Shadow Magic

CHAPTER FIVE





CAIUS

I was feeling sorry for Alcibiades, because that morning he’d found out that the horse Prince Mamoru and his retainer had stolen was his. Or, at least, it had been his. Now it was Prince Mamoru’s, and a lucky horse it was, riding all across the Ke-Han countryside, having adventure after adventure while Alcibiades glowered and sulked and, it was obvious, secretly missed him, the poor dear.

It was the sort of luck I felt was visited upon Alcibiades often, but the point remained that he was completely unapproachable, steaming mad and muttering to himself and not being a gentleman about the matter at all. The Emperor himself had apologized to him, but instead of being fascinated by the whole affair—there was a special ceremony for it, and two of the special Ke-Han-bred racing horses had been given to him, one as compensation and one as a gift—he’d locked himself up in his room and refused to come out, or even to answer me as I spoke to him about how the talks were going that day.

“They’ve decided to set up checkpoints to look for him,” I explained, which was, I thought, a very gracious gesture. “You might have your horse back yet, my dear, if they do manage to catch him. I would have thought that right now you’d be there, leading out a Ke-Han search party yourself to find the young rascal! Then you’d be a hero of the Ke-Han people, as well as of Volstov. You’re missing out on quite the opportunity. And don’t you even want to see your new racing horses? I want to see them!”

Nothing at all emanated from the other room, though I could still hear him from where I was, my ear pressed up against the door and dreadfully bored, muttering away to himself like a madman. Eventually, the muttering stopped, but Alcibiades hadn’t yet emerged from his room, and he’d barricaded the adjoining door.

There was no question in my mind that the man needed a bit of cheering up. He was simply making it very hard for himself and me.

Inevitably, I screwed up my resolve—determined to face any obstruction that might confront me—and I managed to slide the door open. It was only halfway, but that was sufficient.

“Good afternoon!” I called, over the rolled-up sleeping mat he’d piled up as a blockade against me. He was trying so hard; I thought it quaint. “Have you had lunch yet? I’m famished!”

Nothing at all again. I fancied I could hear the sound of a quill against paper though I had to concentrate very hard to hear it.

Alcibiades was writing a letter.

I could only imagine the sort of adorable dialect he employed while penning his epistle. And to whom could the man have been writing? I was shocked, in fact, at the very idea that he could write at all. How utterly delightful! I simply had to read it.

The blockade Alcibiades had set up against me was easily scaled, and I clambered up the side of it until I could at least see over the top. I rested my chin against the top and grinned in my most alluring manner.

“Are you writing a letter, my dear? Shall I call for our lunch to be brought to our rooms?”

Alcibiades startled, nearly spilling his poor inkwell before throwing his arms over the letter and glaring in the direction of my voice.

“You look like a bloody jack-in-the-box,” he informed me.

“How jolly,” I said.

“I hate jack-in-the-boxes.”

“Mm,” I said. Not my best rejoinder, admittedly, but I was quite busy in maneuvering my way down the other side of the barricade, and I wasn’t altogether keen on losing my footing. When I reached the bottom I felt a warm satisfaction at a job well done. “Now, what do you say to some hot lunch?”

“I’m busy,” Alcibiades said. He hadn’t got up from his rather undignified position at the desk, arms crossed over the letter as if it were a state secret, and not some plain piece of paper with writing on it.

“I know, with the letter.” I nodded indulgently. Then, trying to make it seem as though I’d only just thought of it, I gasped as if with a sudden brilliant idea. “I might read it over for you, if you like!”

“No,” said Alcibiades. “You mightn’t.”

He’d propped the small desk his room had been equipped with—one which he dwarfed quite amusingly, and which no doubt would have given him an awful crick in the neck otherwise—up atop a chair, so that it was at least better suited to his size and stature. I thought that the furniture was delicate, handsomely crafted and exquisitely simple, but I had to admit that it did make Alcibiades appear a giant bear of a creature. It couldn’t have been very comfortable to work at.

On his desk were a few pieces of paper blotched with ink and a collection of old pens. Underneath the half-full inkwell, however, was the true prize: not the letter Alcibiades was currently writing but the one to which he was replying. That was my goal. Who could it be? A sweetheart back home? He didn’t seem the type. A frail and aging mother might have been more likely, or perhaps a brother; he didn’t strike me as the sort who cultivated friendships so carefully as to write letters. He wasn’t a man whose behavior encouraged you to send them.

I put my left slipper back on—it had fallen off as I scaled the barricade—and sidled closer, feigning disinterest by observing my fingernails.

“How is everyone back home?” I asked, looking at the screen set up by the far wall. His had cranes upon it, whereas mine had a splash of maple branches. “Your mother? Your father?”

“Wouldn’t know,” Alcibiades replied curtly.

I cast a quick glance at the desk, only to find that Alcibiades had put his shoulder squarely in the way, blocking my line of vision. I could see the back collar of his shirt very well, but nothing at all beyond that, not even what his handwriting looked like.

That shift, however, was his undoing. It was a fatal strategy, very inadvisable; I’d have to rebuke him for it afterward. It protected the letter he was in the midst of writing very well, of course, but it left open his entire left flank—where the letter he’d received was resting underneath the inkwell. It was very common paper, brown and heavy, and the penmanship was round and flowery, so it was almost certainly from a woman, but adorably hesitant, as though the writer didn’t often find herself in the position of having to write anything at all, much less something so long as a letter.

