Amok: An Anthology of Asia-Pacific Speculative Fiction (29 page)

“Because… because, he is your brother.”

And time stood still.

§

“Boys and men aren’t allowed in the arcane, ancient world of female healers… our interests at heart are towards women, first and foremost. I made the grave mistake of falling in love with a male I never saw again after I became pregnant. So I gave this boy up for adoption and refused to continue our female bloodline—I couldn’t risk having another boy.

“The nature of my job demands that I protect the strands of our realm from fraying at its edges. I protect our maligned, oppressed female kind. What we do, Sonal, is delicate and healers are only gifted with abilities from special lineages, like ours. I cannot have you coming to love him, the way you should a younger sibling, because he jeopardises everything you stand for as a healing mistress, trained to take over my position someday. You may hate me, but there is a greater good in why I do this. Please…”

That was the first time, through her glassy vision, that Sonal saw her mother lapse into emotional vulnerability.

To carry out your duty.

Sonal could finally understand at least a fraction of the gravity of the word.

Moments came and ran within their time stream, and finally when she gained some self-control, the Head Mistress kissed Sonal’s forehead.

She had to do it.

The next day broke into a crisp October morning. Sonal was cheerful, and gave Aditya a glass of her specially-created tea, taking him for a walk in the city park.

The tea of lemon juice, anise and a splash of strawberry.

To forget.

About Aashika Nair

Always nervous yet excited for new beginnings in life, the soon-to-be-18 Aashika can be a paradox at times. Difficult, but simple really, is how she feels one should view life. With music’s lifelong warm embrace and the written word’s true companionship, she enjoys critical thinking and solid relationships, not necessarily with the nitty-gritty aspect! Besides, with huge support and guidance from loved ones, she and her personality feel ready to pave their paths on this earth.

Caves of Noble Truth and Dangerous Knowledge

Celeste A. Peters

~ China ~

Twelve-year-old Wáng Zhēn ducked behind the nearest workbench. Wide-eyed, she watched as shards of scrap metal whizzed past the drill press, the lathe, the milling machine and her head.

She’d never seen Grandpa so furious. He’d just stormed into his workshop and started throwing things around the cave. He hadn’t even seen her in the corner. Grandpa had taught her many things, including how to remain calm when upset. Now he was exploding like Spring Festival fireworks.

Had Grandpa gone mad? Zhēn saw no one around who might have angered him. None of his inventions were missing or damaged.

When his temper fit ended, Zhēn stood. Genuine surprise showed in Grandpa’s zitan-brown eyes as he grabbed and held her tight.

Zhēn grinned. He might be one chopstick short, but she loved him dearly. She gently jabbed his upper arm. “You scared me!” A beat passed then she asked, “So, what’s wrong?”

Grandpa’s fist came down hard on the prone carcass of a steam-powered camel prototype. “That puffed up rooster! He just offered me a bribe to destroy the archive!”

“What?” Grandpa was an honourable man. He had spent his whole life protecting the family’s archive. No wonder he was angry! But who wanted it destroyed? “Who’s rooster?”

“Professor Cecil Fletcher.” Grandpa’s jaw clenched as tight as his fists.

“You mean the Englishman with the fuzzy, grey bird’s nest on each side of his face?”

“Ha! Yes!” Grandpa spit on the dirt floor. “He’s supposed to be a scholar and teacher at a big school in England; ‘Oxford’ I think he calls it.”

“But that’s stupid. Why would a scholar want to destroy the archive? Most people want to steal it.”

“I don’t know, Zhēnzhēn. But I
do
know the archive is our ancestors’ gift to the future. It’s our family’s duty and honour to guard it, so I will.”

“Hoooot!” The whistle at the archive cave!

Grandpa sprang to his feet and ran outside. Zhēn followed, her long, black pigtails bouncing and waving. Her eyes winced in the harsh midday sunlight as they sprinted along the base of a cliff dotted with hundreds of ancient caves.

Zhēn arrived breathless at a pagoda framed hole in the rock face. Inside, a tunnel led to a large cave housing a seated Buddha statue and a smaller cave containing the family archive.

Zhēn headed straight into the tunnel. Grandpa grabbed her from behind, pulled her to her knees and pinned her flush with the wall, just in time. Steam blasted across the passage from the mouth of a brass laughing Buddha perched atop the lintel of the archive’s entrance.

