by Brian Braden
Kill him and the other may bolt.
A purring sound tickled his ear. Instinct forced his head right where gleaming eyes peered from a narrow ledge immediately above them. A third giant cat leered down, legs bunched underneath.
***
“If you’re not here to offer up your female relations to me, why did you come? How did you know where to find me?”
The laughter died, as did Tiejiang’s smile. He stood and walked behind the haystack. In a few moments he returned carrying a well-worn, bulging, leather backpack, my scabbard and conical hat securely fastened to its side. Tucked under his other arm were my heavy boots, sturdy cotton trousers and tunic. He bowed slightly, placed the pack and clothes at my feet, and resumed his place next to the fire.
I stared at the pack and my fate before glancing up at Tortoise Mountain. It shone impassively in the morning sun.
“Uncle Heng did not come down for the wedding. His visits from Tortoise Mountain are rare these days, so when he knocked at my door this morning, I knew it must be important. He handed me those and said I’d find you here with my cousin.”
“Let us finish this excellent breakfast before I depart,” I said. The sun finally crested the trees, ushering the day’s heat and banishing the dew.
The Chronicle of Fu Xi
***
The beast leapt as Fu Xi sliced upward.
Half of the dagger tooth slammed fully into Heise’s back, the other piece falling into a twitching mass on the trail. The panicked horse bolted past Fu Xi into the stone courtyard where the cat on the right leapt after him. Fu Xi cursed under his breath and committed to battle.
With a soul-curdling scream, the dagger tooth on the left flattened its ears and swiped at Fu Xi with both claws. Heise raced around the edge of the enclosure at full gallop as the other lion pursued, occasionally swatting at Heise’s haunches, trying to bring down the horse. Every time Fu Xi shifted to intervene, the other lion blocked his path.
They’re trying to separate us.
Fu Xi grudgingly admired the beasts and knew only one option lay before him. He lunged at the cat ahead of him, trying to pin it against the cliff. Surprised by the attack, the cat rose on its haunches and lashed out in a flurry of claw strikes. Claw and sword blended in a crimson blur. Agonizing gashes opened across Fu Xi’s torso, arms, and legs as he absorbed the frenzied assault. Gashes also opened across the cat’s hide, wounds the mortal beast could not sustain.
Finally, the Red Sword found the cat’s neck. Fu Xi turned just in time to see Heise vanish into the darkness of the opposite defile, the other big cat close on its heels.
Clenching his bleeding abdomen, Fu Xi turned to pursue when he heard a moan to his right. The girl in the branches moaned again and began a slow tumble from the upper limbs.
Fu Xi looked down the defile, where the dagger tooth’s screams echoed off the canyon walls. He leaned forward to pursue his horse, but the girl in the branches moaned again.
She’s going to die anyway. He took two steps down the defile and stopped.
The demigod closed his eyes, turned and faced upward to the rain. His shoulders relaxed as the pain in his abdomen abated. Making peace with his decision, he turned and walked under the tree just in time to catch her before she struck the stony ground.
***
We ate in silence. After breakfast I changed behind the haystack while Tiejiang covered the fire with earth, poured water over his rack to cool it, and packed his cookware.
“Where will you go, Lord Fu Xi?” Tiejiang called to me over the haystack.
“East.” Mother warned me a new quest awaited me following the wedding, though I did not take her so literally. This quest was like no other she’d ever bestowed upon me. I carried no new craft, art, or skill to teach the Tall Men of Cin. Her orders were simple.
“May I inquire the nature of your quest?” he called.
“Dragons.”
The clanging shuffling on the other side of the haystack paused momentarily and then resumed.
I rolled up my formal attire and stepped from around the haystack, more comfortable in my traveling clothes.
Tiejiang stood before me, boots on his feet, a freshly stitched leather pack over one shoulder, walking stick in hand. My heart sank.
The Chronicle of Fu Xi
***
For her size, perhaps a child of twelve, she barely weighed that of a six year old. Fu Xi gently laid her down among the broken branches and examined her.
