by Cutter, Leah
Wang Tie-Tie looked at Xiao Yen and spoke to her as if to an equal. “You don't have to give me the peach. Not if you're in a situation like mine and you need it for yourself. Not if your life has turned to bitter ash and you cannot survive the regret and hate.”
Xiao Yen responded fervently, addressing Wang Tie-Tie's scarred flesh, no longer using her duty-bound voice. “I will do famous deeds so you can leave this world of tears. I will bring you an immortal peach.”
Wang Tie-Tie pushed down her sleeve, her melancholy banished. “Good.” She looked at Xiao Yen, her fierce eyes dissecting Xiao Yen like a butterfly under a knife. “You'll learn Zhang Gua Lao's type of magic. You'll be the best at it. You'll be the one offered the choice. And when the offer comes, if you don't want the peach yourself, you'll remember Wang Tie-Tie.”
Every word bored into Xiao Yen's skull. She knew she'd never forget the still afternoon, the fan lying on the platform, the smell of the blossoms opening in the heat, the silent scars, and Wang Tie-Tie's eyes drilling holes into her and hooking ropes there, ropes that only Wang Tie-Tie knew how to pull.
“I'll remember,” Xiao Yen replied, shifting in her seat.
Wang Tie-Tie stared for a moment longer, than laughed. The sound sent a chill down Xiao Yen's back. “Yes, you'll remember,” her aunt said. “And you'll learn to stand on your own, away from the center of your family, as poor as that will make you. It's the only way you'll be a good paper mage. You're lucky to have me for an aunt. No one else would teach you this. No one else has been as alone as you must be, locked away for only one person's private pleasure.”
Wang Tie-Tie rose and announced, “At the end of the hour of the Rooster you may come back into the household and be with your mother and sister. Not before.” She walked out of the garden without looking back.
Xiao Yen watched her aunt leave, the empty pit in her stomach growing wider. Alone again, and for so long. Xiao Yen steeled herself to wait some more, refusing to cry for herself. She would do her duty, as she'd been taught. She'd help Wang Tie-Tie end her pain. And hope that she'd never be taught to hate as her aunt had been.
Chapter Five
On the Trail
Xiao Yen had already passed the two arrows, thinking they were skinny, broken branches, before she realized what she was seeing.
“Stop!” she called. She made her horse turn around and go back. The arrows protruded from the back of a man wearing a gray merchant's coat. She surmised he was recently dead as not many flies rose from the body as she approached.
Before she could get off her horse, Udo came up and asked, “Why?” He said other things she didn't understand, but she guessed the gist of it: it was dangerous to stop, unhealthy for the horses, and they didn't have time. The same things Udo always said whenever she asked him to stop.
“I study defense,” Xiao Yen said, gesturing in the direction where she thought the dead man's camp lay. After three weeks on the trail under Bei Xi's tutelage, she could communicate much better in his language.
Bei Xi and her guard, Gi Tang, rode up. Before Bei Xi spoke, Udo made another long speech. Xiao Yen didn't try to follow it. Instead, she dismounted, draped her reins in a nearby bush so her horse wouldn't wander off, and approached the body.
This wasn't the first time she'd seen a dead body. Criminals were hung on Bao Fang's walls as a warning to others, and beggars were allowed to decompose outside the city's gates. But this was the first occasion she'd had to study one.
Xiao Yen didn't know what she was looking for, so she tried to memorize all the details: the stillness of the corpse, never mistaken for sleep; his head twisted to one side, covered by his bleeding hand; and his bare feet, impossibly pale against the dark ground. A belt lay next to him, like a disemboweled snake, the money and trinkets gutted.
Gi Tang also dismounted. He ignored Xiao Yen while he walked around the body. Then he sniffed the air in the direction Xiao Yen thought the camp would be. She sniffed as well: the air smelled of mud, the dry lichen growing on the tree trunks, and a faint undercurrent of blood. Without a word he walked in that direction. Xiao Yen followed him.
“Xiao Yen!” Bei Xi called.
Her tone held enough worry that Xiao Yen stopped, took two steps back toward Bei Xi, and said, “I have to do this. It's my duty.”
Bei Xi didn't reply. She stayed on her horse and looked down at Xiao Yen, her concern apparent in her eyes. Xiao Yen crossed her arms over her chest and stared back. She wasn't three years old. Bei Xi broke their gaze and looked away. Xiao Yen turned and started walking again.
