by Fonda Lee
“He’s trying to force an end to this,” Hilo muttered. Even if the Mountain was better financially girded for prolonged war, it had to be worried about losing the support of the people in its districts. Ordinary jadeless citizens need not fear being active targets of Green Bone violence, but sometimes there were collateral casualties, and property and economic damage were inevitable. Once the Academy graduates joined No Peak in the spring, the conflict would surge further, and the city would suffer more. On top of that, given public censure from the audit of the Kekon Jade Alliance and the pending passage of oversight legislation, the Mountain surely wanted to secure victory soon. Once it did, Chancellor Son would be out of power, and Ayt Mada could pressure the Royal Council to drop the issue.
Look at me, Hilo thought wryly. Actually thinking about all the political bullshit. Perhaps he was learning, gradually, to be a Pillar after all. Too little, too late, though. Politics moved slowly and blades moved fast.
“Gont won’t intimidate us with crude savagery,” Kehn insisted, pouring them both another shot of hoji. “Every Green Bone down to the lowest Finger would give his life for you, jen. Gont wants a quick victory? He won’t get anything of the sort.”
Hilo had never shied away from any fight, and he was willing to wage a long and brutal war if that was what was required to overcome his enemies. But if defeat was on the inevitable horizon, then he held no pointless desire for any more of his Fists or Fingers to lose their limbs or their jade. He would value a clean death for himself and his loved ones. It was, in truth, not so bad a trade Gont was offering him.
The idea of dying for the clan was not rhetoric to Hilo. The clan was an extension of family, in some ways more family to Hilo than his own kin. He had never known his father. His mother had loved Lan; his grandfather had loved Shae. Hilo had found his place in the world among peers—that was where his expressiveness and daring were valued. Now the clan was relying on him in a very real and personal way: Kehn and Tar, his other Fists like Juen and Vuay, poor Eiten and Satto and Lott who deserved their vengeance, all the way down to the Fingers like Pano and that kid, Hejo, who’d unflinchingly risked his life by going into the Factory at Hilo’s command, and future clan members like Lott’s son and Anden. He asked them all to offer up their lives for the brotherhood; he would never ask less of himself.
Hilo swirled his glass and drank, then took the bottle and put it behind the bar before Kehn could reach for any more. A Horn could never afford to have his wits addled. “Kehn,” Hilo said, “if I die, you’ll want to avenge me and take back my jade from Gont or whoever kills me. That’s natural, but I don’t want you to do that. I’d rather you took care of Wen. Make sure she has a good life, a good home. That’s more important to me, even if you have to leave Kekon, even if you have to turn.”
Kehn was aghast. “I would never swear oaths to the Mountain. Never.” And Hilo remembered it wasn’t just loyalty to him that drove the Horn’s vehemence, but the fact that the Mountain had executed Kehn and Tar’s father and cast his family into disgrace. The Horn’s voice shook as he said, “Why are you talking like this, Hilo-jen?”
Hilo said, “I just want my wishes to be clear.” Then he walked to the door. “We need to talk to the guys upstairs; they’re waiting for us. And then we’ll drive to see Eiten’s wife before we go to Sogen to sort out who will take Lott’s place there.”
THIRD INTERLUDE
Baijen’s Triumph
In Kekonese religious mythology, Old Uncle Jenshu, the One Who Returned, had a favorite nephew named Baijen, who remains the country’s most well-known and revered ancient hero. Stories of Baijen, the courageous Green Bone warrior, have been told to Kekonese children for hundreds of years, and more recently, comic books and films have recounted his adventures and deeds. Unlike his divine uncle Jenshu, however, Baijen remains a mortal champion and is not worshipped as a god.
According to legend, when Baijen was finally slain in furious battle against his greatest foe, the invading Tuni General Sh’ak, he was recognized by the gods for his valor and accorded a place in Heaven. From his vantage point in the divine realm, Baijen looked down upon the Earth. He witnessed his remaining men fighting and dying in his name, and saw that his people were on the verge of being conquered. He watched, helpless, as his beloved, grief-stricken wife prepared to throw herself from the cliff before the oncoming army could reach their mountainside home.
