Phoenix extravagant, p.9
Phoenix Extravagant, page 9
The crowd had grown so thick, even two hours in advance of the duel, that Jebi disembarked at its edge and spent more money so they could watch from the balcony of a nearby house. Zakan rolled her eyes but made no objection. Jebi guessed it wasn’t the first time the enterprising homeowner, a thick-bodied Hwagugin woman, had earned some extra cash this way. At least the woman was a pleasant host, bringing out snacks and tea. The warmth was especially welcome in the winter chill.
“Who’s dueling, anyway?” Jebi ventured to ask the woman, feeling stupid for not knowing.
The woman blinked. “You paid to watch a Rassanin duel and you don’t even—?”
Jebi shrugged, despite the heat rushing to their face. “I like watching duels, but I lose track. Terrible memory. It embarrasses my family all the time.”
“Oh, there he is,” the woman said eagerly, pointing toward the platform. “His opponent must be late.”
The balcony provided them a splendid view. Jebi, with their superior vision, could almost pick out the individual charms decorating the priest officiating over the duel. The priest’s silken robes, of white and red, looked woefully inadequate for the cold. But then, maybe Razan’s gods fortified their priests against the mere vicissitudes of weather.
“The one in the green and indigo robes is the Chuora Kyovin, from the House of Chuora,” she went on.
Jebi nodded. They wondered at the woman’s evident adulation of a Razanei, but maybe it was nothing more than a simple crush. They watched as the priest anointed Chuora with water or oil, impossible to tell at this distance. Too bad it was so cold; they could sketch with gloves on, but it made for a clumsy process. Still, they wanted to jot down their impressions, so they pulled out a pocket sketchbook and a pencil, and made gesture sketches to capture the poses.
The woman sighed as wistfully as any maiden and fished out a miniature portrait from her coat pocket. Its frame was painted a yellowy green that clashed horrendously with the cooler green of the painted clothes. The former was probably some cheap mixture of blue and yellow pigments, but the latter’s vividness made Jebi think it was copper arsenite.
“See?” she asked, practically shoving the portrait under Jebi’s nose while Zakan caught Jebi’s eye and looked heavenward. “I bought this at his first duel in Territory Fourteen. I can’t imagine why he isn’t married yet.”
“He’s very handsome,” Jebi said, which might or might not have been true. The lopsided face of the portrait made it appear as though Chuora had a double chin. “Is he the favorite?”
“Of a certainty,” the woman said. “You can see him out there, can’t you? Such a dashing figure.” She sighed again.
I don’t care about him, Jebi thought, not that they would have dreamed of saying so to their host. “And his opponent?” They didn’t do as good a job of pretending diffidence as they would have liked. Zakan was snickering behind her hand.
Luckily, the woman was too caught up in fervor for the coming duel to notice. “Oh, her,” she said, her nose wrinkling. “I suppose it was inevitable, really.” She lowered her voice conspiratorially. “People say they were lovers once, but I don’t believe Master Chuora would have such terrible taste.”
Jebi made an effort not to clench their teeth, because their host would notice that, to say nothing of Zakan. “Why, what’s her name and what has she done?”
Vei struck them as singularly unlikely to involve herself in scandal... but then, Jebi didn’t know anything about her personal life. Just because they’d spent the past couple months working with her didn’t mean Vei didn’t have secret vices. What could they be? Gambling? Opium? The Razanei hated opium, even though the modern painkillers they’d introduced to Hwaguk didn’t work nearly as well. Maybe an unfashionable fondness for kimchi?
“Oh, her name is Dzuge Vei,” the woman said with considerably less enthusiasm. She mangled the dz sound, perhaps deliberately, given that she hadn’t had any trouble pronouncing Chuora’s name. “It’s a wonder she’s allowed to duel at all. You know.”
Jebi counted to three. “No, I don’t,” they said, smiling at the woman in an attempt to coax her into an answer. They leaned forward; Zakan’s amusement only increased. “Tell me the dirt.”
