descriptors

[whatlore]

The Poppy War

"The man to Jima's left wore no belt at all. His robe, too, was different--no embroidery at the edges, no insignia of the Red Emperor stitched over his right breast. He was dressed as if he'd forgotten orientation was happening and had thrown on a formless brown cloak at the last minute.

This master's hair was the pure white of Tutor Feyrik's beard, but he was nowhere near as old. His face was curiously unlined but not youthful; it was impossible to tell his age." - page 44

"He tilted his head very far to the left, studying her intently as if she were a particularly fascinating specimen. Up close, Jiang looked even more bizarre than Rin had first thought. His face was a riddle; it was neither lined with age nor flushed with youth but rather invulnerable to time, like a smooth stone. His eyes were a pale blue color she had never seen on anyone in the Empire." - page 108

"He spoke oddly, always a little too quickly or a little too slowly, with strange pauses between his words. He laughed in two ways; one laugh was off-kilter--nervous, high-pitched, and obviously forced--the other great and deep and booming. The first kind she heard constantly; the second was rare, and startling when it burst forth. He rarely met her gaze, but rather focused always at a spot on her brow between her eyes.

Jiang moved through the world like he didn't belong there. He acted as if he came from a country of near-humans, people who acted almost exactly like Nikara but not quite, and his behavior was that of a confused visitor who had stopped bothering with trying to imitate those around him. He didn't belong--not simply in Sinegard, but in the very idea of a physical earth. He acted like the rules of nature did not apply to him. Perhaps they didn't." - page 122

"Jiang did things that no human should be able to do.

The first time, he made the leaves at his feet spin without moving a muscle.

She thought it was a trick of the wind.

And then he did it again, and then a third time, just to prove he had utter control over it. [...] He made the wind howl at his command. He made trees rustle by pointing at them. He made water ripple without touching it, and could cause shadows to twist and screech with a whispered word." - page 184-185

"Jiang's voice, always so quiet and soothing, had been putting her to sleep. [...] Jiang, on the other hand, could meditate indefinitely. He became like a statue, serene and tranquil. He seemed like air, like he might fade away if she didn't concentrate enough on him. He seemed like he'd simply left his body behind and gone somewhere else." - page 190-191

"Jiang stood before them, his white hair hanging still in the air as if he had been struck by lightning. His feet did not touch the ground. Both his arms were flung out, blocking the tremendous force of the general's halberd with his own iron staff.

The general tried to force Jiang's staff out of the way, and his arms trembled with a mighty pressure, but Jiang did not look like he was exerting any force at all. The air crackled unnaturally, like a prolonged rumble of thunder. [...]

Jiang waved hist staff and blocked the blow as effortlessly as if he were swatting away a fly. He dispelled the force of the blow into the air and the ground below them. The paving stone shuddered from the impact, nearly knocking Rin and Nezha off their feet.

"Call off your men."

Though Jiang spoke calmly, his voice echoed as if he had shouted. He appeared to have grown taller; not larger, but extended somehow, just as his shadow was extended against the wall behind them. No longer willowy and fidgety, Jiang seemed an entirely different person--someone younger, someone infinitely more powerful.

Rin stared at him in awe. The man before her was not the doddering, eccentric embarrassment of the Academy. This man was a soldier.

This man was a shaman.

When Jiang spoke again, his voice contained the echo of itself; he spoke in two pitches, one normal and one far lower, as if his shadow shouted back everything he said at double the volume." - page 246-248

---

The Dragon Republic

"If she had ever doubted that her old master could possibly be The Gatekeeper, there was no mistaking his identity now. His hair, shorn close to his ears, was still the same unnatural white, his face as ageless as it had been when she'd met him.

But when he spoke, and his face twisted, he became a complete stranger.

"You don't want to fight us on this," he said. "You're running out of time. I'd clear out while you still can."

The Jiang that Rin had known was placid and cheerful, drifting through the world with a kind of detached curiosity. He spoke softly and whimsically, as if he were a curious bystander to his own conversations. But this younger Jiang had a harshness to his face that startled Rin, and every word he spoke dripped with a casual cruelty.

It's the fury, she realized. The Jiang she knew was utterly peaceful, immune to insult. This Jiang was consumed with some kind of poisonous wrath that radiated from within." - page 384-385

---

The Burning God

"He liked to fucking joke. He'd never been able to take anything seriously; only he would be amused by the prospect of losing his own mind. But her fear--hers and Riga's--was real. Ziya had been careening on the line between sanity and madness for months, and they didn't know when he'd tip into the void for good. Only this could bring him back." - page 4

"She didn't think. She lashed out at him, fingers curling into a fist midway to his face. His hand flashed out of his sleeve. He caught her wrist, forced her arm away with more strength than she'd expected.

