Fox and Phoenix

by Beth Bernobich

  All unaware, I’d folded the sheet of paper into a hexagon. On impulse I unfolded it and scribbled a note to Yún, telling her about the piaohao and Mā mī’s special instructions about payments. It wasn’t a real explanation, but it was the most I could say right now. At least someone would be in the city to watch over the shop, and Mā mī clearly trusted her.

  When I’d finished, I dusted the ink dry, folded the paper around my key to the shop, and enclosed everything in two more layers of paper, which I sealed with wax from the writing kit. Across the front I wrote Yún’s name and address.

  I sent the waiter off for another pot of tea and dialed up Jing-mei on my talk-phone. “Yo, pretty girl. It’s me, Kai.”

  Her answer was a noisy raspberry. “Kai, my friend. Word said you had died in a garbage pail.”

  “Have you been talking to Danzu?” I asked suspiciously.

  She laughed. “Every day. What’s up?”

  “Business. I need a favor. Could you meet me at that fancy tea shop of yours?”

  “Sorry, I can’t. Oh, wait.” I heard a brief muffled conversation, then, “Come over to my apartment. It’s a new one—in the Silk Merchant quarter, second lane over from the wind-and-magic lift. Number three-oh-nineteen.”

  Once Jing-mei had lived with squatters, in the poorest quarter of Lóng City. After we won the reward from Lian’s father, she had moved at once into an apartment of her own, but apparently that wasn’t good enough, and she’d moved again a month ago. Eyeing the mansions and houses of the silk merchants who lived in this district, I wondered again what Jing-mei was up to. Oh, well. It wasn’t my money or my life.

  I came to number 3019, a three-story building for those merchants who weren’t quite rich, but who wanted to look it. Jing-mei answered her door on the second ring, which told me she’d been waiting for me. She smiled and led me through a series of rooms, all of them stacked high with trinkets and gadgets and other expensive toys.

  When we got to a small room in the back, I was in for another surprise. Gan sat there, dressed in a crisp palace uniform. “Hello, Kai,” he said.

  “Um, yeah. Hi, Gan. I thought you were on night shift.”

  “So I got up early today.”

  He grinned. Jing-mei grinned. I felt my ears go hot.

  “So what’s your favor?” Jing-mei said.

  I pulled the packet from my tunic and tossed it to her. “For Yún. Something I can’t trust to the post. But don’t hand it over for three more days.”

  She accepted the packet gingerly. “What’s inside?”

  “A love letter,” I growled. “Look, it’s important. That’s all I can say. Just promise to do exactly what I ask.”

  Jing-mei glanced at Gan. “Well, okay.”

  I stayed to share a cup of tea, no longer. It was hard to sit with my friends when we had so many secrets between us. Gan and Jing-mei had made those scary steps from flirts to something more serious. And Danzu . . . It was hard to say what Danzu was up to. Knowing Goat Boy, he had probably turned smuggler or worse. Whatever it was, I could see plain as a dumpling that this new game involved Jing-mei, and Gan didn’t like it.

  Back home, I set to work, packing my new clothes and gear for the journey. The temple bells were ringing midnight before I finished.

  Only then did I sit down and pull out a sheet of cheap paper from my desk.

  Dear Yún. I’m sorry. I had to—

  No, that wasn’t right. There wasn’t anything I could tell her, not unless I wanted Yún to come haring after me. (And I didn’t want that. Right? Right?)

  Scowling, I crumpled up the paper and tossed it into the corner.

  THE SKIES WERE still dark when I dragged myself from my lumpy bed. Breakfast consisted of leftover rice and a tin of salted fish from the pantry. Chen showed up to nag me about washing dishes and taking care of the cats’ morning feeding. After that, I scribbled another note for Yún, telling her about the griffin and asking her to feed and water the beast, along with the cats, until I got back.

  Knowing she might not show up until much later, I set out a dish of beef kibble and whistled. “Beastie,” I called. “Here, beastie, beastie—”

  It’s not here.

  Chen appeared as a semi-visible apparition, in the darkest corner of the kitchen.

  How do you know? I asked. Have you seen it?

  Not since you scared it yesterday.