I would have to act quickly—and carefully, too, unless I wanted to spill all the ink.

“I say!” I exclaimed, feigning a great deal of interest. “That woman has fish spilling from her hair. Did you know that your room has a print of the sea goddess?”

Alcibiades grunted, but didn’t look up. That was good, since I couldn’t risk any change at all in his posture. Not when he’d left such a perfect opening for me. I inched closer, so pleased I’d decided to have some slippers made up in the Ke-Han style, since they were so perfect for moving silently across boarded floors.

“Mine only has a winter landscape,” I said in a desolate voice. “Do let’s switch! I think mine would suit your room much better, what with the cranes and all. I’m surprised they mixed sea and air in the same room anyway. It must have been a mistake. Will you help me to take it down, my dear?”

Alcibiades wasn’t even listening to me anymore, though he’d hunched his shoulders more tightly, as though even then he was working to create a barricade against me with his own body. His pen scratched away dutifully against the page. I almost felt sorry for him, but then, he was a soldier, and it would do him good to remember that one had to go on the offense, occasionally.

I plucked the letter nimbly from the desk and scanned it eagerly.

Alcibiades whirled around immediately, the most murderous of expressions on his face. “Put that down,” he growled, grabbing for it.

I slipped just out of reach, still reading the letter. It was the sort of thing that would have been aided by the use of two good eyes, and not the one I had to make do with. Fortunately, Alcibiades was the sort of man you didn’t need any eyes for, only a good sense of hearing, since even when he was in his own room he refused to remove his boots and he made terrible thundering noise everywhere he went.

Dear Al, the letter began. That was as far as I’d read before Alcibiades launched himself at me like an enormous beast, and I was forced to dart around behind the desk to read further.

“‘Hope you are eating well,’” I read delightedly. “‘No one cooks like your Yana,’” was that a word from country dialect? I’d have to look it up, “‘but you should eat anyway on account of your little fat belly not going away.’”

I paused, breathless with delighted laughter. Then, Alcibiades overturned the desk with a tremendous crash and I was forced to wriggle out from underneath the chair to keep from being crushed.

“‘Do not allow your temper to run away with you like one hundred angry fire ants,’” I read on, pressing myself flat against the wall. It was to avoid Alcibiades’ wrath as much as it was to hold myself up while laughing. He threw the inkwell at my head and I scampered away. It shattered against the far wall, splattering ink everywhere.

“Your temper, my dear! Your temper! It says it in the letter!”

“I’m warning you, Greylace, just give the letter back and no one gets hurt.”

I had never seen Alcibiades so excited about anything in my life. His face was red, and his eyes were alive with the prospect of having me spitted and roasted over an open flame. I simply had to keep reading.

“‘Do your Volstov and your Yana proud. It is great honor to be chosen for such special journey. And feed your horse nothing but apples, apples are the chosen food for the King of Horses,’” I managed, before I choked on my own laughter. From what I’d learned of the Ke-Han court, it was appropriate to hide one’s laughter behind a sleeve or a fan, whichever one happened to have on hand at the time. However, survival instincts bid me ignore that particular rule, so that I was set to laughing quite openly in the center of the room, in a way I didn’t normally make a habit of. It was a most unseemly display, but for a very special occasion.

Alcibiades swore, and kicked at one of his crescent-shaped chairs that had fallen over in all the commotion.

“‘Wear your socks!’” I shrieked. Tears were beginning to roll down my face. This was better than a holiday, better than ten birthdays, and I found that I didn’t care at all that my face might have been as red as Alcibiades’ by that point. “‘Otherwise’! ‘Your feet get cold’!”

“It’s summer,” Alcibiades groused. “And humid as f*ck here anyway. There isn’t any cold to be found. Give the damn thing back.”

He still had that murderous gleam in his eyes, but he was losing steam. That was the problem with men his size, they tired themselves out too quickly stomping about and making a dreadful ruckus. I darted up to the dais from which Alcibiades had moved his sleeping mat and collapsed there, out of breath and out of laughter.

“‘Take very seriously this mission of diplomacy. Take very seriously your health, or else you will sprout mushrooms from your ears and become like a mossy stone that has no rolling left to do.’”

Alcibiades sat down on the floor, clearly plotting my demise for a future date. It was almost sweet really. He was so earnest about it. Perhaps he’d realized that I’d nearly finished the letter anyway, and there was no point in trying to keep me from reading the rest.

There was an enormous black inkblot on the far wall. If I squinted, it looked something like a butterfly.

“‘Listen to your Yana, and you will always be happy, healthy, and fat. Yana Berger.’”

I sighed, feeling utterly emptied of everything and tremendously satisfied with myself. I would have to find a comb very shortly, and I would have to go over my clothing very carefully to make sure no errant drops of ink had landed on the silk, but all in all, it had been a very successful venture. I rolled my head to face Alcibiades, peering at him over the rumpled paper of the letter.

“Who’s Yana?” I asked, in the tones of someone about to break open a terrible scandal.

“No one,” Alcibiades grunted. He crossed his arms over his chest like a sullen child.

