Post by Ryan M. Danks on Nov 12, 2014 11:26:12 GMT -8
Dedication Day
by Corey Shields
Written for the 2014 RPGGeek Short Story Contest
This short story is a fiction set in the world of Jadepunk
“Watch it, kid!”
Ewan wasn’t sure if it was the large lady carrying a basket of fruit on her head or the fancy-dressed man clutching a handful of books close to his chest who yelled. Either way, Ewan ignored them. It was the only sensible thing to do, after all bumping into them or not, he had already sped past them. There was nothing more to watch out for.
Amidst the bustle of a business day in Kausao City, one would think the comings and goings of a young boy running along the cobblestone streets would go unnoticed, but Ewan had a habit of attracting attention. He was in a hurry--due home for lunch and chores--but he wanted to stop at the jadesmith’s shop before then, and the shop was out of his way in the Tuyang district.
Racing across a street before a rickshaw, Ewan jumped a pile of ox dung. A startled artisan with paint splashed across his shirt lost his balance as Ewan darted before him. Ewan turned around only enough to see the man adjust his footing to avoid the rickshaw. As he returned his focus to the steps in front of him, Ewan heard the man cry out some sort of exclamation in the Kaiyumi language which Ewan didn’t know, but from the sound of it the man had placed his foot in the ox dung. Ewan made an effort to remember the word. He couldn’t be sure it was a curse word, but he planned on using it nonetheless the next time the situation seem appropriate.
He came quickly upon the jadesmith shop, occupying the bottom floor of a long and narrow structure, well kept in its traditional appearance with an awning made out with green tiles to look like a faux roof and sliding doors opened to the public. The floors above housed people. Lots of them. Pressed in by a dumpling shop on one side and a dental clinic on the other, the only access to the back was through a narrow alley around the corner. The entry way opened directly onto a stone floor. The long workroom where much of the smithing was done stretched out before Ewan. On a raised floor to his left was a counter behind which was a tea room. A scuffle of movement deeper into the workroom drew his attention, and he noticed Petyr and, to his dismay, Raheem.
The two young men seemed surprised to see Ewan. A momentary flash of discomposure crossed Raheem’s face, but he recovered quickly with his slick-as-oil smile. Ewan paid him no more attention. Petyr, in contrast, blurted out, “Ewan? What are you doing here?”
Ewan approached, walking around bellows, ovens, water troughs, and other objects of smithing life. He noticed, just behind Petyr, Master Kodaira, his back turned as he calmly wrapped something up. Wordlessly, he carried the object to the back room. The master turned to walk around a rack of hammers, and Ewan could see clearly the long cylindrical shape of the item he held. So they had been gathered around looking at Master Kodaira’s latest creation. Ewan was sorry he didn’t arrive any earlier. He enjoyed looking at the works of Master Kodaira, who was considered one of the finest green jadesmiths in all Kausao City. Quite a feat for a Kaiyumi whose people were better known for their work with blue and white jade.
“Mother wants to know when you will come for dinner again.” It wasn’t exactly a lie. Mother often wanted to know--she just hadn’t actually sent Ewan to find out.
“Greetings, young rebel,” said Hareem in genuine fondness. Ewan winced at the reference, spoken as it was where Master Kodaira could hear. One ill-spoken comment before Hareem was all it took to earn that nickname. His mother had often cautioned him about saying things that could get one in trouble in Kausao City. He now knew what she meant, even if he was only repeating what he had heard other people in the neighborhood say about the corrupt governor.
“I don’t know. Later,” Petyr answered in a tone of finality. “I’m busy.”
Ewan stood, seeing nothing that looked like work. “How about Dedication Day? School lets out early, and mother promised to read aloud from Xiang Hu’s book.”
“I can’t. Tell her the following week.”
Hareem smiled sympathetically down at Ewan. “I’m afraid we have plans on Dedication Day.”
Master Kodaira returned from the back room, his hands emptied. He was heading to his jade cabinet where sat several smaller choice pieces of the precious material. He made no move to acknowledge Ewan.
