thought you, of all people, would understand that.”
Doi flings the shoji open and skates out.
I thought Doi was different. But in the end, she’s just another rich girl from Pearl who hasn’t had to do the things that I’ve had to do to take care of Cricket and keep us safe.
I look at the desk, split cleanly in half. It makes me think of the exquisiteness of the sculpture Cricket created, and his shining eyes, and the dull sickening snick that my skate made as I stamped down, and the silence behind me as I fled away.
That evening, shortly before the hour of sleep, there is another knock on my door.
“Enter.”
I’m so surprised to see Cricket that all the words that I had been practicing to say to him fly out of my head. He sees my skates set next to my futon and picks them up.
“I need to file the surface of the blades,” he tells me without meeting my gaze. “I noticed something when we were doing some of those fine-vision exercises during architecture class—”
“I don’t want to hear any more about architecture!” The words come out more sharply than I intended.
“Fine!” he yells. “You never listen to me. Even when it’s for your own good!”
“How dare you talk to me like that? I don’t know you. You are not my little Cricket.”
“That’s right,” he shouts as he flings my skates at my feet. “I’m not your little Cricket! I’m not anyone’s little Cricket!”
I’m so stunned and wounded that I can’t speak.
He says nothing. At last, he kneels down and picks up the skates. He works at the bottom of my blades with a file. Slowly, the nicks in them grow smaller and smaller until the notches completely disappear.
Cricket turns the file. He takes the sharp edge and scores one deft, long stroke after another on the bottom edge of the blade. Between strokes, he tests the blade, running it back and forth on the pearl like a child with a toy chariot.
As he works, he loses himself in the task, and some of his anger fades, and some of my little brother returns. The surface of the blade is so narrow but he’s able to work lines into the hard metal that are impossibly perfect. He always had eyes as sharp as an owl’s and hands as precise as the needles of a spider knitting its silk.
Cricket hands the skates to me. I feel them with my thumb. The blades are straight, but on the bottom side, there are now incredibly fine, regular ridges running along their lengths.
“I noticed that the pearl is formed with an almost invisible grain in it when we were examining it under lenses in architecture class.” Cricket makes a point of neither swallowing nor swelling the word architecture. “When you skate, you need to find the grain in the pearl and skate with it. You’ll know when you’ve found your grain.”
He stands up without meeting my gaze and skates to the door. Without turning to look at me, he says, “Architecture and wu liu have more in common than you might see. Architects often build secret doors for themselves into their buildings. If you don’t know how to look, they appear like mistakes or deficiencies. But if you learn how, you can glide right through them.”
As he is sliding the door closed, Cricket says, “To see things differently, sometimes all you need is to retune your Chi. Like how we would kick the Blame Tree when we were little and we would feel better.”
He leaves.
He was speaking to me in code.
He was telling me secrets in plain view, as if they were laid in marks on a grid. Is this something to do with the Dian Mai, and how to escape from it?
Deficiency.
Secret door.
Glide.
Retune Chi.
The Blame Tree.
Yes, we felt better after kicking the Blame Tree. I’m sure it helped us retune our Chi. But the Blame Tree was in Shin, thousands of li away, and it died years ago, and there’s nothing like it here at Pearl Famous that could retune our—
The Arch of Chi Retuning! Where the weird healer sent Mole Girl after her accident. In the Garden of Whispering Arches. That’s the most powerful antidote for Chi disturbances. But it’s all the way across the Principal Island. As soon as I took my sixth step toward the Arch of Chi Retuning, my bones would shatter inside me. It might as well be thousands of li away; it’s all the same to me here in the Dian Mai.
Is there a way for me to get out of the Dian Mai? I think of Cricket’s other clues. Architecture and wu liu. Where have I heard them mentioned together?
Sensei Madame Liao’s words come back to me. The steps of an honorable person lead through walls; the steps of a dishonorable person become a prison.
The five-point bone-shatterer hollow fist is a prison. But perhaps my steps can lead through its walls.
Do not be so quick to judge deficiencies, Sensei Madame Liao had said. Sometimes, they are just advantages that are interpreted incorrectly, like trying to read a logogram turned upside down.
Where everyone else sees a deficiency in a building, the architect who built it sees a secret door and can glide right through.
Your ability to glide on one step. You could cross five li in five steps. No one else here can do that.
I learned to glide because I couldn’t afford to replace my skate blades and because I relied on moves that travel farther to conserve my steps.
The clues are crying out at me like a silent word that I can’t read because I’m looking at it upside down.
The Dian Mai imprisons me within the walls of my own body. But the steps of an honorable person can lead through walls. I thought that my reliance on gliding on one foot was a deficiency. But perhaps it is an advantage that will allow me to step out of this—
My ability to glide will allow me to skate all the way to the Arch of Chi Retuning as long as I stretch my five steps into five glides!
