The Equator in Zhulong [First Box + 1.1]

word count: 2297 words

The First Box
- it is made of wood and covered in all that is silken and melancholy-

When you wake up, the trees have already begun to bleed. They surround you, hunchbacked yet tall, one moment looking as still as tombstones, the next seeming to pierce through you with beastlike voracity. There is no end to them. They stretch out in every direction, heads wavering in the hazelike dream of it all. You look around—although you do not know how, for you have no head, nor eyes, nor neck to turn with. But the world swivels around in fantastic kaleidoscopic fashion, and you see it is small, and unruly, and always changing. The trees have no colour. You are within an empty circle—a glade, a courtyard, a centre without marked circumference.

You are alone.

But there is a boy.

You sense his presence before you see him: a tangle of limbs and swollen willow roots, eyes frigid and torn open. You do not know how you sense him, but that is beside the point. Perhaps he is in a bloodnest, you think. Perhaps he is asleep. But you have never seen eyes this cold before—cold, vacant, and silent. He is dead, you think. He is dead and there is nothing I can do. A broken metal disc is jammed against his skull, his dark hair matted and wet with blood. His limbs are impossibly twisted—bones sticking out at alarming angles like the jagged split ends of a shamisen.

But you do not know him. You have never seen this boy—animal—creature in your entire life. Or, at least, that is what you think. Strangers should not look so familiar. Whiskers net across his face, lacelike and intricate, the stuff of spider webs and sky maps. Yet if you were to touch them, you would recognize their touch; you would know the pulse were it to ring through that body, understand the thrum and trill of that rosefinch heart. You would become it, from the lacerations in the gilded black cape he wears to the delicately-carved whorls dancing across his gem-encrusted skin.

He is beautiful, you think. Looking at him, it feels like your cochlea is in your throat. Lying thick on your tongue is the smell of his sweat, sharp and citrus, holes poked in a lemon’s fleshy liver. He is beautiful, and he is dead, and there is a metal crocus at his feet. Perhaps that is what brought him here. Perhaps that is what brought you here. But you are alive; he is not, and the trees whisper to you that they will tell you your name—all your names—if you were only to move closer.

I have no body to move closer with, you whisper. The trees ripple, shrugging their shoulders in synchronisation.

That does not matter, they say. Come.

Above the boy, the sky churns like a tepid cup of chrysanthemum tea. Clouds with sunken cheeks, an upside down sun, and the crush of metal against flesh. You shiver.

Come, the trees whisper.

The acerbic smell of smoke hangs stiffly around you, the taste of burnt oranges tainting your lips. You have no lips. Ears choking against the rumble of machinery. You have no ears. Silence, then noise, then silence, all in waves. Limbs like lead.

You have no limbs.

The trees have already begun to bleed. His eyes are frigid and snow-capped. A rosefinch trills in your throat. It is not a dream. It is real. You are real. The trees are real—their swaying, their shuddering, their movements as innocuous and smooth as magicians in Jehya plays. They speak as a singular entity; they roll up their sleeves and grin slyly and pass their cards across the table. Face down, gilded in black, as still as tombstones waiting for your next move. There is no exit. There was no entrance. You have always been here despite never being here at all.

You swallow, feeling cold and clammy all over. The metal crocus glints at you from where it lies at the boy’s feet, beckoning. The willow roots tighten around his chest and you wince. The boy’s lips stretch into a dead, ruthless smile.

‘Come.’

○ One ●
Three Poisons

On the forty-fourth day of his new job, Rén received three letters. It was the third spring that the Moon Emperor had been in power, the first spring Rén had seen after the war ended.

And it was the first time he had received three letters in his name all at once.