She always forgot how strong Jiang was. All that power, concealed inside a reedy, whimsical frame." - page 218

"Jiang, too, was more vividly alive than she'd ever seen him. He didn't just look younger. That wasn't new--Jiang had always had an ageless quality about him, like he'd been ripped from a place out of time. But now he seemed solid. Powerful. He had a different look in his eyes--less whimsical, less placidly amused, and more focused than she'd ever seen him.

This man had fought in the Poppy Wars. This man had nearly ruled the empire." - page 220

"He lounged back against the trunk, stretched out his legs, and propped one ankle over the other. "Strike as soon as you can after you rendezvous with the coalition. Get them in their sleep. Sometimes it's easier to take them out in battle, but that tends to leave a nasty public impression. Bad form, and all that."

Rin stared at him in disbelief. She didn't know what shocked her more--his suggestion, or the cavalier tone in which he said it. The Jiang she knew liked to blow bubbles in the creek with a reed for fun. This Jiang discussed murder as if relaying a recipe for porridge." - page 223

"Oh, yes," Jiang said happily. "All the time. I handled the public murders, of course. Riga only had to utter the name, and I'd have the beasts rip them up from head to toe. The point was the spectacle, to dissuade anyone else from defection." He nodded at Daji. "And this one took care of everything we wanted to keep quiet. Good times." - page 224

"Daji blinked slowly at her as if the answer were obvious. "We went to the Pantheon, darling."

"Things got a lot easier after that," Jiang said. "I used to snatch them out of the sky like mosquitoes. Riga and I made it a game. Record time was four crafts in five seconds."

He said this so casually that Rin couldn't help but stare. Immediately, like a gnat had buzzed into his ear, he shook his head quickly and looked away.

Whoever had emerged from the Chuluu Korikh was not the man she'd known at Sinegard. The Master Jiang at Sinegard had no recollection of the Second Poppy War. But this Jiang made constant offhand references about it and then backpedaled quickly, as if he were dipping his toes in an ocean of memory just to see if he'd like it, then cringing away because the water was too cold.

The memory lapses weren't the things about Jiang that bothered her. Ever since they'd left the Chuluu Korikh, she had been watching him, following his movements and vocal patterns to track the differences. He was refreshingly familiar and jarringly different all at once, often within the span of the same sentence. She couldn't predict the switches in the timbre of his voice, the sudden sharpness of his gaze. Sometimes he was affable, eccentric. And other times he carried himself like a man who had fought and won wars. [...]

What confused her even more were the times when Jianged slipped almost fully back into his former skin, when he acted so much like the teacher she'd once known that every day, for brief pockets of time, she almost forgot that anything had changed. [...] Those jokes would have prompted a slap if they'd come from anyone else, but when uttered in Jiang's detached, deadpan delivery, they somehow made her laugh. [...] But inevitably, his smile always slipped, his shoulders tensed, and the laughter went out of his eyes, as if the ghost of who he had been had abruptly fled." - page 231-232

"You need to go through the old mining tunnels." Rin was startled when Jiang spoke up. He'd been silent all morning, gazing placidly around the battlefront like he was touring a botanical garden. Now suddenly his gaze was focused, his voice firm and assured. "You won't be underground for long. Just until you emerge on the other side into the forests. It's not a perfect exit route--those tunnels aren't well lit, and quite a few people are probably going to fall down the pits and break their necks. But there's no other route that keeps you safe from the dirigibles."

Once again, his switch in demeanor was so abrupt that Rin couldn't help but stare. Jiang was acting like a seasoned general, casually spinning together pieces of strategy like someone who'd planned ambushes like this a hundred times before. This wasn't him. This was a stranger." - page 274-275

"He wielded no weapon and carried no shield. He loped casually with slouched shoulders across the field, hands in his pockets, as if he had just stepped out his front door for a mild afternoon stroll. He didn't stop until he reached the very center of the line of dirigibles. Then he turned around to face them, head tilted sideways like a fascinated child. [...]

Something invisible pulsed through the air.

Jiang hadn't moved, but something about the world had shifted, had knocked its sounds and colors slightly off-kilter. [...] Jiang raised one hand into the air. His fingers splayed out. The air around him shimmered and distorted. Then the sky exploded into shadow like an ink bottle shattered on parchment. [...]

He was still alone in the dead zone. He was so open, so vulnerable. But no bullets seemed able to pierce his skin, and every arrow aimed his way dropped harmlessly onto the ground long before it reached him. Everywhere he pointed, explosions followed. [...]

Rin felt a pang of jealousy as she watched Jiang conducting his wraiths like a musician, each sweep of his arm prompting another charge of shadowy havoc." - page 283-285.