I knew a runner would be sent to Sham to determine the truth of my story. I prayed to the Golden Dove of Luck that Sham actually wanted my services enough to say he'd sent me. I had no imperial seal. I had only my determination to succeed and to avenge my friend Chameleon. If I died in that attempt, it did not matter to me.
If I could live among the Sages for but a little while, perhaps, I could learn enough both to pray for the continuance of Chameleon's spirit and gain enough forgiveness to be born again as a Sage and live forever.
Nevertheless my resolve was tested dearly that first week. My cheap saffron was torn from me and I was given a dun tunic of sacking. I saw no Sages at all. Instead I was assigned to a vicious oaf named Yagg, who beat me and set me to pot-scrubbing.
"Protégé of the First Heir, are you? This I doubt.” Yagg grinned. “Never mind, the Palace has informed us we might put you to work. Hah, the very robe you wore proclaims your origins. Which of the drabs in the Street of Red Lanterns shoved you out of her dirty thighs, you little whore? How long before you grow old enough to try and spread your own legs in here?"
My ears burned but I said nothing. I wanted to strike back, but I knew it would call unwanted attention and any hope I might have to use my month well would be gone.
I wondered at Yagg's origins though, for does the Eighth Sage not say: the hound comes from the bitch and the dung from the eagle?
Hard though it was to follow his orders and stay out of the way of his pinches and his wandering fingers, I mostly managed. The scullery was damp but the place where I slept was warmer and cleaner than my former wormy bed. The kitchen smelled of bamboo and incense, ginger, roast duck, and egg-drop soup. I listened to the cooks as I brought them hot washed crockery.
There were plots in the city. Troops and armies swelled beyond our borders, troops led by a strong king named Whenus who carried a mighty sword. Within Hasp, Sham's faction still supported him and he grew in power; they scrambled toward him like rats to the soundest ship. I listened carefully for plots brewing within the very walls of my kitchen, but of these I heard nothing.
But my powers were growing even as I ate good scraps and my body filled like a once-starved kitten's.
Though I was removed from the Sages by a maze of stone walls and rice paper screens, the sputtering talents that had let me read the bath girls’ tea leaves and sense the approach of Sham's assassin began to flare in the glow of the Sages’ massive kitchen.
They blazed to life with full force that night at the end of my second week as we scrambled to prepare a feast for the coming of the Emperor's third and most beloved concubine to have her fortune told as to an auspicious time to conceive. This longed-for child would be so far down the line of succession as to be no threat to Sham at all. The third concubine, beloved or not, was after all only a concubine and the first and second concubines each had three boys already.
It was a joyful opportunity for a feast and the mood in the kitchens was full of cheer—that is, until I brought my last set of soup bowls in and set them down upon the cutting table. The tingling began behind my eyes deep in my forehead and the handles of the top bowl grew frigid. My fingers ached.
Poison, whispered a soft voice, deep in my brain.
I took the stack of vessels carefully and went quietly to the head cook. I did not look toward Yagg, who would surely clout me for presumption if he guessed my intent.
I put the nest of bowls down without making a show of it, though by now touching the one on top had nearly frozen the bones of my index finger.
"Someone is going to slip poison into this tonight,” I whispered to Cook, setting the one bowl beside the others and picking up the pot he had just used.
Cook glared at me but he read the truth on my face. He noted the bowl my finger had rested on and nodded.
I went back to work. Scullery and kitchen were chaos that night and I had no more time to wonder, not until the small hours of the morning when all the washing was done and the remaining feast scraps were laid out for all to devour.
It was then the great Cook came to me and shocked me silent. He grabbed me beneath the arms and lifted me barefoot to the tabletop. There, amid the succulent scraps and smells of goose and spring rolls and pork dumplings, he turned to the workers and acolytes surrounding our table.
"This child has brought us the Emperor's grateful reward. Her warning has saved the life of our beloved third concubine and that of the child to come.” Cook clapped a vast and joyful hand to my back. “The assassin was caught in the very act of putting his powder into her soup, and for this, his head will fall."