“Oh, come now.” I sat up. There was a faint freckle of ink on my right sleeve, but I’d already decided it was worth the sacrifice. This outfit was a new one, and not entirely as flattering as it might have been. I was going to call the Ke-Han tailors soon, in any case. Now that everyone bent over backward to make sure that Alcibiades, the diplomat with the stolen horse, had everything his heart desired, I would tell them Alcibiades had sent for them, and they were sure to come more expeditiously and do a better job, at that. “You’re telling me that this kindly soul, whoever she is—who took the time to write you this very… unique letter full of heartfelt sentiment and best wishes for your health—is no one? This lovely dame, who counsels you so very wisely to hold your temper because it is—so true, so true—like ants? Can this delicate flower be no one?”

“All right,” Alcibiades said in an exasperated tone. His cheeks were still bright red, though whether it was from exertion or embarrassment, I couldn’t tell. He was a fascinating creature. I was beginning to think of him less and less like the dog I’d once owned; although he’d just set to ruining a room like a misbehaved animal, he was far more difficult to train. “Just don’t talk about her, all right? I didn’t mean she’s no one. Just that she’s no one you’d know.”

“I can’t tell whether that’s a jab at my station or an outright lie.” I tapped my chin to order my thoughts where they’d got loose from me in all the excitement. My robes were creased—another mark against them. “I’ll take it as a lie, I suppose. Perhaps you are… embarrassed to speak of her? Your dear, sweet Yana, who cautions you to wear your socks? How heartbroken she would be to learn of your reticence when it comes to speaking of her!”

“She as good as raised me from a sprog,” Alcibiades finally said, though he spoke as though the words were being dragged from him by torturer’s hooks. “After my parents were carried off, what with one thing or another.”

“Carried off by one thing or another?” I asked. “Were they eaten by mountain birds?”

Alcibiades gave me a filthy look. Perhaps my excitement over discovering Yana had caused me to overstep my bounds, and I attempted to look appropriately apologetic. “My mother had bad lungs,” Alcibiades ground out at last, “and my father had a wound from a threshing accident that he never quite got over. After that it was just Yana to look after my brothers and sisters and me. We never did quite figure out what country she hailed from, but my mother had her in to help with the twins when they were born, and she never left.”

“How ghastly!” I said, imagining Alcibiades as a chubby young man crouched in a hovel with an army of brothers and sisters around him, all clamoring for food. It was very clear the lady was foreign from the way she wrote, but possibly he hadn’t also noticed that she’d taken leave of her senses. “I didn’t know you were a farmer.”

Alcibiades looked at me sharply. “Didn’t say I was.”

“Well, I assumed,” I clarified. “From the accident with the thresher.”

“That was my father,” Alcibiades said. “I’ve been a soldier since I was old enough to leave home, and I haven’t looked back.”

“Ah, of course,” I said. “That explains a great deal.”

Alcibiades gave me another dirty look. “Not every one of us can be raised like th’Esar’s little lapdog,” he said, a bit more unkindly than he ought. After all, I’d presumed that we were only having a bit of fun.

“I am sorry about your parents,” I managed, very generously. Perhaps that would placate him. “Here, would you like your letter back?”

I held it out to him, as a peace offering between us. After a moment of staring warily at my hand, he snatched it back. I noticed, with a touch of affection, that he smoothed out one of the crumpled edges when he thought I wasn’t looking.

“Well, that was fun,” I continued, when he showed no signs of replying. “We ought to do that more often. Have you told our dear Yana about me yet? I am, after all, a significant part of your life here during the Important Diplomatic Mission.”

“I’ve told her I’m being driven insane by a tiny madman named Caius Greylace,” Alcibiades replied.

That would have to suffice. “I do hope she approves of me,” I said helpfully. Alcibiades merely shook his head and sighed, as though he were afflicted by some incurable disease.

That was when the Ke-Han guards burst into our room.

Alcibiades, ever the soldier, nearly killed one with his chair, and there was a great deal of shouting from all parties in their respective languages, and pointing, and more chair brandishing, while I stood behind Alcibiades and offered words of encouragement and tried to decipher what the guards were saying, before we were able to determine what was going on. My ability to speak their language was shaky at best, and with all of them yelling at once it was impossible to understand half of what they were saying.

Thankfully, Lord Temur arrived to sort things out. He did so in an extremely dashing manner, stepping into the room with one hand held up palm forward, and roaring a command loud enough to make the sliding doors shake in their grooves.

The guards stopped shouting. Alcibiades almost put the chair down, but then thought the better of it. I remained where I was, although I waved to Lord Temur over Alcibiades’ shoulder.

“Now,” Lord Temur said. “What seems to be the trouble?”

“We’re being attacked, that’s what the trouble is!” Alcibiades growled.

“Well, that is,” I explained, translating from Alcibiades into more common speech—the sort that human beings employed when successfully communicating with one another—“we were having a bit of a romp, you see, and then all of a sudden there were guards everywhere, can you imagine?”

Lord Temur paused to make a careful assessment of the situation. His eyes flicked over the room, surveying the ink spot on the wall and the shattered inkwell beneath it, the overturned chairs, the desk perched on the stool and the sleeping mat barricade by the door separating Alcibiades’ room from mine. At length, he turned to one of the guards and spoke with him quietly, before focusing once more on us.

“There has been fighting here?” he asked.

