by R. F. Kuang
“Surely there have been Lore students in the past,” said Kitay. “What have they said?”
Raban shrugged. “It’s a new discipline—the others have been taught since the Red Emperor founded this school, but Lore’s only been around for two decades or so—and no one’s stuck with the course all the way through. I hear that a couple years ago some suckers took the bait, but they dropped out of Sinegard and were never heard from again. No one in their right mind now would pledge Lore. Altan was the exception, but nobody ever knows what’s going on in Altan’s head.”
“I thought Altan pledged Strategy,” said Kitay.
“Altan could have pledged whatever he wanted. For some reason he was hell-bent on Lore, but then Jiang changed his mind and Altan had to settle for Irjah instead.”
This was news to Rin. “Does that happen often—students choosing the master?”
“Very rarely. Most of us are relieved to get one bid; it’s an especially impressive student who gets two.”
“How many bids did Altan get?”
“Six. Seven if you include Lore, but Jiang withdrew his bid at the last minute.” Raban gave her a knowing look. “Why so curious about Altan?”
“Just wondering,” Rin said quickly.
“Taken a shine to our crimson-eyed hero, huh? You wouldn’t be the first.” Raban grinned. “Just be careful. Altan’s not too kind to admirers.”
“What’s he like?” She couldn’t help but ask. “As a person, I mean.”
Raban shrugged. “We haven’t had classes together since our first year. I don’t know him well. I don’t think anyone really does. He mostly keeps to himself. He’s quiet. Trains alone and doesn’t really have friends.”
“Sounds like someone we know.” Kitay jabbed an elbow at Rin.
She bristled. “Shut up. I have friends.”
“You have a friend,” Kitay said. “Singular.”
Rin pushed at Kitay’s arm. “But Altan’s so good,” she said. “At everything. Everyone adores him.”
Raban shrugged. “Altan’s more or less a god on this campus. Doesn’t mean he’s happy.”
Once the conversation had derailed to Altan, Rin forgot half the questions she had meant to ask about Jiang. She and Kitay prodded Raban for anecdotes about Altan until dinner break ended. That night, she tried asking Kureel and Arda, but neither of them could confirm anything substantial.
“I see Jiang in the infirmary sometimes,” said Arda. “Enro keeps a walled-off bed just for him. He stays for a day or two every other month and then leaves. Maybe he’s sick with something. Or maybe he just really likes the smell of disinfectant, I can’t tell. Enro caught him trying to get high off medicine fumes once.”
“Jun doesn’t like him,” said Kureel. “Not hard to see why. What kind of master acts like that? Especially at Sinegard?” Her face twisted with disapproval. “I think he’s a disgrace to the Academy. Why’re you asking?”
“No reason,” said Rin. “Just curious.”
Kureel shrugged. “Every class falls for it at first. Everyone thinks there’s more to Jiang than there is, that Lore is a real subject worth learning. But there’s nothing there. Jiang’s a joke. You’re wasting your time.”
But the Lore Master was real. Jiang was a faculty member of the Academy, even if all he did was wander around and annoy the other masters. No one else could have gotten away with provoking Jun like Jiang did on a regular basis. So if Jiang didn’t bother teaching, what was he doing at Sinegard?
Rin was slightly amazed when she saw Jiang waiting at the campus gates the next afternoon. She wouldn’t have put it past him to simply forget. She opened her mouth to ask where they were going, but he simply waved at her to follow him.
She assumed that she was just going to have to get used to being led around by Jiang with no clear explanation.
They had hardly started down the path before they ran into Jun, returning from city patrol with a group of his apprentices.
“Ah. The lackwit and the peasant.” Jun slowed to a stop. His apprentices looked somewhat wary, as if they’d seen this exchange before. “And where are you going on this fine afternoon?”
“None of your business, Loran,” Jiang said breezily. He tried to skirt around Jun, but Jun stepped into his path.
