by Fonda Lee
Hilo was looking at him intently now. Lan forced himself to open his hand and set the jade studs on the side table. He removed the chokers from his breast pocket and pushed all of Gam’s jade away from himself.
A few seconds passed before the change kicked in, and then it was dramatic, as if a high fever had suddenly broken. His heart rate came down, the painful sharpness of the room receded. Hilo’s aura returned to its usual smooth hum. Lan took a slow, deep breath and let it out again, trying not to let his relief appear too palpable. “Better?”
Hilo nodded and sat back down, but there was an uncertainty in his eyes that Lan did not like. So even Hilo doubted his ability. Kaul Sen was a decrepit old man, Doru might be a traitor, and Shae refused to even wear jade. It was only him and Hilo now. What was happening to the great Kaul family?
“You should go, Hilo,” he said. “We both have things we need to do.”
His brother did not move from the chair. “I have something else to ask you,” he said. Lan had almost never seen his brother look nervous, but now Hilo rubbed his hands together and cleared his throat. “I want to marry Wen.”
Lan tried not to sigh out loud. “Do we have to talk about this right now?”
“Yes.” Hilo’s voice took on sudden urgency. “After last night, I don’t want to waste time, Lan. I don’t want to be lying on the pavement bleeding out the last seconds of my life thinking I didn’t do everything I meant to. That I didn’t give her this one thing when I had the chance.”
Lan’s head ached and he felt dehydrated. The dramatic addition and then withdrawal of jade made him feel as if his skull had been pulled out too far and then squeezed back down too tightly. He rubbed his brow. “You really love her.”
To his surprise, Hilo looked insulted. “Why would I be asking otherwise?”
Lan felt like telling him that love wasn’t enough, not when it came to marriage. There was a time when he’d thought it would be enough. Eyni had thought so too. She’d known he would one day be Pillar; she’d assured him she understood what that meant, that everything would work out fine in the end because they loved each other. He’d convinced her, and himself, that taking on the leadership of No Peak wouldn’t change him, wouldn’t change things between them. They’d been wrong, of course. Looking back, Lan could see now that there’d been cracks beforehand, but the demands of the clan had shaken those cracks into impassable fissures.
Warnings about the impermanence of love would not work on Hilo, though. He was not the sort of person who would ever view something so important to him in such an abstracted fashion. “You know how I feel about Wen,” Lan said. “She’s a lovely girl. She’s always been respectful to the clan, and I’d gladly treat her like my sister. But her family is beneath you. Everyone knows the Maiks were disgraced. A lot of people in No Peak still think they can’t be trusted, and even if they don’t say it out loud, they assume Wen is illegitimate.”
Hilo’s neck flushed and his face grew stiff. “All that happened years ago. You shouldn’t blame the Maiks for their parents. I made Kehn and Tar my First and Second Fists—I wouldn’t have done that if I didn’t trust them with my life. And I don’t care who Wen’s father really is. She’s of the No Peak clan as far as anyone is concerned, and she’s a good person—caring and loyal.”
“I’m sure she is,” Lan said. “She’s also a stone-eye. There are always going to be people who see her as bad luck, or whisper she was born that way because she’s a bastard and a punishment to her parents. Don’t look so angry at me. I’m only telling you that the clan can have long and superstitious memories. You’re the Horn; you have to think about that.”
“I don’t care what anyone else in the clan thinks, it’s you I’m asking.” Hilo sounded almost desperate. “You’re willing to forgive Shae completely and welcome her back, but you balk at accepting the Maiks?”
“That’s different,” Lan said. “Shae is a Kaul no matter what. You’re making the decision to bind our family to a disreputable name, and to father children with a stone-eye wife.”
Hilo’s aura roiled with tension. “What can I say to convince you?” His eyes fastened to Lan’s. “I swear I’ll never ask you for anything else.”
Sometimes it astounded Lan that his younger brother could be so different from him. Shortsighted, yes, but fully committed. Passionate in a way that left so little room for doubt. Lan said, “You’ve already made up your mind. I’ve said my concerns, but it’s your decision, Hilo. You don’t need my permission.”
