by Fonda Lee
Anden had seen the harbor spectacle enough times during childhood that he didn’t feel the need to see it again, but he took up Ton’s offer to go down to the waterfront with several classmates to take in the general revelry. In order to instill a spirit of austerity and discipline, the Academy served modest, bland meals, prohibited alcohol, and gave the students few days off, so on special holidays the year-sevens and year-eights, who were allowed to leave campus unsupervised, tended to overindulge, eating and drinking themselves sick before, in time-honored tradition, being browbeaten and punished by unsympathetic masters the next day. Anden, Ton, and three others, Lott, Heike, and Dudo, visited four bars in the Docks, ate half a dozen varieties of street food from the boardwalk vendors, and by midafternoon were debating whether to stay put and watch the boat sinking or fight their way upstream against the current of arriving spectators.
Anden’s bladder was full to bursting with no toilet facilities in sight. It was hot and humid, as usual, and over the last half hour he’d been consuming a great deal of soda while blaming his weak Espenian blood for the fact that it didn’t take much hoji—Kekonese date liquor—to make him light-headed. “Let’s go back up there. I need to piss,” he said, before realizing that he was speaking to no one in particular. Dudo was vomiting into a public garbage bin. Ton was standing next to him, offering moral support. Heike and Lott were having a heated argument about relayball.
Anden waited and watched them for a minute. Heike was taller, had nicer arms, and was arguably the better-looking of the two, but there was something about Lott Jin that always drew Anden’s attention. A sulky but sensual curve to his bow-shaped mouth, slightly wavy hair that hung over unsmiling eyes hooded with long lashes. A sort of animal idleness in the movements of his well-proportioned body that made it seem as if he held everything in faint disdain.
Since the relayball argument was not reaching a conclusion and none of the others appeared ready to move anytime soon, Anden decided he had better see to his own needs. Rather than fight the crowds jostling for the best harbor view, he went farther down the boardwalk until it ended in the ferry dock that ran boats to the outlying islands of Euman and Little Button. One would think there ought to be a restroom at the dock, but such was not the case. Anden crossed the street and jogged three more blocks before spotting a fried bread joint on the corner. Mumbling apologies as he pushed past the queue of people at the counter, he rushed into the restroom and shut the door, sighing with relief as he mumbled a quick prayer to Tewan, god of commerce, to bless the owners of the Hot Hut fried bread eatery.
To exit the small establishment, he again jostled through a crowd of teenagers loitering by the door. A young man near Anden’s own age jostled him back roughly and said, “You’re not going to buy something?”
“Excuse me?”
The teen jerked his head toward the Hot Hut, his eyes not moving from Anden. “You take a piss in there and don’t buy anything? You don’t like fried bread? It’s the best in town. You should be more respectful, keke.”
“He’s not really a keke,” said another of the teens lazily, swallowing a bite of his own piping hot stick of fried bread and sizing Anden up with an outthrust jaw. “He’s a mongrel, and he’s in the wrong part of town.”
Anden glanced at the window of the Hot Hut and understood his mistake at once. In his haste, he’d crossed from the Docks into the Summer Park district. There was a paper lantern hanging over the cashier’s counter, but it was pale green, not white. He was in Mountain territory, and he was wearing a shirt in Kaul Du Academy colors.
He had almost no money left on him, and the last thing his overstretched stomach wanted was fried bread. “You’re right,” Anden said. “I’ll go in and buy some bread.” He took a step back toward the queue of customers.
The first teen gave Anden’s shoulder a shove and squared his body in challenge. “Not in that ugly shirt, you’re not.” A smirk crept over his acne-scarred face. “Give it over. We’ll accept it as your tribute to Wie Lon School and hang it over the urinals.”
“I’m not giving you my shirt,” Anden said, but he was uneasy now. Although he was eighteen, he was still a student with no jade of his own, not yet a man by the custom of his kind. Green Bones, governed by the honor code of aisho, were forbidden from killing any family members of their enemies who did not wear jade. Unfortunately, the code did not constrain the jadeless members of rival clans and schools. They were free to do what they wanted to him. Anden had been taught from a young age to never leave No Peak territory alone. Silently, he cursed his drunken classmates, his fifth shot of hoji, and his own carelessness.
