New Suns

by Nisi Shawl

  Dream

  Salal, salal, thimble berry, grass.

  Smell of humans. Water. Stillness. Stillness.

  Light slanting in for longer days.

  HUMANS TOOK THEIR cues from the animals, and had become diurnal. Afternoons were for chores, but night was for guarding. Second shift got up and had breakfast with the day shift’s dinner.

  Tater could spot Nights on sight. Like her, they had a dreamy look, with large eyes and slightly larger nostrils. There was a lot of talk about whether this was adaptation, after so few generations, or just an affinity of Nights for Nights as partners, since that’s who they got to know anyway. Every household had a combination of Days and Nights.

  Tater joined the table next to Ana, one of the few Nights she spoke to regularly. “‘Sup?”

  “Not too much. Just talking about the bears spotted at the north end.”

  “Again? They’ve no fright.”

  “Sorrel’s pretty sure she heard them talking again.”

  “You mean, like people talk?”

  “Yeah. She swears she can almost understand them.”

  Sorrel was at the other end of the table describing the bear sighting. She stood up and lumbered down the length of the table, stopping to smell each of their plates, setting them laughing.

  “Are the bears changing, or is it just you?” someone called out.

  Sorrel took her seat. They were eating eggs tonight, gathered from the summer chickens.

  “Could just be me,” she said honestly. “I’ve got so I can smell people coming, even tell sometimes who it is.” Sorrel flexed her powerful hands and set to her meal.

  “Tater and me are going to need a full crew tomorrow,” said Shonda. “Five people. Time to replace the roof on the Denny Way house so we can start on the inside. Plumbing’s almost done. Tater’s fast.”

  “Who will you work with next?” asked Ana.

  Tater blushed and looked down. “Not for me to say.”

  “All in good time,” said Chia as she began to clear the table. “She might have other dons she wants to develop.”

  Tater thought about that. Sometimes she forgot that she could choose what she wanted to work on, who she wanted to work with, as long as it was for the common good. It hadn’t been like that Before, or even for awhile After. Again, she had the strong feeling of the deer in the ravine nearby, and when she looked up, Sorrel had stopped eating and was staring down the table at her, still and alert.

  Tater pushed out her chair and stood up. “I’ve got to dream now,” she said. Shonda pointed at Ana and Chia, who flanked Tater and escorted her out of the kitchen.

  TATER’S TEAM DID not have a room set aside just for Dreaming. She was the only one in their household, and they all agreed it was a waste of space in their small but ship-shape house. But there was a bed in the main bedroom that was set aside for her. It folded out of the wall to offer a deep, safe space, and a clerestory cast a diffuse light in the room during the day.

  The bed was lowered, and Tater climbed out of her day clothes into a soft cotton gown that did not inhibit her movement. That gown, of pure cotton from Before, was probably the most valuable thing the team owned. Tater was humbled by their goodness to her every time she put it on.

  Ana got a mug of water, and Chia a towel. Sometimes the dreams could be rough, and Tater lost control of her body.

  By the time they had tucked Tater into the bed and settled into chairs on either side of her, she was no longer seeing the room and people around her. It had been a few months since she had last dreamed, and the household was in some ways relieved to see what further instructions they might receive. She could still faintly hear their comforting voices.

  “Duermete, duermete,” Ana urged.

  Sometimes the dream was clear and direct; other times, they could only speculate at what it meant, and what they were expected to do with the information. But no one doubted the authenticity of the dreams.

  TATER WAS TRYING to run through the forest. This was big forest, not trash trees and overgrown Scotch Broom. Vines grabbed at her legs as she ran, causing her to stumble. Snatching at a handful of leaves to break her fall, she felt the painful jolt of nettles in the palm of her hand. Tater gathered all her concentration into her thighs and leaped, now! clear of her human body, bounding without effort through the underbrush.

