The Equator in Zhulong 1.2

1915 words

-

As in legend, the creature appeared twice--first to tease, and second to stay.

Yesim was the first one to see him when he came. Wrapped in an alabaster cloak of significantly rancid odour, looking devoutly human as he--it--walked up the street, carrying with it a tangible smell-cloud of crushed pines and cow shit. It was still early in the morning. Yesim had come outside for a quiet smoke, the rest of the neighbourhood still sound asleep. It was as he was refilling his pipe with tobacco that he saw, out of the corner of his eye, a sudden flash of light.

And following the flash of light--a man.

Yesim started when he saw a moustache hopping directly in front of his line of vision. He blinked, and the man's stiff facial hair gave way to a pair of rather histrionic fangs. The creature moved closer; its heels melted into candle wax, black irises dilating over human eyes until they looked like rotund fish eggs. Yesim yelped and backtracked, colliding with the door behind him. The man grinned--and like in the stories Yesim used to hear from his grandfather, where the Fire Dogs hunted the sun, disappeared.

The encounter lasted barely a minute.

All that was left behind was a small yellow crystal where the creature had stood. Yesim was so shaken up that he failed to notice it, his back still firmly pressed against the posthouse's front door. Rubbing his forehead vigorously, he stuffed his pipe into its cloth bag. Pronouncing himself unwell, he shook Rén awake, then spent the rest of the day in his office, where he puffed steadily away on his pipe and pored over the cost analyses he had checked a million times already.

Later on, it was Rén who found the crystal, twinkling in the mid-morning sun, and that is where the trouble began.

'Do you need any help with that?' Rén asked as he thudded past Yesim's door. The entire post office was an odd hodge-podge of stairs and landings, with some doors opening onto the maze of stairs itself--apparently, the building was a two-hundred-year-old war relic. Some high-ranking officer had lived here, and had designed his home as a paranoid experiment in bewilderment.

Yesim looked up from his desk, still counting numbers under his breath. '51, 52 ... no, I'm writing this out'--he waved the sheaf of papers at Rén--'in Keiyanian, so you can't help with this. I'll call you if I need translation.' He resumed his steady mantra, scribbling sums on scrap paper as he did. 'Don't you have somewhere to be, kid?'

Rén scowled. The Symbolist Gathering. 'I was hoping you'd tell me I don't need to go.'

'You don't,' Yesim said. Rén was about to crack open a smile and a 'thank you', but Yesim continued: 'Not until after you finish cleaning--I gave the work staff a day off. And'--Rén thought he heard the slightest note of tension in Yesim's voice--'make sure you lock the doors behind you. Firmly. If you forget, I cut your pay. You know the rules.'

Rén muttered blackly under his breath. He turned to leave.

'And take the signature stamp with you or attendance won't count!' Yesim yelled after him.

A loud, defiant slam echoed through the posthouse when Rén shut the office door.

It was a Saturday.

Saturday was the busiest day for post, generally, but on this specific Saturday, there was very little to do. Most services were closed--the milkman, the print shop, the digi-carpenter.Even the professional beggar who sat in the small alcove between the post office and the vehicle repair shop had clocked out early, Rén noticed as he cleaned the windows. The pop-up stores from the week-long summer festival stood flat and listless in the heat, their striped awnings and click-counters folded up like card paper props in a shadow play.

And all this because of some ridiculous Symbolist gathering in the Old City. Rén frowned. The Symbolists were a new religion--a strange occult sort, Yesim had told him last week, when they had gotten yet another order for poster-printing and delivery for 'The Gathering' as they called it. Apparently, an entire group of the Symbolist orators had demanded audience with the Emperor. And the Emperor, being young and disposed to curiosity--as well as, in Ren's opinion, just plain stupid in this respect--had allowed the group to exhibit a public demonstration of their arcane rites. 'But what's in a preacher party, really?' Yesim had said in his usual dry monotone, although Rén had noticed that his words tended to be more bitter-laced of late, especially in relation to the Moon Emperor. He dismissed Yesim's sullenness as a side-effect of the heat wave.

And--currently, Rén supposed, the fact that all print and postal services had mandatory attendance to Imperial Events was not helping his mood. Yesim disliked the idea of sermonising almost as much as Rén himself, but him being the employer, had found it easy to push the task of attendance on the half-dragon instead.

As he slung his canvas delivery bag over his shoulder, Ren caught sight of a yellow stone on the ground. It looked like a precious gem, although it could very well be a marble, for all Rén knew. He slipped the stone into his pocket anyway, making a mental note to ask around if anyone had lost it. If not--he grinned--then maybe he could pawn it off for a decent price. Slightly placated by the idea of making more money, he continued down the empty streets, towards the Old City.

A shadow followed him from close behind, unnoticed, its gait loose and flickering in the bright sun.

