by G R Matthews
Haung looked at the others and saw the same look of confusion on their face’s that he supposed he wore on his own.
“Master Shen,” Haung said, “who is out there?”
“The Mongols always had their own magicians. Not Fang-Shi. They were never to our level of skill, but they have a magic of their own. When the Emperor’s Fang-Shi assisted in the building of the wall they did so to keep the Mongol magicians away. To stop them from undermining the wall or destroying it.”
“How would they do that?” the general spoke into the quiet that followed the magician’s words.
“I don’t know,” Shen admitted.
“Who does?” the general pushed.
“As far as I know, no one.” Shen placed his hands on the battlements and leaned over, staring at the road that led away into the darkness. “According to the records no Mongol magician has ever been captured alive. The Fang-Shi who battled them during the raids could not determine the source of their power. However, they could not deny it either.”
“How much effort was put into capturing one?” Gang said above the shouted orders of a loud sergeant.
“You have to remember what the raids were. Transient events. Small armies would strike into the Empire and then retreat when the resistance grew, when the Empire’s army got organised to defeat them. Nonetheless, there were efforts made by the Fang-Shi and the army to capture one. The operations failed three times. It was determined that each raiding group had only a few magicians with them and that they were always in the most protected parts of the army. In the last operation, we sent in a small group of Jiin-Wei backed up by a Fang-Shi. They did not return to us.”
“If I understand you correctly, Master Shen, then it is likely that one of these Mongol sorcerers is less than half a day away from the wall,” Liu said, lifting one of the axes from his belt and testing the edge against his thumb.
“Correct,” Shen said. In the background, the sergeant had stopped shouting orders and seemed to be having an argument. A common occurrence in every army. Haung ignored it and focused his thoughts upon Liu’s statement.
“And, given the absence of tribes in the local area, it is more than probable that this magician is travelling as part of a large group.” Liu replaced the first axe and tested the second.
“Yes. An armed group,” Shen said. “Probably quite large.”
“And heading this way,” said a voice from behind.
“I’m sorry, sirs,” said another.
Haung turned around to see a sergeant covering the anger on his face by exacting a deep bow to the group. To the soldier’s right stood a short, beautiful woman and a taller man who carried a staff. It took Haung a moment to recognise him.
“How did you get up here?” the general demanded. “Sergeant, escort these people back to the town. If they refuse to go, arrest them and put them in the holding cells.”
Haung stepped forward and gestured to the sergeant. Next to him Corporal Enlai took a step, then stopped.
“General,” Haung began, “I know this man.”
“Sergeant, wait a moment,” the general said and he faced Haung. “What do you know, Colonel?”
“General, may I present the Diplomat Zhou, of Wubei,” Haung said.
The man, dressed in scruffy, travel stained robes, looked from Haung to the general and back again. There was confusion on his face. Haung compared the face he saw against the one in his memory. The one he had seen during the negotiations in Yaart had been full of arrogance and ambition. The face, much later, as it rose above the dead body of the Yaart’s duke had worn shock and sadness.
The haunted look was still there. The sense of loss still in his eyes. But there was more, an anger. A fire in the dark shadows beneath his brow. The face was leaner and, when Haung took note of the diplomat’s stance, a frame that carried more muscle and looked ready to pounce. Haung rubbed his thumb over his necklace and took a deep breath, settling into the quiet.
“Wubei?” the general said, puzzled. “That city is no more.”
“Zhou, no.” The lady put a restraining hand on the diplomat’s arm.
Chapter 33
Zhou looked down at the hand on his arm, covered it with his own and gave it a little squeeze. The man in front, the same one who had come into the throne room just after he had killed the duke, looked ready to defend himself. The shorter man next to him, dressed in a soldier’s uniform, had taken a step forward and looked similarly prepared to fight.
“Jiin-Wei Haung,” Zhou said, dredging the name up from that brief meeting over a year ago. “You are looking better than the last time I saw you.”