That worked, although Jebi almost wished it hadn’t. “Her father could have served Razan honorably,” the woman said. “He was duelist prime for Razan’s embassy, decades ago, during the reign of the Azalea Throne. He’s apparently the one who taught Dzuge how to duel, for all the good it’ll do her. But he took up with not one but two Fourteeners! Dzuge is half and half.”
Jebi grimaced. So that explained Vei’s accent when she spoke Hwamal. She must have learned the language from her other parents. It wouldn’t be the first time a Razanei soldier fell for one of the prostitutes in the Virgins’ District, although most of them didn’t formally acknowledge their offspring. Jebi couldn’t imagine that Vei had had an easy time growing up, considering the prejudices that some Hwagugin and Razanei had against children of mixed heritage, like this woman.
The woman misinterpreted Jebi’s expression. “So you see what I mean,” she said, with a disdain that they found repulsive. “Dueling is in the nature of a ritual, you know. It’s sacred. It will be just as well when Master Chuora cuts her down and the Ministry of Armor can look for a proper duelist prime.”
Zakan shook her head, but kept her opinions to herself. She, like Jebi, would have seen Vei training.
Jebi made the mistake of asking, “Who does Master Chuora work for?” Calling him ‘master’ galled them, but they had spent the last several years using honorifics for people they didn’t like. This was no different, and Jebi didn’t want to lose this spectacular view by antagonizing their host.
Nevertheless, their plan backfired: “Oh,” the woman said, her entire face pulling down in a scowl, as she finally looked at Jebi’s sketchbook. Jebi realized they’d been doodling a monstrous caricature of Chuora with a bulbous head and comically huge ears. Zakan started to laugh. “That’s not what he looks like at all!” She lunged.
What she couldn’t have known was that Jebi had long practice defending their sketchbooks from offended subjects. (Their habit of caricature had gotten them into trouble before.) They snatched it out of reach and shoved it into their pocket, then rose precipitously and backed away. “I’d best be going,” they said. Maybe it wasn’t too late to join the crowd outside, even if they had every expectation of being squashed. “Bye!”
The crowd was so thick, especially this close to the dueling platform, that it took them forever just to open the door. That accomplished, they shoved and elbowed fiercely until they came to rest at a suitable viewing spot.
“Nice job,” Zakan said sarcastically from next to Jebi, having kept up with them during the whole ridiculous interlude. “We could have been watching the duel from a nice comfortable spot, but you had to ruin that.”
“Sorry,” Jebi lied.
Just their luck, they were squeezed next to a vendor selling noodles supposedly sponsored by Master Chuora. Given the number of supporters in Chuora’s green-and-indigo armbands, Jebi kept their skepticism to themself.
So distracted were they by the business of breathing in the suffocating crush that they didn’t notice at first that Dzuge Vei had ascended the platform. But the murmuring and gossip caught their attention, Vei’s name in hundreds upon hundreds of mouths. Notably, no one called her Master Dzuge, although as a duelist she merited it.
Jebi looked up, and their heart stopped in their chest.
Vei was resplendent in her own duelist’s finery, a red jacket over wide blue pants, a white sash holding her sword’s lacquered scabbard. The red and blue, homage to Hwaguk’s forbidden national emblem, could not be denied.
That wasn’t what shocked Jebi, though. Rather, they recognized the costume, for all that they’d never seen it before. The duelist in red and blue who’d cut down their sister-in-law Jia.
Bongsunga. Bongsunga needs to know.
“It’s her,” Jebi breathed. They doubted any other Razanei duelist in Hwaguk matched that description. They’d never made the connection before—and how could they have? They didn’t follow dueling; found the profession distasteful and barbarous, for all the beauty of its forms.
And Vei—Vei had never practiced in her formal dueling clothes. All this time they’d been falling for her, she was the one who’d cut down Bongsunga’s wife. Jebi struggled with a sense of betrayal, although one of the few things they did know about dueling was that the clothes had a ceremonial purpose and were not for casual wear. Surely Vei hadn’t known about this part of Jebi’s past.
Jebi tried to sort out their inconvenient feelings about Vei as they watched the priest anoint Vei with that same clear liquid. Vei and Chuora took up their positions several paces apart, each poised with their hands above their swords’ hilts. The priest raised their hands.
