Jade City

by Fonda Lee

  She knew what Hilo’s opinion on that would be. Stubbornly, she persisted for another half an hour before closing the books and leaving the library, still not sure if she’d wasted her time or spent it well. On the way home, she bought a typewriter to update her resume. She’d been back in her apartment not more than twenty minutes when there was a knock on her door.

  She opened it to find Lan standing in the hallway. “May I come in?” he asked pleasantly.

  She was so nonplussed that she didn’t say anything, merely held the door open for him to enter. He stepped into her apartment, leaving his two bodyguards waiting outside, and closed the door behind him. For a moment, he glanced curiously around the main room. Shae felt a pang of deep embarrassment. How meager this place must appear to him, how cheap and unworthy a residence for a member of the Kaul family. She crossed her arms and sat down on her stiff new sofa, feeling defensive even though he hadn’t yet said a word. If Hilo were here instead of Lan, he would be walking around, touching things. “It’s nice,” Hilo would say, shrugging and smiling like someone amused by a child who has thrown a fit and was now insisting on sleeping outside. “You like this place, Shae? So long as you like it, I guess.”

  Lan said, “Do you have anything to drink? It’s still hot outside.” He started toward the small kitchen, but Shae jumped up and said, “I’m sorry, let me get it. I should’ve offered, but you … surprised me.” She hurried past him into the kitchen, which really only fit one person comfortably anyway, and took a pitcher of chilled spiced tea from the fridge. She poured him a full glass, hastily arranged some sesame crackers and roasted nuts onto a plate, and brought them back out to the front room.

  Lan took the glass from her with a smile that seemed almost apologetic, as if he had not meant to put her to any trouble, then motioned her back to the sofa and sat down next to her, shifting on the overly firm new cushions.

  “Is … everything all right?” Shae asked. She could not understand why Lan would come to her instead of summoning her to the Kaul house.

  Lan said sternly, “Do I need an excuse to come see my little sister?” When she froze at the apparent rebuke, he winked at her to show he was teasing, and the gesture was both so much like Lan at his most relaxed, and also so at odds with the earnest air of command he possessed as Pillar that Shae laughed.

  Lan drained half his glass, then turned to her with a more serious expression. “I am here for a reason, Shae.” He chose his words before speaking. “I’ve been having doubts about whether Doru is telling me everything I need to know. You can’t find a more seasoned Weather Man, and you know how close he is to Grandda. But there are things he’s said, small things, that make me think that I can’t count on him completely.”

  Shae made a face; she despised Doru. “You should replace him.”

  He turned his characteristically straight gaze on her. “I respect your decision not to be a part of the clan business. I don’t like the idea of you walking around the city without jade, but I’m not going to stop you either. Whatever it is you decide to do, I’ll support you. I’ve told you that before, and it hasn’t changed.”

  “But,” Shae added. Her shoulders sagged. It was only a matter of time …

  “I need someone I trust, someone who knows the business, to go up to the mines and take a look around. Go through their books, check to see that everything’s in order, and make sure it matches official KJA records. As a favor to me.”

  Shae didn’t answer right away. Now she understood why he’d come to her apartment on the pretense of a visit instead of having this conversation in the house where Doru might notice and wonder. “Is that all?” she asked.

  He furrowed his brow, as if suspecting sarcasm. “It’s weeks of work.”

  “I know, but this is all you’re asking for, nothing else after that?”

  “No,” he said. “This is all. I won’t pull you into the clan business by stealthy degrees, Shae, if that’s what you’re suspecting of me.” There was a slight harshness in his voice that made Shae drop her eyes in guilt. By suspecting Lan’s intentions, she’d affronted his pride after he’d already stooped to coming here and asking his younger sister for help.

  Years ago, her involvement with the Espenians had begun with a few small, simple requests, that had led to slightly larger requests, that had led to a file folder with her name on it and nearly ruined her relationship with her grandfather. Shae had not forgotten that a single step in one direction might portend an irrevocable change in one’s path.

