Shadow Magic (2009)

by Jaida Jones

  Alcibiades must have caught sight of the same thing I had, now that I was holding the bamboo curtain up with one hand, and cleared his throat.

  Lord Temur bowed his head, as though it were the only way to express momentary discomfort at the faux pas. “We must pass through that which is unseemly in order to come to the true artists’ district,” he explained. “There, you may see our culture as the artisans understand it. We have a wide variety of sculptors, calligraphers, and printers, and it would bring great honor to any man whose craftsmanship pleases you.”

  The words, I recognized, were rehearsed, yet I was nevertheless delighted by them. So few had been chosen for this venture, and, not being a soldier or a combat magician, I would never have found the opportunity elsewhere to see these people for myself. It was better than being in a museum, for the exhibits were living and breathing, shouting from windows and bowing down as we passed by, children lunching on dumplings or chasing kittens, an old man stooped with age but laughing nevertheless.

  My eyes caught Alcibiades’ in a moment of shared realization. We were so eager to watch these common people because they wore what we had so missed in our Ke-Han companions at the palace: expressions.

  “Something smells good,” Alcibiades said suddenly, as though the connection unnerved him and he felt compelled to say something rude again to diminish the moment.

  Lord Temur paused for a moment—his only indication, it appeared, of discomposure—then nodded in understanding. “Ah,” he said. “A street vendor. Stop the carriage.”

  The two guards reined in the horses, then opened the door for us.

  “After you,” Lord Temur said.

  Alcibiades stepped out first, and of course completely ignored me as I held my hand out to him for assistance. Sighing—when would the man learn some decent manners?—I lifted the hem of my garment and alighted. The road beneath us was dusty, and my slippers were sure to be ruined, but it was for a worthy cause.

  “Lord Alcibiades is hungry, I believe,” I explained to Lord Temur. “His palate is somewhat unrefined. He comes from the country, you see, and isn’t very adventurous when it comes to foreign spices.”

  “I see,” Lord Temur said. “I, too, am from the country, but I have always enjoyed these dumplings. Perhaps Lord Alcibiades would honor this vendor by sampling them?”

  “I told you,” Alcibiades began, but I silenced him effectively by offering him the delicacy in question—sticky dumplings served most cleverly on a wooden skewer.

  “My lord Caius,” Lord Temur said, offering me a skewer of my own. They smelled simply heavenly, and I accepted, nibbling daintily at the one on top. They were filled with something sticky and sweet; Alcibiades was sure to approve, since after all, no fish were involved as far as I could tell.

  “Good,” Alcibiades managed, after a long while of chewing, since he’d bitten three dumplings off at once.

  “I believe you don’t eat the stick,” I said helpfully. The dumpling vendor, meanwhile, only looked deeply relieved, as though we had come to cart him away to the gallows and pardoned him, instead.

  “If you will follow me,” Lord Temur said. He’d secured a dumpling stick of his own, and another for Alcibiades—which was quite thoughtful of him, really. “The artists’ district is very close by.”

  “Well, if the art is anything like the dumplings,” Alcibiades said, apparently in a better mood now that his stomach was full. If I could have kicked him, I would have, but Lord Temur would have been sure to notice. I’d reprimand him privately later. Lord Temur was a sensitive man; the Ke-Han’s was a sensitive culture. They valued works of aesthetic beauty nearly as much as they valued a man’s strength and prowess in combat. To compare art to dumplings was the height of rudeness. While Alcibiades’ churlishness was endearing in private, it was dreadfully inappropriate before others, especially after Lord Temur had gone out of his way to take us on such a fascinating tour.

  Thankfully, Lord Temur pretended not to hear him, and we carried on by foot, one retainer waiting with the carriage, the other following behind us.

