Peasprout Chen--Battle of Champions

by Henry Lien

  * * *

  After evenmeal the night before the First Annexation, all the second-year students disperse across the campus in their battlebands. We have two hours before curfew to finalize strategy for the next morning.

  I lead my battleband to the Courtyard of Supreme Placidness. The sound-insulating properties of the courtyard will help protect us from being overheard.

  I say to them, “Cricket, is the pearlstarch solution ready?”

  Cricket says, “I have all the ingredients, but I can’t mix them until right before we’re ready to dip our robes into the mixture.”

  I turn to Yinmei and say, “And what about the forcedrums?”

  Yinmei says, “We shall each have one strapped to the waist to punch if we need to make a quick escape.”

  “Good. Now Sensei Madame Yao said that the First Annexation will test strategies for perimeter defense. What do we know about the perimeter of the island of Pearl?”

  Cricket raises his hand. I say to him, “You don’t have to raise your hand. Just speak.”

  “According to my research, the city of Pearl is made out of the pearl, but the rest of the island is solid earth and protected only by a low wall made of the pearl. The wall runs the entire perimeter of the island, but there’s not enough of the pearl to make it very high. As long as the invaders remain on the pearl, a wu liu practitioner can defeat them. But it becomes much more difficult if an invader reaches solid earth, where skates can’t go.”

  “Then what good is it?” I ask.

  “Such a wall serves two purposes. It slows down invaders, who have to climb over the wall from the sea. Further, as soon as a guard spots an invader, she can use the wall as a road to skate across to get quickly to the invader or to an alarm to call all guard towers nearby. But there aren’t enough wu liu practitioners to staff the wall very heavily.”

  I say, “So we shouldn’t stand in the middle and wait for the invaders to come over the wall. We should be stationed on the wall itself so that we can skate to them quickly.”

  At that moment, Etsuko enters the Courtyard of Supreme Placidness with her battleband, Radiant Thousand-Story Very Tall Goddess.

  “Etsuko,” I say, “if you don’t mind, we’re using this space.”

  “Oh,” she says. “I’m sorry. I didn’t see Property of Nobody and the Fire-Chickens painted over the archway. Or is your name Stealthiest Spies from Shin?”

  Ten thousand years of stomach gas. I’ve created another Suki.

  “Let’s go,” says Hisashi. “Not worth it. I know someplace better.”

  Hisashi leads us to the northeastern edge of the Principal Island. My Chi clenches when I see where he’s brought us. The Temple of Heroes of Superlative Character. Where we went last year instead of attending the Festival of Lanterns.

  Not we! Get that through your head, Peasprout! It was Doi, not him.

  We row the gondola train to the islet on which the temple sits. None of us likes being over water that could be filled with coiling water dragons obscured by the dark of night.

  Inside the temple, before the towering statutes of the heroic boy Lim Tian-Tai and the noble eunuch Mu Haichen, Hisashi grabs a fistful of lit incense sticks. He gestures at the round atrium rising high around us. “The First Annexation is going to take place in here. Because it’s on an islet by itself, just like Pearl. Who wants to bet on it? Loser has to skate up the ramp and go shooting out of the archway at the top. Wing Girl, do you have the dragon-phoenix boat on you?”

  Doi answers, “No.” I feel her looking at me, but I don’t meet her gaze. I don’t want to talk about it.

  “What did you do with it?”

  “I gave it to Peasprout.”

  Hisashi turns his big brown eyes on me. Then he looks at Doi. Then he looks back at me. Like he’s suddenly putting something together. I feel as if I’m skating unarmored during the Iron Fan Dance Motivation.

  Thanks, Doi.

  Cricket interjects, “It can’t be held here. There’s no perimeter wall.”

  Yinmei says, “Please excuse me, but there is somebody here inside the temple.”

  We turn to where she is looking. A chill shivers through my Chi as I see the silhouette of a cloaked figure in the archway, looking down on us.

  “It’s probably one of Etsuko’s spies,” says Doi.

  “Let’s get out of here,” suggests Cricket.