“A master leaving the grounds alone with a student. I wonder what they’ll say.” Jun narrowed his eyes.
“Probably that a master of his rank and standing could do much better than dicking around with female students,” Jiang replied cheerfully, looking directly at Jun’s apprentices. Kureel looked outraged.
Jun scowled. “She doesn’t have permission to leave the grounds. She needs written approval from Jima.”
Jiang stretched out his right arm and shoved his sleeve up to the elbow. At first Rin thought that he might punch Jun, but Jiang simply raised his elbow to his mouth and made a loud farting noise.
“That’s not written approval.” Jun looked unimpressed. Rin suspected he had seen this display many times before.
“I’m Lore Master,” Jiang said. “That comes with privileges.”
“Privileges like never teaching class?”
Jiang lifted his chin and said self-importantly, “I have taught her class the crushing sensation of disappointment and the even more important lesson that they do not matter as much as they think they do.”
“You have taught her class and every class before it that Lore is a joke and the Lore Master is a bumbling idiot.”
“Tell Jima to fire me, then.” Jiang waggled his eyebrows. “I know you’ve tried.”
Jun raised his eyes to the sky in an expression of eternal suffering. Rin suspected that this was only a small part of an argument that had been going on for years.
“I’m reporting this to Jima,” Jun warned.
“Jima has better things to waste her time on. As long as I bring little Runin back in time for dinner, I doubt she’ll care. In the meantime, stop blocking the road.”
Jiang snapped his fingers and motioned for Rin to follow. Rin clamped her mouth shut and tripped down the path behind him.
“Why does he hate you so much?” Rin asked as they climbed down the mountain pass toward the city.
Jiang shrugged. “They tell me I killed half the men under his command during the Second War. He’s still bitter about it.”
“Well, did you?” Rin felt like she was obligated to ask.
He shrugged again. “Haven’t the faintest clue.”
Rin had no idea how to respond to this, and Jiang did not elaborate.
“So tell me about your class,” Jiang said after a while. “Same crowd of entitled brats?”
“I don’t know them very well,” Rin admitted. “They’re all . . . I mean . . .”
“Smarter? Better trained? More important than you?”
“Nezha’s the son of the Dragon Warlord,” Rin blurted out. “How am I supposed to compete with that? Venka’s father is the finance minister. Kitay’s father is defense minister, or something like that. Niang’s family are physicians to the Hare Warlord.”
Jiang snorted. “Typical.”
“Typical?”
“Sinegard likes to collect the Warlords’ broods as much as it can. Keeps them under the Empire’s careful watch.”
“What for?” she asked.
“Leverage. Indoctrination. This generation of Warlords hate each other too much to coordinate on anything of national importance, and the imperial bureaucracy has too little local authority to force them. Just look at the state of the Imperial Navy.”
“We have a navy?” Rin asked.
“Exactly.” Jiang snorted. “We used to. Anyhow, Daji’s hoping that Sinegard will forge a generation of leaders who like each other—and better, who will obey the throne.”
“She really struck gold with me, then,” Rin muttered.
Jiang shot her a sideways grin. “What, you’re not going to be a good soldier to the Empire?”
“I will,” Rin said hastily. �
��I just don’t think most of my classmates like me very much. Or ever will.”
“Well, that’s because you’re a dark little peasant brat who can’t pronounce your r’s,” Jiang said breezily. He made a turn into a narrow corridor. “This way.”
He led her into the meatpacking district, where the streets were cramped and crowded and smelled overwhelmingly like blood. Rin gagged and clamped a hand over her nose as they walked. Butcher shops lined the alleyways, built so close they were almost on top of one another in crooked rows like jagged teeth. After twenty minutes of twists and turns, they stopped at a little shack at the end of a block. Jiang rapped thrice on the rickety wooden door.
“What?” screeched a voice from within. Rin jumped.
“It’s me,” Jiang called back, unfazed. “Your favorite person in the whole wide world.”
