The Poppy War

by R. F. Kuang

  He referred to himself as we.

  Altan seemed to have realized this, too. “Do you remember who you are?”

  Feylen frowned at this as if he had forgotten. He pondered a long time before he rasped out, “We are a spirit of the wind. We may take the body of a dragon or the body of a man. We rule the skies of this world. We carry the four winds in a bag and we fly as our whims take us.”

  “You’re Feylen of the Cike. You serve the Empress, and you served under Tyr’s command. I need your help,” Altan said. “I need you to fight for me again.”

  “To . . . fight?”

  “There’s a war,” Altan said, “and we need the power of the gods.”

  “The power of the gods,” Feylen drawled slowly. Then he laughed.

  It wasn’t a human laugh. It was a high-pitched echo that sounded off the mountain walls like the shrieking of bats.

  “We fought for you the first time,” he said. “We fought for the Empire. For your thrice-damned Empress. What did that get us? A slap on the back, and a trip to this mountain.”

  “You did try to send the Night Castle tumbling down a cliff,” Altan pointed out.

  “We were confused. We didn’t know where we were.” Feylen sounded rueful. “But no one helped us . . . no one calmed us. No, instead you helped put us in here. When Tyr subdued us, you held the rope. You dragged us here like cattle. And he stood there and watched the stone close across our face.”

  “That wasn’t my decision,” Altan said. “Tyr thought—”

  “Tyr got scared. The man asked for our power, and backed off when it became too much.”

  Altan swallowed. “I didn’t want this for you.”

  “You promised us you wouldn’t hurt us. I thought you cared about us. We were scared. We were vulnerable. And you bound us in the night, you subdued us with your flames . . . can you imagine the pain? The terror? All we ever did was fight for you, and you repaid us with eternal torture.”

  “We put you to sleep,” Altan said. “We gave you rest.”

  “Rest? Do you think this is rest?” Feylen hissed. “Do you have any idea what this mountain is like? Try stepping into that stone, see if you can last even an hour. Gods were not meant to be contained, least of all us. We are the wind. We blow in each and every direction. We obey no master. Do you know what torment this is? Do you know what the boredom is like?”

  He stepped forward and opened his hands out toward Altan.

  Rin tensed, but nothing happened.

  Perhaps the god Feylen had summoned was capable of immense power. Perhaps he could have leveled villages, might have ripped Altan apart under normal circumstances. But they were inside the mountain. Whatever Feylen was capable of, whatever he would have done, the gods had no power here.

  “I know how terrible it must be to be cut off from the Pantheon,” said Altan. “But if you fight for me, if you promise to contain yourself, then you never have to suffer that again.”

  “We have become divine,” said Feylen. “Do you think we care what happens to mortals?”

  “I don’t need you to care about mortals,” said Altan. “I need you to remember me. I need the power of your god, but I need more the man inside. I need the person in control. I know you’re in there, Feylen.”

  “In control? You speak to us of control?” Feylen gnashed his teeth when he spoke, like every word was a curse. “We cannot be controlled like pack animals for your use. You’re in over your head, little Speerly. You’ve brought down forces you don’t understand into your pathetic little material world, and your world would be infinitely more interesting if someone smashed it up for a bit.”

  The color drained from Altan’s face.

  “Rin, get back,” he said quietly.

  Jiang was right. Chaghan had been right. An entire army of these creatures would have spelled the end of the world.

  She had never felt so wrong.

  We can’t let this thing leave the mountain.

  The same thought seemed to strike Feylen at precisely that moment. He looked between them and the stream of light two tiers up, through which they could just hear the wind howling outside, and he smiled crookedly.

  “Ah,” he said. “Left it wide open, haven’t you?”

  His luminous eyes came alive with malicious glee, and he regarded the exit with the yearning of a drowning man desperate to come up for air.

  “Feylen, please.” Altan stretched out a hand, and his voice was quiet when he spoke to Feylen, as if he thought he could calm him the way he had calmed Suni.

  “You cannot threaten us. We can rip you apart,” sneered Feylen.

