Silk & Steel

by Ellen Kushner

  Then it stopped.

  Shivering, shaking, Liên lowered the instrument from her mouth. The banyan’s roots were alight. Overhead in the canopy, pinpoints of light shone like wayward stars—no, not stars, but a flock of luminous birds—and in the river something large and sinuous shimmered in and out of existence. She felt light-headed and empty, as if she’d just run from one end of the Academy to another. And Mei’s face... Mei looked not distant or fey, but like someone whose hunger had finally been sated.

  Dinh was pale, but it wasn’t the pallor of light, just exhaustion and fear. She looked from Mei to Liên, and then back again. Mei said, simply, “Liên wins.”

  “She—” Dinh opened her mouth as though she was going to argue, but Mei was by her side, gently closing her hand around the flute, which was slowly vanishing. Back to her own body? What were the flutes, exactly? Where were they coming from?

  “Go home,” Mei said, and her voice wasn’t unkind. “There are other arenas to prove yourself in.” Mei watched, thoughtfully, as Dinh staggered through the door.

  The light in the banyan tree was fading. So was the creature in the river, and Liên’s own flute. It did nothing to diminish the terrible emptiness inside.

  “You’ll feel better after you eat,” Mei said, turning to Liên. Her gaze was dazzling and luminous. “Come on.”

  “I—” Liên’s voice felt all used up. “Where?” She walked behind Mei because she didn’t have any willpower of her own left, and she might as well. They went through the gates and the deserted gardens of the Academy—how was already night, where had the time gone?

  A single path with a few lanterns led to a building a little apart from the other buildings. The path wove through a garden that had once been rich, but was now in a state of disrepair: the ponds had become masses of churned mud choked by lotus flowers, and the pavilions were dilapidated ruins with missing roofs, the rain dripping on chipped stone. As they walked up to the lone building that reminded Liên vaguely of a pagoda or a watchtower, the rain became a slow, warm drizzle that plastered Liên’s topknot to her skull.

  The tower’s gates were closed. Mei threw them open, spattering water on the slats of the rich parquet. Inside, someone sat at a low table, sipping from a cup of tea: a man of indeterminate age, wearing the clothes of a scholar-official, his topknot impeccable.

  “Child,” he said, rising with a smile towards Mei. When he moved, the same light as the one Liên had seen in the arena limned him for the briefest of moments. “Younger aunt.” His smile was dizzying and magnetic. Liên felt at the center of the world, held in the web of his attention, and sagged when his gaze moved from her to Mei. She hadn’t eaten anything, and it was only sheer stubbornness that had kept her moving.

  “This is Liên,” Mei said. “She just won her first duel. Elder aunt, this is Hiểu Sinh, my Revered Teacher.”

  “Liên.” Sinh turned back to her and smiled, and again that flash of warmth swept through Liên, making her feel larger and worthier. “Welcome home, Liên.”

  * * *

  There were rules, ones Mei hadn’t mentioned. Odd ones like not eating garlic or onions, which made this seem like an offshoot of a monastery. And odder ones still, un-monastery-like: that the winner of the duel would move into the house and share a room with Mei. Sinh said it with a meaningful glance at Liên, which Liên chose to ignore. It wasn’t that Mei was unattractive, but being set up together like that was just too weird, and at no point had Sinh asked for Mei’s opinion or permission. Besides, Liên wanted to climb through merit, not marriage.

  The duels she’d expected. They were irregular, huge occasions that required intense and feverish preparations. Sinh hinted there would not be many to fight, but would never share more details. “You will know when you’re ready for the power,” he said, and never would budge from that frustrating statement.

  There were classes, too. In between Liên’s usual regimen of Statehood and Classics and Poetry at the Academy, Sinh would invite Liên to his study and pour tea for both of them, and talk about... Liên was never too sure what they talked about, only of Sinh’s eyes shining like jet, and of Mei, sitting behind Sinh the entire time, occasionally moving to replenish tea or dumplings or dipping sauces.

  “I don’t understand why the flutes,” Liên said.

  Sinh had spread a chess board between them, though he made no move to play. “The flute is the scholar.”

