CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
FAMILIAL BONDS
Sali rented a room on the fifth floor of a narrow inn near the front gates of the Katuia District. She had found it strange that the penthouse units were the cheapest, but discovered that going up and down four flights of stairs grew tiresome very quickly. The rental was more a large box than a room, with a lone window offering a view of the stone wall that enclosed the district. She could almost touch all four walls if she lay on the floor and spread her arms and legs. If she jumped, her head would smash into the ceiling.
The first thing Sali did was map out her contingencies. Another disadvantage of the top floor was that there were only a few ways to escape. The window was just large enough to squeeze through, and although it was a long drop to the stone tiles below, the wall on the opposite side was close enough for her to jump, catch a foothold, and then leap back and forth until she reached the roof of the inn.
Sali perched on the corner eave and spent the rest of the day observing traffic flow in and out of the district to get the lay of the land. Almost every soul inside the district was Katuia, a mixture of Nezra and Sheetan emigrants by the style of their clan garb.
A row of carts lined one side of the street, hocking everything from potstickers to shovels. Weapons were banned, but entrenching equipment, step hammers, anchor drills, and other tools weren’t. When one lived and labored in the Grass Sea, every tool was by needs a weapon.
Only a few Zhuun wandered through the thick crowds. None of the land-chained’s businesses operated inside the district, and their guards stayed close to the checkpoint at the gates. Not even magistrates, with their tall cone-shaped hats, dared wander too deep into the district.
After a while, Sali caught herself staring more at her own people rather than the enemy. Many of the Katuia here looked without hope, lying on the streets, leaning against walls, sitting next to fires that burned on the ground. In small cruel ways, they were losing themselves in this alien land of stone walls and dead earth. The very fabric of her people had been torn by their defeat in a war that had been waging long before any of them had been born.
Even so, there were glimmers of hope: former comrades coming together solemnly clasping forearms, long-lost friends finding one another, and separated family members reuniting with rough embraces and streaming tears.
A wave of nostalgia passed over her as the day curtained into evening. Back when she had been a little girl, long before she had shaved her sides, Sali used to compete with Jiamin to see who could climb to the top of the lookout nests. Jiamin would always win. She couldn’t be better than him at everything. The two of them spent hours hiding in the nests watching sunsets.
The last time the two had been together as children was in a tower. It was the night before Jiamin participated in the ritual that made him the next host of the Eternal Khan. Sali had held him close while he bawled like a baby, telling him over and over again that things were going to be wonderful, that he would make a great Khan, and that many great victories awaited him.
She ground her teeth. “I was such a fool.”
Maybe she had been. After that ritual, Jiamin had never really been himself again.
Sali climbed back down to her room once the moon appeared, and was in bed and half asleep before she remembered she hadn’t eaten since Sheetan. The price of having to go down and back up all those stairs was too steep for food, so she slept.
No sooner had she drifted off than a knock on the door roused her. She was on her feet immediately. Birds were chirping and morning light was shining through the window.
She pawed for her tongue with one hand and her shirt with the other. “Who is it?”
“Message from the Council of Nezra,” piped a child’s voice.
How had they even known where she was staying? Of course. She was right not to trust them about Mali. She held on to her tongue as she opened the door. A barefoot boy of about ten in ragged clothing looked at her nervously as he held up a piece of folded paper. “From the council, mistress,” he repeated.
Sali unfolded the note. Scribbled on top were the Katuia pictographs for “flower,” “sunrise,” and “morning mist.” Below each pictograph was a list of names with numbers next to them, totaling fifteen in all. Everyone on this list was between four and sixteen. At least the council was making good on their word.
“May you rise to greatness.” Sali tossed the boy a coin. “Wait,” she added, grabbing his sleeve before he could escape. Since he was already here, she might as well test him. She dragged the nervous boy to the bed and sat him down. “This will only take a moment. Close your eyes. Relax. Take a deep breath. Let your mind wander.”
He shied away. “Will it hurt?”
“Not at all, but you may leave this room the next Khan of Katuia.”
His eyes widened. “Really, me?”
“Better hope not,” she muttered under her breath. She spoke slowly in a clear voice. “Now, think of the Grass Sea. Can you see it? Do you hear the chitter of skarn beetles eating rocks, the gasflies hissing above your head in the early evening? Can you smell the scent of burst orchids and black sunflowers?”
He fidgeted and shook his head.
“Hold your arms forward. Imagine you’re holding a spear in your right hand and smoke in your left. The spear grows longer and thicker. The smoke drifts into the air. What do you sense?”
The boy stammered. “How do you hold smoke?”
“Never mind that. How does the rising smoke make you feel?” Sali bit her tongue, having erred. Her training as a Soul Seeker had been rushed, and her skill giving these tests suspect. Considering their plight, the spirit shamans had far greater concerns than providing her adequate instruction.