“Time and a good healer will do that for a man, Zhou,” Haung replied. “I wish I could say the same for you.”
Zhou looked down at his clothing. True, it was dirt stained and rumpled, the finery of his previous life had been absent for a long time, but the simple robe suited him, he thought. There was nothing that a good wash could not sort out. He shook his head. The spy’s comment was meaningless. Things change and he had changed. The blue thread pulsed.
“Colonel Haung,” the general spoke, “you have yet to give me a reason why this man and woman should not be escorted from the wall and thrown in prison.”
“You need us,” Zhou said, turning his eyes on the general.
“And, I do not think that trying to imprison them would do much good,” Haung said. “The list, General.”
“What?” the general flashed an exasperated look at the Jiin-Wei. “What list?”
“Zhou, is on the list, General. The Emperor’s list.”
The senior officer inspected Zhou from the tips of his shoes to the top of his head. It was an unpleasant experience and Zhou fought the urge to strike out.
“What about the woman?” the general asked.
Haung paused a moment before speaking. “I do not know, General.”
The corporal at Haung’s elbow took a breath to speak, but seemed to think better of it and took a step back.
“I am Xióngmāo,” she said. “Zhou is correct when he says you need us. We heard the alarm.”
“Young lady, I do not think that...” the general began and then he too paused. “Do I know you?”
“I do not think so, General. It is not very likely we have met,” Xióngmāo said.
“Do not trust them.” They were the first words the Fang-Shi had said since the couple had made their way onto the wall.
“What? Why?” the general said.
“They are not what they seem,” Shen said.
There was a moment of quiet on the wall, Shen’s ominous warning hanging over their heads. Zhou did not know what to make of it. As far as he could remember, he had never met the sorcerer.
Xióngmāo broke the silence and stepped forward. One step, in front of Zhou, and toward the magician.
“Void-stealer,” she said. “Still trying to understand the source of your magic are you? You would think that after all these years one of you would have figured it out. All you had to do, at some point in the last thousand years, was to learn a little humility. Let go the arrogance of power and come to the mountain. You know where it is.”
“We know, woman.” The old man spat at the floor.
The general looked shocked and the corporal, Zhou noticed, directed a worried glance towards Xióngmāo.
“Then you should have come and asked. We could have told you. Could have shown you the way, if you wanted it. Instead, you steal your power and claim it as your own. Yet, you do not truly understand it.” Xióngmāo turned her back on the irate sorcerer. “I’ve never met one yet who had developed the simple politeness to ask. Take, take and take. Thinking they are so clever but never really knowing.”
“Zhou, Xióngmāo.” The spy spoke in a calm voice. “The alarm has been sounded, what help can you offer?”
“We know of the threat you face,” Xióngmāo said.
“We have fought it already.” Zhou stepped up beside the small woman. “If you remember the Emperor’s
instructions in throne room? He asked me to look to the north, to the threat coming this way. The one he knew little about. I saw it.”
“The red flame?” Haung’s voice carried uncertainty.
“It is not flame any longer,” Zhou said. “It covers all the land beyond the wall. It is an ocean lapping against our shoreline.”
“Is this something from the Emperor’s report?” the general said.
Zhou spared him a glance. “He was there too, when we fought it.”
“The Emperor was not specific as to the exact nature of the threat,” Haung said and the general nodded. “What can you tell us, Zhou?”
But it was Xióngmāo who spoke first. “The alarm has sounded. A Mongol magician is not far away.”
“We know,” the sorcerer snapped.
“And they never travel alone. There will be an army with him. Likely more than one magician and therefore a big army,” Xióngmāo said.
“What do you know, woman?” Shen spat the last word at her, a curse, an insult.
“Call her ‘woman’ one more time, wizard, and I will rip out your throat,” Zhou growled and shifted his weight forward.
“I lived with them for a time. I met some of their magicians,” Xióngmāo said and put out a placating hand towards Zhou.
