Jade War

CHAPTER 14 Old Warrior’s Mercy

Three days after the press conference, Shae took only Woon and Hami with her on a trip out of Janloon. They arrived in the village of Opia late in the afternoon. As was typical during rainy season, a thick mist had rolled off the mountains, obscuring the canopy of trees overhead and reducing visibility on the winding single-lane road that led into the township. Opia consisted of a few dozen wood and clay buildings resting at odd angles to each other, dug into tenacious positions on steep slopes. Chickens sat on the corners of low, corrugated aluminum roofs. A barefoot boy with a yellow dog stared at the three Green Bones as they stepped out of Shae’s red Cabriola LS; with a shout, he turned and ran out of sight down a narrow cobblestone path.

Woon came and stood next to her. Shae glanced at him for a little longer than usual. Ever since Hilo had teased her at the dinner table, she couldn’t help but wonder whether her brother was right, whether Woon had developed feelings for her that she’d failed to see or had dismissed as dutiful protectiveness. It was strange to see her chief of staff out of business attire and wearing a moon blade at his waist; he didn’t look like his normal, Ship Street self. Perhaps, judging from the uncertain expression in his eyes, he felt the same way looking at her.

Woon had suggested bringing some of the Horn’s people with them, but Shae had declined. She felt this was almost a personal errand, a responsibility of the Weather Man’s office. The two sides of the clan depended on each other, but there was a sense of competition between them as well.

The boy with the dog must have spread word of their arrival, because the residents of the small houses came to stand in their doorways. “Green Bones! Come see,” Shae heard the children whispering excitedly. The men and women wore plain or checkered cotton shirts and watched with silent, wary respect, touching their hands to their foreheads in salute as Shae and the two men passed. Opia seemed like a place from another time, or perhaps simply a place that time had carelessly bypassed in its relentless march. The thick fog that obscured even nearby features of the landscape made it seem all the more remote and eerie. It was hard to believe they were only a ninety-minute drive inland from the metropolis of Janloon.

Hami was turning his head from side to side, alert. With the pistol bulging under his leather jacket and the sheathed talon knife strapped to his belt, Shae could easily imagine what her Master Luckbringer had looked like as a Fist prior to his corporate career. “Seems the Mountain was telling the truth,” he said. “No other Green Bones anywhere nearby.”

Shae’s Perception told her the same thing; she stretched it this way and that through the subdued energies of the townspeople until she found the one familiar jade aura she was searching for, lying straight ahead in a brown, wooden slat house at the end of the street. There was something slightly different about it, but she could not place her finger on what.

Shae walked up to the cabin and pushed the unlocked door, which swung open on rusty hinges. She stepped into a small room lit by a single lightbulb hanging from the ceiling.

“Uncle Doru,” she said.

The former Weather Man sat in a chair beside a square folding card table in the kitchen area. He was huddled in a brown bathrobe worn over a sleeveless white undershirt and gray track pants. A girl of about thirteen, the daughter of a townsperson, Shae guessed, was bending over, pouring steaming water into a foot bath. At Shae’s entry, she gave a start and dropped the towel she’d been carrying.

“Shae-se,” Doru rasped. A smile cracked his lined face. “It’s good to see you.” He looked over her shoulder. “Ah, Hami-jen, and Woon-jen. This is much better than I expected.”

Shae turned to the girl. “Leave,” she ordered. The teenager looked to Doru uncertainly. He said, fondly, “Yes, go back to your parents, Niya-se, and thank you for all your kindness to an old Green Bone these past weeks. The watchful gods will surely shine favor on you and your family.”

The girl set down the empty water bucket and hurried out of the small house, her eyes at her feet the entire time. Shae watched her go. The knobs of the girl’s spine and the small mounds of her adolescent breasts showed under the fabric of her thin shirt.

Shae turned back to Doru. “You’re a wretch.”

“Not for long, Shae-se. That is why you’re here, isn’t it? To hand out the clan’s justice.” Doru eased his feet into the hot water and sighed. “It’s cold up here at night, much colder than in the city, even though it’s not very far away. I remember this kind of cold, but I used to be a younger man, so it didn’t bother me as much.” A nostalgic softness came into Doru’s eyes. “During the war, the main camp of the One Mountain Society was perhaps… ah, eight kilometers south of here.” He gestured vaguely off into the distance. “It was over difficult terrain, though, and the road from Janloon wasn’t nicely paved the way it is now. The village of Opia was our waypoint. Shae-se, there are no greater patriots on the island of Kekon than these simple country people. They hid us from Shotarian soldiers, they tended our wounds, they hiked food and supplies into our camp. They were the first Lantern Men, truly—more so than all the company executives these days, the ones who used to send me gifts of fancy pens and bottles of hoji.”