“Can I touch the smoke? Will it burn me?”
Sali struggled to mask her annoyance and keep the test on track. This was her first time performing it unsupervised. She felt a tinge of uncertainty as she dangled a light green crystal off a rope. “Let’s move on. Open your eyes. Stare at this crystal. Watch it spin. Focus, focus, focus.”
The boy tried his best. His face tensed and his breathing sped up as his pupils darted side to side, eyeing everything except what he was supposed to. And just like that the test was over. Sali had expected nothing from giving her first test, but still felt a pinch of disappointment that he did not pass. She glanced down at the paper in her hand. There would be many more failures to process.
“I’m sorry,” the boy said, confused and downtrodden. “I must have done something wrong, mistress.”
“On the contrary,” she replied, “you did very well, lad.”
He brightened. “Did I win?”
“In a way.” If Jiamin’s experience was any indication, he absolutely did.
The boy crossed his arms and stood his ground. “What do I win?”
Sali appreciated the hustle and handed him another coin, though if she had to pay every child she gave the test to, she would end up in the poorhouse by the end of the week.
Sali walked with the boy down the stairs and then sent him on his way. The stench of the street hit her the moment she stepped out of the inn. She had been here for two days now and still couldn’t get used to the smell of manure, filth, and poverty permeating the air. Unlike the air back in the Grass Sea, which always blew, in Jiayi it felt stagnant, trapped within these walls like the people who lived here. She looked around and began walking deeper into the district. It wasn’t long before she stumbled upon a yellow wooden beam jutting from the ground. Painted eloquently down all four sides were several Zhingzi words. Etched roughly with a blade at the top of the post was the Katuia pictograph for “scale.”
Sali continued down the main street searching for more pictographs, finding the one for “flower” on a side street just before the main street ended. A small wedding party with three hearts—two young men, an adorable elderly man and woman in obviously their second or third marriages surrounded by their many grandchildren, and three women—danced down the street to the beat of half a dozen tuur drums. Sali stopped along with everyone else close by and slow-clapped a hand to her heart in the rhythm of the drums as the procession passed. The crowds were thinner and the mood more somber, but Sali appreciated that their traditions were still being kept alive. She was mildly surprised and thankful the land-chained allowed this, considering their sometimes more rigid beliefs. The only things missing were the wedding dresses and robes, and the processional of horses, which was understandable considering the circumstances.
Sali checked the note again and began her search, knocking from door to door. She tested her next child, a toddler, a few doors later in a second-floor unit that housed three families. The third was a girl working in the horse shop selling sinew, hair, and meat. The fourth was a teenager working in a brickyard. Sali took one look at the manure caked all over his hands, face, and body, and immediately rescheduled to return later that evening, preferably after he had washed up.
Sali had managed to test everyone else on the list and was just finishing up with the herbalist’s daughter when her empty stomach grumbled, reminding her that she still hadn’t eaten. How did she keep forgetting? This was one of the strange side effects of the Khan’s Pull. It still had not lessened. In fact, it had grown so strong now, it blanketed her other senses, so much so she often couldn’t sense the needs of the rest of her body. All she could feel was that gnawing, twisting desire to drop everything and sprint all the way to Chaqra.
Once Sali focused specifically on her empty stomach, the hunger came roaring back, sending sharp pains through her midsection. She grimaced as she finished speaking with the mother of the child.
The herbalist noticed her difficulty. “Is everything all right, Soul Seeker?”
“I am fine,” she replied through gritted teeth.
The healer was not easily swayed. She cupped Sali’s hand and squeezed, holding her still and gauging something. “Are you suffering from withdrawal of some sort?”
“No, it’s nothing of the sort. It’s…” Sali didn’t know how to describe the compulsion. She tried to pull her hand away, but the herbalist’s grip was firm.
“An addiction then?” The herbalist gave her a sympathetic look. “There is no shame in seeking help. I have treated several former clan warriors. Many have struggled lately.”
Addiction was taboo among her people. Still, perhaps this herbalist could help. Sali leaned in and spoke in a low voice. “Do you have anything that can suppress urges?”
The woman nodded. “What sort? Zhuun alcohol? Giddy smoke? Opium? The treatment depends on the substance.”
“It’s nothing like that. It’s more mental than anything else.” The last thing Sali needed were rumors of the local Soul Seeker suffering from such a vice.
“Then something like a gambling addiction?” The woman’s eyes widened. “Do you have an urge for violence or murder? Sexual—”
“No, no.” This was getting her nowhere. “Apologizes, master herbalist. I am wasting your time. I’ll be all right.”
