Jade War

CHAPTER 21 Change of Plans

Hilo got off the long-distance call and said, “We need to go home.”

Tar, who was watching a ruckets game on the hotel television despite the fact that neither of them understood the rules of the sport, said, “Our flights are booked for Sixthday and we’re supposed to have dinner with the kid’s mom and her boyfriend tomorrow night. What do you want to do?”

Hilo picked up the remote control and changed the channel. The news was covering the Espenian entry into Oortoko. He couldn’t understand what the Stepenish commentators were saying, but they were referring to a large map of the East Amaric region, with Shotar, the Uwiwa Islands, and Kekon highlighted. Hilo mumbled a curse under his breath. Trust the Espenians to do things when they pleased, without informing or consulting anyone else.

Shae had made it clear that he needed to return to Janloon as soon as possible, but he was also determined not to leave Lybon until he’d hammered out an acceptable arrangement regarding his nephew’s future. He hated the prospect of explaining to Wen that he’d flown all the way to Stepenland at her urging, leaving her in her thirty-fourth week of pregnancy, and had nothing to show for it.

Also, he found himself thinking about Lan’s son a great deal, and feeling, on a deep and painful level, a kinship with the child that went even beyond blood relation. Like Niko, Hilo had lost his father when he was not even a year old. From all the stories he’d heard of Kaul Dushuron, Hilo had always imagined he would’ve gotten along with his father—certainly better than he’d gotten along with his grandfather. Niko would never know his father either. Perhaps it was because he was soon to become a parent himself that the thought caused Hilo to grieve for his elder brother in a way that he had not been able to two years ago, when war and vengeance and survival had been paramount in his mind. Over the past couple of days, he’d been unusually morose, unable to enjoy the picturesque novelty of Lybon.

Tar, sensing the Pillar’s mood if not the underlying reasons for it, tried with the earnestness of a worried child to lift his spirits, making fun of everything unexpected they encountered—from salty candy, to Stepenish hairdos, to the fact that supermarkets closed at dusk. While Hilo spent time dealing with clan issues on phone calls with Shae or Kehn, Tar went around the town and returned to offer up daily accomplishments he hoped would please his boss: He’d found a good restaurant and made a reservation for Fifthday; through the clan’s vast network, he’d made a few local connections that might be useful; he’d discreetly tailed Eyni’s boyfriend to an office building near the center of town and discovered where he worked and with whom.

“You want me to call the airline and see if we can get on an earlier flight?” Tar asked now.

Hilo pinched the bridge of his nose, then nodded. Lybon was seven hours ahead of Janloon; it was early evening and the streetlights outside of their hotel room had just come on. If they took a flight out tomorrow morning, they could be back home by the end of the day. “Change the flights,” he said. “Then we’ll go talk to those two. We’ll insist on having dinner tonight to figure everything out.”

When they got to the house, Hilo said, “Stay in the car this time. You’re too intimidating.” Tar made a noise of incredulous protest, but Hilo said, “You look and act like a Fist. Eyni’s never thought of me as anything but a goon, and having you standing around like a silent henchman won’t help things. I have to sweet talk those two into seeing reason.” He got out of the car and leaned back through the open window. “Wait here. I’ll be back out soon and we’ll go eat.”

Hilo paused when he got to the front door. He could Perceive Eyni moving about inside with considerable energy and haste, and in the back of the house, a small, quiet presence that could only be the slumbering child. The Stepenish man was not home; he must be working late. Suspicion formed in Hilo’s mind. In the few days he’d been in Lybon, he’d noticed that it seemed to be common for people to leave gates and doors open. Instead of ringing the bell, he turned the door knob. It was unlocked; he pushed open the door and stepped inside.

The first thing he saw was two suitcases and a folded stroller sitting in the living room. One of the suitcases was latched shut and upright; the other was open on the floor and partially packed with toddler’s clothing, a stuffed monkey, and a few children’s board books. Eyni’s open purse lay next to the suitcase, wallet and passport visible. Cold understanding filled Hilo. Eyni came out of the bedroom, arms full with baby blankets, towels, and a pack of diapers. She froze when she saw Hilo standing in the foyer.

“Sister Eyni,” Hilo said softly. “It seems you’re about to take a trip.”

