In the days that followed, Kan could not put the incident out of his mind. He found himself returning to the western tower to look down across the plains at the laboring tahn-chen. He watched them as they made their way down the rows they’d worn into the hard earth with their heavy feet. A few times he thought he saw the small one who’d surprised him. In the end, though, he could never be sure. Coloration between beasts was far too similar and he’d not paid enough attention the creature’s markings when it had presented itself to him.
Besides that, his father’s rebuke and lesson in honor sat suspiciously in the back of his mind. Why take such offense at a tale of a talking tahn-chen? It was when he saw one of them approach the city walls that he decided to resume his inquiry.
The beast carried a massive armful of pariah blooms. The tiny, yellow flowers had a strong smell that seemed at odds with the delicate perfume worn by high-born ladies of the court. He ran down the stairs. He left the palace and crossed the workman’s courtyard to the city wall. There, a small group of guards guided the huge beast with spear tip and sword. Kan slowed and watched from afar as it laid its bundle down and turned to be led back to the fields by the household guards. Even its shadow looked heavy and imposing as the fifty-foot giant lumbered by.
From a low door set into the base of the nearest building, a willowy, towering woman emerged. It was Izakaya: the alchemist.
Taller than even his father, she was the only one of such stature within the household neither of Kan’s blood nor his father’s personal guard. She walked gracefully across the smooth cobblestones to where the flowers had been laid on a vast expanse of netting. Carefully, she folded the corners towards the center and began to drag the delivery back towards her apartments. A few stray blooms fell aside. Kan came forward to retrieve them.
A fierce, “Do not touch the flowers!” interrupted him.
Brought up short, he looked up and up and up to the cool, disapproving gaze of the alchemist.
“But … you dropped them.”
“And I shall retrieve them.” Izakaya stood nearly sixteen feet tall; an older woman, she still held on to the beauty of her youth. Her loveliness had been transformed by age into a grace that seemed to trail her like a gown. Gloved hands clad in the finest silk, she stooped for the scattering of petals at Kan’s feet. “What are you doing here?” she asked.
“I came—” He paused. An idea occurred to him and he formed his words carefully. “I came to ask you about the tahn-chen.”
She drew herself up to her full, magnificent height. Archly, Izakaya stared down at him. Suspicion crossed her perfect features as she asked, “Does the niahn’si know you are here?”
“My father knows all,” Kan lied. “You would expect him not to?”
The alchemist pondered for a moment before nodding and motioning for him to follow. She gathered up her bundle and led him to a nearby building, through its door, and down a flight of stairs. In the close quarters the smell of the pariah blooms was overwhelming. Kan gagged to be in such proximity. Their cloying, acrid smell brought tears to his eyes.
“How do you make such—awful—aromas into perfume?” he gasped.
“It takes … practice,” she replied. Her words were measured, as if feeling him out. They entered a circular, stone room at the base of the stairs out of which led two doors. She crossed to a large, metal panel in the wall, pulled it open, and unceremoniously dumped the flowers down a chute. She let it clang shut after she was done and turned to face the young lord. “So, you have been sent to me to ask about the tahn-chen?”
He nodded, graciously, and allowed her assumptions to lead the conversation. The duplicity was exciting and his heart beat faster. There was a secret regarding the beasts; he could feel it.
“One of them spoke my name,” he said, “Not more than a week ago. Some tell me that it could not possibly be the case; that tahn-chen have no souls nor minds with which to shape thoughts into words.”
“You have been to the temple; you have learned all about them.”
“The priests of the temple answer to mortal authorities as well as God’s. I have learned only what they told me. After asking my father, he sent me here to learn the truth.” He put subtle emphasis on the last word. He was nearly three years until his twenty-first birthday when he would be considered an adult, but he fancied himself skilled in the arts of mature, courtly conversation. Kan’s teachers in rhetoric and debate would be proud at his manipulations.
Izakaya frowned with annoyance but nodded. “Very well. If your father wishes to break with tradition, who am I to question?” She crossed to a low table—low to her, at any rate; to Kan it was enormous—and sat. She beckoned for him to come closer. “What do you know about the tahn-chen?”
Kan looked calm and collected. He met her gaze with confidence. “Again, only what the temple teaches.”
“But you have had other thoughts before this moment, yes? Else your father would not have sent you to me.”