  The houses were built almost too close together, as though they were all vying for the most room possible, and all of them were somehow losing. Awnings overhung us, and brightly colored banners with words I could not read—it was one thing to memorize a few Ke-Han phrases and quite another to learn their complicated, pictographic alphabet—hung outside of doorways. Most important, however, was that the people were staring at us. Of course they were; we were so obviously foreigners, and Lord Temur so obviously an important member of the upper class, that they must have wondered what purpose drew the three of us there.

  “The streets are too crowded to continue by carriage,” Lord Temur said. “And we must pass by one or two of the theatres. My sincere apologies.”

  “But I love the theatre,” I said. “There’s nothing to apologize for. Do you think we might be able to attend a play?”

  “I shall see what I am able to do,” Lord Temur said, the stilted formality of his words still betraying nothing of his emotions. “We will have performances at the palace in our esteemed guests’ honor, of course, but I sense that you in particular, Lord Caius, are searching for a more… authentic experience.”

  “Exactly that,” I confirmed. “How wonderful! Is that one of the theatres?”

  It was a tall, imposing building with a sloped roof, and the first one I’d seen in a while that wasn’t fighting off the crush of other buildings around it, as though all the houses on either side were making way for it. I thought it looked like a member of royalty among the commoners.

  Outside the building, a few young men stood in idle, relaxed poses, looking for all the world like the images from a storybook. Hands on their hips, ebony-black hair slicked into complicated chignons, their robes far more colorful and garish than anything I’d seen at the palace, they loitered outside the entranceway with their faces painted white and their lips daubed bright red, their eyebrows thick and high. After a moment of closer inspection, I realized they were painted on for dramatic effect.

  They must have been actors.

  “In a manner of speaking, that is a theatre,” Lord Temur said. “But it is a common one; much too common for our esteemed guests.”

  One of the actors cast a glance in our direction, indolent and slow. If he was surprised to see a nobleman guiding two foreigners down the street, it didn’t register on his face. He wore his makeup like a mask, and merely shifted his weight from one side to another. I realized then that he was deciding which one of us to rest his gaze on, and it was only then that I understood what, exactly, they were looking for.

  “Oh, I see,” I said, taking Alcibiades by the arm. “Come along.”

  “What?” Alcibiades asked. He still carried his stick with one lonely dumpling on it and seemed more concerned that my sudden attentions might make him drop it. “I thought you wanted to see the theatre.”

  “Yes, well,” I said. He really was an infuriating man, making me explain it to him. I could tell from the way Lord Temur held his head, looking straight down the road, that he wasn’t the sort of man who required such explanations. “Another time, perhaps.”

  “It’d be something to write in a letter,” Alcibiades said, like he was granting me a favor in being this interested and wasn’t instead being hideously obtuse. “Maybe I could get an autograph.”

  “Hurry along, General Alcibiades,” I said, for one of the men had taken notice of him, and was smiling in an overly familiar way. He looked like a young lion stalking its prey.

  “Look,” Alcibiades said, his attention drawn by irritation, as I had known it would be. “I told you not to call me General, either. What’s with this sudden relapse?”

  “I’ll tell you once we have reached less… outgoing climes,” I said, and hauled determinedly on his arm until we’d passed not only the theatre, but the building that stood next to it, and the narrow, winding road that separated that from an archway hung with colorful banner
s.

  “This is the artists’ district,” Lord Temur said. He paused, in order to give us a chance at catching up with him. His expression, as usual, betrayed nothing. I was starting to wish that my Talent was in mind reading and not visions after all, since it seemed the only way to figure out what the lords of the Ke-Han were thinking, but velikaia of such Talent were never allowed at talks such as these, for obvious reasons. My particular Talent would have come in very handy if these talks were less diplomatic—or if they needed to be coaxed along some—but until then I was compelled to keep things under wraps. A pity, since it tended to make my head a very complicated place. “Perhaps another day, I might take you to a more fitting theatre.”

  “That one didn’t seem so bad,” Alcibiades said.

