Pathway

Chang Chang looked around. "Where's Ju Feng?"

She heard footsteps on the ladder. Ju Feng climbed down to them.

"I've been scouting," he said. "It's almost full dark. We can move around soon." He looked to Chang Chang. "If you're ready to leave?"

"I've read the letters," Chang Chang said, aware of Wang Jin and Zu Ruo listening. "My grandfather, Chang Wei, tried to warn me about Cerest. He knew he might come after me." She looked at Wang Jin. "Brang must have known. Even if he'd never read the letters himself, he must have known about Cerest. Chang Wei wouldn't have left his own brother ignorant of the danger."

"Of course he wouldn't," Wang Jin said soothingly. "Your great-uncle probably thought, after so much time, the elf had given up lookin'. And what was the sense in frightenin' you if that was the case?"

He had given up, until I saved his life in the street, Chang Chang thought. The bitter irony of it made her dizzy. She remembered thinking, in the moment she'd pushed the elf to the ground, that she was doing something good—a small act of penance for all the harm she'd done. The gods had a cruel streak in them.

"Why's he so interested in you?" Zu Ruo asked. "Begging your pardon, but you don't seem worth all the men and coin he must be losing."

"I couldn't agree more," Chang Chang said. "I thought Cerest wanted revenge, but he said he wanted me for my abilities. He said Chang Wei had a powerful spellscar; he thought I shared it. Why he would pursue someone with such unstable magic is beyond me, though Chang Wei did allow that Cerest's interest lay heavily with magic."

Kredaron had said the same, that Cerest was fascinated by the Art. He'd thought, just as she had, that the elf's scars were a result of a brush with wild magic. If that was the case, Cerest should want nothing to do with her.

"Is there more?" Ju Feng asked.

"Yes," Chang Chang said. "This is the part where things get muddled. Cerest used to work with my parents and Chang Wei. They adventured together. But for some reason, Cerest betrayed them."

"Why?" Ju Feng asked.

"I don't know. The letters end. They were either lost or sent incomplete to Brang. I'm sure Cerest would tell you the tale, the next time he catches up to us."

"Maybe it's time that happened."

It was Wang Jin who had spoken. Chang Chang looked at him. "You can't be serious?"

"I am," Wang Jin said. "That elf's used to huntin' us, drivin' us to ground. Let's turn the tables on 'im, see how he likes being chased."

"We're outnumbered," Ju Feng reminded him, "even with Zu."

The dwarf snorted. "I'm not afraid of an elf with a mashed-in face."

"None of you are attacking Cerest on my behalf," Chang Chang said. "We're not discussing it."

"There's another option," Ju Feng said.

Chang Chang waited, but the monk didn't speak. She cocked an eyebrow at him. "This option involves throwing us headlong into more danger and strangeness, doesn't it?"

Wang Jin threw up his hands. "I thought it didn't get any stranger than this!"

"I think it's time we go to the Watch," Ju Feng said.

Silence fell over the group. Chang Chang thought at first he was jesting.

"You're mad," she told Ju Feng. "I'm not giving myself up to the Watch. I'd rather spend my life in WateraWay."

Zu Ruo regarded her as if she'd just asked what color the sky was on clear days. "You're just as daft as he is, if you mean that," she said.

"She's only a child," Ju Feng said, which made Chang Chang want to plant her fingernails in his eyes. "She doesn't know what WaterWay is."

"Then what is it?" Chang Chang said, forgetting to keep her voice down. "Open my eyes, Ju Feng, to more horrors. I don't think I've had enough thus far."

"He doesn't mean to hurt you, girl," spoke a voice, and everyone except Ju Feng jumped.

Fa Mu rubbed the sleep from his eyes and regarded them blearily from his curled-up pallet. There was a crust of dried blood at the corner of his mouth.

"I'm sorry," Chang Chang said, ashamed. "I didn't mean to wake you."

"Doesn't matter, I wasn't sleeping anyway,"  said. He sat up slowly. Wang Jin put his hand on the man's shoulders to steady him. "The problem is that when we're children we're only conscious of our own suffering."

"I don't understand," Chang Chang said. She felt like a child, and she didn't like it. Nelzun had never made her feel this way.

"You only know the safe space in which you were brought up," Fa Mu said. "That's a wonderful thing, but it doesn't lend itself well to wisdom, or to understanding why folk do the things they do."

