The Poppy War

by R. F. Kuang

  The ringing in her ears reached a crescendo.

  He doesn’t get to do this to you, said a voice in Rin’s head. He doesn’t get to terrorize you. She had not come this far to crouch like this in fear. Not to Altan. Not to anyone.

  She stood up, even as she reached somewhere inside herself—somewhere spiteful and dark and horrible—and opened the channel to the entity she already knew was waiting for her summons. The room pitched forward as if viewed through a long scarlet prism. The familiar burn was back in her veins, the burn that demanded blood and ashes.

  Through the red haze she thought she saw Altan’s eyes widen in surprise. She squared her shoulders. Flames flared from her shoulders and back, flames that mirrored Altan’s.

  She took a step toward him.

  A loud crackling noise filled the room. She felt an immense pressure. She trembled under the weight of it. She heard a bird’s laughter. She heard a god’s amused sigh.

  You children, murmured the Phoenix. You absurd, ridiculous children. My children.

  Altan looked stunned.

  But just as her flames resisted his, she began to feel uncomfortably hot again, felt his fire begin to burn her. Rin’s fire was an incendiary flash, an impulsive flare of anger. Altan’s fire drew as its source an unending hate. It was a deep, slow burn. She could almost taste it, the venomous intent, the ancient misery, and it horrified her.

  How could one person hate so much?

  What had happened to him?

  She could not maintain her fire anymore. Altan’s flames burned hotter than hers. They had fought a contest of wills and she had lost.

  She struggled for another moment and then her flames shrank back into her as quickly as they’d sprung out. Altan’s fire dimmed a moment after hers did.

  This is it, Rin thought. I’ve crossed the line. This is the end.

  But Altan didn’t look furious. He didn’t look like he was about to execute her.

  No—he looked pleased.

  “So that’s what it takes,” he said.

  She felt drained, as if the fire had burned up something inside her. She couldn’t even feel anger. She could barely stand.

  “Fuck you,” she said. “Fuck you.”

  “Get to your post, soldier,” said Altan.

  She left his office, slamming the door shut behind her.

  Fuck me.

  Chapter 20

  “There you are.”

  She found Chaghan over the north wall. He stood with his arms crossed, watching as civilians poured out of Khurdalain’s dense streets like ants fleeing a collapsed hill. They straggled through the city gates with their worldly possessions packed onto wagons, strapped to the sides of oxen or horses, slung across their shoulders on poles meant for carrying water, or simply dragged along in sacks. They had chosen to take their chances in the open country rather than to stay another day in the doomed city.

  The Militia was remaining in Khurdalain—it was still a strategic base that needed to be held—but they would be protecting nothing but empty buildings from here on out.

  “Khurdalain’s done for,” Chaghan said, leaning against the wall. “Militia included. There’ll be no supplies after this. No hospital. No food. Soldiers fight battles, but civilians keep armies alive. Lose the resource well, and you’ve lost the war.”

  “I need to talk to you,” she said.

  He turned to face her, and she suppressed a shudder at the sight of those eyes without pupils. His gaze seemed to rest on the scarlet palm print on her cheek. His lips pressed together in a thin line, as if he knew exactly how the mark had gotten there.

  “Lovers’ spat?” he drawled.

  “Difference of opinion.”

  “Shouldn’t have harped on about that boy,” he tutted. “Altan doesn’t tolerate shit like that. He’s not very patient.”

  “He’s not human,” she said, recalling the horrible anger behind Altan’s power. She’d thought she understood Altan. She’d thought she had reached the man behind the command title. But she realized now that she didn’t know him at all. The Altan she’d known—at least, the Altan in her mind—would have done anything for his troops. He wouldn’t have left someone in the gas to die. “He—I don’t know what he is.”

  “But Altan was never allowed to be human,” Chaghan said, and his voice was uncharacteristically gentle. “Since childhood, he’s been regarded as a Militia asset. Your masters at the Academy fed him opium for attacking his classmates and trained him like a dog for this war. Now he’s been shouldered with the most difficult command position that exists in the Militia, and you wonder why he’s not going to trouble himself with your little boy toy?”

