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Rin couldn’t. She had to remind herself that, despite Kitay’s absurd generosity, none of this was hers. Her only ticket into this city was through the Academy, and she’d have to work hard to keep it.
At night the marketplace lit up with lanterns, one for each vendor. Together the lanterns looked like a horde of fireflies, casting unnatural shadows on everything their light touched.
“Have you ever seen shadow puppetry?” Kitay stopped in front of a large canvas tent. A line of children stood at the entrance doling out copper shells for entrance. “I mean, it’s for little kids, but . . .”
“Great Tortoise.” Rin’s eyes widened. In Tikany, they told stories about shadow puppetry. She fished the change out of her pocket. “I got this.”
The tent was packed with rows of children. Kitay and Rin filed into the back, trying to pretend they weren’t at least five years older than the rest of the audience. At the front, a massive silk screen hung from the top of the tent, illuminated from behind with soft yellow light.
“I tell you now about the rebirth of this nation.”
The puppeteer spoke from a box beside the screen, so that even his silhouette was invisible. His voice filled the cramped tent, deep and smooth and resonant. “This is the tale of the salvation and reunion of Nikan. This is the story of the Trifecta, the three warriors of legend.”
The light behind the screen dimmed and then flared a bright scarlet hue.
“The Warrior.” The first shadow appeared on the screen: the silhouette of a man with a massive sword almost as tall as he was. He was heavily armored, with spiked pads protruding out from his shoulders. The plume on his helmet furled into the air above him.
“The Vipress.” The slender form of a woman appeared next to the Warrior. Her head tilted coquettishly to one side; her left arm bent as if she wielded something behind her back. A fan, perhaps. Or a dagger.
“And the Gatekeeper.” The Gatekeeper was the thinnest of the three, a stooped figure wrapped in robes. By his side crawled a large tortoise.
The scarlet hue of the screen faded away to a soft yellow that pulsed slowly like a heartbeat. The shadows of the Trifecta grew larger and then disappeared. A silhouette of a mountainous land appeared in their place. And the puppeteer began his story in earnest.
“Sixty-five years ago, in the wake of the First Poppy War, the people of Nikan suffered under the weight of their Federation oppressors. Nikan lay sick, feverish under the clouds of the poppy drug.” Translucent ribbons drifted up from the profile of the countryside, giving the illusion of smoke. “The people starved. Mothers sold their infants for a pound of meat, for a bolt of cloth. Fathers killed their children rather than watch them suffer. Yes, that’s right. Children just like you!
“The Nikara thought the gods had abandoned them, for how else could the barbarians from the east have wreaked such destruction upon them?”
The screen turned the same sickly yellow pallor as the cheeks of poppy addicts. A line of Nikara peasants knelt with their heads bent to the floor, as if weeping.
“The people found no protection in the Warlords. The rulers of the Twelve Provinces, once powerful, were now weak and disorganized. Preoccupied with ancient grudges, they wasted time and soldiers fighting against each other rather than uniting to drive out the invaders from Mugen. They squandered gold on drink and women. They breathed the poppy drug like air. They taxed their provinces at exorbitant rates, and gave nothing back. Even when the Federation destroyed their villages and raped their women, the Warlords did nothing. They could do nothing.
“The people prayed for heroes. They prayed for twenty years. And finally, the gods sent them.”
A silhouette of three children, hand in hand, appeared on the lower left corner of the screen. The child in the center stood taller than the rest. The one on his right had long, flowing hair. The third child, standing a little removed from the other two, had his profile turned away toward the end of the screen, as if he was looking at something the other two could not see.
“The gods did not send these heroes from the skies. Rather they chose three children—war orphans, peasants whose parents had been killed in village raids. They were born of the humblest origins. But they were meant to walk with the gods.”
The child in the center strode purposefully to the middle of the screen. The other two followed him at a distance, like he was their leader. The limbs of the shadows moved so smoothly there might have been little men in costume behind the screen, not puppets made of paper and string. Rin marveled at the technique involved, even as she was further absorbed into the story.
“When their village burned, the three children formed a pact to seek revenge against the Federation and liberate their country from the invaders, so that no more children would suffer as they had.
“They trained for many years with the monks of the Wudang temple. By the time they matured, their martial arts skills were prodigious, and they rivaled in skill fully grown men who had been training for decades. At the end of their apprenticeship, they journeyed to the top of the highest peak in all of the land: Mount Tianshan.”
A massive mountain came into view. It took up almost the entire screen; the shadows of the three heroes were minuscule beside it. But as they walked toward the mountain, the peak grew smaller and smaller, flatter and flatter, until the heroes stood on flat ground at the very top.
“There are seven thousand steps that lead up to the peak of Mount Tianshan. And at the very top, far up so high that the strongest eagle could not circle the peak, lies a temple. From that temple, the three heroes walked into the heavens and entered the Pantheon, the home of the gods.”
The three heroes now approached a gate similar to those that guarded the entrance to the Academy. The doors were twice the heroes’ height, decorated with intricately curling patterns of butterflies and tigers, and guarded by a great tortoise that bowed its head low as it let them pass.
“The first hero, strongest among his companions, was summoned by the Dragon Lord. The hero stood a head taller than his friends. His back was broad, his arms like tree trunks. He had been deemed by the gods to be the leader of the three.
“‘If I am to command the armies of Nikan, I must have a great blade,’ he said, and knelt at the feet of the Dragon Lord. The Dragon Lord bade him stand, and bestowed upon him a massive sword. Thus he became the Warrior.”
The Warrior’s figure swung the huge sword in a great arc above his head and brought it smashing downward. Sparks of red and gold light emitted from the ground where the sword struck.
“The second hero was a girl among the two men. She walked past the Dragon Lord, the Tiger Lord, and the Lion Lord, for they were gods of war and therefore gods of men. She said: ‘I am a woman, and women need different weapons than men. The woman’s place is not in the thick of battle. The woman’s battlefield is in deception and seduction.’ And she knelt before the plinth of the Snail Goddess Nüwa. The Goddess Nüwa was pleased by her words, and made the second hero as deadly as a serpent, as bewitching as the most hypnotic of snakes. Thus was born the Vipress.”
A great serpent slithered out from under the Vipress’s dress and undulated about her body, coiling upward to rest on her shoulders. The audience applauded the graceful trick of puppetry.