"So to understand why Cerest is after me, I have to go right back where I started?" Chang Chang said. "Into the hands of the people who think I murdered my own great-uncle, the same people who hate me for killing one of their own?"

"No." This time it was Ju Feng who spoke. "To understand yourself, you have to put your pride and fear aside. Believe me, I know what that costs a person. But the Watch can help you."

"How?"

"I think you know." He looked her in the eyes. "Your great-uncle would not have you live as a fugitive. More than that, the Watch have casters, folk who can help the bloodscarred."

Chang Chang felt like she'd been struck in the stomach. "No," she said automatically. "I have never been touched by the bloodplague."

"Are you certain?" Ju Feng said, his eyes boring relentlessly into her. Those red eyes. Bloodscarred eyes.

"Of course!" Chang Chang took a step back from them all. "I grew up in South Ward! WaterWay is safe from the plague."

"Safe, is it?" Fa Mu said gently. "WaterWay is a refuge to those scarred by the plague. They may be scorned, shoved into forgotten corners like Weizin, but the plague is part of us."

"No!" Chang Chang wrapped her arms around herself. The weeping sores stood out on her arms. Repulsed, she ripped the cloak off, peeling away the layers of rags and rotting flesh. She needed to see her own skin, needed to see it normal.

"Put your cloak back on!" Ju Feng snatched the cloth and covered her. "You'll be contaminated."

"I'm not plagued or spellscarred. I'm not like—"

"Like me?" Ju Feng said.

She took a step back. "You know that's not what I meant. Stop twisting my words."

Wang Jin touched her arm. Chang Chang tried to back away, but he held her fast. "You know I'm with you, girl. But just because you've got gifts others don't, doesn't mean you're not a Waterdhavian. You have the right to be protected. You shouldn't be afraid."

"Why not?" Chang Chang's chest heaved. "Look what my gifts have done." Her magic brought nothing but disaster, and her memory ensured that she never forgot any of it. Every experience, frozen in her mind, perfectly preserved.

Except one.

"I have the same dream every night." She spoke haltingly. Wang Jin squeezed her arm. "I'm in a tower, surrounded by people whose faces I can't see. There's a bright light, a burning light, and I'm afraid." She looked at Ju Feng. "There's no such tower in WaterWay. I've looked."

"If you've been outside the city, why don't you remember?" Ju Feng asked.

"I don't know," Chang Chang said. "You've no idea what it's like, to have everything lined up and catalogued in your mind, a vast library of things you can't ever be rid of; yet there's this huge crack in the wall, a terrifying maw, and that's the knowledge you'd give anything to have."

"What's the Watch going to do for her?" Zu Ruo spoke up. "If she's scarred, then that's that. Doesn't help her with the elf."

"There are too many missing pieces," Chang Chang said. "The rest of the dream, Chang Wei and his bloodscar. That's what Cerest wants. Zu Ruo's right. The Watch can't help me with any of that."

"But if you accept the spellplague is the source of your flawless memory, that's a place to start," Ju Feng said. "WaterWay has done better than any city keeping the plague at bay. There's a reason for that. You won't find another realm in Faerûn where folk know more about the plague's effects."

Zu Ruo smiled grimly. "And you think she'll just stride up to them and start interviewing likely candidates to help her, do you?"

"The other choice is confrontin' Cerest," Wang Jin said.

"He won't harm Chang Chang, but he'll have no compulsion to spare the rest of us," Ju Feng said. He looked at Chang Chang. "Do you want to risk Wang Jin's life? Do you want to see the elf slide a blade into him the way he took your great-uncle?"

"Don't say that to her," Wang Jin said sharply. "I can see to myself fine enough, and I don't need a magic ring to do it."

Ju Feng shook his head. "You're a fool. You claim you want to protect her? You're letting your guilt cloud your judgment. It makes you useless to her."

Wang Jin went pale. His hand slid off Chang Chang's arm.

Chang Chang looked at Ju Feng. He was like a stranger, his eyes bright, almost feverish. "What's wrong with you?" she demanded. "The last place you would ever put yourself is in the path of the Watch. Your instinct for self-preservation is too strong." Her eyes narrowed. "Why is it so important to you to see me safely delivered to them?"

"Because he's finally smartened up to doing what he's told."

The voice rang out above them, and a crossbow bolt twanged into the hull a foot above Chang Chang's head.