“Oh, no,” I said. “We were just being friendly.”

Lord Temur surveyed the scene before him once more, then looked to us again for some explanation.

“I tried to keep him out,” Alcibiades said gruffly, as though I were a wayward kitten that had to be kept out of the room lest I get at the drapes. It was dreadfully unfair of him. His neck was red, and I could see his pulse pounding at his temple, but at least, finally, he did put down the chair. I was glad. It was frightfully embarrassing to be in the palace with a companion who insisted on using furniture as bludgeons. What would Yana Berger have said?

“Ah,” Lord Temur replied, as though this had explained everything. “I see. Yes.”

Alcibiades breathed a slight sigh of relief. “Sorry for, ah,” he attempted, “any disturbance we might have caused.”

“It is a lucky thing I was passing by,” Lord Temur said, waving a dismissive hand at the guards, who bowed low to us, then to him, and filed out of the room one after the other. “Else who knows how long this… misunderstanding… would have continued.”

“The inkwell was mine,” Alcibiades added, rubbing the back of his neck. “And the—No furniture was broken. I don’t think.”

“No need to apologize,” Lord Temur assured him. I wanted to point out that Alcibiades had very nearly ruined my new clothes in his fit of pique, as well, but it didn’t seem to be the time. “We will send for someone to take care of the mess. Should we instruct the maids to leave things as they are”—he gestured toward the barricade—“or return things to their usual place?”

“Might as well return them,” Alcibiades said. All the anger had drained from his voice, leaving it hoarse and almost demure. “Didn’t work, anyway.”

“I can see that it did not,” Lord Temur agreed. “I was in fact just coming to call upon your companion, Lord Alcibiades, though now that I find you together I will extend the offer to both of you.”

“I’m not a lord,” Alcibiades said, managing to make it sound almost like a gentle correction and not something gravely rude. It must have been my influence. Or perhaps it was merely the reminder of dear Yana so close at hand.

Lord Temur bowed. He cut a very fine figure in his dark robes, but it was not a color that I could wear with my complexion. “My apologies,” he said. “We have a title for diplomats in our language, but there is none for it in yours. ‘Lord’ was the closest approximation I could think of, and therein lies my mistake.”

“Oh! No offense has been taken,” I assured him, coming round to stand beside Alcibiades now that the guards had left. “That’s merely Alcibiades’ face when he’s happy; one grows accustomed to it. You mentioned an invitation, Lord Temur?”

“It was an offer,” Alcibiades muttered, but he fell silent after that.

Lord Temur smiled cautiously, as though unsure of the resulting expression it would leave on his face. “Yes. I was under the impression that Lord Caius was interested in learning more about our culture. I might recommend the libraries as a place to start, but the artists’ district within the capital is something to behold.”

“The artists’ district!” I clung to Alcibiades’ arm with excitement. “We’ll go at once, won’t we? The scholars didn’t teach us anything about that.”

Lord Temur bowed again. “They might not have found any merit in the teaching. The artists’ district is not for the… upper class, the people of the palace. But it has many fine works of art, and it is a place full of entertainment, despite its reputation for scandal. If we are to share our culture, we cannot merely offer tours of the palace. It is…” He paused, searching for the proper words. “… one-dimensional.”

It was as though he’d known exactly what I’d been thirsting for. Perhaps the delicate network of servants had relayed such information to him, or maybe it had been one of our fellow diplomats. Whatever the reason, Alcibiades and I were about to be escorted to a place of questionable repute by one of the seven warlords.

Josette would simply die when she found out.

“Sounds all right,” said Alcibiades, though I caught him casting a longing look back at the desk and his unfinished letter. It was all right, I wanted to assure him; he could tell Yana all about it later that night. I didn’t think he would appreciate the effort, though, so I merely patted him on the arm. “Lead the way, then.”

Lord Temur led us through the halls with little conversation, pausing here and there only to point out a particular element of architecture or relate the history behind a particular room. Soon enough, we were outside the palace and flanked by two fearsome-looking men who must have been Lord Temur’s retainers. Alcibiades kept glaring at them and muttering what I had no doubt were unpleasant things under his breath.

“Your temper, my dear,” I murmured, low under my breath.

Alcibiades merely made a noise in my direction in reply—half grunt, half growl.

Lord Temur paused at the main gate to explain our destination to the guards. I bounced on the balls of my feet, eager to see the city we’d only been able to view previously from carriage windows. It had been so scintillating, those mere glimpses, the smells warm and exotic, the sounds of a foreign people going about their daily lives without realizing how absolutely and extraordinarily different they all were.

“Stop all that bobbing up and down,” Alcibiades said. “You’re giving me a headache.”

“Don’t be so sour,” I admonished him. It was time for mollifying him. “Just think of all the interesting things you’ll be able to put into your letter now.”

Alcibiades just stared at me as though trying to assess whether or not I was making a joke.

“Perhaps you might even purchase a watercolor,” I added. “To send along with your letter. A piece of the scenery, perhaps? Yana might like the memento.”

“Right.” The harsh lines of Alcibiades’ face smoothed out somewhat, making him look less monstrously cranky with the world; the whole effect made him look miraculously much younger. “I could do that, I suppose.”

“Gentlemen.” Lord Temur beckoned us and his retainers over with a regal sweep of his arm. He had such presence. “Your pardon, but the gate is open.”

