Where The Stars Rise: Asian Science Fiction and Fantasy

by Law, Lucas K.

  Your loyalty is admirable, Shuǐ Shén said. Very well, I will help you. We must drive the old spirit out somehow.

  If I knew more about your powers, perhaps I could formulate a plan, I said.

  You have done well to deduce the powers of spirits on your own, Shuǐ Shén commended. We are tied to a single character and draw power from that word. So the Spirit of Wine revels in his drunken strength, and I in the nature of water. Because your tattooed proverb bears both our characters, we may both borrow your flesh.

  Borrow? Yǒu Shén stole our bodies!

  Only because he learned the phrase tattooed on your body, Shuǐ Shén revealed. A host who keeps his tattoo secret could oust a spirit guest at his leisure. Think of the proverb as a spell—if he speaks it and you hear it, he becomes the master.

  Might I ask if a spirit can die?

  It is impolitic to ask someone the means to their own destruction, she said.

  I apologized. It is only that I need to learn what spirits fear, so that I might understand what might motivate Yǒu Shén to leave us.

  This much I’ll say: the death of a host leaves a spirit adrift without a body until he is summoned again. But would you kill your sworn brother to be rid of Yǒu Shén?

  No, but the threat of it might be enough. A plan started coming together, but it would be dangerous for both Shengming and me. Can you defeat his Drunken Boxing, if it came to that?

  I cannot match him in strength. But, in the art of self-defence, I’m as light and slippery as rain, thanks to my mastery of Qing Gong.

  So she knew the ‘light body skill,’ allowing the practitioner to step onto a leaf on water and float without sinking or scale a wall with feather-soft steps. Then it must be a water battle, I said, incorporating what I just learned into my strategy. Are you able to relinquish control over my body for a while?

  That is within my power, but what do you intend?

  They say that the poet Li Bai drowned when he drunkenly tried to embrace the reflection of the moon in the Yangtze River, I said. Let us see how Yǒu Shén would fare.

  The second cannon-shot echoed through the early morning. We were running out of time.

  Shuǐ Shén flowed to the edges of my being, becoming coolness under my skin as I rejoiced in regaining the use of my body.

  As for Shengming, they-both were nodding off, still cradling the empty pot.

  “Yǒu Shén!” I said, startling them-both awake. “Did you know that the Island of Oranges is one of the Eight Views of Hunan?”

  “No, I didn’t! Something to see, then?”

  “Indeed, and more. The oranges there are spectacular. Sweeter than honey, they say. I can almost taste it now.”

  They-both licked their lips. “Sounds delicious.”

  “Why don’t we go? It’s a short swim, and the Xiang River flows slowly.” Please, let this seem like a marvellous idea to the old drunk!

  Though at first they-both were hesitant, Yǒu Shén was soon persuaded by my ever-growing praise for the oranges.

  “Race you to the island,” I shouted, shedding my clothes as I ran for the water’s edge, toward a stretch of the riverbank I knew well. They-both followed, discarding clothing as they dashed after me.

  The shadows were deep, making it hard to see where the water met the shore. I told Shuǐ Shén: Use your Qing Gong now, if you can!

  Shuǐ Shén reclaimed control, and it felt as though our insides turned to mist. We-both seemed to dart across the water, our big toes lightly touching wet dross floating upon the surface.

  Behind us-both came a loud splash, then shouts for help. Yǒu Shén had fallen into the river where I knew it to be deep. In their drunken stupor, swimming could not be the easiest thing. We-both turned and dashed back toward them.

  Yǒu Shén was crying out love wine like life, and the characters tattooed on my arm began to burn. Even now he was trying to take over my body. But Shuǐ Shén soothed my skin from within, denying him entry.

  Let me carry out the plan, I said to Shuǐ Shén. If anything goes wrong, I must take full responsibility.

  “Are you sure?” Shuǐ Shén asked.

  I am. I want Yǒu Shén gone and Shengming back.

  She released control to me, and I fell into the water next to Shengming-Yǒu Shén. They-both were flailing wildly, but instead of trying to save them, I threw my arms around their neck, letting my weight drag them deeper into the water.