"Who?” came the voice of Newt, an acolyte who was just completing his kitchen level of service in the Academy.
"Who among us is missing?” Cook answered him.
We looked amongst ourselves, eyes meeting eyes all about the stony space, and found our answer. Cook would never speak the traitor's name again but the missing one was Yagg.
And I was to rise, along with Newt, into the Academy proper.
Yet I had not yet learned who was behind Yagg, and I had but two weeks left of the moon Sham had given me to find out.
* * * *
The scowling student who came to the kitchens for me the next morning gave me such a shove between the shoulder blades as we ascended the stairs that I tripped and barked my knees and shins. Thus I had to enter the academy itself bloodied like an urchin. I wondered if I'd see Newt again and if he'd be my ally; and I wondered if this bully were the friend of Yagg, whose head must surely even now adorn the dragon gates before the city.
I could see his bloody head there, grinning like an evil Rakshasa.
My psychic senses were waking up. The anger welling up from the youth behind me tasted like sour cabbage. He was jealous and something more I couldn't fathom as yet. Did he know I could partly read him? I hoped not, or I'd be little use to Sham.
I tried to ignore my weeping knees and entered the alabaster hall of acolytes for the first time. My insides twisted like fermented noodles as I beheld the place of my dreams at last.
The echoing chamber with its jade plinths smelled of ancient parchment dry as shed snakeskin. The vast space rustled with the sound of hundreds of green-robed students reading scrolls and turning pages. Leaves of wisdom eons deep.
"This is Sham's child, then?"
A deep voice spoke behind me.
I turned from the hall with its many plinths, each surmounted by a fantastic sea creature.
Who had spoken? There was no one there. Even the student who had prodded me up the stair had vanished as though the floor had swallowed him.
"Why do your knees bleed, Nameless of Hasp?"
I recoiled as the deep voice spoke again. It seemed to come from the air itself. I swallowed and bowed. This was the House of Sages, after all. It could be an invisible Zepheer, or even one of the Raucous Deities, for all I knew. Even in the sewers I'd heard of this place.
"I tripped on the stair, Ancient One,” I said, bowing where I stood. “I am most clumsy."
I owed the lout who pushed me nothing, but does the First Sage not say it is none but the louse who may condemn the python for his slither?
"And in so condemning he becomes the python's meal,” continued the voice, finishing my thought. “You have studied the Sages, Small One?"
I nodded, and bowed again, not certain if I was more astonished at this voice reading my mind or by his acceptance of my lie. “You honor me, Ancient One."
"Look to your right,” said the voice.
I did as he commanded.
Upon the plinth beside me sat a giant tortoise of gray jade. He looked so ancient, his deep eyes were buried behind caves of horn. The eyes were opaque. Unmoving.
Yet they saw me.
A deep subterranean chill shuddered through me: the chill of power that knows itself.
"Have I permission to question you, Ancient One?” I whispered. I clutched the folds of my kitchen robes to me. I had not yet been granted robes of
blue and I desperately hoped I was not overstepping my place just now. Yet why would the Tortoise of the Plinth have spoken to me if he didn't wish to answer me?
"You may question if they are the right ones."
I nodded. “Why am I here, Ancient One?"
It was as though my question brought him to life. The membranes parted across his jade eyes and the irises behind them sparked like two flashes of sunlight beneath the sea. His wattle neck stretched from his armor and his wicked beak pointed toward me.
"Chameleon spoke to me of you. Destiny brought you, and destiny shall have its way with you as it has with me."
That made me wonder. Who was he and why was he here?
"I am Sombrero,” he replied as if I had spoken. “And you are Chameleon now in memory of he who died.” A puff of amusement or perhaps a fleck of ancient sand coughed out of him. “I, like you, am a fixture of this place, though unlike you I am well-seasoned by curses."
He knew I had cursed Sham at the death of my friend. Cursed him with my entire soul.
