Beast & Crown

by Joel Ross

  When he arrived, lanterns and torches illuminated the nighttime streets far below. He crossed a terrace for a better view, walking beside a canal that stopped at a sheer cliff face. The water kept going, though, gushing from the canal and plunging into a pool a hundred yards below.

  Three statues rose from the canal. Except these statues weren’t terra-cotta warriors. They had long, seaweedy hair and angular faces. And from the waist down, they were covered in thick fish scales. The current splashed and bubbled across their stony fins, which poked up from the shallows.

  “Mermaids,” he said, and felt himself smile.

  Ji touched the scaly arm of the statue closest to him. Her scales were slick with mist and glimmered in the moons-light. He rubbed one and—

  “There!” a man’s voice barked. “There he is!”

  Boots slammed across the terrace and Ji spun, his throat clenching. They’d found him! They knew what he was planning. They were closing in.

  “At the mermaids!” a woman’s voice called. “Spread out.”

  Four guards jogged toward him from a canal-side path. The moons-light glinted on steel-banded boots and bronze helmets. Three of the guards held swords while the fourth carried a woldo, a long pole with a curved blade at the end.

  Frantic with fear, Ji scanned the terrace. He saw only one way out: he could jump into the canal and let the current sweep him down the waterfall. Except he couldn’t dive. Or swim. And that was a loooooong way down.

  Sally would’ve been brave enough to try, but Ji just raised his hands and shouted, “I didn’t do it! It wasn’t me!”

  “It’s just a kid,” the guard with the woldo said, stalking closer.

  “What’re you doing here, this time of night?” a bearded guard asked.

  “I’m a boot boy!” Ji blurted. “I mean, I’m just walking around, looking at the city.” He pointed at the streets below the terrace. “Look! The city!”

  A light-skinned guard sheathed her sword. “Well, he’s not Red Mask, we know that.”

  “You seen anything unusual tonight?” the bearded one asked Ji.

  “Red Mask?” Ji asked.

  “A guy wearing a purple cloak,” the one with the woldo said.

  “A gal,” the light-skinned one said.

  “A guy,” the one with the woldo said. “In a red mask that looks like an ogre face.”

  “N-no, ma’am,” Ji stammered to her. “I—I don’t think so.”

  The bearded guard’s eyes narrowed in suspicion. “You don’t think?”

  “I saw a picture once! A picture of an ogre.” Ji frowned, half remembering a red face and yellow hair. “It gave me nightmares.”

  “This mask doesn’t look that realistic,” the light-skinned guard told him. “How about the cloak?”

  Ji thought about the sidewalk-hating “gargoyle” in the purple cloak and said, “No, ma’am, I haven’t seen anything like—”

  “I’m telling you,” the bearded guard interrupted, “I saw the Mask two minutes ago. She jumped across the canal.”

  “You saw a boot boy standing at a mermaid statue,” the guard with the woldo scoffed. “I’m not sure there is a Red Mask.”

  “Well, someone is lurking in these neighborhoods at night. Climbing walls, peering in windows.”

  Ji gulped. That was him! They thought he was this ogre-masked bandit. “Wow, that’s . . . um . . . Can I go now and—get out of your way?”

  The light-skinned guard smacked his shoulder. “Go on then.”

  “If we catch you wandering around at night again,” the guard with the woldo said, “we’ll throw you off the mountain. That clear?”

  “Yes, ma’am!” Ji said.

  He scurried from the terraces and trotted toward the town house, half terrified and half relieved. He couldn’t wander the midnight streets anymore, not with guards searching for a bandit. That was too dangerous. So there was only one thing to do: break into the tapestry factory and kidnap Chibo.

  Sure, that wasn’t dangerous at all.

  Ji scrubbed boots, scoured laundry, and waited for his chance to sneak away before sunset. Then he’d make his way to the Oilpress, find the tapestry factory, and save Chibo. Somehow.

  Two days after the guards caught him, Ji watched Brace spar with the twins, then made a break for the front gate—but the coachman was lurking in the drive. The day after that, he saw Brace playing a strategy game against Mr. Ioso and slunk toward the garden to hop the fence—but Cook was gathering herbs.

