Fox and Phoenix (10 page)

“That makes no sense,” I told her.

“Just so,” she replied.

As if that explained anything.

I told you she was bossy,
I said to Chen.

Chen snuffled.
You could argue with her. Explain why she's wrong
.

She's not wrong. Not really. Just
. . .
bossy.

Chen didn't even bother to answer me, but I could hear him laughing, oh so quietly.

Stupid pig-spirit,
I thought, not for the first time.

 

 

 

STILL GRUMBLING TO myself, I helped Yún pack up our belongings. The rain had eased up during the night, but as soon as we set off, it came down harder than before—a steady soaking rain that never stopped for the next ten days. No matter how much I argued, Yún refused to give up her crazy ideas. So up and downhill we slogged through the mud. The mountains turned into great looming walls of granite, streaked and capped by frozen snow, like colossal silent guards standing watch. There were days when the clouds thinned out and we could see patches of sky overhead. Other days, the clouds sank low, and our world turned into a cold, gray, wet mist, and we could hardly tell where the path ended.

We had just crossed over the pass into Snow Thunder City when sleet started to fall along with the rain. We stumbled onward, half-blinded and numb, until we came to a small inn huddled by the side of the road. It looked more like a jumble of rocks than a real inn, but at least there were stables for our pony, and pots of scalding hot tea waiting for us in the common room.

“They charge too much here,” I said. I was beating my hands together. Water streamed from my clothes, which had given up their waterproof spells a couple days before.

“We don't have much choice,” Yún replied. “We can get more money at the next
piaohao.
Your mā mÄ« arranged that—”

She broke off as the serving boy approached with a pot of butter tea. The boy filled our mugs, then held out a hand and announced the price. Twice what we'd paid at the previous place. Ignoring the choking noise I made, Yún counted out the outrageous sum into his palm.

“You say you serve good curry here,” she said. “How much?”

He named a sum three times higher than what we paid for the tea.

I gulped. Yún never flinched. “Two bowls, please. And send a third one to the stables.”

We'd lodged the griffin in the stables with our packs and pony. The innkeeper had argued at first. He didn't like monsters under his roof. It upset the customers and terrified the staff. Yún had patiently argued back that there were no other customers, and was he saying that he and his serving boy were afraid of a tiny fluffy creature? Before the innkeeper could invent a new objection, she had pulled out her purse and smiled. That ended the argument. It always did.

The serving boy apparently didn't like the griffin any more than his master did, because he scowled when she mentioned the stables. Yún silently added another coin to the pile. The boy grunted, scooped the coins into his palm, and slouched away.

“Why are you wasting money?” I hissed. We had counted our funds the night before. Even with camping in shelters, we were spending a lot more than we both expected.

“I want to make sure he gives the stew to the griffin and doesn't eat it himself. Did you see how skinny he is? He's like one of those runty trees we passed coming up the trail, the one that had lost all its needles. I wonder if the innkeeper feeds him at all.”

“I bet he does feed him. I bet he and the old man murder all their customers and eat them. That's why no one else is here.”

Yún's only answer was a snort of laughter.

We drank down our tea, wincing at its bitterness. Gradually the warmth spread to my toes and fingers. I swallowed a yawn and looked around for our serving boy and the curry. No sign of him or the innkeeper, though I heard a crash and clatter from the kitchen.

Yún unfolded one of her maps and frowned. She didn't answer my next question, so I wandered over to the windows. An icy wind leaked around the shutters. I heard a far-off booming, like the dull echo of thunder. Yún said the kingdom's name came from all the avalanches in the region. We'd have to be careful once we set off again.

I glanced over my shoulder. Yún and I were still the only ones in the common room. I pulled my talk-phone from inside my shirt. My heart tripped faster as I tapped in the special code for Princess Lian's talk-phone, the one she had entered herself the year before. Deep inside, I heard Chen snuffling—anxious—but he wisely did not say anything. He knew I'd tried this same number last week.