  They-both were frantic now, their drunkenness not helping them to stay afloat. Their wild strength almost threw me off, but I held on as best I could and focused on holding my breath and keeping calm while they-both lost air. Yǒu Shén could try to shout the binding words all he wanted, but it would only hasten him to drown. My fear was that I would not know if or when the spirit would let Shengming go.

  At last, I felt a change: the struggling grew weaker and air stopped bubbling out of their mouth. Had Yǒu Shén really left Shengming, or was he bluffing?

  No, it had to be Shengming. Drunken Yǒu Shén could not have the guile to fake it, I prayed. I pulled Shengming to the surface and hauled him onto shore.

  He wasn’t breathing. Had I drowned him?

  “Live, First Brother!” I cried as I held him.

  Allow me, Shuǐ Shén said, and took over. We-both whispered love wine like life into Shengming’s ear, and with its magic Shuǐ Shén poured out of me and into him.

  Shengming finally stirred, coughing up a lungful of water.

  I breathed a sigh of relief. “Thank you, Shuǐ Shén.”

  They-both smiled. “What’s a little water to me?”

  I let them-both go and kowtowed. “Forgive me, Second Brother.”

  “He says you are forgiven,” Shuǐ Shén replied on Shengming’s behalf. “I’ve purged the drunkenness from him, and he should soon regain strength enough to take the exams. Good luck with them, both of you.”

  “We are forever in your debt,” I said.

  “Careful, I may take you at your word. Ruolin, watch over Shengming as you always have. Be unswerving in your loyalty and you are destined to go far in service to the Empire. Summon me now and again, for I am curious to follow your rise,” Shuǐ Shén said.

  “I will.”

  With that, she ebbed away from Shengming, who laughed and gave me a wet, hearty squeeze. “Good to be me again, Second Brother. Thank you.”

  I grinned. “Enough of that. If we hurry, we can get our things and still make it to the examination hall before the third cannon. You well enough to write the exam?”

  “Compared to what we’ve been through tonight?” Shengming said. “Eight-legged exams are nothing.”

  I nodded. “Promise me one thing, Brother.”

  “What?”

  “That we will never drink wine again.”

  The dataSultan of Streets and Stars

  Jeremy Szal

  The alien slams me up against the station walls so hard I think he’s broken my spine. If I didn’t activate my arm-bands of my skinsuit in time to cushion the impact he might have. I try to squirm out of his grasp but it’s like pushing against an iron wall.

  I throw my hands up. “You win. Just let go off me.”

  His grip tightens. “Try to run again and I will snap your neck, Bohdi.”

  I’d planned on darting away as soon as he released me, but now I think the better of it. I’m a short, scruffy guy and it won’t be hard for him to catch me. He releases me, and I slide down the wall, raking in gulps of air.

  “Humans.” Zuqji Sma shakes his head. Like most Ghadesh, he’s two metres tall with a stocky body. Thick tubes snake in and out of his carapace-like armour, recycling oxygen to match the methane atmosphere of his Dyson sphere home. But we’re both far from home in Anăcet Station, a place built in the mined-out husk of a metallic asteroid. Most of the folk here are humans, but there are a few Ghadesh wandering around. The cosmos rolls the dices, and of course I bump into him of all people.

  “Let’s have a talk, shall we?” Sma pokes me
in the chest. He’s cut himself from the sharp edge of the metal wall, and a few droplets of his green-blue blood spatters on my chest.

  I shrug.

  We go to a Lebanese shop that sells Arab-style coffee. The turbaned owner does the physical work while his djinn performs the electronic activities, flipping the machine on and rotating the dispenser. Wispy smoke floats up to the mosaic ceiling. I can’t remember a time when we didn’t use djinns to assist us. A kilometre-long starship glides by our viewport, a testament to human engineering. Humans might have designed it, but djinns built it.

  The djinn-bot arrives with our cups of steaming liquid blackness. The stuff is overpriced, and somehow I doubt Sma’s going to be paying for it.

