by E. M. Hardy
“Your memory betrays you, colleague Yao Xiu. Being branded a traitor to the Empire means that any penalty you bear will be extended to your family—including capital ones.” Cui Dai discreetly covered her mouth as she burped, satisfied now that she had polished off the meat buns in her pack.
“But still… the good general did keep calling you his ‘little traitor.’ An oddly intimate pet-name, don’t you think?”
“Hardly,” huffed Yao Xiu in return. “He’s just a bully that likes to pick on those who can’t fight back.”
“Yes, just bullying. That’s all it is.” Cui Dai aimed a conspiratorial wink at Yao Xiu before settling back on a cushion and swatting away a mosquito that tried to bite her cheek.
Yao Xiu almost glared at the smug historian before she checked herself. What she didn’t tell Cui Dai, though, was that she felt Shen Feng was a nice man at heart. Yes, he was gruff and prone to picking on her, but he wasn’t as mean-spirited about it as others could be. Truth be told, people like Song Lan had far more venom in their insults—even if those insults were veiled in niceties. At least her abuses ended when she and Cai Ping started getting along famously.
Yao Xiu had formulated the perfect rebuttal but swallowed it when her voice died in her throat. The air around her suddenly felt wrong somehow, like it was dead and empty. The colors seemed a little less vibrant, and her own body seemed slightly heavier and lacking in energy. Even the taste of the bread and ground pork in her mouth seemed a little blander.
Cui Dai bolted upright, looking all around her with wide, almost fearful eyes. The guards escorting the imperial convoy tensed up, the same expression on their faces. One of the soldiers dropped his weapon, cursing as he dismounted to pick it up, while another sagged in her saddle and shook her head in confusion as she clutched her head. The only people who did not seem as affected were Suhaib and his people. They stood tall on their strangely humped mounts, which they called camels, as they plodded on. They did, however, sense something was wrong with their Renese escorts and began spreading out to provide assistance.
“What… what’s going on, lead historian?” In her disorientation, Yao Xiu reverted to the way she used to call Cui Dai. The woman ignored Yao Xiu’s flub, examining a palm before turning it around to examine the back of her hand. She twisted it once more, gripped it firmly into a fist which she slowly unwound. “There is no Chi in the air.”
Surprised, Yao Xiu pinched her fingers and tried to tap into the usually-abundant Chi that surrounded them. Nothing. She curled her hands into a fist and tried to pull Chi with a little more force. Still nothing. She breathed once, twice, and focused before trying to cycle Chi within her body. Yes, there was still some Chi within her, the Chi that her body naturally stored up inside itself, but she could not draw even the slightest measure of Chi from her surroundings.
She was no martial artist that could work with Chi in ridiculous capacities, but she had never, ever, felt such a complete absence of Chi like this.
“What… how is this possible?”
One of Suhaib’s elite guards, the ones he called armsmasters, rode beside Yao Xiu’s carriage. If she remembered correctly, he was called Munjid, and she could see the concern on his face. “Ho there, historians. What’s going on with your people? They seem to be falling sick all of a sudden.” Yao Xiu, understanding some Bashri, answered back as best she could. “Yes. Something wrong with air. No… no Chi, no energy in it. This never happen before. Maybe it why our people not feel good.”
The burly man scratched his bearded chin, nodded his thanks, and moved around to consult his prince. Suhaib Ma’an rode alongside the Empress’ carriage, and he gave his orders once Munjid got close enough. The man nodded, then signaled to his other riders using his fingers. The armsmasters recognized the orders, then proceeded to pass on those orders to the other Bashri guards accompanying them. Soon enough, Suhaib’s guards and armsmasters rode out, protecting the Imperial convoy while the Renese recovered from the sudden loss of Chi.
The Ma’an troops also drew out their spirit partners, their jinn, which helped widen their reach. Yao Xiu thought it was curious how the jinn seemed to be unaffected by the utter lack of Chi in the air. It was a sign that they drew their power and vitality from another source—something that stuck to Yao Xiu’s mind even as she felt nauseous from the lack of Chi.
However, the sense of nausea and discomfort seemed to pass quickly enough. She noticed that the others were recovering just as rapidly, with the martial artists being hardest-hit by the vacuum. Lead historian Cui Dai appeared to bear her burden stoically, but Yao Xiu could see the woman’s knuckles turning white as she gripped the edges of the wagon.
