Something’s On the Boil

Battle Axe and Inkstone sat on low stools in Mistress Mulch’s kitchen, dividing up three silver taels’ worth of explosives packed inside a leather pouch. On the wood-fire stove a pot of wild mushrooms and ginger broth was simmering noisily.

“That is really starting to annoy me.”

“What is?”

“Never mind…just concentrate on the task at hand, alright? And don’t kill anyone – that will really get us into hot soup.”

“Hot soup?”

“I would suggest a blunt instrument like a heavy stick, no sharp edges.”

“Put your heart at ease, I actually have a little experience with this kind of thing.”

“You do?” Battle Axe felt a little tickle of curiosity work its way through the knot of nerves in her stomach. The pot in the corner boiled over with a loud blurblurb, sending a twist of steam into the air.

“Listen, the main thing is once you got the stable door open and find what you need to find, then you walk back into the courtyard very, very natural-like. Sit down in the corner where I can see you and we’ll slip out as soon as I can finish this cursed performance.”

“I would put my hair down if I were you.”

“What?”

“Yes, it looks nice like that and I think it will attract their attention more. Not that your storytelling isn’t riveting, or –“

“FINE.” Battle Axe fanned her face. “It’s so cursed hot in here. Oh, and we don’t need all of it, only a catty or so. If you take all of it then we will really be –“

“In hot soup? Put your heart at ease, sister; we’re the saplings, remember?” Inkstone grinned and slipped out the kitchen window. Battle Axe watched him saunter towards the stables at the rear of the inn, where the pullers were hustling to get their oxen fed and goods locked up tight before dinner.

“Hey!” she hissed out the window. He turned around, hands in pockets. “Stick to the plan.”

A Bit of a Let-Down

Innkeeper Baldy Pate and Mistress Mulch were holding their breath.

“We haven’t had royalty at The Porcelain Plate before, husband. Not to mention royalty of that type.”

“That we haven’t, wife.”

“It’s a double-edged sword, you know.”

“We’ll have to snap to it, wife. Snap to it.”

The sound of polished boots marching in sync signaled an arrival. Crack, the double doors swung open. Tromp, tromp, tromp an elite detachment of Cinnabar City’s Whistling Cavalry strode into the courtyard. Snap, they fell into place – an eight-man colonnade. Whoosh, they saluted. The final cavalier – so tall and secure in his scarlet robes he must have been the captain – made his entrance. And there she was, clinging to his arm: the southern princess.

The Innkeeper and his wife stared with eyes wide as winter melons.

“I thought she’d be comelier, husband.”

“I thought she’d be grander, wife. Not a solitary jewel to be seen on her entire person. Ai-ya, jump to it! Here she comes…”

Baldy Pate dragged a stone bench over to the most auspicious spot in the courtyard – overlooking the sunken goldfish pond. He reached out to dust it off with his handkerchief. The southern princess sat down on his hand. He yelped. She blushed.

Mistress Mulch scurried over with a tray of tea and lotus-seed cakes. “You’ll want something to eat, Your Highness – these mooncakes are hand-made in our very own kitchen. Oh dear, do you think can she understand me?”

The princess took up a teacup and smiled. Slender silver chains glinted from her wrists and ankles. Her hair was un-bound, and licked down her back like an autumn field afire. The almond-shaped eyes looking over the rim of her cup were ringed with circles from weeks on end bumping around on a teak litter.

Behind her the Whistling Cavalry settled down on long wooden benches, bullwhips curled at their belts. Mistress Mulch clucked like a nesting hen and the courtyard sprang to life. A little flurry of serving boys whipped round the audience, hustling copper teapots with spouts the length of a man’s leg, passing around platters of boiled peanuts, roasted chestnuts and sweet-cured pumpkin seeds.

Baldy Pate stood and rubbed his head.

“Ahem, my good guests – lovely ladies and strapping soldiers. Tonight we are thrice blessed: with your company, a warm breeze to remind you of your southern home, and the talents of a court entertainer from Pearl City. We have a fine banquet planned for later (the Porcelain Plate is not your common roadhouse). But for now, allow me to present…the Lady Silly Beryl.”

One of the cavaliers thumped on his bench half-heartedly.

Battle Axe wrapped her sapphire robes tightly round her hips, pulled her hair out of its knot and finger-combed it over her shoulders. Then, heart slamming, she stepped out into the courtyard.

The cavaliers grinned and elbowed one another.

“If she’s a Pearl City courtesan,” said one, “then I’m the Jade Lord’s moustache. I know a southerner when I see one.”