Startled but curious, Zhēn took a deep breath and leaned forward, peeking into the archive cave. Two scowling men, a middle-aged Brit and a massive young Asian man, were inside pinned beneath heavy chain netting.

“Aha! My trap worked,” beamed Grandpa.

Zhēn saw Grandpa press his right palm into a shallow wall indent. The steam Buddha stopped bellowing but the net remained on the two intruders.

Zhēn and Grandpa approached the captives. Zhēn sniffed the air and nodded at a can clutched in the Brit’s pinned right hand.

Grandpa said, “I see you took matters into your own hands, Professor Cecil Fletcher. And you brought along your Shànghǎi body guard, Zhòu Lì, to help out.”

Lì barked, “Release us right now, Old Head!”

Ignoring Lì, Grandpa towered over Fletcher, “You’ve made a big mistake.”

“No, Sir,” Fletcher snapped back. “You have. The only thing in this can is fuel for my lamp. You can’t prove otherwise. And if anything happens to me, my government will demand severe punishment.”

Grandpa appeared unmoved by Fletcher’s threat.

The Englishman’s eyes darted about. Then he smiled sweetly. “Will you release us if we promise not to return, Sir?”

Zhēn held her breath. Surely Grandpa wouldn’t consider such a foolish move.

“Do I have your word?” asked Grandpa.

“As a scholar and gentleman, yes,” replied Fletcher.

“If you come back, I’ll turn
you
over to the authorities. Understand?”

“Yes.”

Grandpa put his thumb under a link and lifted the net, having first engaged its counterweight with a flick of his foot.

“No!” Zhēn cried in disbelief.

Fletcher rose to his feet and popped a dent out of his brown derby. Then, nose in the air, he marched for the exit. Lì followed, casting a sneer at Zhēn.

“Why did you do that, Grandpa?”

“There might have been truth in his threat, Zhēnzhēn.”

“But you trust him to stay away?”

“A Chinese scholar would keep his word. I’d like to believe a British one would too.”

Zhēn, remembering the attempted bribe, doubted it. She wondered if Grandpa was thinking properly after all.

§

Zhēn was on edge for days afterward, watching for any hint of the Englishman’s return. Late one morning a note arrived at the workshop by messenger. Grandpa, busy at the lathe, asked Zhēn to read it aloud.

She unfolded the delicate paper on which the note was written.

“‘Sir: An explosive will go off in the archive at precisely noon today. Should you decide to risk your life seeking it, the outcome will be on your head, not mine. You are duly warned. Vacate your workshop, too. Another explosive will go off in it at the same time. Sincerely, Prof. C. Fletcher, MA, DLitt’”

“What?” How had he gotten past the archive’s guard devices? “Your workshop, too, Grandpa!”

Zhēn loved Grandpa’s inventions. Most were based on knowledge he’d found in the archive’s scrolls and several of these scrolls lay about the workshop next to unfinished projects. To imagine the archive
and
the workshop destroyed…

Zhēn cleared the tears welling in her eyes so she could read the face of the geared clepsydra standing in the corner. “It’s nearly noon!”

Grandpa was already handing her the nearest scroll. “Here. Take this. Gather up as many as you can in the next five minutes. Then
get out of here
, Zhēn! Do you understand?”

“Yes, but…”

“I’m going to the archive.”

“But you’ll be blown up!”

“Don’t worry about me, Zhēn. I’m depending on you. Save what you can here but, above all, get out before
this
cave blows or my heart will be too broken to mend.” And Grandpa vanished.

“He
has
gone crazy!” feared Zhēn as she ran from workbench to workbench gathering scrolls, sketches and Grandpa’s steam-powered nutcracker. Did she have time for the wind-up messenger pigeon too? Glancing over at the clock, she stopped short.

Zhòu Lì stood in the doorway and, like Zhēn, he held something in his arms—something big.

“Dog Fart! You’re not supposed to be here!” he shouted.

“And neither are you.” Zhēn’s heart pounded its way up her throat. “You haven’t set the explosive yet? So that was just a lie to get us out of the workshop.”

“Your weak brain is overheating, girl. Take it outside to cool off.”

“And leave you to destroy Grandpa’s inventions? Uh, uh.” Keeping her eyes on Lì, Zhēn bent down and placed her precious cargo on a shelf below the nearest workbench.

