Training Yard
Temple of the Dragon
Dirt scuffed as he sidestepped, keeping a wary eye on his opponent. The monk, Jyeong, was apprentice to Master Indra, and had been careful to remind him he hadn’t yet been accepted to their temple, as though he’d come here willingly and gave a shit about his rank.
Jyeong tried a feint with his ji, whipping the blunt end of the polearm up as though he meant to strike before he came down with the bladed edge. Tigai saw it coming, spinning his own ji in his hands to block the attack. Wood struck wood, but Jyeong pivoted, sliding the bladed edge of his weapon down to shear Tigai’s fingers from his hand clean as cutting a flank from a slab of pork.
Tigai shifted to an anchor before the pain could hit, though phantom echoes of it shot through him all the same.
“Good,” Master Indra said, watching them from the edge of the ring. “Your form was good, though you erred in locking weapons overlong. But you were trained well enough.”
“Trained well enough to stop this façade and tell me what the fuck I’m doing here?”
The old man ignored him, pacing around the side of the training yard, eyeing him and Jyeong as though they were horseflesh come to market.
“Again,” Master Indra said. “This time use an anchor to strike from two directions.”
Tigai scowled. His days had begun with precisely this sort of nonsense since the woman—the bounty hunter, he supposed—Lin Qishan had delivered him here. Jyeong stood motionless, holding his ji level, knees bent and legs spread wide. Was the old man’s direction meant for him, or the monk? Before he could ask, Master Indra raised a hand in the signal to begin.
Jyeong shouted some sort of battle cry as he charged. Tigai made a face and echoed it back to him in a mocking tone. Bloody ridiculous, fighting to the death over and over as though their magic were made for spectacle. He stabbed wildly, hooking to his anchor and blinking to Jyeong’s left side. He thrust again in a quick motion, then anchored, blinked behind, and stabbed again. The world shifted beneath his feet, so quickly it threatened to make him sick, but this time the sharp point of his ji found its mark, impaling Master Indra’s apprentice through his shoulder, sending him forward into the dirt.
Jyeong snapped back to his feet an instant later, made whole by passage through the strands. “That was not what the master said to do,” the monk said, gripping the haft of his weapon as though it would add emphasis to his words. “You were told to strike twice.”
“I’m not in the habit of letting my enemies know how I mean to attack them.”
“I am not your enemy, you bloody fool. We are here to practice, to learn and hone our skill.”
“I am here because you stole away my brother—”
“Paryaapt,” Master Indra said, his tone making clear it was meant to be an end to their exchange. “Drop weapons. It’s time to eat.”
Jyeong’s polearm clattered to the dirt at once. Tigai’s grip lingered for a moment before he let his do the same.
The old man led the way between the ruined buildings, toward the brick ovens where their cookpots were stored, along with parcels of rice and herbs and meat. The temple seemed to be empty, as far as Tigai could tell. Cracked stone and missing roofs spoke of a once-grand complex, storerooms and twisting hallways, sleeping chambers and feast halls. Vines had long since claimed it, jungle overgrowth making it more a home for wild beasts than a strange old man and his apprentice. Only one building in ten had a roof to keep out the constant stream of warm drizzling rain; thankfully they’d let him sleep beneath one, though in a separate chamber from where the master or Jyeong resided. An unusual sort of prison, but then, they knew he could anchor himself away whenever he chose.
“Sit,” Master Indra said, pointing to a pair of straw mats laid out beside the oven. Jyeong sat in a rigid pose, legs folded so his heels propped beneath his buttocks. Tigai stretched and opted for comfort. The old man would have told him if he wanted him to try to sit like a stone.
“A well-struck maneuver, in the yard,” Master Indra said as he rummaged through stone shelves, withdrawing pots and rice to cook in them, a handful of vegetables and what looked like fresh-cut beef. He hadn’t seen any livestock on the grounds. But then, of course—the old man could take a jaunt to Ghingwai market and back here before he roused from sleep. Strange, to live with people who had his gift. “Two anchors so quickly speaks to your skill with the Dragon’s gift, though you need work, with the implements of war.”
Was he supposed to banter with the man? “I prefer pistols,” he said. “No point getting close enough to stab a man when you can shoot him twenty spans away.”
Jyeong snorted, but otherwise kept still.