  I made a note to take him aside later and point out that not everything was a slight at commoners, and therefore at him. I had no idea what provoked him to be so contrary all the time, but I felt certain that if I didn’t come to the root of it, it would poison all our fun in the capital. And I couldn’t have that.

  “I thought we might begin at one end of the alley and work our way back along the other,” Lord Temur continued thoughtfully. “There is a great deal to see, and I would not like to think I’d neglected any small detail.”

  The artists’ district was arranged much like a market in Volstov, with wooden stalls crowding in on one another and lining either side of the street. Some had the same colorful banners that I’d deduced doubled for shop signs, but others were simply bare, with nothing but wind charms and little mascots of folded paper nailed to the supports.

  We stopped first at a booth that featured no signs, only a wind charm made of glass, which tinkled merrily in the breeze that whispered down the street. I thought that I recognized the shapes in it from the patterned robes worn by one of the warlords attending our diplomatic talks, but I wasn’t certain. We hadn’t brought up the topic of the Ke-Han wind magic yet, if only because it would surely bring all minds around to the broken outline of the dome, still a gaping wound in the perfectly crafted city. I’d learned in our intensive course predating our arrival that the Ke-Han did not specialize in wind but rather all four elements. They took their magic from the land itself, and perhaps the only reason we were so familiar with the wind aspect of their skills was because it had been the one we were confronted with most often. Perhaps there was something particularly easy about that one element to harness. Or, perhaps because of the dragons, they’d had enough of fire to last a lifetime, and earth was too dangerous an element to toy with high in the mountains.

  Then again, I reflected, that had rarely stopped our soldiers, or so the stories had told me.

  It was doubtless still a wound in the hearts of the people, as well. As it was more a symbol for the people than anything else, it was something best left out of negotiations completely, though it was the subject first and foremost on everyone’s mind.

  A man dressed in short robes and leggings hurried up to the front of his stall, as if drawn by the fall of our shadows over his beloved artwork. The artist’s fingertips were stained with ink, as though he’d just been working on a new piece when we interrupted him. He wore a thick white cloth wrapped around his forehead, to keep the hair out of his eyes, and when he saw his customers were two foreigners and a lord from the palace, he stopped short, jerked to a halt by an invisible chain.

  “Welcome,” the artist murmured, eyeing us warily. “Please let me know if there is anything I can help you with.”

  “What did he say?” Alcibiades had the decency to lower his voice when he nudged me about it.

  “He said, don’t lick the drawings, they’re made with lead paint.”

  I saw Lord Temur give me a puzzled look out of the corner of his eye, and I offered him my most winning smile. It would never do to be the only man with a sense of humor in all of Xi’an. I would have to work much harder at being winning.

  This particular artist’s specialty seemed to be women in teahouses, for each picture featured a beauty with porcelain skin and ruby lips, her delicate fingers curled around a cup of green tea. Their robes were as varied as the flowers in a garden, of all different colors and textures, the patterns sometimes overpowering the women beneath them so that the subject resembled nothing so much as a ghost dressed in the most extravagant finery.

  Alcibiades picked one up and examined it as though he really was trying to decide whether or not to lick it, specifically because he’d been told not to. The artist watched him with keen eyes, not altogether liking his delicate prints in the hands of such a large and foreign bear. From his perspective, I couldn’t precisely blame him, since Alcibiades had the sort of hands that were clearly meant for destruction and not the careful handling of art.

  “Does it remind you of dear Yana?” I asked.

  He rounded on me with such sudden ferocity that for a moment I was certain the picture would be destroyed. The artist cried out plaintively, and Lord Temur cleared his throat.

  “Perhaps,” he said, “it would be best to move on to another stall.”

  “Fine by me,” Alcibiades muttered. He put the picture down and stuck his hands into his pockets like a child who’d been scolded.

  I clucked my tongue in disapproval and threaded my arm through his in order to keep a closer eye on him. It was rather like having a large and angry pet, one whom you needed to keep on a leash at all times.