  But this was her brother asking, not Jerald or any of his smiling superiors. As Pillar, Lan could demand her allegiance; he could ask her to kneel and reaffirm her oaths, and could cut her out of the family if she refused. He had not done that. She did not think he would consider it even if she said no to his request. She’d always taken Lan for granted, and she was reminded of that now.

  A sudden trip south into the interior of the island would delay her admittedly vague job-hunting plans, but it wasn’t as if she was under any deadline. “I’ll go, Lan,” she said. “As a favor to you.”

  CHAPTER

  14

  Gold and Jade

  As the Pillar, Lan had a handful of personal staff headed by his longtime Academy friend, Woon Papidonwa, who were part of neither the military nor business halves of No Peak, and did not answer to either the Horn or the Weather Man. They managed Lan’s schedule in addition to administrative and household tasks such as the maintenance and security of the Kaul estate and other clan properties, including the beach house in Marenia. Although they held little formal authority in the clan, these individuals were not to be disregarded; the lead Pillarman was often a confidant of the Pillar and oftentimes went on to hold more influential positions.

  His grandfather’s stubborn lack of cooperation notwithstanding, Lan was more intent than ever to transition Yun Doru into retirement and appoint his own Weather Man within the year. Given recent events and the tension between the clans, however, it would be unwise to lose the current Weather Man until Lan had a new one that he had complete confidence in, ready to take over. Woon was secretly one of his leading candidates to replace Doru, but Lan had doubts as to whether his ever-stalwart aide was clever enough to step into such an important role in the clan. He resolved to include Woon in more substantive tasks over the next few months to see how he handled them. In the meantime, perhaps Kaul Sen would soften his stance.

  So he took Woon along with him to Wisdom Hall to meet with Chancellor Son. A wide and imposing structure of dark brick and red tile, Wisdom Hall housed the legislative chambers of the Royal Council of Kekon, the official governing body of the nation. It sat a stone’s throw away from the Triumphal Palace, where Prince Ioan III and his family lived in state-funded ceremonial leisure. Both buildings were in the Monument District, which, despite being less than fifteen minutes away from the Kaul estate, was the most clan-neutral territory in Janloon aside from the Temple District. The driver pulled Lan’s silver Roewolfe roadster right up to the long reflecting pool in front of the imposing tiers of marble steps. Lan and his Pillarman got out and crossed the stone pathway that bisected the still, glass-like water, both of them stopping, as was tradition when one reached the end of the walk, to salute the Warrior’s Memorial.

  The Warrior’s Memorial was a pair of large bronze statues. The smaller one was of a boy holding up a lantern, presumably illuminating the face of the other statue, a nameless Green Bone warrior who knelt in front of the child. It looked as if the man had come across the child alone and was kneeling down to bring him to safety. Or it might have been that the child had come across the warrior, bereft in the darkness, and was holding out the lantern to light his way. Either interpretation would be suitably nationalistic. The inscription on the base of the monument read:

  OUT OF DARKNESS

  IN MEMORY OF THE MOUNTAIN MEN WHO FOUGHT

  FOR KEKON’S FREEDOM

  AND THE BRAVE CITIZENS WHO AIDED THEM

  Lan tried t
o picture his irascible old grandfather as the young warrior captured in bronze, one of the patriotic freedom fighters who opposed fifty years of Shotarian rule and eventually forced a powerful empire, weakened by the Many Nations War but still possessing far superior numbers and weaponry, to relinquish Kekon to its people. It struck Lan as remarkable that it had been only a generation ago that Green Bones were persecuted as bandits and criminals, secretly abetted by a populace that celebrated their superhuman exploits. Now here he was, walking into Wisdom Hall to meet with the highest-ranking politician in the country. In some ways, Lan thought, it must have been simpler—dangerous but more heroic—to be a Green Bone back in his grandfather’s days, when the enemy had been a cruel foreign power.