A carriage—in the Ke-Han style, of course, a deep blue color that made Alcibiades snort when he saw it—awaited us.

The road from the palace stretched out for miles. All the city lay open before us. The scholars had given us maps before we left and explained that the lapis city was built with the palace as its hub, that formidable building set like a jewel in the very center of the glittering crown that was the capital. Buildings radiated outward from it like the sun’s corona, illuminating the glory of the palace itself. Closer to the palace were the larger houses, set far apart from one another; these were the lords’ homes, when they were recalled from duty to sojourn at the palace. The farther from the palace you traveled, the closer together the houses grew until, just in the distance, I could glimpse the cramped quarters of the town, the circumference of a great hexagon, which provided the framework for the entire city. The roads, the buildings, the lords’ houses, and the blossoming cherry trees were all planned down to the last seed or stone. It was nothing at all like Thremedon in Volstov, which resembled a handful of buildings flung together piecemeal and multiplying without proper planning, all scattered down the mountainside.

This was the most beautiful place I had ever seen.

At my side, Alcibiades snorted.

“Isn’t it lovely?” I said.

“That poor bastard up ahead just fell off his horse,” said Alcibiades.

So he had. I didn’t blame him, either, for as we drew closer and closer to the outer city, the streets grew more and more crowded; wealthier men, perhaps prosperous merchants, rode on horseback, while commoners scattered as we passed. Everyone bowed. It was crowded and full of noise, men recognizing one another and calling out greetings, women doing the same, or urging their children to keep up—and all completely different from the serene beauty of the palace and its environs.

I was somewhat disappointed with Alcibiades for being unable to recognize the great beauty laid out in perfect geometry before us.

“There are certain parts of the city, of course, that would be most unsuitable for our esteemed guests,” Lord Temur explained. I peered past the bamboo-curtained window of our carriage out onto the street, and saw a sprightly pickpocket flee the scene of his yet-unnoticed crime, purse in hand. “I would not dream of taking you there.”

“But what are they?” I began, perhaps too eagerly.

Alcibiades cleared his throat. “Understandable,” he said, and Lord Temur nodded.

“As it stands, my lord the Emperor would not approve of my giving our esteemed guests such a tour,” he continued. “This part of the city is not nearly of the same caliber as the palace itself, and there are places here that would shame us in your eyes. And yet…”

The carriage turned a corner, and suddenly we were up against the famed wall—passing, I noticed with some interest, a section of it that had not yet been rebuilt. A young man, dressed in common work clothes, had paused against the broken gap to pass his arm across his brow and eat a stick of fried dumplings. They smelled delicious. Perhaps Alcibiades would have enjoyed them.

Alcibiades must have caught sight of the same thing I had, now that I was holding the bamboo curtain up with one hand, and cleared his throat.

Lord Temur bowed his head, as though it were the only way to express momentary discomfort at the faux pas. “We must pass through that which is unseemly in order to come to the true artists’ district,” he explained. “There, you may see our culture as the artisans understand it. We have a wide variety of sculptors, calligraphers, and printers, and it would bring great honor to any man whose craftsmanship pleases you.”

The words, I recognized, were rehearsed, yet I was nevertheless delighted by them. So few had been chosen for this venture, and, not being a soldier or a combat magician, I would never have found the opportunity elsewhere to see these people for myself. It was better than being in a museum, for the exhibits were living and breathing, shouting from windows and bowing down as we passed by, children lunching on dumplings or chasing kittens, an old man stooped with age but laughing nevertheless.

My eyes caught Alcibiades’ in a moment of shared realization. We were so eager to watch these common people because they wore what we had so missed in our Ke-Han companions at the palace: expressions.

“Something smells good,” Alcibiades said suddenly, as though the connection unnerved him and he felt compelled to say something rude again to diminish the moment.

Lord Temur paused for a moment—his only indication, it appeared, of discomposure—then nodded in understanding. “Ah,” he said. “A street vendor. Stop the carriage.”

The two guards reined in the horses, then opened the door for us.

“After you,” Lord Temur said.

Alcibiades stepped out first, and of course completely ignored me as I held my hand out to him for assistance. Sighing—when would the man learn some decent manners?—I lifted the hem of my garment and alighted. The road beneath us was dusty, and my slippers were sure to be ruined, but it was for a worthy cause.

“Lord Alcibiades is hungry, I believe,” I explained to Lord Temur. “His palate is somewhat unrefined. He comes from the country, you see, and isn’t very adventurous when it comes to foreign spices.”

“I see,” Lord Temur said. “I, too, am from the country, but I have always enjoyed these dumplings. Perhaps Lord Alcibiades would honor this vendor by sampling them?”

“I told you,” Alcibiades began, but I silenced him effectively by offering him the delicacy in question—sticky dumplings served most cleverly on a wooden skewer.

“My lord Caius,” Lord Temur said, offering me a skewer of my own. They smelled simply heavenly, and I accepted, nibbling daintily at the one on top. They were filled with something sticky and sweet; Alcibiades was sure to approve, since after all, no fish were involved as far as I could tell.

“Good,” Alcibiades managed, after a long while of chewing, since he’d bitten three dumplings off at once.

