Conservation of Shadows - By Yoon Ha Lee Page 0,103

like to be a killer, but she knew something about hiding part of yourself from the outside world. She gave Ko’s piece a roving melody with ever-shifting rhythms and playful sliding tones.

Mesketalioth’s blue dragon was the most militant-looking of the five, at least to Ling Yun’s untrained eye. Ko’s dragon, if you looked at it from a distance, might pass as a picture of a god out of legend, not a war automaton. Mesketalioth’s diagram included not only the dragon, but cross-sections and insets showing the mechanisms of the repeating crossbows and the way the joints were put together. The aide assured her that it was a known type of ashworlder dragon, and provided Ling Yun with explanations from the engineers. Ling Yun thought that the aide was trying to be reassuring for her benefit, and failing. For Mesketalioth, she wrote a military air in theme and variations, shadows falling in upon themselves, the last note an infinitely subtle vibrato informed by the pulse in the finger holding down the string.

Periet was the best painter of the five. She had drawn her dragon out of scale so it looked no larger than a large cat, its head tilted to watch two butterflies, one sky-blue and the other star-spotted black. It was surrounded by flowers and gears and neatly organized mechanics’ tools. Ling Yun thought of Shang Yuan, with its shattered lanterns and ashes, wind blowing through streets inhabited only by grasshoppers and mice. No one had attempted to rebuild the City of Lanterns. The song she wrote for Periet had an utterly conventional pentatonic melody. The countermelody, on the other hand, was sweet, logical, and in a foreign mode.

As for the last of them, Li Cheng Guo had drawn a flamboyant red dragon with golden eyes. Ling Yun wondered if he meant some mockery of the Phoenix General by this. On the other hand, red did indicate good fortune. The gliders were always painted in fire-colors, while the dragons came in every color imaginable. Obligingly, Ling Yun wrote a rapid, skirling piece for Cheng Guo, martial in its motifs, but hostile where Mesketalioth’s was subtle.

Ling Yun slept surrounded by the five assassins’ pictures. She was disturbed to realize that, no matter where she rearranged them on the walls, she always woke up facing Periet’s butterfly dragon.

Careful inquiry revealed the assassins’ sleeping arrangements: in separate cells, although they were permitted in a room together for the purposes of lessons—probably a euphemism for interrogation sessions—and the general’s game. Ling Yun asked how they kept the assassins from killing their guards or tutors.

“After the first few incidents, they swore to the Phoenix General that they would abide by the terms of the game,” the aide said.

“And you trust them?” Ling Yun said.

“They’ve sworn,” the aide said emphatically. “And if they break oath, he’ll have them executed.”

Sooner or later, she was going to have to speak with the Phoenix General, if he didn’t demand a report from her first. She presumed that Phoenix Command had other precautions in place.

Two weeks into the assignment, Ling Yun said to the aide, “I’d like to speak with the assassins.”

“If you draw up a list of questions,” she said, “our interrogators can obtain the answers you want.”

“In person,” Ling Yun said.

“That’s unwise for a whole list of reasons I’m sure you’ve already thought of.”

“Surely one musician more or less is expendable in the general’s game,” Ling Yun said, keeping all traces of irony from her voice. She doubted the aide was fooled.

Sure enough, the aide said, with exasperation, “Do you know why we requested you, Musician Xiao? When we could have asked for the empress’s personal troupe and had them do the general’s bidding?”

“I had wondered, yes.”

“Most musicians at your level of mastery have, shall we say, a philosophical bent of mind.”

Ling Yun could think of a number of less flattering expressions. “I’ve heard that criticism,” she said noncommittally.

The aide snorted. “Of course you have. We wanted you because you have a reputation for pragmatism. Or did you think it would go unnoticed? The psychological profiles for the empire’s musicians aren’t completely worthless.”

“Will you trust that I have a pragmatic reason for wanting to talk to the assassins, then?” Ling Yun said. “Tell them it’s part of the game. Surely that isn’t far from the truth. It’s one thing for me to study your game transcripts, but I want to know what the assassins are like as people. I’m no interrogator, but I am accustomed to listening to