by Fonda Lee
As if sensing Hilo’s thoughts, the teenager sped up his verbal torrent. “Please, Kaul-jen, it was stupid, I know it was stupid, I’ll never do it again, I swear. I’ve only ever taken jade from the river. If it wasn’t for the new carver taking out Gee, I wouldn’t have even thought about doing anything else. I’ve learned my lesson, I swear on my grandmother’s grave, I won’t touch jade again, I promise—”
“What did you just say?” Hilo crouched back down and leaned in, eyes squinted.
The teenager raised his eyes in fearful confusion. “I— What did I—”
“About a new carver,” Hilo said.
Under Hilo’s insistent gaze, the boy quailed. “I-I used to sell whatever I found in the river to Three-Fingered Gee. For raw jade, he paid on the spot in cash. Not a lot, but still pretty good. Gee was the carver on this side of town that most of us—”
“I know who he is,” said Hilo impatiently. “What happened to him?”
Slow, shrewd hope crawled into the boy’s eyes with the realization that he had information the Horn of the No Peak clan did not. “Gee’s gone. The new carver showed up last month, said he would buy as much jade as we could bring him, raw or cut, no questions asked. He offered to join up with Three-Fingered Gee, but Gee didn’t see the point of splitting his business with a newcomer. So the new guy killed him.” The boy wiped snot and blood from his nose onto his sleeve. “They say he strangled Gee with a telephone cord, then cut off the rest of his fingers and sent them to the other carvers in the city as a warning. Now anything we find in the river goes to him, and he only pays half of what Gee used to pay. That’s why I tried to get out of diving—”
“Have you seen this man?” Hilo asked.
The teenager hesitated, trying to decide which answer would save him and which would get him killed. “Y-yes. Just once.”
Hilo exchanged a glance with his Fists. The Abukei boy had solved one vexing mystery for them but raised another. Three-Fingered Gee might be a black market jade carver, but he was a familiar one, a known entity, the stray dog in Hilo’s yard that stole from garbage cans but was not troublesome enough to be worth killing. So long as he confined himself to buying raw jade from the Abukei, the clans left his little smuggling business alone in exchange for occasional tip-offs on bigger fish. Who would flout No Peak authority by killing him?
He turned back to the boy. “Could you describe him—this new carver?”
Again the hesitation. “Yes. I … I think so.”
When the boy had stuttered through a description, Hilo stood up. “Bring the car around,” he said to Kehn. “We’re taking these boys to see the Pillar.”
CHAPTER
3
The Sleepless Pillar
Kaul Lanshinwan could not sleep. He had once been a reliable sleeper, but at least once a week for the past three months he’d found himself unable to drift off. His bedroom, which faced east from the upper floor of the main house on the Kaul property, felt obscenely large and empty, as did his bed. On some nights he stared out the windows until the glow of dawn crawled its tepid way across the view of the city’s skyline. He tried meditating to calm himself before bed. He drank herbal tea and soaked in a salt bath. He supposed he ought to consult a doctor. Perhaps a Green Bone physician could determine what energy imbalance he had, unclog whatever flow was blocked, prescribe the right foods to restore equilibrium.
He resisted. At the age of thirty-five he was supposed to be in the prime of his health and at the peak of his power. It was why his grandfather had finally consented to cede leadership to him, why the rest of No Peak accepted that the mantle had passed from the legendary but old and ailing Kaul Seningtun to his grandson. If word got out that the Pillar of the clan was suffering health problems, it would not reflect well on him. Even something as mundane as insomnia might arouse speculation. Was he mentally unstable? Unable to carry his jade? Being perceived as weak could be fatal.
Lan got up, put on a shirt, and went downstairs. He slipped on his shoes and went into the garden. Being outside made him feel better at once. The family estate sat near the heart of Janloon—one could see the red roof of the Royal Council building and the tiered conical top of the Triumphal Palace from the upstairs windows of the house—but the buildings and landscaped grounds of the Kaul property sprawled across five acres and were enclosed by high brick walls that sheltered it from the surrounding urban bustle. To a Green Bone, it was not quiet—Lan could hear the rustle of a mouse in the grass, the whir of a small insect over the pond, the crunch of his own shoes along the smoothed pebble path—but the ever-present hum of the city was faint. The garden was an oasis of peace. Alone in this small patch of nature, away from the heady swirl of other jade auras, he could relax.
