Chapter 13: The First Contract

They needed money. Auntie Vinegar's hospitality had limits, and Li Xin's hidden cache was not enough to buy passage out of the city. They sat in the back room with their packs half packed and their faces half worried, and Li Xin made a decision.

"I'm fighting tonight," she said.

Shen Mu wrote, "Fighting who?"

"Whoever the pit puts in front of me. There's a cellar beneath the Laughing Lantern where Binders pay to watch other Binders fight. The bets are good. The purse for winning is better." She looked at him. "You don't have to come."

Shen Mu wrote, "I am coming."

"You might see people die."

"I have already seen people forgotten. Death is smaller."

Li Xin studied him for a moment. Then she nodded. "Get your cloak."

The Laughing Lantern looked different at night. The sign's laughing face was lit from within by a red lantern that made it look as if it were bleeding from the mouth. Inside, the tavern was crowded with merchants, soldiers, and Binders. Li Xin led Shen Mu to a door behind the bar. The bouncer, a man with a neck like a tree trunk, looked at her and stepped aside.

"Fighter or spectator?" he asked.

"Fighter. One bout." She pressed a coin into his hand. "And my assistant."

The bouncer looked at Shen Mu. "He don't talk?"

"He's mute."

"Good. Spectators who talk during the fights sometimes lose their tongues."

They descended a narrow stair into a cellar that had been converted into an arena. The floor was sand over stone. Wooden benches rose on three sides. The fourth side held a low platform where a man in a red robe announced the matches. Already the benches were half full of people drinking and placing bets.

Li Xin went to a corner to prepare. Shen Mu sat on a bench near the back, his hood up, his writing board hidden under his cloak. He watched the crowd. Most were ordinary people with money to spend. A few wore the silk mouth-wraps of Binders. One man in the front row had a Vessel chained to his wrist, and he stroked it constantly, like a pet.

The first match began. Two Binders faced each other in the sand. They were both Whisperers, able to bind single Echoes into simple Vessels. They threw their Vessels at each other. One released a shout of "fall." The other released a curse of "burn." The Echoes collided in the air and burst into a sound like tearing metal. The crowd cheered.

Shen Mu watched with a kind of sick fascination. These were not warriors. They were merchants of violence, selling borrowed words for other people's entertainment. And the crowd loved it.

The second match was worse. A woman fought a man half her age. She was faster, but he had a Vessel of pain, a scream captured from a battlefield, and when he released it the woman collapsed, clawing at her own ears. The match ended with her writhing in the sand. No one helped her. Two men dragged her out by the ankles while the winner collected his coins.

Shen Mu looked at Li Xin in the corner. She was stretching her arms, rolling her shoulders, preparing her body the way Shen Mu prepared his charcoal. She caught his eye and nodded once. He nodded back. They had not planned what he would do if she lost. They had not planned anything. That, Shen Mu realized, was becoming a habit.

Li Xin's match was the third. Her opponent was a large man with a shaved head and a Vessel at each hip. The announcer called him Ox-Heart. The crowd laughed. Li Xin stepped into the sand and the laughter stopped. She was smaller than her opponent by half, but she moved like a blade being drawn.

Ox-Heart threw the first Echo. "Break." The word came out of his Vessel like a hammer. Li Xin dodged. The word struck the stone wall behind her and cracked it.

She circled. Ox-Heart threw another. "Burn." Heat rippled through the air. Li Xin rolled under it and came up inside his reach. She struck him in the throat with the edge of her hand. He staggered.

The crowd roared. Some were cheering for Li Xin now, the underdog, the quick knife in a world of heavy fists. Others shouted for Ox-Heart to crush her. The announcer beat a drum, keeping time with the fight, turning violence into music.

Ox-Heart recovered. He was stronger than he looked. He caught Li Xin's wrist and twisted. She gasped. Her knife fell into the sand. He raised his fist. In that fist, Shen Mu saw the Vessel of "break" reforming, the Echo crawling back to its master like a dog.

