Jade War

The man replied, with sudden ice in his voice, “You’re not being reasonable. What do you owe to No Peak, that’s worth refusing our request so rudely? Think about it.” With a jerk of his head, the man motioned to the two teenage thugs he’d brought along with him. They shrugged and moved away from the wall they’d been leaning against. The leader said, in an offhanded way, still speaking in Shotarian, “Remember that we know a lot more about you than you know about us, Dr. Tau. Consider that before you do or say anything else hasty.”

The men left unhurriedly. Maro shut his office door and fell into his chair. He shuddered, unnerved, to find the leather still warm from the stranger’s body heat.

CHAPTER 38

Not the Real Thing

Mudt walked into the Pig & Pig pub in Coinwash and sat down at the counter. “A plate of the battered shrimp and a glass of the Brevnya ale.” The bartender eyed Mudt skeptically on account of his age, but seeing as he appeared to be a heavily jaded Green Bone, he asked, “You want a regular glass or the extra tall, jen? It’s only five dien more on Seconddays.”

“The extra tall then,” said Mudt. The battered shrimp and the beer arrived, and Mudt took his time enjoying his meal. He was in a celebratory mood; today, for the first time, he’d combined Lightness and Steel—he’d run to the edge of the roof of his apartment and leapt a full twenty meters to the top of the building next door. He’d hit the concrete, rolled, and collapsed on his back, his heart pounding with adrenaline and all the breath knocked out of him, but uninjured, with not even a bruise. All his long hours of obsessive practice were starting to pay off. He knew he was still a long way off from being able to take on someone like Maik Tar, a Green Bone with years of training. He would need to bide his time and also think of some way to gain an unexpected advantage, the way he had when he’d drugged Bero’s drink.

Mudt could not help but feel remorse for murdering Bero, and even after all these weeks, he missed the other teen’s company and wished he had someone to talk to, to share his success today. He was still haunted by the way Bero had lain on the floor twitching in those last minutes, eyes rolling with impotent rage. But with each fortifying swallow of ale Mudt took, the feeling diminished. There wasn’t any room in this world to be soft. Look at the Green Bone clans. A real Green Bone wouldn’t give a second thought to killing an enemy and taking his jade. That was the sort of person Mudt needed to be if he was going to achieve his eventual revenge against Maik Tar and the No Peak clan.

Mudt ordered another extra tall glass of beer and reassured himself with the knowledge that the world had suffered no great loss from Bero no longer being a part of it. Mudt had even heard his father once say, “I think he’s a sociopath.” In their world, that was not necessarily a bad thing. Mudt had looked up to the older teen for a long time. Unlike Mudt, Bero had seemed so confident and tough, not afraid of anybody. Mudt admired that about him.

The jade around Mudt’s neck felt warm and heavy. It moved and rolled on his skin like something alive, that gave

life. He’d had to increase his daily dose of shine to carry it all. Fortunately, he knew where Bero kept his stash hidden, and unlike Bero, he also knew how to get more. He might, at one time, have told Bero, if Bero had ever bothered to ask him.

The pub was slow at first, but more people arrived as the night went on. A group of five college-age girls arrived, dressed in short skirts and high heels. They were on a mission to get their friend, who had just been dumped by her asshole boyfriend, properly drunk. “A Green Bone,” one of them exclaimed, flashing a coy smile at Mudt after she’d ordered her drink from the bar. “I haven’t seen you before, but you must be a Fist. Are you new around here?”

“He’s not a Fist.” An older girl rolled her eyes at her friend’s naïveté. “He’s too young. That can’t be real jade.”

“It is real,” Mudt said, his face warming. He’d never been noticed by women before, had barely ever had any conversations with them. His head buzzed from the booze and his stomach felt bloated with fried food. With this much jade, his sense of Perception was distracting, overwhelming. The girls seemed like furnaces of energy standing close to him—he had a hard time focusing on their faces. “Do I look like some barukan poser? Every bit of green you see is the real thing.”

The older of the two girls said, “How did you get it then, since you can’t even be twenty?” She feigned intense interest. “Did you win it in duels? Is your family name Kaul?”