TWENTY-TWO

 

 

 

THE FUNERAL SERVICE took place during a morning shrouded by mist. Not the best omen, but they wouldn’t have a better opportunity, and Bongsunga said, a little fretfully, that she wanted it done with so that the rebels’ next operations weren’t dogged by ghosts. Jebi, who believed in ghosts the way most of their people did, considered this good sense, not just for reasons of superstition but because the deaths still didn’t seem real to them.

The survivors gathered on the hillside, with its gashes of newly upturned earth. Jebi could smell it, despite the cold. Automatically, they inventoried the colors: the dark browns crusted with lighter umbers where the top layers of soil had dried in the pale winter sun, feathery touches of white where a light snow had fallen last night, the insipid desaturated yellows of dead grass and weeds. They could have painted the entire scene in ink and wash, rendered it unthinking with unhurried brushstrokes, papered over the fact that so many people had died.

Bongsunga gave a speech. She referred to earlier speeches and pamphlets that made the people gathered nod sagely, although Jebi had no idea what the references were and it would have been a terrible time to ask. They tried to pay attention to the words rather than the roughened contours of their sister’s voice, but all they could do was stare at her—their vision had cleared up, thank goodness—and memorize her features.

Only someone who knew Bongsunga well would have noticed that she looked older. Jebi wondered how they hadn’t seen it earlier. A Western painter would have pointed out the deeper lines around her eyes and mouth, or the deliberate rigidity of her stance. But Jebi believed that art was about the inner nature of things, and people. For the longest time, all they’d seen of Bongsunga was the grieving widow. Not until they’d taken up with the Ministry of Armor had they come to see that she’d found a purpose beyond that, and a new lover, and refused to let her grief bind her to the past.

I will paint you, Jebi thought, as I see you here. Above a grave, yes; but surrounded by the living. Death below, life above. The kind of spiritual balance that their third instructor had liked to natter about. As a child, Jebi had feigned interest. Now, they wished they’d paid closer attention.

Bongsunga finished her speech. Jebi couldn’t remember a word of it. Then again, it wasn’t likely that anyone would quiz them on its contents. Even if they did, Jebi planned to fake being overcome by emotion. It wasn’t far from the truth, even if the emotion didn’t come from the speech as such.

Vei patted Jebi’s shoulder circumspectly. “You’re going to miss her,” she said.

Jebi’s eyes pricked, and they turned away to scrub at their face. “That obvious?”

“Jebi, she’s your sister. Of course it hurts.”

“She can’t come,” Jebi said. “She’s more useful to the resistance here.” They didn’t mention that they could have had a place with her—if they’d been willing to use the glyphs to kill, and to abandon Vei.

“That’s not what I said,” Vei murmured, but she left it there, to Jebi’s relief.

Bongsunga went into Red’s arms. People scattered into small groups of two, three, four. Jebi stared out over the graves, unmarked as was the Hwagugin tradition. Depending on the whim of the local weather, perhaps the small mounds would be washed into an indistinguishable flatness, and later visitors would only have whispers and ghosts to guide them in making their offerings. Perhaps not.

“I’m going to leave an offering to Hafanden,” Vei said. “You don’t have to—”

“Of course I do,” Jebi said, and offered Vei their arm.

Vei leaned on Jebi as little as possible, which Jebi suspected had to do with her pride. They didn’t say anything about it as the two of them walked companionably to Hafanden’s grave. Or what Vei claimed was his, anyway. Jebi presumed someone—Arazi maybe?—had kept a record, but they hadn’t been keeping track.

A shadow fell over them. It was Arazi. “You too?” it asked.

“I’m surprised you would want to do anything but piss on his grave,” Jebi said to it. “If you’ll pardon the expression.”

“Believe it or not,” Arazi said, very dryly, “I learned an extensive vocabulary from the Summer Palace’s denizens. Also, I have concerns about rust, remember?”

Jebi kicked at the ground, remembered that the ground was someone’s grave, stopped. Even if the someone was Hafanden, who’d had them tortured. To Vei, they said, awkwardly, “Do you miss him? I mean, you worked with him for years. It’s got to be different for you.”

