She could not see Tiger or Crane.
When the darkness came for her, she was smiling.
Interlude: Tenth Court of Hell
The Lady watches the soul come, and stop before her.
“Another life,” she says.
The soul does not move. This time it says nothing, which, of course, does not mean it feels nothing.
“You should know you cannot stay forever in Hell,” the Lady says. “You committed no sin. You did not cheat, or lie, or abuse your power. You earned nothing but a brief respite.”
“Even a few years is enough.”
“You cannot escape forever,” the Lady says.
“No,” the soul says. “It doesn’t matter. Just don’t send me where Lei went.”
“Child, he is not here. He was a virtuous man, and he has earned a stay in the Southern Paradise before his next life.”
The soul remains silent for a while. The Wheel turns.
“I am glad. Our paths won’t cross again. Things are as they should be.”
For the first time, there is pity in the Lady’s voice, barely audible. “Dai-Yu. Give them what they want. You are nothing.”
“I’m the child of the promise,” the soul says. “My power is in making a choice. Or in failing to make it. I won’t relent. Life after life, they destroy me. They kill those I love, as they killed Lei. I owe them nothing.”
“They are fighting,” the Lady says. “In Laijing, the policies from the Imperial Palace are growing more incoherent.”
“So?”
“There are those,” the Lady says, “who will know how to take advantage of strife. Those who have waited long enough to topple Wen-Min.”
“Yes. But I don’t care.”
“You should,” the Lady says. A wind blows, carrying her words away. “It is time, child. Come.”
And then it starts again, all of it.
6. Wen-Min Empire, 701-987 years after the Founding
She ran. She did not allow herself to love, or even care for anyone. There had been enough deaths.
She became a hermit, endlessly travelling the roads of the Empire. On her travels, she made acquaintances, never keeping them for more than a few moons: merchants on their way to make a fortune; soldiers going to the boundaries to defend against the Hsiung Nu; families made homeless by famines, floods. As the outer edges of the Empire became lost to the Hsiung Nu hordes, she met refugees flung on the roads with nothing but their clothes, people with haunted faces who would not speak about their past.
Even if she made the choice between Tiger and Crane, it would not help them. That would merely replace the Emperor with a tyrant, a power unchecked by any other. She had seen what Tiger and Crane could do. She had learnt to fear them. She hardened her heart, and moved on.
But, no matter how far she went, Tiger and Crane always found her, always pressed her for an answer. And always she took her own life rather than choose.
A brief respite, the Lady had said. But even that was better than nothing.
Interlude: Tenth Court of Hell
The souls meet before the Wheel.
They do not come from the same place. One, the elder, has come through the Nine Courts of Hell. The other has had fewer lives: for, in a former incarnation, it was found so virtuous it earned a stay in the Southern Paradise. And now the stay has ended, and it must be reborn. It has asked for only one thing, and this request was granted.
The Lady knows this should not be happening. But where there are rules, there are exceptions. Not many things can sway the Judges of Hell, but devotion and virtue always find their reward.
“Dai-Yu,” the younger soul says.
The elder of the souls does not move. It looks at the other soul, trying to make out its features. Finally it says, its voice shaking, “Lei? You shouldn’t be here. You should have forgotten.”
“I am where I need to be,” the younger soul says. “Listen, Dai-Yu.”
“No—stay away from me. Crane killed you the last time, just for being my husband. How can you even think of coming here?”
“Dai-Yu,” Lei’s soul says. It reaches out with a translucent finger, tenderly. “I made a promise. I am here.”
“You can do nothing. Stay away. Please. Be reborn in some place where I won’t have to meet you.”
“I did something for you,” Lei’s soul says. “In the Southern Paradise is a library that holds every book ever printed in Wen-Min. I went there, and searched. You are the child of the promise. But did you ever ask yourself who promised you to the Founders?”
The silence, this time, has an almost palpable quality.