But he was not done. He had a third Vessel. He smashed it on the ground. A cloud of white smoke rose, and from it came a hundred whispered voices, all saying "sleep." The command spread through the cellar like fog. Several spectators slumped in their seats. Li Xin slowed. Her eyelids drooped.

Shen Mu stood. He pulled out his writing board. He wrote one word. "Stone."

He could not throw it. He could only hold it up. But the First Echo did not need to be thrown. It needed to be written and meant.

The beam above Ox-Heart's head groaned. A piece of masonry fell. It did not hit him, but it struck the sand beside him with a crack that shattered the sleep command. Li Xin's eyes snapped open. She lunged. Her knife found the gap between Ox-Heart's ribs. Not deep enough to kill. Deep enough to end the fight.

Ox-Heart dropped to his knees. The announcer declared Li Xin the winner. The crowd cheered, though some booed, and Shen Mu saw money changing hands in the shadows.

Li Xin collected her purse and found Shen Mu in the back. Her face was flushed. Her eyes were bright.

"What did you do?" she asked.

Shen Mu wrote, "I wrote stone on a beam."

"You could have killed him."

"I aimed for the beam."

She looked at him. "You're learning to be dangerous."

He did not know if that was praise or warning. He followed her up the stairs and out into the night.

They had almost reached the vinegar shop when a man stepped out of an alley. He was thin and sallow, with thumbs that were shorter than they should have been. Two-Thumb, people called him. A black-market Binder who bought and sold fighters.

"That was a nice trick," Two-Thumb said. "The beam falling just so. Almost like someone wrote it."

Li Xin put her hand on her knife. "We don't want trouble."

"No trouble. Business." Two-Thumb smiled. His teeth were stained red from chewing betel. "I want to buy your mute."

"He's not for sale."

"Everything's for sale. Name your price."

"No price."

Two-Thumb's smile faded. "You're making a mistake, Li Xin. The Chorus is offering five hundred weights for him. I was willing to pay six. Now I'll take seven and a half from them, and you'll get nothing but a knife in the dark."

He melted back into the alley. Li Xin waited, knife ready, but he did not return.

They walked the rest of the way quickly, not speaking. When they reached the vinegar shop, Auntie Vinegar barred the door.

"I told you sunset," she said.

"We have money now," Li Xin said.

"Money doesn't unburn a shop." But she opened the door. "One more night. Then you're both ghosts."

Inside, Shen Mu sat on his mat and looked at his hands. They were steady now, but they had shaken when he wrote the word. He had felt the beam respond, felt the stone remember its weight, felt gravity pull a piece of the world down on command.

He was learning to be dangerous. Li Xin was right.

He was not sure if he was glad.

Li Xin sat across from him. She opened the purse and counted the coins. "Enough for two horses. Food. Bribes. We can be out of the city by noon if we leave before the gates get busy."

Shen Mu wrote, "Two-Thumb will tell them."

"Yes." She did not look up from the coins. "But telling takes time. The Chorus has layers. A message goes from Two-Thumb to his handler, from his handler to a lieutenant, from the lieutenant to someone who can actually give orders. By then, we'll be gone."

"Where?" Shen Mu wrote.

Li Xin looked at him. "South. To the Dead Tongue Desert. You keep hearing First Echoes. The desert is where First Echoes are strongest. If anyone can teach you what you are, it's there."

Shen Mu wrote, "And if the Chorus follows?"

"Then we run faster." She blew out the lamp. "Get some sleep. Tomorrow we become ghosts."

In the dark, Shen Mu lay on his mat and listened to the city. The Laughing Lantern was not far. He could hear the faint roar of the crowd, the drum, the shouted Echoes. Another fight was happening. Another person was being broken for coins. He thought of Li Xin's knife finding the gap between Ox-Heart's ribs. He thought of the beam falling. He thought of Two-Thumb's red-stained teeth.

He touched the paper in his pocket. Stone. Water. Container. Three words that had changed his life. He wondered how many more words there were, and whether any of them could make him safe.