Eyni blurted, “We’re not meeting until tomorrow.”

Hilo looked at the suitcases and the pile of supplies in her arms. “You’re overpacking if you plan to be back in time for dinner tomorrow night. Where’s that foreign boyfriend of yours?”

The blankets trembled in Eyni’s arms. “He went out for a minute.”

“He’s tying things up at work because you don’t expect to be back for a while,” Hilo inferred. His voice turned hard. “Where were you planning to go? You were going to disappear without telling me; you figured you’d leave me waiting around like a fool.”

“Go home, Hilo.” Eyni’s voice rose, pleading and angry. “I didn’t reply to your letters for a reason, and you still showed up at my house uninvited. Lors doesn’t know what you and the clan are like. You would’ve convinced him to let you have what you wanted—to take my son back to Kekon and raise him as a killer. That’s right, a jade-obsessed killer destined to die young, just like his father and his grandfather. And like you.”

“That’s how you talk about your husband and my brother? And my father, who gave his life for his country?” Hilo’s lips drew back. “What happened to you, Eyni?”

Eyni set the items down and straightened to her full height. She’d always been a proud and elegant woman, a former dancer, and now, in an effort to reclaim some of the status she’d once held over Hilo when he’d been a young Fist and she the wife of the Pillar, she lifted her chin and glared at him. “You haven’t changed at all, Hilo. You always were a vicious thug at heart, an arrogant boy obsessed with jade and his own ego. You don’t care about Niko; you only want to turn him into one of your followers.” She breathed in hard. “Do you know that in Espenia, civilian possession of jade is now banned? That other countries including Stepenland are likely to follow suit? People associate jade with soldiers and mercenaries and gangsters, and that’s how you want to raise my son? No, Hilo. Nothing you can offer will sway me. I want Nikolas to grow up Stepenish, with Stepenish friends and siblings and a Stepenish education. I don’t want him to have anything to do with you.”

For one of the few times in his life, Hilo was speechless. For some seconds, he felt nothing except an initial shock, as disorienting as being stabbed in the stomach. Then hurt flooded in, and with it, rage.

“Go home to your Fists and turf wars,” Eyni said. “I won’t ever let Niko become a Green Bone.” She stepped backward into the kitchen and picked up the receiver of the phone, hovering her finger over the dial. He saw her eyes flicker to the block of kitchen knives that lay within her easy reach. “Go or I’ll call the police. They’ll be here in minutes. You’re a foreign tourist with no power or authority in this country, and if I tell them you broke into my house, they’ll put you in jail.”

“Let me see Niko,” Hilo said. Eyni’s finger moved, dialing a single number. “I’ll go,” Hilo promised in a low voice that bordered on a plea, “but at least let me see my nephew.”

For a second, the defeat in Hilo’s voice and the open hurt in his expression seemed to have an effect on Eyni. She depressed the phone cradle. Then, as if remembering her determination not to give her former brother-in-law even a sliver of leverage, she set her lips together in a line and shook her head.

From the nursery, Nikolas began to cry. “Maaaa…”

Eyni turned toward the sound and took two steps, and Hilo moved, with the sort of speed that only a heavily jaded Green Bone can call upon. He wrapped one arm around the front of her body, holding her in place. Pressing his palm to her back, he Channeled with all his might in one sharp, violent thrust. Eyni’s head snapped back; the top of her skull smacked Hilo in the chin. His jade energy tore through her with the destructive precision of a metal shaft and she died without uttering a sound.

Hilo’s vision wavered. He sank to his knees on the kitchen floor, still holding Eyni as if in a lover’s embrace. The energy blowback of her death crashed over him and then washed out, leaving him momentarily dazed and rattled. He’d cut the inside of his lip on his teeth where her head had smacked into his mouth, and the sharp tang of blood on his tongue along with the droning sound of the telephone dial tone near his ear brought him back to himself. He reached up and set the telephone receiver back into its cradle. Standing up, he lifted Eyni and carried her to the sofa. He laid her down lengthwise on the cushions, then stood back, wiping sweat from his brow with the cuff of his sleeve.