He sat down on a stone bench and closed his eyes. Settling into his own heartbeat and breath, into the steady churn of blood through his veins, he explored unhurriedly. He followed the wingbeats of a bat overhead as it darted this way, then that, snatching insects out of the air. From the breeze skimming across the small pond, he picked out the scent of blooms: orange, magnolia, honeysuckle. He searched along the ground for the mouse he’d sensed earlier and found it—a hot spot of thrumming life, stark and bright in the darkness of the lawn.
When he’d been a student at Kaul Dushuron Academy, he’d spent a night locked in a cavernous, pitch-black underground chamber with three rats. It was one of the tests of Perception administered to initiates at the age of fourteen. He’d groped blindly along the cold stone walls, listening for the inaudible scritch of tiny claws, questing for blood heat like a snake, keenly aware that the exam ended if—and only if—he caught and killed all three of the sharp-toothed rats with his bare hands. Lan’s back tensed at the memory.
A sharp nudge in the periphery of his awareness: Doru was approaching, crossing the garden, the invisible but distinctive jade aura that surrounded him parting the night like thin red light cutting through smoke.
Lan let out his breath and opened his eyes, a grimace of a smile tilting his mouth. If Doru found him catching mice in the garden at night, it would be a far greater symptom of instability than mere insomnia. He was irritated, though, at having his solitude interrupted and did not get up to greet the man.
Yun Dorupon’s voice was soft and raspy. It smelled medicinal and sounded like gravel being sloshed in a pan. “Sitting out here alone? Something the matter, Lan-se?”
Lan frowned at the man’s use of the familial endearment; it was a suffix to be used with children and the elderly, not one’s superior. For a Weather Man to use the term with his Pillar suggested a subtle insubordination. Lan knew that Doru meant no disrespect; old habits were simply hard to break. Doru had known him since he was a boy, had been a fixture in the clan and in the Kaul household for as long as Lan could remember. Now, however, the man was supposed to be his strategist and trusted advisor, not his minder and uncle figure.
“Nothing,” Lan said, finally standing up and turning to face the man. “I like it out here in the garden at night. It’s important to be alone with your thoughts sometimes.” A mild rebuke for the intrusion.
Doru did not seem to notice. “I’m sure you have a lot on your mind.” The Weather Man was a rail-thin figure with an egg-shaped head and tapered chin, who wore wool sweaters and dark blazers that padded him up even in the oppressive heat of summer. His stiff manner gave him the air of an academic, but that was grossly misleading. Decades ago, Doru had been a Mountain Man—one of the indomitable rebels led by Kaul Seningtun and Ayt Yugontin, who resisted and ultimately ended foreign occupation of the island of Kekon. Doru had spent the final year of the Many Nations War in a Shotarian prison, and rumor had it that underneath his dowdy clothes he was missing plugs of flesh from his legs and arms, along with both his testicles.
Doru said, “The KJA is due to decide on the latest round of proposed exports by the end of the month. Have you considered whether you’ll be lending your approval in the final vote?” The debate within the Kekon
Jade Alliance over whether to increase the national sale of jade to foreign powers—namely Espenia and her allies—had been going on all spring.
“You know what I think,” Lan said.
“Have you spoken about it to Kaul-jen?” Doru meant Kaul Seningtun of course. No matter the three younger Green Bones in the family—for Doru there was only one Kaul-jen.
Lan hid his annoyance. “There’s no need to bother him when it’s not necessary.” Perhaps Doru wasn’t the only member of No Peak who expected Lan to consult his grandfather on all major decisions, but that could not go on. It was past time to start sending the message that he was the one who held sole responsibility as Pillar. “The Espenians ask too much. If we give in to them every time they want something of us, it won’t be long before every last pebble of jade on the island finds itself into an Espenian military vault.”
The Weather Man was silent for a moment, then inclined his head. “As you say.”