There were three of them: the acne-pocked leader, his skinny friend, and the third thus far silent teen who was younger, perhaps fifteen or sixteen, but already bigger and heavier than the others. They closed in on Anden together, falling into natural positions that made Anden certain they’d skirmished together before. The leader in the center hung slightly back; the skinny friend and the larger boy circled to either side. “Touch your head to the ground and give us your shirt, mongrel,” said the leader. “And then say that Kaul Du Academy is a school of thin-blooded shit eaters and bastards.”
The other boys giggled. Returning with a bloodied Academy shirt and a good story of a beating well-delivered would earn the boys considerable status among their peers at Wie Lon. Anden did not back away, but others did—the entire line of waiting customers shifted to the right like a snake, wrapping around the Hot Hut and giving the four of them a great deal more space on the sidewalk. The woman taking orders at the front of the counter rose up on her tiptoes and shouted at them, “Shoo! Shoo! Not in front of the glass doors!” She waved her arms to gesture them away.
Anden used the momentary distraction to attack first. He feinted right, then stepped left and clocked the skinny one across the face in a three-beat—left fist, folded left elbow, back across the jaw with the right heel of the palm—dropping him quickly.
It was better this way. He couldn’t run without shaming his school, shaming Hilo, and he couldn’t win—not without jade against three opponents, two of them larger than him. They wouldn’t do more than beat him, though—not in public, not on Boat Day, not if he fought well enough to be respected.
Anden seized his falling opponent by the shoulders and pivoted, spinning him around and sending him sprawling into the path of the charging leader. The biggest boy came up fast from behind, grabbing Anden in a powerful bear hug, pinning his arms to his sides while the acne-faced teen leapt over his fallen friend and began burying punches in Anden’s sides and stomach. Anden grunted at the bursts of pain; he sank his weight down sharply, kicking back at the large boy’s shin and stomping his heel down on the top of his canvas shoe. The teen let out a curse and lifted his foot out of the way just as Anden drew up his own legs and thrust both his feet hard into the leader’s chest.
His opponent stumbled backward toward the door of the Hot Hut, tripping over his fallen classmate’s legs, but was caught and shoved back by the people he crashed into. The large boy toppled off balance and had to let go of Anden to break his fall. Anden landed on top of him and threw an elbow blindly; he heard it connect with a solid smack. He rolled away fast, but before he could scramble back onto his feet, the boy’s meaty arms encircled his waist and dragged him to the ground like an anchor, while the recovered leader fell upon Anden, raining blows.
He felt only two of the punches connect with his cheek and ear when the attack stopped and the weight of his assailants was abruptly lifted off him. “What do you think you’re doing?” demanded a man’s voice. Anden looked up to see a dark-complexioned Mountain Green Bone hauling all three Wie Lon boys to their feet. They winced, cowed, no match for his Strength as he dragged them together like misbehaving puppies. “You little shits,” he said. “It’s Boat Day. Look at that park over there full of people. There are tourists here, and Wie Lon School students are rolling on the ground scuffling like dogs. What the fuck.”
&nbs
p; “We were teaching him a lesson, Gam-jen,” whined the leader. “He’s a Kaul Du brat, and mixed blood to boot. Besides, he hit us first.”
A different voice, slow but deep, like a bear roused to displeasure, said, “Is that how future Fingers address Fists?” Anden looked up at the approach of a man he had never seen but recognized at once from reputation alone.
The teenagers became contrite. “No, Gont-jen,” they murmured, eyes downcast. The leader said, a little sulkily, “Forgive us if we’ve overstepped.”
Gont Aschentu, Horn of the Mountain, dispersed the crowd with his sheer size and air of dangerous authority. He turned his square chin to look down at Anden, then turned it fractionally toward the Wie Lon teenagers. “Leave now.”
The three young men hastily touched clasped hands to foreheads as they backed away and fled, glancing over their shoulders as they went. Anden got to his feet, trying to adjust his bent glasses frames to sit straight. Faced with the Horn of the Mountain, he almost wished his three attackers would come back. Anden clasped his hands and raised them in a wary, deeply respectful salute. “Gont-jen.”