“I believe you don’t eat the stick,” I said helpfully. The dumpling vendor, meanwhile, only looked deeply relieved, as though we had come to cart him away to the gallows and pardoned him, instead.

“If you will follow me,” Lord Temur said. He’d secured a dumpling stick of his own, and another for Alcibiades—which was quite thoughtful of him, really. “The artists’ district is very close by.”

“Well, if the art is anything like the dumplings,” Alcibiades said, apparently in a better mood now that his stomach was full. If I could have kicked him, I would have, but Lord Temur would have been sure to notice. I’d reprimand him privately later. Lord Temur was a sensitive man; the Ke-Han’s was a sensitive culture. They valued works of aesthetic beauty nearly as much as they valued a man’s strength and prowess in combat. To compare art to dumplings was the height of rudeness. While Alcibiades’ churlishness was endearing in private, it was dreadfully inappropriate before others, especially after Lord Temur had gone out of his way to take us on such a fascinating tour.

Thankfully, Lord Temur pretended not to hear him, and we carried on by foot, one retainer waiting with the carriage, the other following behind us.

The houses were built almost too close together, as though they were all vying for the most room possible, and all of them were somehow losing. Awnings overhung us, and brightly colored banners with words I could not read—it was one thing to memorize a few Ke-Han phrases and quite another to learn their complicated, pictographic alphabet—hung outside of doorways. Most important, however, was that the people were staring at us. Of course they were; we were so obviously foreigners, and Lord Temur so obviously an important member of the upper class, that they must have wondered what purpose drew the three of us there.

“The streets are too crowded to continue by carriage,” Lord Temur said. “And we must pass by one or two of the theatres. My sincere apologies.”

“But I love the theatre,” I said. “There’s nothing to apologize for. Do you think we might be able to attend a play?”

“I shall see what I am able to do,” Lord Temur said, the stilted formality of his words still betraying nothing of his emotions. “We will have performances at the palace in our esteemed guests’ honor, of course, but I sense that you in particular, Lord Caius, are searching for a more… authentic experience.”

“Exactly that,” I confirmed. “How wonderful! Is that one of the theatres?”

It was a tall, imposing building with a sloped roof, and the first one I’d seen in a while that wasn’t fighting off the crush of other buildings around it, as though all the houses on either side were making way for it. I thought it looked like a member of royalty among the commoners.

Outside the building, a few young men stood in idle, relaxed poses, looking for all the world like the images from a storybook. Hands on their hips, ebony-black hair slicked into complicated chignons, their robes far more colorful and garish than anything I’d seen at the palace, they loitered outside the entranceway with their faces painted white and their lips daubed bright red, their eyebrows thick and high. After a moment of closer inspection, I realized they were painted on for dramatic effect.

They must have been actors.

“In a manner of speaking, that is a theatre,” Lord Temur said. “But it is a common one; much too common for our esteemed guests.”

One of the actors cast a glance in our direction, indolent and slow. If he was surprised to see a nobleman guiding two foreigners down the street, it didn’t register on his face. He wore his makeup like a mask, and merely shifted his weight from one side to another. I realized then that he was deciding which one of us to rest his gaze on, and it was only then that I understood what, exactly, they were looking for.

“Oh, I see,” I said, taking Alcibiades by the arm. “Come along.”

“What?” Alcibiades asked. He still carried his stick with one lonely dumpling on it and seemed more concerned that my sudden attentions might make him drop it. “I thought you wanted to see the theatre.”

“Yes, well,” I said. He really was an infuriating man, making me explain it to him. I could tell from the way Lord Temur held his head, looking straight down the road, that he wasn’t the sort of man who required such explanations. “Another time, perhaps.”

“It’d be something to write in a letter,” Alcibiades said, like he was granting me a favor in being this interested and wasn’t instead being hideously obtuse. “Maybe I could get an autograph.”

“Hurry along, General Alcibiades,” I said, for one of the men had taken notice of him, and was smiling in an overly familiar way. He looked like a young lion stalking its prey.

“Look,” Alcibiades said, his attention drawn by irritation, as I had known it would be. “I told you not to call me General, either. What’s with this sudden relapse?”

“I’ll tell you once we have reached less… outgoing climes,” I said, and hauled determinedly on his arm until we’d passed not only the theatre, but the building that stood next to it, and the narrow, winding road that separated that from an archway hung with colorful banners.

“This is the artists’ district,” Lord Temur said. He paused, in order to give us a chance at catching up with him. His expression, as usual, betrayed nothing. I was starting to wish that my Talent was in mind reading and not visions after all, since it seemed the only way to figure out what the lords of the Ke-Han were thinking, but velikaia of such Talent were never allowed at talks such as these, for obvious reasons. My particular Talent would have come in very handy if these talks were less diplomatic—or if they needed to be coaxed along some—but until then I was compelled to keep things under wraps. A pity, since it tended to make my head a very complicated place. “Perhaps another day, I might take you to a more fitting theatre.”

“That one didn’t seem so bad,” Alcibiades said.

I made a note to take him aside later and point out that not everything was a slight at commoners, and therefore at him. I had no idea what provoked him to be so contrary all the time, but I felt certain that if I didn’t come to the root of it, it would poison all our fun in the capital. And I couldn’t have that.

“I thought we might begin at one end of the alley and work our way back along the other,” Lord Temur continued thoughtfully. “There is a great deal to see, and I would not like to think I’d neglected any small detail.”

