If Lang-zhou City still had its magic. If we didn’t freeze to death in the mountains. If and if and if. I shoved those thoughts aside. Our whole journey was a chain of ifs. Like the old philosophers said, we had to forget the limits of our selves, even as we understood them.
By late morning, we reached the fork. The road split in three different directions. The main segment continued along the mountainside, a fat pale worm of stone that wriggled in and around with the hillside. A second, smaller track climbed up toward the snow caps. A few villages perched on the heights above—the inhabitants mostly goatherds, but there were wilder folk who lived in those cold heights—demon hunters, ghost trappers, and the like.
Our path was the third track, which looped down to the valley below. The sleet died off, to my everlasting gratitude. Eventually the skies cleared enough that our world changed into a glittering jewel of silver and white. We had to pick our way carefully to avoid slipping over the side into the depths below.
Hours later, we had reached a truly scary point along the path, which had narrowed as it curved around a bulge in the mountain. The wind had kicked up again, blowing a thin gruel of snow powder down from the snowfield and glaciers above. We stopped beneath a rocky overhang to rest the pony. Yún pulled out her map and checked it again. “We can reach the next way station by dark.”
“An inn?” I asked.
“No. A shelter. But at least we’ll be dry and out of the wind. And I can try another spell with Xiǎo Yāo-guài.”
Xiǎo Yāo-guài? “Little Monster?”
Then I realized she meant the griffin.
Name a thing and you promise it your heart, went the old sayings. Well, I had promised a lot of things these past few weeks.
We both lurched to our feet. The pony grumbled as I looped the reins around my arm and tugged. Yún had ventured forward a few steps. She stopped, edged back and beckoned for me to lean close.
“Did you hear something?” she whispered.
I listened.
There was a thin whistling noise—the wind singing over the knife-sharp edges of boulders cut by ice and snow. My own heartbeat thumping inside my chest. The tick-tick-tick of gravel sliding over the mountain face.
I hear something, Chen said. Another spirit. No, lots of others.
Pêng! A ghostly spider materialized in front of us. Chen popped into sight and the two plunged over the side in battle, just as a squad of six armed men surged around the bend. I glimpsed swords in their hands. The next second, Yún and I had our belt knives out.
Yún caught the first sword near the hilt and shoved it aside. Her second knife slid from her wrist sheath. She struck. The first man fell. Yún ducked down to finish him while I fended off the next who surged forward. Inside my mind, I heard Chen’s furious roars, Qi’s bone-shivering cries, the rasping howl and cough of wild cats and dogs from the spirit world.
Block and slash, duck, thrust. Yún and I worked together, moving as quick as thought to keep those bright blades away. The narrow path kept them from overwhelming us, but still they had swords and we had nothing but daggers and terror. In spite of the cold, sweat rolled down my back and dripped into my eyes. I had to blink it away—I didn’t dare pause to swipe my face with my hand.
“Not right,” Yún panted. “They aren’t—”
“Don’t talk. Save your breath.”
But she’s right, came the next thought. These men didn’t fight like bandits. Their blades were expensive blue-tempered steel. Each attack and counterattack was like a dance of murder, precise and deadly.
They fight like soldiers.
The pony squealed and lashed out behind. I heard a meaty thump and a groan. Someone cursed in a thick southern dialect. I glanced back to see six more men scrambling down from a ledge above the trail. My stomach went cold. We could never win against so many.
No time to think about that. Yún darted forward and jabbed the nearest man. He doubled over, making a horrible gagging noise. Yún tugged at her knife, trying to work it free. Another attacker slashed at her eyes. She flung up her arm and deflected the blade. With another hard yank, she had her blade free and staggered back. At first, I thought she’d escaped unhurt, but then I saw the blood streaming from her scalp.
“We’ll give you our money!” I shouted. “All of it! Just let us—”
Their leader answered with a quick thrust with his sword. I blocked his blade—barely. Yún tried an undercut, but I could see how awkwardly she moved. I edged past her, even though it meant facing all those bandits or soldiers or whatever they were alone. At least I could die fighting, I thought fiercely.