Pretending defeat, Ewan bowed in the Kaiyumi fashion then turned and fled the shop.
Ewan was waiting in the alley when Petyr opened the back door later, bearing some small object. He dropped it in the old crate they used as a waste bin before he noticed Ewan.
“It’s about time. The waste bin is shamefully empty. Don’t you do any real work here?” Ewan rushed in, stooping.
“Ewan! You were supposed to go home!” Petyr’s voice threatened to raise, but he cast a nervous glance at the door, letting it shut.
“It’s only a dented can.” He had no right to expect more. He normally rifled through bins looking for discarded gears and small devices, but those were not the types of things normally found in a jadesmith’s waste pile. One time at this shop, however, Ewan had found an entire clockwork pommel. It was hopelessly broken, of course, but Ewan had been able to salvage several gears and springs out of it. The memory had stayed with him, and every other trip to this crate had been a disappointment.
“Put that back!”
Ewan ran his finger inside the can. It came back with a mildly glowing green substance on it. “There’s still lacquer on the sides!”
Jade could be used to make a variety of substances. Lacquer was made with a powdered jade. It didn't remotely provide the strength of solid green jade, but its use was known to increase the lifespan of certain products to which it was applied. Ewan didn't even consider keeping the meager remains of the lacquer, returning it to the crate. A child found with gears and broken toys in his pack was likely to get off with a stern warning and a cuff on his eats. A child with any amount of jade lifted from discard piles would be in greater trouble.
"I said 'put it back!'"
Ewan regarded him fixedly. "You haven't been by home lately, and when we do see you, you're hot-tempered or just quiet. You should go to Ma Shen's. Listen to her whited jade wind chimes. They’ll calm you down.” Ewan waved the can in front of Peter. “I know I'm not supposed to take jade."
Petyr bit his lip as he did when he was nervous. "You don't know anything."
Ewan's brow furrowed. "What do you mean? This is jade lacquer, right?"
Petyr froze, the color draining from his face. At first, Ewan grinned again in triumph knowing he had guessed correctly, but then his brother's face contorted in rage.
Saying nothing, Petyr tore the can out of Ewan's had in quiet fury, then, almost as an afterthought, he glanced around at the windows and down the alley. Without a farewell, he turned and went back into the shop.
Startled by the uncharacteristic transformation, Ewan stood dumbfounded. He hadn't an opportunity to even manage an apology. Instead, he turned and ran toward home.
Dedication Day had come at last. What this meant for the lower class boys and girls who attended the temple school was that they were dismissed early. Their only lessons today were early morning recital and a lecture on patience that Ewan and others were too antsy to pay attention to.
By the time he was dismissed, Ewan’s mind was firmly fixed on his destination. As he did every day, he ran through the streets, but the extra time he was given today allowed him the luxury of freedom, and with that freedom came the decision to see Petyr again. If he hurried, he might catch Petyr before he was dismissed from work and went off somewhere with Hareem.
More cutters sailed through the sky than was usual. Ewan’s friend Rupert had told him the reason was to patrol for Jianghu activity during the dedication. Ewan would occasionally see people running through the streets from city guardsmen. He always wondered if they were Jianghu or simply criminals, though Rupert had claimed to see a lady run up the side of a building to evade arrest. They had spoken in hushed tones about how cool it would be to belong to the Jianghu. To learn the martial arts that were forbidden to practice. They were careful, though, never to speak such things where they could be overheard, not even by friends. Many among the lower class would speak reverently of the Jianghu. Other times, they were cursed for being reckless or for being as corrupt as the Council of Nine. It was all very confusing for a boy. The only thing clearly understood about the Jianghu to Ewan and his friends was that they lived a life of action.
A scrawny stray cat peeked out from under a cart, looking up hopefully at Ewan, who passed by without a second glance. Nobody had time for strays in Kausao City. One of the kids from his neighborhood used to go out to throw stones at the strays. When discovered by his father, the boy received a swift smack upside his head and was given extra chores. If he had time to waste on strays, then he had time to work or study more.
