But now few villagers came up the mountain, and it was not just the winter keeping them away. The ones who did come told stories of their own. “A new emperor wears the gold silk robe,” they whispered, as if afraid even up on the mountain they would be overheard. “All celebrated when the old emperor was overthrown, but now we tremble. For the new emperor is brutal and fierce. They call him the Tiger Emperor.”
“But a new emperor is supposed to pay tribute to the mountain!” Amah said. “He must get the blessing of the Mountain Spirit at the top! We have not seen anyone.”
“Do we ever see any rulers?” Yishan said in a scoffing tone only a young boy such as himself could have. Even though he had his own hut farther up the mountain, Yishan claimed the seat by the fireplace in Pinmei’s hut as his own. “They all say they go to the top, but do they?”
“He came,” one villager said, “and he started up the mountain. But the wind or the winter—or who knows, maybe even the Mountain Spirit—forced him down, to our great misfortune. He was humiliated, and now all the mountain villages are being punished.”
“But reaching the top of the mountain has nothing to do with the villages!” Amah said. “It is the Spirit of the Mountain who decides if the ruler is worthy!”
“That does not matter to the Tiger Emperor,” the villager said, the bitterness cracking the hushed tone of his voice. “His soldiers come to the villages late at night, taking away all the men. We do not know when they will come to ours, but we know they will.”
“All the men?” Amah gasped. “What for?”
“For the Vast Wall,” another villager said. “The men are being forced to build a wall that surrounds the entire kingdom.”
The entire kingdom was hundreds of cities and thousands of villages! Amah often told stories about a city with a wall around it, and Pinmei could scarcely imagine that.
“You can’t build a wall that long! It’s impossible!” Yishan said. The firelight made his hat glow as if he were aflame.
The villager shrugged. “This emperor has a habit of making the impossible happen.”
“But even if it could be finished, it would be poor protection,” Amah said. “How could a wall spanning the kingdom be defended? There would never be enough soldiers to guard something so vast! What does this Tiger Emperor want?”
“He wants a Luminous Stone,” said a third villager, speaking for the first time. “When anyone—a wife, a child, a mother—begs for a man’s freedom, the soldiers always say the same. ‘Bring the emperor a Luminous Stone That Lights the Night and you can have your wish.’ ”
“A Luminous Stone That Lights the Night,” Amah repeated slowly. She hesitated, and Pinmei thought she saw a flash over Amah’s face. But Amah shook her head. “I’ve never heard of such a thing.”
Disappointment flickered on the faces of the villagers. The first villager reached out his hand to Amah for his completed job, a cloth embroidered with the dark blue color of a burial robe.
“No one has,” the villager said. “But now we all wish for one.”
The villagers left in silence, but their words remained loud in Pinmei’s ears. Luminous Stone, Vast Wall, Tiger Emperor… Another gust of icy air burst through the open door. Shivering, Pinmei crept deeper into the shadows of the fire, hoping to hide.