  Something was behind her, but she could not see it. The smell was pungent, like fire, like chemicals burning a hole in a metal container. Her human thoughts soon fled as she spotted another of her kind and followed, leaping sideways and forward so as to throw off any pursuers. She crashed through salal and salmonberry, fiddlehead fern and seeps where freshets rose when it rained. This was the damp country she remembered, the Before of her childhood, when everyone had enough to eat, clothes to wear, homes to live in. When children went every day to school to learn to live in a world that no longer existed.

  TATER HELD THE raised sides of the dream bed and rode it like a little boat, rocking and bucking as she moaned and made strange noises. Ana and Chia were there to try to keep her from hurting herself, as she had on occasion, and to take note of anything she might say out loud while in the grip of her dream. They made themselves comfortable, and didn’t have to say that they were pleased to have finished their dinners ahead of the Dream.

  WHEN TATER WOKE, it was dark and very quiet. She was alone. She listened to the silence for a few minutes before rising. Climbing out of the bed, she walked out to the kitchen. A single lamp burned on the table. The dishes lay scattered, some with food still on them, as though abandoned shortly after Tater left. She stepped in something wet and looked down to see a dropped mug. Walking carefully, she returned to the bedroom and climbed back into the dreaming bed.

  When Tater woke again, it was deep night, and again, she was alone in the house. She listened to the silence for a few minutes before rising. The lantern still burned in the kitchen.

  Tater took a flashlight and walked out on the porch. The night shift should have been out on the perimeter, making noise, but Tater heard nothing. A strong smell of bear filled her nostrils and she returned inside to bolt and bar the door. Tater could not tell if she was Dreaming or not. This happened sometimes. Her surroundings felt real, but where was everyone? Wouldn’t she have heard something if there had been an attack? Wouldn’t they have taken her with them, even if she was in the throes of a Dream? Tater climbed back into the Dream bed once again, just in case.

  Tater woke a third time, her left hand sticky where it had gripped the raised edge of the bed. When she lifted her hand and opened the palm, it was sticky with blood.

  Tater woke at ten bells. Chia snored daintily in the chair beside her. Voices came from the kitchen, laughing and the sound of dishes and cooking. Tater pulled on her clothes, folding the gown gently across the coverlet. Chia woke and helped return the little bed to the wall.

  In the kitchen, they were greeted with the clatter of dishes being dried and stored. Ana sang a high, silly song, and the smell of nettle soup bubbling on the stove filled the kitchen. Sorrel walked up to Tater and reached out. Tater flinched, and Sorrel stopped before gently bringing her hand down on Tater’s shoulder.

  “You’ve got news for us.”

  Tater opened her hand to show Sorrel where the stiffened blood had resolved into the outlines of a map, their own settlement at the center, the Edges stretching beyond.

  THEY GREETED THE night with a collective roar. The members of the house were in full regalia, Tater wearing her inherited cocoon rattle leggings. She lifted her canes, one in each hand, and set the tip of each down the way a deer daintily makes its way through the forest. She turned her gaze this way and that in mimicry of the deer, careful not to lose the antlers strapped to her head. The drummer beat a bowl with two sticks turned upside down over a larger bowl of water, creating a booming sound that carried for miles. Ana’s voice wailed a descant. The dancers made their way forward and back, forward and back, turning sideways in unis
on to appear larger to the unseen enemy.

  Arise, arise fair sun, and kill the envious moon…

  Dancers from other houses flanked them, creating a front of noise and light against the Outside. Tater felt vulnerable in her soft doe-skin clothing, conscious of how exposed her throat was each time she turned her head, knew that the bandage on her left hand showed she might be wounded. This is how they took back the world—step by step, song by song. At the end of the night, new fence posts would be pounded into place, new fences strung.

  Tater lifted and set her canes carefully. The extra points of support allowed her to keep her feet close together as she pounded the ground with them, directing her energy deep into the earth. Tater realized that if she ever had a daughter, she would name her Ozette. This was new, the consciousness that she might have a future beyond herself. Tater’s face shone in the flickering light. It was good to be alive.

