by Rob J. Hayes
The Emerald Wind groaned and struggled to pull himself upright. He swigged again at the gourd, winced at the taste, and stumbled off towards the inn's entrance, a deep frown on his face. Cho said nothing, letting the man go in silence. She finally pulled the Century Blade's corpse to the nearby grass and laid his body there. A sadder day, Cho had never known.
"Should I keep going?" Ein asked.
Cho nodded and sniffed back a sob. "Please do."
"The Century Blade, still a young man at the time, wished to meet with the people of the trees, and learn the secrets of their arts the Century Blade found a smaller tree and wrapped a cloth around its trunk, before securing it to his waist. And that was how he learned to defy gravity, by walking up a tree. Once he reached the first of the branches were reached, the climb became easier, and he traversed the canopies, moving ever higher along the network of branches."
Cho saw a shovel leaning against the back of the inn and retrieved it, along with a patchy blue sheet drying amongst a load of laundry. As Ein recounted the tale, she chopped off a lock of her hair and tied it into a knot and placed it in the Century Blade's hand, silently swearing a new oath. Then she wrapped the Century Blade's corpse in the sheet, and set about digging a grave. Even with the ground softened by recent rains, the digging took a long time, but he was worth the effort. She hoped the old master could find some measure of peace in her attempts to honour him.
"He searched for days, all alone save for chattering monkeys, and the stars looking down on him. When finally he found the treetop city of Unyun, the Century Blade was exhausted and certain there were things, formless creatures slipping through the trees, watching him from within the shadows. But the people of Unyun did not welcome him, not even when he pleaded for them to teach him. Instead they set him five trials, one for each of the great constellations.
"The first trial was patience, after the constellation of Rymer, the keeper of time. But the people of Unyun underestimated the Century Blade, for early on his training in Yoshi temple, he learned the art of true meditation. For five days and nights the Century Blade slowed his body and, without food, water or movement, meditated on what it meant to be among the trees.
"The second trial was endurance, after Fenwong, the drunkard. Five boys they sent to him, each one smaller and weaker than the one before him, and each one attacked the Century Blade. But again the people of Unyun had underestimated him. It would have been as easy as breathing for him to defeat them, but he weathered the storms of their assaults and each time was declared defeated. For up at the pinnacle of ShinWo, on the final of the Thousand Steps, the Century Blade had learned true humility, and that sometimes one can only be victorious in defeat."
Cho stopped briefly to wipe the sweat from her face. The sun was well and truly setting now, and they would soon be near blind if not for the fire and the light spilling out of the inn. It would, Cho had to admit, be far easier to bury the man in a shallow grave. But somewhere in the distance she heard a wolf howl, and she would not bury him only to be dug up by scavengers looking for an easy meal. Cho pulled off her sweat-soaked blouse and continued digging in only her under-wrappings.
"The third trial was restraint, after Osh, the beast master. Five courses of a banquet were brought out to the Century Blade, now starving and weak from exhaustion. They laid each one in front of him and for a full day bid him not feast. But once more they had underestimated the Century Blade, for in the mountains of Osaara, the Rock Biters had taught him to sustain himself on his chi and go weeks without food.
"The fourth trial was sharing, after Ryoko, the one that is all. For before they would teach the Century Blade their ways, they needed to know of his own, to be sure he could be trusted. And for this the Century Blade was happy, for he had already taught so many the ways of his arts. At the Library of All Things, he had learned that knowledge helps to better all of man, and there are few things that should not be shared. He taught the people of Unyun his second greatest technique, the Shimmering Sword."
Cho smiled as she dug into the dirt. "The Whispering Blade."
"What?" Ein stared at her across the dying fire and she shook her head at him.
"What was the final trial?"