Behind me, Yún dragged herself to standing. She drew an audible breath and shouted. No, that wasn’t right. More like she trilled a waterfall of notes, high and clear. Magic. I recognized it right away. Just like the ghost dragon king’s but hers was beautiful, while its had been harsh.
The air shivered and drew taut. No one moved. Then, I felt a puff of cold air against my face. The faint metallic scent faded, even as I noticed it, and the tension leaked away. One of the men grinned, his jagged teeth white against his sun-darkened face. “Magic, is it? You think that will help?”
“I don’t think anything,” Yún snarled. “I know.”
She shouted the words again. Her voice was breaking. I could hear the edge of a sob. The magic isn’ t working, I thought. Why not?
Chen! I called out. Help us!
With a roar, Chen popped into this world, followed by Qi. Just as quickly, they both vanished. The air rippled. Inside my shirt, the griffin roused and scrabbled at my chest with its claws. And then, and then . . .
. . . and then the mountain shouted back. I felt a rumbling at my back and under my feet....
A river of snow roared down the mountainside. It hit the rock overhang and exploded into a burst of sparkling white. Our attackers scrambled to escape. In a heartbeat, the river of snow swept them all away.
Yes, I thought, then froze in horror.
Yún was slipping over the ledge. I grabbed her arm, started to fall with her. The pony bit my shirt and hauled me back. I fell to my knees and dragged Yún to safety. A part of me noticed that her sleeve had turned dark with blood. More blood streaked her face, and her mouth pinched shut against the pain. Without even thinking, I wrapped my arms around her. “Yún. You almost—”
“So did you. I thought—”
Her lips brushed against mine. We stopped, breathless. Our hearts were beating fast—I felt hers thumping in time with mine against my chest. Then I leaned forward and kissed her again.
Her lips were chapped from the wind, but warm and dry. She tasted of blood and sweat. Underneath the scent of damp wool and the metallic scents of blood and magic, I caught a whiff of the herbs she used to pack around our clothes.
“Yún.”
“Kai.”
Her breath hissed in suddenly and she flinched, eyes wide. She was staring at a point far behind me. Slowly, I swiveled my head around.
There, suspended above the valley, was a ghost dragon, a long, skinny creature, like a coil of gray smoke in the cloud-streaked skies. Every thought inside my head evaporated into nothing. This dragon was not nearly as large as the king ghost dragon in Lóng City, but that didn’t matter. Its fangs were just as sharp, and its breath just as poisonous.
Yún whispered something.
“What?” I whispered back.
She whispered again in that wordless language. This time I could almost tease its meaning from the rise and fall of each syllable. A dim memory of some lecture six months before fluttered through my brain—Mā mī telling us about ancient languages once used by wizards of all kingdoms, all kinds.
The ghost dragon tilted its head, as if trying to decide whether to rip us into shreds or eat us whole. Yún spoke in a firmer voice, a new series of tones that sounded like a command. The ghost dragon’s lips curled back from its fangs. Its breath—like puffs of magic flux made visible—hung in the air between us. If I squinted
hard enough, I could see the valley and distant mountains through its body.
Then, without a sound, it plunged downward to the valley.
7
UNTIL THE GHOST DRAGON VANISHED, WE HAD NOT dared to twitch even one muscle. Now, I was suddenly very much aware that I still had my arms around Yún. Our bodies were pressed close together; even through the double-layer of our clothes, I could trace the warm outline of her arms and legs. Embarrassed, I loosened my hold, only to have her go limp.
I caught her under her arms before she could slide over the cliff again. “Yún, what’s wrong?”
“My—my arm.”
Carefully, I eased her onto the ground and examined her. Her knife arm—the left one—was clean, but her right sleeve was dark and wet. I cursed softly as I cut through the cloth to take a closer look. Just as I thought—a deep slash ran along her forearm. She’d taken a wound in the shoulder, too.