He settled back and fought to control his anger. She was more than able to take care of herself. The time spent on the Blue Mountain, the journey from there to here and her easy confidence in the town with the Mongols proved that. The Jiin-Wei had not reacted to his anger, nor had the enlisted man beside him. The general’s face had twisted, for a moment, with fear and that had been replaced by blustering anger. Zhou ignored him.
“What? We have no reports of any one from the Empire living amongst the Mongols in the last ten years,” the Fang-Shi said.
The enlisted man spoke over the magician. “What did you find out?”
Zhou glanced around. The gloom of night was almost full upon them, but soldiers were still streaming past, taking up their positions on the wall. The soldiers carried lanterns which they hung on hooks on the outside of the walls, just below the battlements. It was a sensible idea. The lanterns illuminated the ground below the wall and, being outside their view, preserved the Empire soldiers’ night vision, but would rob the enemy of theirs.
He did not listen to Xióngmāo’s answers but moved to the wall, stepping past Haung and the enlisted man. The stone was cold under his hand and a shiver ran up his arm. It took him a moment to recognise the power he felt. The strength of a realm flowing through his veins. His contact with the stone grew and he could feel the power carry him along the length of the wall. A distance that would normally take months of travel. Each stone was bound tightly to its neighbour by cement, mortar and more. They were connected by a deeper force. A thread bound them together, one that pulsed not blue like his own, but the grey of stone.
“Zhou.” Xióngmāo had wrapped her arm around his and pulled his hand from the stone. “I thought I had lost you there for a moment.”
“Sorry. I was day dreaming.” He looked away from the wall and met her eyes. There was concern in their depths but also a determination, a stubbornness. “They are out there then, the ones who destroyed the mountain?”
“Yes, can you not see them?” she asked.
He returned his gaze to the land beyond the wall and squinted into the darkness. But, beyond the range of the lanterns and with only the feeble illumination of the stars above, there was little he could see with any clarity.
“I can see nothing,” he answered.
“Zhou, still you think of only one perception. This time really look.” She patted his arm.
He let his eyes shift as the spirit infused him. The world, the physical world, the wall, the trees, people and land swam in his vision. A second world appeared, it shifted to and fro until it settled over the physical one. This new world, coated in blue, was subtly different than the other. The wall was gone and the people stood in mid-air, kept aloft by nothing. The trees on the far slopes looked like blazing torches, a green core amongst the blue flame. The land was teeming with life, all small and normally unseen but here, in the vision of his spirit, it crawled, heaved and wriggled. For second, he felt his body fall towards the ground then right itself without conscious effort. Like riding a horse, the world bobbed up and down until he had found the rhythm of motion, until he had discovered the pattern, the great breath of life around him.
Further out it changed. The bright blue of the spirits, mixed with tendrils of a pale green, were being strangled, drowned in a tide of red. At first glance, there was little movement but the more he concentrated, the more he noticed the little details. The blue spirits being smothered by the red. Beneath the asphyxiating layer of red, the little spirits clung to life and burrowed deeper. In amongst the crimson wave were darker spots and others of a much brighter red. The spots moved, rank upon rank and file upon file of them, forward towards the wall.
“You see the soldiers,” she asked.
“I see spots in the red. Dark spots and bright spots,” he answered. Zhou closed his eyes and let go of the spirit.
“Those are the soldiers,” Xióngmāo said. “They are part of the army but not part of the red, whatever that may be. They are the physical army amongst it all.”
“And the brighter ones?” Haung asked as the Jiin-Wei stepped up to them.
“The magicians, I would guess.” Xióngmāo closed her own eyes for a moment.
“What are you?” The general gasped.
“She... they are the Wu, General.”
Zhou turned expecting to see a bitter anger on Shen’s face, but it was the corporal who had spoken.
“I thought it was you,” Xióngmāo said with a smile on her face and in her voice.
“Always your servant,” Enlai bowed low to her.