Ewan slowed to a walk as he approached the shop and was surprised to find that the bamboo shutters were closed. He had always thought it strange that a green jadesmith would hide his sophisticated greed jade shutters behind typical bamboo, but Master Kodaira had always favored the old aesthetics. It didn’t matter, though, whether it was green jade or bamboo, the meanings were the same: the shop was closed.
Not one to sit and dwell on anything, a boyish curiosity suddenly overtook Ewan. He dashed off down the road, turned the corner, and entered the alley. It took him only half a minute to get to the alley entrance, and he would have gotten there sooner had he not turned the corner and bounced off a particularly obese man who shouted obscenities that Ewan already knew. He shouted the Kaiyumi word he had learned on his previous trip to the shop over his shoulder as he kept running, but he was pretty sure he said it wrong.
It only occurred to Ewan after he entered the alley that there would be no waste pile today in the crate. How could there be? The shop was closed, and the waste would have been hauled away last night. Yet, as he approached, he saw that the crate wasn't empty. Curious. That meant that someone had been at the shop earlier that morning. A quick glance, however, told him there were no cans of lacquer. Of all the important things he had dwelled upon this week, including Petyr’s strange behavior and Hareem’s constant presence, one thing he had only briefly considered was the lacquer he had found.
According to his friend Rupert, there was such a thing as cosmetic jade. Some called it poor man’s jade. It was made in lacquer form, meant to cover certain materials, but its actual jade content was very low, just enough to give off the tell-tale glow. Its value lie not in any special properties it bestowed to an object but in simply making an item look as though it were coated with jade. Assuming one could find a jadesmith who worked with the material, people could purchase such items more cheaply than their actual jade counterpart. It was nothing more than ornamental deception, though, and a true master, Rupert had told him, was said to have nothing to do with poor man’s jade.
Why, then, had there been poor man’s jade in the can he saw Petyr throw away? Was Master Kodaira practicing a dishonorable craft? Was it something Petyr was working on without the master’s knowledge? Could it be that Ewan was mistaken and that it really was a functional jade lacquer?
Ewan reached into the waste crate and pulled out one of many small strips of cloth. These, and the regular dust of a morning’s sweeping, were all he could see in the crate. What Ewan didn’t see was a single chip of red jade, no larger than a grain of salt, stuck to the back of the cloth. Nor did he have time to examine the cloth for there came a shout from the entrance to the alley.
“You there! What are you doing?”
Startled, Ewan rose quickly to his feet, dropping the cloth in his fright. It fell beside him, and when he stepped away from his incriminating act, his sandal scraped the cloth and the chip of jade roughly against the hard-packed earthen alley. Maybe there was a pebble in the way or a bit of rock embedded in the ground, because the chip struck against something and popped with surprising energy. *CRACK* The sound carried to the edge of the alley.
It looked as though the city guardsmen hadn’t decided whether one waste-rummaging kid was worth their effort, but at the sound of the obvious jade activity, they both proceeded menacingly toward Ewan. Assessing the situation, one of the guardsmen bent down to the crate and sifted quickly through the dust and scraps of cloth. He uncovered two more chips of red jade, both very small. He looked up at the building, uncertainty lining his face. Then he turned to his partner and said, “Get the watchman.”
Ewan swallowed hard. He didn’t know what just happened, but he knew there was bad trouble.
The atmosphere of the temple was very tense the following day as the students gathered for school. Ewan shuffled slowly across the courtyard to the main temple building. He could not focus on what was going on around him. That he had been released by the watchman was amazing; he had heard so many frightening things about them. But he could not shake the fact that something terrible had happened. Something to do with Petyr.
