CHAPTER

9

The Seventh Discipline

the sixth year, ninth month

Of the numerous Green Bone training facilities in Janloon, the Seventh Discipline gym had a reputation for being the most welcoming to outsiders. Located in the Yoyoyi district, it was a No Peak property, but the owner, a retired clan Fist, charged only a modest additional fee to visiting practitioners, including Green Bones from tributary and neutral clans, travelers from as far away as Espenia, independent coaches who used the space to work with their clients, and even a few barukan immigrants with no sworn allegiance but who were trusted to behave themselves.

The training space was large and well-equipped, reputedly second only to the Mountain-controlled Factory in Spearpoint. A framed motivational quote over the entrance read, Perfection of character is the seventh discipline of the jade warrior. When Hilo walked inside the building on a Firstday afternoon, there were only a few of the clan’s Fingers on the main training floor, sparring with dulled moon blades and practicing Lightness with weight vests. When they noticed the Pillar’s entrance, they paused and saluted him, calling out, “Kaul-jen!” Hilo waved in acknowledgment but did not stop to chat.

On the mats at the back of the building, Master Aido was working on talon knife drills with a man whose unusual reputation had traveled up the clan’s grapevine all the way to the Pillar. The stranger was shorter than Hilo had expected, fit and strongly built, with close-cropped dark hair and a shadow of facial stubble. His jade aura hummed with the strain of exertion but revealed little else—the psychic equivalent of a resting poker face. Hilo could see at once that the man possessed the confident physicality of a skilled fighter, but he moved differently from anyone else in the gym. He did not employ the usual techniques or classic combinations. As he defended and countered each of Master Aido’s attacks, he seemed to rely surprisingly little on his jade abilities, slipping in Strength and Steel and sometimes a short Deflection in a fast and stealthy manner, as if trying to hide them behind movements that were simple and obvious. Green Bones often awed rivals and onlookers with raw jade ability—powerful Deflections, leaps of Lightness—especially in public duels where the outcome was not intentionally fatal. This man’s constrained actions were entirely efficient and practical. Jade was a slim weapon, a final resort, drawn quickly to neutralize the enemy, but that was all. It was a modern soldier’s approach to jade combat. IBJCS—the Integrated Bioenergetic Jade Combat System.

“Master Aido,” Hilo said, stepping onto the mat. “Introduce me to this student of yours.”

The old trainer seemed surprised to see the Pillar here. The Kaul estate had its own training hall and courtyard where Hilo normally met his private coaches. Aido wiped his brow and said, “Kaul-jen, this is Jim Sunto.” To the other man, “Jim, this is Kaul Hiloshudon, the Pillar of the No Peak clan.”

Sunto looked between Hilo and Master Aido. Hilo’s eyes fell upon the man’s jade: two green dog tags worn on a chain around his neck. They hung next to a second, shorter chain with a triangular gold pendant: the Truthbearers symbol of Mount Icana. Sunto appeared to be in his late twenties. Younger than Hilo. At thirty-four, it surprised Hilo to find so many people were now younger than him.

Sunto nodded warily but did not salute. “I know who Kaul Hilo is.”

Hilo said to Master Aido, “I trust I didn’t interrupt your session.”

“We were just finishing,” said the trainer, taking the hint. “Jim, I’ll see you this time next week. Kaul-jen.” He saluted the Pillar and tactfully withdrew, leaving the two men standing on the mat alone.

Sunto walked to a nearby towel rack. He wiped the sweat off his face and slung the towel over the back of his neck. “Is there a problem with me training here?” he asked over his shoulder.

No Green Bone in Janloon, friend or enemy, would speak to the Pillar of the No Peak clan in such a curt and rude way, turning his back, not saluting or showing proper respect. “No problem,” Hilo said. “It’s only that I heard there was an Espenian Navy Angel living and training here in Janloon, and I had to come see for myself.”

“Ex-Angel,” Sunto corrected. “I left a couple years ago.”

“Word has gotten out among my Fists that you’re a serious sparring partner,” the Pillar said, strolling a partial circle around Sunto with his hands in his pockets. “They say you broke Heike’s nose.”

