Jade War

CHAPTER 9 The Uwiwan and His Half Bones

It took just under two hours for the ten-seater turboprop plane to fly from Kekon to Tialuhiya, the largest of the thirteen Uwiwa Islands. It had been wet and overcast in Janloon when Hilo left; he stepped out of the airplane into tropical heat and blinding sunlight. Waiting for them next to the tarmac were two white rental cars with drivers, which Hilo had asked Tar to arrange, alongside a welcome party of ten armed men, which he had not, but was unsurprised to see.

Tar and his man Doun descended first; they flanked Hilo as he stepped off the plane’s folding stairs. One of the ten strangers came forward to meet them. He was tall and his features did not look Uwiwan, but he was so tanned it was hard to tell. A thick gold chain with five green stones hung around his neck. “Kaul Hiloshudon, welcome to Tialuhiya,” he said in passable Kekonese. “Pas Zapunyo has sent us to meet you and ensure that you’re conducted safely to his personal residence, where it will be his pleasure to host you.”

Hilo looked the man up and down, then drew his eyes over the others arrayed behind him. They were all dressed similarly, in khaki pants and silk shirts, dark sunglasses, and green gemstones set into heavy necklaces, chunky rings, and metal bracelets. Hilo’s lips fought down a smirk. “We’ll drive in our own cars,” he said. “You can escort us.”

In addition to Maik Tar and Doun, Hilo had brought with him three of Kehn’s men: the clan’s First Fist, Juen, and two Fingers, Vin and Lott. Hilo had been deliberate in his choices. Juen was one of No Peak’s best warriors, whose fighting skill could be counted on if anything went wrong, but he was also No Peak’s most operational man in Janloon. Hilo wanted the chance to speak with him on the plane, to keep abreast of what was happening on the ground and how Kehn was performing as Horn. Vin had been a Finger for two and half years and was on the cusp of being promoted to Fist. Hilo had heard that he was one of the most talented Green Bones in No Peak when it came to Perception. Lott was only a junior Finger who’d graduated from the Academy last year, but he was the son of a top No Peak Fist who’d been murdered by the Mountain at the height of the clan war. Hilo had taken a personal interest in Lott; he would use this trip to get a better sense of the young man’s potential.

Hilo got into one of the rental cars with Tar and Lott; he sent Juen, Doun, and Vin ahead in the other. Zapunyo’s men climbed into their three identical silver sedans; one vehicle led the way, the other two brought up the rear. The conspicuous convoy traveled for thirty minutes, first down a long, flat highway with sugarcane, tea, and fruit plantations stretching off to both sides in the shimmering heat, then up a winding, pitted road, into hills dotted with goats, roadside craft stands, and sun-withered laborers in broad straw hats. Several of the workers flashed crooked-toothed smiles and waved at the cars, then continued staring after them as they passed. The Uwiwans, Hilo thought, had the cunning look of a race that knew they were dependent on the might and wealth of outsiders and hated themselves for it. They could be the friendliest sort of people during the day, then steal your wallet and cut your throat in the middle of the night.

Here and there, Hilo saw faded road signs written in Shotarian. Even the newer signs in Uwiwan were full of Shotarian loanwords, in the same way most Uwiwans had singular Shotarian or Shotarian-influenced names. Like Kekon, the Uwiwa Islands had been occupied by the Empire of Shotar prior to the Many Nations War. Unlike Kekon, there was not a pebble of jade in the entire archipelago, and no Green Bone clans to wage a long rebellion against the foreigners. Uwiwan opposition had been swiftly crushed and Shotarian rule ironclad for seventy years. After its defeat in the Many Nations War, Shotar was forced to relinquish the Uwiwa Islands to its people, but independence had yielded mixed results at best. Now the impoverished country was internationally known for cash crops, beautiful tourist beaches, and jade smuggling.

“Kaul-jen,” Lott spoke up as they drove. “Who are those men who work for Zapunyo?”

“They’re barukan,” Hilo answered. “Shotarian gangsters.”

“So much bluffer’s jade on that lot, it’s like they raided a costume shop,” Tar scoffed.

“Don’t get cocky,” Hilo said sharply. “Where we’re going, there’ll be several of them for every one of us. Just because of their tacky looks, you think they’re not dangerous?” He was still displeased with Tar, for his recent carelessness and failure to find Lan’s killer and recover the family’s stolen jade. The Pillarman fell into a silent sulk, his aura scratchy.

The wheels churned a long plume of dust as the cars turned onto a gravel road that crested a ridge and sloped into a shallow valley between two hills. The convoy circled a man-made lake surrounded by a garden of broad-leafed greenery and stone Uwiwan idols set among plantings of tropical flowers. At the end of the road on the far side of the lake sprawled a red two-story plantation mansion in the old Shotarian colonial style: large square windows below a gabled clay roof, a wide front balcony supported by stone pillars, single-story wings fanning out on either side of the central structure. The cars pulled up in front of the entrance.