The first letter was written on pale blue silk, every brushstroke sloping with military caution, as carefully undulating as the fields that trickled into the South Haicho Sea. This was the letter that Rén carefully hung from the lintel in his workroom, rolling it up and fixing it in place with a bell tassel. The tassel was not his—nor was the lintel it hung from, in fact, as Yesim was wont to remind him every two days—but it delighted Rén to know his letter was in such a place of importance in the old posthouse. Every morning without fail, the blue scroll would be unrolled and Rén would run downstairs to look at it—fluttering emphatically, in all its glory, like a carp bent on sailing past the crammed steel-cage houses into heaven. As far as Rén was concerned, the letter was a July promise, and promises had to be safeguarded if they were to be kept. That letter held the smell of a southern, seasoaked autumn; its rigid curvature formed shapes that Rén both loved and hated: gingko circles, red ink spilling over marble, bells brushing spiced earth and a creeping smell of incense that seemed to cling to the Water Quail's everything.

The second letter was in the form of a painting: colourful but random strokes on rice paper. This letter, Rén knew, was from Huā, and she would explain it to him when her mood demanded it, so he tucked it away in a safe crevice beneath the moveable fixtures on the floor. Hopefully none of the cleaning staff would happen upon it with their solar buzzers; Rén did not think Huā would take kindly to him facing her with a fistful of disintegrated paper.

The third—and last—letter was from the State. It was wrapped in gold letter paper—flimsy, barely thicker than the membrane on the shell of a hard-boiled egg. Rén’s fingers caught on the material as he fiddled with it, heart in throat. He swung his legs around and jumped from his perch on the main counter, hunching over to wrestle with the copper clasp wound around the scroll.

‘That’s not how you open it,’ Yesim said, peering at him from over the counter. ‘You’re supposed to unhinge the clasps, very simple—‘

Rén hissed. He had accidentally torn through the paper.

‘…mechanism.’ Yesim shrugged. ‘You might as well tear through the rest of it now.’

'I didn't want to ruin an Official scroll,' Rén said, dismayed. He placed the--mostly--dismembered scroll on the oak counter, clicking his tongue in frustration at how his nails had pierced through the gold wrap. 'Postmaster, could you...' He gestured at Yesim vaguely for help. The older man sighed. Rén saw his moustache twitch in irritation, but gave him a grateful nod when the postmaster relented.

'Heave ho,' he said, sounding remarkably enthused. 'You clamp your hand down on the table--there. And don't move.'

Rén complied. In the still-dim interior of the front lobby, his hand seemed to be suffused with an eerie, purple glow, the kind that came from within train orbital resin, and street lanterns on festival nights. Yesim worked quickly, unclasping the copper hinges. The clasp was shaped like a crow. Its legs came apart with a decisive 'click'.

Yesim tore the outer wrap of the letter from Rén's hand, tutting when his nails completely shred it into ribbons.

'That hand of yours could work as a nightlight cum weapon, you know.' Yesim rolled the still tightly-furled letter across the table towards Rén. 'Pretty crap weapon, though—people'll see it coming from a mile away.' He busied himself with arranging the ledger and other daily essentials on the table. 'Get some reinforced gauze after you're done with day duty and I'll see if I can cobble together a pair of gloves for you. That'll be ... what ... the fifth pair this month? How'd you even rip that last pair after—? Yesim paused. Rén was not listening. Instead, he seemed to be fully immersed in the contents of his letter, tongue between teeth as he read—and re-read, forehead creasing rapidly with every second.

'Hey, kid?' Yesim rapped his knuckles against the table.

'Hm?' Rén's eyes flitted upwards—then down again. His mouth twisted itself into a broad smile, quite unlike the wry grins Yesim had grown accustomed to in the past month. 'It was the fourth pair, I think. What does ordinance mean?'

'Ordinance? That's not a state-issued military order you've got there, is it?'

'No, it's—' Rén smoothed the letter out on the dark oak. His whiskers tickled the surface of the table, casting soft shadows across the high-quality paper that most Imperial State orders were issued on. Yesim cranked the settings on the desklamp to high and leaned in closer, squinting at the words. 'The calligraphy looks like typefont,' he said. 'Very neat job.'

