The Entropy of Bones Read online

  Great at parties, I’m sure, I said below deck after looking under the bed. Mind telling me what these weapons look like?

  “One is a sword made from the fang of the last three-footed dragon. The others are a set of six-shooters.” A.C. walked up to the deck, probably to avoid me asking about a dragon. But he stumbled a bit. Not physically, but visually. Like he stuttered in my sight.

  Dragons don’t exist, I said, chasing him.

  “Not anymore. That’s why that sword is an entropy weapon. It exists as the end of a thing that was. Entropy writ small.”

  And the six-shooters? He did the stutter thing again. It was like I had blinked but my eyes were open.

  “Long story which will only matter if we can find them. I can’t hold on here much longer,” A.C. said, his voice affected with the same strobe as his body. “Narayana never showed them to you?”

  He said entropy weapons were too heavy to carry, I said, realizing their weight was exactly what this shadow of a man needed. Ok, eye checking is not gonna work. Tell me how they function.

  “I don’t understand . . .” he started.

  I don’t know what entropy weapons do. How do they differ from regular weapons? What’s the point of them?

  “The sword cuts things that can’t usually be cut. The guns aim true and never have to be reloaded. They’re cursed weapons, heavy burdens to hold.”

  He looked at me for answers. I silenced myself, stopped moving, stopped thinking, and tried to put myself in Narayana’s headspace. He hid nothing from me on the Mansai. I’d been on it since I was twelve. What crevice hadn’t I looked in? They were obviously powerful weapons, but he didn’t want me handling them. Did he handle them? The only times I saw him with weapons was when he was showing me how to use them. I was getting nowhere.

  “Fucking pirates! Never leave them with valuables!” A.C. did his best to shout, and although it sounded more like the third repeat of an echo, it was enough.

  Yeah, and what do pirates do with treasure? I said, taking off my shoes and the skirt Mom dressed me in. Modesty had never been an issue for me.

  “Bury it like damn dogs,” A.C. said, smiling, though still flickering. I saw him fading slowly. “You ever seen this ship out of dock?”

  Not since he docked for real. You said they ground you, right? I’m assuming they would keep anything that could drift still? I was barely talking to him, more to myself. It was the only way I could keep my mind on the task. I kept feeling myself forget A.C., forget what I was doing with him, why I was on the ship. So I kept a running external monologue until I dived overboard. Opening my eyes or mouth would have made me sicker than a dog. I thought of chopped snakes, Mom’s discarded cigarettes and all the other things I’d seen people toss halfheartedly into our harbor. I wanted to go back up to air instantly, forgetting why I was underwater in the first place.

  Instead I followed the anchor chain to the Bay bed and felt around until a long rectangular box made itself evident in my hands. Of course I forgot what was in it or why I was under my ship, but it didn’t matter. When I came back up on deck, the flickering A.C. was present enough to jar my memory. With what little substance he had, he opened the clasp on the case that looked like hard leather but behaved like soft metal. Inside, an eighteen-inch soft curled bone white blade that smelled of fire and metal rested in a hilt of off-white polished gold. Beneath the sword two ancient black steel six-shooters lay snug in two holsters connected by a blood red belt.

  “Feel better?” I asked, after A.C. cinched the belt round his waist and I toweled off. He did some weird trick with a thin swath of ash gray cloth that sheathed the sword and attached it to his back at the same time.

  “Grounded if nothing else.” He looked more . . . substantial. No more flickering, the dull contours of his body now came into sharp focus. “Can you remember who I am without looking at me?”

  Colossal rectal irritant that needs to explain to me how he knows Narayana and why he’s got freaky-ass weapons hidden under my ship? I said with my eyes closed. When I opened them, he had his same silly grin on. But after I take a shower.

  I went to Mom’s to shower and dress. With my full memory intact, the idea of A.C. on the boat didn’t offend as much as if he was a total stranger. He’d been floating in the perimeter of my awareness for years and he’d never caused harm. At most he made me uncomfortable. But the promise of Narayana knowledge allowed me to face whatever tension might come.