Hilo had noticed the lookout towers with rifle-carrying sentries along the approach to the estate, and he counted many more guards around the house, in addition to the escorts who’d met them at the airport. As he got out of the car, he saw electronic locks on all the doors as well as security cameras and motion sensors discreetly tucked into every crevice of the traditional architecture. Zapunyo’s residence was a lavish fortress. The lead barukan who’d spoken to them earlier went ahead of the group and held open the door. Hilo motioned Vin to walk next to him as they took the front steps into the house. “How many?” he asked in a low aside.

“Twenty-two people in and around the house, Hilo-jen,” Vin whispered. “Fourteen of them with jade, but… not nearly as much as they’re pretending to show off.”

Hilo nodded in satisfaction at having his own assessment confirmed. “Stay alert,” he said, and Vin nodded. The Finger’s sense of Perception was indeed excellent; most of the gemstones conspicuously worn by Zapunyo’s barukan bodyguards were inert, decorative nephrite—bluffer’s jade as the Kekonese called it. When he’d met the tanned leader, Hilo had noticed that only one of the five green stones on the man’s necklace was true jade. However, to anyone who was not a Green Bone and could not discern the incongruity in jade aura—which would be nearly all Uwiwans—the barukan looked as intimidating and dangerous as the best warriors on Kekon. Though there was not a Fist in No Peak who would wear his jade in such a clumsy manner, on dangling chains and bracelets, impractical for actual combat.

The posturing did not, as Hilo had already reminded Tar, mean the men were not a threat, but it did arouse the Pillar’s contempt. In Shotarian, the word barukan traditionally meant both guest and stranger, and was used in reference to an unwanted but unavoidable visitor, such as an inspector from company headquarters or an opinionated mother-in-law. In the past twenty years, however, the word had become synonymous with Keko-Shotarian gangsters. During the foreign occupation of Kekon a generation ago, hundreds of thousands of displaced Kekonese were forcibly sent, or willingly migrated, to Shotar. Their descendants were a marginalized minority in that country, and many turned to illegal jade and lives of crime.

The Kekonese call the barukan half bones and view them with disdain and pity.

The half bone mercenaries employed by Zapunyo escorted Hilo and his men up a wide, curving marble staircase, through a spacious drawing room with a grand piano and tall bookcases, and out a set of open glass double doors onto the balcony overlooking the private lake. Zapunyo sat under a yellow shade at a large cast-top patio table, eating lunch. Three young men dined with him. The one to his right was the eldest, perhaps twenty-five. The other two were seated on the left; one man looked to be twenty, and the youngest was a teenager of about sixteen. They were obviously Zapunyo’s sons.

The barukan leader stopped at the foot of the table. “Pas,” he said, using the respectful honorific common to both Shotar and the Uwiwas. “Your guests have arrived.”

“Much thanks, Iyilo.” The smuggler looked up but did not rise. “Kaul Hiloshudon, Pillar of No Peak. I’ve been looking forward a long time to our meeting in person. Please sit. Have something to eat.” Zapunyo spoke accented but clear Kekonese in a leisurely paced, slightly hoarse voice. He was a short, dark man with crooked front teeth and a stunted look that suggested poor nutrition in childhood. Reliable sources said he was diabetic; his mother had also developed the disease in her forties and died from it. Zapunyo wore a loose yellow silk shirt and a pale blue kerchief tied around his neck; a thin mustache twitched over dry lips. He appeared entirely Uwiwan, like a roughened plantation foreman, but it was well known that Zapunyo was half-Kekonese. His paternal bloodline and small doses of SN1, injected alongside daily insulin, gave him the jade tolerance necessary in his line of work. He wore no jade himself.

There was a single chair and place setting directly across from Zapunyo and his sons. Hilo sat down in it. Tar stepped back to a corner of the patio, and the other four Green Bones positioned themselves watchfully behind the Pillar. Zapunyo’s barukan bodyguards took up similar places behind their boss. Hilo could not help but smile at the comical tableau: The two men faced each other across a table spread with plates of tropical fruit, marinated vegetables, and cured meats, with a dozen heavily armed attendants standing around silently behind them. Zapunyo had arranged this scene as a meeting between kings of equal rank. With his sons arrayed alongside him, the Uwiwan signaled that he was the one who held state here.

A servant came out and filled glasses with citrus-infused water. Hilo did not touch either the water or the food, not because he thought Zapunyo would poison him, but because he did not entirely trust the water sanitation in the Uwiwas. He leaned back in his chair. “Where’s Teije?”