  I’m happy for an excuse to leave this temple. It’s not the temple I experienced those memories in, since it was rebuilt after it was destroyed last year. But it looks exactly like it, and things that look exactly like something they’re not are causing me distractions I don’t need right now.

  We leave the islet of the temple. We cross Divinity’s Lap to see Forever Action Beauty Girls in silent battle meditation under the statue of the Enlightened One, seated in a ring, of course, with their hair braided into a lantern that hangs in their center. I’m looking forward to seeing them try to fight like that.

  Cricket looks at the ring they form and says, “Ah! I know where the First Annexation’s going to be held!”

  We follow him across the campus until we are facing the Radial of Mighty Tranquility.

  “There,” says Cricket.

  Doi says, “He’s right.”

  Cricket smiles at Doi’s words like he just placed first at a Motivation.

  “Oh, I see,” says Hisashi. “A structure, on an islet of its own, surrounded by water, yet with a perimeter wall formed by the covered stadium seating. Like the island of Pearl itself. Well done!” He gives Cricket’s forearm the battle-kite pilot clasp.

  Doi says, “So we’ll be in the center, and invaders will come over the wall.”

  “And we have to protect the core,” says Hisashi. “What do you think, Wing Girl? Double tsunami flying fist and all the twin iron butterfly quadruple leaps, as well as the hasty eagle mirror flurry formations?”

  “Yes, definitely,” answers Doi, “but also double-headed flying snake enduring through ease and danger, as well as herons meeting under two branches of pine, shuddering in a late-autumn gust.”

  “Exactly what I was thinking, Wing Girl.”

  I say, “What about larger battle strategy?”

  Hisashi replies, “Sensei Master Ram had me read the opera Farewell, My Porcupine. Do you know it? Emperor afraid of assassination builds a great wall; chief eunuch advises emperor that a strong kingdom doesn’t build walls but instead engages with all those around it.”

  “How does that apply to our battle strategy?” I ask.

  “I see,” says Doi. “We shouldn’t spend energy keeping the invaders off the wall.”

  “Yes,” says Hisashi. “We allow them onto the parapet made of the pearl at the top of the wall, on which we have the advantage.”

  “And we engage them on our own terms,” Doi finishes.

  “Also remember,” says Yinmei, “that battle strategy need not involve battle. It may also be wholly strategy.”

  “Please expand, Yinmei.” I nod. She may not be able to skate in the First Annexation, but she’s proven herself to be a shrewd strategist.

  She doesn’t continue, though. Instead, she looks behind me.

  I turn and see, peering around the corner of the Hall of Six Excellences, the hooded spy sent by Etsuko.

  “Go away!” I look around for something to throw at her.

  Yinmei says, “I know a better place where we can talk.”

  She pushes her poles and slides away on her swiftboard. When I see where she’s leading us, I clench my Chi and make sure not to look at either Doi or Hisashi.

  We’re at the entrance of the Garden of Whispering Arches.

  Far ahead, the massive Arch of the Sixteenth Whisper looms above us, where Doi once whispered to me, “I knew you could do it.”

  This isn’t last year, Peasprout. This place is just full of echoes.

  We follow Yinmei to a strange arching bridge that is crossed perpendicularly by another arching bridge, so that the two
form the skeleton of a dome. The plaque on it reads, THE ARCH OF CROSSED DESTINIES.

  She indicates for me to stand in the center, under the point where the two arches meet. The rest of us each stand near the foot of an arch. Yinmei whispers into an arch, “There is a Shinian battle strategy called Besiege the Cloister of Xie to Rescue the Kingdom of Wo.” Her words are as clear as if they were whispered into my ear. “Do not fight the enemy; seize the thing that is most precious to the enemy. When the Shinian army invades a city, the first things it seizes are the schools.”

  “Why?” I ask. I sense that the answer’s going to make me ashamed to be Shinian.

  “To take the children hostage if the enemies do not lay down their weapons,” she says calmly.

  I swallow my revulsion. “That’s not the kind of strategy we use here,” I say firmly.

  “I raise it as metaphor.”

  “We’re not going to use a dirty strategy.”

  “It is a winning strategy. It is a Shinian strategy.”

  “I am Shinian,” I say.