Sombrero's speckled eyes regarded me. “You do not ask for blessings, little Chameleon?"
"I ask for knowledge, Ancient One. Blessing or curse, I have dreamed of knowing all my life."
He could not nod, but I felt his approval deep in my mind.
"And you shall have knowing here, for good or ill. Blessings may be curses. You must weigh each carefully before casting your will upon the waves. For surely as you breathe, the tide will cast your wishes back upon you."
"You tell me only what Chameleon told me every day when he lived, Venerable Master."
"This is true, and now you must take up his path here, you must learn the hour of the tide's turn. As I once did."
He blinked and suddenly, in a vision, I saw the ocean before me. I stood high above it. High above it forever, watching for the day my curse would recoil upon me. Watching the tide bear a ship toward me, and a man holding an immortal sword.
Sombrero's wattle neck shrank back within his shell, his ancient head bobbed once as membranes shuttered his gaze, and he was nothing but a gray jade statue once more.
"Choose well,” said a voice deep in my mind.
"Come,” said a familiar voice behind me, and there stood Newt, looking perplexed and already dressed in blue robes. “What are you doing, girl, talking to the air?"
"Didn't you see?” I said. Should I tell him the great Tortoise had named me Chameleon after my friend?
He stared at me like I was blabbering mad. “See what?” he said, frightened. “You don't want to see anything,” he hastened to add. “It's an honor to serve the Sages, and to study here, but if you see things here, you go mad."
"Oh,” I said, and my voice went very small.
I didn't want to go mad and I looked with new understanding at the plinths about the hall, upon each one a fabled creature of every color of jade known to man: crocodile, frog, squid, octopus, crab, and so on. I had thought them all statues. Decorations. Now I knew they were not.
Including Sombrero on his plinth, there would be twelve of them.
Twelve Sages encased in jade. Cursed and waiting.
It was long before any of them spoke to me again.
During those first weeks they appeared to be no more than statues, though food was ceremoniously brought to their plinths every evening and it was always gone by morning.
No one ever saw them eat, or wanted to.
I studied to my heart's desire and that was as food to my spirit. As my moon of spying came to an end, my soul did not worry. Some part of me knew a resolution would come.
And so it did.
The stories of King Whenus and his wonderful sword filled Sham's heart with greed, and he determined to go on conquest. All thoughts of my search for Prince Sham's assassin were ousted by the First Heir's lust for battle, pillage, and the theft of Whenus's sword.
Sham came to our Lotus Temple to be blessed and to witness fortuitous auguries performed on his behalf. I saw him through clouds of incense smoke: his feet braced wide, his big red-robed body a mountain of self-satisfaction, his scimitar a wicked red curve at his side. Others before Sham had battled King Whenus for his magical sword: a maker of heroes, unbreakable, unquenchable, and alive, or so it was rumored.
All had failed.
I watched First Heir Sham swagger from our temple as if he already possessed this immortal sword. His bloody companions surrounded him, so mighty in manner and confident, I was tempted to curse them again. Instead, I prayed King Whenus would kill our Prince and have done. And why not? If Whenus had the sword, he should be unslayable, shouldn't he?
* * * *
A year passed, during which time I learned to wear the routines of the Academy and the First Heir's absence like a comfortable robe.
Then Sham returned, stinking of plunder and bearing at his side the richly jeweled blade of Whenus in its gilded scabbard. The skull of Whenus came as well, mounted on a pike like a banner. My academy-trained senses told me that smooth and bleached cranium had belonged to a handsome, enlightened man.
It is said if you meet the Sage upon the road you should kill him, so that he might ascend to the heavens, but this was different. You don't parade an enlightened man's skull around like conquest and you don't turn it into a drinking cup either.
Sham did both. He swore moreover that Whenus had fooled him. That the sword of Whenus was a fraud and not immortal at all and that he would grant a fortune in horses, women, and gold to anyone who could find for him the true Sword of Ages, if such a blade even existed.
Sham's bravado and his certainty knew no bounds. How I loathed him.