There was the noise of clattering metal from inside. After a moment, a wizened little lady in a purple smock opened the door. She greeted Jiang with a curt nod but squinted suspiciously at Rin.
“This is the Widow Maung,” Jiang said. “She sells me things.”
“Drugs,” clarified the Widow Maung. “I am his drug dealer.”
“She means ginseng, and roots and such,” Jiang said. “For my health.”
The Widow Maung rolled her eyes.
Rin watched the exchange, fascinated.
“The Widow Maung has a problem,” Jiang continued cheerfully.
The Widow Maung cleared her throat and spat a thick wad of phlegm into the dirt next to where Jiang stood. “I do not have a problem. You are making up this problem for reasons unbeknownst to me.”
“Regardless,” Jiang said, maintaining his idyllic smile, “the Widow Maung has graciously allowed you to help her in resolving her problem. Madam, would you bring out the animal?”
The Widow Maung disappeared into the back of the shop. Jiang motioned for Rin to follow him inside. Rin heard a loud squealing sound from behind the wall. Moments later, the Widow Maung returned with a squirming animal clutched in her arms. She plopped it on the counter before them.
“Here’s a pig,” Jiang said.
“That is a pig,” Rin agreed.
The pig in question was a tiny thing, no longer than Rin’s forearm. Its skin was spotted black and pink. The way its snout curved up made it look like it was grinning. It was oddly cute.
Rin scratched it behind the ears and it nuzzled her forearm affectionately.
“I named it Sunzi,” Jiang said happily.
The Widow Maung looked like she couldn’t wait for Jiang to leave.
Jiang hastened to explain. “The Widow Maung needs little Sunzi watered every day. The problem is Sunzi requires a very special sort of water.”
“Sunzi could drink sewage water and be fine,” the Widow Maung clarified. “You’re just making things up for this training exercise.”
“Can we just do it like we rehearsed?” Jiang demanded. It was the first time Rin had seen anyone actually get to him. “You’re killing the mood.”
“Is that something you’re often told?” the Widow Maung inquired.
Jiang snorted, amused, and clapped Rin on the back. “Here’s the situation. The Widow Maung needs Sunzi to drink this very special sort of water. Fortunately, this fresh, crystal-clear water can be found in a stream at the top of the mountain. The catch is getting Sunzi up the mountain. This is where you come in.”
“You’re joking,” Rin said.
Jiang beamed. “Every day you will run into town to visit the Widow Maung. You will lug this adorable piglet up the mountain and let him drink. Then you will bring him back and return to the Academy. Understood?”
“It’s a two-hour trip up the mountain and back!”
“It’s a two-hour trip now,” Jiang said cheerfully. “It’ll be longer once this little guy starts growing.”
“But I have class,” she protested.
“Better get up early, then,” said Jiang. “It’s not like you have Combat in the morning anyway. Remember? Someone got expelled?”
“But—”
“Someone,” Jiang drawled, “does not want very much to stay at Sinegard.”
The Widow Maung snorted loudly.
Glowering, Rin gathered up Sunzi the piglet in her arms and tried not to wrinkle her nose at the smell.
“Guess I’ll be seeing a lot of you,” she grumbled.
Sunzi squirmed and nuzzled into the crook of her arm.
Every day over the next four months, Rin rose before the sun came up, ran as fast as she could down the mountain pass and into the meatpacking district to fetch Sunzi, strapped the piglet to her back, and ran back up the mountain. She took the long way up, routing around Sinegard so that none of her classmates would see her running around with a squealing pig.
She was often late to Medicine.
“Where the hell have you been? And why do you smell like swine?” Kitay wrinkled his nose as she slid into the seat next to him.
“I’ve been carrying a pig up a mountain,” she said. “Obeying the whims of a madman. Finding a way out.”
It was desperate behavior, but she had fallen on desperate times. Rin was now relying on the campus madman to keep her spot at Sinegard. She began to sit in the back of the room so that nobody could smell the traces of Sunzi on her when she returned from the Widow Maung’s butcher shop.
