“If I might, Brewmaster, have a word?”
Chen turned and went to lean the broom against the wall but then stopped. That wasn’t really the place for it, but Lord Taran Zhu’s request wasn’t really a question, so he couldn’t go to put the broom where it should go. Instead, he just pulled it behind himself and bowed to the monastery’s lord.
Taran Zhu’s face remained impassive. Chen couldn’t tell how old the monk was, but he’d believe the pandaren had been born well before the Chiang sisters. That wasn’t because he looked old. He didn’t, not really. He had the powerful vitality of someone Chen’s age, or even Li Li’s. It was something else about him, and something he shared with the monastery.
Something he shares with all Pandaria.
Pandaria had an elusive sense of antiquity. The Great Turtle had been old, and the structures on him were old, but none of them felt as venerable as the monastery. Chen had grown up among buildings that harkened back to Pandaria’s architecture but were to the original what a cub’s sand castle might be to its inspiration. Not that they weren’t wonderful; they just weren’t the same.
Chen, having held the bow a respectfully long time, straightened up again. “What can I do for you?”
“A missive has arrived from your niece. She has, as you requested, visited the brewery and made sure they know you will be away for a short while. She is proceeding to the Temple of the White Tiger.” The monk inclined his head slightly. “For this latter thing I am grateful. Your niece’s strong spirit is . . . irrepressible. Her last visit . . .”
Chen nodded quickly. “Will be her last. It’s good to see that Brother Huon-kai is no longer limping.”
“He has recovered, both in body and spirit.” Taran Zhu’s eyes tightened. “Half as much can be said of your latest refugee. There are signs that the troll has regained his senses, though he still heals slowly.”
“Oh, that’s wonderful. I mean, not that he is healing slowly, but that he is awake.” Chen made to transfer the broom to Taran Zhu, then hesitated. “I’ll just put this away on my way to the infirmary.”
The elder monk raised a paw. “He sleeps at the moment. It is concerning him, and the man you brought previously, that prompts my desire to speak with you.”
“Yes, Lord.”
Taran Zhu turned and, in an eyeblink, had progressed along a windswept walkway that Chen had not gotten around to clearing. The monk moved so gracefully that his silken robes didn’t even whisper. Chen couldn’t see the least little sign of his spoor in the snow. Hurrying after him made Chen feel like a stone-footed thunder lizard.
The monk led him downstairs through dark, heavy doors, into dim corridors paved with carved stone. The stones had been fitted together in interesting patterns that united both each block and the designs carved on them. The few times Chen had volunteered to sweep them, he had spent far more time being lost inside the lines and their weavings than actually using his broom.
Their journey ended in a large room lit by four lamps. The center of the floor had been given over to a circular construction, fitted with a reed mat. At its heart sat a small table with a terra-cotta teapot, three cups, a whisk, a bamboo ladle, a tea caddy, and a tiny cast-iron pot.
And beside it knelt Yalia Sagewhisper, her eyes closed, her paws in her lap.
Chen couldn’t hold back a smile when he saw her, and had a sneaking suspicion Taran Zhu knew he was smiling and how broadly. Yalia had caught his eye immediately upon his first visit to the monastery, and not just because she was beautiful. The pandaren monk had a hint of the outsider to her that Chen noticed, then noticed her doing her best to suppress. They’d had a few brief conversations, of which he could remember every word. He wondered if she remembered them too.
Yalia stood and bowed first to Taran Zhu, then Chen. Her first bow lasted a long time. The second, not as much, but Chen marked it and matched it when he bowed to her. Taran Zhu pointed him to the narrow end of the rectangular table, nearest the cast-iron pot. Chen and Yalia knelt and sat back, and then Taran Zhu did likewise.
“You will forgive me, Master Stormstout, for two things. First, I would ask that you make us tea.”
“Deeply honored, Lord Taran Zhu.” Chen looked up. “Now?”
“If it will not disturb you to work and listen at the same time.”
“No, Lord.”
“And, second, you will forgive my inviting Sister Yalia here. I felt her perspective would be most illuminative.”
