by Ryan Kirk
“Hungry?” Wen asked. His voice was surprisingly gentle.
Had something happened? Had they figured out who caused the disaster in the market? For the space of a heartbeat, she dared to hope.
Bai nodded quickly. Wen smiled and grabbed the bowl from the tray, extending it in her direction.
She reached for it, uncurling from the corner.
Wen’s smile never faltered.
He turned the bowl upside down and dumped the rice on the dirt floor of her cell.
For a long moment, nothing happened. Bai fought the tears that threatened to fall. The food was so close she could smell it.
“Aren’t you going to eat?” Wen asked.
A sinking feeling of dread came over her.
“If you don’t want the food, I can get a broom and sweep it away. But I thought you were hungry.”
Wen’s voice sounded understanding, caring almost. Every word cut as sharply as a blade.
Wen nodded, as though this was what he’d expected. “Fine.” He turned to leave.
Bai, suddenly certain that if she didn’t eat now, she wouldn’t for another day or two, scrambled forward on hands and knees and started picking the rice up from the ground and putting it in her mouth. She tried not to think about what she did.
Wen towered above her, chuckling. Bai tried to ignore him, pretended as though he wasn’t there.
He made that difficult when he started pouring cold water on her back. “Figured you might be thirsty, too.”
She’d eaten several handfuls of rice when he delivered a powerful kick to her side. She went tumbling across the small cell, thunking into the sturdy stone walls. She groaned, trying to keep down the little food she’d eaten.
Wen stepped toward her and lifted her chin in his hands. He stared at her, cold and implacable as a frozen mountain lake in the dead of winter. “You know what? Everyone wants to know what’s in your head. We’ve received word from both the monastery and Lord Xun. Each is sending someone to talk to you. Lord Xun, in particular, was certain that the man he’s sending would get answers out of you. In fact, he ensured it.”
Bai hadn’t thought it was possible for her to dread her future more. She’d heard rumors of Lord Xun’s questioners, same as anyone else. They were said to be the very best at what they did. The idea of one of them coming here to visit her turned her insides to ice.
But the monks were still worse.
Wen drew a knife out of his belt. It wasn’t big, but the edge looked honed to a fine point. He held it up close to her face. “You know, I was thinking of killing you myself. The elder is insisting that we care for you until we find out the truth of what happened, but I think he’s wrong. I think you know, and you’re not telling us.”
He flashed the knife in front of her, causing her to flinch back, but his hand held her face immobile. He let her get a good look at the edge before putting it away. She almost wished he hadn’t. The knife held a promise she now desired.
“I want you to stay alive until they get here.” Wen stood up. “So eat up. You’re going to need your strength.”
He took one step back, and for a moment Bai thought he was going to turn to leave. Instead, he stepped forward and launched another kick into her stomach, doubling her over and leaving her gasping for breath.
She heard her cell door shut and the wooden beam settle in front of the door. A candle had been left outside the door, casting the barest shadow of light into the cell.
Slowly the pain subsided and Bai crawled to the rice, picking it off the floor and eating it.
Again, she didn’t know how much time had passed. She could feel the bruising from where Wen’s kicks had landed, and the rice had done little to sate her appetite. Since Wen’s last visit, she’d wondered if she should try killing herself.
She had no desire to die, but the future promised nothing but agony. A monk and a questioner? Either would mark the end of her life as she knew it. For days now she had held out the hope that if she simply didn’t cause a problem, they would let her go and she could find a way to move on.
That idea sounded naive now. She had no future and no desire to suffer. Her mother, the only person who had cared for her, was gone.
Why fight?
She couldn’t answer the question, but she couldn’t bring herself to plan her own end, either. Some spark refused to give in, even though doing so made the most sense.
Bai sat on her bed, occasionally shaking as another chill ran through her body. With little food and drink, perhaps the decision wouldn’t be hers to make.
Suddenly, the stillness of her contemplation was interrupted by a quick series of scuffling sounds from outside the door to the cells. Bai instantly became alert. The sounds had only lasted a second or two, then silence once again descended on her ears.
Then she heard the unmistakable sound of the key in the lock. After her time in confinement, she’d come to recognize the ways people turned keys. The elder fumbled a bit, his age and poor eyesight causing him to miss the lock once or twice before he got the key in. Wen snapped the lock open as though he had won a fight against it. The man who watched her in the evening also opened the lock quickly, but not with the same force as Wen.
This sound was unlike the others. The bolt slid slowly, so softly that Bai almost wasn’t sure the lock was turning. But the sound of the door opening was unmistakable. Someone was entering the prison, someone Bai didn’t think she knew.
A sliver of moonlight poured through the open door, barely illuminating the passageway. If Bai’s eyes hadn’t already been so used to the darkness, she didn’t think she would have noticed the light. A shadow crept into the hallway with a smooth and easy grace.
Bai pressed herself to the small window in the door, staring out for any clue as to who was there. Then the shadow approached the door and Bai realized the person outside might not be friendly. She scrambled back to her corner again, huddling down as deep into the shadows as she could.