The watchman must have been in the area, for he arrived with the guardsman quickly. He was tall, bearded, and possessed an intricate blue jade tattoo about his right eye. He stared at Ewan as though he could see right through him. He saw the cloth, the red jade chips, and the green jadesmith shop, and, somehow, had made the connection that the guardsman couldn’t. They had left immediately to warn the governor, Ewan heard them say. So important was their mission that they never properly interrogated Ewan, who was left to return home. He had never run so fast.
“Ewan! Did you hear what happened?”
Rupert intercepted Ewan in the courtyard, guiding him roughly to the edge by the wall where they had a hope of talking without being overheard. The way he gripped Ewan’s arm hurt, and he was smiling, though Ewan didn’t think he was happy, just excited. Ewan shook his head, meekly, a sinking feeling forming in his stomach.
“There was an attempt on the governor’s life last night! It was the Jianghu! They tried to assassinate him!”
“How?” Ewan heard himself ask.
“The governor was going to ring the gong at the new temple. Everyone knew that. They ordered a special green jade padded hammer to be made. They tested it and everything, but the smith must have had a second one made and they were going to switch the hammers at the last moment.”
“A second hammer?”
“Yes, but it wasn’t made of green jade. It was made of red jade and painted to look like green! It wasn’t safe. If the governor had struck the gong, it would have exploded! I just wish…”
But Ewan didn’t find out what Rupert wished. One of the Pathist Priests saw them and was striding toward them to usher them to school.
Ewan could never bring himself to tell his mother that he had unintentionally played a key part in what had happened. Master Kodaira was executed publicly as a member of the Jianghu. Ewan and his mother knew nothing of Petyr or Raheem. Ewan took it as a good sign that they might have escaped out of the city, after all, wouldn’t the governor want to publicly execute as many Jianghu as he could? The old men on the streets once again cursed the recklessness of the Jianghu.
For his part, Ewan could never know whether the attempt would have succeeded or failed without him. It was possible that the forgery would have been discovered in those few hours before the gong would have been struck, but that possibility didn’t help him feel any better. The fact remained, he owed the Jianghu a debt. For his interference and for the brother he would likely never see again. And should they ever want the fastest runner in the Aerish district, he would become the young rebel for them.
by Corey Shields
Written for the 2014 RPGGeek Short Story Contest
This short story is a fiction set in the world of Jadepunk
“Watch it, kid!”
Ewan wasn’t sure if it was the large lady carrying a basket of fruit on her head or the fancy-dressed man clutching a handful of books close to his chest who yelled. Either way, Ewan ignored them. It was the only sensible thing to do, after all bumping into them or not, he had already sped past them. There was nothing more to watch out for.
Amidst the bustle of a business day in Kausao City, one would think the comings and goings of a young boy running along the cobblestone streets would go unnoticed, but Ewan had a habit of attracting attention. He was in a hurry--due home for lunch and chores--but he wanted to stop at the jadesmith’s shop before then, and the shop was out of his way in the Tuyang district.
Racing across a street before a rickshaw, Ewan jumped a pile of ox dung. A startled artisan with paint splashed across his shirt lost his balance as Ewan darted before him. Ewan turned around only enough to see the man adjust his footing to avoid the rickshaw. As he returned his focus to the steps in front of him, Ewan heard the man cry out some sort of exclamation in the Kaiyumi language which Ewan didn’t know, but from the sound of it the man had placed his foot in the ox dung. Ewan made an effort to remember the word. He couldn’t be sure it was a curse word, but he planned on using it nonetheless the next time the situation seem appropriate.
He came quickly upon the jadesmith shop, occupying the bottom floor of a long and narrow structure, well kept in its traditional appearance with an awning made out with green tiles to look like a faux roof and sliding doors opened to the public. The floors above housed people. Lots of them. Pressed in by a dumpling shop on one side and a dental clinic on the other, the only access to the back was through a narrow alley around the corner. The entry way opened directly onto a stone floor. The long workroom where much of the smithing was done stretched out before Ewan. On a raised floor to his left was a counter behind which was a tea room. A scuffle of movement deeper into the workroom drew his attention, and he noticed Petyr and, to his dismay, Raheem.