Yao Xiu thought it was curious, how those who used Chi the most were suffering the most from this ‘dead zone.’ She had never been good at manipulating Chi, which was why she wanted to become a historian in the first place. It was another point she mulled upon as they neared the general’s camp, which was strangely silent.
That was wrong, somehow. Wasn’t Shen Feng and his troops supposed to be fighting Martin’s forces? From what she overheard from the conversation between the Empress and one of Martin’s eyeballs, the general had received an Imperial Order that instructed him to fight until the bitter end. He would be blind and mute to any other command, while only the Empress herself would be able to undo such an order.
So why were there no sounds of battle coming from the camp?
The troops at the lead element of the convoy looked thankful for their arrival, thinking they had reached safety at last, but the expressions on their faces slowly twisted into horror as they realized it was Martin’s walkers that were waiting for them. And behind those walkers were the corralled, dispirited, and utterly crushed soldiers of Shen Feng’s army.
Thousands of walkers patrolled the Leizhu Swamp Pyramid, each carrying spears and shields with javelins strapped to their backs. Swarms of dolls were repairing the battered walls of the pyramid, patching over the broken granite blocks with a paste-like substance that hardened surprisingly fast in the open air. Shen Feng’s troops, on the other hand, sat on the ground in groups as walkers stood watch over them. They were down to their pants and tunics, their weapons and armor piled off to the side. Even the vaunted martial artists sat on the ground, eyes cast to the ground and all the fight driven out of them. The healers roved around the camp, treating the wounded with bandages and poultices instead of Chi-assisted healing. Cooks and servants handed out hot meals from huge woks, which the hungry men and women quickly but quietly devoured. A massive fire burned in the distance, a funeral pyre for the bodies. Yao Xiu must have been imagining things, as she thought some of the bodies in the fire were still moving.
Her eyes crawled along the downcast faces, and found who she was looking for. There he was, the man who she thought was larger than life, sitting cross-legged with his troops with defeat written all over his face.
Yao Xiu stepped down from her carriage, her eyes transfixed on the scene before her. She walked ahead of the convoy, heedless of the warnings of the guards. Historian Cui Dai followed right behind her, waving off the guards and explaining that she was the Imperial liaison assigned to Martin’s forces. This allowed Yao Xiu to get close enough to flag down one of the walkers, holding it by the shoulder as it walked past her. Despite its featureless face, she swore it regarded her with a cold glare—one that melted into a quiet greeting as it recognized her.
“Miss Yao… it is good to see you well.”
“Martin? What happened here? How did this happen?”
The walker turned its head slowly, almost sadly, as Martin surveyed the scene before him. “The result of betrayal, I suppose,” said Martin, his voice low and filled with bitterness.
“No. No, don’t think like that, Martin,” shot Yao Xiu, her eyes smoldering with anger. “We did not betray you. The Empress, the people of Ren… I did not betray you. It was the three sages who orchestrated all this. They used Shen Feng
’s loyalty. They knew he would push through with whatever Her Majesty instructed him to do. They—”
The walker gave off a hollow chuckle, cutting off Yao Xiu mid-speech. “I know. Empress Zi Li explained everything to me. Shen Feng and his troops were fighting under false orders, and he did not have the liberty to refuse the kinds of orders he received. I don’t know whether to commend his loyalty or berate his lack of common sense,” he added, the walker’s head shaking to emphasize his point.
Yao Xiu’s teeth clacked together as she pulled her mouth shut. Before she could say anything else, another carriage pulled up beside the two of them—this one far more ornate and heavily-armored than the others.
The Empress herself stepped out of her carriage, wearing a veil to cover her face. However, there was no mistaking her as she descended in her Imperial battle armor, replete with decorative gold and blood-copper weaves laid over a solid steel link mail. She wore the Dragon Crown over her head, the ruby eyes of the coiled serpent glowing bright red in the sunlight. The masked Balancers surrounded her, their varied weapons out and ready as they surveyed the scene before them. The elite agents of the Empress, however, did not glow with the intense aura that they normally possessed. The badges of office pinned on their uniforms, their black-and-white taijitu symbols, were flat and empty. They possessed none of the Chi that marked them as Balancers, but it did not matter in the end. They were still some of the Empire’s deadliest fighters, even if all they had at the moment were their flesh and wits.