  I winced at the memory. Probably for the best.

  I hoisted my backpack over my shoulder. Checked the knives in my boots and belt and at my wrists. Locked the doors and set the alarm. A few of Old Man Kang’s chickens clucked at me as I left the courtyard and set off through the gray-lit city. The air felt damp and cool; the paved streets were slick beneath my feet. I breathed in the scents of wood smoke and stale garbage. A few wisps of fog swirled through the alleyways. Ghosts or demons? The spawn of watch-dragons?

  By the time I reached the main gates, the sun had jumped above the horizon. I took my place in line among the traders, freight wagons, and others waiting to depart. As the gates swung open, I glanced over my shoulder at the city leaping up the mountain in a gold and gray jumble of towers, walls, and winding stairs. This was the first time I’d left Lóng City—truly left it—and my heart was dancing to a strange fast rhythm. An old man, a trapper from his looks, prodded my back with his staff. I hurried through the gates and onto the open highway.

  At the first fork of highways, I took the smaller branch leading south. An hour later, I came to the first of the monster suspension bridges hanging between Lóng City’s mountain and its neighbor. I glanced back and took in the great green and gray expanse of the mountain, the dark sprawl of Lóng City itself. For a moment, I thought I saw the outline of a great translucent dragon hovering above the mountainside.

  I turned back to the bridge and the road. That’s when it started to rain.

  5

  THE FIRST TWO OR THREE DAYS ON THE ROAD weren’t so bad. The winds were still warm and mild, and the rain showers were more like a dog shaking water from its coat than a real storm. Now and then, the sun poked through, making the wet grass glitter and shine.

  But as the drizzle turned into real rain, the crowds of travelers thinned, then disappeared. I trudged on, alone except for a set of blisters and Chen’s occasional rude comment. Every once in a while, I passed a clump of miserable goats. Once a shape-changer galloped past, making my heart jump into my throat. Luckily, watch-demons didn’t live outside cities, and the bigger monsters kept to their tunnels and caverns. In the wild parts of the mountains, though, I expected to come across stranger, more dangerous creatures. Maybe even a wild ghost dragon.

  Right now, all I cared about was the mud and rain. Rain dripped into my eyes. Rain trickled between my collar and hat, running down my back. It rained so much my special wet-proof clothes gave up and soaked up the water, making my pack ten times heavier. And every step was like a battle, as I yanked one foot free of the mud and staggered sideways, regained my footing, then struggled to work the other foot free.

  Squelch. Squoosh. Splat.

  Danzu would love all this mud, I thought sourly, as I slithered down a particularly steep section. It was my tenth day on the road. Stupid Goat Boy. Stupid . . .

  Thinking of Danzu, dry and comfortable in Lóng City, I stomped extra hard. My foot hit a slick patch and sent me sliding all the way down the slope to the two-foot-deep puddle at the bottom.

  Splat.

  I spat out a mouthful of mud and yelled curses at the gods, the sky, Danzu, the ghost dragon king, anyone and anything else I could think of.

  Are you done? Chen said calmly.

  No, I said, and yelled some more, until my throat went hoarse.

  Eventually, I ran out of curses. I picked myself up and wiped my face.

  Mud coated my boots and trousers and hair. Mud had ground itself underneath my fingernails, and I was sure there was mud inside my ears.

  “I hate mud,” I muttered.

  Then
, because you can’t curse the gods without them hearing you, lightning flashed across the steel-gray sky, the earth rumbled, and a mother of all storms broke loose. I nearly drowned in that first minute. Rain sluiced over my face and washed all the mud away from my clothes and skin. Wet-proofing didn’t matter to this storm. Deep inside, very faint, I could hear Chen’s chuckling.

  I rubbed the water from my eyes and trudged on.

  Three hours later I reached a small, flea-ridden inn, tucked between the trail and a rocky cliff. The innkeeper took one look at me, streaming water all over his floor, and charged me double for the privilege of standing out of the rain. “Storms are very bad this year,” he said, helpfully, as he hurried me through the common room, into a closet-size backroom, where a grinning serving girl tried to help me out of my clothes.

  “Stop it,” I growled. “I can undress myself.”

