by Henry Lien
Sensei Madame Yao motions for Doi, Cricket, and me to step onto the open palm before us. It’s so vast that a third of the second-year class could stand on it and not touch one another. When I step off this palm, I’m either going to be safe or in even more danger than before. Sensei Madame Yao ascends the diagonal fulcrum of the arms. In three leaps, she is at the other hand. She lands on that open palm with a thundering slam. As that hand plummets, the palm beneath Doi and me rises so quickly that we have to throw our arms around the statue’s fingers to avoid being flung upward and tossed into the sea.
Up here, the face of the statue is as large as half the girls’ dormitory compound. Far below, through the rising drifts, Hisashi and the Chairman skate onto the other palm. The two of them lift the girl off her swiftboard to stand on the palm.
When Sensei Madame Yao skates off the palm, the weight on the two hands balances and our palm begins to fall. Doi, Cricket, and I crouch for balance until the hands are level and we face, far across on the other palm, Hisashi, the Chairman, and this Wu Yinmei.
Below us, Supreme Sensei Master Jio skates forward from the crescent of other senseis and calls up to us, “Petitioners, commence your first argument!”
The Chairman bows slightly to the senseis below on the pearl and says, “I present to you, Princess Wu Yinmei, the great-great-granddaughter of the Empress Dowager.” A great rustle of startled discussion rises from the senseis below. “New Deitsu Pearlworks Company seeks to sponsor her for sanctuary status, which shall not endanger the security of Pearl but shall instead give us a strategic advantage.”
This girl says in a voice as sweet and bright as a brook, “Sage and venerable Senseis, this worthless one humbly begs you to pity a girl who has fled in fear for her life from the ruthlessness of the Empress Dowager of Shin, who poisoned all the rest of her family.”
A rustle and hum spread among the senseis.
“Respondents, reply!”
“Senseis,” says Doi. She points at this Wu Yinmei but why does she refuse to look at her? “If this girl that Niu Hisashi has brought back from Shin is the Empress Dowager’s great-great-granddaughter as she claims to be, then granting her sanctuary here will be viewed by the Empress Dowager as an insult and a hostile gesture. Send her back. My fath— Chairman Niu’s harboring her here endangers all of Pearl and constitutes an act of treason.”
Sensei Madame Liao asks, “Do you understand that if this council rules in favor of your accusation, the accused persons will be referred to Pearlian authorities? Do you understand the consequences of your accusation of treason, Niu Doi?”
“Yes. Traitors of Pearl are unskated and serve life sentences at the penal quarry on Headlouse Island, like all the traitors during the Bamboo Invasion.”
“Does your accusation of treason extend to Niu Hisashi?”
Without hesitating, Doi says, “No. My brother has a tender heart that is too easy to manipulate.”
I steady my voice as I remember that the last time these senseis heard me make my case, it was after Doi and I nearly destroyed the entire campus with illegal balls of salt. We don’t have a lot of credibility. I say firmly, “I can attest that the girl’s words cannot be trusted. The Empress Dowager has no great-great-granddaughter. The newspapers report on all members of the Empress Dowager’s bloodline, to the third degree of remove. And everyone knows that all females of noble birth have their feet bound at the age of five. Her feet are unbroken. This girl cannot be who she says she is. She is probably a spy sent by the Empress Dowager to learn the secret of the pearl. You must not allow her sanctuary.”
Sensei Madame Yao looks like she’s about to say something about how I was the one suspected to be a Shinian spy last year, but Sensei Madame Liao cuts her off and says, “Tally, please.”
Supreme Sensei Master Jio states, “Arbiters, to which arguments do you give more weight?”
The senseis reach behind them. I hear the sounds of metal snaking over metal. Then the air is filled with whipping chains flying at us. Each of the arbiters has flung a length of chain twice as long as a person at one of the arms of the statue. Six chains catch and wrap themselves around the arm near Doi, Cricket, and me, six on the other near Hisashi, the Chairman, and this girl. The two palms of the statue remain balanced at the same level.
The girl replies, “The Empress Dowager kept me a secret while she decided whether to select me as the heir to the throne.”