From the way everyone kept their distance, she wasn’t sure it mattered.
Jiang did more than make her carry the pig. In an astonishing streak of reliability, he stood waiting for her in the garden every day at class time.
“You know, animal-based martial arts weren’t developed for combat,” he said. “They were first created to promote health and longevity. The Frolics of the Five Animals”—he held up the Yinmen scroll that Rin had spent so long looking for—“is actually a system of exercises to promote blood circulation and delay the inconveniences of old age. It wasn’t until later that these forms were adapted for fighting.”
“So why am I learning them?”
“Because Jun’s curriculum skips the Frolics entirely. Jun teaches a simplified version of watered-down martial arts adapted purely to human biomechanics. But it leaves out far too much. It whittles away centuries of lineage and refinement all for the sake of military efficiency. Jun can teach you how to be a decent soldier. But I can teach you the key to the universe,” Jiang said grandly, before bumping his head on a low-hanging branch.
Training with Jiang was nothing like training with Jun. There were obvious hierarchies to Jun’s lesson plans, a clear progression from basic techniques to advanced.
But Jiang taught Rin every random thing that came to his deeply unpredictable mind. He would revisit a lesson if he found it particularly interesting; if not, he pretended like it had never happened. Occasionally he would go on long tirades without provocation.
“There are five principal elements present in the universe—get that look off your face, it’s not as absurd as it sounds. The masters of old used to believe that all things were made of fire, water, air, earth, and metal. Obviously, modern science has proven that false. Still, it’s a useful mnemonic for understanding the different types of energy.
“Fire: the heat in your blood in the midst of a fight, the kinetic energy that makes your heart beat faster.” Jiang tapped his chest. “Water: the flowing of force from your muscles to your target, from the earth up through your waist, into your arms. Air: the breath you draw that keeps you alive. Earth: how you stay rooted to the ground, how you derive energy from the way you position yourself against the floor. And metal, for the weapons you wield. A good martial artist will possess all five of these in balance. If you can control each of these with equal skill, you will be unstoppable.”
“How do I know if I’ve got control of them?”
He scratched a spot behind his ears. “Good question. I’m not actually sure.”
Asking Jiang for clarification was inevitably infuriating. His answers were always bizarrely
worded and absurdly phrased. Some didn’t make sense until days later; some never did. If she asked him to explain, he changed the subject. If she let his more absurd comments slide (“Your water element is off balance!”), he poked and prodded about why she wasn’t asking more questions.
He spoke oddly, always a little too quickly or a little too slowly, with strange pauses between his words. He laughed in two ways; one laugh was off-kilter—nervous, high-pitched, and obviously forced—the other great and deep and booming. The first kind she heard constantly; the second was rare, and startling when it burst forth. He rarely met her gaze, but rather focused always at a spot on her brow between her eyes.
Jiang moved through the world like he didn’t belong there. He acted as if he came from a country of near-humans, people who acted almost exactly like Nikara but not quite, and his behavior was that of a confused visitor who had stopped bothering with trying to imitate those around him. He didn’t belong—not simply in Sinegard, but in the very idea of a physical earth. He acted like the rules of nature did not apply to him.
Perhaps they didn’t.
One day they went to the highest tier of the Academy, up past the masters’ lodges. The single building on this tier was a tall, spiraling pagoda, nine stories stacked elegantly on top of one another. Rin had never been inside.
She recalled from that tour so many months ago that Sinegard Academy had been built on the grounds of an old monastery. The pagoda on the highest tier could have still been a temple. Old stone trenches for burning incense sat outside the pagoda entrance. Guarding either side of the door were two large cylinders mounted on tall rods to let them spin. When she looked closer, Rin saw Old Nikara characters carved into the sides.
“What do these do?” she asked, idly spinning one cylinder.
“They’re prayer wheels. But we don’t have time to get into that today,” Jiang said. He gestured for her to follow him. “In here.”