A weird hissing noise echoed from the talk-phone. I heard a clicking, then nothing.

Āi-āi
, where are you, Lian?

“No use,” said a voice next to my elbow.

I jumped and hurriedly tucked my talk-phone into my pocket. “What?”

The serving boy jerked his chin toward my shirt. “That. Your talk-phone.” He dumped a tray with my bowl of goat curry on the nearest table. “It's no use trying to call anyone. We got no magic flux, not until spring.”

That got my attention. “Why?”

“Don't you know? It's because—”

“
Hēi!
Boy!” shouted the innkeeper. “Get your lazy bones over here.”

The serving boy snapped his mouth shut and scurried away. The innkeeper grabbed the boy's arm and dragged him to the far corner of the common room, where the two of them squabbled at each other in low tense voices. The innkeeper glanced toward me once—his eyebrows flashed down to a point over his fleshy nose—then back to his hapless serving boy. He hissed something in a wordless undertone, and the boy scuttled away through the kitchen doors.

Nosy old man,
I thought.

He's angry,
Chen grunted.
No, he's afraid. But I don't know about what.

Chen snorted a laugh.
Maybe.

He did a quick fade from my mind, leaving me to my bowl of curry. It wasn't so bad, I thought, chewing a cautious mouthful. Whoever did the cooking knew a lot about spices. Or they'd bought a package of standard kitchen spells. But then I remembered what the serving boy said about the magic flux, and that meant no spells, pre-packaged or not. I chewed another mouthful, thinking hard. I'd heard how a magic well could go dry, or how a disturbance might alter the currents the flux followed through the air, but how could anyone predict the magic would return next spring?

I finished my curry and yawned. It was only midafternoon, but the light slanting through the shutters was dim and gray. Outside, the wind blew stronger, keening like a ghost. The inn shuddered and seemed to shrink around me. I cleared a spot in front of me and rested my head on my hands.

The next thing I knew, someone was shaking me roughly. “Kai! Kai, wake up!”

I bolted upright and nearly fell over. Yún grabbed my arm and shoved me back into my seat.

It was pitch-dark outside. We were alone in the common room, which shimmered with an eerie yellow glow from an oil lamp overhead. As Yún turned toward the light, I could see a strange wild look in her eyes. “What is it?” I whispered.

“The griffin. Come with me.”

She hustled me through the corridor that connected the inn with the stables. Even though I told myself that nothing could be wrong, Yún's urgency and the howling of the wind had infected me. My throat squeezed tight as I undid the latch and entered the stall, where we had stowed our animals and our gear.

Our pony cowered against the far wall, its dark eyes wide with reproach against us and the gods who had brought him to this terrible spot. Between us, a small feathered creature lay motionless in the straw. Next to it was a small smelly heap of half-digested stew.

My heart stopped at the sight, then lurched into motion again when the griffin stirred. “Did the serving boy—”

“I don't think so.”

It's not poisoned,
Chen said.
I would know. So would Qi.

“Poisoned or not, it's dying,” Yún said flatly. “Kai, we must leave as soon as possible. The innkeeper tells me there's a famous magical physician in the next valley, in Golden Starflower Waterfall. It's nearly on our way.”

Wind slammed against the stable. Ice water spattered the stall, and more leaked through the cracks between the bowed wooden planks. I opened my mouth, ready to say we should wait until the storm passed, but then Yún laid a gentle hand over the griffin. The beast lifted its head. It opened its beak wide, like a small chick begging to its mother.

Our little monster.

“Tomorrow,” I said. “As soon as it's light.”

“Thank you,” Yún whispered.

We packed our gear and paid the innkeeper for an early breakfast. At dawn, we set off through the sleet and freezing rain. The innkeeper himself had cooked us a breakfast and gave us directions on the fastest route into the valley. If we took the next fork heading downward, he told us, we could reach Golden Starflower Waterfall before nightfall. From there, he confirmed what Yún's map told us—that we would have an easy trek along the river road to Lang-zhou City and the border hills, where we could take the magic-powered freight lifts into the Phoenix Empire.

