Stories by Elizabeth Bear Part 16

"No tricks," I answered. "I have too much to lose."

Odin got more for his eye than I did. But I got more than I deserved.

I lifted my eye patch up.

He didn't recoil. I guess Eli Powers had seen worse things than a self-inflicted gunshot wound. He leaned forward, staring into my eye socket.

I saw him doubled, Martin's face overlaid by the ghost-visage of Eli in my otherwise sight. He reached out and laid fingertips against the side of my face like Mr. Spock setting up for a mind meld. Branka pulled back, two wobbling steps, and I think Stewart would have grabbed Powers's wrist if I hadn't stopped him with an upraised hand.

"Take it," I said, and waited to see what would follow.

There was no sensation, except where manicured fingernails scratched my cheek and the orbit of my eye. He squinted at me, and as he did so, I thought of Eli Powers, everything I knew about him, the names of his wives and children and casinos, the racketeering charges against Martin, the rumors of infidelity and Mafia involvement, the newspaper articles and photographs, the dog he had back in the sixties with the one lop ear.

The dog.

The dog with the white patch on his head.

Whose dog was that, anyway?

And then the churn and bubble, and I felt something else slip out of me. Jeff Soble, what was left of him, jumped between us like a bridging spark. When he hit, I saw Powers jerk, start for half a second before he recovered himself and gagged Soble down. The Babylon Casino. And then unrelated things. The Mirage tigers. The Zane Floyd shooting. Endless construction. Airplanes stacked twelve deep across a fight-night sky. A Sting concert with three-hundred-dollar tickets. What's-her-name, the one who sang the theme from t.i.tanic.

I fed him everything, everything I was, everything I knew. Everything about Las Vegas, city at the bottom a dead Ordovician sea. More than he could withstand. More than anything mortal could withstand, knowledge I had to die to contain. A kind of metaphysical judo, using his own strength against him, until I felt him try to pull away and fail, thrash like a gaffed fish.

Eli Powers was not used to fighting anything as old and deep and nasty as himself. But holding the deed to a dragon's cave is not the same as owning the dragon. I clutched him and fed him my city until he choked on it. I made him Las Vegas. I made him me.

I fed him more and more-a kind of spiral, sc.r.a.ping, dizzying-and then when he could swallow no more, I reached down into him and made a fist and dragged it all back out again.

Stewart grabbed Powers by the hair and shoved him away.

"Stewart-" I moved to jump in front of him, to get my body between the men with the bullets and Stewart's body. Suicide by gunman might be far enough from the intent of his gift to kill him outright. And I'm the one with the faultless luck. If one of us was going to be shot, I wanted it to be me.

He grabbed my shoulder and held me still. "Shh," he said. "Look."

I looked.

There was a man I didn't recognize, pus.h.i.+ng himself off the expensive carpeting with rug burns on his hands. Branka, arms wrapped over her cardigan, was still swaying side to side.

And a whole bunch of security guys, standing in a huddle, one gesticulating while the others listened. The quarterback glanced up, cut himself off, and at his gesture, the rest broke away. They approached sternly, but a little sideways, and I realized that they didn't know where we had come from.

"I'm sorry, sir," the one in front of me said, "but you can't be here."

Another man picked the strange guy up, stared at him with furrowed brow for a moment, and said, "Excuse me, may I see some identification, please?"

We caught a taxi in the horseshoe in front of Babylon. Security escorted us out but were nice enough not to toss us so we bounced. Branka sat in the front seat beside the driver, and Stewart let me rest my head on his shoulder while the palm trees lining the driveway scrolled past on both sides like a green-screen effect. We stopped at the light at the bottom of the driveway while a flock of tourists stampeded across, and Stewart said, "You forgot about him."

"Stewart? Forgot about who?"

He shook his head. "Never mind. I think I'd rather you didn't remember." He bent down and kissed the top of my head.

I wondered if I was drunk. I didn't like the way I felt. The taxicab was spinning.

Stewart, at least, was warm and solid, even if he was raving. "I wish you were making sense."

