Fox and Phoenix (9 page)

Not “his.” My breath came short, of a sudden.
Yún.

Yún's gaze stopped at me. She did not smile. She didn't frown. It was more like she couldn't decide how she felt either.

“Hi,” I said. My voice was barely louder than a whisper.

Yún nodded, then turned to the innkeeper. “A room, please,” she said quietly.

The innkeeper began his litany about no rooms, no rooms at all, and how all the hospitality laws in the world and its Seventy Kingdoms could not alter that fact.

Yún held up a hand. “You have stables,” she said. “Let me have a corner there, next to the pigs and goats if necessary. And tea, please—as hot as you can make it. Thank you.”

Without even waiting for his reply, she sat opposite me. “Kai. Hello.”

“How, um, did you find me?” I said.

“Jing-mei gave me your letter. It didn't make any sense . . .” She dropped her voice to an almost whisper. “It didn't make sense why or how your mother had disappeared. So I went to the palace guards, and they told me how you showed up three days before I did and reported your mother missing.” A flicker of lightning in her eyes reminded me of the storms outside. But Yún didn't go crash and thunder. She just sighed and shook her head. “Why didn't you tell me?”

“I-I was too worried to think. Then the ghost dragon king . . .”

“He told me the rest,” Yún said.

Ah, so. That explained a lot.

“But how did you know which road to take?” I asked.

A muffled squawk interrupted us. Yún's backpack rocked back and forth. She was just reaching down to the strings, when a small golden beak poked through the cloth.

“Silly monster.” Yún grabbed for the strings, but the backpack rolled away from her reach. Another, louder squawk sounded. Now everyone in the common room stopped what they were doing. The merchant hissed. The innkeeper took two quick side-steps away from the backpack and made a sign with two fingers—a gesture the old women in the Pots-and-Kettles Bazaar used whenever they saw a ghost dragon, or something equally scary. Both dogs rose onto stiff legs and growled in their throats.

A small, rumpled griffin crawled out of the pack. Quick as a curse, it launched itself toward me and bit me on the ear.

Three things happened all at the same time.

“Ow!”

“
Wa!
Monsters!”

“
Āi-ᾱi!
My clean floors!”

The innkeeper shouted. Two bear-like men thundered from the back rooms. Before I could figure out what was going on, they'd hefted me and Yún into the air. I had one glimpse of a steaming pile of griffin crap on the floor, then they'd wafted me through the common room and tossed me out the door.

I landed in a mud puddle with a
splat
.

A second later, Yún landed next to me.

“And don't ever come back,” the innkeeper shrieked.

He said more, but a burst of thunder drowned out his voice. I scrambled to my feet and ran to the door just as he slammed it shut. “Let us in!” I demanded. “Hospitality rules! You can't just—”

The door swung open. Two heavy backpacks hit me in the chest, knocking me back into the puddle. “Extraordinary circumstances!” the innkeeper shouted. “Your magic is bad for my magic!”

Yún slithered to her feet. She grabbed for my hand. I swatted her away and wiped the mud from my eyes, cursing the rain, the innkeeper. Most especially I cursed the innkeeper. All my rainproof gear was inside my packs, leaving me soaked and coated with mud. Yún herself didn't look much better. Clumps of mud stuck to her hair, and the water streamed from her clothes.
Ha-ha!
I thought, obscurely pleased.

She made another grab for my arm. That's when I saw she was laughing. Whoops and squeaks of laughter. “Stop that!” I growled.

“I'm sorry, it's just too—”

Yún whooped again and bent over.

I tried again. “We can spend the night in this toad's stables,” I said. “He can't stop us. He's lying about magic. I don't have any—”

“It's the”—Yún gulped down a breath—“the griffin, Kai.” Her voice still shook with suppressed laughter. “And don't bother with the stables. He keeps a couple of guards on watch. Besides, it's stuffed full with mules and cargo from that merchant's caravan.”