“We have forgotten,” Lei’s soul says. “Tiger and Crane rewrote the histories to make us forget.” Its voice takes on a singsong quality. “‘Three philosophers founded the Empire, in a time so far removed that all that remains are myths written on crumbling bamboo strips. And, as philosophers are wont to do, they fell out.’”
“Three...” Her soul’s voice is a mere whisper.
“Crane, Tiger,” Lei’s soul says. “And Tortoise. He wouldn’t choose, Dai-Yu. He wouldn’t be the arbiter between Tiger and Crane. So he withdrew to the highest mountain in Wen-Min, but not before promising them there would be a child.”
“I,” Dai-Yu says.
Lei says nothing.
“I need to find him.”
“You won’t. Because he would not take part in the future of the Empire, he was thrown out of it. He became a hermit, wandering on the roads of Wen-Min: a monk answering to no-one—”
“A beggar,” Dai-Yu’s soul whispers.
“What?”
“It’s nothing. Thank you, Lei.”
“You don’t have to thank me,” Lei’s soul says. “Dai-Yu—”
Their souls brush, part. Something has been exchanged: a kiss, if souls could kiss. A promise, perhaps.
Lei’s soul takes the celadon cup from the Lady’s hands, and drinks. Its light is fading away now, its memories scattering. Dai-Yu’s soul stands by the side, quivering. It does not drink from the cup. It never drinks. For the first time, it occurs to Dai-Yu that it is a blessing, this remembrance.
The Wheel turns, taking its load of souls back into the world of flesh.
7. Mount Xu (Wen-Min Empire), 1021 years after the Founding
There was a temple on Mount Xu. It was not one of the Five Great Temples, not a place where pilgrims would endlessly flock, seeking salvation amidst clouds of incense.
The temple at Mount Xu was a mere pagoda of three storeys. Its slanted roof was made of lacquered wood, ungilded.
It was to this temple that Dai-Yu came, after years of searching; years spent on the roads, from her native city of Yaoxin to fertile Shandong in the south, from windy, arid Menzhou in the east to Laijing, the capital at the centre of the Empire.
The air was warm, promising the sweetness of summer, and pink cherry blossoms littered the path. Dai-Yu, pausing on the last rise, inhaled, and felt the serenity of the place fill her bones, as if all her life had been leading her here.
There was no-one within the pagoda. The path went on, into the gardens, and then deeper into the mountains.
The beggar was waiting for her at the end, sitting in meditation before a waterfall in the shadow of pine trees. It was the same man Dai-Yu had met so many years ago: the same man, with the missing leg and iron crutch, with the rheumy eyes that pierced her soul.
“Dai-Yu,” he said, when she came closer. “Child of the promise.”
“You knew I would come,” Dai-Yu said, angrily. Had she been led here, manipulated since the beginning like a puppet on its strings?
“There are not many mountains in Wen-Min,” the beggar said. “And I have not moved for many years.” He rose. “Come, child. Let us walk.”
“How could you?” Dai-Yu said. “How could you promise me to them, to make the choice you didn’t have the courage to make yourself?”
“They were children. Grasping for what they couldn’t have.” To
rtoise’s eyes turned to the waterfall endlessly pouring its water into the misty pool. “There is no choice.”
“Not choosing is a choice.”
“So is running away,” Tortoise said. “So is suicide.”
These references angered her. “You accuse me?”
Tortoise shrugged. “I don’t know, child. I can’t tell you what to do, for I never could find out. There isn’t much time left.”
The sun had sunk below the cover of the trees; already the forest was darkening. Cold spread within Dai-Yu’s bones. “They are coming,” she said.
“Yes,” Tortoise said.
“Why?”
“They knew you would come to me, eventually. They knew the moment you entered this temple, the moment we finally met. For you are the child of the promise,” Tortoise said. “My child.”
It rang true. And yet it was impossible. “No—I have...I have parents. I have a human soul. I remember well enough.”