In a panic, Baijen begged the gods to allow him to return to Earth for one night and give up his place in Heaven to another. At first, his request was refused, but Baijen was immovable in his pleas. He wailed and beat his head on the steps of the jade palace, refusing to be deterred until Yatto, the Father of All, taking pity on him, agreed.
The fallen warrior fell at the feet of the gods and wept in gratitude. That very night, he returned to Earth, sweeping over the battlefields littered with bodies, and entered the tent of the Tuni general. He burst in upon his shocked enemy and, laughing in triumph, killed him where he stood in his underclothes.
In accordance with the pact Baijen had made with the gods, the soul of General Sh’ak flew to Heaven. Baijen, the savior of his people, was left to roam the Earth as an exiled spirit for all eternity.
Green Bones have an old saying: Pray to Jenshu, but be like Baijen.
CHAPTER
51
New Year’s Eve
Preparations for New Year’s week were muted in Janloon; the city expected few out-of-town visitors this year, and locals were not in a festive mood. The two major clans, which normally each donated a considerable sum to public celebrations and charitable events during this season, were too besieged to arrange anything except minor community functions in their largest and most securely held districts. On every New Year’s Eve day in Janloon that Shae could remember, the Kaul family, led by their grandfather and later by Lan, would be out in public in the Temple District, lighting fireworks, handing out candy coins to children, and accepting a stream of well wishes from Lantern Men. This year, she and Hilo sat alone at the patio table in the courtyard of the Kaul house, where they’d spent all night in discussion.
There was almost nothing left to talk about now. Shae watched the rising sun smear the clouds with streaks of red over the roof of the house. In forty-eight hours, she might be the short-lived Pillar of a clan in its death throes. Her duties at that point would be relatively simple: see to the proper burial of her brother, the safety of her remaining family members, and a somewhat orderly transition of power in exchange for a swift and honorable death for herself. Minimizing further bloodshed would be the most difficult part. There would be those who’d rather fight on, no matter how hopelessly. She was in possession of sealed letters from Hilo to each of his top Fists in his own handwriting, should it come to that. She’d leave the more difficult conversation with the Maiks to Hilo.
After a spell of silence, Hilo said, “I haven’t thanked you for giving Wen that new job.”
“It was no trouble,” Shae said. “She gave me a good idea of what she wanted.” Wen’s official new job was working for the Weather Man’s office as a design consultant on real estate development projects. It required a fair amount of travel.
“I’m glad to see the two of you getting along,” Hilo said.
“I’ve gotten to know her better.”
Hilo smiled faintly. Shae thought he looked weary and a little distant. How these past months had eroded the boyishness of his face, damaged the ease and openness of his manner. He said, “The family was hard on you at the time, but now I’m glad for your Espenian connections. I don’t know how you pulled it off, but however you did, I’m grateful.” He squinted into the sunrise. “You said we needed two things to survive: money and a military victory. You delivered the first one, faster than I could get the second. You always were one up on me like that.”
She wished they could think of something else, some other way. Hilo’s decision was awful—she’d told him so several times. But in the end, he was
the Pillar, and also the Horn, in spirit if not in title, and she had no basis on which to argue, no superior plan or more cunning ruse, like she’d had on Poor Man’s Road. She’d done all she could—more than she could ever in good conscience admit to either of her brothers—to diminish the Mountain’s advantage over them, but it was still not enough. This might be their only chance, and at last she agreed they had no choice but to take it. “This is a terrible gamble,” she said.
“So was you meeting with Ayt.”
Shae’s face jerked up. When he saw that he’d unbalanced her, the smile on Hilo’s face broadened and he looked more like himself.
“Have you been spying on me?” Even now, he could surprise and aggravate her with his arrogance. “Having Caun follow me around again?”
Hilo’s smile fell off his face. “Caun Yu is dead. He was killed at the Twice Lucky when Gont and his men took it.”