Bei Xi called after her, “Be careful! Don't be long.”
Xiao Yen didn't turn around a second time. She now understood why Jhr Bei, Bei Xi's younger sister, hadn't stayed with her older sister. Bei Xi vacillated between overprotecting and ignoring her charge. Xiao Yen didn't know which she disliked more, when Bei Xi smothered her, or when she spent all her time laughing, talking—and, Xiao Yen presumed, flirting—with Ehran. Maybe Fu Be Be was right about courtesans. Bei Xi's behavior was so improper, especially for someone from the court.
A cracking sound alerted Xiao Yen to where Gi Tang was. She hesitated about going any closer to him. When they camped at night, she avoided the barbarian guard. He spat every time she walked past, and more than once had pulled his knife halfway out of its sheath and scowled at her. Yet, she had to see this camp, see what defenses they'd had, and if possible, why they hadn't worked. It was her duty.
As Xiao Yen entered a clearing holding three torn and slashed tents, Gi Tang kicked a corpse in the face. Teeth flew, light catching them as they scattered. Xiao Yen gasped, horrified. Though the Buddhists believed the body was like an old shell, discarded and unimportant once the soul left, most merchants believed if a body wasn't whole when it was burned or buried, the spirit wouldn't rest. They persecuted the Taoists who used human bones, generally dug up from graveyards, in their magic and elixirs. Xiao Yen tried to reassure herself that Gi Tang was a barbarian and didn't know what he was doing, but the grin on his face told her he'd desecrated the body on purpose. Xiao Yen shuddered and forced herself to look away.
The earth around the camp was packed and baked, and didn't hold many footprints. The rest of the bodies lay in their tents. She speculated that they'd had a single guard circling the camp, the man near the trail. Or maybe not. Maybe he'd been asleep and had woken and run, leaving his boots in his tent. The fire pit held no embers. If they'd banked a fire to last all night, it would have still been warm.
The tents were like hers, dark oiled leather, low to the ground. They weren't cheap, and would have fetched a good price if they hadn't been purposefully ruined. Xiao Yen bent down and peered in the doorways to look at the bodies. In both the first and the second tent there hadn't been any struggle. The men had had their throats slit in their sleep. Whoever had done this had been professional, and quiet. The last tent was empty. Any goods the men carried were gone.
Xiao Yen heard Gi Tang leave. She walked in the opposite direction, into a small clearing beyond the first. The remains of a second camp were there, but she couldn't tell if it was from the night before or not. No fire.
She went around the perimeter of the second clearing, thinking. The attackers must have been well provisioned, otherwise they would have stolen the merchant's tents and clothes. Fresh horse droppings spotted the second clearing, so the attackers had been on horseback. Why hadn't the merchants posted a guard? Arrogance? Stupidity? Or had they felt themselves safe? Had there been a second camp, and had it attacked the first?
Xiao Yen had more questions than answers. She walked back to the first camp, then paused. She wished she could do something for the bodies, but she wasn't strong enough to bury them herself. Gathering enough wood for a pyre would take too long. Udo would never allow it.
An idea came to her. She kicked out the sticks holding the tents up so they collapsed over the bodies, like earth-colored shrouds. The third tent she dragged over the body desecrated by Gi Tang. Th
en she took out a single sheet of paper, divided it into three pieces, and folded simple long boats from each portion, one for each tent. She used one of her precious matches to burn them. The match, also known as a “lady finger,” was slim and tapered, longer than Xiao Yen's fingers. While the boats burned, Xiao Yen prayed for the ghosts of the murdered men to cross the Yellow River and go to the next kingdom, and not stay and haunt this one. She wished she was like Udo and Ehran's first magician, the one who could enchant cloth, so the bodies wouldn't be discovered by some Taoist on his quest for eternal youth.
Udo didn't ask any questions when she came back. Someone had covered the body near the trail with an old, torn blanket. Gi Tang was already mounted, looking satisfied. Xiao Yen tried to dismiss the thought that came to her: that barbarian soldiers, like Gi Tang, had camped next to the merchants, and had killed them. Not for money and goods, but for spite. She shivered, and resolved to make a stronger defense that night, maybe a tiger again.