"After the fourth trial they took the Century Blade into Unyun and there he was treated to a glorious feast and a warm bed as soft as the clouds. The next day they began his training, teaching him the arts that had been passed down generation upon generation, never leaving the tree tops. For five months he learned their greatest secrets, both in their techniques, and in their way of life. He learned to live amongst the trees, to hunt amongst the trees, and to love amongst the trees. And when he had learned all he could from the people of Unyun, they set him his final trial.
"Up amidst the tallest trees in the world, the people of Unyun were beset by monsters from the stars, a punishment for reaching too high. None could say what the creatures looked like, nor how they should be killed, but it was tradition that the masters of Unyun go out onto the forest canopy alone to hunt and slay one of the beasts. A trial in the name of Sen, the shield."
Ein fell silent then, and Cho looked up from the deepening grave to see him frowning at the dying flames of the fire. "What's the matter?"
"That's how the story ended in my book. There was nothing about how he completed the fifth trial."
"Maybe one day I'll tell you the end to the story. I got it right from the horse's mouth."
Ein smiled then. Somehow it made him look less normal, stretching his mouth unnaturally, and the glow from the fire put a manic glint in his pale-as-snow eyes.
"You should go inside," she said. "Have some food and keep The Emerald Wind out of trouble."
"But you're not done."
"I'll do the rest alone. I have some words I would say without eavesdropping ears." It was true, for the most part. The people of Ipia believed in telling the dead a secret, something no other person in the world knew, so that the living and the dead would forever be bound to one another, no matter how many worlds they might be apart.
Ein stared at her for a while, before his gaze flicked just for a moment to the body wrapped in the sheet. "He's too far gone." With that he stood, stepped over the corpse he had been sitting on, and made his way into the inn. Cho shuddered, feeling a cold wind pass through her, and went back to digging, just a little more and she would be satisfied the hole was deep enough. Satisfied no one would ever dig up the Century Blade..
Zhihao poked his spoon at the bowl in front of him, scooped up something green and shovelled it into his mouth. He chewed slowly and without enthusiasm, then swallowed it down with a grimace. It tasted, he imagined, much like an old shoe that had once belonged to man who worked in the sewers. The problem was, the wine wasn't any better. He had never before drunk something that seemed to parch rather than quench.
He sat alone at a table as far from the door as possible, and everyone else in the inn watched him with that look people reserved for unwanted trash. The owner of the inn, a small man with sallow skin, stood at the door to the kitchen. Occasionally a child would appear, either from upstairs or from inside the kitchen, and the owner would shoo the brat away. If there was anything approaching a wife and mother here, Zhihao had seen no sign. There were only two other people in the inn, a man and woman who had the look of merchants. They wore long hooded cloaks, and hunched over their table, trying to keep an eye on Zhihao without meeting his eyes. Usually he loved just this sort of attention, but something was wrong. He found no joy in the discomfort of others, no joy in food, and no joy in wine. Luckily, Zhihao could still remember the sight of the Century Blade's lifeless body, and that certainly gave him a little joy. He could once again say that no living man had ever beaten him.
When the boy walked in he brought the stench of death with him, it wafted in through the open door and followed him all the way to Zhihao's table. He looked neither tired from a day's walking, nor sad or horrified by the things he had seen. It seemed fairly damning evid
ence that the boy wasn't quite right. But then he claimed to have had a sit down with a shinigami, and Zhihao doubted anyone walked away from that without being changed for the worse.
"I'm supposed to keep you from getting into trouble," the boy said as he plopped onto the chair opposite Zhihao and stared with those ghostly eyes.
"What trouble could I possibly get into?" Zhihao waved his spoon at the mostly empty room. The boy's stare didn't waver for a moment. "Just who's in charge anyway, you or her?"
"Does it matter?"
Zhihao sucked in a loud breath through his teeth and nodded as sagely as he could. "All groups, every group must have a leader. Someone in charge to make the hard decisions. Someone to point the way. Someone who sees the big picture, who knows the true goal."
The boy nodded slowly at Zhihao's words. It was all a little too easy when Zhihao put his mind to it, especially with one as young as the boy. Children were always so impressionable.