“One moment, please.” The herbalist hurried to the hundreds of small wooden drawers behind her and returned a few moments later with a steaming cup in one hand and a small jar in the other. “Rat-tail leaves and hawkblood. Two pinches mixed into tea or hot water every morning. No more than one cup. This should soothe the mind and last through most of the day.”
Sali didn’t reach for it. “How much?”
The herbalist pushed both across the counter. “Consider it my contribution toward aiding in the search for the Eternal Khan.”
Sali tried the concoction and found the taste as pleasant as anything involving rat-tails could be. Warmth spread through her body and she immediately felt a calm follow it. The gnawing pull in her head lessened, and she could feel some of her other senses again. She hadn’t even realized her leg had been itching fiercely until just now.
Sali sucked in a long breath. “Thank you.”
“Come back if you never need more, Soul Seeker.”
She remained standing at the door for a few moments, replaying what had just happened in her head. She had never fully considered how important Soul Seekers were to her people. It was interesting to feel appreciated. It was not something she had ever experienced as a Will of the Khan or viperstrike, because her interaction with those from lower castes was kept to a minimum. Now that she walked among them, her relationship with them felt strange, but not unwelcome.
Sali left the shop and jogged—sprinted almost—to the nearest street vendor. Now that her mind was clearer, it let her know her body was ravenous. She bought one of everything and wolfed it down as quickly as the vendor cooked it, savoring nothing. The rice meal was bland; the spicy noodle stew was surprisingly devoid of noodles, or spice for that matter. The meat on a stick tasted nothing like the advertised horse, and she wasn’t sure what the supposed taro cakes were made from. Not that any of this mattered.
Sali didn’t put forth her critique of the food until she had finished the last bite. “That was terrible. What did I just eat?”
The vendor took her criticism in stride. “I can tell how much you hate it by the way you cleaned the plate. Would you like seconds?”
“Yes, friend.” Sali pointed at the display. “This all looks like food from home, but tastes nothing like it. Why is that?”
The vendor sighed. “I used to be the chef for the clan heads on Fushand, but there is only so much I can do here without the proper ingredients. We do not have access to any of the spices from the Grass Sea, so we have to make do with what the land-chained provide.”
She made a face. “Zhuun cuisine is terrible.”
“No disagreement there.” He held out his hand. “That’ll be nine copper liang.”
Sali paid the bill without complaint. This became her routine for the next several days. The same boy would appear at her door early in the morning with a new list. Sali would canvass another section of the district, then try her luck at a different food vendor. Disappointingly, the alleged clan-head chef from the first day was the best of the lot, and she found herself a regular at his stall.
Sali spent the rest of the week covering the entire district. Mali, now seventeen, should have appeared on one of the lists, possibly under a pseudonym. Sali had daydreamed of walking to a home to conduct a test and finding Mali at the door. The two would burst into tears and she would pick up her little Sprout and swing her around fiercely like she used to, and then they would steal away in the middle of the night under the glow of the three moons.
Sali had clung to hope even until the final morning, when the errand boy told her these twelve names were the last. That day, once she finished the last child, a three-year-old, reality finally punched her in the gut. Her knees buckled as a body-shuddering sob overtook her. Mali wasn’t here. That meant she had likely fallen alongside Nezra, perished on the forced march, or succumbed to illness in this accursed city. It didn’t matter how she died. Her precious and beautiful Sprout was gone, alongside the last of their blood. Sali was all alone in the world.
The poor toddler’s mother, fearing something terrible had happened to her son, reacted poorly to Sali’s sudden display of grief. “What’s the matter?” she cried out. “What’s wrong with my son? Is he cursed?” She paused, her hand fluttering to her chest. “Wait, is he the Eternal Khan?”
Thinking of Jiamin, Sali nearly broke into cynical laughter. “No, mistress, your son is not the Eternal Khan.”
The disappointment was apparent on the mother’s face. It disappeared when she saw Sali’s red eyes. “Then what’s the matter, Soul Seeker?”
Sali’s grief was quickly masked. She shook her head. “It’s nothing. I’ve been searching for someone, and she does not seem to be here.”
The woman touched her shoulder lightly. “I understand your loss. I lost my husband during the battle and my oldest daughter from sickness after we arrived here. Are you sure you looked everywhere?”
“I’ve searched for and tested everyone under eighteen years of age here in the district.”
The woman furrowed her brow. “Did you also check the ones living on the general’s estate?”
Sali perked up. “What general’s estate? How many live there?”
“I’m not sure,” the woman replied. “About a quarter of the number in this district, I’d say. They’re General Quan Sah’s personal servants. My heart-sister is among them. She works as a gardener. Every once in a while, she comes here to recruit workers for large jobs. From what I hear, they live well, but aren’t allowed to move about as freely, and have to adhere to an early curfew. If it were up to me…”
Sali stopped listening. Quan Sah, the general who had razed Nezra, was holding hundreds of Katuia at his estate. How had this escaped her knowledge? Was this an oversight on the part of the council or a deliberate attempt to hide it from her? There was only one way to find out.