  Liên opened her mouth to protest it was not, that the Four Arts of the gentleman scholar included music but on the zither, and then Sinh flipped the board, and all words fled.

  It was an old, old board, so old it was engraved with the characters of the Chinese colonizers rather than the letters of the Việt alphabet. Pasted on it, carefully held behind a pane of what looked like glass—but no glass was so fine, or shone with such pulsing, warm light—was a painting.

  Whoever had drawn it had skills worthy of the old masters. The brushstrokes were flowing and sure, and they suggested details with economy. The painting depicted a single scholar, standing before a rocky spur, fingers on a flute of deep green jade with complex carvings. And in front of him... in front of him rose a great dragon, antlers gleaming, pearls scattered in her mane, and maw at the level of his flute.

  “Scholar Vương,” Sinh said. Behind him, Mei had risen. She laid a hand on the painting for a brief moment, closing her eyes as if some memory were painful. “His music was so powerful it could change the world.” His hand nudged Mei’s aside, touched on the details of the scholar’s clothes. “Summon dragons from the river and speak to the Dragon Princess herself.”

  “Power,” Liên said. Her breath caught in her throat. She’d seen the banyan tree, but she hadn’t realized....

  Sinh laughed. “You want to be adviser to emperors, child. Don’t give me that shocked look, your dreams are written large on your face.” He laid his tea cup on the floor, stared Liên in the eye until she had to lower her gaze or be openly disrespectful. “You dream too small.”

  “I don’t!” Liên said. She—she wanted to make her parents proud of her, whatever heavens they were watching her from.

  “Mei told you this power could remake the world.” A gentle snort. “Adviser. You will never summon dragons if you keep yourself so contained.”

  How could he dismiss her so easily? Liên opened her mouth to protest, and found a touch on her arm: Mei, gently holding her and shaking her head. Apologize, Mei mouthed.

  She had done nothing wrong, but Sinh was her teacher now. “I’m sorry,” she said. The words tasted like ash on her tongue.

  “Good,” Sinh said, nodding briskly, as if the whole matter weren’t even worthy of mention. As if he hadn’t called all her dreams small and worthless. “You have another duel in a week’s time, child.”

  After the lesson was over, Liên exhaled. The breath hurt.

  Mei walked with her as she steered away from the corridors, and towards the door of the house—and the waiting gardens. They were unlike the ones in the Academy, where everything was staid and named: here trees grew wild, and lotus flowers choked the ponds.

  “He means well,” Mei said. “He’s seen a lot of students.”

  “And how many have gotten as good as Scholar Vương?” Liên couldn’t help the sharpness in her voice.

  Mei smiled. “A few. Younger aunt...” She smoothed out the folds of her tunic, and Liên realized Mei was nervous and scared. And no wonder, with Sinh being so overbearing.

  “I’m sorry. You shouldn’t have to run peacemaker between the two of us.”

  “It’s what I do.”

  What did she do? “You don’t duel,” Liên said, before she could stop herself.

  Another smile, but this time it was more relaxed. “No. I don’t have that talent. I’m not a scholar.” It was said easily and matter-of-factly. She didn’t care.

  “You make the flutes.”

  A laugh, crystalline and careless, and Liên heard the hurt beneath.

 
She laid a hand on Mei’s arm, felt the warm tautness of her—felt something shift within her, her heart becoming too large. “Big’sis.” The intimate pronoun—the one reserved for an older, close friend of one’s generation—rose to her lips as easily as breathing.

  “I don’t make the flutes,” Mei said. “I just...” She spread her hands. “I just make it easier for you to manifest them. They’re yours.”

  “You don’t approve.”

  Mei jumped. “What makes you think that?”

  “The way you speak.” They’d reached a dilapidated pavilion on a spur that looked like someone had tried, badly, to evoke Scholar Vương summoning the Dragon Princess.

  “I think he shouldn’t push you so hard,” Mei said. “You’re sixteen? You remind of a child I once knew.”

  “Seventeen,” Liên said, stung. “I’m an adult.”

