The Firebird's Vengeance

by Sarah Zettel

  Tsan Nu looked at him as if he were mad. “That’s just the sticks on the signs. That’s not the real thing.”

  For the first time, Xuan felt anger’s spark. Such rudeness on the part of a child would ordinarily be grounds for punishment. And yet … “Tell me what you see.”

  “Fire,” said Tsan Nu. “Anger, and the golden tower’s falling. It’s too late and the damage has been done. The Heart has failed and will be taken down to ashes.”

  Fire? How could that be? That was his element and for all his trouble, his binding to his element was strong. No fire could take hold in the Heart without him.

  Did this child say he was to betray the Heart? She might as well say she was going to drink all the water in the sea.

  “How has the Heart failed? Who will set this fire?”

  The child stared at the broken circle, stared hard as if to see through the stone, stared until she began to tremble again.

  “I don’t know. I can’t see that far.” She frowned, angry again. “I should be able to see.” She moved to get down on her knees, but Master Liaozhai restrained her with a hand on her shoulder.

  “Enough, Tsan Nu. It is enough.” He looked to Xuan in something of desperation. I didn’t know, his old face said. I don’t know what this means.

  But Xuan saw how the crack began at the etching of the Phoenix and ran all the way to the foot of the goddess.

  Was it possible to compel the gift of Heaven? Was it possible, as Medeoan had threatened all these years, to change its essential nature from guardian to attacker? Was that why he could not feel the guardian?

  And where was Valin Kalami? A powerful sorcerer, and privy to all Medeoan’s secrets, whose daughter stood here and spoke of death? What was her part in this? It was not power alone that allowed her to see such a future. What did her blood have to answer for? For a moment his vision blurred with anger. What further blasphemy had her barbarian people wrought?

  “I will take this matter before the Nine Elders,” he heard himself say as from a great distance. “You may go now.”

  “But …” began the child. But her tutor clapped his wrinkled hand on her arm and steered her at once toward the door. The soldier shouldered her spear and hurried after her charge. Xuan had the distinct feeling the woman was glad to be gone.

  When Xuan was alone, he knelt slowly, as if he were as decrepit as Master Liaozhai. He pressed his forehead against the cool, shattered stone, bowed to fate, to the goddess and the guardian.

  Blessed Chun Ja, what is come upon us? Guardian, speak to me. Let me know our fault. I will pay the price, whatever it is. But come back to me. Let me know how to restore all to what should be.

  But there were no more answers. Alone and in silence Xuan got to his feet and left the temple, and went to seek his brothers and sisters. Not because he felt they might be able to answer, or to help, but because he did not know what else to do.

  Behind him, the future lay on the temple floor and waited.

  Chapter Three

  Lieutenant Mae Shan Jinn of the Heart’s Own Guard walked three paces behind her charge, and wished she did not have to hear the child’s words. She tried to concentrate on keeping the prescribed distance behind the little girl who had a tendency to speed up and slow down unpredictably. It was an exercise in concentration, and kept her thoughts from straying back to the crack in the temple floor.

  If she had still been the peasant girl she once was, she would have instantly made the sign against the evil eye and run out to buy lucky amulets and incense from the first healer she could find. As it was, knowing she was in the center of the Heart, within yards of the Nine Elders and the Son of Heaven and Earth, she wanted to be at her prayers rather than at her duty. She had seen Tsan Nu and Master Liaozhai work magics and divination before, but she had never seen anything like this.

  “He didn’t believe me,” Tsan Nu was complaining. Despite all her training in manners, she still strode ahead with clenched fists, her anger plain on her pale features.

  “He did not say that.” Master Liaozhai would have to scold her soon, as Tsan Nu was paying no attention to his example of measured steps and folded hands.

  “He’s not going to do anything.”

  “He is going to take the question before the Nine Elders. That is a very important thing. What is the admonition to patience?”

  “It is only patience that allows both the mind and the heart to see clearly,” recited Tsan Nu so quickly she almost tripped over the words. “If he believed me he would have sounded the alarm. The bells would be ringing by now.”