  The statue of the kneeling fighter was depicted with a moon blade carried at his waist, and the armbands he wore had settings for many small gems. Walking past the memorial, Lan noticed that the settings were empty; vandals had stolen the memorialized warrior’s jade, even though they were nothing more than inert decorative green rocks.

  The foyer of Wisdom Hall was a splendidly wide space with pale marble tiling and thick green columns stretching up to the elaborately painted ceiling. Lan and Woon were met by a young aide, who saluted them respectfully and escorted them to the chancellor’s office. “Son is bound to ask for something,” Lan said to Woon in a quiet aside as they walked. “Think on what that might be and what we ought to grant him.”

  They were shown through a set of double wooden doors. As they entered, the chancellor came around his massive desk to salute and greet them. Son Tomarho was a powerfully built man of about fifty with a dimpled chin and bushy eyebrows. He must have been a physically formidable man in his youth, but years of good living in middle age had melted the cords of muscle into rolls of fat. The chancellor beamed a broad politician’s smile at Lan. “Kaul-jen, come in, come in. How are the gods favoring you?”

  “Well enough, Chancellor,” Lan replied, exchanging a few minutes of pleasantry before settling himself into the seat in front of Son’s desk. Woon positioned the other chair properly behind and to the left of Lan’s before seating himself.

  The chancellor sank into his high-backed leather chair, which gave a protesting sigh. Lacing his hands over the curve of his generous paunch, he regarded Lan with nodding attentiveness. “What troubles the Pillar of the clan that I can help with?”

  Lan gathered his thoughts. “Chancellor Son, I’m afraid I’m paying you this visit out of a sense of great concern.”

  Unlike his siblings, Lan remembered his father. In the last year of the Many Nations War, some months before Kaul Dushuron fell in one of the final battles against the beleaguered Shotarian army, Lan asked his father, “Who will be in charge of Kekon when the Shotties are gone? Will it be you?”

  “No,” said Kaul Du indulgently. “It won’t be me.”

  “Will it be Grandda? Or Ayt-jen?”

  “It won’t be any of us. We’re Green Bones.” His father was copying a list of names, a train schedule, and a map onto three separate sets of paper and sealing them in unmarked envelopes. “Gold and jade, never together.”

  “Why do people say that?” Lan had often heard the phrase in casual conversation. “Gold and jade” was a Kekonese idiom that referred to greed and excess. An inappropriate level of overreach. A person hoping for too much good fortune might be warned, “Don’t ask for gold and jade.” A child who demanded a custard tart after already having had a sweet bun was, Lan knew from personal experience, likely to be scolded, “You want gold and jade together!”

  Lan’s father glanced up at him with a squint. For a moment, Lan was afraid that his persistent questions had annoyed his father and he would be sent out of the room so the man could finish his task in peace. Kaul Du was not a regular presence in the house; he and Lan’s grandfather were gone for long periods of time on secretive missions, and when they were back, Lan’s grandmother and mother treated the occasion like a personal visit from the gods—a great honor, an unnatural disruption, something to be celebrated but best gotten through quickly. Kaul Du kissed his children but did not know how to relate to them. He spoke to Lan as he would an adult. In the other room, Lan’s infant brother Hilo wailed as their mother tried to comfort him.

  “A long time ago, many hundreds of years before the Shotarians came, there were three kingdoms on Kekon.” Kaul Du spoke while directing half of his attention back to his lists and maps. “The kingdom of Jan along the northern coast where we are now, Hunto in the central basin, and Tiedo on the southern peninsula. Hunto was the strongest, but the Hunto king was thin-blooded and obsessed with jade. One night, he went horribly insane from the Itches and swept through the palace murdering his family, including his own children.”

  Lan’s eyes shifted to the ample jade his father wore around his neck and wrists. Noticing this, Kaul Du grinned and snatched Lan by the arm, pulling him close with rough affection. “Does that worry you, son?” Kaul Du yanked his talon knife from the sheath on his belt and held it up between them. Lan could see how fine the edge was, how the hilt was weathered to his father’s hand. “Are you worried about your da? What might happen to him?” Kaul Du asked.