The thought came to Lan unbidden: Doru’s getting old, too old to change. He was grandfather’s Weather Man and will always think of himself that way. I’ll have to replace him soon. He cut off his unkind train of thought. A good sense of Perception didn’t enable a Green Bone to read minds, but those with a honed ability could pick up on the subtle physical changes that laid bare emotion and intent. The only visible green on Doru were the understated rings on his thumbs, but Lan knew the man wore most of his jade out of sight and was more skilled than he appeared; he might Perceive the sudden turn in Lan’s mind even if there was no sign of it on his face.
He masked any possible slip as impatience. “You didn’t come out here just to badger me about KJA business. What else is it?”
The floodlights at the gate switched on, bathing the front of the house and the long driveway with yellow light. Doru said, “Hilo just arrived. He’s asking to see you right away.”
Lan crossed the garden and walked quickly toward the shape of Hilo’s unmistakable, oversized white sedan. One of his brother’s lieutenants, Maik Kehn, was leaning against the driver side door of the Duchesse Priza, checking his watch. Maik Tar stood off to the side with Hilo. At their feet were two lumps. As Lan drew near, he saw the lumps were a pair of teenage boys, slumped forward over their knees, foreheads to the asphalt.
“Glad I caught you before you went to sleep,” Hilo teased. The younger Kaul often prowled the streets until dawn; he claimed it was all part of being a good Horn, the threat of his nocturnal presence tempering the agents of vice that plied their trade in clan territory when darkness fell. No one could say Kaul Hilo was not dedicated to his job, particularly when it involved food and drink, pretty girls and loud music, bars and gambling dens, the occasional incident of explosive violence.
Lan ignored the jibe. He looked down at the two boys. They had been badly beaten before being driven here in the car and deposited on the pavement. “What is this about?”
“That old boozehound Shon Ju nearly lost his measly bit of jade to these clowns,” Hilo said. “But it turns out this one”—he nudged the heavier-set boy with his foot—“has some interesting news I thought you ought to hear in person. Go on, kid, tell the Pillar what you know.”
The teenager lifted his face. Both of his eyes were black, and his lip was split. His blood-plugged nose made his voice nasal as he told Lan about the sudden takeover of Three-Fingered Gee’s raw jade business. “I don’t know the new guy’s name. We just call him the Carver.”
“He’s Abukei?” Lan asked.
“No,” slurred the boy through puffy lips. “A foreign stone-eye. He wears an Ygutan-style coat and one of those square hats.” He glanced over nervously as his companion stirred and moaned.
“Tell him what the Carver looks like,” Hilo demanded.
“I only saw him for a few minutes this one time,” the boy hedged, frightened anew by Hilo’s sharp tone. “He’s short, a little heavy. He has a mustache, and spots on his face. He dresses like an Ygutanian and carries a gun, but he speaks Kekonese with no accent.”
“What territory does he work?”
The Abukei teen was sweating under the interrogation. He lifted his bruised eyes to Lan, begging. “I-I’m not sure. Most of the Forge. Parts of Paw-Paw and the Docks. Maybe up into Coinwash and Fishtown.” He dropped his forehead to the ground and his voice became muffled. “Kaul-jen. Pillar. I’m nothing to you, nothing at all, just a stupid kid who made a stupid mistake. I’ve told you everything I know.”
The other boy was conscious now, though he remained silent except for his labored breathing. Lan said, “Look at me.” The teenager raised his head. The whites of his eyes were red from burst capillaries. His expression was sunken and haunted—not the face of a boy at all, not anymore, but the face of someone who’d tasted jade the wrong way and was ruined because of it. He must be in terrible pain, but he still radiated an inner rage that burned like a gaslight.
Lan felt a small knot of pity for him. The boy was a victim of confusing times. The laws of nature used to be clear. The Abukei were immune to jade. Most foreigners were too sensitive to it; even if a Shotarian or an Espenian learned to control the physical and mental powers, he would almost certainly fall victim to the Itches. Only the Kekonese, an isolated race descended over centuries from the hybridized bloodline of the Abukei and the ancient Tuni settlers to the island, possessed a natural ability to harness jade, and even then, only after years of extensive preparation.