Bei Xi's and Ehran's horses stood close together, and they leaned toward each other, flirting. As Xiao Yen mounted her horse, Bei Xi's laughter rang out. When Xiao Yen turned to look, both Ehran and Bei Xi looked in her direction, then looked away. Xiao Yen assumed they'd been laughing at her. Bei Xi laughed too much with Ehran, and some nights Xiao Yen saw them leave together. It wasn't proper behavior for a woman, even a courtesan.
Xiao Yen was too worried about Ehran to blame him for Bei Xi's behavior. Though he was still heavier than most men his height, he'd lost weight. He no longer looked fat and healthy. His eyes had sunk into his cheeks. Black circles ran under them. He always rode at the back, always tired. He refused to listen to Xiao Yen's suggestion that he might be sick. He wouldn't pay attention to her, or take her concerns about his health seriously. He only teased her, or laughed at her, as Fat Fang, her classmate, had.
Bei Xi laughed again at something Ehran said. Xiao Yen wondered if Bei Xi was trying to teach him the language of the Middle Kingdom again. Xiao Yen hoped not. Bei Xi used archaic language, words so old and formal not even Wang Tie-Tie used them. If Ehran learned their language from Bei Xi, no one would understand him.
Xiao Yen turned forward, then glanced down. The sunlight coming through the trees was too dappled to cast strong shadows. Since the night three weeks ago in the clearing, Xiao Yen had never seen Bei Xi in a strong light, so she'd never been able to check Bei Xi's shadow again.
Xiao Yen had checked her own shadow, often. The blue tinge she saw sometimes disturbed her. She wasn't magic, was she? Her creatures cast blue shadows as well, but their shadows were also tinged with black. Her creatures were strictly magical, only able to affect the magic realm. Why weren't their shadows solid blue?
Bei Xi and Ehran laughed some more. Pangs of loneliness assailed Xiao Yen. Bei Xi could talk with Ehran. The only person Xiao Yen could talk with easily was Bei Xi, and more often than not, Bei Xi just wanted to teach her something. At least the first thing Bei Xi had taught Xiao Yen, the knot magic, was a comfort. Xiao Yen often pulled her practice string out of her sleeve and tied knot after knot, growing them together then shrinking them down. Knot magic took less effort than paper magic, though Xiao Yen did sometimes review the steps necessary to fold creatures while she rode. She'd found that she couldn't stay in her quiet space while riding. She'd nearly fallen off the first time she'd tried. Instead, every time they set up camp she practiced some aspect of her magic, and escaped to her quiet space whenever she could.
As the trail opened up at a clearing, Bei Xi called out, “Let's race!”
Without looking back Xiao Yen kicked her horse and cantered across the clearing. When she reached the far end, she made her horse wheel around. Though Xiao Yen sometimes still felt nervous about the beast she rode, at least she could make it do her bidding. She no longer worried about hurting it inadvertently. She called her horse “Sunset Flying Roan,” after one of the famous ten chargers Emperor Tai Zhung had owned.
Xiao Yen had expected Bei Xi to be on her heels, but she and Ehran were still on the far side of the clearing. Bei Xi encouraged Ehran to run with her, but he just smiled and shook his head, looking down at his reins.
Why wouldn't he race? Bei Xi gave up on him. Xiao Yen grinned. The clearing was in full sunlight. At last she'd be able to see Bei Xi's shadow. To her disappointment, Bei Xi unstrapped her umbrella from her saddle and rode shaded across the clearing. The tan color of her umbrella set off her dark hair and made her skin luminous. Her robe was made of off-white silk, with large beige patterns of flying swallows. Xiao Yen looked down at her own unembroidered blue jacket. It was a good jacket, well made and functional, but dull in Xiao Yen's eyes.
Bei Xi reined in her horse and stopped next to Xiao Yen, in the shade, of course. When they turned back, they saw Udo on the far side of the clearing with Ehran. Udo gestured sharply. Ehran didn't respond. Udo jerked the reins of his horse and came trotting across the clearing to where Xiao Yen and Bei Xi waited. Ehran followed at a slow walk.
Udo asked how they were, if they were hungry. When Ehran joined them, Udo told them that lunch would be soon.
“Good,” Ehran replied with exaggerated relief. “I need to rest.”
“My brother,” Udo said to Xiao Yen with a laugh, “he sleeps, all the time.”
Xiao Yen didn't respond. Udo didn't take her worries about Ehran seriously either.