“You know him?” Zhou said.
“What is going on?” the general said at the same moment.
“We are Wu, general. You could ask your pet magician or even your Jiin-Wei here,” Xióngmāo said and Zhou saw her direct a puzzled glance at the colonel. “Though I doubt you will get a true reflection of a Wu. Indeed, even from us you may not truly understand what we are.”
“I know what Wu are,” the general snapped. “Sideshow magicians. Necromancers who talk to the dead and pass on cryptic messages from deceased relatives. Divinators who tell fortunes from the dregs of tea leaves but cannot tell you if tomorrow will be clear or it will rain, any better than I can. Charlatans who promise much, but deliver little.”
“No, General. They are not Wu. Look at your court wizard’s face. He knows better.” Xióngmāo took two quick steps to stand before the general where she did nothing but stare into the fat man’s eyes.
A strange sight, Zhou considered, a petite woman in travel worn clothing staring down an army officer. To his left, Haung began to move towards Xióngmāo, but the corporal stopped him with a raised hand and shake of his head.
The moment froze. Soldiers passing by stopped and looked, confused. Zhou could taste the moment on his tongue. The wrong move by anyone, from soldier to magician, and the fear would give way to anger, anger to violence and then to death. Liu laughed, a strange sound in the darkness. Time began again.
“I’ve always said, Gang, you have to watch out for the small ones,” Liu said.
Zhou put his hand on Xióngmāo’s shoulder and, with a sigh, she broke the stare.
“General, my apologies,” she said as the fat man took a shaky step away from her. There was sweat on his face, yet the night was chill. “The Wu are best thought of as Shaman. Not those who dress in wolf and bear skins to dance around the fires, banging drums and evoking the spirits through trances and herbs. Those days are long gone. More than a millennia or longer. Wu see the spirit that is in all of us and act as a conduit between it and this realm. We do not steal the power as the Fang-Shi do but invite it and are invited by it. Wu are not made or taught to be so, they are chosen.�
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“What did you see?” Enlai asked into the silence that followed.
“The enemy are here,” Zhou said and Xióngmāo nodded.
Chapter 34
“How far away?” Haung asked. He saw the two Wu look at each other for a moment.
“They will be here tonight or early tomorrow morning,” Zhou said.
“It depends,” the small woman said.
“On what?” Haung asked.
“On what they are here to do,” the man from Wubei said. “Talk or destroy.”
“Which one?” The general had regained some dignity and re-joined the group.
“Destroy,” Haung and Zhou said together. Enlai nodded whilst Gang grunted his agreement.
“We have a few hours then,” the general said. “Master Shen, I’d like you use the dragon gate to send a message to the Emperor. I’ll have it written by the time your magicians arrive. Corporal Enlai, would you go and ask the commanders of the four shifts to join me in the tower. Colonel, would you and Masters Gang and Liu escort our... guests to the food halls. Get yourselves something to eat then outfit them properly for battle. Armour, at least. I doubt that the lady will want to, well, maybe she will want to fight.”
Haung watched the man stumble over the last few words and with a shrug turn away, towards the tower. Master Shen fell into step beside the general. The magician was speaking in hushed tones, but his arms moved in short jerky stabs and chops to emphasise whatever words he was using.
“I don’t think the magician is happy that we are here, Zhou.” Xióngmāo said.
“He is a good man,” Haung felt forced to say and was rewarded by a doubting look from the woman. “Let’s go and get you some food and armour. I have a feeling it is going to be a long night.”
* * *
“They are still coming,” the Wubei man said. He looked at home in the armour. A simple tunic of small leather scales sewn onto another piece of leather, covered the man’s chest and back. His shoulders were protected by similar pieces that were tied onto the tunic and around his upper arms by thick cords. Leather had been wrapped around his shins and lower legs. The lower edge of the tunic, split at the front to permit movement, protected his thighs. He had refused the loan of a sword and carried the short staff he had arrived with.