Phoenix Feather IV

Sherwood Smith

Description

The last installment of The Phoenix Feather martial arts epic, which readers are acclaiming as a spiritual cousin to The Goblin Emperor, puts the entire Afan family in action. Once hiding on an obscure island, the elders are drawn into empire affairs, the parents, in seeking their children, as the emperor seeks them. Muin's skills as a commander brings him to prominence in a terrible battle. Yskanda, imperial prisoner, transcends political boundaries through art--and comes to grip with his talents.Prince Jion, once a powerless wanderer, comes into his own as his beloved Ari inspires the world as Firebolt, before the two of them together face the most terrifying enemy of all. Inspired by the great Chinese epics such as Water Margin and Dream of Red Chamber as well as wuxia and xuanhuan series such as Nirvana in Fire and Joy of Life, the four volumes of this story sweep from the imperial military academy to wandering martial artists, from the poetic philosophizing of imperial courtiers to the everyday affairs of an innkeeper--and from the human world to the realm of the transcendent, before racing to a triumphant close.

Sujets

• Fantasy (canción de Mariah Carey)
• Fantasy

Informations

• Publié par: Book View Cafe
• Date de parution: 15 mars 2022
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781636320502
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 2 Mo

Extrait

The Phoenix Feather: Dragon and Phoenix
Sherwood Smith

Book View Café edition March 15, 2022 ISBN: 978-1-61138-050-2 Copyright © 2022 Sherwood Smith
www.bookviewcafe.com
Table of Contents
The Phoenix Feather IV: Dragon and Phoenix
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About the Author
Also by Sherwood Smith
Copyrights & Credits
About Book View Café
The Phoenix Feather IV: Dragon and Phoenix
1
To continue the Story of the Phoenix Feather, we shall visiteach of the children whose parents still treasured that gift all these yearslater, though neither had ever been sure what it really meant.
We begin with the youngest of the three: after seven yearsaway, Afan Arikanda was going home.
The knot in her heart ached as if seventy years had passedsince the day she walked so easily behind her First Brother Muinkanda onto thearmy ship and sailed north to army training. The harbor at Imai looked so muchsmaller than it had when she was ten years old!
She stood at the rail of the trader on which she’d boughtpassage as it drifted in on the tide. She scanned the harbor slowly, hungrily,noting every detail both familiar and unfamiliar—including two places where shemight rent a one-person sailboat.
She had thought hard about whom to visit first. Filial pietydictated that she ought to go to her parents, and yet she knew they would bothwant to know the latest news from Ari’s Second Brother Yskanda, serving anapprenticeship at a scribe house not far from the governor’s mansion.
Ari smoothed her sleeves and robe, then checked that thefront part of her hair was neatly bound up in its ribbon and hanging more orless orderly down her back in the style typical for young maidens. The onlypart of her appearance that might be amiss would be her battered martialartist’s boots, but the hem of her outer robe came down to the toes of thoseboots, and if she remembered to walk in small steps, surely no one would noticethem.
It was habit to stride along, shoulders shifting from sideto side, a walk she’d consciously mimicked at Loyalty Fortress while she livedin the guise of a boy, until it had become her normal gait. As a small childshe had run everywhere, a shadow at her older brothers’ heels. She hadn’tlearned to dress and walk like a girl until this year, and she still thought ofthe clothes and the walk as a disguise.
She hitched her pack higher on her shoulder and lookedaround. Ayah! She spotted a girl her own age carrying a basket, head bentagainst the sea breeze coming off the ocean, and imitated her walk. Smallersteps, balance point in the hips, all as Madam Nightingale had taught her. Ariminced her way past the central square, the Justice House, and up the grandstreet with the fine stores. Master Bankan’s scribe house was here, that muchshe remembered.
The street didn’t look so grand now. Though this was harvesttime, and she had expected it to be much hotter so far south, the ship hadfinally landed after a series of violent thunderstorms. Puddles lay everywhere.The crimson of the year’s luck and fortune couplets still affixed to doorwayslooked tattered in many places. She skirted around a couple teens her own agewearing the aprons of apprentices, as they took down banners of Hungry GhostMonth.
She sketched hungry ghost wards as she passed, then forgotthem all when she saw BANKAN HOUSE.
Would Yskanda be very tall? Might he even be starting abeard? No, he wouldn’t, if he was living among people of rank, she remindedherself as she mounted the stairs to the front entrance. Young men stayedclean-shaven till they married, or were appointed to their life’s work,whichever came first in their family tradition. She could not imagine Yskandawith a large, drooping mustache, and snickered nervously.
“Greetings of the day,” a girl her own age said from behindthe counter, her gaze raking down Ari from braids to her wet hem and back upagain. The blob of light around her shimmered and fluoresced until Ariimpatiently blinked it away—at least she had learned to suppress seeing thosedistracting lights around people.