Shae stilled. She tried to connect the face of her handsome young neighbor to Hilo’s deadpan words, and realized that the vague sorrow she felt was the barest portion of what Hilo carried; in recent weeks he had seen many of his Fists and Fingers killed. “Let the gods recognize him,” she said quietly.
Hilo nodded, his eyes sad. “I haven’t had anyone following you,” he assured her. “Just a lucky guess, is all, though I see I’m right. I figured Ayt would contact you, that she’d try to convince you to kill me.” He shrugged one shoulder. “It makes sense. It’s what I would do if I were her.”
Shae sat back. “You never brought it up. You weren’t even worried?”
Her brother laughed a little. “Ah, Shae, if you decided to betray me, what could I do? What’s the point of life if you can’t even trust your own kin?” He kicked her foot under the table, a teasing, childish gesture. “For you to hand my head over to the Mountain, you must really hate me. I must be such a terrible brother that I’d deserve to die. So there was nothing to be done about it.”
That was the way it was with Hilo; it always came down to the deeply personal for him. Shae stood up. “I need to move; I’m stiff from sitting so long. Do you need to go, or will you walk in the garden with me for a few minutes?”
“A few minutes,” he said, and got up to accompany her.
Wen was right, the garden was the most beautiful part of the Kaul estate, and she’d never really paused to appreciate it. The morning light was slightly foggy, illuminating the still pond and the late winter blooms: bright pink cherry tree blossoms draped over dense shrubs laden with sprays of small white berries. Hilo crushed one of them between his fingers. “If you play your cards right, Ayt might let you out,” he said. “Exile wouldn’t be so bad for you. There’s plenty you could do elsewhere.” Faint bitterness in his voice. “I’d feel better about it.”
Shae thought of the meeting she’d had with Ayt Mada in the sanctum and how it had ended. “No,” she said with grim confidence, “I don’t think that will happen.” By dramatic and inexorable steps, she’d given up her chance at that other destiny; she’d hovered, gazing through that open door, and then she’d turned away. She was surprised to find, even faced with the probability of ruin and death, that she felt no great regret. At first, her decisions had been about herself, then they had been about honoring and avenging Lan, and in the end, they had been about more than that. She could say to the gods on the day of the Return that she had finally been the Green Bone she’d wanted to be: seeking if never achieving the Divine Virtues, but true to family and country and aisho.
She and Hilo kept walking, in a more companionable silence than she suspected they had ever before shared in their lives. She didn’t want to break it, but then she pictured Lan sitting on the stone bench in front of the pond, watching the lazy carp and the rainbow sparrows that flitted on the birdbath rocks. She might not have another chance to settle her mind on this.
“There’s one last thing I need to ask you,” she said to her brother. “Ayt told me she didn’t order Lan’s death. That no one in the Mountain has claimed responsibility.” She waited. “Hilo … where is Lan’s jade?”
Hilo’s gait did not break, but his steps slowed until he stopped and turned to face his sister. His face, bathed in shadow from a passing cloud, was suddenly unreadable. “I buried him with it.”
Shae closed her eyes. When she opened them again, she felt them prickling with unexpected tears. So Ayt had been telling the truth. No Green Bone would’ve left jade on the body of a slain foe. Her brother had not been killed by an enemy warrior. “His death was an accident,” she whispered in anguish.
“It was no accident.” Hilo’s voice was cutting. He took a step toward Shae, his aura flaring harsh and bright in a tempest of sudden emotion. She’d never seen him look more dangerous than he did in that single step. He spoke with slow, deathly intensity. “There were two machine guns on the pier, and a dead man, a teenager. Ayt and Gont sent at least two men after Lan that night. One of them got away, and if I’m still alive when Tar finds him, I’ll force a jade stone down his throat and bury him alive to die slowly of the Itches. Don’t doubt, not for a single second, that the Mountain killed our brother.”
“By sending a couple of jadeless thugs?” she cried.