“And they hid you away even now,” Shae said. She glanced around the small kitchen and sitting area. There was only one bedroom attached to it, with a single narrow bed. Beyond the grimy lone window, the sky was growing dark.

Doru shrugged. “Only as long as they were able. I knew the Mountain would eventually sell me back to No Peak. I cooperated with them for years, using my position as Weather Man and the influence I had with Kaul Sen and Lan—let the gods recognize them—only in the hopes of achieving a peaceful solution for us all. Once I was out of No Peak and peace was no longer a possibility—what further use was I to anyone? I’m very grateful, however, that you were the one to come for me and not that brute Maik Tar.”

Shae stared at the man who’d been her grandfather’s closest friend and advisor, who’d been a fixture in her family since before she’d been born. Yun Doru seemed even more fragile and shrunken than the last time she’d seen him jade-stripped and captive in his own house over a year ago. His hair was thin and nearly white, his eye sockets were recessed deeply in his long face, and his skin was an unhealthy pallor dappled with deep shadows in the light of the single bulb.

“I’m dying, you see,” Doru said with utter indifference. The moment the words were out of his mouth, Shae knew it was true; she could Perceive it now in the sickly limpness of his jade aura. “Cancer of the liver. In the late stages, I’m told.” The former Weather Man smiled wanly. “I hope you didn’t bargain much in exchange for my life. It’s worth very little, and now that Kaul Sen has joined our comrades in the afterlife, I’ll be relieved to finally follow after him. You’ve come to do an old warrior a mercy. I would ask, though, that we have a few minutes to speak alone.”

Shae hesitated, then said to Woon and Hami, “Wait outside.”

“Shae-jen,” Woon protested, but Shae gave him a strong look to show she meant it. “Wait outside, like I said. I’ll handle this.”

Hami said to Doru, with pity and disgust, “You’re getting better than you deserve.”

The two men stepped out the door. Shae and Doru were alone. Doru took his feet out of the bath and dried them with the towel the girl had left. The window had fogged from the steam, and Shae could smell the herbal scented salts. “I want you to know,” Doru said, “that I had every intention of keeping my promise to you. I would’ve willingly remained a jadeless prisoner in my own home to keep company with Kaul Sen in his final days.” Doru’s lips trembled, and Shae felt the pulse of grief in his enfeebled aura. “He was a great man, the greatest Green Bone of our generation, and a dear friend—let the gods recognize him. I broke my word to you only because he insisted I do so, and I have never disobeyed him in anything.”

Doru slid his bare feet into slippers, and with painful creakiness, he stood and walked to a battered yellow armchair, tying his bathrobe around his waist. He looked so frail in that moment that Shae had to quell a strange urge to go help him. “What did you give to the Mountain when you went to them?” she asked.

“Nothing, Shae-se—though not from lack of trying.” Doru lowered himself gingerly into the armchair, wincing at some unseen pain. “I went to Ayt Mada when the Mountain seemed poised to win the war because I hoped to bargain for your safety. I volunteered my knowledge of No Peak’s businesses and offered to aid in the financial and operational merger after the Mountain was victorious—on the condition that you be spared from harm. I asked the same for Anden, because I knew you would want it. Ayt refused. After the way you angered her, she had no intention of letting you live.

“I cannot tell you how relieved I was when Hilo turned the street war, even though it meant there was no place or need for me. The Mountain allowed me to remain here in Opia to tend to my health. At first they set guards, supposedly for my protection, but in truth I was a prisoner—more to my own failing body than anything else.” Doru coughed—a long, deep, wracking sound—then he looked up at her with a clear-eyed and serious expression. “Shae-se, even in this place, I hear things—and I always read the clouds. When I heard that the clans were declaring a truce, I was thankful, believe me. But so long as Ayt Mada rules the Mountain, you will never be safe.”

Shae felt his words turn her hands and feet cold. “What should I do?”

“To hold on to power, one must deny it to others. Ayt has no heir. There are prominent families in the Mountain that hope to succeed her, who are following behind like a pack of wolves waiting for a stumble. The Iwe family is in the loyal inner circle, and the Vens are wealthy, but the Koben family has the strongest claim and the most to gain. Ayt is a strong Pillar, but she is still human, and a woman. Find a way to ally with her successor. It will be up to you, Shae-se, to end the war between the clans, to find a way back to real peace.” Doru coughed again; it sounded like pneumonia. “Beyond that, I have only the advice of an old Weather Man to a young one: Listen to everyone, but read the clouds for yourself.”

