Kingdom of the Blazing Phoenix

by Julie C. Dao

  A loud clunk sounded as a heavy rock missed Jade’s head by a few inches, propelled by the violent wind. She shoved her belongings into the corner and turned her face inward to the stone, wrapping the brocade cloak over her head and body. The gale pushed and prodded her like hands yanking her into the spiraling air. If anything, it had intensified in the last few minutes.

  Jade wrapped her arms around the leg of the statue, ignoring the brambles that scratched at her skin. She prayed that Wren and Koichi were safe, and gritted her teeth, holding on to the stone horse for dear life. She had not come this far to die at the whim of nature.

  But is it a whim of nature?

  A chill slid down Jade’s spine as lightning ripped across the sky like a line of angry fire. This is like the storm in the tale, she realized, the one the phoenix survived.

  Suppose the maze was testing her, and had separated her from her friends on purpose?

  She clenched her jaw, determined that she too would survive to see another dawn. She was the phoenix, and if she succeeded, a burning rose awaited her as in the tale. That helped her forget, if only for a moment, that she was only a frightened girl all alone in a dead king’s tomb.

  The sandstorm raged all night, whipping cruel clouds of dust against the statues with a powerful fury. Jade must have fallen into an uneasy slumber, for when she woke—her muscles cramped from having curled up for so long—the wind had died away. She stood up stiffly, her bones creaking in protest. She had never been so glad to see the harsh desert sun again. Despite wrapping herself in the brocade cloak, she was covered from head to toe in sand.

  She sagged against one of the stone horses, laughing with relief. “I survived.”

  Now there was nothing to do but retrace her steps, if the trail had made it through the night. Most of the plant tendrils had been covered with a thick layer of sand, but she could still see specks of green here and there. Seizing her bags, she followed them eagerly, her ears strained for any sound of her friends. She was sure Wren and Koichi had found somewhere to hide and were searching for her even now. She wondered if they had found the poor mare.

  A light rustling reached her ears, like the hem of a robe dragging on the ground.

  Jade whirled. “Who’s there?”

  She saw nothing, but gooseflesh rose on her skin. Somehow, she knew with absolute certainty that someone was watching her. That face in the wall of sand . . . Jade shivered in spite of the heat, and just as she pivoted on her foot to continue onward, she saw a flash of black coiling, disappearing between the sharp brambles.

  “Another snake,” she muttered.

  She walked on, vigilantly scanning her surroundings, but saw nothing as she returned to the place where the path had first split. There was no sign of Wren and Koichi, and though she could see specks of green in the sand, there were no prints, made by either hooves or human feet.

  She knew her friends would never abandon her, yet she felt as keen a despair as though they had. Surely they wouldn’t have left the maze without her—perhaps they had gotten lost and wandered down another path, in which case it might take days for her to find them.

  Jade wiped her damp forehead, feeling faint with worry. Black dots had begun dancing in her vision again. She knelt and cut the brambles, both to gather more tendrils for the trail and to find water. She placed them in her sack, and her fingers brushed over a familiar object: the wooden box holding Xifeng’s poisoned comb. I’m not alone. The thought fluttered through her mind, along with a strange relief, but she pushed it away as the edges of her headache returned. It frightened her, the way she couldn’t stop thinking about the comb and its answers.

  It had been foolish to wear it again, and would be even more so to do it a third time. Who was to say that the connection didn’t reveal information about Jade to Xifeng in turn?

  She might know I’m here, Jade thought with sudden dread. The storm last night might have come from her . . .

  The odd rustling noise came again, igniting her rising panic. She leapt to her feet, dagger in hand. “I know you’re there!” she shouted. “I know you’re following me and I’m not afraid!”

  “No, of course not,” said Fu. “Why would you be?”

  Fu!” Jade cried with mingled exasperation and relief. “What are you doing here? Where’s Ming? Did you see Wren and Koichi?”

  The ghost studied her. “Let’s find you a cool place to rest first,” he said anxiously. “You don’t look well. Sit down at my feet.”