If Lang-zhou City still had its magic. If we didn't freeze to death in the mountains. If and if and if. I shoved those thoughts aside. Our whole journey was a chain of ifs. Like the old philosophers said, we had to forget the limits of our selves, even as we understood them.

By late morning, we reached the fork. The road split in three different directions. The main segment continued along the mountainside, a fat pale worm of stone that wriggled in and around with the hillside. A second, smaller track climbed up toward the snow caps. A few villages perched on the heights above—the inhabitants mostly goatherds, but there were wilder folk who lived in those cold heights—demon hunters, ghost trappers, and the like.

Our path was the third track, which looped down to the valley below. The sleet died off, to my everlasting gratitude. Eventually the skies cleared enough that our world changed into a glittering jewel of silver and white. We had to pick our way carefully to avoid slipping over the side into the depths below.

Hours later, we had reached a truly scary point along the path, which had narrowed as it curved around a bulge in the mountain. The wind had kicked up again, blowing a thin gruel of snow powder down from the snowfield and glaciers above. We stopped beneath a rocky overhang to rest the pony. Yún pulled out her map and checked it again. “We can reach the next way station by dark.”

“An inn?” I asked.

“No. A shelter. But at least we'll be dry and out of the wind. And I can try another spell with Xiǎo Yāo-guài.”

Then I realized she meant the griffin.

Name a thing and you promise it your heart, went the old sayings. Well, I had promised a lot of things these past few weeks.

We both lurched to our feet. The pony grumbled as I looped the reins around my arm and tugged. Yún had ventured forward a few steps. She stopped, edged back and beckoned for me to lean close.

“Did you hear something?” she whispered.

I listened.

There was a thin whistling noise—the wind singing over the knife-sharp edges of boulders cut by ice and snow. My own heartbeat thumping inside my chest. The
tick-tick-tick
of gravel sliding over the mountain face.

I hear something,
Chen said.
Another spirit. No, lots of others.

Pêng!
A ghostly spider materialized in front of us. Chen popped into sight and the two plunged over the side in battle, just as a squad of six armed men surged around the bend. I glimpsed swords in their hands. The next second, Yún and I had our belt knives out.

Yún caught the first sword near the hilt and shoved it aside. Her second knife slid from her wrist sheath. She struck. The first man fell. Yún ducked down to finish him while I fended off the next who surged forward. Inside my mind, I heard Chen's furious roars, Qi's bone-shivering cries, the rasping howl and cough of wild cats and dogs from the spirit world.

Block and slash, duck, thrust. Yún and I worked together, moving as quick as thought to keep those bright blades away. The narrow path kept them from overwhelming us, but still they had swords and we had nothing but daggers and terror. In spite of the cold, sweat rolled down my back and dripped into my eyes. I had to blink it away—I didn't dare pause to swipe my face with my hand.

“Not right,” Yún panted. “They aren't—”

“Don't talk. Save your breath.”

But she's right,
came the next thought. These men didn't fight like bandits. Their blades were expensive blue-tempered steel. Each attack and counterattack was like a dance of murder, precise and deadly.

The pony squealed and lashed out behind. I heard a meaty thump and a groan. Someone cursed in a thick southern dialect. I glanced back to see six more men scrambling down from a ledge above the trail. My stomach went cold. We could never win against so many.

No time to think about that. Yún darted forward and jabbed the nearest man. He doubled over, making a horrible gagging noise. Yún tugged at her knife, trying to work it free. Another attacker slashed at her eyes. She flung up her arm and deflected the blade. With another hard yank, she had her blade free and staggered back. At first, I thought she'd escaped unhurt, but then I saw the blood streaming from her scalp.