Vows of Gold and Laughter (The Immortal Beings Book 1)

by Edith Pawlicki

  “Color is the fundamental building block of our world. All immortals are limited in what colors they can influence – except you, it seems.” Bai hurried on, realizing he was not quite ready to tell her his suspicions regarding that. “Born immortals inherit all the abilities and needs of their parents – and grandparents. That is why you sometimes hear thoughts like Neela, and sometimes feel emotions like Aka. And that is why you must eat and drink daily. Like you, Gang also inherited power from two Colors – Noran and Aka. Many other immortals feared him as a child and sought his death. If it had not been for both Aka and I protecting him, he would surely have died.”

  Jin bit her lip and looked at the ground. “Gang told me that my mother tried to protect me by naming me Goddess of Beauty, something harmless.”

  “Mm. She was wise indeed – beauty may be mistaken for being harmless, but it is certainly dangerous and powerful. You just haven’t fully embraced your powers yet. I will teach you, as I taught Gang, so that soon you will be able to protect yourself.”

  “Why? Why help me?”

  Bai pushed away the real reasons, not wanting her to hear it in his thoughts. “I hate to see things wasted. Besides, aren’t you going to help me? It’s easy enough to pick up new mortal languages, but I feel somewhat adrift on Earth. Too much has changed – you promised to teach me.”

  Jin laughed and pulled some coins they’d earn yesterday from her sleeve. “Yes, and I promised to start with money. You see this mark? This shows it was minted by a Zhongtu monarchy. It’s a guarantee it has the same weight as all the others like it...”

  It was hard for Bai to believe that mortals he had seen mark sticks to count their livestock had now developed mathematics that let them manage economies and build palaces, but of course he knew Jin’s words were true and he loved listening to her explain. Her fondness for mortals was evident – Bai realized that not only mortals had changed, but deities had as well, if others cared for their worshippers as Jin did.

  That night, as he watched her twirl and bend to his music, Bai admitted to himself that he wanted to protect and teach this being not because he was worried about her wasted power, but because he didn’t want to leave her side – and he wanted her to feel the same way about him.

  THE day was fine. The weather had finally warmed and the riverbank seemed to grow greener as it slid by. The water lapped gently against the wooden riverboat that they had hired – it was a typical craft, perhaps four times Jin’s height in length and not quite wide enough for her to lay across. The family who owned it consisted of a father, mother, and son. The father stood to the rear, sculling with his long oar, and listening happily to the sweet trill of thrushes on shore. The mother and son were working at the prow, weaving new raincoats from dry rushes. In the middle of the boat was an arched canopy made of woven bamboo. There were six wide planks beneath, currently two were lifted and stacked in the center, forming a table and benches. Jin sat on one side and Bai sat opposite, his hand resting on his guzheng case beside him. Bai’s eyes were closed – he was probably meditating.

  In addition to darkening his white hair to a soft black, she had lengthened it so he could wear it in a bun on his crown. His clothes were rough hemp, a gray wrap-around tunic and brown trousers, as befit pilgrims. Even with his appearance altered, she found him deeply appealing.

  The riverboat family believed that he was her husband, that the pilgrimage was to address infertility. It was a practical deception; mortals, particularly in this area, acted as though unwed individuals were totally at the mercy of their uncontrollable sexual urges while married individuals were granted both more respect and freedom. The trouble was Jin kept wishing – ridiculously, frivolously, naively – that it was true.

  Last night, the first they had spent on the boat, the two of them had unrolled their blankets in the prow of the boat, while the family slept under the arch. They had fallen asleep with a few inches separating them. She had awoken tucked against Bai’s side, her cheek on his shoulder, his arm a band of warmth down her back. Unwilling to move, she had feigned sleep. He had extricated himself perhaps fifteen minutes later and Jin had “woken” shortly after that.