  Mei’s face was unreadable. She leant on the chipped railing of the pavilion, looking at the river. “So you are. And an...” She stopped, then, looked at Liên. “A driven person.”

  “You were going to say orphan,” Liên said, bristling. But Mei didn’t sound like the other students, the ones who had mocked her for having no family or connections.

  “Yes,” Mei said. “Having no parents can be hard.”

  Liên shrugged, though she missed them. “I lost them when I was young. I don’t remember much about them.” It wasn't quite true. She had dreams with Father’s perfume and Mother’s voice singing her to sleep. But what was true was that she remembered the coffins and the vigil in the temple more than she remembered them living—the way the air had been heavy and breathless, as if before a monsoon that would never come, the smell of incense curdling in the air, the rough feel of the mourning band on her forehead, the way it kept falling down into her eyes—her eldest aunt’s hand, bringing it back time and time again, her grim frustration that she was a child and everyone expected her to keep silent and out of the way.

  “Sinh would say you could bring them back to life with the power,” Mei said.

  “And is that true?” She’d said Sinh, not herself.

  Again, that unreadable look. Mei’s hand rested by Liên’s on the railing. Liên’s fingers ached to draw her close. “I don’t know,” Mei said, finally, and there was clearly something that she wasn’t saying.

  “I don’t want to bring my parents back because there’s an order to things,” Liên said. “Rules in heaven and on earth. Why should I be breaking them?”

  “You’re dueling.”

  She was—and it wasn’t just about being like Scholar Vương—but also the way that the music of her flute flowed through her—the way that it seemed one long, slow breath, finally released—the way that her anger and her grief and her ambition finally merged together and became something beautiful and pleasurable. The way it made her feel alive. “Is that breaking the world? Mei, what is this power? Why is Sinh so evasive?”

  “Do you trust me?”

  And wasn’t that a barbed question? “I don’t know,” Liên said.

  “Fair.” Mei sighed. “I can tell you this: the power breaks no rules. It’s merely an ascension, like the sages of old.” But again there was something she wasn’t saying.

  “You asked if I trust you. Should I be trusting Sinh?”

  “He’s my Revered Teacher and I love him,” Mei said. “Come on, let’s go back to the house.”

  They walked back a hand’s width from each other, Liên acutely aware of the way Mei moved—of the sway of her hips, how her lips opened slightly when she walked too fast, barely revealing the nacre of her teeth—what would it feel like, her lips on Mei’s lips? But she was acutely aware of another thing, too.

  Mei hadn’t answered her question about Sinh.

  * * *

  Liên’s opponent for this duel—her seventh at the Academy—was a much older girl, Thụ Kiếng. Everyone in the Academy had heard of Thụ Kiếng. She routinely organized poetry contests and won all of them, and her calligraphy was so good it was exhibited in the Academy’s classrooms and corridors.

  Liên didn’t want to fight Thụ Kiếng, because she was going to lose.

  “You won’t lose,” Mei said. They stood on the arena platform, between the banyan roots. Liên held her flute to her mouth: plain, unadorned bamboo with that fourth hole—four for death and all that had brought her so far. It felt so flimsy and inadequate.

  It wouldn’t be enough.

  “She’s a scholar. A proper one. The bright one. I don’t even know why I’m here, big’sis!” Liên’s hands clenched on her flute. She was an orphan from a poor family, a girl from the country playing at being a scholar. Who was she, to think she could attain the power of legends?

  Mei wrapped one hand around Liên’s—gently reached with her other, to touch the flute—and Liên shivered, as if it were her lips Mei was touching. “You’re here because you’re worthy.” Her gaze, wide and luminous, held Liên’s—Liên’s throat was suddenly dry. “Because you are seen.”

  Liên drew in a deep, shaking breath. “Big’sis.” Mei’s hand moved from the flute, rested on Liên’s lips for a bare moment, and warmth spread from Liên’s face down her spine. She ached to reach out—dared not reach out. “I see you, lil’sis. Vương’s heir. I see you. You will do this, because you can no more fail this than stop breathing.” Mei withdrew her hands, leaving Liên shaking. “Big’sis.”

