The Poppy War

by R. F. Kuang

  “Each throw of the coins will determine one line in the Hexagram,” said Chaghan. “These lines are patterns written into the universe. They are ancient combinations, descriptions of shapes that were long before either of us was born. They will not make sense to you. But the Talwu will read them, and I will interpret.”

  “Why must you interpret?”

  “Because I am a Seer. This is what I’m trained to do,” said Chaghan. “We Hinterlanders do not call the gods down as you do. We go to them. Our shamans spend hours in trances, learning the secrets of the cosmos. I have spent more time in the Pantheon than I have in your world. I have deciphered enough Hexagrams now to know how they describe the shape of our world. And if you try to interpret for yourself, you’ll just get confused. Let me help you.”

  “Fine.” Rin flung the three coins out onto the hexagonal altar.

  All three coins landed tails up.

  “The first line, undivided,” read the Talwu. “One is ready to move, but his footprints run crisscross.”

  “What does that mean?” Rin asked.

  Chaghan shook his head. “Any number of things. The lines each assume shades of meaning depending on the others. Finish the Hexagram.”

  She tossed the coins again. All heads.

  “The second line, divided,” read the Talwu. “The subject ascends to his place in the sun. There will be supreme good fortune.”

  “That’s good, isn’t it?” Rin asked.

  “Depends on whose fortune it is,” said Chaghan. “The subject is not necessarily you.”

  Her third toss saw one head, two tails.

  “The third line, divided. The end of the day has come. The net has been cast on the setting sun. This spells misfortune.”

  Rin felt a sudden chill. The end of an era, the setting sun on a country . . . she hardly needed Chaghan to interpret that for her.

  “We’re not going to win this war, are we?” she asked the Talwu.

  “I only read the Hexagrams,” said the Talwu. “I confirm and deny nothing.”

  “It’s the net I’m concerned about. It’s a trap,” said Chaghan. “We’ve missed something. Something’s been laid out for us, but we can’t see it.”

  Chaghan’s words confused Rin as much as the line itself did, but Chaghan commanded her to throw the coins again. Two tails, one head.

  “The fourth line, undivided,” read the Talwu. “The subject comes, abrupt with fire, with death, to be rejected by all. As if an exit; as if an entry. As though burning; as though dying; as though discarded.”

  “That one is quite clear,” said Chaghan, although Rin had more questions about that line than the others. She opened her mouth, but he shook his head. “Throw the coins again.”

  The Talwu looked down. “The fifth line, divided. The subject is with tears flowing in torrents, groaning in sorrow.”

  Chaghan looked stricken. “Truly?”

  “The Hexagrams do not lie,” the Talwu said. Her voice was devoid of emotion. “The only lies are in the interpretation.”

  Chaghan’s hand shook suddenly. The wooden beads of his bracelet clattered, echoing in the silent room. Rin shot him a concerned look, but he only shook his head and motioned for her to finish. Arms heavy with dread, Rin cast the coins a sixth and final time.

  “A leader abandons their people,” read the Talwu. “A ruler begins a campaign. One sees great joy in decapitating enemies. This signifies evil.”

  Chaghan’s pale eyes were open very, very wide.

  “You have cast the Twenty-Sixth Hexagram. The Net,” announced the Talwu. “There is a clinging, and a conflict. Things will come to pass that exist only side by side. Misfortune and victory. Liberation and death.”

  “But the Phoenix . . . the Woman . . .” Rin had not received any of the answers she wanted. The Talwu hadn’t helped her at all; it had only warned of even worse things to come, things she didn’t have the power to prevent.

  The Talwu lifted a clawed hand. “Your time of asking is up. Return in a lunar month, and you may cast another Hexagram.”

  Before Rin could speak, Chaghan knelt forward hastily and dragged Rin down beside him.

  “Thank you, Enlightened One,” he said, and to Rin he murmured, “Say nothing.”

  The room dissolved as she sank to her knees, and with an icy jolt, like she had been doused in cold water, Rin found herself shoved back into her material body.

  She took a deep breath. She opened her eyes.