  Rin almost hit Chaghan for that, but she restrained herself with a twitch and set her jaw. “I’m not here to talk about Altan.”

  “Then why, pray tell, are you here?”

  “I need you to show me what you can do,” she said.

  “I do a lot of things, sweetheart.”

  She bristled. “I need you to take me to the gods.”

  Chaghan looked smug. “I thought you didn’t have a problem calling the gods.”

  “I can’t do it as easily as Altan can.”

  “But you can do it.”

  Her fingers curled into fists by her sides. “I want to do what Altan can do.”

  Chaghan raised an eyebrow.

  She took a deep breath. Chaghan didn’t need to know what had happened in the office. “I’ve been trying for months now. I think I’ve got it, I’m not sure, but there’s something . . . someone that’s blocking me.”

  Chaghan assumed a mildly curious expression, tilting his head in a manner painfully reminiscent of Jiang. “You’re being haunted?”

  “It’s a woman.”

  “Really.”

  “Come with me,” she said. “I’ll show you.”

  “Why now?” He crossed his arms over his chest. “What happened?”

  She didn’t answer his question. “I need to do what he can do,” she said flatly. “I need to call the same power that he can.”

  “And you didn’t bother with me before because . . .”

  “You weren’t fucking here!”

  “And when I returned?”

  “I was obeying the warnings of my master.”

  Chaghan sounded like he was gloating. “Those warnings no longer apply?”

  She set her jaw. “I’ve realized that masters inevitably let you down.”

  He nodded slowly, though his expression gave nothing away. “And if I can’t get rid of this . . . ghost?”

  “Then at least you’ll understand.” She held out her hands. “Please.”

  That supplication was enough. Chaghan gave a slight nod, and then beckoned her to sit down beside him. While she watched, he unpacked his knapsack and spread it out on the stone floor. An impressive supply of psychedelics was packed inside, tucked neatly into more than twenty little pockets.

  “This is not derived from the poppy plant,” he said as he mixed powders into a glass vial. “This drug is something far more potent. A small overdose will cause blindness. More than that and you will be dead in minutes. Do you trust me?”

  “No. But that’s irrelevant.”

  Chuckling softly, Chaghan gave the vial a shake. He dumped the mixture into his palm, licked his index finger, and dipped it lightly in the drug so that the tip of his finger was covered by a light smattering of fine blue dust.

  “Open your mouth,” he said.

  She pushed down a swell of hesitation and obliged.

  Chaghan pressed the tip of his finger against her tongue.

  She closed her eyes. Felt the psychedelics seep into her saliva.

  The onset was immediate and crushing, like a dark wave of ocean water had suddenly slammed on top of her. Her nervous system broke down completely; she lost the ability to sit up and crumpled at Chaghan’s feet.

  She was at his mercy now, completely and utterly vulnerable before him. He could kill me right now, she thou
ght dully. She didn’t know why it was the first thought that sprang to her mind. He could get rid of me now, if he wanted to.

  But Chaghan only knelt down beside her, grasped her face by her cheeks, and pressed his forehead against hers. His eyes were open very, very wide. She stared into them, fascinated; they were a pale expanse, a window into a snowy landscape, and she was traversing through them . . .

  And then they were hurtling upward.

  She hadn’t known what she had expected. Not once in two years of training had Jiang guided her into the spirit realm. It had always been her mind alone, her soul alone in the void, journeying up toward the gods.

  With Chaghan, she felt as if a piece of her had been ripped away, was clutched in the palm of his hand, being taken somewhere of his choosing. She was immaterial, without body or form, but Chaghan was not; Chaghan remained as solid and real as before, perhaps even more so. In the material world, he was gaunt and emaciated, but in the realm of spirit he was solid and present . . .