“Don’t say that,” Hilo snapped. “That’s a bullshit excuse.” He leaned so far forward in his chair that he half rose from it. “You’re my older brother. You’re the Pillar! When Grandda was Pillar, he didn’t let a leaf drop in the courtyard without his permission. People came to him to approve their marriages, their new businesses, the names of their kids and dogs, the color of their fucking wallpaper for all I know. Give me your blessing, or condemn me, but don’t wash your hands of me. It wouldn’t mean anything for me to marry Wen without the approval of the Pillar. No one would take it seriously.”
On the other hand, if Lan endorsed the union, he would be publicly forgiving the Maik family. He would be sending the message that their past betrayal had been wiped clean. The Maiks would be elevated to the right hand of the Kauls. Other families would be jealous and angry. If he did not give his permission, however, he would hurt Hilo—and Hilo could be dramatically hurt. He would damage the relationship with his brother and his Horn at a time when the clan could not afford any further weakness in the family.
Lan’s arms and legs felt heavy enough to sink him straight through the cushioned chair. It seemed everything in the clan required a decision from him that would invariably hurt or offend others and cause further problems.
Looking at Hilo’s face, though, he realized he couldn’t find it in himself to refuse his brother’s request. Even if he’d known how things would turn out with Eyni, would he never have taken a gamble on overcoming the odds? He didn’t think he could say so. As for Hilo and Wen, all the objections Lan had voiced—past sins, clan politics, superstition—they didn’t touch those few seconds last night in the Lilac Divine when Maik Kehn had answered the Pillar’s unspoken panic with, “He’s alive. He’s fine,” and Lan had understood, as he gripped the door frame, that he wasn’t ready to be a wartime Pillar. He wasn’t equipped to handle that kind of violent loss in his own family.
“You’re right, Hilo. It’s better to think about today when tomorrow might not happen. I give you my blessing to marry Maik Wen,” Lan said. He did his best to sound as sincere and positive as such a statement warranted. “Set a date. As soon as you want.”
Hilo left the chair and knelt on the carpet. He raised clasped hands to his forehead. “The clan is my blood, and the Pillar is its master,” Hilo said, reciting the ceremonial Green Bone clan oaths they’d both taken years ago. “Should I ever be disloyal to my brother, may I die by the blade. Should I ever fail to come to the aid of my brother, may I die by the blade. Should I ever seek personal gain at the expense of my brother, may I die by the blade.” He bowed low, touching his forehead to the carpet. “On my honor, my life, and my jade.”
Lan wanted to protest the overly dramatic display of gratitude, but when Hilo straightened up, he was smiling his open, easy smile—the one that suggested he was not worried, and no else need be either, and all was as it should be. He didn’t look like someone who’d been through the same day as Lan had.
Hilo got off the floor, gathered his weapons off the desk, and rested a hand on Lan’s shoulder as he left the room. He pointed at the pile of Gam’s jade. “Get some sleep before you try putting it back on.”
CHAPTER
23
Autumn Festival Gifts
The wind howled and needles of rain hit the back of Bero’s neck as he hefted the last of the boxes into the van and clambered in after it. The other boy, who they called Cheeky, yanked the back doors shut. “Go! GO!” Bero shouted at t
he driver.
The van squealed into motion, throwing Bero against the wall of the vehicle. He crawled up and around the containers packed with cartons of expensive brand-name wallets, shoes, handbags, and belts—and squeezed through the middle of the van into the passenger side seat. He stuck his head out the window to look behind them—the truck driver was still lying on his stomach under his semitrailer with his hands over his head. There was no sign of pursuit.
Pulling his head back into the van, Bero rolled up the window and relaxed a little, then more so once the van hit the KI-1 freeway, speeding southward away from the Docks. The rain picked up, splattering the windshield as fast as the noisy wipers could handle. Through the shimmery glare of water, the lights of the other cars on the road were bright red splotches, like Autumn Festival lamps. Bero shoved the pistol more securely into the waistband of his pants and whooped as he punched the van’s ceiling. “That was cut, kekes.”