Udo continued up the trail first. Xiao Yen followed him. Bei Xi and Ehran stayed side by side. Xiao Yen flinched at their laughter. She could catch up to Udo, but what would she say? Though Xiao Yen could speak a little of the brothers' language now, she didn't know enough to say anything meaningful. Plus, even if she could talk with Udo fluently, she still wouldn't want to. Udo seemed harsh compared with his brother. He always said cutting things, both to her and Bei Xi. The only person he was ever nice to was Ehran. And the horses. He spoke to them like a mother talked to her children.
It had been better when Xiao Yen had been at home, when Wang Tie-Tie had tried to teach her how to be alone. At least at the end of the day, she'd been able to be with her family. Now, there was no one.
Xiao Yen bit her tongue and concentrated on the pain. She would not cry. Not where anyone could see her.
* * *
Xiao Yen looked up from her bowl of noodles when the tone of Udo and Ehran's conversation changed. They were always louder than two excited five-year-olds chasing a ball, but now they were really yelling at each other.
Xiao Yen couldn't follow the rapid flow of their words. From the way Ehran held his hands open she could tell he was asking for something. Udo stood stiffly over him, his arms tightly folded across his chest. Udo didn't want to give it to him. Udo kept shaking his head, and Xiao Yen made out the word, “Late.”
As quickly as it had started, it was over. Ehran closed his eyes and laid back, one arm under his head for a pillow. From his smug smile Xiao Yen surmised he'd won. Udo watched him for a moment, tight lipped, shoulders hunched, upset.
Xiao Yen bent her head over her bowl when Udo looked her way, not wanting him to see that she'd been watching. She watched his boots walk past her. She sighed and put more noodles in her mouth. The sauce on them had cooled and the noodles stuck together, salty and thick.
From over her left shoulder she heard Udo call, “Sanchen.” The brothers always used the wrong tones when they tried to say her name, so they found a name for her in their language that sounded similar to her name. Bei Xi had assured her it was a good name, full of luck.
Xiao Yen looked up, her mouth full of noodles. Still looking at Ehran, Udo asked, “How short is your protection?”
Xiao Yen chewed and tried to swallow. She didn't understand his question. Though she'd spent many hours on the trail every day, either learning Udo and Ehran's language or the language of the horsemen, she was far from fluent.
She swallowed and asked, “Excuse me?” It was the phrase she knew the best.
Udo brought his hands together, indicating something small. �
�How short can you make your protection? Does it have to go all night? Or can you do it just for one hour?”
Xiao Yen didn't understand all Udo's words, but she could guess the meaning of them. The larger the creature, the longer it should stay animated, according to Master Wei. Otherwise it was a waste of the essential spirit. “Hour of Horse and hour of Sheep best. Just hour of Horse, possible, but not as good.”
Udo looked around the camp, then stared at Ehran again. “We won't be here that long.” He bit his upper lip and stood with his hands clenched together behind his back. “Stay close to camp. Those bandits may be nearby. If we're lucky, they won't be looking for horses. We're close to the next city, to Tan Yuan. We won't get there today, but maybe by tomorrow . . .” He bowed his head, then walked away.
Ehran lay as still as a large river stone. Xiao Yen worried about him. She felt responsible for Ehran. She'd been hired to protect the whole party, not just the horses. She didn't know what was wrong with Ehran. He just seemed drained of life. He didn't complain of fever or chills or loose stools. Xiao Yen hoped to talk with an alchemist in Tan Yuan. Maybe she could get some tea that would revive him.
Udo stopped at Bei Xi's tent, called out to her, speaking too fast for Xiao Yen to follow. Next, he walked to where the trail guide squatted, eating his lunch. Then he walked toward the horses. He talked to them as well, as if telling them the news. One of the horses leaned its head over and brushed it against Udo, like a shy child rubbing against its mother's skirt. After Udo patted the horses a few more moments, he walked into the woods.
Xiao Yen finished her noodles, rinsed her bowl out with water the trail guide had fetched from the river, then walked to her horse. She opened the bag containing her clothing. If they were going to be in Tan Yuan soon, maybe she could get more thread to sew the hole in her other set of pants. She reached in to bring the pants to the top, when her hand brushed against smooth silk.
Xiao Yen's heart came alive in her chest, pumping hard, full of loneliness. Xiao Yen drew out a portion of the silk and held it to her cheek. It was her mother's jacket, Xiao Yen's favorite, the dark blue one with a pattern of cranes in lighter blue.