  She understood, now, why Chaghan and Qara had to be two halves of a whole. Qara was grounded, material, fully made of earth. To call them anchor twins was a misnomer—she alone was the anchor to her ethereal brother, who belonged more in the realm of spirit than he did in a world of flesh and blood.

  The route to the Pantheon was familiar by now, and so was the gate. Once again the Woman materialized in front of her. But something was different this time; this time the Woman was less like a ghost and more like a corpse; half her face was torn away, revealing bone underneath, and her warrior’s garb had burned away from her body.

  The Woman stretched a hand out toward Rin in supplication.

  “It’ll eat you alive,” she said. “The fire will consume you. To find our god is to find hell on earth, little warrior. You will burn and burn and never find peace.”

  “How curious,” said Chaghan. “Who are you?”

  The Woman whirled on him.

  “You know who I am,” she said. “I am the guardian. I am the Traitor and the Damned. I am redemption. I am the girl’s last chance for salvation.”

  “I see,” Chaghan murmured. “So this is where you’ve been hiding.”

  “What are you talking about?” Rin demanded. “Who is she?”

  But Chaghan spoke past her, directly to the woman. “You should have been immured in the Chuluu Korikh.”

  “The Chuluu Korikh can’t hold me,” hissed the Woman. “I am a Speerly. My ashes are free.” She reached out and stroked Rin’s damaged cheek like a mother caressing her child. “You don’t want me gone. You need me.”

  Rin shuddered at her touch. “I need my god. I need power, and I need fire.”

  “If you call it now, you will bring down hell on earth,” the Woman warned.

  “Khurdalain is hell on earth,” said Rin. She saw Nezha screaming in the fog, and her voice wavered.

  “You don’t know what true suffering is,” the Woman insisted angrily.

  Rin curled her fingers into fists at her sides, suddenly pissed off. True suffering? She had seen her friends stabbed with halberds, shot full of arrows, cut down with swords, burned to death in poisonous fog. She had seen Sinegard go up in flames. She had seen Khurdalain occupied by Federation invaders almost overnight.

  “I have seen more than my fair share of suffering,” she hissed.

  “I’m trying to save you, little one. Why can’t you see that?”

  “What about Altan?” Rin challenged. “Why haven’t you ever tried to stop him?”

  The Woman tilted her head. “Is that what this is about? Are you jealous of what he can do?”

  Rin opened her mouth, but nothing came out. No. Yes. Did it matter? If she had been as strong as Altan, he wouldn’t have been able to restrain her.

  If she were as strong as Altan, she could have saved Nezha.

  “That boy is beyond redemption,” said the Woman. “That boy is broken like the rest. But you, you are still pure. You can still be saved.”

  “I don’t want to be saved!” Rin shrieked. “I want power! I want Altan’s power! I want to be the most powerful shaman there ever was, so that there is no one I can’t save!”

  “That power can burn down the world,” the Woman said sadly. “That power will destroy everything you’ve ever loved. You will defeat your enemy, and the victory will turn to ashes in your mouth.”

  Chaghan had finally regained his composure.

  “You have no right to remain here,” he said. His voice trembled slightly as he spoke, but he raised one thin hand toward the Woman in a banishing gesture. “You belong to the realm of the dead. Return to the dead.”

  “Do not try,” sneered the Woman. “You cannot banish me. In my time I have bested shamans far more powerful than you.”

  “There are no shamans more powerful than me,” said Chaghan, and he began to chant in his own language, the harshly guttural language Jiang had once spoken, the language Rin recognized now as the speech of the Hinterlands.

  His eyes glowed golden.

  The Woman started to shake, as if standing over an earthquake, and then suddenly she burst into flames. The fire lit her face from within, like a glowing coal, like an ember about to explode.

  She shattered.

  Chaghan took Rin’s wrist and tugged. She became immaterial again, rushing headlong into the space where things were not real. She did not choose where they went; she could only concentrate on staying whole, staying herself, until Chaghan stopped and she could regain her bearings without losing herself entirely.

  This was not the Pantheon.

