Winged: A Novella (Of Two Girls) (21 page)
Read Winged: A Novella (Of Two Girls) Online
Authors: Joyce Chng
Tags: #speculative fiction, #young adult, #steampunk
princess was settling down well. Betta had gotten over the fact
that the girl could turn into something out of the stories, the
legends. But she was no
yee
naaldlooshii
. Not a malevolent skin
walker, the stuff of nightmares. Firstly,
yee naaldlooshii
were mostly male
and followed the Witchery Way, the Corpse-poison Way. Secondly, the
girl’s inner power was benign and a result from their
bloodline.
yee naaldlooshii
could
be both male and female. Males seemed to be more numerous. The
aunts instinctively came to trust the girl as she had. She had not
done any transformation, any
shifting
, for some time now. When
she first arrived, the aunts were all concerned and counseled
Betta. They had heard, as they always had, about the girl’s
phoenix-power. Their mother had brought them up on not only the
history but the stories and myths.
A
people without stories is a people without culture, without
history
, their mother would say while she
pounded corn meal and minded the sisters. There were families on
Mesa who were afraid to talk about the skin walkers, because they
feared these creatures would come after them. Mother saw no harm in
informing all the sisters. Each family, she would often add, had
their own stories of the
yee
naaldlooshii
.
Min Feng was a girl born
with a genetic
ability
. That was it. Betta was not trained in science and she could
not give a logical answer for that. As for Min Feng, she had
performed well as an apprentice, learning and observing quietly.
Asking questions when they were needed. They left the Imperial City
soon after she returned to the Phoenix Court, traveling in their
merchant freighter the
Pueblo Star
to various Alliance Planets: the Verdant
agricultural worlds to maintain cordial ties, Tertullian VI to
negotiate for olive oil, wine and coffee berries, and Solaris to
renew water treaties. The Empress Ze Tian had privately made Betta
Master Trader
and
guardian of her oldest daughter. “Watch over her,” the
Empress had said to her privately, in her audience
chamber.
bread business and let one of her cousins take over. From what she
had received, the stall was still going strong and attracting a
steady crowd of customers.
warm voice startled Betta and she glared at her sister Joanna who
had just came back from work at the local hospital. She was a
midwife and women often came to her for advice on women’s health
issues.
It was an ongoing joke between the two of
them, ever since Betta started trading and Joanne a nurse. Her
glare turned into a smile. “Long day at work?”
Three women giving birth
at the same time and only one midwife on duty?” Joanne resembled
Betta, only slimmer and with darker hair. “But the babies were
delivered fine, screaming and healthy.” She grinned, like her son.
“Javen?”
her now-cold coffee, grimacing at the sour taste. She picked up Min
Feng’s report.
That boy,” Joanne
grumbled, removing her black flat-heeled work shoes. “Left all his
textbooks all over his room. And he wants to be a
doctor
like
Michael.”
the Dine language. “Give him some time. He has medicine to worry
about. He has girl issues to worry about. You can’t expect him to
work them all out together.”
You side with him too
much,” Joanne retorted back. Her expression softened. “I feel as if
I have not watched him grow up.”
coffee. Special blend or not, it had left an unpleasant tang in her
mouth. She wanted some fresh spring water to clear that taste. “He
has been a good young man. Better than the wannabe braves in our
town dancing up a storm and doing nothing else, except to gripe
about the Good Old Days. Javen has
chosen
to become a doctor. And
that’s a good thing.”
Then the two sisters broke into deep belly laughs.
the umbrella Alliance, a mini-revolt was happening.
and non-commercial. It existed solely because of its small colony
of Old Terra immigrants who had bravely staked out their livelihood
on a planet best described as a hunk of rock with seams of crystals
and nothing else. Mining was the mainstay. Mining was finite.
the Alliance Planets with their rich politics and even richer
resources,
Artia
grew somewhere, drawing in a stream of miners and their
families. Gritty, hard-bitten and grim, they managed to establish
holdings. Prominent families rose up and one such family,
the
Stern-Aus
,
began to plot an aggressive incursion into Alliance
politics.
about this while he stood in the observatory, staring into the
basalt rock landscape. There were no plants outside. No greenery.
They would simply die in the unforgiving atmosphere. Many families
had their gardens indoors instead. These oases were their personal
pride and joy
and
an overt declaration of their wealth. The Stern-Aus family
had constructed a modest greenhouse, an Ark of greenery, in the
midst of all this steel and rock.
at them. The esteemed and all-powerful Phoenix Court had obviously
forgotten about them. To the wealthy bloated administrators of the
Alliance Planets, Artia was a backwater planet, ranked as a
lowly
planetoid
.
