Clarkesworld Magazine Issue 117

by Neil Clarke

  Footsteps once again sounded in the hall; the glow of flames grew as they approached. Zhu Dagun hurried to the bars and waited. A guard stopped in front of him, holding his torch high. “Zhu Dagun?” he said coldly. “In custody for sowing misinformation online?”

  Zhu Dagun smiled. “That’s me. Though I’ve never heard of that crime . . . Does your superior have any words for me?”

  “Hmph. Kneel!” the guard suddenly said, in total seriousness. He glanced around, then pulled out something shiny and golden, spreading it to let Zhu Dagun see. Zhu Dagun paled and instantly dropped to his knees. He was only a minor scribe with no governmental rank, but he’d once seen such an object on the incense table of a great scholar of the Imperial Archives. He shivered in fear, obediently touching his forehead to the ground. “The servant . . . the criminal Zhu Dagun a-awaits His Imperial Majesty’s instruction!”

  The guard stuck out his chin and began to recite, enunciating each character crisply. “In representation of Heaven and the Emperor the edict speaks: We know of you and your abundance of opinions. Often, you debate matters of state on the internet and spin your words very skillfully to corrupt others. However, we understand that you’ve been falsely reported this time, and we assure you you’ll receive proper redress, but you need to help us out first. It’s improper for us to lower ourselves by going to the East City Institute, and Prince Lu isn’t willing to come to Jinyang Palace. Since we trust no one else in court, we can only put our hopes in you. You and I are both Shatuo, descendants of Yukuk Shad. We trust you, and you must trust us. Ask Prince Lu for us, what are we to do? He once promised that he’d build a flying vessel for us to enable our one hundred and six household members and four hundred old Shatuo retainers to escape from the city and head straight into Liao territories. But Prince Lu now insists that he is too busy with defending the city to build this ‘zeppelin,’ a name he glossed as ‘stairway to heaven’ in an abstruse dialect. It’s been two months and there are no signs of this vessel. The Song troops are fierce and many and our heart is filled with apprehension. Dear loyal scholar, help us convince Prince Lu to build the zeppelin, and we will reserve a seat for you. When the Liu clan once again rises, we’ll grant you the rank of Chancellor. A ruler does not joke.”

  “Your servant a-accepts this edict.” Zhu Dagun lifted his hands above his head and felt a heavy scroll descend into them.

  The guard sniffed at him. “See what you can do. The emperor is . . . ” He shook his head and left.

  Zhu Dagun stood, covered in a cold sweat. He slid the scroll of yellow silk respectfully into his sleeve, his head spinning as he thought of its contents. Guo Wanchao and Ma Feng wanted to surrender; Liu Jiye wanted to fight; the emperor wanted to run away. All of them presented what seemed like reasonable arguments, but upon further thought, none of them seemed so reasonable. Who to listen to, and who to ignore? His heart was a tangle. The more he thought, the more his head hurt.

  He didn’t know how much time had passed when new footsteps broke him from his torpor. He’d used up all his enthusiasm; he trudged to the bars and waited.

  The guard held a fire-oil lamp. He shone the lamp around, then said, “Sorry I’m late. Since you’re the only prisoner here today, I couldn’t get in until the change of shifts.”

  “Does your superior have any words for me?” Zhu Dagun said listlessly. He’d already asked this three times today.

  The guard lowered his voice. “The General and Elder Ma want me to inform you that the East City Institute will send for you at the hour of the rat tomorrow. Prince Lu is mucking with something new and needs people. Just claim to be knowledgeable in alchemy and you’ll be able to approach him.”

  “Alchemy?” Zhu Dagun said, surprised. “I’m an ordinary scholar. I don’t know anything about alchemy.”

  The guard furrowed his brow. “Who said you have to know anything? You’re just trying to get close to Prince Lu. It’s not like you’re actually going to be smelting pills of immortality. Just mumble something about ceruse, litharge, cinnabar, sulfur, the Baopuzi, the Kinship of Three, the Collected Biographies of Immortals, and so on. No one understands this stuff anyway, so no one can call you out. Go to sleep early, and I’ll see you tomorrow. Good luck persuading him!” He turned to leave. Two steps later, he paused to ask, “You did bring the knife, right?”

  7.

  The sky brightened without fanfare. Sounds of shouting and fighting drifted in; the Song troops were trying to storm the city again. The residents of Jinyang had long since grown accustomed to this, and no one took note.