Unfortunately, these days, exaggerated stories of supposedly self-taught foreigners wearing jade gave impoverished Kekonese kids the wrong idea. It made them think that all they needed were some street-fighting lessons and maybe the right chemical aids. Lan said, “Jade is death for people like you. You steal it, you smuggle it, you wear it—it all ends the same way: with you feeding the worms.” He fixed the boy with a deadly stern gaze. “Get off my property, both of you, and don’t let my brother see you again.”
The Abukei boy clambered to his feet; even the other one got up faster than Lan would have thought him capable of. Together they limped hurriedly toward escape without looking back.
Lan said to Maik Kehn, “Tell the guard to open the gate.” Kehn glanced at Hilo for his approval before doing as Lan ordered. The tiny gesture annoyed Lan. The two Maiks were slavishly loyal to Hilo. They eyed the two fleeing boys carefully, remembering their faces.
Hilo’s smile was gone. Without it, he looked his real age, instead of barely older than the teenagers he’d brutalized. “I would have let the Abukei boy live,” he said, “but the other one—you made the wrong call. He’ll be back; he has that look. I’ll only have to kill him later.”
Hilo might be right. There were two types of jade thieves. Most wanted what they believed jade could give them—status, profit, power over others—but for some, the desire for jade itself was a rot in the brain, an obsession that would only grow. Hilo might be comfortable judging and executing for a first offense, but Lan was not ready to say there was no hope for the boy to find some other outlet for his ill-conceived ambition. “You taught them their lesson,” he said. “You have to give people a chance to learn. They’re just kids after all—stupid kids.”
“I don’t remember stupidity being an excuse around here when I was a kid.”
Lan regarded his brother. Hilo’s hands were stuffed into his pockets, his elbows jutted out and his shoulders curled slightly forward with casual insolence. You’re still a kid, Lan thought ungenerously. The Horn was second in the clan and of equal rank to the Weather Man; he was supposed to be a seasoned warrior. Hilo was the youngest Horn anyone could remember, but despite this, no one seemed to question his position. Either because he was a Kaul and carried his jade well, or perhaps because, when the old Horn had retired a year and a half ago, grandfather had approved Hilo’s appointment with no more than a shrug. “What else would he be any good for?” Kaul Sen had said.
Lan changed the subject. “You think the new carver is Tem Ben.” A statement, not a question.
�
�Who else could it be?” said Hilo.
The Tems were part of the powerful and sprawling Mountain clan. They were a proud family of Green Bones, but Tem Ben was a stone-eye. It happened sometimes—recessive genetics combined to produce a Kekonese child as unresponsive to jade as any Abukei native. Being an embarrassment to the bloodline as well as a brutal lout, Tem Ben had been shipped off by the family years ago to study and work in desolate northern Ygutan. His sudden return to Kekon and his savage entry into the unpolished jade-dealing business made a certain degree of sense. Only a jade-immune stone-eye could buy, hoard, cut, and sell street jade. As for what his activities implied—that was more disturbing.
“He wouldn’t be back here without family say-so,” Hilo concluded. “And the Tems wouldn’t do anything without approval from Ayt.” Hilo made a noise in his throat, then spat into the bushes. Clearly, he referred to Ayt Mada, adopted daughter of the great Ayt Yugontin, and now the Pillar of the Mountain clan. “I’ll wager my jade that grasping bitch not only knows about this but had a hand in arranging it.”
Doru had been hovering in the background the entire time and now glided forward like a wraith to join the conversation. “The Pillar of the Mountain clan concerning herself with carvers of black market jade scrap?” He did not hide his skepticism. “That’s quite a leap to make based on the word of a frightened Abukei boy.”
Hilo turned a thinly veiled look of disdain on the older man. “He might be a drunken fool, but Shon Ju keeps his ear to the ground. He says our Lantern Men in the Armpit are getting their businesses squeezed. The owner of the Twice Lucky told me the same story and said it’s Mountain Fingers doing the squeezing. If the Mountain’s trying to muscle us out of the Armpit, is it so hard to believe they’d want someone they control working inside our districts, feeding them information? They’re gambling we’ll leave the new carver alone and not risk antagonizing the Tems over a little smuggling.”