"I know," he said. "I was just wondering, what do you think happens to the stuff we forget? You and me. The bits of Las Vegas even we don't remember."

"I've been forgetting things lately," I said.

"That's over with."

"Does it not exist anymore, if I've forgotten it? Or is it still there, just n.o.body notices?"

He shrugged. "I bet it's still there."

Some guy lurched up the sidewalk outside, looking roughed up. His suit had been expensive; his tie was silk. They were both ripped now. I wondered if he'd gotten mugged, or bounced by casino security.

n.o.body but me seemed to notice him.

I turned away. Not my job. Not my job to notice him or rescue him. You cannot save everyone; you'll go mad trying. And anyway, it's not what cities do.

I said, "Why is it that we get so invested in our history, anyway? Why do we fight to preserve those old photographs and ancient keepsakes, just so our children can throw them away when they clear the house? We could just let go, blow wide. Be clean."

"Jackie-"

I turned my face into Stewart's shoulder and said, "I killed myself."

He nodded. "I know."

I closed my eyes. "It was nice not to remember it for a little while."

He rearranged us to put an arm around my shoulders, and I leaned into the embrace. "Memory is all we are," Stewart said softly, and reached up to stroke my hair.

Seven Dragons.

Mountains.

"Ming-feng says she saw a dragon over the bay when she went for tea three nights ago."

"Ming-feng." Chueh-hsin pressed fingertips into velvety dough and did not look at his honored customer. Tacky-surfaced circles took shape under his caress; they would soon be stuffed with aromatic ginger, with green onion and tiny shrimp and fat pork. "Your Ming-feng, Mr. Long? Her master sends her all the way around the bay for his special blend?"

"He does." The honored customer sipped his tea and smiled, bending his long neck to watch his lunch prepared. "All the way to the tea-shop by the English Governor's palace on the other side of the island. Still, the walking keeps her legs pretty."

Chueh-hsin laughed, tasting the scent of peanut and sesame oil and the tang of roasted chilies. He stopped himself from looking into the kitchen to call for a fresh pot of tea. There was no one but himself to serve the customers in the small restaurant now, and so he sighed and patted the last dumpling wrapper flat. He glanced past the honored customer, beyond the row of long-necked ducks hung dried along the edge of the awning. Chueh-hsin squinted into the light as if his gaze might pierce the soaring steel, marble, and gla.s.s towers and cross the bay to the rolling green backs of the auspicious Seven Dragons Mountains, and he might glimpse a dragon of his own.

The canyon of the street darkened, but it was no sacred animal's pa.s.sing that he noted: only the shadow of one of the ever-present dirigibles. The fountain in the restaurant behind the honored customer splashed; Chueh-hsin leaned forward, and caught a glimpse of a k.n.o.bby, jade-dark serpentine head slipping back below the surface.

Mr. Long lifted his cup on five k.n.o.bby fingers and noticed the angle of his gaze. "Are you saving that turtle for soup?"

Chueh-hsin shook his head. "Though a man may consume any beast whose back faces heaven, that turtle is not for eating," he answered, and wiped his hands on his ap.r.o.n before he went to measure the fine, curled shapes of chun mee, the tea called precious eyebrows, into a pot that he then filled with nearly boiling water. When he glanced up again, he looked at the sunlight on the caramelized skins of the ducks, at the pa.s.sers-by who would soon enter his humbly successful restaurant for a bowl of noodles or a plate of dumplings, at the softly flaking crimson paint on the timbers under the eaves. "Did Ming-feng notice what color the dragon was?"

"Yes," Mr. Long answered. "The dragon was the color of the sun and of golden jade. He had five fingers on each hand."

"An Imperial dragon," Chueh-hsin said. He tilted his head as he poured the fine, pale-green, astringent-smelling tea and noticed the jade-green head had risen above the water once more. "That must be an omen. I wonder what it means, an Imperial dragon?"

The turtle splashed as it submerged. "Perhaps it means the British will be eradicated soon," Mr. Long said, but he lowered his voice and glanced toward the door before he said it. He rattled five curved fingernails on his eggsh.e.l.l-thin teacup and smiled through long, yellow teeth.