Sensei Madame Liao must have sent Cricket. She couldn’t be seen coming here herself. She had Cricket speak to me in code in case anyone overheard so that he wouldn’t be implicated. She convinced Supreme Sensei Master Jio to let her use a Dian Mai on me instead of the shrinking pavilion. She knew that I was the only person here who could make it to the Arch of Chi Retuning in less than six steps.
She built a prison with a secret door for me, knowing that I would be the only person who could glide through it. I just needed Cricket to teach me how to see.
I’m not alone in this after all. Sensei Madame Liao was always there. And Cricket. I was just so busy facing forward toward my future that I couldn’t see who was standing behind me.
There’s only one reason why Sensei Madame Liao would risk this to get me out. She wants me to find the proof that Suki has been behind the attacks and disprove the Chairman’s interpretation of the oracle.
How many steps would it normally take to travel five li? A hundred? Five hundred? Just the sharp corners and turns between here and the Arch of Chi Retuning would eat up so many steps. And I can’t just cross the Principal Island in a straight line because of the older students patrolling the campus. I’d have to take the longer r
oute along the northern perimeter. It’s not possible.
I put on my skates. The woven reed fibers of the boots are stiff. I’ve never gone so long without wearing them.
Five li in five steps.
I stand. I can feel that Cricket’s done a beautiful job of filing away the damage on the blades.
Five steps. That’s all I get.
I stretch toward the shoji and slide it open. Outside, the pearl rises in silent drifts from the sleeping academy.
Five steps, and I need to have passed under the Arch of Chi Retuning.
I reach my left skate back and brace it against the wall. I am grateful that our dormitory chambers are so small.
If I make it in five steps, I take the sixth step a free person.
I crouch back on my skate pushed up against the back wall.
If I don’t, the sixth step will be my last.
But I crossed three thousand li to come here. I can cross five more.
I explode out of the chamber.
I land on my right skate and careen down the dormitory corridor.
I have to fight the instinct to put my other skate down. I can do this. For Cricket.
This first step is for him. Thank you, Cricket, for coming to me and restoring my skates and bringing the message. I approach the first bend of the hallway and take the corner without slowing. I speed out of the ornamental gate of the girls’ dormitory and across the complex of bridges dividing the dormitory areas. The rise and fall of bridges cuts down on my momentum and I leap forward onto my other skate.
This second step is for Sensei Madame Liao. Thank you, Sensei. For teaching me what I needed to learn, both the skills that I didn’t have and the value of the skills I had. Thank you for teaching me about deficiencies and heroes and myself. I swoop on my left leg and whip myself around the first corner of the Courtyard of Supreme Placidness. I take the second corner to clear the palace. I come around it and leap onto my right skate.
This third step is for Hisashi. I thought I knew you. You hurt me, but I can see now that you were trying to save me. I skate past the islet of the Temple of Heroes of Superlative Character. I can see the arch where I leaped off with Hisashi, hand in hand, trusting this beautiful boy whom I didn’t really know but cared about, still care about. The drifts rising up from the pearl catch on my wet cheeks before they dissolve. My momentum slows, and I savor the moment as I pass by the temple, pass through my memories, until my right knee begins to throb with the sustained pressure. I pull out of it with a triple flying crane leap onto my left skate.
This luckieth step is for Doi. I needed you. You needed me. Thank you for being my partner, thank you for defending me, thank you for pleading with your father for me, thank you for trying to stop me from pursuing this, thank you for caring, and thank you for understanding that I have to do this. I leap over the false moats of pearlsilk ribbon and land on my right skate as I enter the Garden of Whispering Arches.
This final step is for you, Father and Mother, for all that you didn’t do. You didn’t bind my feet, like you thought the oracle meant when she said that our family’s destiny lay in my feet. You didn’t stay to raise Cricket and me. You didn’t take care of us and shield us from so many things that children shouldn’t have to face alone. But because you didn’t do that, I’m strong enough now to take care of myself and Cricket. I’m certain enough now to take these five steps toward my destiny, even if my destiny is uncertain. I’m brave enough now to do what I have to do. So thank you, Father and Mother. It is only because of what you didn’t do that I am now Chen Peasprout, and being Chen Peasprout is the truest gift you could have granted me.
The paths here in the Garden of Whispering Arches are laid in curves that weave back and forth, and there is not a single straight path in it. I’ve already lost half the momentum of my fifth step and I can’t even see the Arch of Chi Retuning yet.
I finally sight it. At the crest of the highest hill in the garden.
I sling my center of gravity in loops, extending my left leg and swooping in one pestle windmill after another, whipping my leg as hard as I can to push me forward farther, a little farther, just a little, on my right skate. Daggers shoot through my knee, as if someone were trying to pry off the bone of my kneecap.
At last, I arrive at the Arch of Chi Retuning, curving like a rib bone in the moonlight. I hold my position on my right knee and glide into the shadow underneath it.
I come to a stop just before passing fully clear of it. I look up. Half of my vision is the dark underside of the arch. Half of it is the night sky above me.