“That can’t be true,” I say, trying to keep the exasperation out of my voice. “Females can’t inherit in Shin.” How good a spy can she be if she hides behind such an obvious lie?
She replies, “The Empress Dowager’s mission has been to change that. That is why, for the eighty-eight years since the Emperor’s death, she has not selected any male in the bloodline to be the heir.
“The Great Council of Holy Men says that someone can change the laws only if that person brings to Shin an unprecedented treasure. The Empress Dowager has promised to build for Shin a pearl city of its own to fulfill this quest.”
“See!” I cry. “She just admitted that the Empress Dowager is trying to steal the secret of the pearl. She’s here to spy for the Empress Dowager.”
“I am here to flee from the Empress Dowager. Only a fool would not fear her ruthlessness,” this Wu Yinmei says, peering at me. “Any whose path has crossed with hers never forgets that.”
She looks hard at me and before I can stop myself, I glance away. My parents certainly must remember the Empress Dowager’s ruthlessness. If they’re still alive. The picture comes into my mind again in a rush. Cricket and me, left at the door of the wu liu temple as our parents fled from the brutality that the Empress Dowager called justice. We held hands until the dawn came up, waiting for them to return.
At least I had Cricket.
This Wu Yinmei had no one left.
Did she have a little brother once? Did she watch the Empress Dowager poison him? I know that whatever I’ve been through, her life has been harder. But I also know that this is what she wants me, and everyone else, to feel. I look her straight in the eye and say, “And you are bringing all of us straight into the Empress Dowager’s path.”
The senseis murmur and consult.
The chains sling through the air.
Five more chains wrap themselves around the arm near us, seven on the other. We total eleven weights now, they thirteen. The fulcrum moans as the hand holding Hisashi, the Chairman, and this girl dips down toward the pearl below us.
Doi cries, “If she’s truly the heir, then allowing her sanctuary here will draw the Empress Dowager’s wrath on us.”
Hisashi replies, “Returning her now would not buy us safety. She’s already been insulted. It’s too late.”
Doi retorts, “Because of your rash decision. You were supposed to do something to help get Father’s hostages back. You’ve put all of us in danger.”
Hisashi’s face flips through emotions, like a fan folding closed, facet by facet, until it snaps shut.
He says calmly, “Sometimes it’s easy and in one’s own interest to stand up for others. Often it’s not. I hope that I can always make that decision whether it’s easy or not. I would be very … disappointed in myself for doing any less.”
Doi shoots back, “And I would be very disappointed in myself for being tricked by such obvious lies.”
Five chains fly up to our side, seven to theirs. Sixteen weights on our side, twenty on theirs. They’re only one story above the pearl below us. Doi looks at me, and I can see my own panic reflected in her face. We are higher in the sky than when we did aerial combat last year. We crouch down low on the palm beneath us, Doi and I huddling around Cricket to keep him secure. Below us, the Chairman, Hisashi, and this Wu Yinmei stand straight, as if readying to step off their palm to the pearl just below them.
“Final argument!” announces Supreme Sensei.
The Chairman says, “The Empress Dowager seeks to conquer Pearl. If this girl is granted sanctuary here, she can
serve as a figurehead, as a rival to challenge the rule of the Empress Dowager.”
The girl nods and adds, “I am her only remaining blood heir. I am the only one with the claim of the imperial line. If you take me, you hold the future throne of Shin in your palm.”
I see, far below, twelve heads nodding at her logic. I’m no match for her. But I know I’m right.
“She is not who she says she is!” I shout below. “She’s seeking sanctuary behind our gates, but she’s here to open them for the Shinian army.”
The girl speaks, in a voice directed at the senseis, but with a gaze directed at me far above. “I seek sanctuary here because the people of Pearl are known for their fairness. Pearlians understand that we should not leap to conclusions about what is inside a person’s heart simply because that person is different.”
Her round face is like a mirror burning its light into me. She says, slowly, firmly, “We should not hate someone just because she is not from here.”
Her words hit like a fist in my center of Chi.
I remember Suki’s attacks toward me last year, accusing me of being a Shinian spy. Am I becoming Suki?