He thought about this for a moment before nodding. “My closest friend, Bailas, often said there was more thought beneath their eyes than we have been told.” Kan remembered Bailas fierce will and intellect; his propensity for asking difficult and uncouth questions. “He would often watch them and say, ‘Look at those beasts; so magnificent … so powerful! Why do we force them to work in the fields, where none of us are permitted to go, when we could do the job just as well?’”
“Your friend; he pitied them?”
Kan considered. “Perhaps. But I think, more, he felt it dishonorable to waste the natural power of such giants on a menial task that any fit person with good eyes could accomplish. He was born malokai—a land-owner—and felt that the only thing separating himself from the common folk was the same hair’s breadth that separated them from the tahn-chen.” He blushed and shook his head sadly. “He had honor but questioned the very foundations of society. It was … it was a conflict that got him in great trouble.”
The alchemist arched an eyebrow. “Did it?”
Kan found it hard to reply with an even tone. “Two months,” he said, “barely eight weeks ago, his father sent word that Bailas’ questioning ways had ‘dishonored the family’. He was sent away to the university at Callis to learn proper respect for imperial history and tradition.” He scowled. His dearest friend had been taken from him because of an open mind and fascination—a preoccupation—with the tahn-chen.
Izakaya nodded, slowly. “And you have come to feel that, perhaps, he was right?”
Kan just raised his gaze to meet hers, noncommittally.
“The tahn-chen pick the flowers because it is what they do,” she said at last. “Were this household not here, were these hills bare of settlements, the tahn-chen would still be here, chewing mindlessly on the flowers; striding as giants beneath the sun.”
“But they’re intelligent, aren’t they? They understand commands, they comprehend the threat of the sword, the one who spoke—” Sudden fear bloomed in his heart. If his father, if his people, knew that the creatures were smart and could speak... No civilized society condoned slavery, but what if that’s what this was?
“No,” she answered. “No, they are not.”
He blinked, taken aback. “But the small one; the one who said my name?”
“The tahn-chen are not intelligent; not anymore.”
His heart quickened at her choice of words. Before he could speak, though, she raised one, long-fingered hand. It was a gesture that would have gotten anyone else rebuked for attempting to silence a young lord. He ignored the slight and listened.
“You are a tall man,” she said, simply. “You are powerful and tall as are all of your family going back for generations.”
“We are blessed by God,” he said, slowly. “The wisest and most deserving of power are given the gift of stature and prominence. As a family of the niahn’si is to the molokai so are the molokai to the commoners.”
“And above the niahn’si are the members of the emperor’s court: the koh
man’si. And above them all towers the emperor, a giant some twenty-four feet tall with a reach great enough to command all the provinces.” She paused and narrowed her gaze. “But it is not a gift from God.”
The abrupt heresy made Kan feel uncomfortable yet excited. This was the sort of conversation he used to have with Bailas. “Then where—?”
“The pariah blooms,” Izakaya said simply. “In that humble and simple flower rests the power to make mortal souls grow in power and stature. It is not a judgment of God that makes your family leaders of men. It is a flower; a simple, yellow flower.”
Kan coughed out a laugh and raised his brows incredulously. “Indeed? And I suppose my father eats the flowers morning, noon, and night? Are you mad? Do you think to make a joke with me?” He half expected her to smile but, instead, she kept her expression even.
“No,” she said. “To eat the flowers, to be exposed to their petals in a raw state...” She paused, considering. “Well, you have already seen what happens to those who travel that particular road.”
His laughter dried up in his heart. It took a minute of silence before he realized what she was implying. Then, he understood what she was saying; his mind hesitated to believe it. It seemed impossible; it must be impossible.
“The tahn-chen?”
She nodded, slowly.
“The tahn-chen; they used to be … people?”
Again, Izakaya nodded.
Kan could think of nothing to say. It was horrible; astonishing. He’d never conceived of such a thing. A worse realization began to dawn on him. He licked his lips nervously. “And my father; the family—”
“Your father knows; of course,” she said. “But few others do. The secret is passed down from niahn’si to niahn’si. The royal families all know it, of course, because it is through work by alchemists such as myself that the flower is processed, diluted, and made useful. Even as, in its pure state, the flower makes the body grow into that of a huge beast with a mind less than that of a child, the extract that the high-born use—”
“Stop! This is … this is heresy! It is vile!” He turned away from the alchemist and began to pace. “You are saying that these flowers—the flowers and the tahn-chen—give the high-born their positions; not the judgment of God?”