  Jade wanted to protest, but the black dots were still dancing in her vision, so she sank to the ground. Though Fu cast no shadow, she was shocked to find soothing, tree-scented shade like that of the Great Forest. She could almost hear the monastery bells ringing. She glanced up in surprise, but his kind eyes revealed nothing.

  “Rest, little one,” he said. “I will take care of you.”

  “Tell me what happened.”

  “Ming had a crisis of conscience. After you left, I had to watch him pace and brood and stare at the tent wall all day, fretting like a hen who had lost three chicks. It was sweet, but rather tiresome. Finally, at sundown, he decided to go after you, so of course I had to come.”

  “Ming came to help us?” she asked incredulously.

  “I’ve never seen that man ride so fast. We didn’t get here until nightfall, and he beat his breast over whether to try to find you in the dark or wait until morning. But then you came tearing out of the maze on the black-and-white mare he gave you, looking terrified.”

  Jade shook her head. “But I’ve been in here the whole time.”

  “I know,” Fu said. “I recognized the strangeness of the form at once—it was no person, but a spectre in your shape. There are benefits to no longer being of this world, and one is being able to see trickery where the human eye cannot. Also, if it had been you, you would have stopped when you saw Ming. But you didn’t, and out of the maze came your friends in pursuit.”

  Jade stared at him, fear and suspicion rooting in her mind.

  “I tried to tell them it was a trick, but they were frightened,” Fu went on. “They said there had been a sandstorm in only one section of the maze, because when they left, the night was calm and fine. Still, you kept riding away as though possessed and wouldn’t answer them. The young man was particularly upset. They’re being led west now, with Ming on their tail.”

  “I knew they saw something odd,” Jade muttered. “The maze was separating us. The maze . . . or Xifeng. Suppose she knows everything. Suppose she and the Serpent God have guessed what I’m trying to do.”

  “Gathering the Dragon Lords’ relics to summon their heavenly army?” Fu looked a bit ashamed at her horrified expression. “I listened to what you were thinking . . . only a few times, mind you. It’s another benefit to being dead.”

  Jade gaped at him, wondering if he had heard everything she had thought about Koichi. “Please stay out of my head! It’s a private place, and it’s hard enough knowing whom to trust.”

  The ghost drew himself up stiffly. “I assure you I’m trustworthy. How could you think otherwise when I’ve just abandoned the person I’ve been haunting to protect you?”

  He looked so offended that Jade apologized. “So you’re haunting me now?”

  “I believe so. Ming and I haven’t been apart for fifteen years, and here I am with someone new.” He tried to pat her knee, but his hand went right through it. “All I know is that being with Ming helped me find you. In fact, I think I’ve been waiting for you all these years. So take heart: I’ll be with you every step of the way.”

  “I don’t understand it, but thank you,” Jade said, grateful for his company though she sorely missed Wren and Koichi. The fact that Ming had gone with them comforted her a bit. “My objective remains the same: do everything I can until the huntsman finds me. And if Xifeng knows about my quest, time is truly running out. I have to stay ahead
of her.”

  She spread out Amah’s brocade map and saw that a new symbol had appeared: a fishbone in glowing cream thread, stitched right beside the rose in the desert.

  “Something doesn’t make sense?” Fu asked, watching her frown.

  “I have the cloak of the grasslands, and I’m searching for the rose of Surjalana,” she said. “Koichi believes the sword of Tu Lam is the relic of Dagovad, and the apple has to be the treasure of the Great Forest. Which means this fishbone is the treasure of the god of Kamatsu.”

  “Why would a god choose a fishbone?”

  “Because it grants wishes,” Jade said with certainty, missing Koichi more than ever. “It’s from a tale about a maiden whose stepmother was jealous of her beauty. Every day, when the girl did her washing in the river, a fish would come and speak to her. It was the spirit of her mother. But the stepmother discovered their friendship and caught and ate the fish. Later that night, as the girl was crying over the fishbone, her mother’s spirit reappeared and told her that the bone would grant wishes whenever she recited a certain poem.”

