Raising Fire Read online

  “Breathe.”

  As ever, Jia took Von Hart’s instruction. Standing in the courtyard, the mist coiling around her straining body, she could smell the dense vegetation, the vines clutching the tombs in the forest of pagodas and strangling the pillars of the mountain gate. The roots of the mangrove trees crawled across the flagstones and riddled the shallow set of steps leading up to the temple proper, the heavenly palace hall. Up there, the thick wooden doors stood locked and bolted, the shrine beyond claimed by Von Hart upon his arrival, the sacred space serving a purpose other than prayer. In his curt Frankish tone he had forbidden the monks from entering the place, and his eyes, so darkly violet, so very unlike human eyes, had been all they needed to obey him. They grumbled, of course, but the order had hurt Jia the most. The shrine represented her wayward emotions, her longing, but also her comfort. Access had been denied her too and yet the temptation remained. Behind the doors rested the Eight Hand Mirror. She knew that her fellow monks didn’t resent simply the barring of the shrine, but also the housing of the relic in this, their holiest site. Here on Mount Song, one of the kingdom’s Five Holy Peaks. Umbrage lingered in every hooded glance that slipped towards the thin, pale creature who had landed in their midst, bringing a woman and black glass with him. In the courtyard during Jia’s lessons. As the brothers sat in the hall, inking scrolls or eating bowls of steamed rice. If the envoy noticed this (and she believed he did), he paid the monks’ displeasure no mind. And the monks, Jia sensed, were too fearful of the mirror’s provenance to mutter about its presence too loudly.

  The Eight Hand Mirror is one of our oldest trinkets, child, left behind by my people when they departed this world, abandoning us to our fate.

  Yes, the monks were probably right to fear it. Several had shrunk from the mirror as others—with gritted teeth and ashen complexions—had unloaded the artefact from Von Hart’s cart and hefted it into the shrine, where it now stood on the altar, shrouded in shadow but never forgotten. Nobody had wanted to touch the thing, that much was obvious, an aversion that stood in complete contrast to Jia’s feelings on the matter; she would rather have died than leave the mirror behind.

  At first, she had heeded her master, resisting the urge to disobey him. There had been no such rules in the city of Dadu, where she could come and go in the envoy’s chambers of her own free will, standing before the large plain octagonal frame whenever the need took her, which was often and deep. Why had Von Hart hindered her now, removing her one small joy? Comfort had become a habit and loneliness was its own devil, whispering in her ear at night.

  One moonlit night, she had found herself padding across the courtyard and, employing the vines that wove all around the temple, climbing hand over hand to the roof. It had been an easy thing to drop down through the hole that served as a chimney and make her way across the floor to the altar, a ghost whispering through pale beams. That night, the Eight Hand Mirror had stood dusty and dark, the glass, as usual, reflecting no one, only the darkened chamber behind her, the urns of incense and the sculpted gods. For this, Jia was thankful. She had not wanted to see herself, to all intents and purposes a sixteen-year-old girl, breaking the faith of her master.

  Oh master. The thought pricked a tear from her eye, the memory of all she had lost. How has it come to this …? A hand stretched out, fingers trembling; she had touched the glass, as cold as ice under her palm. The mirror was a window, of sorts. Or perhaps a door. Wasn’t that what the envoy had said, all those years ago? A door without a key. All Jia had was her frosted skin and her heart’s desire, her closeness to the glass. As ever, she shivered, her guts cramping in the presence of magic, but knowing that her discomfort was a small price to pay for the vision awaiting her, the mirror rippling, the blank darkness swirling and shifting, a curtain parting on hope. For hours she’d sat there, cross-legged and gazing into the glass. Into the cavern deep under the northern plains where her parents, Ziyou and Ye, slumbered on undisturbed, bound by the Loreful enchantment. Oh, how she missed them! How she wished that she could feel Ziyou nickering in her ear as they grazed beneath Xanadu’s walls, or her mother, Ye, swatting her flanks with her emerald tail at something her father had said, their foal braying with laughter between their legs …

  Only when the first rays of sunlight crept under the locked temple door did Jia rise, her heart leaden with guilt. She spared the black glass one last longing look before she returned to her room.

  That was the first time, but there had been others since. She had come to look forward to clear and moonlit nights almost as much as looking into the Eight Hand Mirror.