“An accident he deserved.” Sunto spoke Kekonese fluently but with an obvious Espenian accent. “He got carried away throwing Deflections and didn’t keep his guard up.”

“You’ve been teaching classes around here.”

“A few seminars. IBJCS basics, small arms concealment, nonlethal submission, that sort of thing. People have asked, and it’s extra money for me.” Sunto remained standing in place casually, but the suspicion was naked in his voice, and he kept glancing from side to side, as if expecting to see the clan’s Fists closing in from all directions.

Hilo said, “Let’s go somewhere to talk, Lieutenant.”

“I’d rather talk right here, thanks.”

“Suit yourself.” Hilo dropped a hand onto the man’s shoulder. Sunto reacted at once, twisting away from the hold, seizing and locking Hilo’s wrist. Hilo’s other hand was already moving, Channeling into the man’s right lung. The strike was far from the heart and would not do any permanent damage, but it would be terribly painful, collapse Sunto to the ground, and make it hard to breathe for minutes.

To Hilo’s surprise, Sunto dropped the wristlock, Steeled, and cross-Channeled in one quick twist of his upper body, dispelling the attack and sending a muscle-cramping pain shooting into the socket of the Pillar’s shoulder. The blast to Sunto’s chest was still enough to double him up coughing, but despite having the air knocked out of him, the man did not hesitate; he brought a shin up into Hilo’s groin.

Even Steeling didn’t stop Hilo’s eyes from watering in agony as he fell to one knee. Sunto dropped a knife-hand strike toward his carotid artery. Hilo drove himself sideways; the incapacitating blow glanced harmlessly off his shoulder as he hurled a precise horizontal Deflection that clotheslined Sunto at the waist and knocked him to the ground a few feet away. Regaining his footing, the Pillar sprang Light and landed with his full crushing Strength, not on top of Sunto’s torso, but next to him, flattening the mat instead of the man’s rib cage.

Sunto rolled to his feet in an instant, crouched defensively, but Hilo stood with a lopsided smile and walked up with his hands open, limping and bent forward slightly from the radiating pain in his abdomen. “I was wondering if your Espenian military training was real, or just a lot of big talk.”

Sunto frowned in confusion. “So you’re not here to kill me or beat the shit out of me.”

“Did I say I was?” Hilo asked.

Sunto straightened slowly and skeptically, wincing and rubbing his chest. “The leader of one of the biggest Green Bone clans shows up unexpectedly to talk? You can’t blame me for thinking I might not be walking out of here. A lot of people in this city don’t like Espenian soldiers, even retired ones with Kekonese ancestry.”

Every person in the Seventh Discipline gym had stopped to stare at the extraordinary sight of No Peak’s Pillar matching himself against an ex–Navy Angel. Someone was taking out a compact 35 mm camera. Hilo glanced over and snapped, “None of that, go back to whatever you were doing. I’m talking to a visitor here, can’t you see that?” The chastised Fingers mumbled apologies and reluctantly drew away from the scene. Hilo turned back to Sunto. “If you were in trouble with me, you would know it for sure by now. I said I came to talk, didn’t I? There’s a restaurant across the street. I’ll buy you a drink for that kick.”

They had the Two Tigers Taproom to themselves, since the place was not technically open yet. Hilo had the manager bring two glasses of Espenian amber lager. Sunto refused the cigarette Hilo offered him, so the Pillar sat back and lit one for himself. The ex-Angel’s jade aura was still bristly with suspicion, but he drank his beer and said, “What do you want to talk about?”

“Tell me how you became an Espenian soldier and military instructor.” No Peak had already investigated Sunto’s background, but Hilo believed you could always learn more about a man by hearing him talk about himself.

Sunto Jimonyon had been born in Janloon and raised by a single mother. When he was six years old, his mother remarried and his stepfather moved the family to Espenia. Sunto, who did not get along with his stepfather, left home at seventeen and joined the ROE military, where he was fast-tracked into IBJCS training and the Navy Angels. During his second tour of duty in Oortoko, he was injured by flying shrapnel and sent to Euman Naval Base to recover. While there, he took on duties training new cohorts of Angel cadets and became a well-regarded instructor. Facing reassignment at the end of the Oortokon War, Sunto resigned from the Angels, electing to stay in Kekon.

