“Yes, of course, of course. Come with me into town, we’ll set it all up. Can you go in today?”
Mei Li lifted her eyes to the sky, estimating, then turned to Shunlei. “We’ll have about eight hours of daylight. I think this can be done in four, assuming we don’t have to go too far in.”
“Let’s make every attempt today,” he encouraged her. “If we need to pull out and try again tomorrow, we shall.”
“How about we divide and conquer?” Ling Ling craned her neck around so she could see Mei Li around Shunlei. “Us dragons can’t help you much in there. We’ll go into town, set things up. You mages tackle the bridge.”
“I would like two dragons to stay here, though. We might need your strength.” Mei Li didn’t need to ponder that very much before turning. She would need strength, and out of the dragons here, she knew who was the strongest. “Bai? Can you and Shunlei stay with us?”
He looked enormously pleased to be asked. Mei Li had the distinct impression that because he was albino, people weren’t quite sure how to respond to him, and it left him slightly outside of society as a result. It was stuff and nonsense, according to Shunlei. He’d handpicked this flight of dragons himself and obviously trusted Bai. Mei Li would do the same.
“Of course, Tomes.”
“Mei Li,” she chided him and enjoyed the smile he gave her. “Thank you. Tengfei, come back to us when it’s all set up so we know.”
The small Red gave her a serious nod. “Will do, Mei Li.”
Mei Li rubbed her hands together briskly, mostly to warm them as much as she could. “Right. Let’s get to work.”
Going into Lost Souls Bridge was not for the faint of heart. It took a certain amount of arrogance, magic, and insanity to think of even treading one toe onto the stone. Mei Li set the path to the bridge very carefully, making sure the flags were in a perfectly straight line leading up to the bridge. Each flag had a painted direction, source of earth, and a call of return on the black cloth. Corresponding flags would then be wrapped around each of their arms so they could navigate inside the bridge’s strange no-man’s land and still see the way out. It would make for an arduous game of Seek to collect all the people lost inside, but it was doable.
Or at least, according to the record she’d read, this had worked last time.
Halfway through checking the flags, Mei Li was struck with a question she should have asked and stopped short, swearing.
Shunlei, ever attuned to her, immediately turned. “What is it?”
“I forgot to ask if we have a record of who’s lost in there,” she responded, still kicking herself. “I was so focused on the mechanics I didn’t think to ask.”
“Ah. That’s easy enough.” He turned his head to the sky and belted out the question in Long-go, “Huan, ask for a record of who’s missing!”
Huan’s reply came a moment later. “Record coming to you!”
“My thanks!”
“It’s really handy to have someone about with your lungpower,” Mei Li acknowledged, pleased. But as she stood there she noticed goosebumps all along his neck and hands. It was hard to tell with his dark skin tone, but Shunlei looked almost blue in the lips, too. He was in human form, wrapped in warm clothes, but it didn’t seem to help him much. Then again, he’d started out cold. Without body heat to warm the clothes, it wouldn’t help much. The air was cold enough that they could have had a thick carpet of snow, if the sky was so inclined. Although Mei Li found it a mercy there was no snow on the ground. Keeping the flags straight and upright was challenging enough.
Still, she worried for Shunlei. They would be out here hours yet and his heating charm had apparently worn off. They were only good for twelve hours or so. Digging into her pouch, she produced a chalk pencil and bent to scribble quickly on a talisman paper slip.
“Now what are you doing?” he questioned.
“Helping you. Here.” Straightening, she slipped the talisman inside of his clothes, right near the collarbone. “Heating charm.”
A shiver wracked him as his body reacted to the unexpected warmth. “Bless you. That’s delightful. You made one for yourself?”
“One?” Mei Li scoffed. “I have three.”
He chuckled in a low rumble. “Of course. May I have a second, then?”