“Here we go,” Zakan mouthed, her eyes bright. “Don’t you worry.”
The crowd roared Chuora’s name, chanting it until the syllables blurred.
The priest spoke—or anyway, their lips moved; Jebi couldn’t hear a word.
Forever after Jebi would remember how Vei looked: her long hair swept up into a chignon so it wouldn’t get in the way, her brow marked with red paint, her jacket whipping about her slim, poised form. The sun had gone behind a cloud, and the murkiness of the light made her into a phantasm of a bygone spring. I could paint you, Jebi thought, and my sister would kill me for it.
Jebi didn’t have the space to pull out their sketchbook again, but it didn’t matter. The image had already burned itself into their brain.
Then the priest brought their arms down, slicing through the air like an executioner’s stroke.
Both duelists leapt forward. Jebi’s eyelids felt as though they had frozen open. Not that it made a difference. They didn’t know what to look for; couldn’t follow motions that swift.
Two blades flashed in the winter sunlight, so quick that they were visible only as blazing crescent blurs.
Jebi’s throat ached. Only then did they realize that they had, damningly, screamed Vei’s name. Not Dzuge or Master Dzuge, which would have been proper, but her personal name: Vei.
They held their breath, wondering. Then Vei was on the other side of the platform, as though she had simply translated across the intervening space. Blood dripped from her blade. Jebi swore they could hear it hitting the platform, impossible as that was.
Then they saw Chuora. Vei had slashed him from hip to collarbone, nearly cleaving him in two. Jebi was suddenly glad they hadn’t rented the balcony long enough to down more than one or two of the cookies, because they would have vomited it all up. Oh, they’d seen dead people before—everyone had, who had lived through the consolidation—but not like this. Not freshly dead people.
And not over... at this point Jebi realized that they had no idea why Chuora and Vei had dueled each other. And it was a little late to ask. A matter of honor, they presumed, since the Razanei cared about such things. And never mind that Vei was only—‘only’—half-Razanei.
As the crowd keened its grief for the beloved Master Chuora, Jebi stood numbly, wondering if they had wanted Vei to live or die.
SEVEN
ZAKAN TACTFULLY DIDN’T attempt to engage Jebi in conversation on the way back to the Summer Palace. Jebi wasn’t making any secret of their mood. At first they fretted that they wouldn’t be able to return before Dzuge Vei did, but they needn’t have worried. The rituals of the duel, to say nothing of the combination of mourning and celebration—a few people had in fact supported Vei, outnumbered though they were—meant that Vei was unlikely to extricate herself from the crowd anytime soon.
The rest of the day passed in a haze, as did the ones following it. Jebi wished they’d stayed out longer. It might have been nice to see the night sky again, and lose themself in the study of the winter constellations. The stars reminded them of their sister and her fascination with stories of the celestials.
Jebi longed to ask around and find out if Bongsunga missed them yet. Unfortunately, even though they went up topside again to indulge in roasted chestnuts and buns stuffed with sweet red bean paste, they had no luck shaking their watcher. Frustrated, Jebi fantasized about the things they would say to Bongsunga, even though they knew everything would end in her telling them I told you so.
By the time Vei returned to the Summer Palace, Jebi had thrown themself back into studying Issemi’s notes to double-check their work. They had a solution in mind, but not one that they dared show to Nehen. Since they wouldn’t have the usual safeguard of a second pair of eyes on the new grammar they planned on giving Arazi, they had to make absolutely certain that nothing would go wrong.
The artisans of the Summer Palace remained reluctant to discuss the Ppalgan-Namu incident with Jebi. But Jebi knew of one more witness, if they could only coax it to talk: the dragon itself. After all, who knew better what Arazi had done than Arazi itself?
Jebi remembered what Nehen had told them about contradictions and choices, and attempted to communicate with the automata that guarded the cafeteria. The human guards in their blue uniforms gave Jebi carefully neutral looks as Jebi approached. “You just missed the last of the extra desserts,” the taller one said.
“Oh, I don’t mind that,” Jebi said, although they wouldn’t have minded the flower-shaped cookies that the kitchens had been producing lately, in lopsided imitation of Hwagugin sweets. “Can I talk to the automata?”