  The Virtue of Unfaithful Translations

  Minsoo Kang

  THE GRAND PHILOSOPHER Ancient Leaf once expounded that a man who kills another out of passion or greed is condemned as a murderer, and one who kills ten people is reviled as a maniac, but one who causes the death of hundreds of thousands in pursuit of personal glory is often revered as a great personage. The Grand Historian Silver Mirror utilized the quote in describing the senseless nature of the Wars of the Four Princes and the Six Grand Lords, how the acts of all the kings, ministers, and generals throughout the long conflict achieved nothing in the end. The cycle of events from unity to disunity to chaos, then chaos back to disunity and finally to a new unity, only resulted in countless cities, towns, and villages falling into ruin. And the corpses of ambitious leaders, obedient soldiers, and powerless civilians lay in numbers like grains of sand upon a blood-soaked shore. Silver Mirror opined that a country that has reached the age of wisdom would stop building monuments to the warmongers of its history, but rather erect them for its peacemakers, those who saved lives by preventing the course of events from descending into a time of sword and fire.

  One could point to such a monument that actually exists, namely the great mural painting known as “Peace of Five Peaks Island,” which can be found on the southwestern side of the Phoenix Tower in West Capital of the Empire of the Grand Circle. When General Heavenly Whirlwind brought down the Radiant dynasty to ascend the throne as the first emperor of the Pure dynasty, he justified his coup by claiming, based on specious evidence including forged clan records, to be a descendant of the imperial family of the previous Primal dynasty. By asserting that the founders of the Radiant illegitimately usurped the authority of his ancestors, he portrayed himself as an avenger who was reclaiming what was rightfully his. He then moved the center of the Grand Circle to West Capital not only to force the surviving members of the Radiant aristocracy to abandon their feudal lands in the east but also to establish a historical connection between the Primal and the Pure. He also summoned the best artists of the realm to decorate the walls of the rebuilt imperial palace with pictures in the grand proto-elaboratist style depicting the glories of the Primal dynasty. Most of them portray scenes of military victory, including the unnecessary, unjustifiable, and unrighteous slaughter of the pacific people of the southeast plains, which is falsely pictured as a defensive action against bloodthirsty barbarians.

  “Peace of Five Peak Island” is a remarkable exception in that it celebrates the avoidance of what was certain to be a devastating war that would have cost the lives of hundreds of thousands. It depicts the meeting of the Sixth Emperor of the Primal dynasty and the warlord of South Ocean known as the Great Sea Dragon, on a hill that is magnificently illuminated by an auspicious sun at midday. The Lord of the Grand Circle is in his gold and yellow splendor, surrounded by ministers in red robes and high hats, while the Master of the Endless Waves is in full armor and flanked by his sea lords. The former is grand and haughty and the latter is sturdy and proud, but they face each other with respect as they are there to establish peace rather than to challenge each other to war. Once they finish exchanging formal greetings, they will enter a splendid pavilion of many colors, pictured at some distance behind them, where they will sit and share precious liquor while their ministers and generals finalize the treaty between the empire and the fleet. On the far right side of the picture, a flock of seagulls dance above a luminous sea, as if in joy over the event.

  The achievement of peace on Five Peaks Island has baffled historians for centuries as a miraculous last-minute aversion of a war that appeared inevitable to everyone concerned. The Great Sea Dragon, who began his life as a kidnapped child slave, then a galley rower, then a pirate, and then a pirate captain, emerged as an unprecedented genius of naval warfare as he battled and slaughtered his way to dominance in South Ocean and all its islands. With his fleet of ten thousand ships and an ambition that knew no bounds, he meant to take the greatest prize of them all, the Empire of the Grand Circle. But the Sixth Emperor was a man of war himself, as he was raised on the rugged northern frontier where he also served as the lord commander of fortresses. Even after his ascendance to the imperial throne, he was happiest on the campaign trail, extending his domain, punishing his recalcitrant subjects, and delighting in the destruction of those who defied him. In his endless greed for military glory, he left much of the running of the state to a group of eunuch secretaries, which led to what would later be referred to as the Rule of Fifty Half-Men. By all accounts, he was eager to face the barbarian upstart of South Ocean, whom he referred to as Pirate Fish Stink.