“Well. Since you asked so nicely.” Mei Li liked teasing him like this. He was fun to tease, which was somewhat unexpected. Shunlei was straight-faced most of the time so on first glance, no one would think he had much of a sense of humor. At least, not until the mood struck and he started messing with people.
Bai sidled up next to them, both arms wrapped around his chest and his hands rubbing ineffectually at his forearms. “Can I have some too? It’s cold enough to freeze a demon’s—” he looked at Mei Li and changed what he was going to say. “—horns.”
“Horns, huh.” Mei Li waggled her eyebrows at him and watched him blush, a much more vivid color on his pale skin. “Sure, Bai, you can have two. Or three?”
“Three sounds great.”
She had Shunlei turn so she could write on his back, a much easier endeavor than doing it against her thigh. Both men sighed in bliss as they stuck the talismans in random places in their clothes. Mei Li really should have thought of it earlier and realized the charms would have worn off by now. She’d just been distracted.
Bai nodded to the flags. “Are we set?”
“I think so. I’m going to tie a rope around Simeon and have him test that the flags are working. If they are, we go in.”
Simeon lifted his head, his elongated ears going flat against his head. “Why me!”
“Because your earth sense is stronger than ours,” Mei Li shot back impatiently. “If the flag doesn’t work right, you have the best chance of walking yourself back out. And not being dragged out like a disobedient puppy by Bai.”
Without a way to argue that, Simeon wrinkled his nose at her and subsided. Half-elf that he was, it was only natural his earth sense would be stronger than either human or dragon.
Tengfei came back to them in a quick sprint of flight, settling carefully outside the flags to avoid disturbing anything. He jogged to them, handing her a rolled parchment, which she took. “Sherriff says they have a rough head count of sixty-three. He’s verified that number as much as he can. We’ve got two inns set up to house people, hot soup and rice ready.”
“Thank you very much, Tengfei. Return and tell them we’re about to go in. If you can arrange for carts to come fetch people? They won’t have the strength to hike to the town.”
Giving her a serious nod, he bounded away again, taking quickly to the air.
Mei Li swept her eyes over the area once more. The flags were set, guiding their steps back out. The ropes she’d requested had arrived and were tied off at the Torii gates. Every person had a flag tied around their wrists, including Bai and Shunlei. Just in case. She gestured for people to come in closer and surveyed the crowd. They looked a little travel-weary but eager to get this over with too. Mei Li could respect that as she felt the same.
“Alright, people, listen carefully. I know we all have a good idea of what to do, but let me go over it again. I’m going to tie a rope around each of your waists. Bai and Shunlei are on standby out here, and if they feel three hard tugs on your line they’re going to drag you back out. Three hard tugs means you’re in trouble, you can’t see your way out. The ropes are magically infused, so they should stretch as much as you need them to.
“Try to gather as many people as possible before coming back. Coming and going is going to wear you out very quickly. According to the record, time and gravity don’t work the same on the bridge as out here. It’s going to feel like slogging through thick mud while walking in there.”
Budworth asked in his mountainous voice, “Is that why you said you don’t think people will have moved too much?”
“Too hard to move far, and they’re weak by now. They won’t easily have the strength
to go long distances. That is going to help us but also make this harder. Everyone have a bag of restoring potions on you? Yes? Make sure they down a full bottle before trying to lead them back out. Do not, I repeat, DO NOT take the rope off your own body and put it on someone else in order to get them out. If you’re struggling with someone, give the line four tugs. Either Bai or Shunlei will follow your rope in and help you pull people out.”
She got nods all around and hoped the simple instructions stuck in people’s heads.
“I’ve got wagons coming to help transport people back down. Don’t worry about their wagons or cargo—we’re saving people, not things. I’m sure you’ll have people argue that point with you. Ignore them. We can’t try to save everything. We must absolutely be off that bridge by sunset. Nightfall on the bridge is, by every record, horrendous. Remember, this thing attracts lost souls.”
Bai blanched. “Wait. You mean ghosts are on that thing?”