  “You wanted something?” There’s no way in hell I’m catching my ship now, so I might as well humour him.

  “Of course.” Sma doesn’t touch his coffee. From the way he sits, you’d think his spine was made of steel. For all I know about Ghadesh biology, it probably is. The one thing I do know about Ghadesh is that their armour shifts in colour to match their mood, and right now his is only starting to dial down from pitch black. “I hear they’re making new djinns on Earth, yes?”

  “They’re always making new djinns.” There’s no reason I have to make it easy for him.

  Sma’s rectangular pupils narrow to cold grey slits. I’ve never noticed just how grey they are. “I mean high-tier djinn. Ones that can pilot ships without any assistance. You would know about this, yes?”

  “They are,” I respond. “They won’t be on the market for years.”

  You can almost see the I’ve got you now twinkle in Sma’s eye. “Now that is where you come in.”

  “I’m not going back to Istanbul,” I tell him. “Not after what happened.”

  “What exactly happened down there? The GalaNet has been rather quiet.”

  He probably knows, but I tell him anyway. We’re always attempting to improve the djinns, raise their tier so they can juggle together activities and for longer. We were so, so close to crafting djinn capable of deep space asteroid mining. We’d unveiled them in a conference room to investors in the business. Only there’d been a malfunction and the djinns had gone rogue, killing a dozen people.

  I’d been the dataSultan, one of the lead programmers.

  We shushed it up afterwards, but my superiors recommended I skipped Earth and waited for things to cool down. The families of the deceased were powerful people with deep pockets and shallow mercy. Still, it’s unlikely they’d chase me across space.

  Sma leans back on his seat, the divan creaking under his weight. “Hmm. Fascinating. Very fascinating. You really did mess up, didn’t you?”

  “With a dozen people dead and a bounty hanging over me? You could say so,” I respond.

  “Well, I have a proposition for you.” The sarcasm seems to have gone over his head. “I want you to go back to Istanbul and get me one of those djinn-7s. They should be sorted out by now, yes?”

  “Probably, but I won’t be going back there,” I tell him.

  His eyes narrow again and his armour darkens. “You act as if you have a choice in the matter.”

  “I’ll damn sure say I do.”

  A sudden blur and I glance down to see a pistol folding out of his metal sleeve. Thousands of miniscule metallic bits scramble over each other like glossy black ants, coalescing to form a revolver pointed straight at me. Unnervingly, from this angle he’s got it aimed at my crotch. I make it my goal of never having pointy things prodded in this general direction.

  “Never had a coffee date go this badly.” I do my best to smile as I pretend to inspect my drink. “Say, what exactly did you put in this?”

  Sma is not amused. “You’re going to get that djinn, regardless if you want to or not.”

  “Why me?” I demand.

  He taps the veins on my forearm. It’s a challenge not to recoil from his blood-warm touch. “The djinn-7s are synced to your DNA. You have those implants that allow you to enter the systems. Do not try to fool me; we both know you’re the only one who can do it.”

  It’s scary how much he knows about the whole thing. I was stupid to underestimate him.

  “Do so and I’ll forgive your debt.”

  “No debt is worth that much!”

  “After everything I have done for you and your brother, I am letting you off lightly.”

  The knot in my chest tightens. These people don’t come after you, they come after your family first. I’d turned to Sma to put us into hiding and steal me across space safely. You wave the right card to the right people and they can’t get you through fast enough.

  I always knew he’d come calling in my debt, but not here, not now.

  “Perhaps I can give your friends a call.” Those grey eyes flicker like water slipping through sand. He leans so close I can see his hacksaw teeth. “Maybe I can tell them where to find your brother.”

  I haven’t seen my brother in years, not since he turned to a life of poverty as a dervish man. It happened after Father had been killed in an anti-Muslim pogrom, leaving both of us orphans. I think my brother couldn’t handle the responsibility.

  But it doesn’t matter where he is; I know Sma will kill him. He’ll do it. I know he will. A single call and we’re smeared out of existence. My throat’s filled with concrete, nerves electric.

  I can only play along.

