The Yellow silk r-4

by Don Bassingthwaite

  "Hey!" shouted Tycho. He grabbed a cushion and flung it at her. She batted it aside, but the distraction was enough for Li to get through the door. He hurled himself at the Hooded with a shout.

  “Yu Mao!"

  The Hooded had a sword off the rack and came spinning around just in time of meet Li's blow. Metal clanged on metal. Li struck again, driving the Hooded back with a flurry of attacks. The Hooded's sword worked desperately; the gang boss was trying to get in some kind of counterstrike, but the blows Li was doling out were fierce and angry. The Hooded was forced into a desperate and constant defense.

  His interpreter shrieked and turned to her master, but Tycho leaped into her and slammed her to the ground. Howling, she raked at him with her fingers. "Stop that!" he spat sharply. He grabbed her wrists and shoved them back over her head until he could pin them against the floor. She just snapped up at him with her teeth as he bent over her, forcing him to arc away or be bitten. He cursed, shifted her wrists so he could hold them with one hand and groped with the other for a piece of silk hanging from the wall. It tore free in an enormous sheet. Tycho cursed again, and tried wrapping the fabric around the young woman's hands and wrists. Anything to restrain this wildcat!

  Every time he shifted his attention to her hands, she kicked. Every time he tried to pin her legs, she thrashed. The whole time she was howling and snapping. Teeth finally found his arm. Tycho yelped at the sudden pain and flung himself off of her. She twisted after him, but he pointed a hand at her and sang a sharp note.

  Magic flowed, quick and dirty, and she staggered in a momentary daze. Tycho snatched up the long silk and wrapped it around her entire torso, pinning her arms against her sides and twisting the fabric sheath tight before she could recover. When she opened her mouth to let out another feral shriek, he jammed a trailing edge of the silk into it. "Bind me," he gasped, "what gutter did you crawl out of?" He kicked her feet out from under her and knocked her to the floor.

  Across the room, the Hooded flinched at his interpreter's fall. His defense faltered for just a moment. Li drove his blade in. The Hooded twisted and the sharp metal sliced across his side. His foot shifted. He kicked up a cushion at Li. The Shou caught it with his sword. Fabric split and a storm of feathers exploded out. The Hooded gave a strange, muted cry and thrust his sword into the downy cloud.

  Li spun out on the other side, sweeping his blade down. It hit hard just above the hilt of the Hooded's sword with a clear, sharp ring and slapped the weapon from his grasp. Li's sword flicked back to the other man's chest. The Hooded froze.

  But so did Li. His face twisted. His eyes were fixed on the Hooded's masked face as if they were the only two people in the room-in the world.

  Tycho stared at him. "Li?" he asked cautiously.

  "Li?"

  Memories played through Li's mind. Memories of his father's face as he showed him the letter from Tieh Fa Pan. Memories of the drawn faces of the silk families of Keelung as they mourned sons, daughters, sisters, and brothers lost in the lands of the west-with no idea of the truth behind that loss. Memories of the shame and righteous anger that had driven him the length of the Golden Way, of the stabbing agony of Cado's words in the cellar. He said get rid of you faster.

  … Memories of watching Yu Mao on the day of his Blessing Ceremony, of playing with him in the garden, of lessons together, of trapping frogs and fireflies before the heir of Kuang grew too dignified for such things You're talking about murdering your brother, Tycho had said and he had insisted, Better me than a stranger; better me than no one at all. Courts, justice, tradition all agreed-but, in the end, his heart did not.

  "I can't do it," Li hissed finally in Shou. His blade trembled. "Do you hear that, Yu Mao? I have ached for this halfway across the world and now… " Yu Mao said nothing, just stayed stone still. "Tycho," breathed Li. "Take off his hood."

  The bard stepped away from the writhing form of Yu Mao's young woman, moved next to Yu Mao cautiously, and reached up and pulled off the leather hood.

  Breath caught in Li's throat. Memories, love, and conflict all suddenly collapsed, shriveling like paper in a flame.

  Round Western eyes. Thin, gold-brown hair. Pale skin. The man before him was not Yu Mao.

  Li's arms and legs shook. His shoulders tensed. The muscles of his belly heaved and knotted. A voice-his- rasped in hollow agony.