“I was tired of being ordered around,” he explained with a shrug. “I wanted to spend more time living and training here, until I figure out what to do next.”

“You were allowed to keep your jade,” Hilo observed.

Sunto put a hand around his dog tags. “It’s not my jade,” he said. “It was issued to me by the Espenian government and I have it on indefinite loan because I’m still a contracted IBJCS instructor at Euman Naval Base. I live in officer’s quarters when I’m over there, and I’ve got an apartment here in the city the rest of the time.”

Hilo tilted his head curiously. “You don’t want to duel for any green of your own?”

Sunto’s eyes flicked down to the ample line of jade studs visible between the open buttons of Hilo’s collar, then back up at the Pillar’s face. “I was taught to carry only the jade I need,” he said. “All of IBJCS is based on stripped-down methods—the most simple and effective reconnaissance and combat techniques that’ll work for special forces soldiers equipped with the same standard issue of bioenergetic jade. Any more than that is an unnecessary risk.” Sunto frowned as he turned his glass of beer, widening a circle of moisture on the table. “Some of the guys I was with in Oortoko, they aren’t doing so well now. Mental illness, drug addiction, falling into unTruthful habits. I’m lucky to have Kekonese genetics on my side, but I don’t need more jade just to show it off.”

“That’s true.” Hilo’s expression remained neutral as he stubbed out his cigarette. “You’re a foreign serviceman, after all, not a Green Bone.”

Sunto eyed the Pillar with caution and impatience. He pushed aside his beer and crossed his arms on the table. “Look, I know what a big deal your family is,” he said, in a matter-of-fact tone that made it clear he was not stupid, that his lack of deference was not out of ignorance, but because he was an Espenian soldier who did not answer to any Green Bone clan leader. “I’m not in Janloon to challenge your men for jade or cause any trouble. My word on the Seer’s Truth. I’m here to mind my own business and to make some decent money, that’s all.”

Unexpectedly, Hilo decided he liked Jim Sunto. Protected by his Espenian citizenship and military status, Sunto was an aberration in Janloon. He could wear and use jade, but he had no allegiance to any clan and took no shit either. A man who could kick the Pillar in the groin without fear of death was refreshing. It reminded Hilo of a much earlier time in his life, when he was not yet the Pillar or even the Horn, when anyone could challenge him and he had to earn respect daily with words or fists or knives. “I’m glad to hear that,” he said, with a growing smile.

“Well then,” Sunto said, finishing his beer and shifting his chair back to stand, “now that we’ve both had a chance to clear things up, I assume we’re done here.”

“Sit down, Lieutenant.” Even though Sunto was no longer an enlisted officer, military rank seemed the most appropriate way to address him. “Do you think I’d go to the trouble of finding you in person just to growl at you like a big dog?” Hilo pointed the man back into his seat. “You said you’re here to make money. I have a way for you to make a lot more. Do you want to hear about it or not?”

Sunto was not the first man to be startled by the Pillar’s sudden change from relaxed good humor to pointed authority. He lowered himself warily back into his chair.

Hilo had the manager of the Two Tigers Taproom bring the man another beer. “What do you know about the Kekonese military?” the Pillar asked.

“When I was in the Angels, we did some training exercises with the Kekonese army. They’re not shoddy, exactly, but underwhelming for a country with the most bioenergetic jade in the world.”

“That’s because the clans take all the jade and warriors, and some of them don’t care about the country.” Hilo’s lips twisted sarcastically. “At least, that’s what I’ve heard.”

It infuriated Hilo that Ayt Mada had outmaneuvered him in the KJA meeting at the beginning of the year, in front of every other Green Bone leader in the country. Since then, the Mountain had predictably and relentlessly attacked No Peak in the battlefield of public opinion. Even though the KJA had recently voted unanimously to increase the allocation of jade to the armed forces, and No Peak loyalists in the Royal Council had helped to pass greater funding for national defense, if one were to believe Koben Yiro’s zealous rants on the radio, Ygutan was on the verge of invading the country all because of No Peak’s craven selfishness.

