Fifth is the nature of metal. Know it through the speed of lightning and the pull of iron, the nature of things that spark and attract.
Know the ways of the five natures, and you will know the ways of the world. For the lines and knots of the Slack are the lines and knots of the world, and all that is shaped is shaped through the twining of the red threads of fortune.
It was a long spiel. So long that by the time her attention had slogged all the way to its odious end, her lungs had stopped trying to collapse upon themselves. Her head still hurt, lines of stress running from the crown to the joints of neck and shoulder, but her legs held when she stood.
Phoenix came and pressed her massive snout against Mokoya, whining in distress. “Shh,” Mokoya said, palms gentle against the pebbled skin of the creature’s nose. “Everything will be okay. I’m here. Nothing can hurt you.”
The raptor pack circled them. They were almost as tall as Mokoya when dismounted. Unlike her, they seemed to be largely unaffected by the naga’s passage.
Mokoya marked the spot where the beast had disappeared. She could spin this into a triumph. No more hunting, no more groping through unsympathetic desert searching for signs. She had found the naga’s nest. And the best part of it: defying the reports they’d heard, the naga was average for its kind. They’d hunted bigger; they’d certainly captured bigger. This wasn’t the otherworldly monstrosity Mokoya had been fearing. Adi’s crew could definitely handle this one without problems.
Mokoya raised her left wrist to deliver the good news, then remembered what she’d done to the transmitter. Cheebye.
Wait. No. There was still the talker. How could she have forgotten?
Phoenix lowered herself to the sand at Mokoya’s command. She reached into the saddlebag and rooted around until she collided with the talker’s small round mass, the bronze hard and warm against her palm. Tensing through metal-nature infused the object with life-giving electricity. Its geometric lines lit up, plates separating into a loose sphere. Slackcraft. Mokoya turned the plates until they formed the configuration twinned with Adi’s talker.
Several seconds passed. Adi’s voice welled up from the glowing sphere. “Mokoya! Kanina—is that you or a ghost?”
“It’s me, Adi. I’m not dead yet.”
An annoyed noise, another expletive. “Eh, hello, I let you go by yourself doesn’t mean you can ignore me, okay? What happened to Yongcheow’s stupid machine?”
“Something,” Mokoya demurred. “An accident.” She leaned against Phoenix’s warm, patient bulk. Get to the point. “Adi, I’m coming back. I found the nest. I did it, all right? I found the naga’s nest.”
About the Author
Photograph by Nicholas Lee
JY YANG is a lapsed journalist, a former practicing scientist, and a master of hermitry. A queer, nonbinary, postcolonial intersectional feminist, they have over two dozen pieces of short fiction published in places including Uncanny Magazine, Lightspeed, Strange Horizons, and Tor.com. They live in Singapore, edit fiction at Epigram Books, and have a master’s degree in creative writing from the University of East Anglia. Find out more about them and their work at jyyang.com, and follow them on Twitter: @halleluyang.
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Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Notice
Dedication
MAP
Acknowledgments
Part One
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Part Two
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Eleven
Part Three
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Part Four
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-one
Chapter Twenty-two
EPILOGUE
Excerpt: THE RED THREADS OF FORTUNE
About the Author
Copyright Page
This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novella are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
THE BLACK TIDES OF HEAVEN
Copyright © 2017 by JY Yang
All rights reserved.
Cover illustration by Yuko Shimizu
Cover design by Christine Foltzer
Map by Serena Maylon
Edited by Carl Engle-Laird
A Tor.com Book
Published by Tom Doherty Associates
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New York, NY 10010
www.tor.com
Tor® is a registered trademark ofMacmillan Publishing Group, LLC.
ISBN 978-0-7653-9540-5 (ebook)
ISBN 978-0-7653-9541-2 (trade paperback)
First Edition: September 2017
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