  “Ask away,” A.C. said, now fully present and sitting on one of the fold-out chairs on deck when I came back. If the night air bugged him, he didn’t care. The half moon cast partial shadows all around the deck, and A.C. seemed as comfortable in the light as the shadow. He smoked his strange smoke. Another mystery for another time.

  Where’s Narayana?

  “I don’t know.”

  Motherfucker, I will destroy you, I said, Salamander stepping toward him. In a second, a gust of wind spun him out of the chair, over my head, and into the opposite corner of the deck.

  “Easy, Chabi.” A.C. took a stance that seemed both passive and prepared. I couldn’t tell if he was more ready to retreat or defend. “You want me to lie to you, I’ve got a thousand. But you want the truth . . .”

  So he tells you where he’s hidden what-the-fuck weapons then disappears from you?

  “He stole them from me a few years ago. In the future he tells me where they are,” A.C. said slowly. When I didn’t stride toward him, he sat on the deck without the chair. I walked over to the chair he sat on, picked it up and brought it closer to him.

  You’re from the future? I said, sitting down.

  “The future. A future, yeah. All that fluttering, snapping in and out of your life? That was me time jumping, trying to zero in on the right moment for us to meet.”

  And this is that moment? I asked.

  “Close enough.” He giggled. “A few years from now, for you at least, Narayana tells me where to find the weapons. And where to find you.”

  Why me?

  “Are you serious?” He laughed genuinely. “Chabi, you’re a liminal person. I need a cocktail,” he told me.

  You’re joking.

  “Oh, I’m sorry, you used to hanging out with non-drinkers? Is this the time in Narayana’s past when he didn’t drink? Oh, I forgot, that time never existed!”

  There’s a bottle of rum downstairs, I remembered vaguely.

  “That’s a start. Can you make a rum swizzle?”

  I can make you eat your own foot!

  “I’m not saying we spar, darling. I’m just saying Oakland is right there and I know a bomb-ass sake bar with the best Ika Sansai.”

  Man, you said you needed weapons. Now you’re talking about sake in Oakland? You say you’re here to help. Help me now. Give me something.

  “Ok. I’m from a future where the soul of the planet is being fought over. On one side is the god of connections and its vassal, my friend Mico and his assembled hosts. On the other side are the relations of your friends Rice and Poppy. They have many names—Alter men, psychic vampires, children of Daru. They are the unborn, products of paradox, of entropy-creating life. The deciding factor in this contest is the decision of people like you: liminal people.”

  Where the hell is this sake bar?

  “People, my people!” A.C. shouted as we entered the Korean restaurant in the Temescal neighborhood of Oakland. He walked in and started talking to everyone. They all responded, from the sushi chefs behind the small mini bamboo bar, to the Korean family of five we sat next to. It was small, no more than twelve tables, fit in a small alley in the neighborhood populated with small Victorian houses in the Oakland side of Telegraph. I assumed the food had to be great because it was small and packed. It reminded me of places Narayana would drag me to when I was . . . his. All the chairs were a dark wood with small-ass pillows on them. The tables were a well shellacked lighter wood. The fish butchers sat behind a half wall of Saran-wrapped rectangular cuts of bright white and deep or
ange fish meat.

  They all knew him. He didn’t even have to order his first large hot sake—it came with the table. A.C. ordered a yellowtail collar, marinated squid and vegetables, seaweed salad, and another large cold sake.

  “You get all that?” he asked me after the waiter left the table.

  What do you mean?

  “You understood everything I said,” he told me more than asked.

  Yeah. What’s your point?

  “When did you learn Korean?” he asked, smiling.

  Never. Something began to stick. Wait. You were speaking Korean?