The two young men seemed surprised to see Ewan. A momentary flash of discomposure crossed Raheem’s face, but he recovered quickly with his slick-as-oil smile. Ewan paid him no more attention. Petyr, in contrast, blurted out, “Ewan? What are you doing here?”
Ewan approached, walking around bellows, ovens, water troughs, and other objects of smithing life. He noticed, just behind Petyr, Master Kodaira, his back turned as he calmly wrapped something up. Wordlessly, he carried the object to the back room. The master turned to walk around a rack of hammers, and Ewan could see clearly the long cylindrical shape of the item he held. So they had been gathered around looking at Master Kodaira’s latest creation. Ewan was sorry he didn’t arrive any earlier. He enjoyed looking at the works of Master Kodaira, who was considered one of the finest green jadesmiths in all Kausao City. Quite a feat for a Kaiyumi whose people were better known for their work with blue and white jade.
“Mother wants to know when you will come for dinner again.” It wasn’t exactly a lie. Mother often wanted to know--she just hadn’t actually sent Ewan to find out.
“Greetings, young rebel,” said Hareem in genuine fondness. Ewan winced at the reference, spoken as it was where Master Kodaira could hear. One ill-spoken comment before Hareem was all it took to earn that nickname. His mother had often cautioned him about saying things that could get one in trouble in Kausao City. He now knew what she meant, even if he was only repeating what he had heard other people in the neighborhood say about the corrupt governor.
“I don’t know. Later,” Petyr answered in a tone of finality. “I’m busy.”
Ewan stood, seeing nothing that looked like work. “How about Dedication Day? School lets out early, and mother promised to read aloud from Xiang Hu’s book.”
“I can’t. Tell her the following week.”
Hareem smiled sympathetically down at Ewan. “I’m afraid we have plans on Dedication Day.”
Master Kodaira returned from the back room, his hands emptied. He was heading to his jade cabinet where sat several smaller choice pieces of the precious material. He made no move to acknowledge Ewan.
Pretending defeat, Ewan bowed in the Kaiyumi fashion then turned and fled the shop.
Ewan was waiting in the alley when Petyr opened the back door later, bearing some small object. He dropped it in the old crate they used as a waste bin before he noticed Ewan.
“It’s about time. The waste bin is shamefully empty. Don’t you do any real work here?” Ewan rushed in, stooping.
“Ewan! You were supposed to go home!” Petyr’s voice threatened to raise, but he cast a nervous glance at the door, letting it shut.
“It’s only a dented can.” He had no right to expect more. He normally rifled through bins looking for discarded gears and small devices, but those were not the types of things normally found in a jadesmith’s waste pile. One time at this shop, however, Ewan had found an entire clockwork pommel. It was hopelessly broken, of course, but Ewan had been able to salvage several gears and springs out of it. The memory had stayed with him, and every other trip to this crate had been a disappointment.
“Put that back!”
Ewan ran his finger inside the can. It came back with a mildly glowing green substance on it. “There’s still lacquer on the sides!”
Jade could be used to make a variety of substances. Lacquer was made with a powdered jade. It didn't remotely provide the strength of solid green jade, but its use was known to increase the lifespan of certain products to which it was applied. Ewan didn't even consider keeping the meager remains of the lacquer, returning it to the crate. A child found with gears and broken toys in his pack was likely to get off with a stern warning and a cuff on his eats. A child with any amount of jade lifted from discard piles would be in greater trouble.
"I said 'put it back!'"
Ewan regarded him fixedly. "You haven't been by home lately, and when we do see you, you're hot-tempered or just quiet. You should go to Ma Shen's. Listen to her whited jade wind chimes. They’ll calm you down.” Ewan waved the can in front of Peter. “I know I'm not supposed to take jade."
Petyr bit his lip as he did when he was nervous. "You don't know anything."
Ewan's brow furrowed. "What do you mean? This is jade lacquer, right?"