The entire operation had taken less than five minutes. Speed and planning were the key to a successful lift. Security was tight, and mistakes were deadly; armed guards protected the ships, and Green Bones patrolled the Docks. The best approach was to hijack trailer trucks once they had been loaded but before they entered the motorway. Bero was new at this game, but he was a quick study and hungry for work. This was his third successful lift in as many weeks. That pleased Mudt, which in turn, pleased the people behind Mudt, people Bero very much wanted to meet.
The driver of the van, an untalkative man named Tas, who had bad skin and only ever wore black T-shirts, pulled the van off the freeway into the south part of Junko. He drove into the alley behind the Goody Too discount store and backed up to the open garage door. Mudt came out to inspect the goods. He grunted in satisfaction and counted out payment on the top of a secondhand pool table while Cheeky unloaded the merchandise with the help of Mudt’s teenage son. “You have to be more careful now,” Mudt said, throwing in an extra bit of cash for each of them. “The clans are going at each other.”
Clan war was both opportunity and danger. Green Bones busy fighting each other were less vigilant against thieves and smugglers, but they made up for the lapse by being more merciless to those they caught, especially any with possible ties to enemy clans. “You got more tips for us?” Bero asked, zipping the money into the inside pocket of his jacket. A gust of strong wind rattled the half-open garage door.
Mudt pulled a folded manila envelope from his back pocket and held it out to Tas. The man shook his head. “I’m out.”
“You’re out?” Bero exclaimed. “After that kind of a lift?”
Tas grumbled, “Not ready to die yet. Gonna quit while I’m ahead.” He jerked his chin at Bero. “Give it to him.” Tas walked back to the van.
Mudt didn’t even watch Tas go. He passed the envelope to Bero, who opened it and glanced inside quickly: several sheets of paper stapled together. A list of JK Trucking company’s schedule in and out of Summer Harbor for the next sixty days. He smiled, impressed at Mudt’s access to such useful information. He stowed it inside his jacket next to the cash.
A blast of rain blew into the garage, drenching the concrete floor, shaking box flaps and loose items. “Hey!” Mudt shouted at his son. “Close that door before we drown here. Then go back out front and start taping up the windows. Yofo’s in a fucking mood. Typhoon’s coming, tomorrow or the day after, for sure.” He ran a hand through his damp, wiry hair. His sleeve fell a few inches down his forearm and Bero glimpsed needle track marks on the inside of the man’s wrists. Mudt motioned Cheeky over, then said to both him and Bero, in a conspiratorial voice, “You boys have been doing good. So good that someone wants to meet you. Maybe move you up, give you some more work. You cut with that?”
“Yeah, I’m cut,” Bero said. Cheeky gave a nervous sniff but nodded.
“I thought so.” Mudt turned toward the store. “Let’s go, then.”
“He’s here right now?” Bero asked.
“Right here, right now,” Mudt sang out, jovial, gesturing for them to follow him. “Today’s your lucky night, kekes.”
They walked through the inside garage door into the front of the store. It was long past closing time and the place was locked up. One strip of fluorescent lighting was turned on near the back, illuminating racks of sunglasses and bins of plastic sandals near the entrance to the restrooms. Shadowy aisles stretched away into the rest of the building. The only other two people inside were Mudt’s son, who was unrolling blue masking tape in large Xs across the windows, and a man, sitting in the dark on the cash register counter, a duffel bag on the ground below his feet.
Mudt walked Bero and Cheeky over to the man and brought his hands up to his forehead in salute. “These are the guys I told you about,” Mudt said. “One of them wasn’t hungry enough and bailed out, so it’s just the two of them now.”
The man hopped off the table. He was a Green Bone, with a short goatee, jade bolts through his ears, and a jade ring in his nose. He wore a long forest green rain slicker over dark clothes and boots. He looked Bero and Cheeky over with mild interest, the hollows of his eyes shadowed. “What’re your names?”
Bero told him, then raised clasped hands. “And what do we call you, jen?”