  “Yeah. A psychic Taoist paladin taught me ten Asian languages in ten days.” The waiter came with the sake and two small wooden boxes to use as cups. A.C. chastised in jest. “You? You never learned it.”

  So how can I understand what they’re saying?

  “Liminal,” the skinny anarchist said, taking a shot.

  But wait. I called out to the waiter to ask how much the bottle of sake cost. He yelled back out twelve dollars, but A.C. is a friend of the owner so it’s free. He can understand me.

  “Well, he does speak English. But even if he didn’t he’d understand you.”

  How?

  “Liminal,” he says again.

  “I don’t know what that word means.”

  “I barely do. Think on it like this. Let’s say you want to give humanity, all of humanity, the spirit of it, a choice. All the people that ever lived and ever will live will be affected by the choice that’s made. How do you figure out who gets to make that choice? Is it the best of humanity? The worst? The children? The imprisoned? The dead? The living?”

  What kind of choice? What do you mean, the spirit of humanity?

  “Humanity has always had options. And not that all humans have ever agreed on anything, but we veer, orient ourselves, as a species.”

  Whatever man. Ok, so all of humanity has to make a choice. You’re saying I get to make that choice?

  “You and about three hundred others scattered through space and time. You are the liminal people, the in-betweeners. Nowhere near gods but far from human. Your kind only comes from humanity and your task is to lead it.”

  When the yellowtail collar came—a big hunk of sizzling, tender fish neck charred from the grill—A.C. took it apart with his chopsticks like a surgeon. He poured some soy sauce out in a small dish and dipped a large chunk of fish in it. He caught me off guard when he offered it to me.

  “I know it’s a lot to take in.” I didn’t let him feed me, but I took the sticks from his hand. My fingers brushed against his. It was a new feeling, his flesh. Like he used far too much lotion.

  You know a lot of liminals?

  “More than most. Less than a few.” He smiled then poured two wooden boxes of sake. “Your friend, the one whose funeral we were at. What name did his family call him?”

  Matt. A.C. realized the place he’d taken me to as soon as I spoke. It wasn’t that I’d forgotten about him, there was just a lot on my plate. But as the skinny anarchist spoke something into his hand as he held it tight to his mouth, I heard him say the words “Shotgun” and “Matt.” He released his hand over the second wooden cup and even the people at the other table felt a rush of air. When I looked in the cup, it was empty. A.C. looked at me solemnly and said:

  “For Matt. May he be kept safe from all other battles.”

  I nibbled on bits of seaweed salad and fish not saying anything for a while. A.C. respected my privacy. But it felt more awkward to be quiet in a restaurant than to speak so I tried to pretend the conversation we had to have made sense.

  All the other liminals, they can do what I can do? The ones you’ve met, I mean.

  “No!” he said, perking up, a little drunk. “No two liminals are even remotely the same. Taggert, he reads bodies the way psychics read minds. He can control other people’s bodies as well. He’s an all right dude. His daughter, Tamara, insane telekinetic, not too bad at reading people’s thoughts either. Samantha’s talent is tricky to explain. She can carry anyone through the unconscious realms and straight into the elusive realms. Prentis, she’s an animal totem . . .”

  You realize that when you talk like this I have no idea what you’re saying, right? He nodded slowly then poured a bigger drink. I caught it in his body language then. He missed them all. They are your friends?

  “They are. Along with the rest of Mico’s inner circle.” He stopped himself and gnawed on the marinated squid.

  So all the liminals work for this Mico character?

  “I wish.” He looked serious, almost furious. “Some are wild. They have no knowledge of self. Some repress and hide their talent, content to live the lives of normal humans. Some are . . . twisted. They hurt and so they hurt everyone around them. There’s one, Nordeen. He works for the other side.” I gauged his eyes and noticed how they tried to parse me out. There was a moment of hesitation before he spoke again. Then he decided to change the subject.

  “Tomorrow I need a ride.” A.C. grabbed his jacket and stood.