  She had felt ashamed of herself, but she couldn’t quite control her feelings. She had finally found the something she’d been seeking since her four thousandth birthday – a spark of interest, a compatibility, a likeness of spirit. She wanted to lean in, to let herself fall deeply, wholly in love with Bai. But Xiao had admitted his hope for a monogamous, true marriage. Jin didn’t want to hurt him. She couldn’t like herself if she hurt her closest friend to pursue a potential romance. And the idea that Bai would reciprocate her feelings verged on absurd. He was the first being, a master of the arts, the greatest warrior in existence, and – according to Nanami – he had spent the last fifty millennia being loyal to the memory of his lost love. Surely he thought her ignorant and immature.

  “Jin?” Bai broke into her thoughts. “Are your legs hurting?”

  Jin jerked her eyes back to his and followed his gaze to her hands, which were absently kneading her thighs. She folded her hands in her lap. “Not at all,” she said.

  Bai’s eyes narrowed as if unconvinced.

  Flushing, Jin admitted, “Well, I’m a bit sore. It’s nothing of concern.” His brows knit, and Jin thought of how effortlessly he had risen on the boat, without a hint of stiffness, before doing some stretching that revealed both flexibility and strength.

  He glanced at the riverboat family, and when he spoke again, it was in the tongue of immortals. “We should start the lessons I promised you.”

  She glanced at the family as well. “What can we do without disturbing our hosts?”

  Bai hesitated. “We can work on your beliefs – they are severely limiting your abilities.”

  She laughed. “My beliefs? How could my beliefs change how much power I have? Is it not an objective fact?”

  Bai smiled, crinkles appearing at the corner of his eyes. He seemingly withdrew a piece of string from the loose sleeve of his robe, though Jin suspected that he had in fact just made it. He handed it to her. “Could you tie this in a knot?”

  “Yes, of course.”

  The string shortened in her hand. “Now?”

  “Yes?”

  The string shortened until it was perhaps a half an inch long. “Now?”

  Jin tried, but the string was too thick and short. “I can’t tie it,” she told him, thoroughly puzzled.

  “But you can, I promise you.”

  “Truly?”

  He touched his heart in sincerity.

  Jin frowned at him a moment, then rubbed the string between her fingers. It frayed. She seized the ends and pulled it apart – now it was twice as long, if in two segments, and she tied it. She sent him a questioning look.

  He was smiling. “If you believe you cannot do something, you will never do it. If you believe you can...” he shrugged. “Often you will find a way.”

  Jin looked at the small knot she held. After a moment, she tucked it into her sash. “Very well, I accept my beliefs limit me. What should I try to do?”

  Bai indicated the mother and son working at the front of the boat. “Tell me, how does the boy feel?”

  Jin was embarrassed. “I only pick up feelings sporadically.”

  “Knowing others’ feelings is Aka’s fundamental power. It is not random. You simply have not mastered it. You probably pick up only on particularly strong feelings. Focus on the boy. How does he feel?”

  “He’s bored,” Jin said, then laughed. “But anyone could guess that. Just look at his face.”

  “So how else does he feel? Come, you can read him.”

  “But I only have domain over beauty,” she told him.

  “So? Are emotions not beautiful?”

  “Emotion can be beautiful...” Jin murmured, focusing again on the boy. For a moment, it was as if she had slid inside of him; she felt his boredom powerfully. I wish I was s
culling. If only mother and father would let me.

  “He’s wistful,” Jin says. “He wants to be sculling.” She grinned, feeling proud of herself, and she looked for Bai’s approval. But he looked more surprised than anything.

  “That’s a thought, not an emotion,” he told her.

  “Oh – right – sorry.”

  “Don’t be. You find it easier to read thoughts?”

  Jin nodded. “NeeNee – my grandmother – taught me to read golems’ thoughts. That was how I figured out the task yours was set to. Reading the boy was similar.”

  Bai frowned. “You said you tweaked my golem – what did you mean?”

  “I influenced his thoughts.”

  Bai went very still and stared at her hard.

  Jin shifted uncomfortably beneath his gaze. “Is that very bad? NeeNee got very angry with me when I did it as a child.”

  “It’s not bad – it’s just not a power you inherited from Aka or Neela.” He clapped a hand over his mouth. “Red, orange, yellow, blue,” he muttered to himself. He started laughing.