Tortoise reached out, traced the mark on her hand. It sent a tingle of heat up her arm, as it had done, an eternity ago, on the road to Yaoxin. “I made you,” he said. “Who else could have chosen in my stead? Who else would not have to drink the Brew of Oblivion in the Courts of Hell?”
“No—”
“You are the breath from my breath, the flesh from my flesh, the seed from my seed. Dai-Yu—”
The darkness was almost complete. A cold wind rose, scattering the pine needles on the ground, whispering words of mourning. And Dai-Yu, staring at her maker in the dim light, saw fear in his eyes, and the sallow cast of his skin, and understood that he would not help her, that he had long since forgotten his power. That he, too, was nothing compared to Tiger and Crane.
“No,” she whispered, but the wind carried the word away.
Two shadows coalesced at the heart of the darkness. Dai-Yu watched them take on substance, transfixed.
“Dai-Yu,” Tiger said, in a feline growl. “It is time.”
“Choose,” Crane said.
Wind whipped at Dai-Yu’s sleeves.
Tortoise still stood frozen beside her. “Leave her.”
Tiger laughed. “Too late, brother. You relinquished your mantle to her. Now she must do what you could not.”
“Tiger—” Tortoise said, moving to stand in front of Dai-Yu.
A hand flashed, shining like metal in the darkness. Tortoise fell back, one hand going to his chest, then rising to his face. Blood dripped from it onto the ground, one drop at a time, a soft patter, like rain.
Dai-Yu felt the cut as if it were in her own chest; she stumbled, gasping, then tried to stand.
“My child,” Tortoise whispered. Time slowed, stopped; in that single moment when Tortoise reeled back, she heard the words he was not saying.
Not choosing is a choice.
So is running away.
Fear is a choice.
Dai-Yu, staring at Tortoise’s shocked face, felt a cold certainty rise within her. She moved until she stood before him, seeing the gaping hole in his chest, the same hole Tiger had once opened in Pao’s chest.
She remembered Lei’s words: It would take an equal to resist them. There is no-one in Wen-Min who has their power.
Yet Tortoise had been their equal, once. The power was still within him, but fear prevented him using it.
“Breath from my breath,” she whispered. “Flesh from my flesh.” And, more slowly, “You have relinquished your mantle.”
She laid a hand on Tortoise’s chest, plunged it deep into the wound until she felt the heart beating under her fingers, the sticky heat of it on her skin. Warmth spread up her arm, into her chest, through her whole body, until she shivered with the same rhythm.
Flesh from my flesh.
The warmth rose within her, stronger and hotter. Under her spread fingers, Tortoise was fading, crumbling away to nothing, to dust carried by the wind.
Breath from my breath.
There was nothing where he had been: only dust; only a memory, already fading.
Seed from my seed.
Every part of her tingled now. She turned, slowly, and made her way to Tiger and Crane, facing them for the first time in centuries.
“Tiger,” she said. “Crane.”
All her lives she had run away from the darkness, never once thinking that shadows, undispelled, only grow. She stared at both of them now, shivering, but not with fear. She was their equal.
She raised her hand.
Light sprang up, throwing into sharp relief their faces: the lined, wizened masks of old men; the pale skins of things forever living in shadows.
There was a smell, a musty smell like books left too long untended.
“You are children,” she said.
“No,” Tiger growled, but in the light he was no longer as frightening as he had been.
“Think of the Empire,” Crane sighed.
They were smaller, now, as if the light had robbed them of their majesty; smaller, and ever dwindling.
What would you choose? she had once asked Lei.
She could still remember his answer. Neither. And yet how we need them, to keep us together.
He had been wrong.
Old, dead things. Things that do not die, that keep ageing. Things no longer needed.
“I choose,” Dai-Yu said. And, bending, caught both of them in her hands. “None of you. Let the Empire rise or fall on its own terms.”
They weighed nothing: a leaf; a breath; a length of silk. They shrank under her touch, shrieking their rage in tinny voices, dwindling ever more until they finally fell silent.
