The proctors noted each such instance of rule bending and came to consult with Rin and Cogo.
“I don’t think these count as cheating,” mused a frowning Cogo. “At least I don’t think the rules explicitly prohibit such acts.”
“We should give them a break,” said Rin magnanimously. “I’m pretty sure Kuni would be impressed by some of these tricks.”
A few dozen more examinees had to be removed as they fainted from exhaustion or lost control over themselves due to the intensifying stress. Clusters of empty stalls now dotted the Grand Examination Hall like calm atolls in a sea of activity.
Finally, as the sun rose on the third day, the examinees entered the final stretch of their competition. Almost all of them were now copying the finished essays onto silk, carving the wax logograms with meticulous attention to detail and inking the zyndari letters that served as glosses with flowing curlicues. The box for the final essay was very shallow, and the logograms had to be strategically placed on the scroll to allow it to be folded sufficiently flat to fit—each mountain needed a matching valley, and each exclamation required a subdued lament. The examination was not merely an exercise in reasoning and persuasion, but also a practical problem in three-dimensional geometry.
Those who had chosen to pull the all-nighter on the second night now realized their error: Their hands, shaking with exhaustion, could not hold the knife steady and left uneven surfaces and jagged cuts in the wax. A few decided that the only remedy was to take a quick nap, though a couple of them would, to their horror, find themselves oversleeping the deadline.
As the sun dipped below the walls of Pan, Rin Coda stood up on the observation platform and issued the one-hour warning.
But few of the scholars stirred from the general torpor. Most had decided that one more hour wasn’t going to make a difference. They folded their essays, placed them in the boxes, and lay down on their mats with their arms over their eyes. A few leapt into frenzied motion, realizing that they would never finish in time.
“Knives and brushes down!” shouted Coda, and for the examinees, the declaration was the sweetest sound they had heard in three days. It was the order that released them from hell.
“I have done the best I could, Teacher,” whispered Zomi Kidosu as she closed the cover of the box and sat back in mipa rari on the mat lining the floor of her stall. “The rest is up to chance.”
She wished her teacher were still around so that she could ask him about the decision she had made on the way to Pan, the secret that she hoped would not ruin all she had accomplished. But she was on her own now.
So she prayed to both Lutho, the god of calculation and careful planning, and Tazu, the god of pure randomness, as her teacher had taught her to do.
CHAPTER FIVE
MIMI
On a winter day in the twenty-second year of the Reign of One Bright Heaven, which was also a year of the orchid and the last year of Emperor Mapidéré’s life, a little girl was born to Aki and Oga Kidosu, a poor fishing-farming family in a small village on the northern shore of Dasu.
Though the family had few possessions, the tiny hut was always warmed by the glow of joy. Aki tended to the vegetable garden and mended the fishing nets and made stews out of leftover fish and wild herbs and garden snails and pickled caterpillars that tasted as divine to her family as the delicacies served in the grand palaces of Kriphi and Müning. Oga spent the days plowing the sea with the other fishermen and nights patching holes in the wattle-and-daub walls, entertaining his wife and children with stories he made up on the fly. The older children took care of the younger and learned their parents’ trades by helping them. They led a life that was common but not commonplace, meek but not mean, tiring but not tiresome.
The baby girl cried loudly as she was born, but her voice was soon drowned out by the howling wind.
On that same day, Emperor Mapidéré’s fleet left Dasu to explore the route to the Land of the Immortals.
During the last years of his life, Mapidéré became increasingly obsessed with the pursuit of life extension. Self-styled magicians and alchemists swarmed the court, offering elixirs, potions, spells, rituals, exercises, and other measures to halt or even reverse the ravages of time on the body. The dazzling array of solutions all shared one feature, however: a requirement of massive expenditures by the Imperial court.
Year after year, no matter how much money the emperor paid to the men with glinting eyes and whispered promises, no matter what exotic exercises, diets, or prayers the emperor engaged in, he grew older and more sickly, and even killing the lying scoundrels seemed not to improve things one iota.
Finally, just as the emperor was about to give up, two men from Gan, Ronaza Métu and Hujin Krita, came to him with a story that reignited the emperor’s ashen heart.
There was a land to the north, they said, below the horizon, beyond the northernmost islands of Dara, beyond the scattered isles that provided haven for the pirates, beyond the reefs and atolls where the drift-gulls nested, beyond the reach of the fiery fingers of Lady Kana, goddess of death, where men and women enjoyed the blessing of immortality.
“The inhabitants of that realm know the secret of eternal youth, Rénga, and we know the way. All you have to do is to bring a few of the immortals back and ask them for their knowledge.”
“How do you know this?” asked the emperor in a hoarse whisper.
“The merchants of Gan are always in search of new lands and new trade routes,” said Hujin Krita, the younger and more well-spoken of the two. “We have long been intrigued by the many tales of the wonders of that land.”
“And we have combed through ancient tomes for passing references and examined strange wreckages hoarded by storm-cursed fishermen for clues,” said Ronaza Métu, who had a steadier, more calculating presence. “The web of deduction points to an inevitable conclusion: The Land of the Immortals is real.”
Mapidéré looked with envy upon the men’s strong limbs and handsome, arrogant faces, and the emperor seemed to hear the sound of jangling coins in the merchants’ voices. “Stories may be just the insubstantial mirages of Lady Rapa’s dream herbs, hardly worthy of belief.”
“Yet what is history but a record of stories told and retold?” asked Krita.
“And wasn’t a united Dara nothing more than a dream, Rénga, until you made it real?” asked Métu.
“The world is grand and the seas endless,” said Krita. “All stories must be true in some corner of it.”
The emperor was pleased by their speech. There was little logic to the men’s reasoning, but sometimes logic was not as important as belief.
“Tell me the way then,” said Mapidéré.
The men looked at each other and then turned back to the emperor. “Some secrets cannot be shared before their fulfillment, not even with the Emperor of Xana.”
“Of course.” The emperor smiled bitterly on the inside. He had learned a few things about men like these over the years, and he was sorry to detect the familiar signs of another swindle. But he could not resist the seductive song of hope. “What do you propose?”