Sali excused herself from the woman’s rambling, patting the toddler on the way out, and marched down the main street. Her thoughts seethed as she stormed down the road. She couldn’t remember walking to the estate where the Council of Nezra held court. A squad of guards staffing the front gates saw her all the way down the block. They noticed the fury on her face and hastily formed up.
The squadlead met her halfway down the street and leveled her spear at Sali. “Stop, not one step farther. State your business.”
Sali’s hand snaked out and clutched the end of the spear. She snapped her body like a whip, pushing and transferring her jing from the ground, through her body, over the shaft of the weapon, and into the guard’s hands. The squadlead cried as the shock tore the weapon out of her grasp. Not taking her eyes off the front gates, Sali hurled the spear into a nearby wall with a loud thud, then continued on without missing a step. The rest of the squad realized who they were dealing with. Fearful cries of “viperstrike” passed through them as they melted away from her until only one guard bravely, or foolishly, remained.
To Sali’s surprise, it was that doe-eyed man from a few days prior. He stood alone, quivering. “I’m sorry, Viperstrike Salminde. I can’t let you pass.”
Sali stopped as the tip of his spear touched her scale armor lightly. “Hampa, isn’t it? Your courage and commitment are admirable, if not your sense of self-preservation.”
Hampa looked pleased that she remembered his name, but still held his ground. “I will die in defense of Nezra.”
The lad had a good head on his shoulders. It was going to get him killed, which was a pity. “What you’re defending now is not Nezra, and I am not your enemy.”
“It is not a warrior’s place to choose when to follow their duty.”
Another fair reply. However…“It is always a choice, young Hampa. Never fight blindly, and never throw your life away.” That last comment hit Sali a little too close to home. Hampa wavered for a few seconds before slowly lowering his spear.
Sali offered him a curt nod as acknowledgment and continued walking. The rest of the squad gathered and followed close behind, but none dared impede her progress. She passed through the gates and continued around the estate toward the back garden. Word must have raced ahead to the council, because two squads of guards were waiting for her at the end of the bridge as she was crossing over to the pavilion. She was trying to figure out how to best dispatch all ten guards without hurting anyone when Ariun arrived and saved her the trouble.
“Salminde,” he said. “To what do we owe this pleasure?”
“Your council was supposed to provide me the names of every Katuia under the age of eighteen,” she said flatly.
He nodded. “And so we did. Why, did you not get the lists?”
“You forgot the ones living in Quan Sah’s estate. I need those too.”
“Unfortunately, those are out of the council’s jurisdiction.”
“They’re our people.” She was not containing her rage. “They need to be included! Their children need to be tested!”
“Out of the question.” His forced calm did nothing to assuage her. By now, Sali was aware that another squad had formed up at the end of the bridge behind her. “The council provided what we could, but the general’s personal servants are off-limits.”
“Even for the ruling Council of Nezra?”
“And even for Soul Seekers and viperstrikes,” he affirmed. “Interfering with the Zhuun general will cause many problems for our people.”
Sali glared at the former defensechief with contempt. “How many children live there, Ariun? How many possible Khans are you asking me to overlook?”
“I do not know. It’s none of my business at this time, and it is none of yours. The council forbids you from getting involved with the general’s servants. It will cause trouble for the people.”
“It is absolutely the business of a Soul Seeker.” Sali reached for her tongue.
The guards at both ends of the bridge closed in. Ariun did not bother reaching for the weapon hanging off his waist. He crossed his arms and dared her to strike. “Is this what it comes down to, Viperstrike? Will you now spill the blood of your own people?”
“If I must,” she growled.
The seconds ticked by. Deep inside, Sali knew that Ariun had successfully called her bluff. As much as she blustered, inflicting violence upon her own people was beneath her. That was not why she had come to Jiayi. This was not a measure she was willing to take. With a snarl, she turned and stormed back the way she had come.
“What will you do now, Salminde?” Ariun called after her.
“I will cause trouble,” she replied, without looking back. The guards parted, giving her a wide berth. None were foolish enough to make a move.
Sali glanced at Hampa as she passed. “Still want to be a viperstrike? Come along.” A moment later, her new neophyte, spearless and helmetless, fell in beside her. His face was bright and eager as a puppy’s as he marched alongside her out of the estate.
“I won’t let you down, Viperstrike,” he exclaimed, trying to keep up with her pace. “By Nezra I will make you proud.”
Sali gave him a sidelong glance and groused. “You could have at least kept your spear.”