Mr. Long stayed until the lunch crowd had emptied back out again, drinking tea and eating dumplings that seemed to have no effect on his spare frame, but at last Chueh-hsin stood between the doorposts and watched as the white-haired man bicycled away. Mr. Long held himself as erect as one of those doorposts, Chueh-hsin thought, turning his plaque to read "closed" and sighing in antic.i.p.ation of his own much-delayed meal.

A scratching sound made him turn back to the door before he had gone more than a few steps inside. Chueh-hsin squinted into the sunlight to make out the silhouette of a man in a monk's uniform, his feet dragging as he staggered with exhaustion. He found himself halfway back to the door before the name was out of his mouth. "Chueh-min! Chueh-min!"

Chueh-hsin grasped his younger brother by the shoulders, and then almost stepped back as Chueh-min clutched his wrists tight and hissed for silence.

"Not so loud, oldest brother," Chueh-min said, ducking his head under paper streamers as he hurried into the shop. He moved along the front counter, untying the strings on the bamboo shades between the restaurant and the street and letting them fall to hide the interior. Chueh-hsin stepped back against the inside counter and watched, noticing the grey mud caking his brother's sandals, the violet shadows surrounding his eyes.

Chueh-hsin bit his lips on the questions, turning his back on Chueh-min. He leaned over the counter and withdrew a red-veined ivory oval from a silk-lined basket. He knocked the preserved duck egg-from which he had already peeled the clay and ash coating-on the counter and began to lift the stained sh.e.l.l from the gelatinous white with the tip of his fingernail.

"Thousand-year-old eggs?" Chueh-min had come up alongside him. He smelled as if he'd been travelling, his hair falling in greasy tangles across his forehead.

"It's for the turtle," Chueh-hsin answered, and picked up his cleaver to cut the egg into bits.

"Have you one for your first younger brother as well, after so long away?"

Chueh-hsin turned, the cleaver in his hand, and caught Chueh-min's half-smile. "Welcome home," he said, and swept the gluey egg into a bowl. "Help yourself. I will make tea soon: Are we not brothers? Is not my wealth your wealth, and my duty your duty?"

"It is," Chueh-min said, as if the subtle reprimand had not affected him, and reached into the basket as Chueh-hsin brought the bowl to the edge of the fountain.

He picked up a bit of greenish yolk between his fingers and sank down on the lip of the fountain, letting his hand hang down so that the edge of his palm brushed the water. He waited, perfectly still, breath held, while Chueh-min rolled the second egg against the countertop. The sound of the sh.e.l.l cracking was like crazing gla.s.s; he turned his head to watch, and almost s.h.i.+vered when the turtle took advantage of his distraction to lift the bit of yolk from his fingertips. The green beak nibbled and withdrew, five tiny claws brus.h.i.+ng his skin as the reptile treaded water. Chueh-hsin lifted his hand and retrieved another fragment of egg without looking away from Chueh-min. "I notice you waited until the customers had left to approach my restaurant, first younger brother."

Chueh-min turned toward him, sucking delicately at the quivering surface of the egg. "Can you hide me until I can make it to the Governor's palace un.o.bserved?" he asked plainly, and Chueh-hsin smiled.

"It would appear, younger brother, that I already am."

Red lanterns lit the warm night; Chueh-min finally awakened from a long, hard sleep in the room behind the restaurant, after the dinner hour had pa.s.sed. Chueh-hsin served noodles and tea and sat beside his brother on the floor mat while they ate, shoulder to shoulder, in silence as if five years had not pa.s.sed.

"Where is Xiumei?" Chueh-min asked when he had finished drinking his broth. He laid his chopsticks parallel across his bowl and poured himself another cup of tea, which he held elevated on long fingers, his palms cupped face to face as if enjoying the warmth.

"She wished to return to her family," Chueh-hsin answered, which was not exactly a lie. "Where have you been for half ten years, first younger brother?"

"j.a.pan," Chueh-min answered, and Chueh-hsin started to his feet, upsetting the empty bowls. His teacup sprayed steaming liquid across the mat; it flowed close to Chueh-min, but Chueh-min did not rise.