“Firearms have their uses,” Master Indra said. “But the precepts of our order teach harmony in the union of self and tool. Work done with one’s hands is better, closer to revealing the true self.”
“Why use blades and polearms, then?” he asked. “Why not punch your enemies to death?”
Master Indra paused to inhale atop his cookpots as he sprinkled spices into his rice. “If you would prefer to face Jyeong unarmed, I am certain my apprentice would welcome the challenge.”
“I’d as soon you let my family go. I might well choose to stay and learn what you have to offer. You could have kept your sixty thousand qian, or split the lot with me as a bounty.”
The old man only smiled, adding another handful of spices in with the rest of his ingredients.
“Time is drawing too short to leave such things to chance. You are something of a surprise, Lord Tigai. What you can do should not be possible. We set a snare for Isaru Mattai and caught a true Dragon instead. I am not so foolish as to let you escape before I’ve had a chance to teach you why you should stay.”
“I’ve never wanted anything to do with the Great and Noble Houses. Your politics can keep, along with your games and trickery.”
“Great and Noble Houses indeed,” the old man said. “You know once, the magi ruled in the open? Emperors and Queens, a legacy of lordships to make what passes for nobility among the unordained seem no more than the parlor game it truly is.”
“Every child knows those stories. The Emperor sealed the pact of heaven when the Jun Empire was formed. The magi are forbidden from holding the keys of power, on pain of doom if—”
“—if they seek the loyalty of men,” Master Indra finished. “A sweet tale. And the governors and magistrates preach it like disciples of the Way. But tell me, Lord Tigai of Yanjin House, do you suppose a prohibition on sitting a throne or holding a title keeps us from wielding power, when we can break the ones who do with a shard of glass, a whiff of poison, a knife transported to their chambers at night?”
“I’d never thought about it,” he said, affecting a bored tone. It wouldn’t have made a difference whether some magi blackmailed the Emperor; politics was Mei’s, or Dao’s concern, if it was any concern at all.
“Quite right,” Master Indra said, pausing for a moment to sip his broth before pinching another handful of spices into the mix. “And the truth is, if the magi were motivated by worldly power, we’d have found a way to have it, celestials be damned. But we aren’t. We have a more pressing concern. And it will be yours, too, once our training here is finished.”
“Master,” Jyeong said. “Is he ready to know these secrets?”
“No, he is not,” Master Indra said. “But as I said, we are running out of time.”
Master Indra scooped a bowl of rice and broth, setting it in front of him, with another for Jyeong. Then he sat, taking up his own bowl, opposite the straw mats.
“Do you have questions, Lord Tigai?” Indra asked.
“I really don’t,” Tigai said. The broth was warm and well-spiced, an unfamiliar blend of flavors, but not an unpleasant one. “You’re holding me here because you have my brother, Mei, and Remarin, or at least because you claim to. I wouldn’t trade the attentions of a dockside whore for your secrets.”
Jyeong made a sound as though he was choking on his rice.
“I see,” Master Indra said. “This is disappointing.”
Tigai raised his bowl in a mock salute. “It’s what you get for making friends at knifepoint, or recruiting apprentices or whatever it is you’re doing here.”
“I would have hoped you could acknowledge power, when you see it. What we have here—”
“What you have here is a ruined temple in the middle of the fucking jungle, an obsession with learning modes of fighting made obsolete when the first powder tube spat out the first ball of lead, and a half-assed command of a gift I learned better from a potato farmer. Or do you think I hadn’t noticed your apprentice struggle to hook a simple anchor and binding I could do half-asleep and more than a little drunk? Either you’re shit as a teacher, he’s shit as a student, or you have somewhat less wisdom to impart than you think you do.”
By the time he was finished, Jyeong looked as though he was struggling not to leap to his feet and tackle Tigai into the dirt. Master Indra laid down his bowl and stared.
Tigai’s ears burned a bit, as silence stretched and the old man didn’t speak. Well, what did they want him to say? It was all true. The hidden temple in the jungle, the fighting with sticks and swords, speaking in cryptic phrases as though they had preserved some hidden truth. It was the exact sort of thing people expected from the magi of the Great and Noble Houses. They existed, true enough, no one disputed that, and they had power of a sort everyone feared and knew was real. But they lived in a world apart from his, from Dao’s, from anyone who built cities or governed people or really lived at all. They were monks in monasteries atop mountains or hidden in some other remote locations, dedicated to practicing magic they never actually used for anything. And if Jyeong’s skill with the strands was any indicator, they hadn’t even practiced it very well.