Zapunyo was spooning out the flesh from a quarter wedge of papaya with a small silver spoon. “I suppose enjoying himself by the pool.” He put a mouthful of pink pulp in his mouth, mashed, and swallowed, then dabbed the corner of his mouth with his kerchief. “Your cousin for sure knows how to have a good time. Are you aware of how he got in trouble with the police? First, he walked into a nightclub wearing jade; you can’t do that here. Then he tried to have three women in the same night when the limit is two. He’s very lucky that I heard of his situation. The prisons in this country, they can kill a man with disease before he ever gets a chance to stand in front of a judge. I wouldn’t want such a misfortune to cause bad relations between our countries.”

“You can put him back in that cell for all I care,” said Hilo, “except that I’d feel bad seeing his poor mother cry. All your stalling and mincing of words to get me here in person—you’re obviously under the impression that we have something to discuss. I came because I’m honestly curious to hear what a scavenger like you could possibly have to say to me as Pillar.”

Hilo had thought the smuggler would show some anger, or at least bristle, but Zapunyo merely nodded as if this was exactly what he’d expected. “You Green Bones, you have an old way of thinking,” he said, fixing Hilo with small, beetle black eyes. “I suppose some Kekonese still believe that jade comes from Heaven, that you’re descendants of Jenshu and closest to the gods out of all races. I’ve heard those stories myself. So you cling to jade, you hold on to it so tight, as if it were your very souls that might be snatched. Instead of thinking in an open-minded way about how you can share this wonderful gift you have with the rest of the world.”

“And that’s what you do,” Hilo said sardonically. “Share jade with the world.”

“I’m an entrepreneur,” said Zapunyo. “I see the need and I fill that need. If there is demand for something, and the normal suppliers are not doing a good job, then of course that is where there is a business opportunity. My Kekonese father, he gave nothing to me and my mother, nothing but pain and sorrow, but because of him, I learned to take care of myself. And from my blessed mama I learned to share what little I had with others. So that’s why I wish to talk with you.”

Hilo looked out across the glimmering lake and wondered how much of Zapunyo’s wealth from black market jade dealing it had taken to construct this artificial oasis in the hills, to build, man, and fortify his property, and to pay off all the required officials. Zapunyo called his organization Ti Pasuiga—The Tribe in Uwiwan. He had jade-wearing subordinates and enforced oaths of loyalty from those in his employ. The smuggler might disdain Kekonese ways and beliefs, but that didn’t stop him from taking on the trappings of clan to suit his own purposes. Hilo turned back. “You baited me here to make me a business proposal. So make it.”

Zapunyo speared some pickled green beans and slices of eggplant onto his plate. “My business, like any other, relies on people. But it is hard to find and keep workers when Green Bones are so quick to kill anyone who tries to take even a little jade out of the country. A clan as powerful as No Peak, you have more important things to concern yourselves with. Your territories in Janloon must be defended against enemies; you need men and money to do that—so why spend any energy on things that don’t hurt anyone? There is no reason at all for us to be against one another. I am not a greedy man. I was born poor, and even now, I’m content to take only the scraps from Kekon and even to share what little I make.”

Hilo nodded. “You want me to stop killing your rockfish, in exchange for a cut of the profits you make off the black market jade you smuggle from our shores.”

“You accept tribute from all sorts of businesses, Kaul Hilo. Do you look down upon the money that comes from a brothel as opposed to a grocer? Kekon sells jade to the governments of Espenia and its allies—is their money better than mine?” For the first time, a hint of dangerous affront rose in the smuggler’s slow, dry voice. He turned his head to either side to indicate his sons. The eldest was eating heartily and noisily, glancing up now and then from his plate, but seemingly unconcerned by any of the conversation. His two brothers glowered at Hilo like dogs with their hackles raised. Zapunyo said, “My sons here have much more than I did growing up, a much better life. It is a comfort to me to know that one day they will take over the business, and if anything bad should happen to me, they would remember my enemies. Getting older, I think less and less about myself and more and more about how I want to pass what I gain in this life to my children and my children’s children. Do you have children yet, Kaul-jen?”

“No,” said Hilo.

“Gods willing, perhaps you will someday soon be so blessed. Then you will understand that I am just like any other father and businessman. You, Kaul-jen, you want your family and your country to be safe and prosperous—and jade is what makes that happen.” Zapunyo waved vaguely to indicate his house, his sons and attendants, the whole of the Uwiwa Islands. “You cannot say that we are so different, can you?”

Hilo pushed his untouched plate out of the way and shifted forward in his seat. It was a small movement, there was no outward threat in it at all, but his Green Bones, and the barukan guards with any sense of Perception, tensed at the change in his jade aura. “The two of us have as much in common as your barukan have with Green Bones. Nothing.” The Pillar spoke in a voice soft with scorn as he laid an unmoving stare on the Uwiwan. “Jade is only a thing to you, to be stolen and sold. It’s why you don’t wear any of it yourself. You wanted to speak your mind to me in person, and I can appreciate that. I came for the same reason, so I could tell you in the simplest terms: Stay off Kekon. You’re no Lantern Man and you’ll get no accommodation from No Peak. If desperate Abukei want to risk their lives ferrying jade to you, that’s one thing. But there’s a difference between a dog that picks garbage outside your house, and one that jumps through your window to steal from your table. One is a nuisance you can ignore; the other is a problem and has to be killed.