Petyr froze, the color draining from his face. At first, Ewan grinned again in triumph knowing he had guessed correctly, but then his brother's face contorted in rage.
Saying nothing, Petyr tore the can out of Ewan's had in quiet fury, then, almost as an afterthought, he glanced around at the windows and down the alley. Without a farewell, he turned and went back into the shop.
Startled by the uncharacteristic transformation, Ewan stood dumbfounded. He hadn't an opportunity to even manage an apology. Instead, he turned and ran toward home.
Dedication Day had come at last. What this meant for the lower class boys and girls who attended the temple school was that they were dismissed early. Their only lessons today were early morning recital and a lecture on patience that Ewan and others were too antsy to pay attention to.
By the time he was dismissed, Ewan’s mind was firmly fixed on his destination. As he did every day, he ran through the streets, but the extra time he was given today allowed him the luxury of freedom, and with that freedom came the decision to see Petyr again. If he hurried, he might catch Petyr before he was dismissed from work and went off somewhere with Hareem.
More cutters sailed through the sky than was usual. Ewan’s friend Rupert had told him the reason was to patrol for Jianghu activity during the dedication. Ewan would occasionally see people running through the streets from city guardsmen. He always wondered if they were Jianghu or simply criminals, though Rupert had claimed to see a lady run up the side of a building to evade arrest. They had spoken in hushed tones about how cool it would be to belong to the Jianghu. To learn the martial arts that were forbidden to practice. They were careful, though, never to speak such things where they could be overheard, not even by friends. Many among the lower class would speak reverently of the Jianghu. Other times, they were cursed for being reckless or for being as corrupt as the Council of Nine. It was all very confusing for a boy. The only thing clearly understood about the Jianghu to Ewan and his friends was that they lived a life of action.
A scrawny stray cat peeked out from under a cart, looking up hopefully at Ewan, who passed by without a second glance. Nobody had time for strays in Kausao City. One of the kids from his neighborhood used to go out to throw stones at the strays. When discovered by his father, the boy received a swift smack upside his head and was given extra chores. If he had time to waste on strays, then he had time to work or study more.
Ewan slowed to a walk as he approached the shop and was surprised to find that the bamboo shutters were closed. He had always thought it strange that a green jadesmith would hide his sophisticated greed jade shutters behind typical bamboo, but Master Kodaira had always favored the old aesthetics. It didn’t matter, though, whether it was green jade or bamboo, the meanings were the same: the shop was closed.
Not one to sit and dwell on anything, a boyish curiosity suddenly overtook Ewan. He dashed off down the road, turned the corner, and entered the alley. It took him only half a minute to get to the alley entrance, and he would have gotten there sooner had he not turned the corner and bounced off a particularly obese man who shouted obscenities that Ewan already knew. He shouted the Kaiyumi word he had learned on his previous trip to the shop over his shoulder as he kept running, but he was pretty sure he said it wrong.
It only occurred to Ewan after he entered the alley that there would be no waste pile today in the crate. How could there be? The shop was closed, and the waste would have been hauled away last night. Yet, as he approached, he saw that the crate wasn't empty. Curious. That meant that someone had been at the shop earlier that morning. A quick glance, however, told him there were no cans of lacquer. Of all the important things he had dwelled upon this week, including Petyr’s strange behavior and Hareem’s constant presence, one thing he had only briefly considered was the lacquer he had found.
According to his friend Rupert, there was such a thing as cosmetic jade. Some called it poor man’s jade. It was made in lacquer form, meant to cover certain materials, but its actual jade content was very low, just enough to give off the tell-tale glow. Its value lie not in any special properties it bestowed to an object but in simply making an item look as though it were coated with jade. Assuming one could find a jadesmith who worked with the material, people could purchase such items more cheaply than their actual jade counterpart. It was nothing more than ornamental deception, though, and a true master, Rupert had told him, was said to have nothing to do with poor man’s jade.