Koben taking enthusiastically to his new role as Ayt Mada’s unfettered mouthpiece had certainly not hurt the Mountain’s continued efforts to financially strangle their rivals. Shae’s latest reports showed that so far this year, two-thirds of newly incorporated small businesses were seeking patronage from the Mountain over No Peak. Woon Papidonwa was working full time to manage the clan’s public image and outside relationships, but as Shae had put it, You can’t sell thin air. No Peak needed substantial political wins of its own.

“Let me get this straight,” Jim Sunto said slowly, after Hilo explained his offer. “You want to hire me to help reform the Kekonese military?”

Hilo said, “You’ve been teaching IBJCS to Espenian Navy Angels and interested Green Bones on the side. The Kekonese military could use someone like you, to show them how to make the most of the jade they have. There’s no denying that foreigners have done some things that even Green Bones can learn from.”

Sunto sat back, arms crossed, chewing the inside of his cheek. “I’ll admit that’s not what I expected to hear from a clan Pillar. I know the ROE military brass also believes a stronger Kekonese army would be a deterrent against Ygutan.” He fingered the triangular pendant around his neck, as if consulting his foreign God as well as his self-interest. “When would I meet this General Ronu?”

Wen prepared a dinner of crab soup, peppered sea bass, pea shoots with garlic, and stuffed buns. She had help from Kyanla, but was proud to have done most of the cooking herself, even though it had taken hours. She still suffered occasional numbness and weakness on the right side of her body, but her balance and motor control had greatly improved, and she’d gradually become adept at doing things one-handed.

When Hilo arrived home, he found her waiting in the dining room, wearing a soft blue dress and pearl necklace, the elaborate dinner for two laid out on the table.

“What’s this about?” he said.

“I thought it would… be nice to have dinner together. Alone, for once.”

Her husband took off his suit jacket and weapons, dropped his keys and wallet on the kitchen counter, then sat down at the table with an air of bemused suspicion. He glanced around the uncharacteristically quiet house. “Where are the kids?”

“I sent… Niko to sleep over at the Juens. Ru and Jaya are at your mother’s house.”

“Jaya’s going to be furious.” The three-and-a-half-year-old had strict ideas about how her bedtime routine was expected to proceed, beginning with an evening snack and ending with her father reading from a big book of children’s stories about the hero Baijen. She was liable to throw a tantrum that could be Perceived, and possibly heard, from across the courtyard of the estate.

“She has to learn she… doesn’t always get what she wants.” Wen carefully ladled soup into two bowls, concentrating on keeping her arm steady. She worried about her children growing up spoiled or neglected, in some combination. They had relatives to care for them when she could not, but they still suffered from her inability to be a more attentive mother. She could not carry them, or run around with them, or even tie their shoelaces.

Hilo tasted the soup and said, “It’s good,” almost grudgingly. They ate in silence for a few minutes, but she could feel Hilo’s eyes on her.

“That’s the dress you wore when we were married,” he said.

Wen smiled at his notice. “Does it still look good?” She was wearing support pantyhose and a padded bra under the silk. Birthing and nursing two children, and then loss of muscle function from traumatic brain damage, meant that the body inside the dress was not the one from six and a half years ago.

“Sure.” A softness came into Hilo’s eyes. “Maybe not quite as good as it looked the first time, only because I thought I’d die the next day. Everything’s more beautiful when you don’t think you’ll see it again.”

“Sometimes,” Wen said as she took the lid off the fish plate, “it’s more beautiful afterward, when you… realize you have a second ch-chance.” She fumbled the spoon; nerves.

Hilo reached across the table and took the serving utensils from her. He placed some of the sea bass and pea shoots on her plate, but his movements grew sharp; he cut into the fish as if it were still alive and had to be killed. His voice had been kind, but now it held a pained edge. “There aren’t any real second chances. Even when you live through the worst parts, life doesn’t go back to what it was before.” He sat back in his seat, scraping the legs noisily against the floor. “Just look at Tar. There are some things a person can’t recover from.”