  “No,” Lan said, his voice calm. At the age of eight, he knew that all the men of his family were Green Bones, and this meant they wore jade and swore oaths to a secret clan that fought against the injustice of the foreigners.

  “Good,” said his father, his arm still tight around Lan’s shoulders. “You needn’t be. Some people are meant to carry jade, and some aren’t. You are, and so is your little brother, same as your da and grandda. Here, hold the talon knife—don’t you have one of your own yet? Gods, you should, I ought to have seen to that already. Go on, it’s only a few stones; it won’t hurt you.”

  Lan held the weapon and spun it in his grip the way he’d practiced with a toy knife. The jade pieces in the hilt were smooth to the touch and made his chest buzz in a warm and pleasant way, as if he’d taken a great gasp of air after holding his breath for a long time. His father looked on approvingly. Lan said, “So what happened, after the king killed his family?”

  Kaul Du took his talon knife and returned it to its sheath. “With the Hunto royal family all dead, the kingdoms of Jan and Tiedo invaded and carved it up between them, then went to war with each other. Eventually, Kekon was united. From then on it was decreed for the safety of the country that those who govern would not wear jade, and those who wear jade would not govern.”

  In the other room, Hilo’s colicky screams, which had blissfully abated, started up again with renewed vigor. “Curse that howler demon of a baby,” Lan’s father growled, but a smug smile crept over his exasperation. The oft-quoted Kekonese old wives’ tale was that the more unmanageable the infant, the better fighter he was destined to become. In the distance, a new sound pierced the night: air-raid sirens over Janloon, shrieking atop Hilo’s bawling.

  Lan’s father ignored the noise and continued in a calm undertone. “A man who wears the crown of a king can’t wear the jade of a warrior. Gold and jade, never together. We Green Bones live by aisho. We defend the country from its enemies and the weak from the strong.” Kaul Du held his son out at arm’s length. His left eye narrowed and his expression grew thoughtful. “After this war is over, after the Shotties are defeated, the clan will have to rebuild the country and protect the people from disorder. Ah, I don’t think I’ll be alive to see it, Lan-se, but you’ll have to be a different kind of Green Bone than me.”

  “I want you to pass a law,” Lan said to Chancellor Son. “One that prevents any one clan from gaining majority shareholder status of the Kekon Jade Alliance.”

  The chancellor pursed his thick lips. “Interesting,” he said slowly, “considering that ownership structure of the KJA has remained largely unchanged for the past fifteen years, with the two largest clans in the country each holding roughly equal ownership.”

  “Thirty-nine percent held by the Mountain, thirty-five percent by No Peak,
with the rest divided among the minor clans,” Lan clarified. “And if I might correct you, Chancellor, the most recent shift occurred last year, when the Mountain increased their ownership by two and half percent after annexing the Three Run clan. Which they accomplished by killing all the jaded members of the Run family.” Chancellor Son grimaced, and Lan suppressed a wry quirk of the mouth. It never hurt to remind politicians that Green Bones operated on a different standard of speed and violence.

  “Is this law you’re proposing a … defensive move, Kaul-jen?” Son’s voice was coolly probing now. An indent formed between his thick gray eyebrows as they drew together. Lan could guess at what the man was thinking: Did he have reason to fear that the Mountain might conquer the smaller clans, or gods forbid, take No Peak itself?

  “It’s a defensive move for the country,” Lan said firmly. “The KJA was formed after the war under the reasonable assumption that Green Bones should be in charge of managing the country’s jade supply. The thinking was that naturally all the clans would have a vested interest in cooperating to restrict and protect the supply of jade. But that was before the invention of SN1, before money from foreign exports started rolling in, and before … certain changes of leadership in the major clans.”

  Son was blunt. “Do you think the Mountain is seeking to control the KJA?”

  “I think it’s in the national interest to remove that temptation.”

  “The national interest, or No Peak’s interest?”