  Jin found herself chuckling too, his laughter was so engaging. “What’s so funny?” she asked.

  “I’ve been suspecting something for a long time – I thought I couldn’t read your essence. But I can, it just confounded me.” He suddenly grew serious. “Red, orange, yellow, and blue,” he said once again.

  “What does that mean?” she asked.

  Bai sighed. “Those are the colors of your essence. Blue is from Neela, red is from Aka.”

  “So who’s the orange and yellow from?”

  Bai raised an eyebrow at her. Jin thought. “Cheng and Noran? Those immortals in the paintings?”

  Bai nodded.

  “But how? My unknown grandfather?”

  “That would be a logical conclusion.”

  Jin shifted uncomfortably under his gaze. “You seem to think it’s a bad thing.”

  He looked away from her, lost in thought. “About thirty millennia ago, I taught warfare to a man of Zhongtu.”

  Jin blinked at the seeming non sequitur. “You mean Chao the Conqueror? His fort later became the first city in Zhongtu.”

  “Yes, Chao. When I met him, he was a noble young man. Very fair, very honest, eager to improve the lots of those around him. But when he became a warlord, he also used his power to force the daughters of those he conquered to his bed. He became focused on bettering his own lot, and let his followers starve. They eventually killed him, chanting, ‘Power corrupts.’”

  Jin stiffened. “And you agree with them?”

  Bai shook his head. “No, but I feel there is something to learn from the story. I am very powerful, you know. There have been times when I have been ashamed of how I used that power.”

  He looked at her very intently, those eyes blazing, even though they were dark now rather than gray, thanks to Jin’s magic. “You will be much more powerful than I am one day. I suppose I am telling you to be careful. Power may not corrupt, but if the powerful are corrupt, we can do so much more damage than others can.”

  Jin studied him. He looked serene, kind; his patience and thoughtfulness were almost palpable. It was hard to imagine him doing anything shameful. His soul was beautiful – no, she realized abruptly, that wasn’t what she was seeing. She was feeling his emotions and his thoughts. That was what had initially attracted her to him, his sense of calm, a deep inner peace. Even when he told her that he had made mistakes, that he didn’t know the answers, she could feel that peace. She yearned for it, as a ship yearns for a safe port during rough seas.

  “What was Noran like?” she asked abruptly, then blushed. She was curious about her heritage, but that was an excuse. Nanami had identified Noran as Bai’s great love.

  “Noran?” he echoed, perhaps the first time Jin had heard him speak without intention. He looked down at his hands, drawing Jin’s attention to them as well. They were fisted, the knuckles white. They slowly relaxed beneath her gaze. “Of course, you must be curious about the grandparents you never met.”

  She nodded, squashing her guilt.

  “Well, you saw the painting I did. You do look a bit like her – the same pale skin and the same gold eyes.”

  Jin squeezed her hands together – that was not what she wanted to hear.

  “She was once a grain of sand on the coast of Bando...the first female being.” He hesitated. “She claimed that she fell in love with Aka when he slept on her beach, and so made herself someone who could impress him.”

  Jin blinked. “Aka? But I thought...” she flushed.

  Bai looked surprised. “Yes, Aka. Remember, she is Gang’s mother?”

  “Yes – I just–” Jin bit her lip, wondering just what his relationship with Noran had been. She knew he had trained Gang in the art of war... “But to be my grandmother – was she Cheng’s lover as well?”

  Bai shifted, visibly uncomfortable. “I met Noran at Zi and Hei’s wedding. I only know what others have told me of her earlier life.”

  That was over fifty thousand years ago, ten times longer than Jin had been alive. “What happened at the wedding?”

  Bai looked out toward the river, and Jin thought she had been too intrusive. “I’m sorry,” she said, “you don’t need to answer that.”

  Bai looked back at her, his face unreadable. “Noran flirted with me, but she wasn’t truly interested.”

  “She used you to make him jealous,” Jin said, and her face burned.

  “I think so,” admitted Bai. “It took me a long time to understand that, actually, but it is what I believe now. Anyway, she and he built the Sun Palace shortly afterward.”