  The story brought to mind the poisoned comb’s last vision: the tengaru clearing, and the blue dragon collapsing by the apple tree. Jade pushed the memory away, her heart aching.

  “The god of Kamatsu was known for his benevolence, which fits. But I don’t understand why a treasure of the Boundless Sea is here in the desert, and so close to another relic.”

  “I have a feeling we’re about to find out,” Fu told her. “And we should go soon, at any rate. That snake that’s been following you is very close.”

  “Then it has been spying on me? If it’s a servant of Xifeng, it’s only a matter of time before Kang finds us, and the trail of plants will lead him straight to us.” Jade groaned, cursing her own lack of foresight as she gathered her possessions with renewed speed.

  “You did right. There’s only one exit, and we may run into Kang on the way out anyway.”

  “Thank you—that’s comforting,” she said wryly, and he beamed at her.

  Despite her heightened urgency, they were forced to wander the maze for two more days, running into dead end after dead end. Though there was a chance that the trail might lead Kang to them, Jade continued to scatter the brambles, which helped her recognize when a pair of paths circled, joining together in a meaningless loop and leading her back to the beginning.

  “Will we ever come to the end of this maze?” she asked, frustrated.

  Perhaps that was the Serpent God’s cruel little joke, building a maze from which there would be no escape, so that the spirits of lost adventurers would keep him company—for lost adventurers there were in great number.

  Corpses were so common, they no longer startled Jade. Skulls grew on the path like obscene flowers, and great black birds feasted upon what flesh remained. She picked through the dead people’s belongings, apologizing to them under her breath as she saved sulfur matches, any dried food that had not gone bad, a small dagger, and dusty but relatively clean tunics.

  “What else can you do, besides listening to people’s private thoughts?” Jade asked Fu on the third day. She rubbed her neck, which had begun to grow bright red and peel from the sun. “Can you take corporeal form? I met two other ghosts who could whenever they experienced great emotion. It tied them to their humanity, one of them told me.”

  “Well, I can choose whether to show myself to certain people,” Fu responded. “And great emotion, me? Living with Ming? Ha!”

  “Fu, why is Ming afraid of the Empress?”

  He hesitated. “It’s not fear, exactly.”

  “But he doesn’t want her to find him,” Jade pointed out.

  “Not wanting someone to find you and being afraid of them are two different things.”

  She sighed as they turned a corner. “I’m not too young or silly to understand, you know. You can tell me what he’s . . . oh, no.”

  Something had taken hold of both her feet; her boots were sinking slowly into the sand. She lifted her right foot, but the movement only submerged her left foot more. The ground began to swallow her like a thirsty beast, drinking her in slowly until she stood with her calves stuck firmly into the wet sand.

  “It’s quicksand! I can’t move!” Jade panicked and bent her knees, but every movement she made only served to help the sand suck her down faster.

  Fu’s eyes were round with fear. “Drop your bags.”

  Jade threw her sacks away, heart roaring in her chest. Beads of sweat ran down her face as she struggled in vain to lift her legs. She was now buried up to her knees and could no longer bend them. She wiggled her ankles frantically, but succeeded only in sinking more. She was now low enough to the ground that she could brace herself with her hands on the dry sand around the pit, but even with all her strength, she could not budge an inch. This can’t be how I die, she thought furiously. I’ll never see Wren again . . . or Koichi . . .

  “Fu, now would be a good time for you to become corporeal,” she tried to joke, but her voice came out thin and scared.

  “I don’t think that would help,” he said worriedly, but he reached his hand to her anyway.

  Jade grabbed for his fingers, but her hand went right through his. She tried once more, with the same result, and a weighty hopelessness pulled at her with as much strength as the quicksand. “Fu, if we can’t do this, if I can’t get out . . . would you do something for me?”

  “Don’t talk like that,” he said, shaking his head desperately. “No last words.”

  “But Wren and Koichi—”

  “You will see them again,” Fu told her, jaw clenching with fear and determination. He held out his hand again. “Try once more. Come on, little one.”