They should have foregone the question instead of putting Vei on the spot. But Vei leaned more heavily on Jebi and sighed. “He believed very strongly in his mission. It was his strength and his weakness.”

“I’m glad he’s gone,” Jebi said. “Is that a horrible thing to admit to? I just hope his replacement isn’t even worse than he was.” They considered. “To be fair, he could have been a lot worse. He might have had me beaten, but he wasn’t… arbitrary about it.” This last came grudgingly. But they were standing right over the man’s grave. They didn’t want to offend his ghost.

Vei made as though to kneel, and Jebi began to assist her. Vei smiled slightly and waved them off. “It’s my arm that’s injured, not my legs.”

“Sorry, that was stupid of me,” Jebi said, chastened.

Vei’s mouth crimped. “There were other ministries that would have considered me for duelist prime, had I wanted them. Some of them in spite of my mixed heritage, some because of it. Not all Razanei are unreasonable on this point. But I’d heard rumors about what Armor was up to. I wanted to position myself to stop it. And so I went into Hafanden’s service. I didn’t imagine, all those years ago, that it would lead here.”

“Maybe it’s just as well that mortals can’t see the future,” Jebi said. “He needed to die, you know.” And not just because of what he’d done to Jebi themself. Vei had given up her position in rescuing them. Even they could tell it pained her.

Vei stood, almost as graceful as she’d been before the injury. She shook her head. “Let’s go. We have preparations to make.”

“One moment,” Jebi said. “There’s a grave for Hak, too.” Bongsunga had told them earlier, when they asked. “I want to say goodbye to her.”

Arazi led them to Hak’s grave, indistinguishable from all the others. Jebi closed their eyes and thought, I’m sorry things ended the way they did. Poor luckless Hak; perhaps the other gumiho in Hwaguk, wherever they were, would do better.

“Jebi,” Vei whispered.

Jebi looked up, about to express their annoyance, and then they saw it: a nine-tailed fox, watching from a careful distance, its eyes glistening amber. Family, perhaps? Jebi had never before wondered who Hak had left behind.

“She was a good friend,” Jebi said to the gumiho, and bowed to it.

The gumiho bowed back. “So were you,” it said in a low voice. “Thank you for trying to save her.”

Then Jebi blinked, and it was gone.

 

 

JEBI SAID GOODBYE to Bongsunga over one last private tea. Or perhaps ‘tea’ was more accurate; Bongsunga served yulmucha, really more of a thin sweetish porridge, but one that Jebi welcomed in the chill. The day had scarcely grown warmer by the end of the funeral service; a stiff wind had sprung up out of the west.

Vei had excused herself to say her own farewells to her three parents. This left Jebi looking mutely across the scratched-up table at their sister, wondering what to say. Even Bongsunga, who had spoken so eloquently at the funeral (and never mind that Jebi couldn’t remember a word of it), sipped her tea and looked meditative rather than speaking.

Unable to bear the silence any longer, Jebi burst out, “I don’t want to say goodbye to you again.”

“I don’t think you want to stay and join the resistance, either,” Bongsunga said, uncharacteristically gentle. “Especially under the terms that I would require. You’re not a fighter. There’s nothing wrong with that. We need people to grow rice, and repair wheels, and paint the way the world is as well as the way the world ought to be. Jia teased you mercilessly; she meant well by it, but I should have asked her to stop.”

“I didn’t mind,” Jebi said, mostly meaning it.

“Nevertheless.” Bongsunga took a longer sip of the yulmucha. “Arazi has assured me that it can make trips back and forth to relay messages and ferry supplies to you. We don’t have a great deal of intelligence about conditions on the moon, other than the fact that the Ministry of Ornithology believed that it was feasible to set up a base there. Still, I will feel easier knowing that you are adequately supplied.”

Jebi nodded wordlessly.

“The air will be thin, perhaps to the point of nothing,” she added, “at those heights. But Arazi has assured me that its enchantments will protect anyone riding it.”

“That’s good to know,” Jebi said, although they had never thought about altitude sickness in connection with flight. How high was the moon, anyway?

“I have something for you,” Bongsunga said. “A distressingly practical gift, which I’m sure you were expecting of me anyway.”