  “I know you can,” said Altan. “But I trust that you won’t. I’m trusting the person inside.”

  “You are a fool to think me human.”

  “Me,” said Altan. “You said me.”

  Feylen’s face spasmed. The blue light dimmed from his eyes. His features morphed just so slightly; the sneer disappeared, and his mouth worked as if trying to decide what commands to obey.

  Altan lifted his trident out to the side, far away from Feylen. Then, with a slow deliberateness, he flung the weapon away from him. It clattered against the wall, echoed in the silence of the mountain.

  Feylen stared at the weapon in wide-eyed disbelief.

  “I’m trusting you with my life,” said Altan. “I know you’re in there, Feylen.”

  Slowly, he stretched his hand out again.

  And Feylen grasped it.

  The contact sent tremors through Feylen’s body. When he looked up, he had that same terrified expression she’d seen in Suni. His eyes were wide, dark and imploring, like a child seeking a protector; a lost soul desperately seeking an anchor back to the mortal world.

  “Altan?” he whispered.

  “I’m here.” Altan walked forward. As before, he approached the god without fear, despite full knowledge of what it could do to him.

  “I can’t die,” Feylen whispered. His voice contained none of that grating quality now; it was tremulous, so vulnerable there was no doubt that this Feylen was human. “It’s awful, Trengsin. Why can’t I die? I should never have summoned that god . . . Our minds are meant to be our own, not shared with these things . . . I do not live here in this mountain . . . but I can’t die.”

  Rin felt sick.

  Jiang was right. The gods had no place in their world. No wonder the Speerlies had driven themselves mad. No wonder Jiang was so terrified of pulling the gods down into the mortal realm.

  The Pantheon was where they belonged; the Pantheon was where they should stay. This was a power mankind never should have meddled with.

  What were they thinking? They should leave, now, while Feylen was still under control; they should pull the stone door closed so that he could never escape.

  But Altan showed none of her fear. Altan had his soldier back.

  “I can’t let you die yet,” Altan said. “I need you to fight for me. Can you do that?”

  Feylen had not let go of Altan’s arm; he drew him closer, as if into an embrace. He leaned in and brushed his lips against Altan’s ear, and whispered so that Rin could barely hear what he said: “Kill yourself, Trengsin. Die while you still can.”

  His eyes met Rin’s over Altan’s shoulder. They glinted a bright blue.

  “Altan!” Rin screamed.

  And Feylen wrenched his commander across the plinth and flung him toward the abyss.

  It was not a strong throw. Feylen’s muscles were atrophied from months of disuse; he moved clumsily, like newborn fawn, a god tottering about in a mortal body.

  But Altan careened wildly over the side, flailing in the air for balance, and Feylen pushed past him and scrambled up the stone steps toward the exit. His face was wild with a gleeful malice, ecstatic.

  Rin threw herself across the stone; she landed stomach-first on floor, arms extended, and the next thing she felt was terrible pain as Altan’s fingers closed around her wrist just before he plunged into the darkness.

&
nbsp; His weight wrenched her arm down. She cried out in agony as her elbow slammed against stone.

  But then Altan’s other arm shot up from the darkness. She strained down. Their fingers clasped together.

  Rocks clattered off the edge of the precipice, falling away into the abyss, but Altan hung steady by both of her arms. They slid forward and for one sick moment she feared his weight might pull the both of them over the edge, but then her foot caught in a groove and they came to a stop.

  “I’ve got you,” she panted.

  “Let go,” Altan said.

  “What?”

  “I’m going to swing myself up,” he said. “Let my left arm go.”

  She obeyed.

  Altan kicked himself to the side to generate momentum and then threw his other hand up to grasp the edge. She lay straining against the floor, legs digging into the stone to keep herself from sliding forward while he pulled himself over the edge of the precipice. He slammed one arm over the top and dug his elbow into the floor. Grunting, he hauled his legs over the edge in a single fluid movement.

  Sobbing with relief, Rin helped him to his feet, but he brushed her off.

  “Feylen,” he hissed, and set out at an uneven sprint up the stone pathway.