  A guard came to deliver breakfast. Zhu Dagun took the bowl of porridge and looked him over carefully, only to realize he’d only paid attention to the lantern, the torch, and the fire-oil lamp the previous night. He couldn’t remember what the guards looked like at all and was unable to tell which faction this guard hailed from.

  Zhu Dagun ate the porridge and sat for a while, doing nothing. The clamor of the morning crowd arose outside. A throng of burly men dressed in East City Institute uniforms flooded into the courtyard.

  The guards took Zhu Dagun out into the yard. A man with a yellow beard covering his face walked up and greeted him. “I serve Prince Lu. By his mercy, prisoners here only need to be willing to work for the Institute to obtain pardon for their crime. Your charges aren’t too severe. Just sign here and you’ll be cleared.” The man took out paper and a writing implement. Instead of a brush, the instrument was a goose feather dipped in ink—before Prince Lu, who would have thought that you could pull a feather from a bird, soak it in lye, sharpen the tip, and write with such a thing?

  Zhu Dagun automatically reached for the feather, but Yellow-Beard drew it back. “But right now, His Highness needs someone of unusual capabilities and skills. First tell me, are you knowledgeable in alchemy? I’ll be blunt, you look like the genteel, bookish sort, so don’t try to sell yourself for more than you’re worth.”

  Zhu Dagun quickly dredged up a speech. “I’ve been studying the Kinship of Three since childhood under the guidance of my father. I am thoroughly versed in the ways of Dayi, Huanglao, and the forging flame. Heaven and Earth are my cauldron, water and fire are my ingredients, and yin and yang are my complements. I know when to stoke the flames and when to bank the embers. In my life I’ve refined one hundred and twenty pills of shining gold and imbibed them daily. Although I have not ascended to the ranks of enlightened immortals, my body has become light, nimble and impervious to disease. The pills have the power to cultivate the spirit and extend life.” To demonstrate the effectiveness of the golden pills, he sprang up and did two backflips in mid-air, then grabbed an eighty-pound stone drum lying in the yard. After lifting it above his head and tossing it from hand to hand, he threw it to the ground, where it landed with a thud. He dusted off his hands, his breathing unhurried, his face unchanged in color.

  Yellow-Beard stared; his men started to clap. The guard standing behind him sneaked a thumbs up, upon which Zhu Dagun knew that this was Ma Feng’s agent.

  “Excellent, excellent! We’ve found a real treasure today.” Yellow-Beard laughed and opened the small bamboo case at his waist. He dipped the goose quill in ink and handed it over. “Sign here, and you’ll belong to the East City Institute. We’re going straight to Prince Lu.”

  Zhu Dagun signed his name as directed. Yellow-Beard ordered the guards to unfasten the manacles around his ankles, bowed all around to the prison staff, and left the courtyard with his retinue. He and his men escorted Zhu Dagun for half an hour before arriving at a large residence complex, both sprawling in area and dense with buildings. The blue-garbed guards at the gate smiled when they saw Yellow-Beard. “Got the goods? It’s been peaceful lately. We haven’t had any new people join in a while.”

  “I know, Prince Lu was frantic about finding an alchemist to help him out,” replied Yellow-Beard. “We’ve finally taken care of that.”

  A crowd was gathered in front of the gate: imperial messengers, merchants, gover
nment officials in search of glory by association, commoners seeking aid in redressing wrongs done to them, craftsmen bringing their own inventions in the hopes of an audience, idlers trying to return the novelties they purchased after they grew bored, laborers looking for work, prostitutes looking for clients. The guard recorded them one by one in his ledger, gently refusing, reporting, and chasing off with a stick as appropriate. If he saw anyone he was uncertain about, he went ahead and took the bribe, then told them to try their luck again in a few days. He was quite orderly and methodical in this work.

  Yellow-Beard led his men into the compound. The courtyard was a different scene: behind a privacy wall was an immense pool of water, in the middle of which a geyser rose more than ten feet tall before majestically splashing down.

