Fonda Lee - Jade War

Sana and I could not have children for many years. When finally we succeeded, we had only daughters. We went to the temple to beg the gods for the favor of a son who would carry the family’s jade, but it was only after ten years of trying that we finally had Coru. He’s a good son, but he is frivolous. I did my best to raise him as a true Green Bone, but he has a childish heart. He wants only to get along with everyone and play around. He’s my only son, the one who will carry the family’s jade when Sana and I are gone. I love him, but he is also my punishment, for the sins I committed as a young man.

Dauk stood up from his chair. “I will do what you ask. I will put Rohn Toro at your disposal to help No Peak to kill this man, this smuggler Zapunyo. And for that, I ask you to give up my son. I’ve been indulgent of him, but he needs to stop fooling around with men and take his responsibilities seriously. He’s the only Green Bone out of all four of my children, as undeserving and ignorant as he might be of what it truly means to wear jade and how important it is to our family’s identity. He’s not green enough for the old country, but that doesn’t matter; he can still have a good Espenian life, a career that puts that expensive law degree to use, children someday, if the gods are kind to us. He’s not for you. You are sure to return to Janloon eventually, but his place is here.”

Anden struggled at first to find a response. “That’s Cory’s decision,” he said.

“I’m not talking to him now. I’m talking to you. It’s as much your choice as it is his. You come here asking me to commit a crime to help your family, so it’s only right that I ask you for something in return. Give up my son, and I will bend my principles, to help you and your family in this thing that you want. That’s the only way I’m willing to cross this line for you.”

Anden looked at Dauk, a man he’d dismissed when he first met him but had grown to respect, a leader of his community and a shrewd man, truly a Pillar in his own way and own right, a person that Anden now felt deeply indebted to. In that moment, Anden hated him.

He stood up. “You called me a man who means every word he says. I don’t want to say anything I’ll regret, which is why I’m not saying anything to you right now, Dauk-jen.”

Dauk stood up and walked Anden to the door. “You’re wise for your age, my friend.”

It was late the following evening by the time Anden mustered up the courage to call Cory at the house that he shared with three other law students. To his surprise, it answered on the first ring and an excited female voice said, “What is it now? Just come over already!”

Anden, startled, asked to talk to Cory, and the woman said, “Oh, Seer’s balls, I’m sorry, I thought you were someone else. Just a minute.” She left the phone off the hook, yelling distantly, “Cory! It’s for you!” Anden waited. He could hear a great deal of background chatter and then a huge cheer as if a crowd was watching a sports event on television. At last, Cory’s voice came on the line. “Hey, islander!” he exclaimed. “How’s everything back in P-Mass?”

Anden had a hard time speaking. “I miss you,” he said.

“I miss you too. Midterms start next week, but I’ll try to come back for a visit the weekend after that. You’re still free to gang about, right?”

“That’s why I’m calling,” Anden said. “I’m going to be busy for a while.”

“At work?”

“Sort of,” Anden said. “Family things.”

“You mean clan things.” Cory paused to say something in Espenian to someone else in the house before coming back on the line. “All right, well, you can spare at least one evening, right?”

Anden’s palms were sweating. He had no idea how to do this. He forced the words out. “I don’t think we can get together this time, Cory. You’re busy with school and I’m going to be busy too. I think… maybe it would be best if we didn’t see each other for a while.”

There was a long, uncomprehending pause on the other end, and then a sound like Cory picking up the phone and walking—the background noise from the distant sports game grew fainter. “What’s this about, crumb?” Cory demanded in a whisper. “Are you… breaking up with me ?” Anden couldn’t answer; his throat felt entirely closed up.

Cory breathed loudly into the phone. Then he said, “My da put you up to this, didn’t he? I know he did. And you gave in. What did he say to you, huh? Did he offer you money?”

“Nothing like that,” Anden muttered.

Cory said, “You know what? Fuck you. You dumb island fuck.” He hung up.

Anden placed the receiver back in the cradle and sat down on the floor, staring at the phone for several minutes. Then he grabbed his jacket and burst out of his apartment, out of the building onto the slushy gray streets of Port Massy. He walked for two hours, aimlessly, and at one point, he realized he was crying. Not loudly, not hard, but his vision was blurry and his cheeks were wet. When he finally arrived back at his apartment, it was past midnight. His shoes were soaked and his feet cold. He ran hot water in the bath to warm them, then put on fresh socks.

Back home, it would be midday, the springtime sun high over the city harbor, people in the streets wishing each other Happy New Year and standing on ladders to take red lights and streamers down from their eaves. Anden picked up his phone and dialed the operator to place a collect call to Janloon, so he could tell his cousins that Dauk Losunyin would help them to kill Zapunyo.

Eight hundred years ago, a renowned Alusian explorer named Gaubrett sailed across the sea in search of a fabled island with mountains of jewels guarded by giants. Upon successfully landing on the southern peninsula of Kekon, Gaubrett was pleased and relieved to encounter no giants but instead an Abukei village. After a tense but peaceful exchange with the village elders, the natives brought the half-starved travelers food and water, and Gaubrett and his crew set up camp by the shore. As grateful as they were, the sailors could not help but greedily notice the green gemstones hanging over the tribe’s simple dwellings and decorating the bodies of the men and women. Even before the rise of the Kekonese warrior caste of Green Bones, jade was of significant cultural importance to the aboriginals, who viewed it as the divine remains of the First Mother goddess Nimuma and, being genetically immune to its effects, wore it for status and ceremony.

Gaubrett proceeded to barter a considerable amount of his ship’s wares in exchange for the villagers’ jade, which they seemed more than willing to trade in exchange for foreign tools and curiosities. Gaubrett stored the acquired jade in a wooden chest in his tent, which he opened several times a day in order to admire his fortune. Once much-needed ship repairs had been completed, Gaubrett and his crew made ready to set sail. At that point, it occurred to the explorer that there was a great deal more jade to be had, and that he had come an awfully long way across the ocean to be leaving with so little compared to how much these simple savages flaunted so carelessly.

That night, Gaubrett gathered his men and led them into the Abukei village where they massacred the inhabitants and gathered every last bit of jade they could lay their hands on. In good spirits, they departed Kekon. Despite ample stores and good weather, over the following two months, the ship descended into an inexplicable madness. Shortly after Gaubrett hung two officers for treason, the crew mutinied; Gaubrett and several others were killed and their bodies tossed overboard. The storeroom lock was smashed and the jade equally divided among the crew. Two subsequent mutinies resulted in several more deaths. Half a dozen sailors threw themselves into the sea; others fell into a delirious fever and cut themselves with knives. One man was said to have pulled out his own eye and eaten it. A small group of beleaguered survivors, at last convinced that the treasure they carried was cursed, threw every piece of jade on the ship into the ocean and managed to limp their vessel into a port in southeastern Spenius. Their tragic tale quickly spread, cementing the “cursed beauty” as a faraway place of near mythical wealth and mysterious evil fortune.