  “Tsan Nu, this behavior is undisciplined and undignified. You know better.”

  “We’re going to die, Master Liaozhai. You saw what happened!”

  Master Liaozhai sighed. “I saw strong magic and a strong reading. I saw a young student who does not yet know how to control herself.”

  The girl refused to take the admonishment. “You don’t believe me either.”

  Master Liaozhai looked out across the roofs of the tombs. Mae Shan looked as well, listening for a tread or movement that did not belong to a monk or a servant. “I believe something strange and portentous happened,” Master Liaozhai said, and Mae Shan let the words balance out the peasant girl fear she still harbored. “I believe you saw beyond the normal seeing. I believe it is good that the Nine Elders know all of this.”

  Tsan Nu turned suddenly, switching with a child’s speed from anger to imploring. “Let me do a scrying.”

  “No, Tsan Nu.”

  “But I might be able to learn something else. Something that would convince the Elders.” She hit on a new point and her eyes lit up. “If it’s a scrying, you’d be able to see whatever I see and you could tell them too.”

  Mae Shan watched the shadows of the tombs around them, the fall of the light. She felt the breeze against her face. She listened for the sounds beyond the voices of her charges.

  “No, Tsan Nu.”

  “But why not?”

  “What is the truth of seeking the future?”

  “You always do this.”

  She tried to filter out the words that were nothing to do with her and her duties. Tsan Nu was not a bad child, but she did sometimes feel the girl needed a long afternoon of hauling water or digging clay to settle her to her lessons.

  “What is the truth of seeking the future?”

  The child shut her mouth tight and glowered at her teacher, even as she had at the Minister of Fire. In response, Master Liaozhai simply stood silently facing her, his hands folded, clearly prepared to wait calmly until darkness fell, perhaps even until the sun rose again.

  Tsan Nu’s face colored red with her indignation and she turned on her heel and ran. Her tutor did not move.

  “Mae Shan,” he said evenly.

  The bodyguard had been anticipating this. It was not the first time Tsan Nu had attempted to escape her tutor. Mae Shan flexed her long legs. In a very few minutes, she caught up with the child, and passed her by to stand in her path and clamp a big, callused hand on Tsan Nu’s shoulder. Without a word, she turned the girl around and marched her back to Master Liaozhai.

  She did not let go either. She stayed at the girl’s back with her hand on the thin shoulder. Tsan Nu did not try to struggle. The child had learned that was useless. Mae Shan had not lost hold of her in five years of chasing and catching.

  “What,” said Master Liaozhai, “is the truth about seeking the future?”

  Tsan Nu sighed, loud and showy. “The act of seeing is like the tide. The harder certainty is sought, the faster it recedes.” She broke off her recitation. “But it’s not like that for me. You know it’s not.”

  Master Liaozhai’s face softened. He nodded to Mae Shan and she released the child’s shoulder. “I know, Tsan Nu, you have been granted great gifts of spirit,” he said gently. “I know that one day you may see farther and truer than even the great sages. But I also know I have seen many students with great gifts, and if they do not learn how
to govern those gifts, they are ruled by them. They forget the truth they see is temporary and they go mad with their fears, burning out their souls performing scrying after scrying looking for a single immutable truth that does not exist.”

  That seemed to reach the child. She stood there for a moment, saying nothing, knitting her brow up tightly. “Have you really seen that happen?”

  “Yes.” The tutor’s eyes clouded. “To a boy who was trying to find out if he would become one of the Nine Elders. His father pressed him to reach for the highest of all high positions and would not be dissuaded. I had been called to the Heart to assist with a matter of law and returned to him too late.”

  Tsan Nu looked down at her toes, encased in their neat black cloth shoes. “But I did see it, Master Liaozhai. What do we do?”

  Master Liaozhai folded his hands again. “The hardest thing there is, Tsan Nu. We wait and we trust. Sometimes there is nothing else. Come,” he added. “You have upset Mae Shan. Make your apologies and show your respect to this one who serves as you serve.”

  Tsan Nu turned, but did not look up from her shoes. “I’m sorry, Mae Shan.”