  Jade obeyed, and this time she could feel his cold hand in hers. “Oh!” she cried joyfully, but she found at once that he had been right. Even with another person pulling her, she could not move an inch. Her body had pushed aside whatever water was trapped in the ground, and the sand was drying fast, hardening around her legs. She heard a horrid squelching sound as the moisture latched on to her waist.

  “Let go, Fu,” she said, trying to take deep breaths. “I need to stay calm. Struggling and moving aren’t doing anything to help.”

  The ghost obeyed, his face drawn with anxiety.

  “If I don’t move, I don’t sink. That’s one good thing, at least. I won’t go in any deeper than my waist.” She forced herself to remain motionless, inhaling and exhaling, and closed her eyes. There was intense pressure all around her waist and legs, squeezing at her blood and bones as the sand began to solidify. She tried not to imagine dying here in the burning sun—tried not to envision the rose, waiting at the end of this horrific task . . .

  The rose.

  In her panic, Jade had forgotten the story. The phoenix had gotten trapped in a mudslide and had flattened herself, lying down to spread her weight. She had remained calm and still.

  “Yes!” Fu shouted. “Good thinking!”

  “When I get out,” she told him, “I will scold you for listening to my thoughts again.” Though it terrified her and went against every instinct, she lay down, lowering her back to the sand. She kept her eyes closed, pretending she was resting.

  “Don’t move,” the ghost said encouragingly, standing over her.

  Again, though he cast no shadow, Jade felt a coolness like the shade of trees. It soothed and strengthened her, and she lay motionless, though she longed to kick and struggle. Slowly, ever so slowly, her feet began to rise about an inch as the shift in the position of her body allowed water to seep back in slowly, softening the sand.

  The phoenix had stayed calm in the story and had made small movements, Jade recalled. Tentatively, she twisted her right ankle an inch to the left, then to the right. It rose a fraction as water flowed into the tiny space made by the movement. Heartened, she did the same with her other ankle wi
th painstaking slowness. Bit by bit, her legs began to rise until the tops of her thighs were again visible above the surface. She reached her hands out for Fu, who took them, his own cold fingers holding hers tightly.

  “You’re almost there,” he said, his eyes wide with fear and relief. “Kick slowly now.”

  After an excruciating length of time, another loud squelching noise rang out as Jade pulled her right foot free. With Fu pulling, the rest of her body parted with the pit and she collapsed on dry ground, her shoulders shaking with sobs of relief.

  “Thank you, Fu,” she said weakly, struggling to her feet and wiping her face with a sand-crusted sleeve. Her heart roared like a festival drum. “I’ve already wasted so much of our time here. We need to keep going.”

  “It won’t hurt to rest a moment. You did very well,” Fu praised her. “You knew what to do . . . unlike them.” He pointed to an object sticking out of the sand nearby: the blunt end of a skeleton’s arm, poised vertically. Though the bony fingers had long gone with the desert wind, Jade could easily imagine a hand waving for help.

  Jade gathered her belongings, taking deep, shuddering breaths as she hugged her sack to her. She felt the sharp edges of the little wooden box pressing into her stomach. But this time, beneath the longing to seek answers from the comb was deep-rooted anger. Xifeng wanted her cowed, frightened, and controlled—Xifeng, who even after destroying Jade’s family, seizing the throne, and killing countless victims, still desired Jade’s death and Jade’s heart to eat.

  Perhaps the Empress would think these terrifying near-death episodes—Kang and his men in pursuit, the trek through the desert, the storm, the quicksand—would discourage Jade. Perhaps she believed that the little girl whose first instinct had always been fear would grow into a young woman who still sought to hide.

  Fu watched in silence as Jade dug in her bag for the wooden box. She didn’t bother opening it. The comb had stopped belonging to Empress Lihua the moment Xifeng’s poison had been painted on the teeth. Jade dropped the box on the quicksand where her body had been moments ago, applying careful pressure with her hand until the ground began to swallow it.