I had ascended to the green robes with a saffron collar, and to a name.
I was now Rose Chameleon. One of those honored acolytes who bring the nightly tribute of food to the Sages’ plinths, but I knew my time of reprieve was over. First Heir Sham was not only bold, he had the memory of a snapping turtle, and he would be coming tomorrow to hear me tell him the name of his enemy.
I had been expressly asked to hold Sham's linen napkin at his banquet of celebration. It was not my intent to play his game any longer, but ah, I still had so much to learn; so much I wanted to learn. If I could but stay among the Sages forever and learn all there was to know, I would have been content.
As it was, desperate to find a way to deal with Sham as Newt and I wandered the Sages’ hall that night with our offerings, I whispered my worries to Sombrero, hoping he would wake once more and tell me what to do.
He did not. Only dust motes stirred as I set down his food.
Beyond us Newt was “feeding” the First Sage: a huge gold jade frog seated within a bowl of stone lotus flowers.
"What manner of curse turned all of you to jade?” I murmured under my breath.
No answer came, and I moved to the Tenth Sage. The crocodile sat upright upon his green jade tail, rising up a full two man-heights tall, reading a stone book. He peered down as if it held the world, and the light of the painted hall lanterns gleamed off his grinning rows of teeth.
The pages of the book itself were raised toward the Dome of Doves.
What did those pages say? I wondered.
Maybe the book face was blank, but suddenly I was seized by a desire to find out. A peek only, I decided, leaping to the plinth and from there to the bent stone knee. I stretched as far as I could, just enough to see the open pages.
I did not see the huge jaws open behind me. I only understood the depth of my folly when they snapped me up: head, shoulders, and torso. Tenth Sage's maw was great enough to hold my whole self. As my breath stilled, the three words I'd read on the stone page returned to me:
Rose Jade Chameleon.
* * * *
I woke on my narrow pallet unaware of how I had come there, yet stunned by my memory of being devoured by the Crocodile Sage. A hovering Newt came to my bedside and told me how he'd found me lying unconscious at the foot of Tenth Sage's plinth. My offering of fish had vanished. The Croco
dile Sage's book had vanished also.
I did not tell anyone what I had done or that Tenth Sage's book and all it contained now rested in my mind. I did not tell him that I was to be the Thirteenth Sage one day.
Tenth Sage had been waiting for me to crawl upon his plinth. He had encased himself in green jade for centuries waiting for his own curse on Hasp to unfold.
Now I was jubilant.
I would pay for my curses as Tenth Sage had, but it was worth the sacrifice.
That night I took my place at First Heir Sham's side, the white linen napkin across my arm, soon to be soiled with duckling fat and replaced a score of times as Sham gorged himself full. Beneath his notice, I heard him speak openly of doing away with the beloved third concubine's small son simply because he could. The child would never be a threat to him, yet just because the babe lived and was loved, Sham wanted him dead.
As the tables were broken down after the feast, and the dancing girls prepared to perform, Sham grabbed me and forced me to kneel at his feet like a hound.
"You will tell me what you have found now, little soothsayer.” Sham belched loudly and crossed his boots upon my back. A dancing girl with belled anklets swept by. The cinnabar scent of her silks brushed my nose.
I sneezed, and spoke, as the Crocodile Sage had instructed me the night before. “It was King Whenus, Most High, may the thousand white doves of truth pluck the maggots of woe from your smallest nose-hairs. Whenus who tried to have you killed. He knew you planned to attack him."
I sighed. “Alas that he is now dead and you cannot determine from him where he hid the real Sword of Ages."
"Aha!” The boot heels on my back dug in harder as Sham stiffened. “So I thought. This bauble I wear is fakery."
"Certainly not worth the trouble of your putting it on, Most Divine, may the camels of mercy bring fruitful caravans to those you befriend,” I replied, trying hard not to wriggle with pain. “The true Sword of Ages brings immortality."
FSF, July-August 2010 Page 13