"How can you say that so calmly?" And then Chueh-hsin blinked, and laced his fingers together before himself. "How did you manage to come back to the island, from j.a.pan?"

"I took a dirigible into Russia," Chueh-min answered. "From there to Korea, and from Korea to Taiwan."

"And thence home again? Here, and not to the Emperor?"

"Sit, eldest brother," Chueh-min admonished. "I am not a spy." He sipped his tea and rolled his shoulders in a shrug. "Or if I am, I am a loyal spy, let us rather say."

"Then why have you not been spying on the British rather than on their behalf? We have argued about this before, first younger brother."

"Because the British are the lesser evil," Chueh-min answered, and tipped his head to indicate that Chueh-hsin should sit.

And Chueh-hsin did, reaching for a cloth to dab at the spilled tea before he remembered that it was his mat, his tea, and his sleeping room. Chueh-min should have been the eldest son, he thought-not for the first time. The fountain in the restaurant splashed softly, filling the silence that lingered between them. Chueh-hsin shook his head surrept.i.tiously: no. Chueh-min would have chafed under the responsibilities of an eldest son, and Chueh-hsin was not cut out for adventure.

A man's place in the world truly was predetermined for the best, by his duty to his ancestors and his family.

"I must report to the Governor by morning," Chueh-min said, breaking Chueh-hsin from his study. "Will you help me get there?"

"It's a long way to his palace," Chueh-hsin said doubtfully. He reached out to right the eggsh.e.l.l-fine teacup, and noticed that it had cracked when he overturned it. It looked as if it would still hold tea, however, and he poured himself another cup. "We should leave immediately, if we must be there by dawn."

"Put your boots on," Chueh-min said, and set his cup aside before he stood. Chueh-hsin drank his tea in haste and followed.

A half-moon gleamed in the sky like a baroque pearl tumbled on a bed of tangled silk, and the air was as cool as silk as well. Chueh-hsin pressed his fists into his sides through the quilted cotton of his jacket, breathing deeply to ease the st.i.tch under his ribs. He was not accustomed to climbing, and his calves trembled with the effort of the road through the pa.s.ses of the Seven Dragons. The wealthy suburb where stood the Governor's palace-and several expensive tea shops-was at the very tip of the peninsula that half-encircled the bay, directly across from the city. It was usually reached by private motor ferry by those with means to take it.

The ferries did not run so late. Nor were they particularly discreet. Chueh-hsin and his brother walked.

Chueh-min was fitter, but limping in his sandals, and Chueh-hsin found himself taking his brother's elbow to help him over the steeper parts of the road. The motion made the front of Chueh-hsin's jacket swing against his breast. He felt the hard, retracted shape of the turtle in his breast pocket when it did so. He should have left her in the fountain, he knew, but it seemed somehow safer to keep her close. Two thousand-year eggs lay in his sleeve pocket, smooth and warm as beach pebbles.

He'd never been able to bear letting the turtle out of his sight for long, and now that Chueh-min had returned, the urge to keep her close was that much stronger.

"Come this way," Chueh-min said, tugging his sleeve.

"That's away from the road."

"It's faster."

"It's steeper," Chueh-hsin argued, but he turned to follow.

"If I can do it, you can do it-"

"You are the one who's limping."

"Exactly."

Chueh-hsin leaned forward, digging his toes into the soft, green earth of the mountain's flank. He released Chueh-min's arm and steadied himself, one hand on the slope before him as they climbed. The turtle never moved, still as a stone. Probably frightened to be taken from the fountain where she had spent the last five years, Chueh-hsin thought, and silently reprimanded himself for pitying her.

Chueh-min paused at the top of a dragon-backed ridge, belly down so he would not be silhouetted against the ragged, moonlit sky. Chueh-hsin crouched low beside him. They remained for a moment, panting, and Chueh-hsin put his hand on his first younger brother's shoulder.

"You are not a monk," he said.

"I am a monk," Chueh-min replied. "I also am in the service of the Governor.

"The British Governor."