“Ghosts. Demons. Ghouls. Fallen deities. You name it, it lives there. They’re most active and powerful at night, which is why we need to get in and out quickly.”
Sotejo asked the question they must have all been thinking. “But if it’s been eleven days since the first caravan got lost there…is anyone still alive?”
“They won’t feed off of anyone trapped on the Bridge, oddly enough. The record warns that it’s the rescuers who will be in trouble. Because we have the flags that show the way out, we’ll attract the wrong attention from the lost souls in there. We’re actually in more danger than the average human. That said, I don’t know how many people are left alive in there. It depends on how much provisions they had going in, and how smart they were rationing it. All we can do is go in and see.” Mei Li wished she had a better answer to that, but unfortunately there was no way to communicate with anyone on that bridge once they stepped onto it. “Alright, any other questions?”
“What if both Bai and Master Shunlei get called in to help?” Leah asked.
“I will call for someone to replace me on the ropes before going in,” Shunlei answered.
“There will always be backup out here,” Mei Li promised. “Alright, Simeon, in you go.”
Simeon went, with only minor grumbling, and stayed inside for a full minute before walking back out. He nodded encouragement to them all as he did so. “The flag worked perfectly. I can see the outside clearly. Once you’re in there, the atmosphere is very odd. It will feel like you’re being drawn in, kind of like a high tide washing you out to sea, but it’s alright. You can walk against it without too much trouble.”
Mei Li hoped that would be his answer. “Alright. Everyone, take a rope and tie off. In you go!”
Teoh stopped and gave her a fishy-eyed glower. “You sound entirely too peppy.”
She gave the woman her best smile, fake though it might be. “I’m trying to encourage you!”
“Stop. It’s creepy.” Teoh pointed a finger at her, eyes narrowed. “And are you coming in?”
“Of course.”
Shunlei’s head snapped around, a protest on his lips. “Mei Li! You need to coordinate things out here, don’t you?”
“Naw, Sherriff Wightkin and Huan can handle things out here. They know what to do. And right now, time’s ticking. We need every hand in there.”
One glance at Shunlei’s face made it very clear he didn’t like this idea one little bit. Mei Li could admit the danger, but she wasn’t the type to send someone in and do a job she herself wasn’t willing to do. And they didn’t have enough hands as it was for such a short rescue mission. There wasn’t time to fight this out.
She expected an argument, but instead Shunlei let out a low breath, the white steaming around his head, and visibly reined in his temper. “Fine. I’ll go in with you.”
Mei Li’s head jerked back with surprise. “Now wait a minute. I just paired everyone up to go in—I barely have enough dragons out here to hold the lines. If you and I both go—”
“Shunlei, you can’t expect poor Bai to hold all the lines out here,” Rone pitched in, adding her own voice to the argument. “That’s too much for one person to handle. And Mei Li’s right, she can handle going in there. She knows more of how to approach the dangers than we do, for that matter.”
Shunlei faced both of them off, jaw settling into a stubborn line, his arms crossed over his chest. “I will not let her go in there without me.”
In the end, Shunlei won the argument. Shunlei had Rone hold his end of the line. Rone gave Mei Li an exasperated look as she did so, which Mei Li tried not to notice. She knew they weren’t happy she was entering danger, but part of a Tomes’ job was facing danger. That was unavoidable. It wasn’t like she was demanding the right to go in by herself, or ignoring the possible pitfalls. She had no issue with being guarded as she worked. She understood that at this point in time, she was the only one who could read the records. That demanded she be closely safeguarded.
But she was being guarded by dragons and mages on all sides. There was no possible way to make this situation any safer.
They tied the ropes about their waists and double-checked them with hard yanks. Satisfied at their strength, they trudged in. People splintered off as soon as they cleared the torii, going off in different directions. Because it was called a bridge, Mei Li had expected the general shape of one. What she got instead was an open expanse, like foggy moors that stretched out past the horizon. Never ending, with nothing in sight but rocky ground and grey. Worse, she could feel the strain on her feet as she walked, the pressure growing as she moved inwards.