Jebi was too disarmed by their sister’s self-deprecating humor to have a response to this.

Bongsunga produced a tube of weathered wood. “We don’t have many of these, but I think you will need it.”

“What is it?” Jebi accepted the tube and fiddled with the end until they figured out how to open it. The contents, unlike the case, gleamed brightly: metal, not wood. “A spyglass?”

“You can gaze upon the celestials,” Bongsunga said, “and perhaps more importantly, keep an eye out for any Razanei expeditions into the sky.”

“Point taken,” Jebi said, sighing. “We’ll remain vigilant. Or anyway, Vei will. She’s much better at vigilance than I am.”

The corner of Bongsunga’s mouth twitched. “I’m sure she can teach you.”

“You are so brave,” Jebi whispered, or tried to; their throat closed up.

“In the old days,” Bongsunga said, “even the rulers of Hwaguk could not read the histories that the chroniclers wrote about their reigns, and during past invasions those records were always the first to be evacuated, until invaders burned them all down.”

“Bongsunga,” Jebi began. They had no idea where this digression was going.

“We don’t have those histories anymore, except in excerpts mentioned in other scholars’ letters,” Bongsunga said fiercely. “But we still have the artifacts. They’re not the whole nation’s hoard—that’s impossible—but they’re a start. We’ll gather more of them and send them for safekeeping. I like to think that we’ll be able to restore them to their proper places within our lifetime. If not—well. They’ll be safe as long as they need to be.”

“Be safe,” Jebi echoed. “You won’t be.”

“No,” Bongsunga said, “but I made my peace with that years ago.”

Jebi fumbled at their throat until they’d recovered the blue mae-deup charm. Miracle of miracles, they still had it on their person. “Keep it in memory of me,” Jebi said. They wished they’d painted her, had a miniature to offer her, or even some whimsical cartoon of an upside-down dragon at the heart of a spiderweb. But the charm would have to do.

Bongsunga closed her fingers around it “Always,” she said. “And Jebi—”

Their heart thumped painfully. “Yes?”

“Take care of that lover of yours,” Bongsunga said. “I won’t pretend I understand, or even that I approve, given who she is, but—” She stopped, picked her words over carefully. “If you make each other happy, perhaps that’s what matters, not my understanding.”

“Thank you,” Jebi said, and fled before the conversation could become any more dangerous.

 

 

JEBI AND VEI prepared to leave the next morning, as false dawn brightened the horizon with ice-colored light. Jebi squinted skyward at the moon, visible as a quarter-moon. It seemed incredible that they’d be going there, even with a dragon’s help.

Bongsunga’s people had already burdened the dragon with an astonishing quantity of parcels. They must have improved the harness system and worked out how to balance the load while Jebi and Vei were recovering. Arazi stood patiently, the lights in its eyes flickering as Jebi and Vei approached.

“It will take all day at unimaginable speeds for us to reach the moon,” Arazi said. “The enchantments that sustain me should sustain you as well. If not, then we turn back.”

“I’m ready,” Jebi said, casting one last glance over the camp. And what for? Soon they’d see it from above, too, the way no one but a bird should be able to see things.

“I, as well,” Vei said. She pulled herself up, one-handed yet limber. Jebi hesitated, momentarily concerned that she would tumble from dragonback. They needn’t have worried. Vei waved to Jebi from her seat once she’d secured herself.

Next it was Jebi’s turn. I will never get used to this, they thought as they climbed up to their own seat, less gracefully than Vei had. Maybe they should worry about their own coordination instead of worrying about Vei’s fitness. They did have the dreadful thought that Vei was going to want a sparring partner and that if Arazi wasn’t going to volunteer, that left exactly one person.

“All buckled in?” Arazi inquired. “I would hate for you to fall off halfway there.”

“Don’t even joke about it,” Jebi said. They were mentally revising all their sketches of dragonriders flying to the moon to include safety harnesses, something they’d never thought about before experiencing actual dragon rides. They also considered pulling out a sketchbook to jot down their impressions of the world below and the world above. Vei would—

“Jebi?” Vei asked. “Are you ready?”