“We are finished for the morning, Lord Tigai,” Master Indra said. “Take your soup and go.”
He hadn’t expected to feel sorry for the old man, but he did. It seemed as though his words had cut deeper than he’d meant them to. Jyeong’s eyes were full of hate, but even he seemed content to stay where he was. Not that it would matter. If the apprentice tried to kill him, he’d just blink away. Wasn’t that the point of their magic, the gift they shared? Life without consequences, violence without any permanent damage. He’d murdered the apprentice a hundred times since coming here, and been murdered as many more.
But then, there was Dao, Mei, and Remarin.
They flashed in his thoughts as he took up his bowl of soup and retreated to the worn-down building where he’d slept.
Rain fell from the sky, making leaves glisten, forming puddles in the dirt walkways between the ruins. This was the first time they’d left him alone during the day. He could walk the grounds, contemplate his fate, wonder at whether the seneschals at Yanjin had used the Emperor’s stolen gold to pay off their debts or run away with his prize. Instead he kicked a particularly offensive bush that grew outside his building’s door. What was he doing here? Remarin would have written him off as a loss the moment Lin Qishan showed up at his door, instead of playing along with their games. Dao would have made the same decision, coldly calculated and no less a brother for it. Mei would have fought, and that was why he loved her.
His soup tasted flat, soured by rainwater. He should leave. Indra and Jyeong be damned by demons, their ancestors’ bodies dug up and burned. He wasn’t even sure what they’d meant, with their cryptic allusions to his gift. As near as he could tell, they had the same power he did—the starfield, the strands, anchors and reversions. He did it better, with less forethought and exertions for its use, but there was nothing worth paying sixty thousand qian for the hope that he loved his brother more than his freedom.
He finished his meal and retired to rest in his chambers. They’d furnished the room with a stone bed and nothing else. He’d have paid sixty thousand qian for a feather mattress and a pair of down pillows, and maybe a palace serving girl to bed down alongside him. But even a stone bed was a comfort after a week of solid sparring. The strands could preserve his body, keep him from bruises or any other need for healing, but the strands imparted an exhaustion all their own. He slept almost as soon as he lay down to try, and for a time the world went quiet, finally at peace.
Shuffling footsteps woke him, and he sat up in time to see Master Indra looming at his door.
“Sleep while the sun is out is a poor habit, Lord Tigai,” Master Indra said, unslinging a bag from around his shoulder and letting it fall to the floor. “I’ve brought you a gift. A reminder, of why you are here.”
He kept his eyes on the old man’s face. “I know why I’m here.”
“Do you?”
His heart pounded. Blood scented the air of his chamber. A metallic tinge he wouldn’t have noticed, but for the satisfied smile creeping across Master Indra’s lips.
“What have you done?” he asked.
The smile bloomed in full. “Open your gift, lordling.”
He slumped off the side of his bed, kneeling on the floor. Fumbling with the drawstring on the bag was torture, a hot poker pressed against his spine. Red liquid stained his fingers as he reached inside, and his stomach put bile in his throat hard enough that he turned his head to the side and vomited onto the stone.
“She screamed, when I removed it,” Master Indra said. “And it took three men to hold her for the cut.”
A hand protruded from where he’d dropped the bag. Five fingers, a palm, a wrist, and a severed stump. A woman’s hand. Mei’s hand.
“I’ll kill you,” Tigai said, not bothering to wipe the bile from his chin. “I’ll stuff charcoal in your throat, put needles through your eyes, peel your fingernails back until they break and feed them to you, one by one.”
“No, you won’t. You’ll come with me, now, and since your gift is already so strong, it is time you begin your service against our enemy. We go to Ghingwai. You will find Lin Qishan there, and do precisely as she says. If she is harmed in any way, or if you fail to return to me within three days, I take another hand. Then a foot. Then another piece, for every day you are late in carrying out your orders. Do we understand each other, Lord Tigai?”
He bowed his head and forced himself to look. Delicate fingers, with the nails painted red and yellow. Yanjin colors, marred by blood, blurred by tears.
Somehow his bow became a nod, and he rose to follow Master Indra into the rain.