Why, then, had there been poor man’s jade in the can he saw Petyr throw away? Was Master Kodaira practicing a dishonorable craft? Was it something Petyr was working on without the master’s knowledge? Could it be that Ewan was mistaken and that it really was a functional jade lacquer?
Ewan reached into the waste crate and pulled out one of many small strips of cloth. These, and the regular dust of a morning’s sweeping, were all he could see in the crate. What Ewan didn’t see was a single chip of red jade, no larger than a grain of salt, stuck to the back of the cloth. Nor did he have time to examine the cloth for there came a shout from the entrance to the alley.
“You there! What are you doing?”
Startled, Ewan rose quickly to his feet, dropping the cloth in his fright. It fell beside him, and when he stepped away from his incriminating act, his sandal scraped the cloth and the chip of jade roughly against the hard-packed earthen alley. Maybe there was a pebble in the way or a bit of rock embedded in the ground, because the chip struck against something and popped with surprising energy. *CRACK* The sound carried to the edge of the alley.
It looked as though the city guardsmen hadn’t decided whether one waste-rummaging kid was worth their effort, but at the sound of the obvious jade activity, they both proceeded menacingly toward Ewan. Assessing the situation, one of the guardsmen bent down to the crate and sifted quickly through the dust and scraps of cloth. He uncovered two more chips of red jade, both very small. He looked up at the building, uncertainty lining his face. Then he turned to his partner and said, “Get the watchman.”
Ewan swallowed hard. He didn’t know what just happened, but he knew there was bad trouble.
The atmosphere of the temple was very tense the following day as the students gathered for school. Ewan shuffled slowly across the courtyard to the main temple building. He could not focus on what was going on around him. That he had been released by the watchman was amazing; he had heard so many frightening things about them. But he could not shake the fact that something terrible had happened. Something to do with Petyr.
The watchman must have been in the area, for he arrived with the guardsman quickly. He was tall, bearded, and possessed an intricate blue jade tattoo about his right eye. He stared at Ewan as though he could see right through him. He saw the cloth, the red jade chips, and the green jadesmith shop, and, somehow, had made the connection that the guardsman couldn’t. They had left immediately to warn the governor, Ewan heard them say. So important was their mission that they never properly interrogated Ewan, who was left to return home. He had never run so fast.
“Ewan! Did you hear what happened?”
Rupert intercepted Ewan in the courtyard, guiding him roughly to the edge by the wall where they had a hope of talking without being overheard. The way he gripped Ewan’s arm hurt, and he was smiling, though Ewan didn’t think he was happy, just excited. Ewan shook his head, meekly, a sinking feeling forming in his stomach.
“There was an attempt on the governor’s life last night! It was the Jianghu! They tried to assassinate him!”
“How?” Ewan heard himself ask.
“The governor was going to ring the gong at the new temple. Everyone knew that. They ordered a special green jade padded hammer to be made. They tested it and everything, but the smith must have had a second one made and they were going to switch the hammers at the last moment.”
“A second hammer?”
“Yes, but it wasn’t made of green jade. It was made of red jade and painted to look like green! It wasn’t safe. If the governor had struck the gong, it would have exploded! I just wish…”
But Ewan didn’t find out what Rupert wished. One of the Pathist Priests saw them and was striding toward them to usher them to school.
Ewan could never bring himself to tell his mother that he had unintentionally played a key part in what had happened. Master Kodaira was executed publicly as a member of the Jianghu. Ewan and his mother knew nothing of Petyr or Raheem. Ewan took it as a good sign that they might have escaped out of the city, after all, wouldn’t the governor want to publicly execute as many Jianghu as he could? The old men on the streets once again cursed the recklessness of the Jianghu.
For his part, Ewan could never know whether the attempt would have succeeded or failed without him. It was possible that the forgery would have been discovered in those few hours before the gong would have been struck, but that possibility didn’t help him feel any better. The fact remained, he owed the Jianghu a debt. For his interference and for the brother he would likely never see again. And should they ever want the fastest runner in the Aerish district, he would become the young rebel for them.