  I take a sip of my insanely overpriced coffee, far too bitter for my liking, and smile. “I suppose I can reconsider.”

  “It looks like you have nowhere to go.” Sma readjusts his grip on the gun, still pointing toward my groin. “Do we have a deal?”

  The sticky heat presses down on the shoulders—the sort that only comes from the worst a Turkish summer can offer. Hulking starships slice through the sky, fashioned like the old Phoenician ships. If I look closely, I think I can see the one that dropped me here a few hours ago, shooting off to the Dubai and Cairo spaceports. I wish I was back on that ship. I should be on the ship.

  But I’m not: because I’m an idiot. My head sways and my legs wobble; after spending so much time in artificial gravity and in space stations; coming down to terra firma makes me want to throw up.

  I walk through the streets of Istanbul. The city’s a patchwork, skyscrapers and apartments merging with ancient minarets and mosques: the muezzin call almost being drowned out by the whine of djinn-bots. Dolmuşes shuttle through mosaic bazaars of spice shops and computer workshops. There’s no border of where the old ends and the new begins. They all bleed and twist into each other, people packed into buildings like seeds in an urban pomegranate.

  I watch the djinn peeling a starship apart at the shipment yard. I’m guessing that these djinn are medium-tier, careful to avoid collision and only taking equipment they can carry. Like all djinn they’re bound to a single physical bot, so there’s only so much they can do. Human assistance is still required. We made certain of that.

  Further down the road, a mosque rubs shoulders with a freelancing hub where ifrit hackers purge software daemons from computer systems. Their veins pulse with dark blue nanoImplants that allow their bodies the capacity to hook up to the computer systems, otherwise the acceleration will fry your brain. They strap you into a chair and pump nanoImplants directly into the vein. It’s like a fingerprint on a molecular level.

  I’m out of my skinsuit now and wearing normal clothes, doing my best to merge with the fabric of the city. Me and my brother Omar used to live on this street as boys. I even spot our old house, fashioned from old Ottoman wood, converted into a café where old men chug away at hookahs, complaining about all the immigrants from Greece and Lebanon.

  Me and Omar had formed a gang of sorts, trying to nick as many lokums as possible. We even managed to capture a djinn-bot and used it to transport our sweets from place to place. It’s incredible we lasted as long as we did—all of five days—before we were caught and taken to our parents.

  Omar fell on his own sword—claiming that
it was his idea when it had been mine—and he’d just dragged me into it. Father didn’t buy his speech and gave us the beating of our lives. I hated Father for it then, but now I’d give anything to have him back.

  The Muqarna building stretches tall over in the distance—the birthplace of every djinn. A lump forms in the back of my throat. I know that the rogue djinns aren’t my fault, but it’s hard to convince yourself after seeing the bloody body remains and knowing you had a hand in it.

  I sense someone is behind me. Not making much of an effort to stay hidden. Too big and clumsy to be a beggar or thief.

  It has to be one of the gangs. I’ve been back one day and they’ve found me already.

  My heart jackhammers in my chest, and I’m about to dart away when the figure closes the gap between us and locks an arm around my neck, bundling me into an alley on the side and into a dark room so fast I barely have time to think. I’m wondering if they’ll slit my throat straight away or take their time when the lights jump to life and I see my assailant.

  It’s Omar, my brother.

  He’s clad in a white cloak with a slash of red over his shoulders, a turban wound around his head. I can’t even pretend to hide my relief. “You gave me one hell of a scare you know?”

  No reply. We’re in a dingy little çayhouse room: jallab cups littered over a greasy bench, broken iznik pottery scattered on the floor. Half a dozen dervishes squint at me. Omar snaps his fingers and spits out a string of sentences, and they scuttle away.

  For the first time in a decade, we’re alone.

  “What are you doing here, Sikandar?” I almost flinch at hearing my real name. “You’ve got killers looking everywhere for you.”

  After all this time, that’s his welcome. That’s my brother for you. He’s a few years older than me but looks like he’s centuries ahead. A life of seeking tariqah has not been kind to him. “How do you know about that?”