“I know you have agents in Janloon recruiting Kekonese criminals to be your rockfish. I know you land boats on remote parts of the coastline and send bands of pickers to scavenge from the mine sites. My orders to my Fists and Fingers are to kill any of the thieves they catch. Don’t get me wrong; I understand your position. The last couple of years have been good for you. The mines suspended, the Mountain and No Peak at war, and now, the conflict in Shotar that will raise the black market even more. But don’t think jade makes your posse of half bones into a clan, and don’t imagine for a second that money makes you a Pillar.” At last, Hilo felt Zapunyo’s anger, saw the man’s mouth below his mustache tighten into a wrinkled line. Hilo’s upper lip curled. “You should get out of the smuggling business while you’re on top. Go any further, bring your stink to Kekon, and you’ll lose it all. Green Bones can’t be bought with your dirty Uwiwan money.”

“Money is money—all if it is dirty, and anyone can be bought.” The country cordiality that Zapunyo had displayed before was suddenly gone; his small eyes were hooded, and he had the look of a mongoose with needle-sharp teeth. “It was my mistake to think you might be a sensible man, a smart man. We both know you have enemies I could go to instead.”

Hilo laughed. “Go ahead and try. Ayt Madashi would just as soon snap your neck. The Mountain murdered my brother and went to war with my family to control Kekon’s jade. If Ayt won’t compromise with other Green Bones, you think she’ll deal with you?” Hilo stood up, smoothly and quickly. Iyilo and the other barukan nearest Zapunyo moved their hands toward their guns; Hilo felt Tar and his men shift forward, their auras humming. Hilo said calmly to Zapunyo, “You bailed out my worthless relative and showed him hospitality in your own home, so even though I’m a Green Bone and you’re a jade thief and by all rights I ought to kill you, let’s say there’s no need for us to ruin this pleasant afternoon. We’ve had a good talk; now we know where we each stand. Anything that comes afterward, even if it’s unpleasant, should come as no surprise to either of us.”

Zapunyo did not move from his seat. He put a final slice of cold, seasoned meat into his mouth and his jaw ground back and forth as he stared at Hilo with eyes made squinty by unforgiving years of dust and sun. The smuggler laced his stumpy fingers and rested them across his stomach. “Of course, I’m disappointed,” he said. “I did the clan a great favor, I invited you into my house and offered you food and drink, and I’ve been given no thanks. You Green Bones put such importance on your honor, but if you won’t extend courtesy to others, you’ll be left behind in the world. It’s true, what you say, though: There’s no need to ruin this lovely afternoon. I am not a prideful man, Kaul-jen, and what little pride I have, I am used to swallowing. That’s how it is when you start off with nothing in life and learn never to take anything for granted.”

Zapunyo waved his hand nonchalantly toward the patio doors. “You are welcome to take your cousin Teije and be on your way back to your country. Iyilo will see you out.”

They found Teije Runo, as Zapunyo had said, lounging beside the pool behind the mansion, a drink in one jade-ringed hand, a slender young woman in a bathing suit stretched out on her stomach on the towel next to him. A record player on a stand turned out Espenian jiggy songs. Hilo walked up and stood over the man. Teije stirred and removed his sunglasses; apparently, he’d been dozing. He stared at Hilo for several befuddled seconds, then clambered hastily to his feet, setting down his drink and straightening his swim trunks. “Cousin Hilo,” he exclaimed, spreading his arms in delight and surprise.

Hilo struck the man across the face. Teije stumbled and let out a pained exclamation. Hilo hit him again, sending the man sprawling. Teije’s foot caught his drink glass; it toppled over and broke. The young woman in the bathing suit shrieked and scrambled away, shouting in Uwiwan as Hilo kicked Teije viciously in the side. “Kaul-jen, please, wait, stop,” Teije wheezed, crawling away from the Pillar on hands and knees. Hilo followed; he kicked his relative in the stomach and the crotch, then hit him several more times in the face and body.

Teije Runo was not a small man—he was half a head taller than Hilo, with broad shoulders and long arms, and he kept himself fit—but he put his arms over his head and curled into a ball as Hilo’s blows descended. The woman ran screaming into the house. Iyilo stood to the side and watched, as did the other barukan and Hilo’s own men. Tar snickered in amusement. When Hilo was done, none of Teije’s bones were broken, but his oiled body bloomed with bruises and he moaned piteously.

“Get up and put on your clothes,” Hilo said. “We’re leaving.”