  The mirror was her only peace in these dismal days. Toghon Khan, finally accepting that he couldn’t make use of Jia for his own ends, had banished her from court. Well, he said that he had sent her to the temple on Mount Song to toughen her up, prepare her for the coming war. But they both knew what this was. Punishment. Exile. Toghon loved wine and whores and money. He had no great love of Remnants.

  It had taken all of Jia’s resolve not to run away, flee Dadu and take to the hills, a fugitive roaming the land. Still, her honour bound her. Honour and memory. On his deathbed, the Great Kublai had gripped her hand, thanking her for her years of service. Reminding her to guard the Dragon Throne for all the time to come. How could she refuse her oath? Stand in denial of the Lore? In the end, she had swallowed her pride and, head hung low, joined Von Hart on his way to the temple, the wheels of his cart creaking under the weight of his mirror. Today, Xanadu felt very far away. So did the Great Kublai. The Wise One was seventy years in his grave, having spluttered his last in gluttony and gout.

  Now, as she stood in the courtyard with the stones on her head, there was only Von Hart, who, knowing her grief, had only intensified her lessons, bending her to the point where she might break.

  “The Khan laments,” the envoy said, as though catching the scent of her sorrow along with her sweat. “The empire crumbles. The Red Turban rebels roam the land, setting fire to the fields and sacking temples. And you have spurned your duty at court. You who remain of all of your kind, appointed by the Great Kublai himself, raised to serve as your father served the Iron-Faced Judge Bao Gong and his father served before that and back and back down thousands of years.” Von Hart caught his breath, fighting to overcome his dismay. “There is … chaos, child, spreading in the land. Spreading everywhere, I think. A chaos I feared, yet hoped to forestall, the signing of the Pact keeping us safe. A worm gnaws at the heart of things …” He appeared to have forgotten her, muttering to himself. “Ja. I must check on the circles, strengthen the walls …”

  “Circles, master?”

  “Hope can blind us, Jia. Perhaps all I saw was what I wanted to see. We can all be guilty of that.”

  He cocked an eyebrow at her, a look that was as enigmatic as it was knowing, and one that she did not like very much. For some reason, she thought of Ziyou and Ye asleep in the mirror and felt her cheeks redden with more than the pressure of the stones.

  “Master?”

  Did he know about her moonlit visits? Why did he always evade her perception, smoke under glass, his truth out of reach?

  He flashed her a smile and patted her arm, threatening to dislodge the stacked pile on her head.

  “Oh, don’t worry about me. I will be fine, as ever.”

  “But I wasn’t—”

  “It’s everyone else I worry about, Jia. The mortals. You Remnants. I’m a terribly powerful creature. The last of the Xian on earth. Remember that I used to teach Merlin, the greatest wizard in the west.”

  “Shi … laoshi. You said.”

  There was no point in arguing. He was old, she knew, older than the first days of Camelot, but not yet old in the last. When she had been a little girl in the gardens of Xanadu, Von Hart had told her all those colourful stories of kings, knights and dragons in faraway Albion. She had sat rapt by his knee as he described the fall of Arthur Pendragon, the end of the Old Lands and the departure of his people from the earth.
In fact, all through her childhood, he had filled her head with knowledge like water in an ever-brimming cup. Had there ever been a teacher as wise, as strict, as kind as Von Hart? The gods, the stars, the law, the land and the mathematics of all these things went wheeling around the inside of her skull like diamonds in a void, the light of his wisdom pushing back ignorance. Making her strong. And one day, his teaching had led her to an appointed position in court, one that only she could hold, that she was born to hold, according to the Wise One and all the khans who came after—the sacred position of judge.

  You can see the truth from lie, child, Von Hart had said, in feeble consolation. Can you not see your worth to the Empire?

  Jia could see all right. For year upon year she had stood beside the throne, hearing the pleas of the accused. Indeed, she’d stood on the dais in full sin-you form, all green mane and golden hooves, the better to inspire dread in the ones below the dais. Oh the tears! The hand-wringing. The excuses. The bribes. The threats. Once the charges had been read, the pleas made, she would turn to Kublai—or Kulug or Jayaatu, as time went on—and signal, with a raised head, the innocence of the man or woman bound before the throne. Her single horn, a golden antler-like blade curving up from the middle of her brow, would sparkle in the sunlight, presiding over an ocean of sighs. More often than not, over an ocean of sobs. With a lowered head, her horn tipped to the courtroom floor, she would signal the guilt of the thief, the traitor, the murderer … Then she would turn away, her purpose served, as the court set about extracting a confession and doling out swift justice. In fifty years of service, no Khan had commanded her to play the role of executioner.