  Again Mae Shan bowed, making sure the gesture was brief, so she would not take her eyes off her surroundings, and also making sure it included the tutor. Master Liaozhai was unusual in teaching his gifted student to respect all those around her, even those of lesser rank. There were times when Mae Shan wondered if he did it because the child was a barbarian and so, despite her gifts, was in truth more lowly than any who would ordinarily be permitted to set foot in the Heart, even if they came only to scrub the floors. But though there were others who might do such things for such reasons, Mae Shan suspected that Master Liaozhai was what he seemed, a scholar of impeccable manners.

  “I think you have worked hard enough this morning,” Master Liaozhai went on. “You may play in the garden until the eleventh hour bell.”

  “Thank you, Master Liaozhai.” The child sounded more polite than grateful. Her mind and heart were still full of her worries obviously, and it would take time for them to ease.

  Master Liaozhai seemed to understand that. Even now, he walked close to Tsan Nu. He did not touch her, but carried his hands properly folded before him, but still he was close enough that the skirts of his coat brushed her occasionally and she could surely feel his warmth and hear the rustle of his breath and his clothing. All this making a constant reminder that she was not alone, and that was probably what she needed most of all.

  The Star Garden was as filled with the sounds of children’s laughter as it was with the small white flowers called star of winter. They ran about on the grass, playing tag or racing, or, to their nurses’ despair, climbed the trees. The more sedate played at ball or read to each other. They poked in the brown ponds, teasing the goldfish there.

  These were the children of all the palaces. The children of the nobility and the imperial ladies, the children of the scribes and scholars and the officers. A number, like Tsan Nu, wore grey cuffs and collars on their clothes, marking them as hostage guests. Some of the higher-ranked children would not play with her because of this marking. Tsan Nu tried not to let this bother her, and mostly she succeeded.

  Like all the gardens of the Heart of the World, the Star Garden was surrounded by high walls painted over with sigils of protection. Tsan Nu could read most of them now. There was the warding against watching, against listening, against reaching, which took four days all by itself to paint properly. There were the signs of the crane for health, and of the tiger for strength, and the monkey for cleverness, and of course the symbols of the gods and goddesses that oversaw children, health, and growth.

  The gates and doors were all locked and soldiers stood outside. Some of the children talked about climbing the walls or rubbing out one of the signs, but Tsan Nu was glad for the protection. It meant Mae Shan could take up a post beside the gate with the other bodyguards, and let Tsan Nu play on her own, even letting her out of sight.

  The gate closed beside them, and Tsan Nu remembered to bow her thanks to Mae Shan, as Master Liaozhai approved of, motivated by the knowledge that he was not going to approve of what she was going to do next.

  “Thank you, mistress.” Mae Shan bowed in return, and took up her station beside the other guards, planting the butt of her spear against the ground, and squaring her shoulders until she looked just like a toy soldier.

  Tsan Nu took off running. Her friends waved and called as she raced past them, and she waved and shouted back, but she did not stop. She had something else to do first.

  In the back corner of the garden, a patch of wilderness had been left, a symbol that chaos was part of order. Underneath the untrimmed bracken was something very rare in the gardens of the Heart, a pool that had been forgotten. It was filled with thick brown water scummed over with green, that reflected next to no light. As such, it made a terrible scrying vessel, but it could serve if one was desperate.

  She wondered if she should have stopped and played with the others. She wondered if Mae Shan had seen and guessed what she might be up to and was even now on her way to tell Master Liaozhai.

  She’d have to be quick.

  “Hey, Tsan Nu! Tsan Nu!”

  Tsan Nu groaned, slowed, and turned. Yi Qin, daughter of Lady Yi Tang, trotted up behind her. Yi Qin was tall, and carefully groomed and wore robes of blue and red, emphasizing her high rank, as much as she was allowed, because despite the fact that Lady Yi Tang said that her father was Lord Pao, private secretary to the General of the Northern Borders, he had never said so.

  Yi Qin was nosy. She liked to have secrets and hated anybody else having them. So the next question was predictable.