  The initial meeting of their envoys was not an opportunity for a serious negotiation but for the ritualized issuance of challenges as a prelude to war. To the surprise of everyone, however, the talks on Five Peaks Island became protracted, as the emperor and the warlord communicated via numerous letters that were written, translated, and transported over the course of weeks. It ultimately resulted in the Great Sea Dragon receiving the imperial title of the Grand Guardian of the South Ocean with the responsibility of overseeing the affairs of the southern seas. In return, the Great Sea Dragon recognized the emperor’s authority and swore to safeguard all merchant ships under the protection of the imperial monopoly. It culminated in the personal meeting of the two on Five Peaks Island, which the mural depicts, in which the warlord ceremoniously received the jade tablet of officialdom, acknowledging his status as the emperor’s subordinate. And the emperor, in turn, granted him the singular honor of submitting on his feet, rather than prostrating himself on the ground. The peace treaty was duly agreed upon, stamped with great seals, and a celebration of feasting, dancing, and musical performances followed. Then the Sixth Emperor and his ministers returned to West Capital, the Great Sea Dragon and his ships sailed back to South Ocean, and the war that was thought to be inevitable never happened.

  In recent decades, new discoveries made by junior historians at the Hall of Great Learning have provided startling insight into the event. Through their painstaking search in many archives across the country, they have unearthed documents of disparate natures that have revealed a hidden history of the Peace of Five Peaks Island. They include some discarded source material for the True Records of the Primal Dynasty, an early draft of the incomplete Preliminary Discourse on the Fall of the Primal Dynasty, a batch of official correspondences that was housed at the Hall of the Imperial Secretariat that were thought to have been destroyed during the burning of the palace by the Radiant army, and, most revealing of all, some personal writings of the two translators who worked on behalf of the emperor and the warlord. In addition, findings from a secret storehouse at the Temple to the Primordial Nothingness in Sundown Archipelago, relating to the events from the perspective of the advisors to the Great Sea Dragon, have provided support for the newly revealed narrative.

  The mural of “Peace of Five Peaks Island” depicts some fifty people, most of whom can be identified as important personages whose presence at the event is verified in the historical records. Immediately behind the emperor are the hig
h minister of military affairs and the chief imperial secretary, and at a little distance to their left is a noticeably tall official whose sharp-eyed attention is on the Great Sea Dragon, not his sovereign. While the red robes of all other officials are decorated with the insignias of a pair of cranes or a pair of turtles, his is the only one with a pair of flounders, marking him as a temporary appointee to a position at court. The figure represents the scholar given the honor name of Diviner Supreme, a grand master of learning at the Forest of Brushes Scholastic Academy who acted as the imperial translator and interpreter during the negotiations.

  Diviner Supreme came from an illustrious family of scholar-officials, his father attaining the position of the high minister of rituals, but he was somewhat of a wayward younger son in his early life. He passed the civil examinations at a young age, but before he could receive a government appointment, he had to go into mourning period as his father died from falling off a horse. At its completion, he not only declined to pursue a career in officialdom but left West Capital to travel the world.

  In the course of his many adventures, he proved to be a veritable genius in the learning of languages, as he ultimately mastered no less than twenty-four living tongues and the reading knowledge of twelve defunct ones. After wandering the world for over twenty years, he finally returned to his family home in West Capital barely alive, after suffering a near fatal wound in a pirate raid in Middle Ocean. He eventually recovered, but the permanent damage done to his right leg made him unfit for prolonged travel. He was subsequently appointed as a master at the Forest of Brushes, becoming the greatest scholar of languages and linguistics of his time.