Without warning, Yún lunged to one side and threw up noisily.
“Sorry,” she wheezed. “I’m sorry. I thought—”
“You forgot you weren’t immortal,” I said.
She managed a smothered laugh, then shivered. “Kai . . .”
“Shī, shī. We’ll make that shelter down the trail. I’ll take care of everything.”
We made it to the next way station before dark. Yún immediately slumped to the ground. I spread out the tarpaulin and blankets and made her lie down. Then I covered her to keep her warm while I did all the rest—building a fire, rubbing down our pony and giving it extra feed, and constructing a small nest for the griffin.
Once I had water boiling for tea, I turned to Yún. “Now for you.”
Yún’s mouth trembled in a smile. “Are you going to heal me?”
“Maybe.” I hadn’t told Yún about that strange moment on Lóng City’s outer walls. It wasn’t healing, but at least it was magic.
The cut along her scalp had stopped bleeding. I cleaned it gently with warm water mixed with herbs from Yún’s pack. She bore that well, gritting her teeth. So far, so good. But the wounds along her forearm and shoulder brought a curse to my lips. Both were ragged and deep. One was festering already—that man must have used a dirty blade.
“’S my fault,” Yún mumbled. “If I hadn’t bribed the watch, no one would have known.”
“Shī, shī, shī.” I brushed her hair back from her forehead, which felt warm to my touch. Once more I cursed those mercenaries and wished them into the coldest depths of hell. “You did right, Yún. You made sure the shop was safe.”
“But I—”
“You did right,” I repeated. “You always do. Always. It’s those others. The ones plotting against Lian. They sent spies to chase us down. But you were smart, you figured that out. If you hadn’t come after me, I’d be dead and frozen on a mountain top.”
Still babbling whatever came into my head, I gently washed away the blood and dirt. Yún lay there sweating and shaking, even after I stopped.
(Now what?)
(We try something else.)
I laid my hands gently on her shoulder and her forehead. Closed my eyes and drew one long breath, held it long enough to hurt, then released it slowly in time to my heartbeat. Again. It was hard. Little things kept distracting me—the spit and pop of the fire, our pony whuffling, the sting and itch of my own scratches and cuts.
Nothing.
Not even a flicker of magic flux.
Frustrated, I drew my hands back and thought. Sure, I’d never claimed to be a wizard, but I’d always been able to sense the magic flux. But now I felt as though the air had vanished around me.
(What did I think? That I would wriggle my brain and make everything better?)
Shī, whispered Chen. Stop thinking. Breathe.
His voice boomed in the space between my ears. Underneath it, there was a faint whispering, whistling voice—Yún’s companion, Qi. Spirit magic, I thought. I placed my hands back on Yún’s shoulder and forehead and breathed as Chen had commanded. My pulse slowed, my thoughts dropped away, and the whine of my fears dissolved. It was like swimming in a pool of quiet. A stillness, an emptiness. An everything.
It was nothing like the magic flux. Not weaker or smaller—different. As different as water is from sunlight. As salt is from sugar. For the first time, I had an inkling what my mother meant when she lectured about yin and yang, then even that inkling vanished into infinity.
When I opened my eyes, dark had fallen and a cold wind blew across the shelter’s outer edges. Yún lay with her eyes closed, breathing easily. The fire had died away to glowing coals; its ruddy light limned her face like an artist’s paintbrush. Had she meant that kiss? Or was it just because we were both terrified and amazed to be alive?
She stirred. Her eyes blinked open. She looked faintly astonished.
“I feel much better. What do you think?”
I think I love you.
But that was impossible to say.
THE NEXT MORNING, I checked Yún’s wounds again. The cut on her scalp had closed. Only a raised pink scar remained, a tiny ribbon mostly hidden underneath her thick hair. When I laid my hand on her head, the last traces of magic buzzed against my palm, telling me that healing continued. The scar might even disappear by day’s end.
Her other wounds had not healed as much. You could still see an ugly ragged line along her forearm. Her shoulder wound wept a clear pinkish liquid. The skin around both felt warm to my touch. Not so dangerously hot as the night before, and not as inflamed, but still not good.