  “Normally the fountain is powered by the water turbine from Central City, but with the Song army regularly trying to storm the city, we need the turbine to power the gliding carts, catapults, and capstans,” Yellow-Beard explained. “So instead the fountain mechanisms run on manpower. We have several dozen unskilled laborers in the Institute, whose only trade is doing heavy lifting, nothing like a white collar fellow like you.” Zhu Dagun had never heard of the strange words he used, so he simply looked where Yellow-Beard pointed. Indeed, he saw five dull-eyed, muscular fellows to the side, stepping on pedals that went up and down. The pedals drove rotors, the rotors churned a water tank, and the tank valves opened and shut, pumping water high into the air.

  They went around the fountain and through an archway to enter the second partition of the courtyard. A dozen or so workshops stood to either side. Yellow-Beard said, “We build the flashlights, sunglasses, clockwork toys, microphones, magnifying glasses, and other things we sell in the city here. Institute staff get a fifty percent discount, and a lot of these gadgets are hard to find in the market. You should come check them out when you get a chance.”

  As they spoke, they went through a third partition. Heavy, gleaming fire-oil carriage components lay everywhere under a high awning. A piece of heavy machinery puffed away, spewing white smoke and rapidly turning a carriage wheel. Several oil-stained craftsmen were engaged in an animated discussion full of strange words like “cylinder pressure,” “ignition timing,” and “steam saturation.” Two carpenters were hammering together a carriage framework. Several dozen large barrels of fire-oil stood in a corner of the yard, filling the air with their simultaneously aromatic and noxious smell. Fire-oil came from the island of Hainan and was originally used to douse attackers in flames during a siege, before it found myriad uses in Prince Lu’s hands. Yellow-Beard said, “All the fire-oil carriages running about in Jinyang were built here. They make up more than half the Institute’s income. The newest model will be released soon. It’s called Elong Musk—for the long-lasting fragrance of fire-oil after the vehicle darts out of sight. Even the name sounds fast!”

  They continued walking, entering a fourth partition. This place was even stranger. There was constantly some shrill squeaking noise, or the crackle of an explosion, or an odd taste to the air, or colorful flashes of light. “This is the Institute’s research lab,” Yellow-Beard said. “Our prince gets a new idea a minute, and then our craftsmen try to follow up on his ideas and make them a reality. It’s best not to linger here; there are lots of accidents.”

  On the walk here, the other members of their group had gradually dispersed, so that Yellow-Beard and Zhu Dagun were alone by the time they entered the fifth partition. Blue-garbed guards stood at the gateway; Yellow-Beard took out a pass, spoke a code phrase, and wrote down several passwords on a piece of paper; only then were they let inside. Hearing that Zhu Dagun was the newly arrived alchemist, the guards patted him down head to toe. Fortunately, he’d hidden the imperial edict in the rafters of his prison cell and tucked the dagger into his topknot. Zhu Dagun had a big head, covered in a black silk cap with jutting ears in the back. A guard snatched off his cap, but only saw a bulging bun of sallow hair, and didn’t look more carefully. On the other hand, the copy of the Analects they found in his sleeve pouch roused suspicion. They looked him up and down, then flipped through the book. “What’s an alchemist doing with this?”

  This copy of the Analects hadn’t been printed with Prince Lu’s clay movable type. Rather, it had been printed in Emperor Shizong of Zhou’s time, using the official carved plates, and had been passed down for generations into Zhu Dagun’s hands. Zhu Dagun felt physical, visceral pain as he took back his crumpled and wrinkled treasure and prepared to head in.

  Yellow-Beard said, “This row of buildings in the north is where His Highness normally spends all his time. He doesn’t like to be disturbed, so I won’t go in with you. Don’t be afraid, our prince is amiable and kind. He’s not hard to talk to . . . Right, I still don’t know your name.”

  “My surname is Zhu,” Zhu Dagun quickly said. “I’m the eldest of my siblings and named after Gun, father of the first Xia ruler. My courtesy name is Bojie.”

  Yellow-Beard said, “Brother Bojie, I’ve been one of His Highness’s helpers since he first arrived in Jinyang. He granted me the name Friday.”

  Zhu Dagun bowed. “Thank you, Brother Friday.”

  Yellow-Beard returned the bow. “Not at all, not at all,” he said, before turning and leaving.

  Zhu Dagun straightened his clothes, cleared his throat, scrubbed at his face, swallowed, and entered the building.

  The room was very spacious. Black paper covered the windows, and fire-oil lamps illuminated the inside. Two long tables stood at the center of the room, covered with various jars and bottles. A man stood at one of the tables, head down, working on something.