  Beside her, Chaghan drew himself up to a sitting position. His pale eyes were huge, deep in their shadowed sockets. His gaze seemed to be focused still on something very far away, something entirely not in this world. Slowly, he returned to himself, and when he finally registered Rin’s presence, his expression became one of deep anxiety.

  “We must get Altan,” he said.

  If Altan was surprised when Chaghan barged into the Sihang warehouse with Rin in tow, he didn’t show it. He looked too exhausted for anything to faze him at all.

  “Summon the Cike,” said Chaghan. “We need to leave this city.”

  “On what information?” Altan asked.

  “There was a Hexagram.”

  “I thought you didn’t get another question for a month.”

  “It wasn’t mine,” said Chaghan. “It was hers.”

  Altan didn’t even glance at Rin. “We can’t leave Khurdalain. They need us now more than ever. We’re about to lose the city. If the Federation gets through us, they enter the heartland. We are the final front.”

  “You are fighting a battle the Federation does not need to win,” said Chaghan. “The Hexagrams spoke of a great victory, and great destruction. Khurdalain has only been a frustration for both sides. There is one other city that Mugen wants right now.”

  “That’s impossible,” said Altan. “They cannot march to Golyn Niis so soon from the coast. The Golyn River route is too narrow to move troop columns. They would have to find the mountain pass.”

  Chaghan raised his eyebrows. “I’ll bet you they’ve found it.”

  “All right. Fine.” Altan stood up. “I believe you. Let’s go.”

  “Just like that?” Rin asked. “No due diligence?”

  Altan walked out of the room and headed down the hallway at a brisk stride. They scurried to keep up with him. He descended the steps of the warehouse until he stood before the basement cellar where the Federation prisoner was kept.

  “What are you doing?” Rin asked.

  “Due diligence,” Altan said, and yanked the door open.

  The cellar smelled strongly of defecation.

  The prisoner had been shackled to a post in the corner of the room, hands and feet bound, a cloth jammed into his mouth. He was unconscious when they entered the room; he didn’t stir when Altan slammed the door shut, or when Altan crossed the room to kneel down beside him.

  He had been beaten; one eye was swollen a violent shade of purple, and blood was crusted around a broken nose. But the worst damage had been inflicted by the gas: what skin was not purple had blistered into an angry red rash, so that his face did not look human at all but rather like a frightening combobulation of colors. Rin found a savage satisfaction in seeing the prisoners’ features as burned and disfigured as they were.

  Altan touched two fingers to an open wound on the prisoner’s cheek and gave a small, sharp jab.

  “Wake up,” he said in fluent Mugini. “How are you feeling?”

  With a groan, the prisoner slowly opened his swollen eyes. When he saw Altan, he hacked and spat out a gob of spit at Altan’s feet.

  “Wrong answer,” said Altan, and dug his nail into the cut.

  The prisoner screamed loudly. Altan let go.

  “What do you want?” the prisoner demanded. His Mugini was coarse and slurred, a far cry from the polished accent Rin had studied at Sinegard. It took her a moment to decipher his dialect.

  “It occurs to me that Khurdalain was never the main target,” Altan said casually, resting back on his
haunches. “Perhaps you would like to tell us what is.”

  The prisoner smiled an awful, bloody-faced smile that twisted his burn scars. “Khurdalain,” he repeated, rolling the Nikara word through his mouth like a wad of phlegm. “Who would want to capture this shit hole?”

  “Never mind,” said Altan. “Where is the main offensive going?”

  The prisoner glowered up at him and snorted.

  Altan raised a hand and slapped the prisoner on the blistered side of his face. Rin winced. By targeting the prisoner’s sore, open wounds, Altan was making him hurt worse and more acutely than any heavy-handed blows could.

  “Where is the other offensive?” Altan repeated.

  The prisoner spat blood at Altan’s feet.

  “Answer me!” Altan shouted.

  Rin jumped.

  The prisoner raised his head. “Nikara swine,” he sneered.

  Altan grabbed the prisoner by a fistful of hair in the back of his head. He slammed his other fist into the prisoner’s already bruised eye. Again. And again. Blood flew across the room, splashed against the dirt floor.