  She glanced around, confused. They were in a dimly lit room the size of Altan’s office, with a low, curved ceiling that forced them to crouch where they stood. Everywhere she looked, small tiles had been arranged in mosaics, depicting scenes she did not recognize or understand. A fisherman bearing a net full of armored warriors. A young boy encircled by a dragon. A woman with long hair weeping over a broken sword and two bodies. In the room’s center stood a great hexagonal altar, engraved with sixty-four intricate characters of Old Nikara calligraphy.

  “Where are we?” Rin asked.

  “A safe place of my choosing,” Chaghan said. He looked visibly rattled. “She was much stronger than I expected. I took us to the first place I thought of. This is a Divinatory. Here we can ask questions about your Woman. Come to the altar.”

  She looked about in wonder as she followed him, running her fingers over the carefully designed tiles. “Is this part of the Pantheon?”

  “No.”

  “Then is this place real?”

  “It’s real in your mind,” said Chaghan. “That’s as real as anything gets.”

  “Jiang never taught me about this.”

  “That’s because you Nikara are so primitive,” said Chaghan. “You still think there’s a strict binary between the material world and the Pantheon. You think calling the gods is like summoning a dog from the yard into the house. But you can’t conceive of the dream world as a physical place. The gods are painters. Your material world is a canvas. And this Divinatory is an angle from which we can see the colors on the palette. This isn’t really a place, it’s a perspective. But you’re interpreting it as a room because your human mind can’t process anything else.”

  “What about this altar? The mosaics? Who built them?”

  “No one did. You still don’t understand. They’re mental constructions so that you can comprehend concepts that are already written. To the Talwu, this room looks completely different.”

  “The Talwu?”

  Chaghan tilted his chin toward something in front of them.

  “You’re back so soon,” spoke a cool, alien voice.

  In the dim light, Rin had not noticed the creature standing behind the hexagonal altar. It walked around the circle at a steady pace and sank into a deep bow before Chaghan. It looked like nothing Rin had ever seen; it was similar to a tiger, but its hair grew two feet long. It had a woman’s face, a lion’s feet, a pig’
s teeth, and a very long tail that might have belonged to a monkey.

  “She is a goddess. Guardian of the Hexagrams,” Chaghan said to Rin as he sank into an equally deep bow. He pulled her down to the floor with him.

  The Talwu dipped her head toward Chaghan. “The time of asking has expired for you. But you . . .” She looked at Rin. “You have never asked a question of me. You may proceed.”

  “What is this place?” Rin asked Chaghan. “What can it—she—tell me?”

  “The Divinatory keeps the Hexagrams,” he answered. “The Hexagrams are sixty-four different combinations of lines broken and unbroken.” He indicated the calligraphy at the sides of the altar, and Rin saw that each character indeed was made up of six lines. “Ask the Talwu your question, cast a Hexagram, and it will read the lines for you.”

  “It can tell me the future?”

  “No one can divine the future,” said Chaghan. “It is always shifting, always dependent on individual choices. But the Talwu can tell you the forces at play. The underlying shape of things. The color of events to pass. The future is a pattern dependent on the movements of the present, but the Talwu can read the currents for you, just as a seasoned sailor can read the ocean. You need only present a question.”

  Rin was beginning to see the reason why Chaghan commanded the fear that he did. He was just like Jiang—unthreatening and eccentric, until one understood what deep power lay behind his frail facade.

  How would Jiang pose a question? She contemplated the wording of her inquiry for a moment. Then she stepped toward the Talwu.

  “What does the Phoenix want me to know?”

  The Talwu almost smiled.

  “Cast the coins six times.”

  Three coins suddenly appeared, stacked on the hexagonal altar. They were not coins of the Nikara Empire; they were too large, cut into a hexagonal shape rather than the round taels and ingots Rin was familiar with. She picked them up and weighed them in her palm. They were heavier than they looked. On the front side of each was etched the unmistakable profile of the Red Emperor; on the back were inscribed characters of Old Nikara that she could not decipher.