Yalia bowed her head—and Chen felt a little thrill at seeing the exposed nape of her neck—but she said nothing, so Chen remained silent as well. He started to make tea and immediately noticed something to which he’d not quite become accustomed, despite having spent a great deal of time at the monastery during his stay in Pandaria.
The cast-iron pot’s lid had an ocean wave motif worked onto it. The terra-cotta teapot had been shaped like a ship. The handle had been formed out of an anchor. Those choices had not been randomly made, though what sort of message they foreshadowed, Chen couldn’t begin to guess.
“Sister Yalia, there is a ship in the bay. It is stable. What is it that makes it so?”
Chen carefully drew one ladle of hot water from the pot and noiselessly replaced the lid so he’d not distract her while she thought. He poured the water into the teapot, then gently teased powdered green tea from the caddy. Red birds and fishes had been painted on a black background on the caddy’s lid, and a band of symbols running round the middle represented each of Pandaria’s districts.
Yalia looked up, her voice as soft as the first petals of a cherry tree’s blossoms. “I would say, Lord, that it is water that makes the ship stable. It is the ship’s foundation. It is the ship’s very reason for being. Without water, without an ocean, there would be no ship.”
“Very good, Sister. So you would say that water is of Tushui—to use the term common on Shen-zin Su—the foundation, the meditation and contemplation. As you say, without water, there is no reason for the ship to exist.”
“Yes, Lord.”
Chen watched her face but saw no sign of her seeking approval. He couldn’t have done that. He’d want to know if he was right. But Yalia, it occurred to him, already knew she was right. Lord Taran Zhu had asked her opinion; therefore her answer couldn’t be wrong.
With the tip of his tongue just barely visible at the corner of his mouth, Chen applied the whisk to the water and tea within the pot. He did so vigorously, but also gently. The object was not to smash the tea into the water but to mix it all thoroughly. He had to clear the sides, pulling everything to the middle, and then work it out again. He worked briskly, turning the two disparate elements into a green froth that thickly sloshed in the clay ship’s hold.
Taran Zhu pointed to the teapot. “There are others, of course, who would maintain that the anchor is the source of the ship’s stability. Without the anchor rooting the ship in place, it would be ground against shore by wind and wave. The anchor gouging the bay’s floor is what saves the ship, and without it, the ship would be nothing.”
Yalia bowed her head. “If I may, Lord, then you are saying that the anchor is like Huojin. It is the impulsive, decisive act. It is what stands between the ship and disaster.”
“Very good.” The elder monk looked over as Chen added the last ladle of steaming water and clamped the lid back on the teapot. “Do you understand what we have been discussing, Chen Stormstout?”
Chen nodded, patting the teapot. “All shipshape now.”
“The tea, or your understanding?”
“The tea. Just a couple of minutes.” Chen smiled. “But about the water and the anchor and the ship. I’ve been thinking here.”
“Yes?”
“I would say it’s the crew. Because even if there was an ocean, if there was no crew who wanted to see what was on the other side of that ocean, there would be no ship. And the crew chooses the anchorage and when to sail. So the water is important, and the anchor is important, since they are the start
and stop, but it’s the crew who does the discovery.”
Chen, who had been waving his paws through the air to aid in his explanation, stopped. “This was never really about ships, was it?”
“No. Yes.” Taran Zhu closed his eyes for a moment. “Master Stormstout, you have sailed two ships into my harbor. They are at anchor here. But I can have no more ships.”
Chen looked at him. “Okay. Shall I pour?”
“Have you no interest in knowing why I can have no more ships?”
“You are the harbormaster, so you must make those decisions.” Chen poured tea for Taran Zhu, then for Yalia and himself. “Mind, it’s still hot, and best to let the leaves settle to the bottom first.”
Taran Zhu lifted his small earthenware cup and breathed in the steam. It seemed to relax him. Chen had seen that a lot. One of the great joys of his life and of practicing the brewmaster’s art was how what he did affected people. Granted, most of them preferred his alcoholic offerings to tea, but good tea, well brewed, had a unique charm and no hangover.