  The Hooded moved suddenly, grabbing at his sword arm and thrusting him away. An elbow lashed back and caught Tycho in the jaw. The bard cried out and staggered. Li barely noticed.

  Not Yu Mao.

  With a wild roar, he dropped his sword and grabbed the Hooded with his bare hands. Fingers knotted in the Westerner's tunic and pulled him close-Li snapped his head forward, smashing his forehead against the Hooded's. The Hooded swayed. Li lifted him off his feet and slammed him back into the nearest wall. "Where is my brother?" he howled. "Where is Yu Mao?" He clamped a hand tight around the Hooded's throat to hold him upright while he drove the other into his belly.

  Tycho was like a mosquito hovering on the edge of his awareness, his voice an annoying whine. Li shrugged him aside and hammered his fist into the Hooded's belly again. The mosquito gasped and its whine changed to song. Light flashed suddenly between him and the Hooded. Li threw up his arm to shield his eyes and staggered back.

  Hands grabbed him and gave him a sharp slap across the face.

  "Li!" yelled Tycho. "Li, look at me!" Another stinging slap. "Look at me!"

  Li blinked and focused. Tycho was hanging onto his shirt front. His face was white. The room was silent. Even the Hooded's interpreter had stopped her struggling. Li looked beyond Tycho.

  The unmasked Hooded slumped motionless against the wall. Blood was trickling down from a cut on his forehead. Li swallowed hard. His anger ebbed a little and he glanced up at Tycho. He wasn't sure what he intended to say, but what came out was, "He's not Yu Mao."

  "No,'"Iycho agreed. "He's not. Another couple of punches, though, and you might have killed him anyway."

  Li's stomach lurched. "I wasn't going to. When I thought he was Yu Mao "

  "I know," said Tycho. "I could tell. Let's see who he really is."

  He let go of Li's shirt, went to the unconscious man, and pushed his head back against the wall. The pale face that turned up-eyes lolling half-open, mouth slack-was a ruin. And not from Li's fists. Scars marked his face. Some seemed deliberate. Two short horizontal lines stood out under each eye and a double row of round dots marched across his forehead. The massive scars that tore across his cheeks and drew his lips into a twisted sneer could hardly have been intentional, though. Tycho touched one then the other. "Something went straight through," he said. He peered into the man's mouth. "He's missing a lot of teeth.His tongue "He shuddered.

  Li looked to the Hooded's interpreter. Seeing her master so savagely beaten had taken the fight out of her. He moved over and dragged her closer, tugging the makeshift gag out of her mouth. "What did that?" he asked.

  "An arrow."

  Tycho grunted. "He's lucky, then. Higher, lower, farther back, different angle-he'd be long dead. No wonder he wore a hood and needed someone to speak for him." He frowned and ran his fingers across the dotted lines on the man's forehead. "Li," he said slowly, "I think I've heard of him. They called him the Stitched Man. He was a pirate." He twisted around. "He sailed with Sowl"

  Li blinked and stared. "But in Telflamm, they said Brin was the last survivor."

  "Shows what you know," spouted the Hooded's interpreter. Li growled at her.

  "She's right," said Tycho. "If you think Yu Mao might still be alive, why not someone else from the ship?"

  Li pressed his lips together and looked down at the scarred man then at Tycho. "Can you heal him like you healed me?"

  "Not old scars like these."

  "I mean can you wake him up?" Tycho nodded. Li picked up a sword. "Do it."

  The bard turned back to the Hooded. Taking a deep breath, he placed his hands over the man's forehead and
sang. The song was complex and soft. It was, Li realized, the longest he had heard Tycho sing since they had met-all of the other spells he had cast were short and either jarring or slippery and subtle. For a moment, he lost himself in awe. Tycho's voice wasn't quite as stunning as Veseene's, but it was still astonishing. And he chose to sing in taverns?

  The song ended and Tycho stepped back. The bloody cut on the Hooded's head had vanished. His breathing was deep and regular. His eyes had slipped all the way shut.

  Tycho reached down and flicked the end of his nose. The Hooded started. His eyes snapped open.

  Li made sure that the first thing he saw was the end of his sword. The Hooded's eyes rose to meet his. They narrowed sharply and flicked to the side and found his interpreter. He said… something. The words came out mangled, a harsh string of sounds twisted by a scarred tongue. Li could guess at their meaning though. He hissed and flicked the sword. "She's fine," he said in Common. "You just answer my questions."