“Perhaps they recruited her on account of having such a glorious mane of hair,” said another. “That is a mighty fine head of hair.”

The southern princess giggled.

As the crowd settled in their seats Battle Axe stole a hand into her right pocket. The little brass bell she had purchased in Snaggletooth’s pawn shop was tucked inside, its clapper muffled by the silk of her robes. Then she gingerly patted her left pocket. Inside were nested 30 little crackers wrapped tight in thin rice paper – exactly what she needed for her performance, not one to spare.

Delicately, Battle Axe cleared her throat and struck a storytelling pose.

“Friends from the south, this evening I will be telling you the true but terrible tale of a noble-browed monk and his uncooperative heart.”

The princess picked up her teacup again.

“Once our world was younger than it is now. And during this time there lived a monk…”

Slow Picking

Inkstone hid behind a fat oak a distance from the stable yard, watching the ebb and flow of the caravan grunts bedding their animals for the night. He counted five ox-pullers – four of them busy carrying armfuls of straw, buckets of water, pails of feed. The fifth was dragging the last of the canvas-wrapped bundles from one of the carts lined up in the yard.

It would seem that the Porcelain Plate was hosting the entire Imperial file. The rest of the train would be watering at an inn that was cheaper, less secure, and a bit more…lively.

“Little Brother, that the last of it?” The four looked ready to rinse off their boots and head inside for a little tea, a little entertainment, and a big dinner.

The fifth grunt nodded. A slight boy, clearly the youngest of the lot, he struggled to steady the load on his back. Then, reaching out with a foot he hooked open the iron door of a small brick storeroom and disappeared inside.

So…that was the place. And, indeed, the stout windowless structure looked specially made to keep the valuable caravan goods of the Porcelain Plate’s most valued guests safe from the grubby hands of thieves.

Coming back out into the balmy evening air, the boy pulled an enormous bronze lock out of his pocket and clicked it into place. He handed the key to the tallest of the pullers, who reached out to brush a piece of straw off the boy’s shoulder.

“Little Brother, why don’t you keep first watch?”

“Whaaaat? There’s supposed to be two of us. Not to mention I had first watch last night. And second watch, and third watch. And, in fact, I’ve been doing most of the watching this whole entire time –”

“As did I my first train, as did Second Brother here and Third Brother. And Fourth Brother.” The senior pullers snickered. First Brother went on. “No matter, we get to Pearl City we’ll have a word with Master and perhaps he’ll bump you up a few places your next time around.”

From the direction of the courtyard floated over Battle Axe’s sonorant voice “…lit a bundle of incense and pleaded for the god of rain to spread his showers across the shriveled land, the dried-up sorghum stalks and…”

Little Brother cocked his head to the side. “Aw it’s Bracken and Sleet! Let’s just go in for the story, then I’ll come back and do all the watches myself. What you say?”

Inkstone’s heart skipped. Even better. Maybe there would be no need for a blunt instrument, sharp edges or no. But hurry, hurry. He had only four tries to get the door open.

“Is that how an almost-promoted ox-puller thinks? Very sorry, Little Brother. We’ll bring you something to eat in an hour or so.”

The senior pullers stomped away. Little Brother slumped onto a bench next to the storeroom door and scuffed his heels in the ground. Inkstone chewed on the inside of his cheek. Here was the first chorus already.

From his lonely post Little Brother joined in softly:

On icicle legs she walks the peaks
Her midnight gaze is wide and bleak
Her hair a wisp of silver clouds
And her frozen gown – a snowy shroud.
Boom, boom, boom,

A burst of crackers rang out, and the sharp smell of black powder filled the air.

Crack, boom, hey!

Another set of small explosions. In the stables the oxen shifted restlessly.

Time to get a move on. Inkstone picked up a stout oak branch and strode towards the most junior ox-puller in the caravan’s Imperial file.

A heartbeat later Little Brother lay on the ground, bleeding from a gash in his forehead and Inkstone was ripping strips of fabric from his robes. One he stuffed into the boy’s mouth, the others he wrapped around his wrists and ankles, binding them fast together. Then he dragged him into the stables, dumped him on a pile of straw. An ox lowed mournfully.

Inkstone sat on the bench and gingerly patted his left pocket. Inside, amongst shreds of crumbled rice paper, nested 30 blast picks packed tight in their thin metal shells. He drew a long breath through his nose, mentally cleared his 12 inner meridians, and waited.

Whipping Up Some Enthusiasm

A haze of pungent smoke drifted about the Porcelain Plate’s courtyard, and the silk lanterns nested in the kumquat trees threw out a diffused red glow. For the audience it looked like an early New Year celebration. For the storyteller it looked like a disaster.