“One moment,” Jebi said, and squirmed until they managed to fish out their pocket sketchbook. They hoped they wouldn’t drop their pencil; they didn’t trust themself to attempt brush and ink mid-flight. “Ready.”

Arazi vibrated with laughter. “You will have to show me your drawings once we arrive,” it said. “The air will be colder the higher we go, although perhaps the stars and sun will light our way.”

Most of Bongsunga’s followers had come to see them off—or, more likely, to enjoy the spectacle. Not that Jebi blamed them either way. Vei lifted her chin, then waved to the well-wishers. Jebi belatedly did the same, narrowly avoiding dropping the sketchbook.

Arazi sprang into the air like a carp yearning heavenward, except, of course, it was already a dragon. The wind tore past them as though they were knifing into the heart of the sky. Jebi looked down: the encampment was already receding beneath them. In short order it was the size of a book, and then a speck, and then nothing at all.

The earth spread beneath them like a stitchery of gauze and shadow. Jebi sketched madly, using the flat of the pencil to shade areas rapidly rather than wasting time on hatching. They were struck all over again by how aerial perspective made landscapes look hazy from high up in the air, not normally a vantage point human artists thought about, even if they’d known about the phenomenon—impossible not to, what with all of Hwaguk’s mountains—since childhood.

“Jebi,” Vei called.

“I’m drawing,” Jebi shouted back, captivated by the white-and-green-streaked crenellations that those selfsame mountains made, seen from above.

“Jebi,” Vei said, and this time the wonder in her voice caught Jebi’s attention. “Look around you.”

They lifted their eyes and caught their breath involuntarily. Around them the stars shone like friendly eyes; one of them winked when Jebi gaped at it. The wind no longer felt as bracingly cold, and smelled faintly of quinces and cinnamon.

They’d always known that the heavens were home to the celestial court, but they hadn’t expected to witness its wonders so directly. Celestial attendants and their moth-winged pets, from foxes to frogs, lounged upon the thin shreds of cloud and nebulae. The attendants fluttered their fans, smiling at them in equal wonder. One raised a shining cup in salute.

Vei’s eyes had gone soft. Before Jebi could summon up any jealousy, she looked at them, and her eyes went softer still. “Jebi,” she said, “I’d heard about the astrologers’ reports, but I never thought I’d see this for myself. Not up close.”

Jebi’s pencil stopped moving. They didn’t need the sketchbook to know that they would remember this sight for the rest of their life.

They didn’t know then, or later, what impulse made them cram the sketchbook and pencil back into the nearest available pocket, and pull out the spyglass instead. They would never have forgiven themself if they’d dropped Bongsunga’s gift, after all. It would have made so much more sense to wait until they landed on the moon. They didn’t intend to snoop on the celestial attendants, as curious as Jebi was about them; it would have seemed rude to turn the glass on them.

Rather, Jebi lifted the spyglass to their eye and turned it toward the world below. Impossibly, they spied the curvature of the ocean, something they had never had to think about before. They’d always thought of the world as fundamentally flat, even though Bongsunga had explained otherwise to them long ago.

“Vei,” Jebi said in a choked voice, “I see Hwaguk in miniature. The peninsula, like it is on the maps, but in different colors. And those splotches of islands over to the side—those must be the archipelago of Razan.”

“There must be something else,” Vei said. She’d gone tense in response to whatever she heard in Jebi’s voice.

“I see it too,” Arazi said; of course it did, with its falcon’s vision.

For all their joy in greeting the heavens moments before, Jebi could not help but quail at the armada of great metal warships that was, even now, sailling for Hwaguk. “That can’t be the resistance,” they said. “Even my sister wouldn’t have kept it a secret from me that we now have a fleet of metal.”

“Let me have the spyglass,” Vei said, and Jebi handed it over with an effort. She peered through it. She tensed further, her face gone white as despair. “I know those flags. Those are the Western nations and their banners. Once they subdue Hwaguk...”

Jebi didn’t need her to finish the sentence. They’d fight the Razanei army first, and then turn to subduing the Hwagugin rebels. Hafanden had been right about the Western threat after all.

In appalled silence, Arazi, Vei, and Jebi continued into the sky, toward the welcoming arms of the moon.