  “Stop,” Rin squeaked.

  Altan turned around.

  “Leave the room or shut up,” he said.

  “At this rate he’ll pass out,” she responded, her heart hammering. “And we don’t have time to revive him.”

  Altan stared at her for a wild-eyed moment. Then he nodded curtly and turned back to the prisoner.

  “Sit up.”

  The prisoner muttered something none of them could understand.

  Altan kicked him in the ribs. “Sit up!”

  The prisoner spat another gob of blood on Altan’s boots. His head lolled to the side. Altan wiped his toe on the ground with deliberate slowness, then knelt down in front of the prisoner. He stuck two fingers under the prisoner’s chin and tilted his face up to his own in a gesture that was almost intimate.

  “Hey, I’m talking to you,” he said. “Hey. Wake up.”

  He slapped the prisoner’s cheeks until the prisoner’s eyes fluttered back open.

  “I have nothing to say to you,” the prisoner sneered.

  “You will,” Altan said. His voice dropped in pitch, a sharp contrast from his previous shouts. “Do you know what a Speerly is?”

  The prisoner’s eyes furrowed together in confusion. “What?”

  “Surely you know,” Altan said softly. His voice became a low, velvety purr. “Surely you’ve heard tales of us. Surely the island hasn’t forgotten. You must have been a child when your people massacred Speer, no? Did you know they did it overnight? Killed every single man, woman, and child.”

  Sweat beaded at the prisoner’s temples, dripping down to mingle with fresh rivulets of blood. Altan snapped his fingers before the prisoner’s eyes. “Can you see this? Can you see my fingers? Yes or no.”

  “Yes,” the prisoner said hoarsely.

  Altan tilted his head. “They say your people were terrified of the Speerlies. That the generals gave orders that not one single Speerly child should survive, because they were so terrified of what we might become. Do you know why?”

  The prisoner stared blankly forward.

  Altan snapped again. His thumb and index finger burst into flames.

  “This is why,” he said.

  The prisoner’s eyes bulged with terror.

  Altan brought his hand close to the prisoner’s face, so that the edge of the flame licked threateningly at the gas blisters.

  “I will burn you piece by piece,” said Altan. His tone was so soft that he could have been speaking to a lover. “I will start with the bottoms of your feet. I will feed you one bit of pain at a time, so you will never lose consciousness. Your wounds will cauterize as soon as they manifest, so you won’t die from blood loss. When your feet are charred, coated entirely in black, I’ll move on to your fingers. I’ll make them drop off one by one. I will line up the charcoal stubs in a string to hang around your neck. When I’ve finished with your extremities, I’ll move on to your testicles. I will singe them so slowly you will go insane from the agony. Then you’ll sing.”

  The prisoner’s eyes twitched madly, but still he shook his head.

  Altan’s tone softened even further. “It doesn’t have to be like this. Your division let us take you. You don’t owe them anything.” His voice became soothing and hypnotic, almost gentle. “The others wanted to have you put to death, you know. Publicly executed before the civilians. They would have had you torn apart. An eye for an eye.” Altan’s voice was so lovely. He could be so beautiful, so charismatic, when he wanted to be. “But I’m not like the others. I’m reasonable. I don’t want to hurt you. I just want your cooperation.”

  The soldier’s throat bobbed. His eyes darted across Altan’s face; he was hopelessly confused, trying to get a read and concluding nothing. Altan wore two masks at the same time, feigned two contrasting entities, and the prisoner did not know which to expect or pander to.

  “Tell me, and I can have you released,” Altan said gently. “Tell me, and I’ll let you go.”

  The prisoner maintained his silence.

  “No?” Altan searched the prisoner’s face. “All right.” His flames doubled in intensity, shooting sparks through the air.

  The prisoner shrieked. “Golyn Niis!”

  Altan kept the flames held perilously close to the prisoner’s eyes. “Elaborate.”