  Rin followed him, but it was pointless. When they ran, the only footsteps they could hear were their own, because Feylen had long disappeared out the mouth of the Chuluu Korikh.

  They’d given him free rein in the world.

  But Altan had overpowered him once. Surely they could do so again. They had to.

  They stumbled out the stone door and skidded to a halt before a wall of steel.

  Federation soldiers thronged the mountainside.

  Their general barked a command and the soldiers pressed forward with their shields linked to create a barrier, backing Rin and Altan inside the stone mountain.

  She caught Altan’s stricken expression for a brief moment before he was buried beneath a crowd of armor and swords.

  She had no time to wonder why the Federation soldiers were there or how they had known to arrive; all questions disappeared from her mind with the immediacy of combat. The fighting instinct took over—the world became a matter of blades and parries, just another melee—

  Yet even as she drew her sword she knew it was hopeless.

  The Federation had chosen precisely the right place to kill a Speerly.

  Altan and Rin had no advantage in here. The Phoenix could not reach them through the thick walls of stone. Swallowing the poppy would be useless. They might pray to their god, but no one would answer.

  A pair of gauntleted arms reached around Rin from behind, pinning her arms to her sides. From the corner of her eye she saw Altan backed against the wall, no fewer than five blades at his neck.

  He might have been the best martial artist in Nikan. But without his fire, without his trident, he was still only one man.

  Rin jammed her elbow into her captor’s stomach, wriggled free, and whipped her sword outward at the nearest soldier. Their blades clashed; she landed a lucky, wild swing. He tumbled, yelling, into the abyss with her sword embedded in his knee. Rin made a grab for her weapon, but it was too late.

  The next soldier swung wide overhead. She ducked into close quarters, reaching for the knife in her belt.

  The soldier cracked the hilt of his blade down on her shoulder and sent her sprawling across the floor. She fumbled blindly against the rock.

  Then someone slammed a shield against the back of her head.

  Chapter 24

  She woke in darkness. She was lying on a flat, swaying surface—a wagon? A ship? Though she was certain her eyes were open, she could see nothing. Had she been sealed inside something, or was it simply nighttime? She had no idea how much time had passed. She tried to move and discovered that she was bound: hands tied tightly behind her back, legs strapped together. She tried to sit up, and the muscles around her left shoulder screamed in pain. She choked back a whimper and lay down until the throbbing subsided.

  Then she tried moving horizontally instead. Her legs were stiff; the one she lay on was numb from lack of blood flow, and when she shifted so that it would regain feeling, it hurt like a thousand needles were being slowly inserted into her foot. She could not move her legs separately so she writhed back and forth like a worm, inching about until her feet kicked against the sides of something. She pushed against it and writhed the other way.

  She was sure now that she was in a wagon.

  With great effort she pulled herself to a sitting position. The top of her head bumped against something scratchy. A canvas sheet. Or a tarp? Now that her eyes had adjusted, she could see that it was not dark outside after all; the wagon cover simply blocked out the sunlight.

  She strained against the tarp until a crack of light flooded in through the side. Trembling with effort, she pressed her eye to the slit.

  It took her a while to comprehend what she saw.

  The road looked like something out of a dream. It was as if a great gust of wind had blown through a small city, turning households inside out, distributing the contents at random on the grass by the trail. A pair of ornate wooden chairs lay tipped over next to a set of woolen stockings. A dining table sat beside a carved chess set, jade pieces scattered across the dirt. Paintings. Toys. Entire trunks of clothing lay open by the roadside. She saw a wedding dress. A matching set of silken sleepwear.

  It was a trail of fleeing villagers. Whatever Nikara had lived in this area, they had long gone, and they had flung things by the roadside as they became too heavy to carry. As desperation for survival outweighed their attachment to their possessions, the Nikara had dropped off their belongings one by one.

  Was this Feylen’s doing, or the Federation’s? Rin’s stomach curdled at the idea that she might be responsible for this. But if the Wind God had indeed caused this destruction, then he had long moved on. The air was calm when they rode, and no freak winds or tornadoes materialized to rip them to pieces.