Hilo’s breaths were growing hard, as if he’d run some great distance. He took hold of his sister by the arms, his grip fierce, though she didn’t resist, only stood limply, staring at him. “Lan was weak that night, Shae. He’d been badly hurt by Gam in the duel at the Factory, but he didn’t let on. He was carrying too much jade, trying to stay strong in front of the clan. I ordered an autopsy done, that I never told anyone about. There was shine in his blood, Shae, too much of it. Shine! Lan hated the stuff, he would never have taken it, but he must’ve thought he had no choice.”
He released her abruptly and stepped back, his eyes black coals of implacable hatred. “The Mountain always intended to conquer us. They broke us down, threatened and hounded us, ruined a good peacetime Pillar like Lan. It doesn’t matter what happened that night, they’re the reason he’s dead. I’ll risk everything tomorrow to set straight that score.”
“You misled me that day,” Shae said, but there was no anger in her words, only bitter grief and acceptance. She felt, strangely, that it all made sense in a perfect and terrible way. It only confirmed in her mind that the will of the gods was a conspiracy of many things; people laid the tracks of their fate yet were helpless at the same time. They’d all played their part in this—them and their enemies. “The Mountain didn’t even know Lan was dead when we attacked Poor Man’s Road. We were the ones who came down from the forest first; we slaughtered twenty-one unsuspecting people.”
“Misled you?” Hilo’s eyes were pits. “Never. You came back on your own, Shae, without a word from me, and thank the gods you did. As for those people—they were Green Bones. No Green Bone is unsuspecting of death.”
CHAPTER
52
From Now Until the Last
That afternoon, Hilo went into the house and changed into his best suit. On his way out, he paused in front of the closed door of Kaul Sen’s room. Om saluted and stood aside to let him enter, but Hilo didn’t go in. He stared at the blank door, Perceiving his grandfather’s slow but steady heartbeat beyond it, his raspy breath, the weak texture of his aura, so shadowy now that he was down to almost no jade at all. The old man was napping in his chair. He’s tolerable when he’s asleep, Hilo thought.
As stunned and enraged as he’d been and still was, Hilo admitted that the act of giving jade to Doru to enable the traitor to escape was the most himself that the Torch had been in months. Sneaky and subversive, unbending, righteous in his principled fury. Right now, it wouldn’t surprise Hilo if the patriarch claimed the final victory and misfortune of outliving all his grandchildren. Hilo put a hand on the door but could think of nothing to be gained from going in. He turned and went down the stairs, exited the house, and walked the short path over to the Horn’s residence.
When Wen opened the door and saw him dress
ed so formally, she backed away from him and put her hands to her chest, bending as if in pain. She trembled as he stepped in the house and put his arms around her. “You’ve decided to go,” she said.
“Yes,” he said. “We have to be married today.”
Even though he’d prepared her for this possibility, she let out a desolate noise and sagged against him slightly. “This isn’t how I’d imagined it at all.”
“Me neither.” He pressed the side of his face to the top of her silken head and closed his eyes. “I was imagining the biggest banquet and the best food. A live band. And you, looking lovely with your hair done up and walking with your hand on my arm, in a long green dress. Or red, I like red just as well. I’d especially like it if the dress had a high collar, in a traditional style that’s elegant and modest, but then also had a slit up the thigh to show off what a sexy piece you are.”
“I already picked out the dress,” she warned him.
“Keep it hidden,” he said. “Don’t show it to me yet. We might still have everything we planned for—the banquet, the guests, the music—everything. Later.”
“We will,” she said. “You’ll come back after you’ve done what you need to.”
He smiled and kissed her on the brow, touched by the certainty in her voice. “I will,” he said. “But no matter what, you’ll be safe. Shae has Espenian connections; I don’t know how she managed to do this, but she’s arranged visas for you, your brothers, Grandda, and Anden. She’ll get all of you out of the Mountain’s reach.”
“Kehn and Tar won’t go,” Wen said.
“I’ve ordered them to. They can’t stand the idea of running, but in this case, they’re sure to die if they stay. Better to live for a chance to settle the score later. You’ll have to remind them, and hold them to my orders, if it comes to that.”