“Not unless the Emperor himself is God,” she said. A slight, sarcastic smile crept across her face. “Although I have heard a few in the court have started to call him that, just to curry favor.”
Kan shook his head. He looked up at the alchemist and no longer saw a haughty and knowledgeable face. Rather, she looked tired and strangely relieved; as if talking about these things to someone who didn’t previously know had taken a weight from her shoulders. “So, the Emperor...?”
“The Emperor sets limits on how much of the refined elixir each family gets,” she admitted. “I am only allowed to process a certain amount of flowers each season. The resulting elixir is given to the niahn’si for distribution. Many who enjoy its benefits don’t even know where it comes from. Most probably just think it a vial of blessed water from the temple.”
“But … but the perfume; all the ladies in the court—”
“A harmless, sweet-smelling side-effect,” she said. “Only the ladies directly related to your father are given the true elixir and, even then, only in the doses prescribed by the imperial court. The Emperor is allowed the highest safe dosage; no others may approach his stature.”
Kan paused in his whirling thoughts. A single word stood out in what she’d said. Curious, he asked, “Safe dosage’?”
Izakaya inclined her head to him, once. “It has been the goal of court alchemists for generations to refine purer and purer extracts of the pariah bloom and make it safe for human consumption. But, in the end, no matter how pure we make it—no matter the process—too much of the elixir will still turn the subject into a mindless beast. The process is even faster when the dosage is not a pure flower but in its concentrated form. The subject grows, becomes dull-witted, and turns into a beast. This is why even the Emperor can only consume so much and reach a maximum height. After a while all he can do is take a continual, weak dose to retain his size.”
“And the tahn-chen, no matter who they were as people, are then put to work in the fields, tending the flowers.”
“As you say,” she said. “Although some receive better care than others.”
He understood, now, why no one was allowed out in the fields. Surely some commoner folk must occasionally go out there, seeking food in lean times but the influx must be low. “So, when a tahn-chen dies...” He trailed off and Izakaya did not complete his thought. He knew the answer. They were chattel. They were unimportant. They were replaceable pieces of a large machine. They were power that was controllable. They were commoners. The tahn-chen were replaced with people who would not be missed They then worked in the fields until their end.
Izakaya cleared her throat. “For what it is worth,” she said, “they live peaceful lives. They look like carnivorous beasts but all they eat are the flowers. It makes them bigger but even they reach a maximum. After that the flowers sustain their size long past the point where their over-sized bodies would perish. They are well-tended, docile—”
“It’s monstrous,” he said. “And how ‘peaceful’ is it when one niahn’si goes to war against another and sends the tahn-chen into battle? You—all the court—are monsters for being able to turn so blind an eye to such a travesty.”
“I pay my price,” she said.
The coldness he’d seen before descended upon her face once again. She rose from her chair and crossed the room. Her robes swept the floor as she moved.
“I am an alchemist. I deal with the flowers all the time. No matter my care, I am constantly being … exposed.” She turned to look at him. “I face the same end as all my profession. Sooner or later it will be me in those fields. At least I know that tradition states I will be well cared-for.”
“But you... How could you?”
She looked at him, suddenly pained and tired. “I am no niahn’si. I am not even molokai. I am in that nebulous position between commoner and tradesperson. How can I refuse the commands of your father and the Emperor? Were I to do so, were any of us to defy such orders, we would be deemed trouble-makers and put out to pasture ahead of our time. I doubt if our treatment would be as caring as it would be had our end come as the result of a lifetime of hard work.”
The truth in her words hit him like a punch to the stomach. She was talking about not becoming a “troublemaker”. She was talking about not being like Bailas.
Bailas.
A sick feeling settled into the pit of his stomach, stronger than what he’d felt up until that point.
“I … I should go,” he said. His words were terse and short. Izakaya did nothing to stop him.
He climbed the stairs, still smelling the echo of the sweet flowers in his clothes. When he emerged into the sunlight of the courtyard, he felt as if he’d climbed up out of Hell. All around him there were the sounds of his world. A few birds nested nearby, chirping and singing. From beyond the inner compound walls, he could hear carts in the neighboring city streets; people talked and bartered and argued and laughed. All the sounds of life were there, yet now seemed so hollow. How many of those people had lost brothers, sisters, husbands, wives, daughters, or sons just because someone in the royal household thought them “chattel” and put them to pasture? How many had lost someone like Bailas?
He had to act.
He turned back to the door that led to Izakaya’s quarters and workspace. He descended the stairs.