“How do you know?”

“How else? I went into his stables first.”

She whistled. A pack pony thudded toward us from the direction of the stables. Yún captured its reins. She hoisted our packs onto its back and fastened them onto the frame, alongside several other packs and bundles. The pony gave a rattling sigh, as if to complain, but when Yún rubbed its neck, it leaned against her. I felt a twinge of jealousy.

“We can make the next shelter if we hurry,” Yún said. “Where's your griffin?”

“He's not my—”

A horrible screech made my bones shiver. The griffin reappeared from nowhere and landed on top of the packs, still screeching. The pony swung its head around and snorted at the noisy creature, but it didn't shut up until Yún laid a hand over its head and murmured something that made the air tingle with magic. The pony shook its head, as though disgusted by the griffin's behavior.

Yún handed me the pony's reins. “Come on. We need to set up camp before dark.”

“Where? Yún, it's dark and wet and—”

“—and there's a way shelter two
li
from here, according to the map.”

The two
li
felt more like ten before she called a halt. It wasn't much of a campsite, I realized with a sinking stomach. A wide shoulder of dirt and rocks stuck out from the mountainside. Another, bigger hump, crowned with lots more rocks, loomed over the first one. Someone had built two crude walls out of logs to make a square, and roofed them with branches. Several pine trees huddled close to the entrance, looking as tired as I felt.

The griffin sailed into the shelter. Yún led the pony inside and started to unload the packs. “At least we have plenty of water,” she said.

“Very funny,” I said. Then I remembered how her clothes had been as dry and clean as the merchant's. Now they were wet and filthy like mine. “What happened to your magic, Smart One?”

“Oh.” She actually looked embarrassed. “I can only do that for a short while.”

“You were showing off.”

Her teeth made a white flicker in the gray light. “A little. Come on. We can build a fire and cook something hot. You'll feel better.”

I mumbled something about how I'd feel better if someone hadn't brought a certain griffin, but Yún ignored me. She ordered me to finish unloading the pony while she laid sticks and tinder from the shelter's wood supply into a neat pyramid. The wood was damp, but between a few magic drying spells and a lot of patience, Yún coaxed a fire to start. Soon we had changed out of our wet clothes and into ones that were merely damp, and the pony was happily eating warm mash.

One of the gear bags had a neat folding iron cooking grate. Yún set pots of water on the grate, then measured out rice into one and tea into a second one. She even had a packet of dried beef for the griffin, which the horrible beast flung itself upon with screeches of joy. Yún was like a street trickster pulling a gajillion things out of his hat. I nearly expected to see her pull out a monkey next.

For a while we didn't say anything. We were both too busy guzzling hot tea in between mouthfuls of rice. My toes and fingers stopped feeling numb, and my damp clothes steamed from the fire. My brain stopped churning around all the bad luck thoughts of the past few days, and I felt more hopeful.

“So what else did you bring?” I asked.

“Passports,” she said. “We won't need them in the mountains, but the Phoenix Empire is different.”

She rummaged in another pack and handed them over to me—two thin leather tubes with the usual gold-plated caps with electrical magical connectors underneath. One had my name burnt in thick characters along one side. I unscrewed that one and slid the parchment scroll into one hand.

“Are these real?” I asked.

“Yes and no,” Yún said. “Gan sneaked some of the official seals and connectors. I did the rest.” She shot me a quick glance. “I couldn't hide that you and I and your mother had left Lóng City, but I didn't want to let everyone in the palace know
where
you and I had gone. Just in case.”

Ah, yes. All those plots and schemes the ghost dragon king had mentioned.

“About my mother . . .” I swallowed and tried again. “About the tutoring shop. What did you—”

“Locked and doubled-locked,” she said. “I notified the watch that the shop's owners were away. I said you'd traveled north, to Silver Moon City, to visit family. Then I bribed the watch captain to patrol twice as often in the neighborhood. That was Danzu's advice.”