-

The Old City was spilling over with people by the time Rén arrived at the Phlox Gates. He squinted upwards as the crowd lunged forward; the paifang's crest glinted rose-gold in the sun, splashes of ceremonial paint still fresh over its original black. Below the crest hung an ornate engraving. A Kingdom's Path is Circular, it read. Once Divided, Once Complete. Beyond those gates was the heart of the Old City--temples with their sacred pillars, half of which were rotting away steadily, especially after the rains from the year before, but went untouched by the Imperial State. In Shi Jiāng, the idea of a renovation was tantamount to sacrilege. And so it was considered normal for wildflowers and weeds to grow around the carefully-carved stone, the actual shape of the structures disappearing beneath a thicket of leaves and petals. Vendors were clustered in all available spaces along the pillars: some held colourful, cheap-looking trinkets, whiile others sold food, and still others displayed perfume and amulets.

People were so distracted that they barely noticed a half-dragon had mixed among their ranks.

Slowly, painfully, the crowd inched towards the Imperial Pavilion: mothers hissed at their children to stay close, people swore, and an odd smell--a mix of sweat stench and oud--rose from the tangle of bodies. Rén almost instinctively tucked his hands under his arms, trying to breathe easy. He hoped he would see Huā here, perhaps assisting one of the dancers she had told him she was working for the last time they had met. Or Abalone, or even Tsutomo, a part-time civil worker whose cocky attitude always grated severely on Rén's nerves. He pulled his bamboo hat lower over his face, eyes scanning the crowd for anyone familiar.

Someone elbowed him in the face. Rén yelped. A woman, half his size, who looked over her shoulder--perhaps to apologise--and recoiled visibly when her gaze settled on Rén's face. Ducking her head, she pushed her way through the crowd as fast as it would permit her. A snarl escaped Rén's throat, almost of its own accord. Someone tapped him on the shoulder. Irritable, he shook them off. By now, he could see the curvature of the sweeping palace roof--the barest glimpse, visible only from atop the dividing wall that lay between the outer precincts and the Pavilion within.

The sun bore down on the coiling streets oppressively, like a lantern wrapped in a thick woollen blanket. It was suffocating, Rén thought. Religion was suffocating. The idea of people--all these people gathered together--everything--everything was suffocating.

What sort of 'religion' served trinket entertainment in efforts to gain followers? he thought, disgruntled. It was funny how Rén had supposed that a large '-opolis' like Tiangyedan would be free of the superstition and fantasy that religion was predisposed to in the rural south--funny, because he had seen that illusion shattered firsthand the moment he had stepped foot in the Northern Province. People tended to have very abrasive reactions to whatever they deemed even borderline 'unusual'.

And yet, Rén thought bitterly, the very arrival of an arcane Far West religion thrills their bones to the extent that it shuts half the city down. Even the airways weren't running. And now he would have to put up with it all day.

'You really need to be more attentive, Bàn Rén,' someone whispered in his ear. Rén jumped, his satchel flopping heavily against his stomach.

'Abalone,' Rén hissed, peering over his shoulder at the much-taller man. Abalone smiled at him. His greasy, slicked-back hair shone brightly in the sun, the roundness of his head reminding Rén of a doorknob. Today, the resident writer seemed to have abandoned his usual mishmash attire of unironed pants and tunic for something more formal.

Velvet.

Abalone fell into step beside him, and Rén pointed at his collar. 'That material--in summer?'

Abalone shrugged, wiping the sweat that beaded his forehead. 'I didn't think it through,' he admitted. 'What're you doing here alone? I don't suppose the Postmaster...?'

Rén shook his head.

'Ah. Then the primary difference between us'--Abalone tripped slightly--'is that I want to be here, while you do not. That should make for an interesting disparity between our perceptions of the same event.'

'I'm not letting you interview me,' Rén said shortly.

'I don't need to interview you--I'll just ask Yesim instead. Oh, hello--look over there.'

Rén followed Abalone's gaze, standing on his toes slightly so he could see over the crowd. They were very close to the Imperial Pavilion now. Through the gateway, Rén could see a huge marble-floored courtyard--and in the middle of it, a circular, slightly-raised platform. A crowd of dancers were moving slowly across it, their figures graceful and lithe against the backdrop of the Moon Palace. Rén saw Huā running around the stage, her arms full of what looked like peacock feathers; her distinctive pale hair rippled like a candleflame amongst all the other dark-haired girls in the crowd.

'Looks like this thing's going to be a big one,' Abalone said. 'Her highness is attending--there, the throne on the steps, look. My landlord was right, she does look sickly still.'

Rén snorted. 'And your theory is that the Moon Emperor is poisoning her?'

'No indeed. My theory'--Abalone raised a finger in dramatic persuasion--'is that she is slowly dying of heartbreak.'

Rén shook his head, amused. The air grew even thicker with noise as they passed through the gate into the Pavilion, where Imperial Guards ushered them into lines. One of them carried a notebook; a ream of red tassels dangled from his cap to individuate him from the rest of the common guards. This man, Rén knew, was the District Governor for Print and Post, and he was also the man closest to the Moon Emperor, whom Rén reckoned probably had a hand in many legal matters as well.