Wen squeezed her hands together in her lap, reminding herself that this was what she’d wanted—an honest conversation with her husband. “Tar and Iyn Ro shouldn’t get married,” she said. “They’re not good for each other.”

“They’ve been hot and cold for years,” Hilo grumbled. “Now they promise me they’re finally serious enough to take oaths to each other, so why shouldn’t I let them have their chance? Tar needs more people in his life, more things to do.” Tar had been staying over at the main residence so often that he’d practically moved in with them, but after he and Iyn Ro had gotten engaged last month, he’d been spending most of his time with her in his apartment in Sogen.

Wen knew that Hilo had reduced his Pillarman’s duties, had told him to take time off to relax, saying it was well earned after his travel to Espenia and accomplishing such difficult tasks there. That was true, but the real reason was that Anden had returned from his own trip to Port Massy and told the Pillar of his conversation with Dauk Losun.

“Hilo-jen,” Wen had heard Anden say worriedly, the two of them standing in the Pillar’s study, “Tar is green turning black.”

Green turning black was an idiom for a jade warrior losing his sanity, usually from the Itches, possibly becoming a danger to himself and others. Someone like that might have to be confronted, might have to give up his jade or have it forcibly taken from him by intervening clan members. Wen was sure the problem with Tar had nothing to do with jade overexposure, however. Without Kehn, he was one wheel holding up a runaway rickshaw, his continued devotion to Hilo a ballast against loneliness and bloodlust. The only thing that seemed to make him genuinely happy was spending time with the children, especially Kehn’s son, Maik Cam, but he was so prone to filling their heads with violent stories that even Wen, who didn’t believe in shielding children from reality, limited how much time the kids spent with their uncle Tar lest she have them coming into her bedroom at night wide-eyed with nightmares.

Tar’s engagement to Iyn Ro last month had come as something of a surprise. “At least he’s trying to change,” Hilo pointed out. “Tar deserves to be happy.”

“And the rest of us?” Wen asked cautiously. “What do we deserve?”

Hilo’s chewing slowed. He eyed her from the side of his vision as he reached for the plate of warm stuffed buns. “What do you mean by that?”

Wen twisted the napkin in her lap, gathering her resolve. “We… can’t st-stay apart and hurting like this, Hilo,” she said. “The Pillar has to… keep the family strong. We’re not strong now. We’re stuck. You haven’t…” She couldn’t put her churning thoughts into the exact words she needed, and she saw her halting speech was arousing his pity and making him agitated. “What… do you… Do you want a divorce?”

Hilo pushed back in his chair. Wen had never feared her husband before; he had never hit her or even looked as if he would hit her, but the expression on his face now felt as if it would stop her heart. “Is that what you want?” he asked with soft rage. “After all this, you haven’t betrayed me enough, now you’re thinking to break up the family?”

She shook her head vigorously, but Hilo’s voice rose, all his anger over the past gathering into a storm, the accusation in his eyes rendering her speechless. “Why, Wen? Haven’t I always loved you and taken care of you, supported your career, done everything I could to keep you and our children safe? And you couldn’t obey me, in only one, simple way?”

Wen had been determined to face her husband without tears, but now her vision blurred against her will. “There was too… much at stake. I knew you wouldn’t let me out… of the safe box you put me in. So I convinced Shae. You made us… have to lie.”

“I made you…” Hilo’s mouth stayed open for a second. Then it snapped closed. He stood up, tossing his napkin down. “Sometimes I think liars are almost as bad as thieves,” he said through a tight jaw. “They steal away trust, something that can’t be returned.” Before she could even rise from her chair, he left the house, his quick, sure movements and long strides easily outpacing hers.

Hilo stormed out the door and got into the Duchesse, only to realize that in the heat of the moment, he’d left his car keys in the house along with his jacket, weapons, and wallet. He howled in frustration and banged the steering wheel, then rolled down the window and smoked three cigarettes in a row before he felt calm again.