“You told
Danzu
?”

She snorted. “Of course not. He got the same story you told me. He won't believe it any more than I did, but the shop ought be safe. Jing-mei and Gan promised to check every day, too. They'll take care of the cats and make sure everything is fine. Oh, and I gave Jing-mei authorization to handle any business emergencies.”

At that, I nearly fainted. “But, but Jing-mei is an—”

“—extremely intelligent and capable young woman. Have you actually talked to her since last year?”

“Um, some. You really trust her?”

“Completely. So does Hai-feng Lo.”

I felt as though I'd walked into a magical mirror where everything had turned into its reverse. In the old folk tales, the hero always came up with some clever trick to overcome the problems of talking and fighting and thinking in reverse, but right now I didn't feel very clever. I just felt tired and faintly queasy at the thought of Jing-mei running my mother's tutoring shop.

Unless she brings you back to life,
Chen said helpfully.
Like she did the griffin.

As if the beast had heard us, the griffin hopped down from its perch and waddled over to Yún. It butted its head against her hand and keened softly. Yún smoothed back its feathers and rubbed the back of its skull. The griffin leaned into the caress, humming oddly.

The air around me trembled.

Magic. I could smell it, taste it. If I closed my eyes, I could imagine myself back in my mother's tutoring shop, with all the jumble of herbs, sharp-smelling potions, and the ever-present scent of magic. It was as if my mother had left her imprint upon me and the griffin both.

I furled the papers back into their scroll, and sealed everything into its leather case. By now I felt pretty stupid. Grateful but stupid. All those things I'd forgotten in my rush to start my journey. If Yún had not decided to chase after me . . .

“Thank you,” I said carefully. “You were very smart to make these. And to track me down. You didn't need to go to all that trouble.”

Yún's hand stilled over the griffin's head. “Your mother is my teacher, Kai. And you are my friend. Of course I want to help.”

Friend. Yes. Well, that answered another question.

“Thanks,” I mumbled.

As if by common agreement, we decided it was time for sleep. Yún packed away our passports and other papers, then checked the pony one last time. I laid out our blankets and wrapped myself up tightly in mine. The wind had died off, and the rain had turned to drizzle. Every once in a while, one of the branches of the pine trees shifted, and water cascaded over the shelter's roof and walls. A soft silvery pattering that would have soothed me any other night.

The griffin crawled over to me and poked its nose into my face.

Go away,
I thought.
You're dead.

The griffin sniffed and crawled over to Yún's side. I lay there, listening to its complaining chirps, Yún's soft murmur as she soothed the beast into quiet. I told myself I was nervous, sleeping outside, even though I knew watch-demons didn't patrol any roads outside the cities. It had nothing to do with Yún herself, lying a hand span away from me.

It took a long time before I could fall asleep.

N
OT ONLY DID YÚN BRING PASSPORTS AND GEAR, she also brought maps. Expensive maps, drawn with colored ink on thick parchment, and spelled against rain and rot and mice, just like those used by merchants. She hauled them out one by one—maps of cities and towns and wayside stations, maps that showed highways and side roads and even the tiny goat tracks criss-crossing the wild middle regions, maps for every part of the Seventy Kingdoms. Everywhere except the Phoenix Empire.

When I asked about that, she shook her head. “We'll buy those at the border. Just in case someone got curious.”

“You think someone might?”

“Yes, I do. Things are
wrong
, Kai. All kinds of wrong. I think . . .” She sent me a sidelong glance, as though she wasn't sure how I'd take her next words. “I think we ought to take some precautions.”

Precautions
was a polite weasel-word for “let's do everything my way, stupid boy.” Ever since Lóng City, I'd kept to the main highways. Yún changed all that.
Ai-ya
, did she change it. Over breakfast, she laid out a complicated zigzag route, from this side road to that one, up and down the mountains. It was like charting the wandering path of a drunken gargoyle.