The artists’ district was arranged much like a market in Volstov, with wooden stalls crowding in on one another and lining either side of the street. Some had the same colorful banners that I’d deduced doubled for shop signs, but others were simply bare, with nothing but wind charms and little mascots of folded paper nailed to the supports.

We stopped first at a booth that featured no signs, only a wind charm made of glass, which tinkled merrily in the breeze that whispered down the street. I thought that I recognized the shapes in it from the patterned robes worn by one of the warlords attending our diplomatic talks, but I wasn’t certain. We hadn’t brought up the topic of the Ke-Han wind magic yet, if only because it would surely bring all minds around to the broken outline of the dome, still a gaping wound in the perfectly crafted city. I’d learned in our intensive course predating our arrival that the Ke-Han did not specialize in wind but rather all four elements. They took their magic from the land itself, and perhaps the only reason we were so familiar with the wind aspect of their skills was because it had been the one we were confronted with most often. Perhaps there was something particularly easy about that one element to harness. Or, perhaps because of the dragons, they’d had enough of fire to last a lifetime, and earth was too dangerous an element to toy with high in the mountains.

Then again, I reflected, that had rarely stopped our soldiers, or so the stories had told me.

It was doubtless still a wound in the hearts of the people, as well. As it was more a symbol for the people than anything else, it was something best left out of negotiations completely, though it was the subject first and foremost on everyone’s mind.

A man dressed in short robes and leggings hurried up to the front of his stall, as if drawn by the fall of our shadows over his beloved artwork. The artist’s fingertips were stained with ink, as though he’d just been working on a new piece when we interrupted him. He wore a thick white cloth wrapped around his forehead, to keep the hair out of his eyes, and when he saw his customers were two foreigners and a lord from the palace, he stopped short, jerked to a halt by an invisible chain.

“Welcome,” the artist murmured, eyeing us warily. “Please let me know if there is anything I can help you with.”

“What did he say?” Alcibiades had the decency to lower his voice when he nudged me about it.

“He said, don’t lick the drawings, they’re made with lead paint.”

I saw Lord Temur give me a puzzled look out of the corner of his eye, and I offered him my most winning smile. It would never do to be the only man with a sense of humor in all of Xi’an. I would have to work much harder at being winning.

This particular artist’s specialty seemed to be women in teahouses, for each picture featured a beauty with porcelain skin and ruby lips, her delicate fingers curled around a cup of green tea. Their robes were as varied as the flowers in a garden, of all different colors and textures, the patterns sometimes overpowering the women beneath them so that the subject resembled nothing so much as a ghost dressed in the most extravagant finery.

Alcibiades picked one up and examined it as though he really was trying to decide whether or not to lick it, specifically because he’d been told not to. The artist watched him with keen eyes, not altogether liking his delicate prints in the hands of such a large and foreign bear. From his perspective, I couldn’t precisely blame him, since Alcibiades had the sort of hands that were clearly meant for destruction and not the careful handling of art.

“Does it remind you of dear Yana?” I asked.

He rounded on me with such sudden ferocity that for a moment I was certain the picture would be destroyed. The artist cried out plaintively, and Lord Temur cleared his throat.

“Perhaps,” he said, “it would be best to move on to another stall.”

“Fine by me,” Alcibiades muttered. He put the picture down and stuck his hands into his pockets like a child who’d been scolded.

I clucked my tongue in disapproval and threaded my arm through his in order to keep a closer eye on him. It was rather like having a large and angry pet, one whom you needed to keep on a leash at all times.

“If you will,” Lord Temur said, and he wore his peculiar version of a smile. “There is much to see yet, not to mention my own personal favorite.”

“Oh really?” I couldn’t imagine what sort of pictures would be Lord Temur’s favorite. He’d said that his family had originated in the countryside, so perhaps his inclinations favored natural landscapes? Or perhaps he would surprise us both by enjoying something more risqué. One could never tell with these Ke-Han warlords, for they kept everything hidden beneath the sash.

We stopped at countless booths, some of which did indeed seem to specialize in natural landscapes. There were drawings of the Cobalts, done all in inky blues, with the Ke-Han name for them written in their fascinating script underneath it. There were drawings of the Xi’an coastline, with trees that grew bent-backed in the wind, and fishermen who grew bent-backed from years of hauling up their nets.

My very favorite was a picture of the lapis city at springtime, every street seeming to blush with the pink of cherry blossoms, and two women standing gossiping under a parasol to ward off the sudden rain of petals.

I was horribly disappointed that we hadn’t come to Xi’an in the spring.

I glanced at Lord Temur as if to question him, but he merely shook his head. The natural landscapes were not his favorite.

Next, we came to a section of stalls that seemed entirely devoted to the supernatural. There were women with the tails of foxes, and small imps that crouched in a merchant’s carriage wheels, waiting for the perfect opportunity to send him and his wares sprawling. One booth had another ocean scene, but this one showed that the cause of the fearsome wind was a creature with golden scales that blew the fishermen round in their boats until they were forced to return to shore. I saw the picture that Alcibiades had in his room, of a water goddess with fish spilling from her dark hair.