It’s a challenge to be charming when there are nine whip-wielding thugs with their eyes fixed on you. Particularly if the chief whip-wielder is roughly twice your height and radiating a sort of shrewdness that says I know exactly what you’re up to.

During her long association with trouble and trouble-makers Battle Axe had learned a bit about Cinnabar City’s redoubtable imperial security detachment.

“Do you know why they’re called the Whistling Cavaliers?” Coriander had whispered one chilly night some time ago, when they were still squatting in the tunnels. “Because their whips make a weeeweeewee sound just before they snag you. And they got a ten-pace span. And they never miss. Our City Guard doesn’t size up, let me tell you.”

Now Battle Axe wished she hadn’t. Because the thought of a ten-pace span was making her voice stick in her throat and hands shake like young lotus leaves.

“…he saw standing before him…a little slip of a maiden, all alone…”

Another terrible thought – that last chorus she hadn’t heard a cursed thing from the direction of the stable yard. No hint whatsoever that Inkstone had made his move, and she was already approaching the second chorus.

Well then, it was time to make her move. It was time to stop talking like a farmer from the wheat fields outside Pearl City and ramp up her soft southern inflection.

“…Bracken paused on the dusty village road and looked close at the maiden…”

And it was time to toss about her southern terracotta tresses.

“…he noticed her silken hair, her delicately detached earlobes…”

Indeed, it was just the time to flutter her shoulders, lift her chin, and smile like only a southern woman could.

In the hazy red-lit glow of the Porcelain Plate’s courtyard eight whip-bearing thugs, four senior ox-pullers, two innkeepers and one southern princess sat up a little and took notice.

“By the Jade Lord’s moustache,” a cavalier whispered loudly, “I was right! Well, well, well, I do believe I’ve got a true eye for fellow citizens!”

“You’ve a true eye for feminine citizens, I remember rightly,” rasped another, spitting out a bad watermelon seed.

The cavaliers chuckled, the ox-pullers snickered, the innkeepers relaxed. And the southern princess giggled.

“…little rivulets of water running into the dusty creek bed and resting gently on the withered trees.”

This was it. Battle Axe smiled like a goddess and sucked her breath in sharply, signaling the beginning of the next chorus. But the audience needed little encouragement:

On icicle legs she walks the peaks
Her midnight gaze is wide and bleak

Everyone but the scarlet-robed Captain chimed in enthusiastically.

Her hair a wisp of silver clouds
And her frozen gown – a snowy shroud.

Battle Axe scrabbled in her left pocket for a handful of crackers. From inside her long sapphire sleeves she tossed out one, two and three.

Boom, boom, boom,

Striking the courtyard’s stone floors they sparked fiercely.

Crack, boom, hey!

The next three flew out, exploding amongst the booted feet of the cavaliers.

And what was that? The faintest of echoes; the smallest of reverberations over her right shoulder coming from the direction of the stable yard. Battle Axe’s heart jumped in her chest. It was working.

Some Reveries, Several Transitions, a Cultural Difference, and a Big Mistake

Rubbish lump of brass! Should have gone for the storeroom’s brick wall instead, but Little Din had insisted that his product was “ab-so-lute-ly ideal for locks!  In fact, I always put a little extra slickensalt into my blast picks, makes for a very hot explosion that softens the metal. Ab-so-lute-ly ideal for locks!”

And yet, a dozen explosions later the brass piece still clung cheerily to the iron door – pitted but sure.

“I’m going to lock his…” Inkstone muttered, poking around in his pocket for another handful of explosives. Time to double the firepower.

Inside the courtyard Battle Axe was working her way to the next chorus.

“…and the girl could hear a hundred thirsty villagers shout to the heavens. Bracken ran to his bell and rang it a loud hurrah, hurrah, hurrah”

Inkstone just caught the faint silvery tinkle of a brass bell as the monk cried his thanks to the gods and the silent girl looked on with her lantern eyes. Ding, ding, ding a tinkle of praise, a tinkle of joy threading its way around the stable yard, settling gently on the earthen ground and straw heaps.

Inkstone rode the thread of sound back to the first time he had heard it.

A thousand thousand steps north, in the soaring halls of the Black Warrior’s Court the same ding, ding, ding – but a very different resonance indeed. There it sounded like magic, and the storyteller was an enchanter casting his story like a spell across an audience sitting silent, reverent as acolytes.

On icicle legs she walks the peaks
Her midnight gaze is wide and bleak…

Inkstone gently rolled the coppery blast picks around on his palm. “Her frozen gown – a snowy shroud…,” he whispered. Then, with all his might he hurled them in rhythm at the door.