  “Are you sure?” she says, as if striking an instrument to see how it’s tuned.

  “If that kind of contribution is the extent of what you have to offer my battleband, we have a problem. Do you have any other ideas?”

  “Very well.” Yinmei looks at me as if measuring the weight of my words. She speaks, “If we are protecting a space within a radial, we need bells. Please station Cricket and me tomorrow in the center of the radial. We shall stand back-to-back. Between the two of us, we shall be able to see in all eight directions. When we see invaders come, we shall strike bells, each of the eight notes of the scale corresponding with one of the eight directions.”

  “Why bells?” I ask. “Why not just shout commands?”

  “Because we can strike multiple tones at the same time to indicate simultaneous attacks from different directions. The tones can harmonize, disharmonize, and create chords, yet still be distinguished. Words shouted simultaneously would be gibberish.”

  My anger toward her softens. Once again, she has found battle applications for music that would never in ten thousand years have occurred to—

  We hear the scramble of skate blades overhead.

  Someone’s on the crossed bridges above us.

  Doi, Hisashi, Cricket, and I race to the ends of the bridges to entrap the person there.

  It’s that spy that Etsuko sent. She clutches her hood, hiding her face.

  “Tell Etsuko that she’s not going to learn anything spying on us,” I say.

  “Etsuko didn’t send me,” she says, pushing her hood back.

  Suki.

  “Why are you spying on us?” I ask her.

  “I’m not spying on you,” she says. As vile as she is, she’s a terrible liar. “I came to…”

  “What? To sabotage us? To plant something so we’ll be blamed for something we didn’t…”

  I trail off when I see her face. Heavenly August Personage of Jade, she’s crying!

  She says, “I came to … I came to…”

  I realize what she can’t bring herself to say. Make me die of shock.

  I say with disbelief, “You came to ask to join our battleband.”

  Pain stings Suki’s face like she’s being branded with a white-hot iron.

  Doi and I look at each other and immediately say, “No way under heaven.”

  “Wait,” says Cricket. “Let’s hear what she has to say.”

  “Cricket! She tried to get us both expelled last year!”

  “But, Peasprout, this isn’t last year.”

  Suki says, “You need the best wu liu practitioners in your battleband.”

  “We have them!” Doi and I say together.

  “Yes,” says Suki. “You two are the best. You should have taken the first two spots last year. I only won because you were disqualified.” She looks like she’s swallowing one mouthful of dirt after another. “I know you have no reason to forgive me for last year. But maybe you can find a place for me. I’d like to be useful to you.”

  “Why?” ask Doi and I.

  “Because,” she says, struggling for words, “because … now I know … how much I took away from you.”

  I ask her, “What about the other two girls in Last-Place Losers on Skates who stood by you when Etsuko threw you out? You’re just going to abandon them?”

  Suki stretches empty palms and says, “Who cares about them? Do you?”

  “So you just discard people when you don’t have any more use for them?” I ask.

  “Yes,” says Suki. “It motivates them to keep trying to prove their worth.”

  Yinmei pushes over on her poles and says, “Let us do the same to her. Let her join our battleband. We shall use her skills and discard her when she’s of no use.”

  I turn to Yinmei. “How would you like it if I did that to you?”

  “But you are doing it to me,” she says, smiling. “And I am doing it to you.” She adds in a whisper, “Miss Lock.”

  “This is not how I choose to lead my battleband. If you disagree, it makes me wonder whether you can work with us.”

  Yinmei says, “So you think I should depart your battleband?” She turns to Suki. “What do you think? Should I seek another alliance with you?”

  Doi stabs a finger at Yinmei’s chest and says, “Don’t you dare threaten our captain.”

  Doi and Yinmei stare each other down.

  At last, Yinmei bows her head and says, “What I have just done is demonstrated the turmoil that would be caused if we were to allow Suki in. Forgive me, captain. I only said those words to show you how dangerous a personality like Suki would be to the harmony of our battleband.”

  My mouth drops open. I hear Yinmei’s point, but it disturbs me how well she’s able to manipulate my emotions. Do I believe her?

  “This should be a decision for our whole battleband,” says Cricket. “You’re the captain, and a good captain should honor fair process.”