Starvation gripped the child, only a collection of bones and skin. Thighs and arms reduced to sticks, knees and elbows bulging. Fu Xi then realized that she wasn’t a child at all, but a severely famished young woman. He looked back at the body of her companion, an older man, his flesh nude, and limbs equally thin.
The demigod’s heart ached for the two mortals.
Neither of them would have afforded even a snack for the lions.
Something around her neck caught his attention. Fu Xi fingered a thick metal collar, black and rusted.
It’s welded.
He looked over at the man, who wore a similar collar.
Slaves.
His heartache changed to uneasiness.
Though sallow, she shared Fu Xi’s own light yellow complexion and normal eyes. The dead man’s eyes were round, his skin pale with death, but clearly white. Unlike any man in Cin, he had a hairy face.
Fu Xi swallowed hard and examined the woman’s body. A thick callous encircled her neck under the collar. Faded lash marks crisscrossed her flesh. And then he saw it on her right shoulder.
Fu Xi leapt up, sword in hand, as if the woman’s body had burned him.
It cannot be!
He paced around the stone courtyard as if someone, or something, may attack at any moment. Fu Xi ran his hand through his soaking hair, mind reeling at the implications of the ragged brand burned into the woman’s right arm. He approached the man’s body and found the same brand on his right arm...
...a sea serpent, twisting around a trident.
How did they get here?
The woman stirred.
Fu Xi knelt down next to her, trying to shield her from most of the rain.
Her eyes fluttered open and looked about until they focused on Fu Xi. Her face summoned images of balmy jungles, sugar white beaches, and a small, gentle people of far southern Cin.
“Rantaian...Rantaian...” she gasped in a hoarse whisper. Fu Xi understood the tongue, but it wasn’t one of Cin’s.
“Rantaian...” she kept repeating for a few more moments, until her eyes closed and her breath ceased.
Rantaian...The Chain.
Fu Xi stood, still staring at her body. How these two escaped he didn’t know. If they were here, then another beast, one far more dangerous than a dagger tooth, lurked somewhere beyond the rain.
This beast hunted Fu Xi.
He examined the Red Sword, an artifact of his journey to Wu. His armor and his horse, other legacies of his quest beyond the Sunrise Sea, were somewhere out there in the Deluge. Now more than ever, he had to find them.
***
I picked up my own pack and strode past him, unable to meet his pleading, eager expression.
“And what of your bride?” I asked, picking up my pace toward the cool, dark forest only a few paces ahead.
“All those years, working together at the forge, you told me of your many quests. I dreamt of going with you and seeing the wonders of the world beyond Nushen!”
“You are a man now, with responsibilities. Your duty is to your wife. My duty is to the Goddess Nuwa. Go home.”
“I am your Honored Student. My home is with you.”
My heart torn, I stopped and took a deep breath before I turned around.
“You are, and always shall be, my Honored Student. Now you are also a husband. Soon, you will be a father. If I have taught you anything, isn’t it the importance of duty?”
“I am afraid,” he said as the pack slipped from his hand.
“You will be gone many years. I may be dead before you return.”
He gave voice to my fear, too.
“This may be true, maybe not. The only thing which is important is what you do with your life while I am gone. You are the smithy, the heart of the village. Instill love into all you do and the village will prosper; the Goddess will be pleased. Put your wife and your children at the center of your heart, and you will be a content man.”
“I do not want you to go.” His tears flowed freely.
“Goodbye, Tiejiang.” I picked up my pack and turned around, the sanctuary of the trees only a step away.
I’d never departed on a quest through the forest across the fields, usually taking the path from the central avenue. The dark shadows embraced me. I slipped through last night’s fog still dancing between the ancient trunks, letting its wetness mix with my own tears.
“Farewell, my Honored Teacher,” his fading voice followed me into the forest.
I turned and saw him for the last time, standing alone in the bright sunshine beyond the trees. The short, green grass behind him sloped up across the field to Nushen’s bright red tiled roofs.
“Goodbye, my son,” I whispered and turned east toward my destiny.