Boom, boom, boom.

The bricks rattled and under his feet the ground shuddered. Another round,

Crack, boom, hey!

Blast! Rubbish lump of brass.

“You are fortunate you did not meet me a year ago,” he wiggled his eyebrows at the lock, “because back then I could make even you suffer.”

Then again…suffering. Suffering is why a novice slipped out his quarters during the darkest part of the night a year ago and put his foot on the road with a solemn vow – to let his gift die within him. “It is the Black Warrior’s heritance to us, his children,” said his teacher. “We use it with wisdom, with restraint.” But Inkstone looked into the sorcerer’s eyes, hard as the lichen-covered pillars of Carapace Hall, and he knew that restraint was not enough. Only renunciation would do.

So the lock hung on the doorlatch still, vibrating from the last blast with a knowing hum. You can’t touch me, you are just a person.

On icicle legs she walks the peaks

Back in the Porcelain Plate’s courtyard Bracken had just turned into a block of ice. The last chorus, the last chance. Inkstone reached into his pocket for the dregs of his little arsenal, unwrapped the explosives and tossed the last shreds of rice paper away. They floated around the stable yard like an early snowfall.

“Boom, boom, boom, boom,” he whispered.

Redemption

Boom, boom, boom…

Battle Axe’s voice rang out on top of a merry jumble of treble and bass as the audience reveled in the untimely end of Bracken Stump, Sage of the Fourth Level and Master of Vegetarian Dumplings.

And then…BOOOM. A blast, a real explosion tucked into that tiny little pause between the last two lines of the chorus.

The Porcelain Plate’s guests froze to their seats, all eyes swung to the Inn’s white-plastered northern wall.

Just beyond that wall the oxen stood lowing in their stalls. Beyond that wall thousands of gold taels’ worth of goods bound for the Pearl City Emperor’s court lay piled up in a small brick storeroom.

A shaky silence settled over the courtyard as the imperial detachment stared from their wooden benches, still swallowed up in the story. They were utterly bewildered. All but one.

“Atteeeeention!” The scarlet-robed Captain stood, pulled the whip from his belt. Eight cavaliers stomped to their feet, hands snapped to their waists. “You four go out and inspect the stables, you two keep watch on Her Highness. And you two – detain that skinny storyteller. Something’s off.”

Battle Axe had no formal military training outside her ill-fated hand-to-hand combat lessons with Cat. What she did have was good instincts honed by twenty years scraping by in the dank miasma-ridden tunnels of the Underground City, keeping clear of the City Guard and other unsavory characters.

Scooping up all the remaining crackers in one hand she hurled them at the two cavaliers striding her way. Quick as a flash they ducked and the paper missiles flew across the courtyard, exploding at the feet of the southern princess (who was following the proceedings with great interest). She shrieked, leapt to the side and neatly fell into the goldfish pond.

Chaos broke out. Mistress Mulch flapped about the courtyard, a brood of serving boys in her wake screeching like pullets. Innkeeper Baldy Pate climbed up onto the stone bench and shouted for order. The princess sat up in the goldfish pond and picked a strand of duckweed out of her hair.

Battle Axe ducked into the kitchen, ran around the stove and reached up to pull the window open. She found herself looking straight into a pair of very sheepish eyes.

“I was just coming to get you –“ Inkstone said.

“You didn’t stick to the plan!” she screeched, wrenching the wooden pane clear of the wall and swinging a leg over the sill.

“I can’t help it! That’s how I learnt the wretched ballad,” he hollered, pulling her to the ground. “And anyway four booms is a much more sophisticated cadence.”

“Did you at least get the osmanthus bark?” Battle Axe spat out a lungful of black powder smoke.

Inkstone grinned, held up a fat oilskin bag.

Battle Axe reached for it, touched the slick stiff folds. Then she looked at her companion and smiled…like a goddess. “You carry it,” she said.

Two slight figures scuttled across the yard like embattled chipmunks. They scuttled for the towpath running along the Paragon’s western bank. A thicket of scrub oak grew along the escarpment, dividing the knobby dirt path from the high road and offering a bit of cover. They hit the towpath and headed north.

“We’re good as dead,” Battle Axe panted.

“That’s actually what I had in mind,” Inkstone puffed. “Do you want to be the priest or the corpse?”

- – – – – – – – – – – – – – -

Some of you are asking me, “when is this story going to wrap up finally?” Dear Reader, the story is the master and I am but its servant. But to answer the question…perhaps next week as my notes on the event are running thin.

//Oriole Burdee