The monastery’s leader sipped, then lowered his cup. He gave Chen a nod. This allowed Chen and Yalia to sip also. Chen caught just the hint of a smile tugging at the corners of Yalia’s mouth. For his own part, he thought he’d done a pretty good job.
Taran Zhu regarded him through heavily lidded eyes. “Let me begin again, Master Stormstout. Do you wish to know why I am willing to have your two ships anchored in my harbor?”
Chen barely had to think on his answer. “Yes, Lord. Why?”
“Because they are of a balance. Your troll, from what little you have mentioned and the fact that he is a shadow hunter, doubtless is of Tushui. This other, the man who every day goes up the mountain a bit farther, then returns, he is of Huojin. One is Horde; the other is Alliance. They would, by nature, oppose each other, and yet it is this opposition that unites them and gives them meaning.”
Yalia set her cup down. “Forgive me, Lord, but is it not possible, given their opposition, that they might try to kill each other?”
“This is not a possibility I have any cause to discount, Sister. Enmity between Horde and Alliance runs deep. These two bear many scars—the man bears them in his mind as well, and so might your troll, Master Stormstout. And someone well and truly tried to murder your troll. Whether Alliance forces ambushed him, or the Horde has turned on its own, I cannot guess. However, we cannot have them murdering each other here.”
“I don’t think Tyrathan would do that, and Vol’jin, well, I know . . .” Chen hesitated for a moment, memories burbling up in his mind. “I’ll just have a talk with Vol’jin. Explain the no-murdering thing to him?”
A frown darkened Yalia’s expression. “Do not think me cruel, Master Stormstout, but I must ask if harboring the two of them here does not embroil us in foreign politics and strife. Could we not turn them out, or turn them back to their own people?”
Taran Zhu slowly shook his head. “We are already embroiled, and they have not proved to be without value. Alliance and Horde have helped us deal with the sha in the Townlong Steppes. You know how great an evil they are, and how thinly spread are we. As has been long said, the enemy of my enemy is my friend—no matter the havoc they might wreak—and the sha have ever been the enemy of Pandaria.”
Chen almost chimed in with, “If you lie down with dogs, you wake up with fleas,” but he refrained. Not that it wasn’t on point, but it wasn’t terribly helpful, especially when so many pandaren thought of wanderers like Li Li and himself as wild dogs. He hoped Yalia didn’t see him that way, and wasn’t about to introduce the concept.
Chen lowered his head just a bit. “I am not certain, Lord, that you can ever get the two of them—my ships or the Horde and Alliance—to work together permanently, no matter how unfriendly the mutual enemy might be.”
Taran Zhu chuckled, almost silently, definitely without echo and with nothing more than a ghost of a smile. “That is not my purpose for keeping your ships in harbor, Chen. It is so that by being here, troll and man can learn from us, and as they learn from us, so we can learn from them. For as you wisely suggest, when there is no more enemy to unite them, they will once again be at each other’s throats, and then we will have to choose whom we will befriend.”
4
Vol’jin of the Darkspear trolls chose not to move. He did this because he found making that choice preferable to acknowledging that he felt too weak to move. Though the hands dealing with him were gentle, their touch respectful, he could not have thrown them off were it his greatest desire.
Unseen aides plumped pillows, then thrust them behind him to prop him up. He would have protested, but the pain in his throat made anything more than harshly growled words—and very short words—impossible. The obvious choice—“stop”—no matter how sharply barked, would have mocked his inability to stop them. Though he accepted his silence as a concession to vanity, he found the roots of his discomfort running deeper.
The soft bed and softer pillows were not comforts in which trolls luxuriated. A thin sleeping mat over a wooden floor was the height of opulence in the Echo Isles. Many trolls slept on stretches of ground, occasionally seeking shelter if a storm blew in. Yielding sand made for a better bed than the hard stone of Durotar, but trolls were not given to complaining about harsh accommodations.