“You’re Anden Emery,” said Gont, his use of the foreign naming convention making Anden wince inwardly. “The son of Aun Uremayada. Adopted by the Kauls.”
Anden hesitated. “Yes, Gont-jen.”
Gont Asch had a distinctive appearance. He was bald, with thick limbs and a thick neck, and thick jade-encrusted armguards. He possessed the appearance of a powerful thug, the kind of Horn who would bark orders and profanities, who would maim first and ask questions later. In truth, he was soft-spoken, and it was said that his brutish appearance concealed a keen and patient cunning. “I’m told you’re one of the best students at the Academy,” he rumbled, still looking at Anden. He turned to Gam. “A shame you stopped the fight. I would’ve liked to see the outcome.”
“I didn’t know he was a Kaul,” said Gam.
“Not by blood, but they treat him like one,” said Gont, his voice taking on a shrewd quality. He studied Anden like an undertaker taking precise measure for a coffin fit. “In fact, Kaul Hilo thinks of you as a younger brother, doesn’t he?”
Anden’s heart began hammering again. He knew Gont and Gam would be able to Perceive his fear, and he breathed slowly and silently, trying to reassert calm. He’d done no wrong, committed no crimes … it would be an unthinkable breach of aisho for these men to hurt him, no matter how much they wished harm on his cousins. “I’m sorry to have caused a scene, jen,” he said, backing away. “I got separated from my friends at the harbor and wandered a little too far. I’ll be more—”
The Horn’s heavy hand landed on Anden’s shoulder before he could take another backward step. “Let’s have a talk, Anden. Good luck has surely brought our paths together.” Gont said to his Fist, “Bring my car around.”
Gam departed at once. Anden stood frozen, his mind racing. He could try to run, but it was ridiculous to think he could move faster than a Green Bone like Gont Asch. “There’s no need to be afraid,” said the Horn with an undercurrent of amusement in his low voice. “I know you’re not a man yet.”
Heat rose into Anden’s face and blotted out his mounting alarm. He turned his head slowly to stare at the arm Gont had placed on his shoulder. Each piece of jade on the man’s armguard had been carefully arranged to form the abstracted but recognizable design of a river. The river was sacred; it brought down water for life, and jade for power. It was mild and harmonious, but glutted with monsoon rain it was unstoppable and deadly. Anden could feel Gont’s many gemstones tugging at his blood like a gravitational force. He raised his eyes to the man’s face. “I’m not afraid. My cousins, however, might not trust your intentions.”
Gont laughed, an oddly soft chuckle, as a gleaming ZT Valor pulled up to the curb. “Get in,” said the Horn, opening the back door. Anden suddenly felt weak in the knees, but Gont’s arm was steering him unerringly into the vehicle. “Don’t worry about the Kaul brothers. We’ll be sure to let them know you’re in our company.”
With a great deal of misgiving, Anden got into the back seat of the boxy black sedan. Gont got in after him and shut the door. They began moving.
The driver of the ZT Valor—a ferrety man with a thatch of white hair and flakes of dandruff on his dark silk shirt—pulled the car through a number of side roads out of Summer Park. The car turned onto Patriot Street and began speeding west. Despite his situation, Anden stared out the window with great curiosity. He’d been raised to think of certain parts of Janloon as enemy territory and was a little disappointed to see that they did not look any different from the rest of the city: bustling streets and shops, construction cranes, shiny new buildings and muddy old shacks, dogs sleeping in the shade, foreign cars gliding past people balancing packages on bicycles. The ordinary people, the ones who were not Green Bones, moved freely around Janloon, so why would he have expected it to look like a different country?
He edged surreptitiously down the seat, trying to put more space between himself and Gont Asch’s bare shoulders, which were massive and densely crisscrossed with raised white scars. The lore of how Gont had received his scars was well known, and the man clearly found it in his interest to wear sleeveless shirts that reminded people of it frequently. In the chaos of the early postwar days, a number of criminal gangs arose in Janloon, causing trouble in the streets and challenging the surviving, war-weary Green Bones. A few of these gangs acquired jade, which was not as strictly controlled back then as it was currently, and thus grew reasonably powerful even as the Itches swept through their ranks like an epidemic. A young Gont Asch found himself on the wrong side of such a gang and was one night ambushed and dragged before its leader.