“We’ll wash you up and bind everything fresh,” I told her.
“Doctor Kai,” she murmured. “You saved my life. Thank you.”
I covered up my embarrassment by acting very busy. I built up our fire and set pots of water to boil for tea, and for mixing up more antiseptic to wash her arm and shoulder. Yún shuffled over to the griffin’s nest of blankets and knelt awkwardly by its side. When I happened to glance around, she was frowning.
“Is he—”
“Alive.” Her voice sounded subdued. “But weak.”
I knelt beside her and laid a hand over the griffin’s chest. Yāo-guài stirred uneasily, but its eyes did not open, and its body felt thicker, stiffer. Stuffed, I thought, cold washing over my skin.
“Let me try a spell,” Yún said.
She recited a series of those mathematical incantations, the ones that sounded like ice trickling in the spring thaw. This time, there was not even the faintest sense of magic flux in the air. “That’s not right,” she whispered. “There’s always magic. Always. You used it last night to heal me. How?”
“I’m not sure,” I said. “Chen helped me. All I know is that it wasn’t magic flux.”
I gave you our magic, Chen grunted. Qi and I both. You made it easier than I expected, but now we have headaches.
“Can you do it again?” I asked, aloud and to Chen. “Can you save the griffin?”
Voices doubled within my mind. We tried last night. We couldn’t. The griffin lives upon the flux and nothing else.
Yún rubbed her hand over her forehead and shivered. “How can there be no magic flux? And what about the avalanche ? I didn’t summon that. I tried but—”
“The ghost dragon,” I said suddenly. “Maybe he heard you and wanted to help.”
“Hü. Maybe.” But she didn’t sound convinced. “At least I knew the right words to send him away. The ghost dragon king insisted I learn them. I didn’t see why at first, but I’m glad he did.” She rubbed her forehead again, winced, then frowned at her injured arm, as though it had disappointed her somehow. “That still doesn’t explain about the magic flux. How can it disappear like that?”
The idea that magic could just vanish made me go cold inside. “I don’t know. But wait a minute. That boy at the inn told me they had a drought here. Or something like that.” It was hard to remember the exact words he used. “He said the magic flux would come back in the spring.”
“How could he know that?”
We stared at each other, Yún looking as troubled as I felt.
Yún released a long breath. “It doesn’t matter how he knows, or what that means. Not now, anyway. First we have to find a city-kingdom that does have wells or currents. But we’d better be careful which one. Those men who attacked us, they didn’t act like bandits. You saw their weapons.”
Exactly what I had thought. “Do you think that innkeeper sent them after us?”
“I don’t think so. But someone did. Someone rich and powerful who wants to keep us from telling Lian about her father.”
Assassins. I shivered. Gan had talked about plots and machinations. I hadn’t realized that plots sometimes meant death. I should have.
Yún’s always been the one who figures everything out. That’s not enough. We both have to be clever.
Yún herself looked weary and pain-wracked. I ordered her to sleep a few more hours while I cooked breakfast and tended our pony. Yún didn’t even argue. She curled up with the griffin and didn’t wake up until late morning. We ate our breakfast while poring over our maps.
“No more Golden Starflower Waterfall,” I said.
“And no more Lang-zhou City,” Yún said. “Whoever sent those soldiers will have more spies and soldiers in the valley.”
She stared at the map, chewing her lip. “We need magic and we need money.”
And Lang-zhou City had had both, not to mention those powerful wind-and-magic lifts that could take us up over the mountains and into the plains of the Phoenix Empire.
“West,” I said. “They won’t expect that.”
Yún stopped chewing her lips. “You’re right.” She pointed to the next kingdom over, northwest of our own shelter. “Here. At least for starters.”
GOLDEN SNOWCLOUD, said the legend. According to the symbols, it had a piaohao and magic flux wells. “Looks small. And will it have a doctor?”
Fox and Phoenix Page 8