The shadow, whoever it was, crept down the hallway. They seemed to be checking every cell, and Bai’s stomach twisted into knots. Eventually, the shadow stopped in front of her cell. Despite Bai’s attempts to hide, she knew she’d been spotted. But old habits died hard. She cowered in the corner as the intruder lifted the bar off the door and opened her cell.
Bai looked up, confused by the sight in front of her. A woman’s silhouette stood tall in the doorway.
“Bai?”
Bai nodded, then realized the movement might not be visible in the darkness. “Yes?”
“My name is Hien. Care to get out of here?”
Unknown futures danced in front of Bai. Instincts long embedded told her to stay, to wait out the storm. But a part of her knew that was foolish. If she remained, she had no future.
She stood up and followed the stranger into the night.
6
Delun detested mystery. He accepted the fact that much of life was outside his control. No matter how much he might wish differently, he knew he couldn’t make people act the way he believed they should. He could intimidate them for a time, or coerce them in other ways, but given enough time they would eventually return to the behaviors of their past. People were always resistant to change.
But while he could live with a lack of control, lack of knowledge itched at him like a tick burrowing under his skin. Delun believed that everything was knowable. While there were plenty of mysteries in the world, he believed they would all someday be solved and that the people of the empire would live in a state of perfect knowledge.
It made his current lack of information all the more frustrating. Several days had passed since he had stopped for the night to interrogate the leader of the men following him. He’d put more leagues behind him than he cared to count, the unfamiliar scenery of the western lands hiding the answers he sought. Despite the measures he had resorted to, he still knew far less than he desired.
The tall man, although willing, hadn’t had many answers. Flashes of memory
sometimes troubled him, the actions he had taken with the knife unforgettable, and perhaps unforgivable. Sometimes, to maintain justice, one had to embrace the darkness that lived inside. Delun had struggled and made his peace with that fact long ago. He had used the borrowed dagger to great effect, and by the time he was finished, he was certain the man had divulged everything. In exchange, Delun had granted the tall man the final quick release he desired.
Unfortunately, the sacrifice had been for little gain.
The group following him had been common criminals from Two Bridges. One drunken night at the Old Goat, a seedy tavern near the edge of town, the men had been approached by a beautiful woman. They started talking and the group realized they shared one trait in common: a deep distrust of the monasteries.
They’d been given Delun’s description and more money than any of them had ever seen at one time in their lives. Their instructions had been simple: follow him and report on his movements. Some of the money was theirs to keep, but the rest was for expenses. They were to send birds to Kulat as often as possible, the messages marked with the symbol for “truth.” They were promised more money within the month.
Of course the men had taken the work. Their story, such as it was, ended there. The man had heard of the Golden Leaf, but knew nothing more than the organization’s name and reputation. Delun had pressed those questions, but when it was over, he was certain the man had told the truth. His tails had been hired help and nothing more.
He only had gathered two useful pieces of information. The first was that whoever had hired the criminals knew Delun, at least by reputation. They had spared little expense to have him watched. Why? The second piece of information was that some of his answers sat hidden in Kulat. Delun had considered several deceptions, knowing that whoever was watching him was expecting messenger birds. Unfortunately, each deception added more complications than necessary. When he reached Kulat, perhaps he could use the information to his advantage, but until then, it was just another brush stroke in a painting he didn’t comprehend yet.
Delun pushed his thoughts aside as he looked out over the majestic landscape revealing itself before him. He’d been lost in his thoughts for days now, his mind having little to occupy it within the cramped confines of the carriage. He’d been on the road almost nonstop since his confrontation, pausing only for the occasional needs of the body. Not only had Taio wished for all possible speed, Delun had an instinctive feeling about this assignment. This one mattered, more than they usually did.
They had rumbled through a great forest for the past several days, riding between enormous trees that towered over the carriage and blocked the sun like giants of legend. The air had the deep earthy scent of pine, tinged with a sweetness that permeated the carriage and his thoughts. The smell was almost enough to relax the tension in Delun’s back. Delun hated the forest, hated having his line of sight constantly interrupted. Reasonably, there was little chance of being attacked, but his caution never wavered.
The thick forest began to thin as they traveled farther west. Those trees that still blocked his view were younger than the ones near the center of the wood, the forest slowly conquering more territory inside the empire, growing ever larger. The western edges of the empire, so far removed from Jihan, were far less populated. When he could get an uninterrupted view of the landscape, Delun saw range and farmland as far as his eye could see. Cows and sheep roamed in herds, and more than once Delun smelled the pungent aroma of droppings where the herd had come close to the road.
This place wasn’t for him. He felt at home in the monastery above Two Bridges, high in the thin air of the mountains. He didn’t care for the lowlands, filled with people and activity. Fortunately, he could just make out the tops of the mountains far to the west, only a day or two beyond his destination. Those were the mountains that scared even Taio. Perhaps, someday, Delun would carry his work into those high passes.
They had just passed an intersection for another road heading north when a surprising sensation struck Delun. There was another monk nearby, off the road. Someone nearly as strong as he was.