'Want me to read it for you?' Rén asked. Yesim could not read.

'No, I'll just sit here until the letter reads itself—what did I hire you for, boy?'

'For "being an exotic specimen that will most certainly attract the curious visitation of interested clients"--or at least that's what Mr Abalone said. But, Postmaster, it says--'

Yesim slapped Rén lightly on the side of his face that was still human. 'Just because that man is a daily customer—'

'—limited by ordinance law, within Imperial vicinities. I've got to sign it and send it back, but it says I'll get a licence, Postmaster!' Rén was shivering with excitement now, his face flushed. His scales seemed to glow even brighter, changing colour quicker than Yesim's eyes could keep up. He stared at Rén dumbly for a while, slowly processing the situation. A citizenship licence. It was absurd, no matter which way you looked at it, and yet....

'Are you sure it isn't a military order?'

'No!' Yesim had rarely seen Rén ever this passionate, not in the full month since he had knocked at the door, shivering but defiant, a woman's black fur cap settled awkwardly on the singular horn that curved around both his ears. Yesim had known then, when he had taken the boy on as temporary help, that he was tough, persistent, and smart. But he had also known that bringing in a half-dragon—an illegal half-dragon bent on attaining citizenship—was a gamble.

There was no way the Imperial State would grant citizenship to a thing like that. There had to be an ulterior motive.

But Rén was ecstatic. He worked faster than usual that day, even taking on the deliveries to the Priesthood with minimal complaint. Curly whorls of energy seemed to dance along his arms and neck, the patchy mess of flesh-scale-vein on his wrists seeming to all but come together in a glorious disarray. Rén stood up taller. He smiled. Yesim stuck a new sign on the front door, even hanging up a few decorative lanterns in the window as it got dark. 'LEGAL DRAGON FOR HIRE,' the sign read. 'EFFICIENT DELIVERIES ACROSS THE PROVINCE, ANY TIME, ANYWHERE!' The few acquaintances Rén had stopped by to give their congratulations, and in the mornings Rén's blue letter would wave between the cracks in the windows like a prayer.

A week passed. Then another. The current settled. Rén began to talk about paying back his debt to Yesim eventually, even about finding a room to stay in so he wouldn't have to sleep on the floor in the workroom anymore. Yesim offered buying him a mattress and a mat, but Rén declined. 'The discomfort will remind me that I can't stay here forever,' he said.

In the streets, people pointed and whispered. It was the first time, they said, the first time a hybrid had been accepted by court, the first time that he would be issued a licence by ceremony. Rumours circulated fast. Dragonboy had ties with the Yakuza in the past, people said. He had killed several men in the war, forget the fact that he was still a child--and the Governor of Mujang had bowed to him. People said they had it on good account that the Northern Army had asserted their privelege to have him accepted by the Young Emperor. Dragonboy survived on nothing but the nectar from Changzhi leaves. During the war, though, the army had reared him on blood and flesh.

Rén largely ignored the rumours, but Yesim was quick to grow uncomfortable. Normally, Yesim was not the sort who worried, least of all about other people, but his intuition told him that he and Rén were already inextricably connected, if only by the mere association of employer and employee. When the tides washed in, they would know no difference between them. Their tongues would flick in forked sequestrations at his window. Their stiff, heaving jaws would splinter his door. Good luck meant bad luck and Fire Dogs always followed the Qilin, Yesim had heard his grandmother say. It was stuff of legend--of myth--of enamel-carved fairy tale. And fairy tales were best kept secret, hidden between ceramic lips.

On the forty-fourth day of his new job, Rén received three letters. A July promise from an old friend, a rice paper dance, and an Imperial key wound between the legs of a three-legged crow.

On the sixtieth day, the tide arrived at their door. Legs dripping in molten wax, mouth awash with foam.

He called himself Fire Dog, and he was Rén's fourth letter.