  Jin’s eyes widened. “I can’t imagine it not existing. I must seem like a child to you!”

  So quickly that she wasn’t sure she hadn’t imagined it, his eyes flicked down, over her body. “You are young, but you are not child-like,” he said. He cleared his throat. “Come, let us try another exercise.”

  “THIS is the end of our route, but we’ve gotten here at the best time. Today is the Flower Festival. Actually, because of that, we’ll stay here tonight if you wish to sleep on the boat,” the father of the riverboat family announced as they tied their boat to a small wooden dock. They had reached the foothills of the Great Ladies. There was a thriving market town here, where the Kuanbai River widened significantly. Bai and Jin would have to find a larger riverboat to carry them to the sea.

  “Thank you,” Bai told him. “I think we’ll take quarters in town, assuming we can find some.” He disembarked first, then turned to watch Jin. It was hard to believe that she had the power of four Colors; she barely reached his shoulder and looked as delicate as an orchid. He cringed inwardly as he realized that was much the way he had always viewed Noran. You old fool, he thought to himself, have you learned nothing in fifty millennia?

  What good was fighting efficiently, stretching the capabilities of his body, or calming his mind when he still didn’t understand other beings, couldn’t connect with them? Bai didn’t take his eyes off Jin as she disembarked, and so he was able to catch her elbow when she stumbled. He didn’t think he had squeezed too hard, but she flinched from his grip. Bai frowned. The graceful, strong dancer who had captivated him in Bailaohu had been replaced by a stiff and sore young woman doing her best to hide the pain she was in.

  “Shall we find somewhere to rest?” he asked her.

  “We’ve done nothing but rest for days,” she told him. With anyone else, Bai would have said they were complaining, but Jin’s tone was light and cheerful. “I’d much rather walk or even – you said we might do some exercises on shore...?”

  “Yes, certainly,” but he watched her carefully as they walked down the wooden dock. She stumbled again before they reached land – she seemed to be having trouble lifting her feet. He tried to read her essence, but, as always, it made no sense to him. The brilliant colors swirled in his mind; he tried to set them aside, forcing his knowledge u
pon them but to no avail. He learned nothing new. Perhaps she really was just stiff from sitting.

  He dragged his eyes from her to the town before them. The path to the dock widened quickly and vendors lined the sides, creating a far denser grouping of mortals than he had ever seen. Buyers and sellers haggled over cloth and carved goods; those stalls bore a symbol that Bai hadn’t seen before, a circle enclosing several slashing lines of varying length. Old women cheerfully called to passersby, tempting them to try fried fish and spicy pastries, egg chatamaris and honey doughnuts.

  “Mmm, that smells wonderful.” Jin tilted her head back, her eyes half closing in appreciation.

  Impulsively, Bai said, “Why don’t we buy some food?”

  She grinned at him and nodded.

  Soon they were sitting on a small stone bench, eating chatamaris, and watching humanity swirl past.

  “I had forgotten how nice it is to eat food prepared by someone else,” Bai said after a few bites.

  “It nourishes the soul as well as the body,” Jin agreed. “I miss NeeNee’s cooking now that I live in the Sun Palace.”

  “You didn’t always?”

  “No, after my mother died, NeeNee brought me traveling with her.”

  Bai chewed his bit of chatamari slowly, thinking. “In her very blue caravan?”

  “Yes,” Jin laughed. “You’ve seen it?”

  Bai laughed as well. “To my regret.”

  “We went all over the world in that caravan, never in a rush to get anywhere. ‘It’s the journey, not the destination,’ she’d always say.” Jin bit her lip, and her eyes were far away.

  “What is it?” Bai asked, leaning a little closer to her despite himself.

  “Apparently my mother hated being Sun Empress. I suppose she would have liked to live like NeeNee did. I was feeling guilty about what my father did to her...”

  Bai almost rested his hand on her back, but he changed his mind. Instead he said, “What Aka did is beyond apology, but you should not feel guilt for it.”

  “But he’s my father.”

  “Well, he’s my blood, but I do not feel responsible.”