Delun imagined a map of this region of the empire. He’d committed several to memory before leaving his monastery. He suspected, though he hadn’t seen a sign, that the road they’d just passed led towards Galan, one of the last small towns before truly reaching the edges of the empire. If his position was accurate, there was no monastery nearby, no reason for a monk to be off the road.
There were no coincidences.
Delun leaned his head out of the carriage and asked for the driver to stop. A few moments later Delun stepped out, stretching as he allowed his senses to take in the surrounding area.
The road here, as it had been for the past several days, was quiet. Tall grass surrounded him, coming up almost to his chest in places. Bugs, newly hatched in the warmth of spring weather, flew around him in patterns beyond his comprehension. He could smell the horses pulling the carriage and the scent of his own body, locked in the carriage for days. A bath would be one of his first responsibilities once he reached Kulat.
Delun glanced at the driver and ordered him to wait. He didn’t expect violence, but it was always best to be prepared, so far as he was concerned.
The presence off the road was as strong as ever. A monk with that strength would have a difficult time hiding from other gifted warriors. Delun knew the problem firsthand.
There was little point in subtlety. Delun could feel the other monk, and he had no doubt the other monk could feel him. Delun backtracked a few hundred paces down the road, away from the carriage. Then he stopped and waited for the other monk to show himself.
It only took a minute. Delun raised one eyebrow in surprise when he saw the man. He wasn’t sure he had ever seen a monk who looked quite as intimidating as this one. The man stood at least a head taller than Delun and appeared to be almost as wide as the road. Yet there wasn’t the slightest amount of fat on the man. He looked as though he ate leather for breakfast.
Appearances weren’t everything, though Delun appreciated the man’s clear discipline. One didn’t obtain a body like that by chance. Although Delun was fairly certain he would win a duel, it wasn’t a risk he felt like taking. He gave the monk a short bow. “My name is Delun.” He paused, but when there was no response, he continued, “It’s a pleasure to meet you.”
The other man squinted at Delun, clearly deciding whether or not he was a threat. That, in itself, was an interesting piece of information. Monks didn’t fight with one another, at least not in any way that mattered.
The man shifted, and Delun saw that the man’s left hand was holding a second sign of shielding. The other monk was expecting him to fight, but why? Delun kept his hands at his sides, his palms open toward the man. He prepared no attack.
If it came to a fight, Delun would be outmatched, at least for the first precious seconds. It would take him a few moments to collect his strength, moments that might mean the difference between victory and death. But he refused to fight another monk unless he had good reason. Why didn’t this monk feel the same?
The tense moments ticked away, and eventually the other monk reached a decision. He didn’t release his sign, but he bowed in return. “My name is Kang. I do not recognize you.”
“I’m from the monastery above Two Bridges.”
A flash of recognition crossed over Kang’s face. Everyone had heard of the monastery above Two Bridges. Most monks held their brothers in Two Bridges somewhere between awe and fear. The man pondered the information for a few moments. “Are you here because of what happened in Galan?”
Now it was Delun’s turn to be silent. Galan? He hadn’t heard a thing about Galan in his travels. If not for committing the maps to memory, he was pretty certain he wouldn’t have ever heard of the small town. Of course, if something had happened and word was spreading, Delun wouldn’t have known. He’d spent his last days practically locked in a carriage. He shook his head. “I’m not. What happened?”
/> Delun could see the question on Kang’s lips. If Delun wasn’t here because of Galan, why was he here? But few monks questioned the actions of the monastery above Two Bridges. “We’re not sure. There are rumors that a monk destroyed the town market and the area surrounding it. Citizens are angry and blaming the monasteries. My abbot believes that the rebels who hide up in the mountains are responsible. He sent me to investigate and attempt to calm the town.”
Delun measured the man again, wondering if anything about him could be considered calming. He spoke well and his eyes were sharp. This man wasn’t just strong, he was thoughtful as well. Now, he understood why Kang had been off the road. If the rumors were true, not all monks could be trusted. Delun pitied any rebel monk who tried to stand against Kang. No doubt that was the true reason the man had been chosen. Delun wouldn’t have been surprised to find that Kang was the strongest monk in the entire western empire.
On the other hand, the damage described by Kang was impressive. Delun thought he might be able to duplicate such a feat, but it would take everything he had. If the rumors were true, the implications were considerable.
Delun glanced at his carriage, waiting patiently to carry him to Kulat. Then he looked at Kang, on the hunt for the solution to a new mystery.
There were no coincidences. If the Golden Leaf was active in this area, could they have staged the attack to place the blame on monks? The idea sounded outlandish at first, but there seemed no reason why it couldn’t be possible.
Delun gave a hint of a grin. “Would you have any interest in working together? I think that if we were to combine our abilities, we might get to the bottom of this problem faster.”
Kang finally released his shield. In the same way Delun had judged him, the monk seemed to be taking the measure of Delun. Finally, he nodded. “Will you kill whoever is responsible?”
Delun didn’t even hesitate.