He considered sleeping in the car tonight. Then he thought about walking over to the Weather Man’s house and asking his sister to let him spend the night on her sofa. Both ideas struck him as so pathetic that he laughed out loud in the dark. Imagining the withering look that Shae would give him was amusing and sobering at the same time. Although—something had happened lately between her and Woon. She was distracted and unhappy, so perhaps they could get drunk together for the first time in their lives and both cry into their cups of hoji. Hilo chuckled again.

When he’d walked into the house that evening and seen Wen looking so beautiful, waiting for him with a meal she’d put such effort into preparing, he’d wanted nothing more than to give his heart back to her completely, to make amends for every harsh moment between them. It had once been an effortless thing to tell his wife he loved her—three simple words in a single breath. A goodbye at the end of a phone call, an invitation to make love, a whisper before sleep.

Now it seemed an impassable emotional mountain. Every time he longed to make things right with Wen, anger yanked him back, like a hand jerking away from flame or Steel rising against a blade. How often had he found fault with Shae for keeping people at a distance—for half the time not being honest with herself, and half the time not being honest with others? Now he was the one sealed off, nursing his invisible wounds alone, just as Lan had once done.

The thought filled Hilo with gloom and dread. He was not a naturally self-sufficient personality. He knew that about himself. Perhaps some men truly did not need others, but very few, and there was usually something wrong with them to make them that way. The brotherhood of the clan was a promise that its warriors were not alone. What was the point of Green Bone oaths, of all the sacrifices his family had made, of the relentless war against their enemies, if in the end, the promise couldn’t even be kept for him and those he loved?

Still, he delayed. The hour grew late and he was out of cigarettes.

Hilo got out of the car and walked back to the house with heavy steps. A stalemate was no way to live in a marriage, that much he was forced to admit. The idea of divorce had nearly made his vision turn red and his head feel as if it were on fire. So that was not an option. He wasn’t sure he could forgive his wife, or his sister—but Anden had once said that understanding was more important than forgiveness. His kid cousin could be canny, in his own way.

The lights in the house were out, but his eyes were already adjusted to the dark. Wen had put away the remains of the dinner and fallen asleep on the sofa in the living room, curled on her side under a throw blanket. Perhaps she’d been waiting for him, or perhaps the staircase had seemed too daunting. Hilo stood over her, watching the soft rise and fall of her pale shoulders in time with her breaths. She was the softest and most vulnerable creature; she was the strongest and most unyielding of his warriors.

He bent and gathered her easily in his arms. As he carried her up the stairs and into the bedroom, she woke and murmured, groggily, “Hilo? What time is it?”

“It’s late,” he answered. “But not too late.” He laid her down on the bed and sat down on the mattress next to her. “I’m sorry about dinner. It was good, one of your best. But there’ll be others, even better I’m sure. Or we’ll go out next time.”

She said quietly, “All right.” She wiped her eyes with the backs of her hands.

“I shouldn’t have lost my temper and left the house like that, but I didn’t go anywhere—just out to the car.” He leaned over and brushed away the strands of hair stuck to her cheeks. The gesture was gentle, but his voice was not. “I think maybe mistakes made out of love are the worst sort, and we’ve both made them. Don’t ever talk about divorce again. I won’t bring it up myself. Understand?” She nodded.

He undressed her, then took off his own clothes and got into bed next to her. Slowly, but firmly, he began to touch her stomach and breasts, her hips and buttocks. He reached between her thighs, drawing short strokes with his fingers as he brought his lips to her jaw.

Wen turned toward him and pressed her wet face to his chest and stomach. She slid under the covers and took him deep in her mouth. Before she could bring him past the point of control, Hilo pulled her up toward him and turned her over, working on Wen in turn until she was straining wetly against his attention. It had been a long time since they’d concentrated fully on each other’s bodies; their movements were questioning but deliberate, like experienced lovers with new partners. They held their breaths in the shivering moment when he pushed inside her.

It was far from the most energetic or passionate sex they’d ever had, but it was the most determined. They jogged toward climax together, out of practice. Afterward, they didn’t speak, but slept with their fingers laced together in the darkness.