Jade War

Three days after the press conference, Shae took only Woon and Hami with her on a trip out of Janloon. They arrived in the village of Opia late in the afternoon. As was typical during rainy season, a thick mist had rolled off the mountains, obscuring the canopy of trees overhead and reducing visibility on the winding single-lane road that led into the township. Opia consisted of a few dozen wood and clay buildings resting at odd angles to each other, dug into tenacious positions on steep slopes. Chickens sat on the corners of low, corrugated aluminum roofs. A barefoot boy with a yellow dog stared at the three Green Bones as they stepped out of Shae’s red Cabriola LS; with a shout, he turned and ran out of sight down a narrow cobblestone path.

Woon came and stood next to her. Shae glanced at him for a little longer than usual. Ever since Hilo had teased her at the dinner table, she couldn’t help but wonder whether her brother was right, whether Woon had developed feelings for her that she’d failed to see or had dismissed as dutiful protectiveness. It was strange to see her chief of staff out of business attire and wearing a moon blade at his waist; he didn’t look like his normal, Ship Street self. Perhaps, judging from the uncertain expression in his eyes, he felt the same way looking at her.

Woon had suggested bringing some of the Horn’s people with them, but Shae had declined. She felt this was almost a personal errand, a responsibility of the Weather Man’s office. The two sides of the clan depended on each other, but there was a sense of competition between them as well.

The boy with the dog must have spread word of their arrival, because the residents of the small houses came to stand in their doorways. “Green Bones! Come see,” Shae heard the children whispering excitedly. The men and women wore plain or checkered cotton shirts and watched with silent, wary respect, touching their hands to their foreheads in salute as Shae and the two men passed. Opia seemed like a place from another time, or perhaps simply a place that time had carelessly bypassed in its relentless march. The thick fog that obscured even nearby features of the landscape made it seem all the more remote and eerie. It was hard to believe they were only a ninety-minute drive inland from the metropolis of Janloon.

Hami was turning his head from side to side, alert. With the pistol bulging under his leather jacket and the sheathed talon knife strapped to his belt, Shae could easily imagine what her Master Luckbringer had looked like as a Fist prior to his corporate career. “Seems the Mountain was telling the truth,” he said. “No other Green Bones anywhere nearby.”

Shae’s Perception told her the same thing; she stretched it this way and that through the subdued energies of the townspeople until she found the one familiar jade aura she was searching for, lying straight ahead in a brown, wooden slat house at the end of the street. There was something slightly different about it, but she could not place her finger on what.

Shae walked up to the cabin and pushed the unlocked door, which swung open on rusty hinges. She stepped into a small room lit by a single lightbulb hanging from the ceiling.

“Uncle Doru,” she said.

The former Weather Man sat in a chair beside a square folding card table in the kitchen area. He was huddled in a brown bathrobe worn over a sleeveless white undershirt and gray track pants. A girl of about thirteen, the daughter of a townsperson, Shae guessed, was bending over, pouring steaming water into a foot bath. At Shae’s entry, she gave a start and dropped the towel she’d been carrying.

“Shae-se,” Doru rasped. A smile cracked his lined face. “It’s good to see you.” He looked over her shoulder. “Ah, Hami-jen, and Woon-jen. This is much better than I expected.”

Shae turned to the girl. “Leave,” she ordered. The teenager looked to Doru uncertainly. He said, fondly, “Yes, go back to your parents, Niya-se, and thank you for all your kindness to an old Green Bone these past weeks. The watchful gods will surely shine favor on you and your family.”

The girl set down the empty water bucket and hurried out of the small house, her eyes at her feet the entire time. Shae watched her go. The knobs of the girl’s spine and the small mounds of her adolescent breasts showed under the fabric of her thin shirt.

Shae turned back to Doru. “You’re a wretch.”