“Chen Cricket,” asks Sensei Madame Liao. “Do you have anything to add?”
I say, “Cricket fully supports our posi—”
“Let him speak!” commands Sensei Madame Liao. “What is your position?”
“Uh,” says Cricket, “may I ask Princess Wu Yinmei why she uses a swiftboard and poles if she doesn’t have bound feet?”
This Wu Yinmei says, “My great-great-grandmother fed me ivory yang salts.” The opposite of the ivory yin salts that Cricket took to keep his body small enough to learn girls’ wu liu moves. “The Empress Dowager was not afraid of me revealing her plans since I was implicated in them. But she wanted to ensure that I would not run away. My feet are unbroken, but now if I take five steps within one day, my heart and lungs will grow as much as they would in a year. If I do not rest, they will burst.”
Just like the Dian Mai performed on me last year that turned my own body into a prison. I clutch my heart at the thought of it bursting if I took more than five steps.
She concludes, “So you see, I cannot flee from Pearl without help.”
I blurt, “She doesn’t have to flee. She could send messages back—”
“Silence!” orders Sensei Madame Liao.
Why won’t she let me speak? I thought she was my friend.
The senseis chatter below us. The final twelve chains flip through the air. Two fly to our side, the other ten wrap themselves around the far arm. The palm on which Hisashi, the Chairman, and the girl stand comes slamming down onto the pearl. The sound echoes across the campus.
We’ve lost. And now we’re in greater danger than we’ve ever been in.
The senseis gather around this girl as Hisashi and the Chairman help her back onto her swiftboard.
Sensei Madame Liao removes the chains strung on the far arm to lower the palm that Doi, Cricket, and I are on. We step off.
Doi and Cricket look at me. Doi reaches her hand to me. I want to embrace her. I want to cry into her shoulder. I want to grab them both by the hand and flee. But that’s not what I need to do now. I need to focus on how I’m going to keep us safe.
I wave away Doi’s hand gently and say, “I think I want to be alone.”
Doi and Cricket skate to depart Divinity’s Lap with everyone else. They all begin to move across the plaza, leaving me at the base of the towering statue, this Enlightened One who has just decided Pearl’s fate, one way or another, and mine with it.
And then, in the middle of the sea of backs, this girl at the center of that fate, this Wu Yinmei, a girl from Shin who defeated this girl from Shin, looks back at me over her shoulder. The placid expression she has worn is gone.
With a lift of only one side of her mouth, she smiles at me.
CHAPTER
SIX
In the morning, I wake to find two letter orbs and a parcel addressed to Cricket, Doi, and me in the mail trough at 8,888 Cups. The three of us squeeze in the dormitory chamber that Cricket and I share, because whatever the packages contain, it seems best that we open them together. When I twist the rings of the outer shell of the letter orb to solve the postal rebus, the sending address reads, PEARL FAMOUS ACADEMY OF SKATE AND SWORD, BUREAU OF FINANCIAL PITY.
I open it and a voice whispers, “Chen Peasprout and Chen Cricket, we are pleased to inform you that the application submitted on your behalf by Sensei Madame Liao for renewal of the diplomatic waiver of your tuition for this coming year at Pearl Famous has been approved.”
I open the parcel. It’s two new pairs of skates for Cricket and me. How am I supposed to know how to feel about Sensei Madame Liao? Is she my friend or not? Doi twists open her letter orb. “Wing Girl! Wanted to ___ you that I talked with Father.” Words keep dropping out whenever Hisashi forgot to whisper. “___ all taken care of. You’re not going ___ that nasty ___ colony. I got him to pay your tuition and Wu Yinmei’s. ___ you at the ___ of Welcoming! ___ are both ___ you ___ friends ___ ___!” By the end of it, he’s completely forgotten to keep his voice a whisper. Half the words escaped out of the orb before we unsealed it. All enthusiasm. No delicacy. All boy.
Doi slowly screws the halves of the orb back together. There’s no celebration in her expression at the news that she’ll be returning to Pearl Famous.
Instead, her lips are pressed firmly against each other.
