The Empress of Salt and Fortune by Nghi Vo

Author:Nghi Vo
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Tom Doherty Associates

Chapter Nine

Canister of marked flat sticks. Horn, silver, and wood. The horn canister is bound with strips of fine inlaid silver. The sticks inside are carved with runes from the north.

Three bound sticks. Wood and leather. The sticks come from the canister, pulled apart from the set and bound with a thin leather cord.

Of course Thriving Fortune was haunted; most places in Anh were. The country had been Ahnfi hundreds of years ago, and before that Cang, and before that, lost except to the clerics of the Singing Hills, it was Pan’er, whose capital was drowned by the waves of an angry sea god.

Ghosts were part and parcel of life in Anh, more worrisome than rats, less worrisome than the warrior-locusts that swarmed out every twelve years. Chih did not fear ghosts, but, they thought, as they cataloged the possessions of the deceased empress, they might be afraid of becoming one in this lonely compound on the shores of Lake Scarlet.

Thriving Fortune had a certain kind of irresistible gravity. The more they studied the life in exile of Empress In-yo, the more they looked, the more they wanted to look. More often than not, they could feel Rabbit watching them from some corner or doorway, waiting patiently as they pulled out more and more of the story that she had lived.

That morning, they uncovered a carved box tucked behind a basket for laundry, and when they brought it to Rabbit, the old woman chuckled with a kind of malice.

“Oh yes. Those are called Lucky Sticks in the capital. They are of northern origin, written in T’lin runes. Unfashionable, of course, until In-yo sat the lion throne. I do not suppose you have ever seen them before?”

“No. When I go to record the eclipse, this will be my first time in the capital.”

“Well, that sounds very fine. Here, let me show you how to play.”

Chih sat down across from Rabbit on the porch and watched as the old woman capped the box and rattled the sticks packed inside. As she did so, she took on the droning cry of the market fortune-tellers.

“Here Xao Min, goddess of luck! Here Fei-wu, god of wealth! Here Shao Mu, saint of love! Look upon our hands with kindness, and guide us towards what is right!”

She gave the small container a little bounce in her hand while at the same time turning it over and removing the cap. The sticks themselves were too tightly packed to all come out, but three slid forward partway. With a practiced hand, Rabbit whipped them free and spread them on the ground in front of Chih.

“I take it you do not know T’lin?”

“They started teaching it after I served my novitiate. Those who came after me knew it, but I’ve not had the time to take it up, personally.”

“You should find the time. It will never replace Anh as the national writing, but it will only grow more common the more traders come from the north. Ah, but let’s see what you have drawn.

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