  “We never needed to take Khurdalain,” spat the prisoner. “The goal was always Golyn Niis. All your best divisions came flocking to the coast as soon as this war started. Idiots. We never even wanted this beach town.”

  “But the fleet,” said Altan. “Khurdalain has been your point of entry for every offensive. You can’t get to Golyn Niis without going through Khurdalain.”

  “There was another fleet,” hissed the prisoner. “There have been many fleets, sailing south of this pathetic city. They found the mountain pass. You poor idiots, did you think you could keep that a secret? They’re cutting straight toward Golyn Niis itself. Your war capital will burn, our Armed Forces are cutting directly across your heartland, and you’re still holed up here in this pathetic excuse for a city.”

  Altan drew his hand back.

  Rin flinched instinctively, expecting him to lash out again.

  But Altan only extinguished his flame and patted the prisoner condescendingly on the head. “Good boy,” he said in a low whisper. “Thank you.”

  He nodded to Rin and Chaghan, indicating they were about to leave.

  “Wait,” the prisoner said hastily. “You said you’d let me go.”

  Altan tilted his face up to the ceiling and sighed. A thin trickle of sweat ran from the bone under his ear down his neck.

  “Sure,” he said. “I’ll let you go.”

  He whipped his hand across the prisoner’s neck. A spray of blood flew outward.

  The prisoner bore an astonished expression. He made a last startled, choked noise. Then his eyes drooped closed and his head slumped forward. The smell of cooked meat and burned blood filled the air.

  Rin tasted bile in the back of her throat. It was a long while before she remembered how to breathe.

  Altan rose to his feet. The veins at his neck protruded in the dim light. He took a deep breath and then exhaled slowly, like an opium smoker, like a man who had just filled his lungs with a drug. He turned toward them. His eyes glowed bright red in the darkness. His eyes were nothing human.

  “Fine,” he said to his lieutenant. “You were right.”

  Chaghan hadn’t moved throughout the entire interrogation.

  “I’m rarely wrong,” said Chaghan.

  Part III

  Chapter 21

  Baji yawned loudly, winced, and pulled his neck far to the side. A series of cracks punctuated the still morning air. There was no room to lie down in the river sampan, so sleep had to be acquired in short, fitful bursts, bent over in cramp-inducing positions. He blinked blearily for a minute, and then reached across the narrow boa
t with his foot to nudge Rin’s leg.

  “I can take watch now.”

  “I’m fine,” Rin said. She sat huddled with her hands shoved into her armpits, slumped forward so that her head rested on her knees. She stared blankly out at the running water.

  “You really should get some sleep.”

  “Can’t.”

  “You should try.”

  “I’ve tried,” Rin said shortly.

  Rin could not silence the Talwu’s voice in her head. She had heard the Hexagram uttered only once, but she was unlikely to forget a single word. It had been seared into her mind, and no matter how many times she revisited it, she could not interpret it in a way that did not leave her feeling sick with dread.

  Abrupt with fire, with death . . . as though burning; as though dying . . . the subject is with tears flowing in torrents . . . great joy in decapitating enemies . . .

  She used to think divination was a pale science, a vague approximation if valuable at all. But the Talwu’s words were anything but vague. There was only one possible fate for Golyn Niis.

  You have cast the Twenty-Sixth Hexagram. The Net. Chaghan had said the net meant a trap had been laid. But had the trap been laid for Golyn Niis? Had it already been sprung, or were they heading straight toward their deaths?

  “You’re going to wear yourself out. Fretting won’t make these boats run any faster.” Baji pulled his head to the side until he heard another satisfying crack. “And it won’t make the dead come back to life.”

  They raced up the Golyn River, making absurd time in a journey that should have taken a month on horseback. Aratsha ferried them along the river at blinding speed. Still, it took them a week to travel the length of the Golyn River to the lush delta where Golyn Niis had been built.

  Rin glanced up to look at the boat at the very fore, where Altan sat. He rode beside Chaghan; their heads were tilted together, speaking in low tones as usual. They had been like this since they had left Khurdalain. Chaghan and Qara may have been linked as anchor twins, but it was Altan whom Chaghan seemed bonded to.