  “If you will,” Lord Temur said, and he wore his peculiar version of a smile. “There is much to see yet, not to mention my own personal favorite.”

  “Oh really?” I couldn’t imagine what sort of pictures would be Lord Temur’s favorite. He’d said that his family had originated in the countryside, so perhaps his inclinations favored natural landscapes? Or perhaps he would surprise us both by enjoying something more risqué. One could never tell with these Ke-Han warlords, for they kept everything hidden beneath the sash.

  We stopped at countless booths, some of which did indeed seem to specialize in natural landscapes. There were drawings of the Cobalts, done all in inky blues, with the Ke-Han name for them written in their fascinating script underneath it. There were drawings of the Xi’an coastline, with trees that grew bent-backed in the wind, and fishermen who grew bent-backed from years of hauling up their nets.

  My very favorite was a picture of the lapis city at springtime, every street seeming to blush with the pink of cherry blossoms, and two women standing gossiping under a parasol to ward off the sudden rain of petals.

  I was horribly disappointed that we hadn’t come to Xi’an in the spring.

  I glanced at Lord Temur as if to question him, but he merely shook his head. The natural landscapes were not his favorite.

  Next, we came to a section of stalls that seemed entirely devoted to the supernatural. There were women with the tails of foxes, and small imps that crouched in a merchant’s carriage wheels, waiting for the perfect opportunity to send him and his wares sprawling. One booth had another ocean scene, but this one showed that the cause of the fearsome wind was a creature with golden scales that blew the fishermen round in their boats until they were forced to return to shore. I saw the picture that Alcibiades had in his room, of a water goddess with fish spilling from her dark hair.

  It seemed to me that Lord Temur was much too stolid to appreciate tales of the fantastic, but since I was curious, I glanced at him again. Once more, he merely shook his head, though this time he was smiling, and I felt tremendously pleased with myself.

  “This is rather like a game,” I murmured happily to Alcibiades, who was looking increasingly like one of the bored husbands you saw in the Volstov shopping district, dragged by their wives from hat shop to dress shop to hat shop again. He’d even given up trying to shake me off his arm.

  “Wonder if we’ll be able to have another stop at that dumpling stand on the way back,” he said, looking suddenly hopeful at the prospect of more fried food that didn’t contain any fish whatsoever.

  “Oh
honestly,” I said, pouting only slightly. “You aren’t even trying to guess.”

  Alcibiades sighed like a dying man. “Maybe it’s that one,” he said, indicating a stall at the very back. While most of the artists seemed to jostle for a good position, declaring their whereabouts to passersby on the streets by whatever means necessary, this stall seemed almost to cower behind the rest, hiding its wares away from potential customers. It stood half-obscured behind a booth that featured pictures of men in furs riding over a mountain range that wasn’t the Cobalts, and it featured no distinctive markings whatsoever. It was utterly plain, without even so much as a wind charm to alert one to its presence.

  In fact, I was rather under the impression that if one didn’t know it was there to begin with, one wouldn’t be able to see it. Perhaps Alcibiades’ instincts weren’t to be dismissed entirely, after all.

  Lord Temur turned halfway around once he’d reached it, as though beckoning us over. I felt at once that we were about to be privy to some magnificent secret, so that I was almost disappointed to see that the drawings looked very similar to the others we’d already seen. These were of people, true, and not natural landscapes or sea monsters, but I had been hoping for something more.

  “That one looks like the Emperor,” said Alcibiades.

  Lord Temur glanced around the street once, his eyes keen as a tiger’s, then nodded once, like a confidence among the three of us. He seemed almost pleased.

  My eyes widened in delight. “You mean these are of the Emperor?”

  “Some of them,” Lord Temur admitted. “It is not technically illegal, but the portraits are rather… frowned upon, in any case.”

  “This one’s of that lord who’s always shouting,” said Alcibiades, pointing out an exact likeness of one of the diplomats privy to our talks, but with an exaggerated coloring—his face was painted a bright red.