  Sally didn’t say anything to rush him, though he sometimes caught her eyeing him impatiently. And then late one afternoon in the attic, she attacked Ji with a broom—using the moves she’d memorized watching Brace—while he defended himself with a cushion.

  Sally whacked Ji’s shin. “Die, troll!”

  “Ow!” He hopped a few times. “Ow! Ow!”

  “She’s here!” Roz burst into the room. “I can’t believe it! She’s in the city!”

  “Who?” Ji asked, while Sally said, “Huh?”

  “Ti-Lin-Su!” Roz said, flapping her hands with excitement. “She lives in the city!”

  “That writer you like?” Sally asked.

  Ji rubbed his shin. “She’s still writing?”

  “She must be!” Roz beamed. “She’s probably at her desk right now, in her water garden. Mulling over her outstanding question, about dragons hoarding treasure.”

  “It’s way cooler that they shoot flames out of their eyes,” Sally said.

  “Yeah,” Ji said. “What does she care that they hoard treasure?”

  “Because she’s a scholar!” Roz said. “She answers the unanswered questions.”

  “You should visit her,” Sally said.

  Roz blushed. “I could never.”

  “Sure you could,” Sally said. “You’re almost a proper lady, and you’re smart as a cactus kitten.”

  At least, that was what Ji thought she said. He wasn’t listening, because he’d heard the rattle of coach wheels in the drive, followed by the squeak of the gate opening. The coach was leaving. And if he trailed behind it, maybe he could sneak through the gate! Roughly two seconds later, he burst through the side door of the town house. He heard the wheels crunching in the drive and raced around the corner. There! The carriage was halfway to the front gate. He sprinted after it, arms pumping, sandals slapping the drive.

  He lunged forward, grabbed a strap . . . and scrambled onto the running board!

  Yes! Victory! Then he spotted Nosey and Pickle watching him from a window in the town house. No! Defeat! They’d caught him sneaking out. His stomach dropped . . . but this time he didn’t turn back. Instead, he gave a big fake wave and a quick bow of his head, like he was supposed to be there.

  The twins muttered to each other and Ji smiled wider and faker while the carriage rumbled through the gate and turned onto the street.

  Ha! Forget the twins—he’d done it! Maybe he couldn’t steal stuff with guards patrolling the nighttime streets, but now he didn’t need to. Now he just needed to find the Oilpress neighborhood with the tapestry factory and free Chibo.

  Of course, he didn’t have the faintest clue how he was going to do that. Still, he’d cross that bridge when he came to it, and hope there weren’t too many trolls lurking underneath.

  20

  LOWER ON THE mountain, the avenues narrowed into streets and the mansions shrank into houses. The carriage clattered through an intersection with two terra-cotta warriors. Then the horses’ harnesses jangled around a steep corner, and Ji caught sight of a tile-roofed building he recognized from his nighttime prowling.

  He hopped off the running board and jogged downhill to a marketplace overlooking the Oilpress neighborhood. A dozen canals reflected the sunset, and hundreds of waterwheels rose between brick buildings.

  Ji asked a woman selling kimchi buns where to find the tapestry weavers. She pointed the way, telling him to look for the columns and the yellow doors.

  Ten minutes later, a maze of gray
walls rose around Ji. The road was rutted with tracks and lumped with horse poop. Ji hopped over a fresh pile, dodged a wagon, and caught a glimpse of two square columns.

  He trotted closer and saw a few words on a brass plaque. He guessed that one of them was “Tapestry”—but it might’ve been “Guttersnipe” or “Tuba” for all he knew.

  He peeked into a factory yard. A pair of broad yellow doors led into a big building with grand windows. Four smaller yellow doors on the same wall reminded Ji of goslings waddling behind a goose. A pair of chattering clerks stepped from one door, then disappeared into another. Grooms and drivers bustled outside an open stable with five fancy carriages and a dozen horses. One of them—the horses, not the grooms—nickered disdainfully at Ji and flicked flies with her tail.

  Ji wrinkled his nose at her. Stupid horses.

  He retreated into the street and followed the high wall of the weaving factory. The evening darkened as he checked doors and windows, trying to find a way in. Everything was locked tight. He paused at the last door and said a silent prayer.

  Then he grabbed the doorknob . . . and it didn’t budge. Great. He swore under his breath—and a cloaked man drifted from behind a stack of crates.

