Meandering River, Ardent Flame

by Vivian Chak

  ***

  Xiang walked down the main trail from Yongtai, regretting the loss of his horse. He was nearly out of money, and the farmers at Dahuting didn't accept jiaozi. He could most likely obtain provisions and lodging, if he cared to flaunt his rank and name, but Xiang did not want to extort others, even though his father had never forbidden it. He walked on, taking care to stay beneath the shade of trees. It was early morning and drizzling. Xiang yawned. He'd slept badly after examining the antiquities of Dahuting's Han cemeteries. He was sure that none of his ancestors were buried there and requiring offerings, yet his sleep had been troubled by bronze-armoured ghosts riding flame-coloured mounts. He hadn't recognized any of them, although the had faces seemed familiar, and the horses had reminded him of something. Now the horses from his thoughts filled his ears, as Xiang heard hoof beats. He whirled, sword loosened to draw.

  It was the old man who'd taken his horse, mounted and setting the horse at a leisurely pace. Xiang watched him warily.

  “Well, if it isn't the owner of this very steed!” The old bandit seemed cheerful.

  “Grandfather, you have a lot of audacity, to be walking the horse before his rightful owner,” returned Xiang, addressing the old man politely.

  “Let me make you an offer,” said the bandit, stopping his horse. “You give me both your swords, I'll give you your horse.”

  “And then this situation ends with you riding off again,” said Xiang, drawing his sword. “Truly, it wouldn't do for me to be fooled twice.”

  “I wasn't finished,” beamed the man through his grey beard. “Counter offer—we'll duel for your horse; your means to Bianjing.” Xiang was instantly on guard. How did this man know his destination? If he won, maybe he would find out. But it didn't seem honourable to fight an old man.

  “Grandfather, can you wield a blade?”

  “Not at all, though it's considerate of you to ask,” replied the old man. “Tell you what, I'll use this instead.” He held up his staff. So dark was the wood, Xiang believed the staff to be of black iron, until it caught the light. Then the red shone.

  “Hie!”

  Hooves beat dust into the air, and Xiang rolled out of the way as the bandit attempted to ride him down, staff grasped double-handed near its base, as if to spear him. Xiang's sword rose to stab at the wrist, but the bandit snaked his staff forwards, end catching Xiang in the chest, to knock him down. Xiang had roped his sword by tassel to his wrist, but he had to grope in the earth all the same to find his blade. Chest aching―it had been unexpectedly heavy for a piece of wood―Xiang stood, sword arm back, left side facing the old man, who was drawing the horse in a circle to gallop back at him.

  The wooden staff circled heavily to hit his wrist, but Xiang was faster, as he slid between horse and staff, directing the sword tip in a downward arc to bite at the inside of his adversary's arm. Dirt flew as the horse shied, and Xiang was momentarily stunned as the heavy wood circled under his arm and caught him in the elbow. He tripped back, blinded in a flurry of sand, to land heavily on his shoulders, even as he rolled over backwards to spare his back.

  “I don't think you're actually trying,” commented the bandit from the back of his horse. “Your father would be disappointed.”

  “What do you know about my father?” Xiang asked, shaking his sword arm in an effort to return the feeling to his numbed fingers. He suspected that his father really would have been disappointed, but Xiang wasn't about to let that show. Showing emotion would have disappointed his father further. The bandit smiled.

  “I'll tell you if you win. Your father told me that if violence failed to spur you on, I should hold out knowledge instead.”

  “It would be rather hard to ask you anything if I won,” Xiang commented wryly, while waiting for feeling to return to his arm. He watched warily as the bandit held the horse motionless.

  The bandit smiled; sadly, it seemed to Xiang. “There's your father showing.” He spurred the horse onwards again.

  Xiang tried for a side slash this time, sword moving in tandem with his core, as he spun towards the bandit. He meant to slash below the staff—such a heavy rod would be difficult to manoeuvre into a block. Instead, his blade was struck nearly clear of his hands, as the bandit flipped the staff to follow the motion of the sword, base of the staff lifted high, while the other end snapped at Xiang's hands. He lunged forwards, but the bandit led the horse in a circle around Xiang's back, and tripped him up with the staff. The momentum of the fall brought Xiang into another roll, this time off the road, and between two trees.

  He whirled up just as the horse came upon him. Protected by live wood, while threatened with dead, Xiang prepared to slash the heavy staff from the bandit's hands by striking it directly. His horse would stop at the trees, he knew, and perhaps with loss of speed, the bandit could be disarmed, or at least the wooden pole shortened if he parried badly. The staff shot suddenly, aimed for his injured leg. Xiang had just enough time to twist out of the way, and jerk steel into staff.

  While Xiang's blade had a keen edge, and its core was durable steel, it did not feel nearly flexible enough, as the blade shook stiffly and threatened to tear from his grasp for a third time. The staff, gleaming dark red in the morning light, swept up sideways for his head. Xiang ducked, then grasped the reins of his horse, flinging them at his mount's head desperately.

  His horse reared and crashed back down, narrowly missing a tree, and Xiang's head. The old man struggled to keep both seat and animal. Xiang used the opportunity to slip his sword above the man's two-handed grasp of staff, to point squarely at the throat.

  “Yield.”

  “That was no way to treat your animal,” the bandit replied, ignoring the blade.

  “It was equally ill-willed of you to ride my horse at two trees, Grandfather,” responded Xiang, still using the polite form of address, though he pressed the blade closer. The bandit chuckled.

  “And I was beginning to think you weren't pragmatic at all, after I took your horse the first time and affronted your station.”

  “A station of which you're part, or at least provisioned by,” Xiang said. “My horse, please.” To his surprise, the old man dismounted readily, leaning heavily on his staff.