It seemed to me that Lord Temur was much too stolid to appreciate tales of the fantastic, but since I was curious, I glanced at him again. Once more, he merely shook his head, though this time he was smiling, and I felt tremendously pleased with myself.

“This is rather like a game,” I murmured happily to Alcibiades, who was looking increasingly like one of the bored husbands you saw in the Volstov shopping district, dragged by their wives from hat shop to dress shop to hat shop again. He’d even given up trying to shake me off his arm.

“Wonder if we’ll be able to have another stop at that dumpling stand on the way back,” he said, looking suddenly hopeful at the prospect of more fried food that didn’t contain any fish whatsoever.

“Oh honestly,” I said, pouting only slightly. “You aren’t even trying to guess.”

Alcibiades sighed like a dying man. “Maybe it’s that one,” he said, indicating a stall at the very back. While most of the artists seemed to jostle for a good position, declaring their whereabouts to passersby on the streets by whatever means necessary, this stall seemed almost to cower behind the rest, hiding its wares away from potential customers. It stood half-obscured behind a booth that featured pictures of men in furs riding over a mountain range that wasn’t the Cobalts, and it featured no distinctive markings whatsoever. It was utterly plain, without even so much as a wind charm to alert one to its presence.

In fact, I was rather under the impression that if one didn’t know it was there to begin with, one wouldn’t be able to see it. Perhaps Alcibiades’ instincts weren’t to be dismissed entirely, after all.

Lord Temur turned halfway around once he’d reached it, as though beckoning us over. I felt at once that we were about to be privy to some magnificent secret, so that I was almost disappointed to see that the drawings looked very similar to the others we’d already seen. These were of people, true, and not natural landscapes or sea monsters, but I had been hoping for something more.

“That one looks like the Emperor,” said Alcibiades.

Lord Temur glanced around the street once, his eyes keen as a tiger’s, then nodded once, like a confidence among the three of us. He seemed almost pleased.

My eyes widened in delight. “You mean these are of the Emperor?”

“Some of them,” Lord Temur admitted. “It is not technically illegal, but the portraits are rather… frowned upon, in any case.”

“This one’s of that lord who’s always shouting,” said Alcibiades, pointing out an exact likeness of one of the diplomats privy to our talks, but with an exaggerated coloring—his face was painted a bright red.

There was another of Lord Ochir, who had particular skill for lisping his words, and whose head was painted onto the body of a snake. Another was of a man I recognized as Lord Kencho with a much younger woman, both subjects smiling foolishly for an unseen artist.

“Where’re you?” Alcibiades asked, looking at Lord Temur.

“Ah,” he said, in a tone that was very nearly intimate. I thought he almost sounded amused. Perhaps it was the palace itself that made the men and women in it so quiet and expressionless, and one needed only to remove them from it in order to witness a metamorphosis. “I believe there is one just there.”

I plucked it from the rest before Alcibiades could get his hands on it. The picture showed Lord Temur dressed as a country peasant, standing in the middle of a rice paddy. I thought that it was fairly mild, as far as satire went, though perhaps Lord Temur was relatively well liked among the people, and anything crueler wouldn’t have been as popular. Of the caricatures we’d seen, it was only Lord Temur and the red-faced lord who had managed to keep their dignity more or less intact.

“I think I shall buy this one,” I said. “How much is it?”

But Lord Temur was no longer paying very much attention to me. His entire focus had been caught by another sheaf of porous rice paper, freshly painted and framed in the center of the artist’s display by all the other caricatures. It was of two men, both of whom were incredibly familiar, although I had to admit it took me a few moments to recognize them: the young prince and his overzealous retainer.

Even Alcibiades didn’t have the presence of mind amidst his shock to say anything inappropriate that would spoil the glorious wonder of our discovery.

The scene depicted was a dashing one—if I hadn’t known any better, I would have thought the young prince was a hero of the people, and not a traitor who’d turned on his brother, then fled. But perhaps this artist knew something we did not. He had painted—with loving, haunting colors—the image of the young prince on a small, sleek boat, helmed by his retainer, cutting through a dark sea in the midst of an even darker night. All around them, the only splash of color was the white foam of the waves, which looked more like apparitions and ghosts than the roiling of a common ocean storm. The closer I examined the print, the better able I was to see that in the swirls of foam were sharp, accusatory features—they were, dare I even say it, almost imperial—but the expression the retainer wore was fierce and determined, and the prince, the focus of the piece, seemed to draw strength from his posture. Ultimately, I was given the unshakable feeling that the two men, though caught in the midst of a deadly maelstrom, would reach their destination—an opposite shore, which the artist had chosen, quite wisely, not to include at all.

“The Ke-Han have an interesting way of choosing their heroes,” Lord Temur said finally, breaking the silence. “I doubt they have reached the sea yet, in any case.”

Then, in an action that seemed to surprise us all—even Lord Temur himself—he swept the print in question up in one hand and crumpled it with a sudden show of animosity that rose, from nowhere, like a crushing tide.

“The cost,” I began, but he held up his hand for silence. I felt like one of the men under his command in the war, though I had no reason to; it made all the soft hair at the back of my neck stand on end.

“We must return to the palace,” Lord Temur said.

Even Alcibiades plainly felt there was to be no arguing with him. We left the prints and all of the artists’ alley behind us without purchasing anything, and without paying for the print Lord Temur had destroyed.