  “All right, fine,” I say. “Let’s vote. Doi. Do you agree to let Suki into our battleband?”

  Doi looks at Suki and says, “Make me die of laughing.”

  “Hisashi?” I say next.

  “I’m with Wing Girl. If this girl hurt or insulted my sister, then trust me, she doesn’t want to be around me.” He throws his arm around Doi.

  “Cricket?”

  “We can use her skills, especially if two of us aren’t great in wu liu. I vote to give her a chance, Peasprout. It’s a luxury to work only with people we like.” I’m not going to react to that.

  “Yinmei?”

  “My vote will be the same as our captain’s,” she says.

  “Then it’s settled. One vote in favor, lucky against. Now go!”

  Suki grunts as if she were punched. She pulls her hood over her hair and clutches it close at her throat. As she skates from the circle of our lantern light into the darkness, she turns and says, “One day soon, Chen Peasprout, you will find that you’re being dragged across the water by Shinian soldiers back to their ships. And you’re going to be clutching a rope and begging me to haul you back up. On that day, I’m going to stamp my blade on that rope and send you back to Shin to burn.”

  CHAPTER

  FIFTEEN

  “Nobody and the Fire-Chickens!” announces Sensei Madame Yao through a hollering cone at the entrance into the Radial of Mighty Tranquility. I shut out the inane giggling over our name and lead my battleband onto the rail-gondola.

  We pass the gondola filled with the previous battleband of students coming back from the other direction on the inbound rail. As they near, I see from their black veils, skullcaps, and smoked spectacles that it’s Ten Thousand Secret Deadly.

  Hisashi cries out to them, “How did it go?” They don’t answer as they skate past us. They’re all too busy crying, wiping their faces, and cradling wounded arms. One of them is clutching his amputated hair-tail to his chest.

  Even though the entrance of the radial faces the P
rincipal Island, this is Pearl, and the scenic route is always the only route. The wind from the sea makes us shiver in our academy robes, which are soaked in Cricket’s pearlstarch mixture. The rail makes nearly a full loop around the islet before leading to its entrance. As we circle the radial on the rail, we see temporary platforms and netting stretched between the structure and the rail we are on. At the very least, if we fall, we won’t be tumbling into the jaws of a coiling water dragon.

  Our opponents are lined up on the temporary platform in a ring running around the entire radial. The entire third-year class is outfitted in nightmarish armor and helmets composed of red plates of carapace that sprout an array of horns, antlers, clubs, and claws. Each of them holds a round metallic shield. They’re not wearing skates. They’re wearing armored boots.

  It looks as if the structure were surrounded by a sentry of monstrous lobsters.

  “Why are they dressed like that?” I ask.

  Doi seethes, “They’re supposed to be ahng-gwee. Red demons. It’s a slur to refer to Shinians.”

  Of course it is. Because this isn’t some contest to see who’s going to take the lead in the Drift Season Pageant. We’re at a military academy now. And here we are, a battleband made up of mostly Shinians, inventing ways to fight our own country, for people who are insulting us.

  “Forget it,” I command. “The best way to answer their slur is to smash those ridiculous outfits off of them.”

  We near the entrance to the radial and see rows of skates lined neatly. We skate into the vast circular arena. Its floor is covered with sand, which is about as easy to walk across in skates as one would think.

  Around us are tiers of stadium seating. A roof covers the rows of seats like a racing track, although the arena floor is open to the sky. Further, a temporary parapet wall as high as a person has been built around the radial’s outer edge. We can skate on the track, or even on the parapet wall itself if we get enough speed, since it’s circular and the outward force would keep us from falling.

  As Doi, Hisashi, and I strap the forcedrums tightly to our waists, Sensei Madame Yao says, “Plant your banner in the sand in the center of the radial. The goal of this Annexation is to prevent the invaders from seizing your banner. Invaders that you are able to knock off their feet are counted as eliminated. You will be scored based on how many waves of invaders you are able to keep from taking your banner. The best score so far is eight waves.” She hands us each an oval, metallic, mirrored shield, then makes her way across the sand and exits the arena.