  Still grinning, the girl left me alone to bathe and change my clothes. Soon after that, I had a hot meal and felt more like a real human being again. It’s temporary, I thought. Surely it can’t make a difference if I spend just a day here.

  BY THE AFTERNOON of the third day, I’d stopped asking when the storm would blow past. Never, I thought, as I stared at the blank shuttered window. Bits of ice and hail ticked against the wooden slats.

  Inside, two dried-out women and a younger man spent their hours tossing spirit-bones and betting on the outcome. Two other men who looked like ex-caravan guards drank mugs of steaming hot beer and fed bits of bread and meat to the hairy dogs at their feet. A handful of others wandered restlessly between the common room, the stable, and the stuffy loft upstairs where we all slept. We were all bored, even the dogs. The radio had died two days ago. A vid-silk-screen stretched across one corner of the common room, but it was an old model, and it only played static movies, and the flux here ran in spits and spurts, making the vids even harder to watch.

  Once the rain lets up, we go, I thought.

  It won’t let up for another month, Chen grumbled. Then it snows.

  We go anyway. The storm’s almost past. Besides I can’t stand it here—

  The inn’s front door banged open, and a huge mountain of a man stumbled into the room.

  I glanced over, back to the shutters. Then my gaze clicked back in amazement.

  Water dripped and dropped from the man’s voluminous overcoat and wide-brimmed hat, but nothing stuck to him. His clothes looked crisp, his gray and white streaked hair remained neatly tied back into its queue, and even his boots were clean of mud and muck. I sniffed and smelled magic. He had to be a rich merchant. Who else would spend a fortune on so many spells to keep himself dry?

  A crackling noise sounded from underneath the floorboards, and some invisible force sucked away the pool of water. One of the ex-guards twitched. I coughed to hide my laugh—it was just a standard spell laid by a commercial magic worker to keep the inn dry and clean. Oblivious to the magic underfoot, the man glared around at everyone. “I need a room,” he growled. “Immediately.” Oh, yes. He was a rich merchant, all right. One with lots of minions.

  The innkeeper ran forward, skipping around the damp patches. “We have no room,” he said. “Sorry, no room at all.”

  “There is always room. Besides, I spoke to you—to you, you miserable worm—ten days ago by talk-phone. You promised rooms for me and all my caravan. Were you lying?”

  The poor innkeeper was almost weeping. “Storms have been very, very bad,” he whined. “The worst in ten decades, and the hospitality laws say I must not—”

  “I know all about hospitality laws,” the old merchant barked. “That means you give me and all my train rooms, too. You can’t send us back on the road. Two of my own donkeys drowned, and the roads are knee-deep in mud . . .”

  He went on, howling about some special cargo that a very special customer had demanded by express delivery—one so precious the merchant himself had to oversee its transport. I groaned quietly. It was easy to see where this argument would go. The innkeeper truly had no more rooms, but the merchant was right. Those same hospitality laws said you must not, could not turn away travelers in life-threatening weather, except for extraordinary circumstances. I already shared a room with two stinking men. By tonight, I’d share it with at least two more.

  “. . . please, honored sir.”

  “. . . extra expense, calling direct from Crescent Moon . . .”

  More sobs and weeping. One of the old women griped about the weather workers not doing their job properly. The other one blamed everything on the kings hereabouts, saying they hadn’t paid the magic guild yet.

  The young man spat onto the floor. Magic sizzled and drank up the thick yellow gob. “And they won’t. Not with the king of Lóng City falling sick like that.”

  “You mean dying like that,” the older of the women said.

  My stomach pinched tight, remembering the sight of His Royal Majesty, Wencheng Li, lying limp and sweating in his bed. No matter how rich he was, no matter many attendants he had, he was dying.

  Why did that idiot ghost dragon think I could do any good?

  I drank back the rest of my spiced chai and stood up, feeling queasy. Maybe I could take a nap before the innkeeper gave away my bed.

  The door swung open again, and a new stranger trudged inside. Water streamed over the floor, more water dripped from the wide-brimmed hat and the backpack slung over one shoulder. But like the merchant, the stranger’s clothes appeared unaffected by the rain, and only a scant inch of mud stained his trouser hems.