Yet, they had prevailed, overcoming all sorts of difficulties. His
Artia was proud, a place where brave and courageous pioneers had
made their presence known. The quartz crystals they had ripped from
the planet’s flesh were integrated into their impressive starships
as part of the energy cores. Only one such planet provided such an
important service: Artia.
handsome by human standards. Across his jaw was an angry scar
gouging through the skin, inflicted by jagged metal, a freak
accident in his family mine. His hair was pale, almost white. His
skin was the product of generations of coping with Artia’s
atmosphere: pallid as a cave-dweller fish. It was a miracle that he
was not born blind. Many of his peers and friends were. His pupils
were red and he hid his eyes behind a dark visor. He was happy that
he had most of his faculties and limbs intact and
functioning
. Childhood
mortality was high on Artia.
greenhouse hissed sibilantly and an androgynous-looking figure
strolled in, clad in a black
tightskin
. Julian inclined his head
as if in greeting.
Fei
responded by steepling
fei
hands together. When
fei
spoke,
fei
voice was a neutral voice,
neither male nor female.
mission?” Julian asked.
Fei
was human, though unisexual and hermaphrodite in
nature. The obsidian hair was braided and coiled around the head.
The face was feminine and not. The eyes captured his attention
first, when he started his assassin core with
fei
as Number One.
Cold, distant and dark as
space
.
Yes, my lord,”
fei
nodded
assent.
Fei
own
true name was Yrant. But Yrant was no simple
fai
, the courtesan caste from
which
fei
was
born and grew up in. Let
fai
ditter in meaningless social pursuits and amorous
play. Yrant was an assassin, like the rest of
fei
squad.
Wielder of dagger, blade and needle. Dancer of
shadows
.
Remember your target,” Julian said
firmly, reaching over and clasping Yrant’s chin with his right
hand. He planted a harsh kiss on the moon-colored lips and let go
just as brutally, ruthlessly.
taste of Julian’s saliva off
fei
lips. A frigid “I
will
, my lord.” Nodding curtly,
Yrant slinked towards the door, leaving a cold wake behind
fei
.
had more schemes to make. With a sigh, he strolled between aisles
after aisles of container plants, reminders of glories past.
herself in the middle of an argument. A political argument
involving her father and an emissary from Artis.
Artia?
The name of the
planet was inconsequential. The emissary was a pale-skinned
gentleman wearing a severe maroon skin-tight one-piece and
surrounded by a voluminous cloak embroidered with silver threads.
The pattern of some …
flower
winked periodically at her, glittering as if with
sequins.
of Solaris, was nearing the end of his patience, but putting a lid
on his temper as he listened to the emissary list down the “ills of
the Phoenix Court”. She knew, somewhat, that expectations had not
been met and the emissary conveyed the disappointment of his people
most strongly in his words. He did not mince them. He was more a
miner than a diplomat. But she could
feel
his anger, like a hot aura
around him. Very similar to an imminent phoenix-shift, though she
knew he could just explode out of sheer rage.
lines of “Artia is not supporting the Court”, which meant no more
supplies of energy quartz. He bowed stiffly and wheeled around,
storming out of the audience chamber.
Father?” Bei’s voice, in the
unnatural silence that had descended upon the chamber, was tiny,
hesitant.
turned to his only daughter and said, simply. “This is the way how
the world works, Bei. Remember that.”
her childhood, of frolicking through the fragrant gardens and
gazing at the lavender-colored water lilies growing in the pond
outside her bedroom chamber. In those dreams, she was happier, a
child once more, with none of the worry and concern she now
harbored as a young adult. She transformed into her phoenix-form
more freely, less fettered by adult discipline and constraint.
into her dreaming world. Dry desert plains, with cacti and thorny
succulents. Mesas and unique rock shapes, outlined against a vivid
blue sky. Silver-leaved shrubs, mulberry, a clear running stream in
the bottom of a rocky creek. Waves of pink and red, flowing stone,
carved by millennia of erosion by water. She did not transform into
phoenix that readily in this new landscape. Her phoenix flame was a
steady burn inside her as she stood on the boulders and watching
the sun set in a myriad of pastel shades. Or that she would be
running past tall cacti, her legs working effortlessly, as she
trained her body to become accustomed to the physical
surroundings.
bedchambers back in a faraway world of wealth and royalty. Her bed
was simple and comfortable. Her room was furnished sparingly, with
basic amenities such as a table, a chair and a bookshelf she had
lined with favorite books she had brought along with her. No
maids-in-waiting standing attentively, ready to jump in and
help.
apprentice. Layers had fallen off her. She had shed. She rather
liked this new self.
a breakfast, she had to go through the new communiqués, filter out
the important from the ordinary, jot down the lists of items sent
in by the network of merchants and traders. She would then follow
Aunt Betta around as her personal aide, sitting in for the
negotiations and learning lessons of diplomacy. Aunt Betta would
then let her negotiate for minor trading matters, as practical
work. She had, to date, effected one deal with local merchants for
the delivery of essentials in exchange for machine parts, and a
second deal for medical supplies to be transported to a remote part
of Mesa. She had listened to Betta’s advice and to the changing
colors of her phoenix flame. So far, her phoenix flame had remained
a constant white.
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