She looks at this orb sent by her brother who changed what she could not change. Her brother who, with one swift sweep, successfully requested from their father what she spent the entire last year trying to get and failing. And their father is paying for this Wu Yinmei, whom Hisashi met mere weeks ago, to attend Pearl Famous.
Doi shoves the paper shoji panes of the window open.
She flings the orb out the window with such force that it whistles as it cuts through the air.
* * *
When we skate into Eastern Heaven Dining Hall for the Feast of Welcoming, I see Sensei Madame Liao watching me from the senseis’ table. I can feel her Chi all the way across the hall. There’s no ease in it, only tension, concern, fear. The Chairman is seated next to her at the senseis’ table. Why is he at the senseis’ table? Why is he wearing a sensei’s robe?
Suki and the House of Flowering Blossoms girls enter the hall. They all skate assisted by poles topped by ornately carved handles. Suki must have heard the whisperings that a real princess has joined the students at Pearl Famous and that she uses a swiftboard and poles.
Then this Wu Yinmei arrives. She pushes on her poles with effort as her bladechair crests the end of the ramp leading into Eastern Heaven Dining Hall. Hisashi, who’s beside her, doesn’t assist. She doesn’t look like the type to want assistance. She rises from the bladechair at the entrance to the hall. She parks it to the side, slides a swiftboard from a slot in the back of it, and slips her feet into the straps on the board. She stands and pushes herself on the swiftboard into the hall using her poles to propel and balance. Nothing on her face, nothing in her demeanor. As solemn as a pillar. Silence sweeps over the hall, but it’s soon filled with a cloud of twitters as everyone watches her. Everyone except for myself.
I’m looking instead at Hisashi, this boy who smiles like a friend but who has endangered me like an enemy.
Doi, Cricket, and I seat ourselves at a table. At the far end of the hall is a great round metal cage. Something’s visible through the bars, under a sheet of oiled white cotton. I look closer and recoil when I see that forms poke through the cloth, suggesting figures with smothered faces. The whole structure and whatever is in it resemble the round head of a metal dragon holding a great, deformed pearl in its teeth. I glance around to see if anyone has taken notice. The other students seem to share my confusion.
When Supreme Sensei Master Jio ascends the lecture dais and cries, “Ahihahaha,” his laughter sings with falsehood. He’s nervous. Which makes me nervous.
�
�Before we commence the Feast of Welcoming to receive the sweet new first-year embryos to Pearl Famous Academy of Skate and Sword, I have important news to share. However, I assure you that there is no reason to be alarmed.”
As soon as he says that, I’m alarmed.
He continues, “There has been an infestation of coiling water dragons. They have made a sweet nest where they are nurturing their own little embryos in the waters beyond the Conservatory of Architecture. Rest assured that Pearl Famous has negotiated with the coiling water dragons. The creatures can be fearsome when protecting their eggs. However, because they are wise and rational beings, they have agreed to a contract not to harm us as long as none of us goes into the sea, especially beyond the Conservatory of Architecture near their nest. Heed, my dear, sweet, little ones. For, as you shall learn when you attain sagehood, those who miss to seek fortune seek to miss misfortune.”
A confused rumble rises in the hall. Dragons aren’t real. Does he think we’re babies? Why’s he telling us this? Immediately, I suspect that the dragons are a distraction rather than a threat. What are the senseis trying to cover up?
Sensei Madame Liao is the only sensei not tensely smiling. Her angry expression tells me all I need to know. I don’t believe it’s dragons, but there’s still reason to be alarmed.
“These are generally benevolent creatures,” Supreme Sensei Master Jio continues, “but they can be very, very dangerous. If you hear a coiling water dragon approaching, you must close your eyes, for seeing a coiling water dragon will turn you into a statue of salt.”
How can they possibly believe that the students would believe this ludicrous—
Then Sensei Madame Yao skates to the metal cage at the far end of the hall. She reaches in carefully, tugs down the cloth, and skates backward. She shakes the cloth as she pulls it, as if dislodging grains of sand.
As the cloth is whisked away, it exposes the figures of soldiers carved in white.
Dozens of silent, still soldiers.
All of them made of salt.