  “Ssh,” Mei said, but her gaze lingered on Liên’s face a little too long, and her eyes were half-lidded with hunger and desire. “I have Thụ Kiếng to fetch.”

  Liên waited. She lowered her flute, and laid a hand on the banyan tree. It was cold and dark now, only brought to life by flute music. The river was lifeless, too. No, that wasn’t true. It teemed with those silver flashes she’d already seen. She knelt and trailed her hand in the water, heedless of the cold. The flashes came closer, nipping at her fingers. Fish. Small silvery carps, weaving in and out of her hand, gently tickling her—and for a moment she wasn’t Liên or the current champion of the duel, but simply the girl she’d been in a faraway past, the one who’d played in the river while her parents were in their study.

  “It’s been a while, hasn’t it?”

  Liên scrambled to her feet. Thụ Kiếng was standing next to her, holding a flute of glass. Mei leaned against the banyan tree, waiting for them to start. “What do you mean?”

  Thụ Kiếng was tall, her hair brought back in an impeccable topknot, her face classically beautiful: smart and chiseled, her hands long and elegant. She made Liên feel like a country bumpkin. “The river.” She smiled. It was bitter and fragile. “We all splash into it as children, coming home muddy-handed with only a memory of fishes to show for ourselves. Until our parents remind us that it’s time to put aside childhood and study hard.”

  Liên flushed. “I didn’t have that.” She wasn’t sure what to say.

  “I know,” Thụ Kiếng said, and it wasn’t unkind. “You want to summon the Dragon Princess?”

  Liên said nothing, but she thought of the painting she’d seen in Sinh’s study—of the dragon rearing up. What would that kind of power feel like? “Maybe.”

  “Mmm.” Thụ Kiếng sighed. “The Dragon Princess vanished from the world at the same time as Scholar Vương.”

  “Vanished?”

  “No one knows what happened.” Thụ Kiếng’s voice was wistful. “I think they just reached a point where they couldn’t outrun the laws of nature anymore. Heaven doesn’t bestow blessings without some kind of expected behavior.” A sigh. “I don’t know what’s in the river, but I don’t think it’s the princess anymore. I don’t think anyone can reach her.”

  Liên said, finally, “Does it matter?”

  A long, measuring look from Thụ Kiếng. “To you? No, I think not. Come on. I think she’s waiting for us.”

  “I don’t—” Liên stopped. She wasn’t about to tell Thụ Kiếng she was afraid, but Thụ Kiếng saw it anyway.

  “
You can concede,” she said. “But you won’t, will you?”

  Liên clutched the flute. “I’d be shaming my parents if I lost.”

  Thụ Kiếng cocked her head. “Would you?”

  “What do you mean?” But Thụ Kiếng had already turned away from her, towards Mei.

  It was Liên’s turn first, because she held the title. She raised the flute to her hands, still feeling the fish dart between her fingers—and when she played, the river came out. It was the fish and the mud and the sound of the water, and their barely remembered house—and Mother’s measured voice, composing poetry; and Father’s, laughing and answering her, his own voice weaving between verses. And as she remembered her parents her finger stretched, found the fourth hole of the flute, and the music poured out of her in a rush that lifted her and drained her at the same time.

  She came out of the song with her heart hammering in her chest. The platform was awash with light. In the canopy of the banyan, the flock of luminous birds was larger, and the branches supported the looming moon. Something was climbing from the depths of the river, a dark shadow about to break the surface of the water, and Mei wasn’t leaning against the tree anymore, but looking at the river with tears in her eyes.

  “My love...” she whispered, softly, slowly.

  Thụ Kiếng was staring at her, and at Mei. “That’s hard to follow.” She lifted her own flute, slowly and ironically, and brought it to her lips. The music that came out of it was small and slow: a dirge for a girl who had refused Thụ Kiếng, and a boy she’d loved, but who fell ill and had left the Academy, never to come back. It all sounded... tinny, as if from a great distance, and when Thụ Kiếng lowered her flute, the tree had barely lit up. In the river, there was hardly anything, a shadow of a shadow, diving almost immediately out of sight again.