  “Yi!” Ji jerked backward. “I mean, hi. Hello! Hi there! I, um, was just looking for . . .”

  He trailed off when the man stepped into the light: a little taller than Ji, and as broad as a blacksmith with a fondness for potatoes. Shadows fell inside the hood of his dingy purple cloak, but Ji saw a glint of red. Red Mask, the bandit. Right here. Three feet away.

  “. . . for my brothers,” Ji finished, as sweat beaded on his skin. “Who are big and mean. And armed. And nearby. And did I mention armed?”

  “I peeked you from the toproof!” Red Mask said in a deep, gravelly voice. “Downbeneath, in the street.”

  “Downbeneath?” Ji asked, his fear warring with his confusion. “What? From the roof?”

  “The toproof!”

  “Wait—” Ji blinked. “You’re the sidewalk-hater!”

  Red Mask either giggled or swallowed a handful of gravel, it was hard to tell. “I don’t hate side walkers!”

  “Uhhhh, sure. Well—”

  “You’re not so cutemost awake,” Red Mask said, and his hood seemed to duck apologetically. “Sorrylots.”

  “That’s, um, okaybunch?” Ji said, shifting nervously. “So . . . you’re Red Mask?”

  “Sillybeet!” Red Mask scoffed. “I’m Nin.”

  “Right,” Ji said, backing away farther. “Well, nice meeting you, Nin. Watch out for, y’know, guards.”

  “Ha!” Nin barked a laugh. “They tremblescared you at the splashroad.”

  “Splashroad? You mean the canal?”

  “Canal, yes.” Nin’s laugh sounded like an amused avalanche. “Guards were hunting me, but they caught Sneakyji instead, next to the mermaids. I peeked that easyclear.”

  Ji stopped backing away. For some reason, this jibbering weirdo didn’t feel like a threat. “You were there when the guards caught me?”

  “Hidden in shadow.” The deep hood nodded again. “That was third time I peeked you. First time, sleepylittle underground. Second time upmountain, Sneakyji climbing over fence around fancy house. Almost fall in splashroad!”

  “I barely slipped! And what were you doing there?”

  “I hide and watch the houses of the three candied dates for—”

  “Wait, wait!” Ji interrupted. “What did you call me? Sneakyji?”

  “Sneakyji.”

  Ji couldn’t help it; he grinned. “Awesome.”

  “Awww,” Nin said. “Aw.”

  “Um. What are you doing?”

  “You told Nin to ‘aw, some.’” Nin shrugged a cloaked shoulder. “So I aw-ed.” He scratched his head with a red-gloved hand. “Some.”

  “Right, okay. Thanks.” As Ji’s fear ebbed, he realized that he’d found the perfect person to ask for help. “So, um, Nin? You’re a criminal, right?”

  “No!” Nin growled, which sounded like a millstone with indigestion. “Not a crim or an animal.”

  “No, no,” Ji said, raising his hands. “I mean, you’re a bandit. An outlaw. A thief?”

  The millstone ground a laugh. “No, no! Just a spy.”

  “Yeah, sure,” Ji said. What a weirdo. “Do you know how to pick a lock?”

  “Of course I do. I’m not skullnumb.”

  Ji nodded toward the door in the factory wall. “Could you open that for me? As a favor? I’ll owe you one.”

  “I can’t open that,” Nin said. “It’s locked.”

  “You just said you can pick locks!”

  “I can! Show me a tallstack of locks, and I’ll pick the best one.” Nin prodded the lock in the door. “Like this one. This one is good.”

  “No, you buttonhead, I didn’t mean—” Ji took a breath. “Do you know how to open locks without a key?”

  “Smash through.”

  “Quietly?”

  “Oh! Yes, of course! Except . . . no. Not even a tinyspeck.”

  Ji rubbed his face with his palm. “Then how’m I supposed to get inside?”

  “Through window,” Nin said, pointing to a set of closed wooden shutters.

  “They’re locked, too.”

  “Don’t be a headbutton!” Nin said.

  He leaped onto the windowsill, climbed the wall, and disappeared onto the roof of the weaving factory.

  “It’s ‘buttonhead,’” Ji said faintly.

  A minute later, the shutters swung open and Nin’s hood appeared, the red of his mask glinting faintly.