Is this enough? Has it retuned my Chi?
Or will my bones shatter when I take the sixth step?
I try to twist and sling my arms to nudge myself all the way through the arch, but every movement sends spears of pain through my knee that almost cause me to trip and step forward.
What if I come down and crawl the rest of the way out from under the arch? No, it can’t be that easy to defeat a Dian Mai. Any criminal could escape.
There’s no other way.
I have to take the sixth step.
I lift my left skate.
I place it on the pearl in front of me and step out from under the arch.
The stabbing in my knee stops.
I hear a great crack, as of bones breaking. I close my eyes and wait for my body to shatter.
Something strikes my shoulder, then pounds to the pearl behind me. Pain lances through me. I open my eyes to see a great chunk of bone-white pearl lying on the ground.
I look up at the underside of the arch and see a missing section where the chunk of pearl used to be. Fissures begin racing across the whole of the structure.
I burst forward as hard as I can, skid to a stop, and turn just in time to see the Arch of Chi Retuning collapse into rubble and send up a bloom of dust that sparkles like crystals in the moonlight.
The strain of absorbing the Dian Mai destroyed the Arch of Chi Retuning. Like all our kicking killed the Blame Tree back in Shin.
I turn back and look out across the campus of Pearl Famous. I didn’t know that I would ever gaze on this scene again. As I skated toward the Arch of Chi Retuning, I could have been skating past all these structures for the last time, because I could have been skating to my death.
But there they are all laid out before me now, like a landscape that I fully comprehend, a map that I know how to read to find what I’m looking for.
And what I’m looking for is justice.
“I know you’re out there, Suki, and I’m coming for you.”
CHAPTER
THIRTY
I race through the campus. During the days that I was imprisoned in the Dian Mai, great spinning fans on poles as large as windmills were placed along the perimeter of every islet near the water to suck the drifts of the pearl out toward the sea. They’re churning so fast that anything that gets caught in them would be tugged up and chewed to pieces. What powers them? I’d better keep my robes and braids far away so that they don’t end up sprayed in bits over the sea.
In the distance, I see someone hopping up the tiers of the Pagoda of Filial Sacrifice, slinging some sort of bag. My Chi quakes. The vandal!
I race toward the figure. It’s definitely not Suki. She leads with her right leg. This person leads with the left, like most boys trained in Pearl. Could Suki have a male accomplice?
He turns to me but his hood hides his face in black. When he sees me, he abandons his ascent of the pagoda and backflips away, using the weight of his sack to launch himself into an open-toed scythe spin onto the roof of the Palace of the Eighteen Outstanding Pieties.
I pursue him at full speed. Cricket’s modification of my skates is miraculous. It feels like they’re locked on to rails when I find the grain in the pearl. I quickly shrink the distance between the figure and me. As hard as he skates, he’s weighed down by the heavy sack he carries. When he lunges, I can see from the jostling of the sack that it contains several round objects. He sees
me gaining on him, reaches into his sack, and tosses what looks like a snowball as large as a melon right into my path.
I leap forward and catch the snowball before it can hit the roof. It’s heavier than I expected, and I almost drop it. The white ball is coarse and grainy, not like snow after all. As I continue racing after the boy, I touch my fingers to my lips.
Salt! It’s a ball of salt, so dense that its weight is slowing me down.
“Stop!” I say.
The figure pumps his skates even harder. I can tell that he’s an outstanding practitioner of wu liu to center his Chi so perfectly and move with such speed while carrying these salt balls.
“Stop! Who are you? Are you working for Suki?” As I grow closer, he throws another ball, aiming for the roof in front of me. If the salt touches the pearl, it’ll eat away the roof from under my skates. I quickly throw my cloak out to catch the second ball, then snap the cloth with a flourish so that it ties itself around my shoulder in a sling. I toss both balls in it.
He throws another ball at my skates, and again, I catch it before it meets the pearl.
He’s faster now that he’s only carrying five balls, and I’m slower now that I’m carrying three. If it weren’t for Cricket’s modifications, I’d have lost him already. I gather all my remaining Chi into forward momentum, swing the bag of salt balls around me, and use it to launch myself into an east-directional, sixth-gate flying heron hook.
I land behind the boy and yank at his hood, releasing a length of beautiful waterfall hair.
No.
Doi. Why? You have so much to lose.
We stare at each other, and the look in her eyes is pitiable, her hair lashing across her face in the wind produced by the churning fans. Doi takes another ball and attempts to drop it on the short span of roof between us, but I grab the ball. We push against each other. For a moment, we’re balanced so perfectly that we threaten to crush the ball between our hands.
I twist the ball away from her, then perform the same two-heeled sesame-seed pestle jump that won me the first Motivation. As I sweep over Doi’s head, I reach out and grasp her waterfall hair to startle her just like she herself did to her attackers during the luckieth Motivation.