The Chronicle of Fu Xi
14. Between Worlds
When the waves ride high, the Lo hug their boats. - Lo Proverb
The Chronicle of Fu Xi
***
Here, at the end of all things, the sky and sea merged into one. To Atamoda, it was as if the gods rolled up their sleeping mat and shook humanity off the firmament as if they were no more than bed lice.
A lifetime of prayers, and we are no more than lice?
The wave’s terrible grandeur paralyzed her as screaming men and women blindly stampeded past, Virag and his a-g’an henchmen among them.
Where will they go? There is nowhere to run.
Okta rushed by against the crowd, perhaps trying to get back to Aizarg before the wave swallowed them.
And the monster would swallow them. It grew vertically, reaching to the sky, seemingly without getting any closer. Atamoda knew, however, only seconds remained before it crushed them.
Atamoda also knew she could not reach Aizarg and Kol-ok before the monster swallowed them.
Ba-tor.
She pushed against the crowd in Okta’s wake, toward the flotilla’s center and her youngest child. Faces blurred past, eyes wild with panic. Some fell into boat bottoms, only to be trampled underfoot.
Atamoda passed them by, abandoning her patesi-le duties. Terror of dying alone inoculated her against the mob’s panic. Her baby boy needed her. She needed him.
Atamoda dashed from raft to boat, over and around those who instinctively knelt down in their rafts or in the bottom of their boats.
A moment later she found Bat-or clinging to Sana. Roughly a dozen Minnow and Crane women huddled with twice that many children on the center rafts. Su-gar knelt apart, mesmerized by the wave.
“Give him to me!” Atamoda commanded.
Sana obeyed. Atamoda stroked Ba-tor’s hair and hummed softly, trying to ease her baby’s terror.
“Ba-tor, look at Mother.” She faced him away from the wave, wiping tears and mucus away from his dirty face. It broke her heart thinking of the terrors he endured over the past few days.
She kissed him all over his face. “All of this will be over in just a moment, and then you and I and Daddy and Kol-ok will all be together in the sunshine.”
Shaking uncontrollably, the child closed his eyes and buried his head into his mother’s bosom.
She looked around, desperately trying to find her husband and Kol-ok.
Where is Aizarg? Why isn’t he trying to find me?
“Patesi-le!” A young Minnow woman clutching her baby begged. “What shall we do?”
“Hold on,” Atmoda replied. “Hold on....hold on...hold on...,” she repeated until the gale tore away her words.
The howling wind stripped blankets and mats and sent them flying into the sea spray. Ropes and rigging popped and snapped with frantic force. The wave’s thunder enveloped her body and became deafening. Those who stood, knelt. Those who knelt, lay flat.
Sana’s hand found hers. Atamoda turned and saw the Scythian Princess staring defiantly at the wave, her lips moving rhythmically, though she could not hear her words. Atamoda squeezed her hand.
Now the wave’s scale and speed suddenly registered in her mind. Countless tree trunks and gigantic mountains of ice suspended in the wave’s churning face, gave testament to ruined lands she never knew existed, all wiped clean by the Nameless God of the Narim. To Atamoda, it was as if the earth vomited up all the foulness of the g’an and sent it hurtling to the sea.
She spied Aizarg and Levidi side-by-side across the flotilla, defiantly facing the wave. Their garments rippled in the powerful wind as Levidi held the staff high. They seemed to glow against the wave’s inky backdrop.
What are they doing?
The wind instantly reversed with such force Atamoda thought someone had hit her, slamming her and Sana forward against the deck. A mast snapped next to them, barely missing the two women. Atamoda screamed in agony as her ears felt like they were going to burst. Shrieking, Ba-tor squeezed the sides of his head. She looked up in time to see a misty shockwave ripple over their heads and hurtle past Aizarg and Levidi toward the wave at unimaginable speed.
How can Aizarg and Levidi still be standing?
Immediately in front of the flotilla, the wave fell backwards, transforming from a vertical wall into a steep slope.
The decks shuddered as the wave struck.