It was not, needless to say, pleasant.
“It’s like wading through quicksand,” Shunlei muttered.
Mei Li huffed along at his side. She was not looking forward to waking up tomorrow. “I’ve never been in quicksand. Couldn’t tell you.”
“I have. And it’s eerily similar.”
Her dark eyes darted up to his face in surprise. “Really? I thought quicksand was deadly.”
“Only if you don’t keep your head. You get caught in it, yes, but it only sucks you in about waist-deep. Exposure is actually what kills most because you can’t get out and are baked in the sand. If you keep your head and don’t flail around too much, you don’t sink as far. I got stuck in it as a young dragon. It was a human mage who taught me that and got me back out again.” Shunlei smiled, his expression bittersweet.
“I’ll have to remember that.” For all that he told her things, he never went into much detail. She decided to let it go. They didn’t really have the luxury of a chat right then. Mei Li looked around with eyes peeled. “Funny, how dim it looks in here. We’re midday outside, and yet it looks like it’s nearing sunset.”
“The record didn’t mention that?”
“The Tomes who wrote it was not verbose. And that’s a kind way of stating matters. I got very succinct instructions on what to do and what dangers to look out for and that was about it.”
“I have wondered this before. Do you ever add your experience to the existing record?”
“Hmm, yes and no. If it’s a good enough recording, we might add a note that says something like, ‘I did this in this year, the instructions are still good.’ Just so the next generation has verification of some nature. In this case, I’ll definitely re-write the record. It left much to be desired.” Mei Li eyed him sideways in question. “I’m surprised how many questions you have about this.”
“You’re actually the first Tomes to tell me anything about the process,” Shunlei confessed. “The previous generations were quite secretive.”
“I think all the secretive habits led to problems, so I’m not following their footsteps.” She was, in fact, tempted to write a cypher so the fate of the world didn’t rest on just two people. “Oh, is that some of our lost people?”
He drew in a breath, then snorted it back out, head shaking. “I can’t catch any scent here. There’s no air current, no movement.” Straining his eyes, h
e looked ahead. “I think so?”
“I see two or three carts, some people sitting on them, maybe nine altogether?”
“That’s what I see as well. Let’s try calling out to them.” Raising his voice, he belted out, “HELLO! I AM SHUNLEI THE BLACK!”
The people sitting on the carts lifted their heads, turning, and she could barely hear it as they conferred with each other. Someone tried shouting back, and Mei Li had to strain to catch any of it.
Shunlei’s head cocked. “I think he said something like ‘help us, we’re lost.’”
“That’s what I heard too. Strange how muted sound is out here.” Mei Li put more effort into marching ahead, and she kept a welcoming smile on her face as she moved, waving her arms to get their attention.
It wasn’t until they’d closed most of the distance that she could truly hear them. Mei Li took another head count and found they were wrong. It was ten people. A child lay in her mother’s lap, pale and wan.
“We’re the rescuers!” Mei Li informed them, hands already digging into the pouch slung about her. This did not look good. These people already had one foot in the grave. “I’ve got restorative potions for all of you, drink those first. It’ll give you the strength to walk back out of here.”
An elderly man, likely the grandfather of the family, came forward first, bowing as he took the first bottle. There were tears in his eyes that made them bright in his drawn face. “Lady, you are a welcome sight. My grandchild, she’s not cried or stirred in three days.”
Mei Li immediately offloaded the rest of the bottles into waiting hands, moving toward the child as she did so. “Did you have any water or food on you when you came in? How long since she’s eaten?”
Shunlei kept watch as Mei Li did what she could to stabilize the baby. As she worked, she heard him explain to the rest of the adults and children, “This is Mei Li of Tomes. She’s organized several mages to help bring everyone out. There’s food and beds waiting for you once we lead you out.”
Tomes Apprentice Page 18