Lì likewise crouched down and unloaded his burden onto the floor. “I gave you a chance to leave, but if…”

Like a graceful mountain lion, Zhēn leapt high over a workbench and grabbed onto the closest ceiling support beam. Swinging around it she rammed her feet into the side of Lì’s head. He staggered, stunned.

Zhēn dropped to the floor, disappointed the blow hadn’t knocked him out. She needed a more powerful move. How about the dim mak strike Grandpa had taught her?

It could kill. He’d said to use it only if her life were in danger. But was it? Nothing was stopping her from leaving the cave—nothing but wanting to save Grandpa’s workshop at all costs.

Zhēn ran at Lì, her right hand pinched to a point and aimed at the side of his neck. As she threw all her strength into the jab, Lì’s left hand came up and grabbed her arm in mid strike. Her calmness training quickly forgotten, Zhēn screamed in pain and anger as he held her at arm’s length, her free arm chopping at nothing but air.

Lì threw her to the ground and put his right foot on her stomach. Wrenching a leather drive belt from a milling machine, he tied up Zhēn’s hands and feet then hung her from a pulley hook descending from the ceiling grid. She had no choice but to watch, horrified, as Lì set the explosive device’s geared timer.

§

Grandpa saw the power source for his guard devices, a boiler hidden outside the tunnel entrance, had been disabled so he entered the family’s archive with careful haste. Inside, Fletcher was kneeling over an explosive amid piles of dusty scrolls.

“Stop!”

Interrupted, Fletcher rose. “So you have decided not to heed my warning.”

“No honourable man would. Do you not understand the value of these scrolls? What they mean to me and my people?”

“Of course I do. But do
you
, Sir, understand what they mean to me and my people in Great Britain?”

Grandpa edged a few feet closer to Fletcher, wary but curious. “I suspect you could use their wisdom to your advantage. So why do you want to destroy them?”

The old man narrowed the gap a few feet more.

“You have a lot to learn about us Brits, Sir. For example, we pride ourselves on being the most technologically advanced and moral civilisation on Earth.

“I, personally, have built an excellent reputation and popular following in London by giving public lectures based on my travels. And do you know why?”

Grandpa continued his slow advance.

“Because I demonstrate the superiority of British ingenuity and technology over the primitive efforts of low-lifes like you.”

Grandpa lunged at Fletcher, but the professor deftly reached beneath his jacket and pulled a revolver from his trouser waistline. Grandpa stopped with a jerk.

“I truly do not wish to use this, Sir, but I will if I must.”

Eyes fixed on the pistol, Grandpa said, “Now I see. Your name would be dishonoured if other Englishmen learned of the knowledge contained in these scrolls.”

“Bravo, Sir!”

“You brag about British morals, yet you value your reputation above scholarship and truth. You’re truly a dishonourable man.”

Kablam
! The shockwave from a nearby explosion rocked the archive. Scrolls crashed to the floor raising a cloud of dust.

Zhēn! The workshop!

Heartbroken and furious, Grandpa kicked high and knocked the revolver from Fletcher’s hand. Fletcher scrambled for it but Grandpa grabbed him by the neck and tossed him into the air. Then, lightening fast, he reached into his apron and flung a bayonet-sharp scraper tool at the surprised man.

§

Blowing sand from nearby dunes wailed as Lì dragged Zhēn, still bound, toward the archive’s entrance. Her head hung low, weighted by shame. She’d failed to save Grandpa’s workshop and the precious scrolls inside.

But on entering Zhēn cried, “Ha!”

Grandpa was climbing out over piles of fallen scrolls while Fletcher, pinned to a ceiling beam by the collar of his tight-fitting jacket, struggled high above.

Zhēn saw Lì gasp and acted fast. Falling, she twisted and swung her body around, knocking Lì’s legs out from beneath him. In unison, Grandpa whipped another scraper from his apron and sent it flying at Lì. The tool’s rounded wooden handle struck him mid-forehead, knocking him out.

Grandpa untied Zhēn and they hugged hard, each relieved to see the other alive. Then Grandpa gently pushed Zhēn aside and, arms extended, moved his palms over Lì’s body.

“What are you doing, Grandpa?”

“Ensuring nothing can move but his head. I’ll teach you how some day.”

“Okay…” Grandpa could do that?

Lì awoke and struggled to move. Zhēn saw panic in his eyes. He addressed Grandpa with a shaky voice. “Who
are
you?”

“My name is Wáng Jié,” Grandpa said.