With the aura gone, Ari mentally followed the countertender’s gaze, assessing her own appearance: dark brown hair, blob facedominated by a pair of fuzzy caterpillar eyebrows, plain-woven rose-coloredrobe edged with magnolia blossoms. Hopefully she did not notice the travel packAri carried over one shoulder, with wrapped implements sticking up that couldbe anything—but were, in fact, a very old sword and the two halves of a finefighting staff made by Ghost Moon monks. Ari had sketched deflection wards onthat pack and on the weapons as well.
The counter girl’s expression reflected her assessment ofAri: not noble, which would require service obsequiousness, but not a beggar tobe booted back out, either. “What service do you seek?”
“Greetings,” Ari said, consciously going back to the localdialect. For all these years she had been speaking the common version ofImperial, first the military dialect, and then that of the gallant wanderers.“I’m looking for my brother. He should be in his last year or so ofapprenticeship. Or maybe you could tell me where he is, if not.”
“His name?”
“Afan Yskanda.”
The counter girl’s eyebrows shot upward. “Afan Yskanda?” sherepeated, and her complexion changed as she said, “Please honor us by waiting amoment while I fetch the master.”
Ari’s happy anticipation cooled to curiosity, even a littleworry. That girl hadn’t said Yskanda’s name so much as exclaimed it. Of thethree of them, eldest brother Muinkanda was expected by the entire family toachieve greatness—a phoenix feather drifting down from the sky on her parents’wedding day had augured that—but Ari had never expected anything more challengingthan spilled ink to happen to quiet, dreamy, gentle Yskanda.
A very short time later a man came out. He was dressed infour layers of silk, the sleeves not only knee length but tasseled. This couldonly be Master Bankan himself.
“My brother?” Ari asked, too worried to remember hermanners. “Did something happen to him?”
“No, esteemed Miss Afan,” the master scribe said veryquickly as his jade-ringed hands patted the air between them. “That is, yes, hehas, ah, accomplished much. Ayah! Every year’s end we receive a letter fromhim, brought by the imperial courier ship. Very proud of him, we are—theyoungest to pass the Imperial Examination in—”
“Imperial Examination?” Ari repeated, interrupting. “Don’tyou have to go to the imperial city to take it?”
Master Bankan did not like being interrupted any more thananyone else does, and he was used to the utmost respect—however, he was alsoaware that he was babbling in his shock. One of Afan Yskanda’s mysteriousfamily, after all these years?
His lips pressed into a line of displeasure, but then heforced a smile, and said soothingly, “If our honored visitor would care to seethe letters, I believe we might have saved them. I will be delighted topersonally look in our archive. If you would deign to wait in our rudimentaryvisitor’s parlor through here. Apprentice, what are you standing around for?Fetch tea—the best service—and a plate of our finest delicacies.”
“At once, Master Bankan.” The round-eyed girl sketched abow, then flitted away.
Reminded of her manners, Ari also bowed, but her habit wasthe gallant wanderer bow. “Please forgive me. I haven’t seen Yskanda since Yearof the Eagle,” Ari said earnestly.
“Quite understandable,” the master scribe said, again withthat broad smile that didn’t reach his eyes. “Please, Miss Afan—”
He gestured to a side room. Ari went in, but she didn’t sit.She stood where she was, listening to the master’s steps hurry away. She didnot trust this situation. Yskanda on the imperial island?—how was that evenpossible?
She looked around the room, which had two doors, one openinginto an inner court. She hesitated, wondering how long it would take to fetchthose letters. If they even existed? She shook her head. She had no reason tomistrust the master, except for that false smile. And that odd business aboutthe letters. Surely they would know if letters were saved or not?
He’d been talking so quickly, almost at random. It was tooeasy to imagine him leaving her to wait while he fetched . . . whom?
Always, always, there was The Story at the back of her mind,resulting in her parents becoming fugitives from a vengeful prince who now wasemperor. Emperors, she had learned to her horror, had a very long reach.
Moving quickly and quietly, she hitched her pack over hershoulder with one hand, slid open the door to the courtyard with the other, andstepped noiselessly outside. She dodged around ornamental trees, then pausedand shut her eyes, concentrating. She still had not mastered the sensing ofothers around her, save in the form of blobby lights. There was a clusternearby. She slipped that way, and heard voices through the oiled paper window.
“. . . Yskanda? Really? I thought he was a story the seniorsmade up!”
“Go look in the guest chamber if you don’t believe me.”
“Unless she’s already been rounded up by the governor’sguards.”
“Why the guards? What did Apprentice Afan do?”
“Nobody knows, but all the seniors said the imperial ferretssnatched him right off the street. It was Year of the Rooster, my first year—”
“And there’s a standing order for those with front deskduty, if anyone asks for Afan Yskanda, they are to be detained while thegovernor’s guard is summoned—”
“Miss Afan?” That came from the direction of room Ari hadjust left.
Ari glanced around, then with a practiced leap used a branchof the pine to vault to the roof. A few running steps, and she dropped into analley. Detained while the governor’s guard is summoned . A description ofher would be going out right now: girl of sixteen, wearing a rose robe, darkbrown hair worn d