  But that was not enough for Toghon.

  Stubborn, belligerent beast! She remembered Toghon’s words, hot in the face of her refusal. The gods have cursed us. Flood, famine and drought blight our lands. Rebels run amok as our enemies rise in the south. Still you refuse to make of this man (he’d pointed to the prisoner, stripped to the waist and bound in the middle of the throne room floor) a bloody example, a warning to all.

  And she remembered her answer. Biting back anger, she had shaken off the gasps that met the appearance of her womanly form, standing in her sheer silk dress on the dais.

  The gods have not cursed us, Toghon.

  So now she stood with stones atop her head, her limbs aching, holding her position. Her tunic was wet, a sponge for sweat. Her hair was long, lank and unwashed. The dust of the temple was in her mouth. And her wise old master, his features as smooth and pale as the flagstones at her feet, hissed philosophies of pain and truth in her ear, watching her discomfort, sharing her fall from grace.

  A worm gnaws at the heart of things.

  “Master …” She spoke into the envoy’s silence, disliking his ominous words.

  “Think no more of it,” he told her. “Your training is all but done. Time will teach you other lessons, I think. The value of sacrifice. The price of the truth. You will be ready, I promise you. When the time comes.”

  Ready for what? she wanted to ask, but before she could question him further, he was clapping his hands and leaning forward. “Now, one more stone, I think.” And for a fleeting moment Jia could have forgiven all the indignities and kissed him. “One more stone and then to your supper. But you must fetch this one yourself.”

  Jia’s heart thudded in her breast as if the stones were already falling, falling through her, falling into a future of failure. Rejection from court. Eternal exile. Shame upon the herd. She blinked away sweat, met Von Hart’s strange-coloured eyes, the suppressed laughter glinting there. Unlike the mirror, his gaze didn’t spare her. Here, she found herself reflected, a sinewy waif who had seriously thought to endure this torture and emerge youxia—a warrior, a monk—on the other side.

  Through the drumming in her ears she heard herself say, “Yes … teacher …”

  Another breath, a deeper one. Let the mountain and the forest fill her lungs. Let the silence of the temple soothe her. Let time slow and pool, as placid as the Eight Hand Mirror atop the altar, as she gently, gently tensed the tendons in her neck. The stones rattled ever so slightly as she sank in inches of agony, the drip of a water clock, towards the flagstones and the pebbles arrayed there. One-footed—and the urge to let that foot swell and harden, become a hoof, was like sweet fruit dangling before her nose. But she knew that such a transition would earn her another day of hardship from Von Hart and so she fought to resist. The spindle of stone weaving on her skull, Jia lowered herself, jaw clenched, into a crouch.

  Von Hart took a step back as she stretched out a hand, splayed fingers trembling, for the nearest stone … She corrected herself and swallowed all emotion, a shroud thrown over her eyes, over her mind, as her palm closed around the coolness of a pebble.

  Then the chaos that the envoy had mentioned erupted all around them.

  The first thing Jia heard was a cry, somewhere off in the forest. One of the monks, she thought. Hunting. The cry scaled into the setting sun like the chirring of a nightjar, amplified by the distance, echoing into a silence that was somehow worse. The heavy silence of threat.

  Von Hart tensed. “Verdammt! They come—”

  In a cascade of stones, Jia bolted to her feet, the crane taking flight from her mind, fluttering and squawking away. Pebbles clattered down all around her, a hard rain on her shoulders and feet. Behind her, the smashing of bowls and tumbling of tables, harsh in the still. Monks came pouring down the temple steps, a flood of grimy tunics and shaven heads, a bristling forest of staves. As her brothers swept around her, Jia followed their charge to the mountain gates, her eyes wide as an opposing tide roared between the vine-choked pillars, equally dirty and wielding knives. Ten men, she counted, each one wearing a red turban, each one with fire in his eyes. That the rebellion should reach here, as far north as the slopes of Mount Song, drove a cold blade of fear through her mind. She stepped past Von Hart as if he wasn’t there and stood, breathing hard, as the monks and the rebels clashed.