  “How did you know?”

  “By your staff,” said Xiang, referring to the heavy hardwood of clearly precious type, given its rich dark tint. He moved carefully between his horse and the bandit. “The last time we met, you weren't as richly provisioned.”

  “The first time we met, I didn't have a horse either.”

  “You also speak richly, for a supposed commoner.”

  “I'm a learned old man,” laughed the bandit.

  “You're Lang laoshi,” Xiang recognized suddenly. Lang had been his tutor when he was younger. His former tutor still looked sprightly enough, though his beard had grown longer and greyer, since the seven years that had passed. Xiang lowered his blade, bemused.

  “That's correct,” said Lang gravely. He palmed his staff quickly and thrust the end at Xiang's head. Xiang grasped the end while kicking at the wrist, wrenching the pole from his old teacher's hands.

  “What are you doing?” Xiang was incredulous. Lang had been a law-abiding, and ever-constant voice of reason, for as long as Xiang had known him.

  “Your laoshi has a last lesson to render, as per your father's request,” said Lang.

  “My father asked you to rob me?”

  “Listen to me. Your father has always noted a lack of pragmatism in you. An honourable fool, to put his words nicely. But he wants you to know this―when someone wants your horse, threatens your family honour and goes against the law, you kill that someone. Personal honour is nothing compared to the honour of the family. And the law is absolute.”

  “Is that all?” Xiang had always had utmost respect for his teacher, but it was turning as weak as the false conviction in his teacher's words. Lang took a deep breath, and Xiang saw his hands shake slightly.

  “He wanted you to remember
that the law, based in Confucianism, and exercised for centuries since the Tang, has lasted so long because of its success in the preservation of strong family; strong Empire. That he has tasted bitterness, from the mistakes of his youth, to learn this, and would have you learn it earlier than he did.”

  “And what do you want to say?” Xiang was feeling warmer with anger, though he did not know why.

  “Though it's to your father's despair that you'll let yourself be thieved, your station slandered, and Confucian law disregarded, all for self-honour, I want you to remember that Confucius also said, 'to put the family in order, we must first cultivate our personal life; to cultivate personal life, we must first set our hearts right',” replied Lang. “You are not your father. Your heart is different.”

  Xiang listened to all this with growing dread. It was evident that his father knew exactly what had elapsed between the time that he encountered Lang on the way to Yongtai, and on the way from it.

  “All I did was teach swordplay!” Xiang burst out, angry for being trapped by his father and Lang. It appeared that they were pulling him in opposing directions.

  “To what end?” When Xiang didn't answer, Lang sighed.

  “I see. You intend to provide the means for honourable combat. Well, I'll say to you, don't let a dog eat your conscience.” Xiang started Lang's use of the oft-said idiom.

  “Are you speaking from experience?" Xiang was angry now, politeness slipping as did his self-control. "If not, Lang laoshi, what are you doing, dressed as a bandit and informing on me?”

  “A dog ate your father's conscience,” Lang smiled, all bandit again.

  “Take that back!” Xiang was furious, for his father.

  “Or you'll kill this old man?” Lang's mouth tautened. “I'm doing this because your father threatened my son. He's twenty-three, set to inherit my ideals.” Xiang was twenty-three. He felt a stab of pity for Lang. But Lang wasn't his father. And although he owed Lang much, he owed his father more. The sword hung undecided in Xiang's hand.

  Lang decided for him. The old man lunged and snatched up the Tang sword that Xiang had left hanging from the saddle. He flung the scabbard aside.

  “I'm as adept as you remember,” said Lang, beard moving ethereally in the wind as he spoke.

  “That's not at all,” said Xiang. The words had hardly left his mouth, when Lang thrust the blade at him. His laoshi, he recalled, had studied the spear while still young, but was woefully inadequate with sword. The old teacher seemed to consistently under reach, as he stabbed forwards and withdrew alternatively with the quick strokes of a spear point. Xiang parried them all easily, though the steel sounded uncommonly harsh as he did so.

  Lang thrust offensively at his feet. When Xiang knocked the blade aside, Lang took up the wooden staff again, and speared for his face. Xiang knocked it down as well. His teacher's breaths began to come in gasps.

  “Lang laoshi,” said Xiang exasperatedly, “is my father trying to kill you?” The old tutor held his staff protectively in front of him, heavy wood of darkest red, to face Xiang's steel. Xiang lowered his blade slightly, in response.

  “He's trying to make you kill me,” replied his teacher, with recovered breath. Then he rushed forward, heavy staff gleaming red, circling downwards at Xiang. The sword raised to parry.

  And instead of wood found flesh.

  Xiang had just killed a week ago. Already he had only a vague recollection of the scruffy men who'd attacked him alongside Lang. They'd died quickly, in the thick of fighting. This was different. Lang was on his knees, hands devoid of staff, face emptying of blood.

  “I don't believe you've killed your liang xin, conscience, yet. But be the dutiful son. Send my body, with the staff, to Bianjing. Tell Li that Lang has done his part.”

  He pulled himself from Xiang's blade, and Xiang watched him expire quickly. Had his father really arranged for Lang and his men to attack him, to make him kill? Xiang's head swam, and he moved from Lang. The blood pooled, in an earthy depression around the staff his father had provided. Xiang recognized it to be of zitan mu. It was a wood of scarcity and renowned for its resilience and desirable dark tint. This made it an expensive gift from his father. Xiang looked back at his tutor's body, and with a sudden pang of remorse, remembered that Lang had no son.

  He looked to the staff. The blood had filled the pit, but the staff stayed sunken at the bottom. Zitan mu was the densest of all woods, and refused in a wholly unnatural manner, to float as other woods did.