  I still have a world of questions! I snapped at him.

  “All the more reason to get started early. Seven ok?”

  It’s two in the morning now, I question.

  “Come on, I’ve traveled through time and space just to see you. I can’t get a little bit of me time?”

  He’s out the door a half second before I am. I’m too busy worrying about the bill when I realize he’s so far beyond such things that they don’t even occur to him. But when I step outside, A.C. is gone.

  I dreamt of Shotgun. It was a no-good dream. He was being tortured, bled, and burned. But then a cool wind lifted him from his tormentors and carried him out of sight. I didn’t know where he went and that made me sad.

  I woke, along with the sun, to near sub-audible grunts and flowing exhalations coming from on deck. The ship rocked not due to water, but wind. Never having heard it before, I was unfamiliar with the sound of A.C. training.

  As A.C. danced his katas, I realized the gaps in my technique. In the time since Narayana, I’d found more secrets in my forms; hidden moves expressing emotion in one strike while subduing emotion in others. What I thought had been strikes were actually progressions to familiar postures. An overhead disarm which could just as easily be a choke. A check could be the beginning of an elbow. Here were hidden harms and additional traps I could lay depending on how I folded one kata into another. If the goal was perpetual movement and 360-degree awareness, then my main ally was flexibility in body and mind. I’d found sadness in the Descending Phoenix Choke and joy in the Weeping Salamander’s Tail. Not that the movements themselves inspired the emotions, but when I was sad, my Descending Phoenix was perfect, as was the kick the Weeping Salamander’s Tail produced when I was happy. But all my movements ended in strikes or sweeps.

  Contact ended or altered the motion of my body. Mass, throats, arms, chests were always envisioned around me, countering or cooperating with my deadly intent.

  But that morning I saw the enlightenment of the human form unbound by technique. A.C. jumped, swept, and parried across the deck, unconscious of proper stance or any style I could discern. A.C. danced, flowed in and out of both form and function. He struck at nothing, no imagined enemy was anywhere near his body, but when I put my forever phantasmal attackers anywhere in his circumference, I saw them being taken down and dominated almost as an afterthought. I went through opponents with straight lines. A.C. created rising circles of incapacitation that became more deadly the closer an opponent came to him. He looked haphazard, making up a string of random movements, all with martial capabilities, but linking them seamlessly. For ten minutes I just stared at him. When he was done, he looked at me and smiled.

  “Wind style! What?”

  In the Cutlass he lit one of his strange-smelling blunts. I tried to not let it get to me. The smoke in my nostrils wasn’t offensive, but it was so familiar it was maddening.

  “First stop San Jose,” he pronounced.<
br />
  For what?

  “I’m fixed temporally, but not spatially . . .”

  Use smaller words.

  “The weapons ground me in the now. Now I’ve got to fix myself in the here.” He told me like a college professor trying to explain physics to a member of the football team.

  And that requires a trip to San Jose?

  “Doubt my time here will require journeys further south. Do you?”

  I’m driving, I said, giving up.

  So child of the wind? I ask, after we moved clear of some South Bay traffic on the 101. He was about to light yet another blunt and I needed some air.

  “Yup.”

  Meaning?

  “If you wanted, you could say that one of four foundational energies or temperaments owns every human spirit.” He tried it out, not sure if I’d accept what he was saying.

  You could?

  “If you wanted.” He smiled. “Now if an individual was so inclined, he could learn the secrets of his own personal temperamental energy and sacrifice his life to it.”

  For what? I mean, why would you give yourself over to something that already has you?

  “Sacrifice in this day and time emphasizes what’s lost so much more than what’s gained. When you go with your elemental force you’re always operating from a place of power. Hesitation becomes a memory and power your birthright. To be truly inline with your element is to align yourself with your true nature.”

  I let the 92 highway roar by for a minute or two before I spoke again. If you’re a child of the wind, that means there are children of fire, earth, and water?