  Zhu Dagun’s palms sweated, his heart raced, and his legs wobbled. He hesitated briefly before gathering his courage, clearing his throat stickily, and dropping to a kowtow. “Your Highness! I . . . this criminal is—”

  The man turned. Zhu Dagun kept his head down, afraid to look at his face. He heard Prince Lu say, “About time! Hurry and help me, I’ve been messing with this for days without any progress. Why is it so hard to find someone who understands middle school chemistry? What’s your name? What are you doing there on the ground? Get up already and come here.”

  At Prince Lu’s string of words, Zhu Dagun hurriedly stood up and came over, his head down. He thought that this august prince sounded friendly and genial, like someone easy to approach, although he pronounced his words so strangely that Zhu Dagun had to repeat them to himself several times before understanding the prince; he wasn’t sure what topolect it was. “Your lowly servant is Zhu Dagun, a criminal.” Still keeping his eyes lowered, he made his way to the center of the room. Jars and bottles clanged over as he went, not because of carelessness or poor eyesight, but because the floor was so packed with random objects that he couldn’t take a step without kicking something over.

  “Hey, Lil’ Zhu. You can call me Old Wang.” The prince stood on tiptoes to pat his shoulder. “You’re really tall. 190 centimeters, maybe? I heard you’re from Hanlin Academy. I really wouldn’t have guessed that by looking at you. Have you eaten? If not, I’ll get us some takeout to pad our stomachs. Otherwise, let’s cut straight to the chase. I still haven’t gotten results from today’s experiment.”

  These words threw Zhu Dagun into a daze. He sneaked a glance up and discovered that the prince didn’t look like a prince at all. He was of medium height, pale and beardless, and wore a buttoned white cotton coat. His hair was cropped short like a beggar-monk’s. He looked to be in his twenties, yet his brow remained creased with worry even when he smiled. “Your servant doesn’t quite understand what you’re saying, Your Highness . . . ” Zhu Dagun bowed anxiously, unsure of what story lay behind this strange prince.

  Prince Lu laughed. “You think my accent is confusing, but all you guys sound like gibberish to me. When I first came, I couldn’t understand a single word. Your court speech sounds like Cantonese or Hakka, but nothing like the modern Shanxi and Shaanxi topolects. Since I wasn’t a hist
orical linguist, I thought that all the topolects of ancient northern China wouldn’t sound very different from what I knew!”

  This time, Zhu Dagun understood every individual word coming out of the prince’s mouth individually, but their combined meaning fluttered entirely from his grasp. Sweat trickled down his face. “Your servant lacks in erudition. What Your Highness just said . . . ”

  Prince Lu waved a hand. “That’s to be expected. You don’t need to understand anyway. Come and hold this flask in place. Oh right, put on a filter mask. You studied alchemy, so you should know that chemical reactions can release toxic gases, I think?”

  Zhu Dagun stared.

  8.

  The crystal bottles on the table held liquids that Zhu Dagun had neither seen nor smelled in his life. Some were red, some were green, some smelled burningly acrid, some stank unbearably. Prince Lu helped him put on a mask, then had him steady a small, wide-mouthed jar. “Take this rod and stir it slowly. Don’t stir faster than that under any circumstance, got it?”

  Nervously, Zhu Dagun stirred the dark green fluid inside the jar. It smelled like the sea, and was hot like a bowl of potherb soup. “This is dried seaweed ash dissolved in alcohol,” Prince Lu explained. “You ancients call seaweed ‘kunbu.’ I got this Goryeo kunbu from the Imperial Physician. The Song of Medicine Recipes said ‘kunbu disperses goiter and breaks swelling’ . . . oh, wait, The Song of Medicine Recipes is from the Qing dynasty. I got mixed up again.”

  As he spoke, he took out another small jar and carefully removed the sealing clay. The jar was full of an acrid-smelling pale yellow liquid. “This is sulfuric acid. You alchemists call this ‘green vitriol,’ right? Also ‘qiangshui,’ like in the Alchemical Classic of the Yellow Emperor’s Nine Cauldrons. ‘Bluestone is calcinated to obtain a white mist, which is dissolved in water to obtain strong qiangshui. The substance transforms the silver-haired into the ebony-haired. The choking white mist it emits instantly transports one into the realm of spirits, and after eighteen years one departs from senescence and returns to childhood.’ You should be familiar with that.”