  The man's eyes narrowed again as if he had not expected Li to speak the language. Li could have cursed himself-all of the silences that he had thought were Yu Mao's stunned surprise were just moments of confusion. The Hooded simply didn't speak Shou. "What's your name?" he said harshly. "No 'Hooded' or 'Stitched Man.' I've had enough of that."

  The man grumbled something and, across the room, his interpreter said, "Staso."

  Li shut her out, focusing on the scarred man. "You served on a pirate ship called the Sow." Staso nodded slowly. "What do you know of a Shou named Kuang Yu Mao?"

  Staso growled and spat. Li caught the spittle on the blade of the sword and flicked it back at him. "I said what do you know-" Staso cut him off with a snarling response.

  "I see him in your face. Take your revenge and kill me now because I'm not going to tell you anything about that serpent!"

  Serpent? "I came west to kill my brother, not you," Li snarled back. "Tell me what I want to know and you'll live."

  Tycho winced. "Li, that might not be such a good idea…" Li ignored him and met Staso's hard gaze.

  "When I sent his name up to you," he guessed, "you told your man to get rid of us fast because you were afraid?.

  "I fear nothing. Death has already touched me." Staso's scar-stretched lips curled back even further. He held up his chin and turned his head to display his scarred cheeks. " Yu Mao did this." Li's jaw clenched. Tycho caught his eye and gestured, miming a spell. Behind them both, Staso's young woman gasped and called a warning. Staso just laughed, a horrid gobbling sound. He babbled something. The young woman didn't translate it.

  Li twisted around and glared at her as Staso repeated his babbling. "What's he saying?"

  She swallowed and said, "You don't need magic. I'll tell you what you want to know." Staso smiled. "But if you love your brother, you won't like it."

  "I don't like you, Staso" Li spat. He settled into a crouch on the carpeted floor. The sword didn't waver. "Try to surprise me. I know that Yu Mao betrayed his ship to the Sow and murdered the Shou with him. I know that he was your sorceress-captain's lover. Tell me more."

  The scarred man's eyes hardened. "How about that he was a merciless savage?" He watched Li intently as if looking for a reaction. Li didn't give him one. After a moment, Staso continued. "Yu Mao was a vicious man, more cruel than any of us-except possibly Brin. The two of them got along well, but the rest of the crew came to fear Yu Mao. He was as likely to put steel into one of Sow's crew as into any enemy we fought. We went to the captain with our concerns, but she was too lust-sotted with her exotic Shou man to listen. That was her error. Yu Mao tired of her before she tired of him. He'd been with us barely a year before he and Brin hatched a plan for mutiny."

  "On the eve of Highharvestide in the Year of the Unstrung Harp, after one of the best seasons of plunder we'd ever seen, Yu Mao woke the captain with one of his great chopping swords to her neck in the bed that they shared. He and Brin hauled her out and tied her to the mainmast. Then they called all of the crew out on deck. They had the support of some mutineers already, but not enough. So they offered us a choice: join them or leave Sow, alive but surrendering their share of the booty we'd gathered. Anybody who wanted to fight was welcome to try that, too, but they'd be in for a world of hurt." Staso drew a deep breath. "And to show how serious they were, Yu Mao took the captain's arms, stretched them out above her head, and drove a spike through her hands and into the mast!"

  His broken voice dropped low and his interpreter's with it. "There're some in every crew that put themselves and their gold first above all else, and they had an easy choice. But some of us know a good captain is worth more than gold and we knew then that if we left Sow, our captain was going to die a mean death. As soon as we saw the captain stretched out along the mast like a fish for the gutting, the moon rising full behind her, something in us broke." Staso's eyes were bright and wild, and as he spoke his voice rose with fiery passion. "Lord of All Thieves, we put up a fight! There wasn't a man or woman among the mutineers who didn't cross steel or knock heads with us. It was all for naught, though-there were twice as many as cared for gold and blood as cared for shipmates' loyalty, and numbers held the deck. I got closer than anyone to the captain, so close I could see her eyes rolled back and her mouth moving in pain as the blood ran from her hands down her arms. I couldn't get close enough, though. Yu Mao himself stopped my charge."