Shae’s voice felt abruptly tight in her throat. “Do you have anything else to say, Doru-jen?” The time had come; she put her hand on the hilt of her moon blade but did not draw it yet.

Doru reached around his neck and lifted off a chain with four jade stones. He held the gems in his wrinkled, long-fingered hands for a moment, his eyes glistening. “This jade was your grandfather’s,” he said. “It belongs in the Kaul family.” He set it down next to him on the small wooden side table. His familiar jade aura dissipated like smoke coming off a black log; only his slow heartbeat and wheezy breath remained in Shae’s Perception.

Shae felt heavy in her limbs. This encounter was not going as she’d envisioned. She’d hated Doru for years. Coming here, she’d imagined acting swiftly and with cold righteousness to correct the mistake she’d made by sparing him before. She had not expected to find him sick and suffering, most of the way to his grave already. It was time to act, but still she remained standing where she was, unable to move. Doru was a devious old pervert and he had committed treachery at the highest level of the clan, but as he folded his hands in his lap and gazed up at her with calm expectancy, she remembered that he had been an uncle to her, that he was Kaul Sen’s best and dearest friend.

An ache built in her chest, one that seemed to spread to her limbs and turn them to lead. She couldn’t kill Doru. Her grandfather—let the gods recognize him—would never forgive her.

The former Weather Man let out a strangely satisfied sigh. “Ah, Shae-se, I’m afraid you’ve something to learn from your enemy Ayt Madashi. To lead a Green Bone clan, there are times you need to be as cold as steel.” Doru shifted in his chair and opened the drawer of the side table. “Still, it makes me glad to think that, even after all the ways I’ve lost your respect, you have some softness in your heart for your old uncle after all. You were your grandfather’s favorite, and mine as well; I’ve never wanted to cause you any trouble or heartache.” Shae realized what he was about to do an instant before he took out the pistol, put the barrel in his mouth, and pulled the trigger.

The door of the small house slammed open and Woon burst in, moon blade drawn, jade aura blazing with alarm. He made some exclamation that Shae did not hear; the reverberation of the gunshot had turned her world silent. Doru’s body had been flung back against the seat and it slumped there now, long limbs slack, wizened head lolled sideways on the thin neck. Bloody bits of his skull and brains were sprayed across the back of the armchair. Shae’s heart was stampeding so hard she could feel the beat in her throat. Doru had acted so quickly and unhesitatingly, she hadn’t even Perceived it coming. To her surprise and shame, she felt tears prick the backs of her eyes.

Hami came in and stared at the body but said nothing. It was obvious what had happened. Shae had failed, but Doru had accepted the clan’s justice nevertheless.

“Collect the jade on the table; it belongs to the clan,” she said. She couldn’t bring herself to approach the body and claim it undeservedly for herself. Shae turned away and walked back out the door. She heard Woon following after her, but Hami lingered behind. She had damaged his respect for her; she understood that. The huddle of villagers gathered outside shifted back at her appearance, making room as she walked into their midst. “Who’s the headman of this town?” she asked.

A bearded, middle-aged man in overalls and a flat cap came forward. Warily, he touched his clasped hands to his head and bent forward in salute.

“Thank you for showing an old Green Bone kindness and hospitality in his final days,” Shae said, clearly enough for those gathered to hear. “If his presence was any hardship on you, I offer my clan’s gratitude and apologies.”

The headman glanced around at his fellow townspeople before turning back to Shae. It was dark now, and she could not clearly read his expression in the light of the kerosene lamps that hung from wooden poles in front of the scattering of houses. “We’ve always fed and sheltered any Green Bone who needs our help,” the headman said. He didn’t ask about what had happened in the cabin. It was a custom engrained by past decades of war and occupation: The country folk of Kekon aided and harbored Green Bones without speaking of it to others and without asking questions—the better to protect themselves from torture by Shotarian soldiers. The people of Opia held fast to tradition.

Shae placed an envelope of cash into the headman’s hand. It was sure to be more money than the town had seen in years. “Bury him in the mountains, near the old rebel camp south of here,” Shae told the villagers. “Mark his grave with the words, Here lies a Green Bone warrior of Kekon.”