  In an agony of indecision, Jia hopped from one foot to the other, watching the battle commence. Along with denying her access to the Eight Hand Mirror, Von Hart had also forbidden her from assuming natural shape anywhere in the temple, for the sake of the monks, who, he’d said, struggled enough with her presence as it was, without added strangeness. This was another habit that she found hard to break. Hesitant, fearful, she stood like a novice at the edge of a ball, the dancers weaving and swirling across the floor. The dance before her was less elegant than that, a whirl of staves and flashing blades, scattering blood and screams, but she could see the technique nevertheless, the practised art of wushu. The monks held the animal forms in torso, neck and limb, the leopard leaping, the snake striking, the dragon wheeling, all fluidly changing from attack to defence, the space between the gates a clamour of flesh meeting flesh and a cloud of dust.

  Dare she vault into the fray, green-maned, golden-hooved, taking her chances with her own fledgling skill? What would Master Von Hart say? Despite herself, her muscles rippled under her skin, her fists clenching and unclenching. In her mind, she pushed down her bestial shape and summoned up the form of Single Tiger Emerges from Cave, preparing to attack …

  The Red Turbans, she noticed, fought without grace, their fists flying, knives slashing, flinging feathered darts wherever there was room. Most of the rebels, or so she had heard, were little more than farmers, untrained and untried. Rustic young men aggrieved by the taxes levied by the Khan and provoked by tales of his lechery. The recent chain of floods, the Yellow River drowning crop upon crop, had stirred the peasants like a ladle in a pot, the bitter broth of rebellion reaching boiling point. These rebels were Chin, Jia knew, not Mongol. The men came here under the banner of a Buddhist sect, with red turbans on their heads, and she sensed that they would have no qualms about spilling blood, even here on holy ground, in their fight to break the chains of their horse lord oppressors.

  Thrown from thought of attack, Jia clutched her throat, the understa
nding drumming through her. In a flash of insight, she knew what she was seeing. If the bandits were here, then Nanjing had fallen. How else could these men have marched the six days west, armed and unchallenged? With no Mongol troops to stop them, the war band had forged its way to Mount Song, hungry to set a flag on the summit, as red as the sun setting on the Khan, unfurling in the wind for all to see! And to hide their desecration in glory … Jia could taste the rebels’ ambition like wine on her tongue, earthy and sweet. The coiling mist couldn’t hide the truth. The Yuan Dynasty would fall.

  Bloodshed. Ruin. Change.

  Faced with the Shaolin monks, the Red Turbans would usually have stood no chance in battle, the brothers routing the rabble back down the mountain easily enough, back into the restless south. There was something else here, some strange presence. Jia could feel it. A secret in the mist. The Red Turbans came with a weapon in their ranks, old, raging, eager to kill … Her forehead creased with the impression. The rebels might have broken the walls of the empire, but they had not done so alone …

  Jueyuan!

  The thought shuddered through her, wrenching her back to the here and now, even as the weapon in question burst from the forest and gripped the pillars of the mountain gate, forcing the barrier apart. A huge simian hand wrenched one of the granite posts from the earth and, paying no mind to either rebel or monk, hurled it into the fray, the courtyard shaking with the impact. Men screamed, crushed by stone. Blood tinged the rolling dust.

  The jueyuan shouldered through what was left of the gates, grunting and hooting. In the haze, Jia took in his massive body, thirty hands tall and almost as wide. The creature resembled a gorilla, with the same small glittering eyes and the same heavy knuckles thumping the ground, levering his bulk into the courtyard. The only features that set him apart, betraying him as a Remnant, were his glossy blue pelt, his elongated snout and skull, and his baboon-like fangs. The rare and quite mythical ape was said to haunt the upper reaches of the mountain forests, a slow, shy creature that most would have thought harmless if not for his habit of carrying off the odd villager, sometimes as a mate, sometimes as a meal. Such attacks were unheard of these days, of course. As with most Remnants, the lullaby winding out of the west had lulled the jueyuan into the Sleep. The beast before her was the last of his kind—the last one awake, anyway—left to retreat into the mist-wreathed forests of bamboo, sinking into loneliness and legend.