The other guard, a squat fellow with a birthmark along the side of his face, shrugged. “Doesn’t matter to us one way or the other. They’re not exactly great conversationalists.”
“Thanks,” Jebi said, turning to face the automata. “Do you understand me?” they asked.
The automata stared blankly back at them.
“Can you nod, or sign?” Jebi tried. Some of the vendors at the market that Bongsunga frequented had been deaf, and communicated by signing. Jebi didn’t know the details, but surely the automata would have come up with the solution for themselves even if they didn’t have voices.
The automata didn’t move.
One of the servants cleaning up dishes in the cafeteria pointed at the spectacle Jebi was making of themself and grinned. Another, speaking in Hwamal, whispered back something unflattering about Rassanin and their airs. Jebi flushed, but didn’t react. They knew they looked ridiculous, and besides, they didn’t want to get the servants in trouble if the guards didn’t understand them.
“It was worth a try,” Jebi said. The grammars of standard automata hadn’t allowed for that kind of intelligence or reactivity, but they’d wanted to be sure.
But they’d studied the initial grammar Issemi had given Arazi. Not only had the grammar involved more advanced glyphs—enough, Issemi hinted, to give the dragon intelligence equivalent to a human’s—she had also used the rarest pigments, such as Phoenix Extravagant. The pigment Jebi needed the most, though, was fortunately extremely common: Chirping Cicada, which represented the desire to communicate one’s ideas—a motive shared by many artists. They thought they saw a way to modify certain glyphs so the two of them could share thoughts without speaking them aloud, a device they had seen in one of Bongsunga’s adventure novels and one that would be handy to avoid being overheard by the guards.
“Sorry it didn’t work out,” the squat guard said. “Like I told you, they’re no good for witty banter.”
“You did warn me,” Jebi agreed, and retreated to the workshop. They opened up their sketchbook, in which they’d written in deliberately terrible handwriting to reduce the chance that anyone would spy on their notes. In fact, that probably made their scribblings look more suspicious, but no one had commented on it—yet. They kept hesitating over the matter of contradiction and choice. If they forced the dragon to always tell the truth, it would just as easily reveal Jebi’s questioning to anyone who asked. If they gave it a choice, the dragon might lie to them.
I have to take the risk, Jebi thought, circling the relevant glyphs. To tell the truth and to exercise discretion, two conflicting directives. Which would, according to Nehen, mean that the dragon could choose.
ADAY AFTER her return, Vei checked in with Jebi. She knocked on the door to the workshop before entering, a peculiar quirk given that she had the key and all the artists were in the habit of leaving the door ajar. Ordinarily Jebi liked that about her, that ingrained courtesy. But now all they saw when they looked at her was that red-and-blue outfit, and their sister-in-law Jia’s face on the last day before she went off to the war.
“Is something the matter?” Vei asked as she approached Jebi’s workstation.
Jebi hastily smoothed their expression. “Just worried,” they said. They had no intention of telling Vei that they were going to question Arazi. “Any word on the investigation?”
“Issemi?” Vei shrugged one shoulder. “Nothing new from the deputy minister. He does want to know, however, if you’ll be able to restore the dragon’s function.”
“About that,” Jebi said, both grateful that Vei hadn’t pried into their unease and nervous about the current topic. “What is the timetable for this?”
Vei’s face stilled.
“I realize there are security implications,” Jebi said, picking their words with care. They glanced down, saw that their hands were tapping nervously on the work bench, made them stop. “But I can be of more use to you if I know how fast I need to work, and what to prioritize.”
“I can’t answer that question,” Vei said, to Jebi’s surprise. “But the deputy minister can. He’s been wanting to talk to you anyway. Come with me.”
“I was working on—”
“Come with me.” Because she was Vei, she rose and waited for Jebi to follow suit, rather than striding off and expecting them to catch up.
Jebi’s hopes for an aboveground excursion were dashed when Vei led them to a corridor they hadn’t explored before. They smiled at the guards, even the silent automata, out of pure nerves. The guards saluted Vei and did not challenge her right to enter.