  Staso sneered at Li. "You aren't half the swordsman he was. He fought me all the way back to the ship's rail, knocked my sword from my hand, and would have done me in right then if the captain hadn't opened her eyes and screamed out." He leaned forward, almost spitting himself on Li's blade. "All that muttering and mouthing wasn't pain-madness, it was magic-the last of the captain's magic, all poured out at once."

  "Her voice swept down the deck like a cold wind in the moonlight as she turned her soul to working a curse. Everyone stopped and listened-everyone except those of us who had fought for her and lived. We knew a break when we saw it, and we ran for the ship's boats. I gave Yu Mao a good one in the gut and grabbed his swords before I went. While the captain called out her curse, we piled into one of the boats and got ourselves off Sow faster than spawning sea-devils."

  "What was this curse?" breathed Tycho.

  "It was three-fold," Staso hissed, sitting back. "On the crew that had turned against her, a promise of a cold grave, that the Sow wouldn't sail into spring. On Brin, the mate who had betrayed her, a wish that the sea take him like the pig he was and that he squeal his last in Umber-lee's arms."

  "And on Yu Mao?" Li asked. Staso met his eyes.

  "An oath on her blood that he would not live to forget Sow" His breath grated. "Those were the last words that she spoke-Brin put his dagger in her throat before she could say anything more."

  "And?"

  Staso's ruined face went still. After a moment, he said softly, "And the ship went mad. From our boat on the water, we heard Yu Mao first, laughing at the captain's curse, telling everyone it was nothing but a madwoman's words, a spell broken before it was complete. Brin joined in, and the mutineers did too. There was a commotion, and we saw them carry something to the ship's rail. It took us a moment before we realized that it was the captain's body-Bitch Queen's mercy, she was so shriveled she might have died in a desert instead of at sea! They threw her overboard and the water took her without so much as a splash. That might have scared a few of them, but then Yu Mao called for a bow. We rowed like demons, but when Yu Mao had his bow, he nocked an arrow and took aim at us."

  "He personally picked off four of us in the boat before the other mutineers took up the same game and began showering us with arrows." Staso touched his cheeks. "But this was one of Yu Mao's. I know it. It knocked me into the bottom of the boat and that was the only reason I survived. When I woke, I was lying under dead men. Sow was gone. Brin and Yu Mao had left us for the birds."

  Tycho's eyes were drawn tight and focused on Staso. Li had a feeling he was committing the whole story to memory, the
better for a retelling later. "What did you do?" asked the bard.

  "What any man with the will to survive would do," said Staso. "I broke the shaft of Yu Mao's arrow and pulled the pieces out of my cheeks. I pushed the dead weight of my former mates overboard. And I rowed. I rowed until my hands were blistered, then I bound them up, and I rowed some more. Sharks followed my boat for a day and I thank Umberlee that nothing worse found me. Maybe the captain's spirit was watching over me, too, because I hit the coast of Altumbel the next day. As soon as I set foot on dry land, I swore that I would never take to the sea again. But a man's got to eat, and thieving's the only trade I know. The Stitched Man was too well known, though. And whether the captain's curse was real or not, I didn't want word that I was alive getting back to Sow." His eyes drifted, and he shuddered. "I may not fear death now, but when I came ashore, I feared Yu Mao more than anything in this world or the next."

  "So you took the identity of the Hooded," guessed Li. "And Yu Mao's swords?"

  "Sold them to that idiot Jacerryl Dantakain for enough gold to get me started. When word spread at the end of the winter that Sow hadn't been sighted in several ten-days, I was happier than a clam. I even started to wonder if the captain's curse really had come to pass-until Brin walked into town with his herd of pigs."

  Li tilted his head. "He'd escaped the curse?" Staso just shrugged.

  "I don't even know if there was a curse. Yu Mao might have been right. Brin's dagger might have killed the captain before her magic was finished. Ships vanish frequently enough without being cursed."

  "Maybe there was a curse, maybe there wasn't," suggested Tycho. "Tales I've heard always make curses out to be fickle things and someone who is frightened enough of a curse might just take it seriously. The captain of Sow wished that the sea take Brin like the pig he is." He gave his crooked smile. "Brin's never far from at least one pig. Whether the curse is real or not, Brin thinks he's found a way around it-surround himself with pigs and the sea won't find him. Whatever happened to Sow, Brin survived. Maybe there were pigs around when he did."