  The newcomer stopped in the middle of the inn’s common room and dropped his backpack onto the floor. (A strange muted squeak sounded from deep inside.) Then he wiped the water from his face and turned to observe the room.

  Not “his.” My breath came short, of a sudden. Yún.

  Yún’s gaze stopped at me. She did not smile. She didn’t frown. It was more like she couldn’t decide how she felt either.

  “Hi,” I said. My voice was barely louder than a whisper.

  Yún nodded, then turned to the innkeeper. “A room, please,” she said quietly.

  The innkeeper began his litany about no rooms, no rooms at all, and how all the hospitality laws in the world and its Seventy Kingdoms could not alter that fact.

  Yún held up a hand. “You have stables,” she said. “Let me have a corner there, next to the pigs and goats if necessary. And tea, please—as hot as you can make it. Thank you.”

  Without even waiting for his reply, she sat opposite me. “Kai. Hello.”

  “How, um, did you find me?” I said.

  “Jing-mei gave me your letter. It didn’t make any sense . . .” She dropped her voice to an almost whisper. “It didn’t make sense why or how your mother had disappeared. So I went to the palace guards, and they told me how you showed up three days before I did and reported your mother missing.” A flicker of lightning in her eyes reminded me of the storms outside. But Yún didn’t go crash and thunder. She just sighed and shook her head. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “I-I was too worried to think. Then the ghost dragon king . . .”

  “He told me the rest,” Yún said.

  Ah, so. That explained a lot.

  “But how did you know which road to take?” I asked.

  And how did you know to stop here?

  A muffled squawk interrupted us. Yún’s backpack rocked back and forth. She was just reaching down to the strings, when a small golden beak poked through the cloth.

  “Silly monster.” Yún grabbed for the strings, but the backpack rolled away from her reach. Another, louder squawk sounded. Now everyone in the common room stopped what they were doing. The merchant hissed. The innkeeper took two quick side-steps away from the backpack and made a sign with two fingers—a gesture the old women in the Pots-and-Kettles Bazaar used whenever they saw a ghost dragon, or something equally scary. Both dogs rose onto stiff legs and growled in their throats.

  A small, rumpled griffin crawled out of the pack
. Quick as a curse, it launched itself toward me and bit me on the ear.

  Three things happened all at the same time.

  “Ow!”

  “Wa! Monsters!”

  “Āi-ᾱi! My clean floors!”

  The innkeeper shouted. Two bear-like men thundered from the back rooms. Before I could figure out what was going on, they’d hefted me and Yún into the air. I had one glimpse of a steaming pile of griffin crap on the floor, then they’d wafted me through the common room and tossed me out the door.

  I landed in a mud puddle with a splat.

  A second later, Yún landed next to me.

  “And don’t ever come back,” the innkeeper shrieked.

  He said more, but a burst of thunder drowned out his voice. I scrambled to my feet and ran to the door just as he slammed it shut. “Let us in!” I demanded. “Hospitality rules! You can’t just—”

  The door swung open. Two heavy backpacks hit me in the chest, knocking me back into the puddle. “Extraordinary circumstances!” the innkeeper shouted. “Your magic is bad for my magic!”

  Yún slithered to her feet. She grabbed for my hand. I swatted her away and wiped the mud from my eyes, cursing the rain, the innkeeper. Most especially I cursed the innkeeper. All my rainproof gear was inside my packs, leaving me soaked and coated with mud. Yún herself didn’t look much better. Clumps of mud stuck to her hair, and the water streamed from her clothes. Ha-ha! I thought, obscurely pleased.

  She made another grab for my arm. That’s when I saw she was laughing. Whoops and squeaks of laughter. “Stop that!” I growled.

  “I’m sorry, it’s just too—”

  Yún whooped again and bent over.

  I tried again. “We can spend the night in this toad’s stables,” I said. “He can’t stop us. He’s lying about magic. I don’t have any—”

  “It’s the”—Yún gulped down a breath—“the griffin, Kai.” Her voice still shook with suppressed laughter. “And don’t bother with the stables. He keeps a couple of guards on watch. Besides, it’s stuffed full with mules and cargo from that merchant’s caravan.”