In Dai-Yu’s hand was nothing but coldness, and then even that was gone.
She stared at her trembling palm, then at the darkness all around her that distorted the pine trees into demon shadows.
“It is ended,” she whispered, and did not know whether to smile or laugh. Tortoise’s power coursed within her, begging to be used, to shape things as they should be. But she, who had seen what power could do, quelled it.
She saw, for the first time, the life that would be hers: free from the shadow of fear; free to make her own choices, to love and be loved in return; to raise her children in peace. Free at last, she thought, with a smile.
She walked away from the pool, her hands as empty as when she came, seeing the paths of her future before her, like so many flowers she could pick.
Epilogue: the Wheel
In the Tenth Court of Hell, the Lady waits before the Wheel. To every soul that passes she hands the celadon cup, and watches them drink until every memory has scattered away.
There is no exception.
Not any more.
The Alchemist
Paolo Bacigalupi
Paolo Bacigalupi’s debut novel, The Windup Girl, took the science fiction field by storm, winning the Hugo, Nebula, Locus, Compton Crook, and John W. Campbell Memorial awards. He is also the author of the young adult novel, Ship Breaker, which won the Michael L. Printz Award and was a finalist for the National Book Award. His latest novel is The Drowned Cities, a companion novel to Ship Breaker. He’s also the author of several short stories, most of which can be found in his award-winning collection, Pump Six and Other Stories. “The Alchemist” shares its setting with the novella “The Executioness” by Tobias S. Buckell, and the two stories first appeared as an audiobook published by Audible.com called The Alchemist and the Executioness. Paolo currently lives in Western Colorado with his wife and son, where he is working on a new novel.
1
It’s difficult to sell your last bed to a neighbor. More difficult still when your only child clings like a spider monkey to its frame, and screams as if you were chopping off her arms with an axe every time you try to remove her.
The four men from Alacan had already arrived, hungry and happy to make copper from the use of their muscles, and Lizca Sharma was there as well, her skirts glittering with diamond wealth, there to supervise the four-poster’s removal and make sure it wasn’t damaged in the transfer.
The bed was a massive piece of furniture. For a child, ridiculous. Jiala’s small limbs had no need to sprawl across such a vast expanse. But the frame had been carved with images of the floating palaces of Jhandpara. Cloud dragons of old twined up its posts to the canopy where wooden claws clutched rolled nets and, with a clever copper clasp, opened on hinges to let the nets come tumbling down during the hot times to keep out mosquitoes. A beautiful bed. A fanciful bed. Imbued with the vitality of Jhandpara’s lost glory. An antique made of kestrel-wood—that fine red grain so long choked under bramble—and triply valuable because of it.
We would eat for months on its sale.
But to Jiala, six years old and deeply attached, who had already watched every other piece of our household furniture disappear, it was another matter.
She had watched our servants and nannies evaporate as water droplets hiss to mist on a hot griddle. She had watched draperies tumble, seen the geometries of our carpets rolled and carried out on Alacaner backs, a train of men like linked sausages marching from our marbled halls. The bed was too much. These days, our halls echoed with only our few remaining footfalls. The porticos carried no sound of music from our pianoforte, and the last bit of warmth in the house could only be found in the sulphurous stink of my workshop, where a lone fire yet blazed.
For Jiala, the disappearance of her vast and beautiful bed was her last chance to make a stand.
“NOOOOOOOO!”
I tried to cajole her, and then to drag her. But she’d grown since her days as a babe, and desperation gave her strength. As I hauled her from the mattress, she grabbed hold of one huge post and locked her arms around it. She pressed her cheek against the cloud dragon’s scales and screamed again. “NOOOOOOOO!”
We all covered our ears as she hit a new crystal-shattering octave.
“NOOOOOOOO!”
“Please, Jiala,” I begged. “I’ll buy you a new one. As soon as we have money.”
Epic: Legends of Fantasy Page 18