As Jun reached the top of the stairs, a woman emerged from Chang’s room and closed the door quietly behind her. Although her clothes were plain and she appeared to be alone, she had the elegant, self-possessed bearing of a noblewoman trying to blend in with the commoners. Jun stopped, recognizing her long plaited hair. She’d been among the spectators at the tournament. The one who liked to bet on underdogs.
Was she yet another one of Chang’s many contacts in the Silent Flute Society? Or something more? She was about the same age as the flutist. Might Chang have a lover?
The woman moved swiftly past, giving Jun a curious smile as she went by.
Jun turned after her and opened his mouth, not sure what he wanted to ask, but Chang called through the closed door of his room, “I know you’re out there. Come in, then.”
Jun opened the door. Chang was lying on his back on the bed with a damp cloth over his face. The shutters on the windows were drawn shut against the light and noise from the inn’s courtyard, the muffled little room lit only by the small oil lamp glowing on the nightstand.
Seeing Chang like this, Jun thought he ought to apologize for the disruption, quietly withdraw from the room, and let the man rest. Instead, he stepped inside and closed the door firmly behind him. He stood at the foot of the bed and looked down at his instructor. “What haven’t you told me?”
Slowly, Chang removed the washcloth from his face and sat up. In the dimly lit room, his eyes seemed to blend into the reflective black mask of dragonskin around them and his expression was unreadable. “So you made it through the first day of the tournament—barely,” Chang said. “I overheard some fans of the Tiger Spirit Combat School talking about your powerful short punch.”
“All thanks to you and that damnable board. Without your training, I would’ve been knocked out of the tournament in my first fight,” Jun admitted. “But don’t change the subject.”
Candlelight glinted off the man’s face. “What do you want to know?”
“There was a competitor at the tournament wearing a white mask and calling himself Ghostface. He won both his matches and caused a big stir afterward.” Jun could clearly recall the nimble, silent fighter and the cheers of the crowd. “He fought almost exactly the way you do, with the same style and control of Breath. He’s your student, isn’t he?”
Chang sighed through his nose but didn’t deny the claim. That was all the confirmation Jun needed.
“Who is he?” Jun asked.
Chang was silent for another moment. “You were bound to notice, of course,” he muttered, rubbing the scales on his eyebrow ridge. “Tell me, what is the story behind the character of Ghostface?”
Jun thought back to the roles his father had played onstage, many of them villains eventually defeated by the folk hero. “Ghostface is a master martial artist who uses a secret identity to fight evil and corruption wherever he travels,” Jun said. “But he probably wasn’t a real person in history because none of the legends are consistent. In some of the stories, Ghostface is a noble prince or lord, in others he’s a poor wandering beggar or monk. I’ve even seen versions where Ghostface is revealed to be a woman, or a shape-shifting spirit, or the emperor himself.”
Chang held up a finger. “Yes, exactly. The point is that anyone can be Ghostface. That’s why the stories are so popular. The person behind the mask isn’t as important as what the mask represents.”
“But the fighter in the Guardian’s Tournament right now is a real person,” Jun said. “He made this sign after he won.” Jun touched the back of his hand to his lips, then his fist to his heart, before remembering that Chang couldn’t see what he was doing. “The sign of the Silent Flute Society, which you and Ren never told me you were a part of. Ghostface riled up a lot of people. Some of them started criticizing General Cobu before soldiers arrived and hauled them away.”
Chang said quietly, “I’m sorry to hear that.”
“But you did train him?”
“I’ve trained a number of fighters. You know that already. You met and sparred with several of them on our way here. I only take on students when I sense in them a powerful Breath and great potential not just as martial artists, but as leaders. Possible Guardians. Including some who are in the Silent Flute Society. Any of them could be Ghostface.”
Jun’s head was already swimming with new information and confused emotions, and talking to Chang was only making it worse. His eyes fell upon the blind man’s flute case, lying in its usual precise spot next to his bed. “Ghostface’s supporters this evening, they said, ‘Zanu’s flute will play again.’ What does that mean?”
“Zanu was a famous breathmarked flutist. At one time, he was the most renowned musician in the emperor’s court, but he sided with the Virtuous Rebellion, writing and performing stirring songs that roused the people in support. When the country was divided, he felt so betrayed by the Council’s decision that he put away his flute in protest and vowed that he wouldn’t play again until the Snake Wall came down and people in the East and the West were reunited with their kinsmen once more. Hence the name of the Silent Flute Society.” Chang’s sightless eyes didn’t move. “Zanu was my teacher.”
Jun sat down heavily on the end of Chang’s bed. “I’ll have to fight Ghostface tomorrow, or the day after,” he muttered. “Why didn’t you tell me that I would have to face another student of yours in the arena?”
“Why would that be important?” Chang reached over and tapped Jun hard in the middle of his chest. “You’re the one who stowed away in our wagon to get to Xicheng. I could’ve refused to train you, so as not to diminish the chances for Ghostface should the two of you meet in the tournament. Whoever he is, he was my student before you.
“But no teacher can hand victory to a student. I’ve never opened a school, never taken a title or adhered to a style, because I’ve placed too much hope in one place before and learned the hard way that it was a foolish thing to do. I don’t have the power to decide the outcome of any contest, or to make someone into a Guardian. All I can do—all I’ve ever done—is show people how to use their own Breath. What they do with it is up to them.”
Chang lay back down and closed his eyes, rubbing his temples in a slow, circular motion, as if to massage the headache out of his skull. “I wish I could see, so I could watch you in the arena. That’s the truth, Jun. You or Ghostface, or that classmate of yours from Cheon that Ren has befriended. Any of you as the Guardian would give me hope and be incalculably preferable to what could happen.” He laid the washcloth back over his face.
Jun didn’t know how to feel about the fact that Chang had lied, or at least neglected to tell him a considerable number of things he wished he’d known. Or had he actually wished to know? At the time, all that had mattered to him was getting to Xicheng. Chang was the one without sight, but how much had Jun simply failed to see?
Despite his vague resentment and mounting apprehension, Jun put a hand on the flutist’s arm. It was troubling how being in Xicheng had affected him, how shut in and dependent he seemed compared to the spry, energetic man whom Jun had traveled with for the past month.
“Be very careful from now on,” Chang said, his voice muffled by the cloth over his face. “Not just in the arena, but outside it. These are dangerous times. I can sense the Breath in this city turning bad, like a winter wind. Win or lose, we’re about to be caught in it.”