“You don’t call me anything,” said the Green Bone. “I don’t know you and you don’t know me. This is No Peak territory. So if you’re caught by any of Kaul’s men, and they torture the shit out of you, you won’t be screaming my name.” At the boys’ silence, a smile curved the man’s mouth. “Does that frighten you? If it does, you might want to consider stepping back out that door the way you came.”
“We’re not frightened,” said Cheeky, not altogether convincingly.
“I want what Mudt has,” Bero said. “Just tell me how to get it.”
The Green Bone gave a knowing nod. “Jade fever’s a bitch, isn’t it? If you got your hands on a piece of green right now, without any training or some quality shine, you’d give off an aura like a fucking fire alarm. The first Green Bone to come anywhere near you would know you for a thief and kill you in three seconds flat.” The man paused, tugging lightly on his goatee. “Now Mudt here is a special case. See, he’s a friend of the clan: He tells us things we need to know, he does work for us in places we can’t be. We appreciate that, so we take care of him. He has, let’s call it … associate status. You could have that too, if you prove yourself to the clan.”
The boys nodded.
“Good. Green Bones take jade from the bodies of their enemies. So if you’re going to be a warrior, you’ll need weapons.” The goateed Green Bone knelt and unzipped the duffel bag at his feet. He withdrew a Fullerton C55 submachine gun. He handed it to Bero, then pulled out a second one and gave it to Cheeky. Bero felt the weight of the thing in his hands and sucked in a breath. He’d never owned anything bigger than a pocket-sized pistol and couldn’t believe his luck. He felt as if he were holding a baby; he didn’t know where to put his hands, how to properly cradle such a valuable object. “Shit. This is for real? You’re giving these to us?”
“Happy Autumn Festival,” said the man. “You better practice a whole lot before I send you to use them. Mudt will show you how.” The Green Bone rose deadly fast and wrapped a hand around each of the boys’ throats. With no time to move or gasp, they froze. With his Strength he could tear out their windpipes. “If I hear that you held up a gas station or shot any bystanders, I’ll break all your bones, and then your necks. You work for me now, you understand?”
The boys nodded and he released them, giving them each a reassuring pat. “For the time being, learn to use those things. Keep pulling the lifts at the Docks that Mudt’s been setting you up with. Keep your eyes and ears open, and don’t get caught. When I need you, I’ll let you know, and I’ll expect you to be ready. You cut?”
“We’re cut, jen,” Bero said.
Outside, the wind had picked up. The silhouettes of trees whipped back and forth under the swaying streetlights. The roof of the building sh
ook and creaked. Mudt’s son had finished taping the windows and disappeared into the back room.
The goateed Green Bone slung his duffel bag over his shoulder. “Best be going. The neighborhood and the weather aren’t so friendly. Mudt, good doing business with you, as usual.” He extended to Mudt the final item he’d brought out from the bag, an unmarked white cardboard container the size of a small shoebox, sealed with packing tape. Mudt reached for it eagerly, but the Green Bone pulled it back at the last second, holding it just out of reach. His voice lowered, treading a line between friendly concern and unmistakable threat. “Are you following the rules, Mudt? Same dose every day, no hoarding or reselling?” When Mudt nodded vehemently, the Green Bone handed him the box and smiled. “Always important to have safety reminders.”
“Thank you, jen,” Mudt murmured, his relief palpable.
The Green Bone lifted the hood of his rain slicker over his head. His boots clomped down the dark center aisle of the Goody Too. He turned the lock, opened the door, and walked out into the approaching typhoon.
CHAPTER
24
After the Typhoon
Typhoon Lokko hit Kekon two days before the Autumn Festival, as if Yofo the Unforgiving had awoken in time to meet the end-of-season deadline. In Janloon, businesses and schools closed as residents hunkered inside, wadding towels around their windows and doors as savage winds and torrential rain pounded the east coast of the island. Red lamps, woven grass streamers, and other Autumn Festival decorations honoring the fertile marriage of Thana the Moon and Guyin the Mountain King were ripped from eaves and sent hurtling through flooded streets.