"Now I would have thought that you would be our little group's leader. You have the power, after all. You brought us back. You can set us free?"
"I can. But not until I have finished my quest. I need your help."
"Of course. Of course. So surely you should be in charge. Making the decisions. After all, it's your quest we're on."
Again the boy nodded, his gaze finally falling away to stare at the table. Zhihao breathed a sigh of relief at that. He wondered how much of a wedge he could drive between the boy and the woman. Enough, he hoped, that she might stop protecting him.
A thought occurred to Zhihao then. The woman was outside, tending to a decaying corpse as though it deserved some sort of respect. The boy, on the other hand was inside the inn, seated across from Zhihao. The other people in the inn couldn't stop him; even if they tried he could kill them with ease. So what was to stop him cutting the boy's throat right here, freeing them both from this ridiculous quest. It was a question he was still mulling over when the door opened and the woman entered.
She was carrying her looted blouse in one hand, and the Century Blade's sword in the other. Zhihao looked at her properly for the first time; she was pretty enough despite the filth and grime and dried blood. Certainly she was more muscled than he, but a bit of strength was never something to bemoan. With her under-wrappings around her chest he couldn't see much of what lay beneath, but his eyes were drawn to the stitched together wounds. Zhihao had watched her die. He'd seen his own men, those who served under him in Flaming Fist's warband, thrust hard steel into her. He knew where those wounds had come from, and how recently they had been made, and yet they looked almost old and healed over.
Zhihao was still staring at the woman when she dropped the sword on the table and put her arms through the blouse, and tied it together to hide her chest. When he finally looked up from her breasts he found her staring back with a flat gaze. She could think whatever she wanted, he wanted no piece of her.
"I have decided you will be in charge of the group," the boy said as the woman sat down. Zhihao moaned and slumped in his chair.
She nodded at the boy and turned her attention to Zhihao. "Something you said?"
Zhihao shrugged. "Can't you put that sword somewhere else? Shouldn't you have buried it with the old bastard or something?"
The woman shook her head. "I have a plan for this sword. And I'm happy with it on the table. Why?"
"Because I can still remember what it felt like inside my heart." There was a bitter edge in Zhihao's voice and he was fairly certain he was allowed to be bitter. Just the sight of the blade made his chest hurt.
He expected her to poke fun at him, maybe call him some sort of cowardly name-- it was certainly what the men of Flaming Fist's warband would have done. Instead she picked up the sword, and placed it on the bench next to her, out of sight.
"Uh, thank you." Random acts of kindness confused Zhihao and made him nervous. He pushed his half-finished bowl towards her. "Here, try this."
She looked down at the bowl.
"It's just egg soup. I think the cook put some vegetables in it. I hope that's what the green things are."
The woman spooned some into her mouth, grimaced, and quickly spat it back out. Then she turned that hostile gaze back on Zhihao. He held up his hands and pointed a finger at the saucer of wine in front of him. "Try that next."
"No."
Zhihao sighed. "Just try it. We're both already dead so why would I poison you?"
"You're not dead," the boy said. "You're mostly alive."
"Just try it. Please." It occurred to Zhihao then that he couldn't remember the last time he had said please to anyone.
She picked up the saucer and sipped at it, again grimacing. "How can anyone make rice wine taste so bad? It must be off."
Zhihao shook his head. "At least it isn't just me."
"You're only mostly alive," the boy repeated.
Zhihao let out a growl that was all frustration and no words. "I'm starting to wish you hadn't brought me back. Will all food and drink taste like this?"
"Yes."
The woman shrugged and pulled the bowl of egg soup closer, tucking into the cold, starchy liquid. The table lapsed into a sullen silence that almost convinced Zhihao it was worth leaving them both and suffering the consequences of his separation from the boy. Then he remembered the feeling of his heart tearing open, blood spilling down his chest, and decided he could at least try to lift the mood a little before condemning himself to a second painful death.