Atamoda experienced the most terrifying of sensations, as if an invisible hand pressed her against the deck. Struggling against the force, she barely managed to roll over on her back so as not to smother Ba-tor. Her child pressed hard against her chest as if he weighed as much as a man, making each breathe a battle.
Pinned by the invisible force, she stared straight up at the clouds. The deck buckled wildly beneath her; each log, rope, and reed fiber stressed to the breaking point.
Atamoda sensed her head rising and feet falling. The flotilla slanted at an insanely steep angle, like an insect clinging to a wall. Craning her head back, she saw the wave vanish into the clouds above her. Fighting for each breath, she barely managed to lift her head and peer between her toes. Below her, the unseen hand pinned the Lo flat against the decks. Beyond the edge of the flotilla, the wave stretched far below her.
We’re riding the wave! Her heart raced as fear and elation became one. Atamoda closed her eyes and surrendered to the pressing hand. Washed in dizziness, she battled the urge to vomit. When she found the courage to open her eyes, the clouds appeared closer, accelerating toward her.
Then the world went gray. Cool mist enveloped her as the wave’s deafening roar lessened. She hung suspended in the mist, Ba-tor pressed against her chest, and the raft hard against her back.
We are dead. We are between worlds.
Then blinding brightness enveloped the world. Sunlight, powerful and warm, bathed the flotilla.
Everything grew quiet, and the invisible hand pinning her down evaporated. The deck ceased its shuddering, and she felt light, almost as if she could float. Atamoda shielded her eyes as her vision adjusted to a crystal-sharp blue sky.
Suspended between heaven and hell, the flotilla floundered atop the giant wave’s crest, and Atamoda’s fear turned to euphoria. She’d never seen a sky so blue, a sun so bright. To their left and right the wave rose above the white, fluffy clouds like a black glass mountain. Overwhelmed with beauty, she realized the wave carried them closer to the sun, to paradise itself.
We are above the clouds. Psatina carries us home to Father Sky!
The patesi-le stood and stretche
d her hand toward the sun, knowing heaven was almost in her grasp.
“Please, Psatina, forgive us. Carry us home!” she sobbed.
She wanted to grab onto the warm yellow orb and hold on, letting the flotilla with all its nightmares fall back into mist without her and Ba-tor. With a subtle shift, she felt the flotilla gently fall away under her feet. Her stomach fluttered, as if lifted by a hundred butterflies. For the briefest of moments Atamoda believed the gods had spared her.
But the sun remained cruelly beyond her reach. That’s when she saw the towering clouds.
The titans stood shoulder-to-shoulder, horizon-to-horizon, in opposition to the great wave. Their grotesquely flattened heads reached for the sun and devoured the sky. With purplish-black bellies, bloated and engorged, the storms gave birth to jagged streaks of lightning. The bolts danced up and down the tempest’s leading edge like ill-begotten harbingers, only to be answered by even more brilliant flashes deep within the storm.
She knew the wave carried them to the storms, to Heli-dar and the underworld itself.
The gods offer us as a sacrifice to hell. There would be no forgiveness, no salvation, no hope.
“No, no, no!” she screamed, clutching Bat-or as tightly as she could with her left arm, while still desperately straining upward with her right.
Heaven rejected the flotilla as her feet settled firmly back onto the cold deck.
Despair as deep and black as the sea filled her heart. “Great Mother, let this end! Take us home. No more, no more!”
The blue sky remained mute; the creaking rigging and groaning deck the only sounds as the flotilla slid backward over the wave’s crest and descended once again into the maelstrom.
A strong hand snatched her to the deck.
Sana, eyes full of determination, shouted above the gathering wind, “Fight! Fight and live!”
With a shudder, the flotilla lurched right and began to slowly spin. Knots and ropes creaked as the screaming among the Lo resumed. People clung to reed and wood and twine as the flotilla spun faster and faster. Sun, sky, and mist alternated and blurred until nausea overwhelmed Atamoda. The cold mist enveloped them once again as she succumbed to the disorientation and vomited. She wiped off her mouth and opened her eyes, only to be surrounded by a world of howling, unnatural violence.