The insistence on softness and comfort irritated him because it emphasized his weakness. The thinking part of him couldn’t deny that a soft bed made shifting his wounded body much easier. He doubtless slept a bit better. But in calling attention to his weakness, it somehow denied the nature of his being a troll. Trolls were to hardship and harsh reality what sharks were to the open ocean.
To remove me from that be killing me.
The clunk of a chair or stool at his right surprised him. He’d not heard whoever carried it approach. Vol’jin sniffed, and the maddening scent underlying everything came back with the force of a punch. Pandaren. Not just pandaren, but one in particular.
Chen Stormstout’s voice, low but warm, came to him in a whisper. “I would have been to see you before, but Lord Taran Zhu did not think it wise.”
Vol’jin struggled to reply. He had a million things he wished to say, but few came wrapped in words his throat was willing to utter. “Friend. Chen.” Somehow Chen came more easily, being softer.
“No playing blindfold guessing games with you. You’re too good.” Robes rustled. “If you would close your eyes, I’ll remove the bandages. The healers say your eyes were not hurt, but they did not want you overly alarmed.”
Vol’jin nodded, knowing Chen was half right. Had he a foreigner brought to him in the Echo Isles, he’d also have blindfolded him until he decided whether the captive could be trusted. Doubtless that was Taran Zhu’s reasoning, and for some further reason, he had decided that Vol’jin could be trusted.
Chen’s doing, I be suspecting.
The pandaren carefully unwound the bandages. “I have my paw over your eyes. Open them, and I will slowly draw it away.”
Vol’jin did as commanded, voicing a grunt meant to be a signal. Chen apparently took it as such, for he pulled back his paw. The troll’s eyes watered in the bright light; then Chen’s image swam into focus. The pandaren was much as Vol’jin remembered—stoutly built with a jovial sense about him, and an intelligence in his golden eyes. He was a very welcome sight.
Then Vol’jin looked down at his own body and almost closed his eyes again. Sheets covered him to the waist, and bandages covered almost the rest of him. He noted that he did have both hands and all fingers. The long lumps beneath the sheets told him his lower extremities were likewise intact. He could feel bandages constricting around his throat, and itching suggested that at least a portion of one ear had been sewed back into place.
He stared at his right hand and willed the fingers to move. They did, to his eye, but the sense of their moving took time to reach him. They seemed impossibly far away, but unlike when he’d first wakened, he could actually feel them. It b
e progress.
Chen smiled. “I know there are many things you want to know. Shall I start at the beginning or the end? The middle would not be so good a place, but I could start there. But that would make the middle the beginning, wouldn’t it?”
Chen’s voice rose with his explanation and its flight into folly. Other pandaren turned away, their interest in the conversation waning with their anticipation of tedium. In noticing them, Vol’jin also noticed the dark, ancient stone walls. As he had seen elsewhere in Pandaria, the place reeked of age, and yet, here, of strength as well.
Vol’jin wanted to say “beginning,” but his throat refused. “Not end.”
Chen looked back and apparently noted that the other pandaren had chosen to ignore them. “The beginning, then. I fished you out of a small watercourse far from here, at Binan Village. We did for you there what we could. You were not dying, but you were not healing either. Seems there was poison on the knife that did your throat. I brought you here, to the Shado-pan Monastery, at Kun-Lai Summit. If anyone could help you, the monks could.”
He took a moment and surveyed Vol’jin’s wounds, shaking his head. The troll noticed no pity in his assessment, and this pleased him. Chen had ever been sensible when he wasn’t clowning, and Vol’jin knew Chen cast himself as a clown so others would forever underestimate how clever he truly could be.
“I cannot imagine it was Alliance troops who did this to you.”
Vol’jin’s eyes tightened. “My. Head. Gone.”
The pandaren gave a short laugh. “Someone would be supping with the king in Stormwind, with your head the centerpiece, no doubt. But I figured you’d never let the Alliance catch you where they could hurt you so much.”
“Horde.” Vol’jin’s stomach tightened. It wasn’t really the Horde; it was Garrosh. Vol’jin’s throat constricted before he could speak the name. The bitterness of the attempt lingered on his tongue regardless.