  “Whoa,” Ji said, trotting closer. “Thanks.”

  “Now you owe me one!” Nin said, grabbing Ji’s arm and dragging him toward the window.

  “Hey!” Ji said, tugging away. “Let go!”

  Nin released him. “So squirmy!”

  “I’m not squirmy,” Ji said, glaring. “I just don’t like being grabbed by big gormless headbuttons is all.”

  “I’m not gormless. I have plenty of gorm.”

  Ji squinted at him. “What do you want in return?”

  “A favor,” Nin said.

  “What kind of favor?”

  “A valuable one. See? Not gormless.”

  “Just tell me what you want.”

  “Prick up your earflaps,” Nin told him, “and listen for the right.”

  “For the right what?”

  “The rite! The Diadem Rite! We need to know when it starts.”

  Ji peered into the shadows of Nin’s hood dubiously. “That’s all what you want? To know when the rite is happening?”

  “That’s not all I want. Also want pickled beets. But that’s the whole favor.”

  “Then sure,” Ji said. “If I hear about the rite, I’ll tell you.”

  “Rock vow?”

  Ji had no idea what that meant, so he said, “Rock vow.”

  “Some aws,” Nin said happily. “Grab you now, Sneakyji?”

  “No! No grabbing. Just give me your hand.” A red leather gauntlet was thrust at him from the dingy purple cloak. “And how’d you know my name’s Ji?”

  “Been watching!” Nin pulled him onto the windowsill. “From toproofs.”

  “Watching me?”

  “Not you,” Nin scoffed from inside his red mask. “Peeking noble houses.”

  “Which houses? Why?”

  “Your house, the hibiscus house, and the young warlady.”

  “Oh! You’re watching the noble kids who are training for the rite?”

  “That’s what they told me to—” Nin stopped suddenly. “Hibiscus house! Sorry, Sneakyji, I have to tumble! Try not to forget!”

  Nin jumped or climbed or scaled—sort of jump-climb-scaled—to a warehouse roof across the street and vanished into the evening. For a guy who was shaped like a barrel of rocks, he really could move. Especially considering that his gruesome red mask must’ve blocked his vision.

  “Don’t worry,” Ji told the empty street. “Nob
ody could forget that much weird.”

  He slid down from the windowsill into the tapestry factory. He found himself in a cramped storage room full of burlap sacks. The faint thum-thud-whack coming from the left sounded like looms, so Ji headed in that direction.

  He ended up at the front of the complex. Great. He’d walked in a big circle. At least the factory yard was quieter now—though the horses in the open stables still eyed him warily. He listened for the thum-thud, then slipped through a yellow door into a clerks’ office with neat desks and tidy calligraphy brushes. The room was empty, thank summer, so he didn’t have to tell any lies.

  He opened a door that led farther into the main building, and a bell jingled overhead.

  Ji died. No breath, no pulse, no thoughts. Just a scrawny corpse holding on to a doorknob.

  When nobody shouted or kicked him in the knee bone, he came back to life. He slunk through the door, careful not to jingle the bell again, and found himself in a lemon-scented hallway lined with sliding, paper-paneled doors.

  Ji heard a low moan, maybe the grind of waterwheels or the shuttling of looms. He headed toward the sound, hoping that it would lead him to Chibo—and the bell jingled again as the door opened behind him.

  Someone was coming.

  Ji leaped sideways, trying to shove through a sliding door. Except you can’t shove through a sliding door. He crashed into the paper panels and slammed to the ground, caught in the wreckage of the door frame. Pain burst in his elbow and ribs, and the footsteps pattered closer.

  A moment later, two figures stood over him in the broken doorway.

  21

  “WHAT IN THE moons are you doing?” Roz asked, peering down at Ji.

  “Vanquishing doors,” Sally said.

  “You—here—what?” Ji babbled.

  “We followed you on the burro,” Roz told him. “I told a few untruths, and the footman didn’t suspect a thing. You would’ve been proud.”

  “But—but how’d you get in?”

  “The front entrance,” Roz said.

  “What about the grooms and clerks and stuff?”

  “I stuck my nose in the air like I belonged, and Sally trotted behind me.”

  Ji felt himself deflate. “Oh.”