She didn’t look pained or awkward in death, just soft and limp, and he arranged her arms across her stomach so she looked even more natural. Hilo walked back into the kitchen and took a long drink of water directly from the kitchen faucet. Then he stood with his hands leaning against the counter and stared for a long minute at the body of the woman on the sofa. She hadn’t suffered or struggled at all, had not even seen death coming, which only showed that she was still an ignorant and haughty person at heart, to not understand her own position clearly and anticipate what Green Bones were capable of—what he was capable of—when grievously pushed and insulted. He’d gone to every length to meet her more than halfway, offered every reasonable allowance, kept his temper so firmly in check—all to no avail.

Hilo had never liked Eyni and always thought Lan was wrong to let her and her lover walk away with no consequence in the first place, but looking at her now, he felt sad. He knew Lan would not have wanted her killed, even for the sake of his own son.

“Maaaa,” came the cry again, from the room down the hall. Hilo followed the sound; he stepped over the child gate blocking the way and went into the nursery where he found Niko standing up, holding on to the slats of the crib. He was calling out in an impatient but not tearful way, and when Hilo came into the room, he stopped making noise and stared up at his uncle with wide eyes and an open mouth. Hilo lifted the child out of the crib and set him on the ground. The boy sat down, picked up a toy car and began pushing it along the carpet. Hilo crouched down next to him. “Car,” Niko said in Kekonese, then sang a nursery song in Stepenish and looked to Hilo for approval. Hilo smiled and held out his hand. “Come with me, Nikoyan.” The name came to him at once, a perfect Kekonese name. He led the boy out of the nursery and into the living room, opening and closing the child gate for him to pass through. Niko went to Eyni. “Ma ma ma,” he said.

“Your ma is sleeping,” Hilo said gently. He placed the supplies Eyni had been carrying into the smaller suitcase along with the child’s other packed belongings, then shut and latched it. He searched inside the open purse and found Niko’s birth certificate tucked inside Eyni’s passport; when he unfolded it, he saw that the field for the father’s name had been left blank. He refolded the certificate and tucked it into his jacket pocket. He knelt down and pointed to the toy car in Niko’s hand. “Would you like to go for a car ride?”

The boy’s expression brightened. He stopped trying to rouse his mother and held out his arms to be picked up. Hilo kissed the child on the top of the head, then scooped him up in one arm and picked up the suitcase with the other. He carried Niko out of the house and to the car where Tar was still waiting. Hilo threw the suitcase into the rear seat, then got in the front passenger side, holding the two-year-old in his lap. “Niko-se,” he said, “this is your uncle Tar.”

“It’s nice to meet you, Niko,” Tar said, ruffling the toddler’s hair. “You’re a good-looking boy.” If the Pillarman was surprised to see Hilo emerge alone from the house with the child, it showed only as a shift of alertness in his jade aura, a beat of hesitation as he looked at the Pillar questioningly.

Hilo said, “We need to call the airline to transfer your plane ticket to Niko. And I need to find a typewriter to fill in his birth certificate, so he can board the plane with me. You’ll have to stay behind to deal with the boyfriend. Be quick and careful about it. He’s not so bad; he shouldn’t suffer at all.”

Tar nodded, then handed the car keys to Hilo. “You’d better put the kid in the back seat and take the car back to the hotel. I’ll wait here. See you in a few days.”

Six weeks later, Wen gave birth to a healthy baby boy. Hilo brought his nephew into the room where Wen was resting. Kaul Rulinshin, three hours old, lay on his mother’s breast. Bouquets of chrysanthemums and yellow heaven’s breath flowers—symbolizing joy and good health—had been sent by the clan faithful and crowded every available surface in the room.

“Baby,” Niko exclaimed. “Little baby.” He had begun to string Kekonese words together into short sentences. After several frustrated tantrums, he no longer tried to speak Stepenish.

Hilo swung the toddler up in his arms and set him on the edge of the bed. After sixteen hours of labor, Wen’s eyes were ringed with exhaustion but shone bright with triumph. Hilo leaned over and placed a kiss on Wen’s brow, then on the baby’s head, breathing in his son’s indescribable sweetness. Niko reached out to pat the infant’s wispy hair. “That’s your little cousin,” Hilo told him. “The two of you have to take care of each other from now on.”