Gont demanded a clean-bladed duel but was refused. He raised his bare knuckles and insisted on a “death of consequence”—a Green Bone’s right to go down fighting instead of submitting to execution. Gont had been disarmed and the gang members were carrying knives, machetes, and hatchets. The gang leader smiled at the young man’s bravado, but stopped smiling once the fighting began. Gont’s talent in Steeling was unparalleled. He resisted a storm of cuts and took an opponent’s weapon, then went on to kill all eight of the gang leader’s men. It was said that the gang leader fell to his knees, clasped his hands to his head in salute, and swore an oath of allegiance to Gont Asch and the Mountain clan. Gont remained, to anyone’s knowledge, the only living man to have walked away from a death of consequence.
“Turn that off,” the Horn said. From the front passenger seat, Gam reached over and switched off the opera song playing on the radio, causing silence to suddenly fill the interior of the car and settle uncomfortably into the summer heat that the open front windows did little to dispel. Gont shifted his bull-like frame and looked at Anden with steady interest. At last he said, “I met your grandfather once, and your mother. It was about twenty years ago. The Auns were exceptional warriors, so gifted I think the gods didn’t approve of such power in mortals and later sent bad luck to stalk them. I was a boy at the time, younger than you, though already a Finger—we didn’t have the luxury of much schooling back in those days.”
Anden blinked and said nothing, taken aback by the turn of conversation. It was hard not to be drawn in by the Horn’s even and articulate baritone voice, which was quite amicable and relaxed, like that of a very good radio drama narrator. A counterpoint to the unnerving scale of the man’s physical presence.
Gont went on. “The country was disorderly in those days. Growing and rebuilding like mad, but a stinking mess. The Green Bones kept the peace, made sure criminals and the foreigners didn’t take over, but in the middle of all that, Ayt Yu and Kaul Sen had a falling out and divided the great One Mountain Society. I remember the Auns were among the most vocal in wanting Ayt and Kaul to reconcile their differences and keep Green Bones united under one clan.
“In the end, your grandfather sided with the Kauls, but the Aun family was divided in its loyalty. Your uncle went to the Academy and beca
me the closest friend of Kaul Lan, but your mother went to Wie Lon Temple School. If she’d lived and had her say, you would be swearing oaths to the Mountain this year.”
Anden kept his eyes forward; his jaw was firmly clenched. What was Gont playing at? “My mother didn’t have a say,” he replied stiffly. “Kaul Sen took me in after she died. I owe him for my education, for the jade I’ll wear when I graduate.”
Gont shrugged, a motion that rippled his shoulders. “The Torch of Kekon is an old man now. You ought to consider whether your debt to him constrains you to being an underling of Kaul Hilo.” Up until now, Gont’s even voice had given away very little, but now it slipped, leaving no doubt of his disdain for the other Horn.
The car had turned onto a road that was winding its way up into the hills. Lush greenery rolled past on both sides, occasionally broken by roadside stands with weathered paint, and private lanes barred by rusty metal gates. Anden tried to keep his growing anxiety out of his voice. “Where are you taking me?”
Gont settled back, depressing the seat. “To the top of the Mountain.”
CHAPTER
9
Skirting Aisho
Lan was in a meeting with Doru and two prominent Lantern Men when Doru’s secretary interrupted them, knocking apologetically and squeaking, “I’m so sorry, but, Kaul-jen? There’s a man on the phone asking for you. He says it’s urgent.”
The Pillar frowned; perhaps it was someone from the Espenian ambassador’s office again, expecting to sweet-talk or bribe him into shifting his stance on the jade export quotas. He excused himself and stepped out of the door that Doru’s secretary held open for him. She smiled shyly at him. Lan did not know her name. The Weather Man seemed to go through secretaries quickly. This one was especially girlish, wearing an almost transparent pink blouse through which Lan could see her black bra. She hurried ahead of him to her desk and transferred the waiting call to his office.