"Did he really slay a dragon?" Zhihao sipped at his wine, wincing at the taste. Last time he had been to the inn the wine had been sweet with an odd heat that reminded him of cinnamon on the way down. Now it tasted like dry ash. Still, he rarely drank for the taste alone; there were other benefits to a bottle of wine.
"Yes," the woman replied in between slurps of soup. "Messimere, a great serpent, by all accounts."
"How?"
"How does anyone kill a dragon?"
Zhihao shrugged at that. He'd only ever seen one dragon, Cormar, the Onyx Serpent, as it slithered through the sky in search of prey. It was a truly monstrous thing, longer than any creature had cause to be, and somehow flying without the use of wings. Zhihao was not ashamed to admit, at least not to himself, that he had hid under a chicken coop until he was certain the thing had passed on. "I have no idea how anyone could even try."
The woman smiled at him then, a sly tugging of her lips she tried to suppress. "Exactly."
Zhihao rolled his eyes. "This is why I dislike you people, you answer questions with riddles."
She cocked an eyebrow at that. "You people? So it isn't just me, you hate all Ipians?"
"What? No. I meant women. And I don't hate women, just dislike them. As a rule."
She laughed at that, a quiet chuckle, but her eyes never left the soup. "He had a technique, one he refused to share with anyone. He could rain a hundred swords from the sky. Maybe he used that."
"Now that's something I'd have liked to see." Zhihao sipped at the wine again, still hating the taste. "How did he do it?"
"How do you disappear, leaving a mirage of yourself to blow away like petals on the wind?"
Zhihao shook his head. "I'm not telling you that. It's a trade secret."
The woman spread her hands over the table. "And the Century Blade took his secrets to the grave."
"Wait. Was that why he was called the Century Blade?" Zhihao laughed, spilling some of his wine on the table. "I thought it was because of his age."
She shook her head at him. "He earned that name decades ago, long before old age slowed him."
Zhihao nodded. "That's a good point." He was feeling a little lightheaded and gladdened to discover that he could still get drunk, despite the cursed taste it left in his mouth.
"How are we paying for this?" the woman asked, still spooning soup into her mouth. "I thought your friends robbed you while you were dead?"
"They did. But they didn't do a thorough job of it. No one ever thinks to look in the crot
ch pocket."
The woman shot him an incredulous glance.
"It's true. Many men do it, hide a small purse down their pants where no one is willing to look."
"Except you?"
"In desperate times. Don't worry, I've long since given up robbing inns. It's bad for business."
The woman pushed the finished bowl of soup away, washed it down with a swig from Zhihao's wine bottle, and belched into her hand. Then she fixed her gaze on the boy across the table, and there was a glint in her eyes, something hard and determined.
"I'm in charge, you said?" the woman asked.
"As long as we move towards my goal. The emperor must die."
The woman nodded. "We will. But I have a duty to perform along the way." She turned to Zhihao. "You know where Flaming Fist is? Where his camp is?"
"Yes." Zhihao had a sudden feeling he didn't like where the conversation was going.
"Take us to him."
He laughed at her. "Vengeance, is it?"
"Justice."
"There's no such thing in Hosa. Justice of the sword is just murder by another name."
The woman's stare was as hard as the line of her lips. "I don't care what you call it. For the oath that I swore the Century Blade, I'm going to kill Flaming Fist."
Chapter 8
One thing Cho liked about inns in Hosa was that people never cared if you slept in the common room, in fact it was expected. There were usually some rooms available but as long as you bought some food and wine, most innkeeps were happy to let you pass out there amidst the other customers. Of course those same innkeeps took no responsibility for any loss of goods while you were asleep. Luckily for Cho the only other guests were merchants and not likely to rob them. Of course, neither Cho nor her two companions carried anything of worth other than their weapons, and few people knew just how much her swords were truly worth. Some prices could not be paid in gold. Some prices could only be paid in lives.