  Perhaps he was wreaking havoc on the world elsewhere. Perhaps he had fled north to bide his time, to heal and adjust to his long-awaited freedom. Who could predict the will of a god?

  Had the Federation razed Tikany to the ground yet? Had the Fangs heard rumors of the advancing army early enough to run before the Federation tore their village apart? What about Kesegi?

  She thought the Federation soldiers might loot the debris. But they were moving so fast that the officers yelled at their troops when they stopped to pick things up. Wherever they were going, they wanted to get there soon.

  Among the abandoned chests and furniture, Rin saw a man sitting by the road. He slouched beside a bamboo carrying pole, the kind farmers used to balance buckets of water for irrigation. He had fashioned a large sign out of the back of a painting, on which he’d scrawled in messy calligraphy five ingots.

  “Two girls,” he said in a slow chant. “Two girls, healthy girls, for sale.”

  Two toddlers peered out over the tops of the wooden buckets. They stared wonderingly at the passing soldiers. One noticed Rin peeking out from under the tarp, and she blinked her luminous eyes in uncomprehending curiosity. She lifted her tiny fingers and waved at them, just as a soldier shouted out in excitement.

  Rin shrank back into the wagon. Tears leaked out the sides of her eyes. She couldn’t breathe. She squeezed her eyes shut. She did not want to see what became of those girls.

  “Rin?”

  For the first time she noticed that Altan was curled up in the other corner of the wagon. She could barely see him under the darkness of the tarp. She inched clumsily toward him like a caterpillar.

  “Where are we?” he asked.

  “I can’t tell,” she said. “But we’re nowhere near the Kukhonin range. We’re traveling over flat roads.”

  “We’re in a wagon?”

  “I think so. I don’t know how many of them there are.”

  “It doesn’t matter. I’ll get us out. I’m going to burn through these
ropes,” he announced. “Get back.”

  She wriggled to the other side of the wagon just as Altan ignited a small flame from his arms. His bonds caught fire at the edges, began slowly to blacken.

  Smoke filled the wagon. Rin’s eyes teared up; she could not stop herself from coughing. Minutes passed.

  “Just a bit longer,” Altan said.

  The smoke curled off the rope in thick tendrils. Rin glanced about the tarp, panicked. If the smoke didn’t escape out the sides, they might suffocate before Altan broke through his bonds. But if it did . . .

  She heard shouting above her. The language was Mugini but the commands were too terse and abrupt for her to translate.

  Someone yanked the tarp off.

  Altan’s flames exploded into full force, just as a soldier drenched him with an entire bucket full of water. A great sizzling noise filled the air.

  Altan screamed.

  Someone clamped a damp cloth over Rin’s mouth. She kicked and struggled, holding her breath, but they jabbed something sharp into her bruised shoulder and she could not help inhaling sharply in pain. Then her nostrils filled with the sweet smell of gas.

  Lights. Lights so bright they hurt like knives jabbing into her eyes. Rin tried to squirm away from the source, but nothing happened. For a moment she thrashed in vain, terrified that she’d been paralyzed, until she realized she was tied down with restraints. Strapped to some flat bed. Rin’s peripheral vision was limited to the top half of the room. If she strained, she could just see Altan’s head adjacent to hers.

  Rin’s eyes darted around in terror. Shelves filled the sides of the room. They brimmed with jars that contained feet, heads, organs, and fingers, all meticulously labeled. A massive glass chamber stood in the corner. Inside was the body of an adult man. Rin stared at him for a minute before she realized the man was long dead; it was only a corpse that was being preserved in chemicals, like pickled vegetables. His eyes were still frozen in an expression of horror; mouth wide in an underwater scream. The label at the top of the jar read in fine, neat handwriting: Nikara Man, 32.

  The jars on the shelves were labeled similarly. Liver, Nikara Child, 12. Lungs, Nikara Woman, 51. She wondered dully if that was how she would end up, neatly parceled in this operating room. Nikara Woman, 19.