  “Where’re you going?”

  “Nowhere,” tried Tsan Nu.

  “Come on.” Yi Qin smiled at her, and looked a lot like her mother when she did. “I’ll tell you what Li Tan told me about Master Bin.”

  Yi Qin treated secrets like strings of silver. It was almost a shame she never really knew anything interesting.

  “Nowhere,” repeated Tsan Nu. “I just wanted to think.”

  That was a mistake. “About what?”

  “Nothing.” Even as she said it, Tsan Nu knew that was another mistake.

  “You’re a liar,” said Yi Qin flatly. “Tell me where you’re going or I’ll tell your tutor about how you turned all the white flowers red to make the dragon picture before the New Year festival.” It was well known Tsan Nu had the spirit gifts, and occasionally she had shown them off by freezing a pond in midsummer or putting a goldfish into a tree. Master Liaozhai frowned on these exploits and set her to learning pages and pages of new characters whenever she did it, but the looks on the other children’s faces could be worth it.

  She would tell on Tsan Nu too, but Tsan Nu couldn’t let her see the scrying. She couldn’t let Yi Qin of all people know what she could really do. The girl would never leave her alone for a minute if she knew how much Tsan Nu could see when she tried.

  She had to do something. Any moment now, the nurses would descend. They’d be scolded and made to play together. “Listen, Yi Qin, if you let me alone now, I’ll give you a good luck amulet. A real one. Master Liaozhai taught me how.” That wasn’t true, but Yi Qin would never know.

  Yi Qin considered. “What kind of good luck?”

  Greedy brat. “Future luck,” said Tsan Nu conspiratorily. “It’ll be waiting for the time when you need it most and then … you’ll get exactly what you want.” Tsan Nu was pleased with her wording. That way if something didn’t work out for Yi Qin, Tsan Nu could just say, “It must not be the right time yet.” She could keep that up for years.

  Yi Qin eyed her suspiciously. “All right,” she muttered, “but if you don’t do it, I’ll make you very sorry.” Yi Qin had lots of friends and the secrets she knew might not be interesting, but sometimes they were dangerous.

  “I promise,” said Tsan Nu again. “You’ll have it by bedtime.”

  Whatever else Yi Qi
n was, she did what she said. Showing off how much the lady she was, she walked primly back to where her coconspirators were playing “court.” Tsan Nu turned and ran, praying that the gods not decide to deal with her lie by having one of the nurses or, worse, one of the tutors catch her now.

  But they did not. Tsan Nu made it to the back wall and the wild patch. It was shady back here and gnats buzzed around her ears. She swatted them away impatiently and pushed her way through the screen of brambles and nettles, ignoring the pricks and stings.

  The pool was only a little wider than she was, rimmed with algae and covered over with a kind of floating moss. Tsan Nu shoved that aside with a stick until she got a patch of fairly clear brown water. The stench of decay wafted up around her, and she held her nose. Then, she knelt down, leaning out over the pool, looking at the muddy swirls, and she set aside the itching, and the stink and her anger at Yi Qin, and the crack in the temple floor, and she thought about tomorrow. Tomorrow. What would tomorrow be like? She thought about the Heart, about the great courtyard and the tower that was Ah Min’s Spear, and all the palaces around.

  This wasn’t even really magic, not the weaving and shaping Master Liaozhai taught her. This was something separate, something inside her blood that was her very own.

  Fixing her mind on the Heart, and on tomorrow, Tsan Nu reached inside to where her mind’s eye waited, and willed it open. She looked down into the brown, swirling water, and she saw …

  Nothing.

  Not darkness, not the black that came with night, or with closing one’s eyes, but nothingness. It was as if her inner eye had gone blind.

  Tsan Nu pulled back, and the mood broke, and her inner vision snapped shut, there was nothing in front of her except a pond settling back toward stillness.

  Tsan Nu, though, was gasping and shaking like she’d just woken up from a nightmare. Nothing. Tomorrow was nothing. The Heart was nothing. How could this be?

  I should look again. I didn’t ask the right question. There can’t be nothing. There has to be something.