And there was the Empress’ nameless bodyguard, stoically standing by her side as ever.
Yao Xiu bowed her head as she shuffled back. Everyone in the convoy did the same, giving way for the Empress and her bodyguards. She walked up to the walker that Yao Xiu was talking to and barked out a command. “Where is Shen Feng?”
The walker pointed him out among the subdued soldiers, all of whom got up to kneel before their Empress. Shen Feng, hearing her voice, prostrated himself and slammed his face into the moist dirt without even raising his eyes to meet hers.
“General of the White Tiger Shen Feng. We are the Daughter of Heaven, She of a Thousand Years. Do you recognize our authority?”
“Yes, your highness.” His voice was weak, devoid of any life and fight whatsoever. It hurt Yao Xiu to see him like that.
“State the orders you received.”
“I received a royal missive, Your highness, bearing the Hear-No-Evil, See-No-Evil cipher. Upon breaking the seals and confirming the authenticity of the signatures, the missive stated that I was to gather all my forces and destroy the Leizhu Swamp Pyramid as quickly as possible. It stated that the survival of the Empire hinged on the speedy destruction of the pyramid, and that no effort should be spared to see to its demise. No other details were added.” He gave his answer without raising his head at all, which was still planted in the dirt.
“The orders you received were false. They were not written by our hands, though they were sealed by a stolen stamp marking our office, confirmed by a vial of our stolen blood, and somehow marked by a Chi signature mimicking our own. You obeyed those orders and chose to attack our vassal—a vassal that you recommended with such glowing praise. What say you in your defense?”
The general said nothing, only pressing his face deeper into the dirt.
“We asked you a question, General of the White Tiger Shen Feng.”
He hesitated for a moment, but he eventually relented under the gaze of his Empress.
“I… I believed that the orders were genuine, your highness. Everything about the See-No-Evil, Hear-No-Evil cipher was in order, so I was not able to discern the truth of the matter.”
“And you did not wonder about the very nature of the orders itself? Of how contradictory they were to previous orders I gave you? Did you not think?”
Yao Xiu felt her heart sink as she saw Shen Feng struggling to come up with an answer, grinding his teeth in frustration. “When my Empress gives an order, I obey. It does not matter what I think, what I feel, for I trust that your decisions will be the best for the Empire. My inability to discern the nature of the orders is entirely my fault, your highness. For this, I can do nothing more than to submit to whatever punishment you deem necessary.”
The Empress made a show of huffing in displeasure before turning her attention to the nearest walker, the one that Yao Xiu had been talking with. “Martin. We are at a loss. We do not know whether we should commend you for halting the plans of our traitorous enemies and sparing our forces despite their apparent defeat, or to punish you for laying low one of our finest generals and inflicting one of the few military losses the Empire had the disgrace of receiving.” Martin was about to say something, shoulders rising and hand moving up, when the Empress turned her gaze away from his walker and back to the general, distaste filling her voice. “Or at least one of our former generals. Even in betrayal, he wasn’t even able to follow through with his orders… the failure.”
Shen Feng’s shoulders slumped at the barb thrown his way, but he did not relent from his prostration.
“We do, however, understand the nature of your dilemma. The betrayal of the Three Sages was a long time in the making, and they took extraordinary measures to falsify your orders. For this, we shall grant you the mercy of falling on your sword, Shen Feng, knowing that your name will not be marred in the archives. And yes, your family will not share your fate.”
“You are too kind, your majesty.” Tears were falling down the man’s face, his voice thick with gratefulness. “I will gladly—”
“Oh, for crying out loud. Are you really going to push through with telling Feng to kill himself right when you need him the most?”
Yao Xiu’s hairs stood on end. She should not have been surprised by the speaker’s brazenness, knowing his character, but it still unnerved her to hear the words coming out of the walker’s non-existent mouth.
The Empress’ bodyguard positively bristled at Martin’s impudence, while the Balancers settled their hands on the pommels of their weapons. Even the imprisoned soldiers sitting the ground, subdued as they were, looked up with shock at the walker Martin was speaking from.
“That is a rather candid way of questioning your Empress on how she manages Imperial affairs. If we recall correctly, you were the one who so desperately sought our intervention when Shen Feng first besieged your pyramid. You could not surrender fast enough.” She looked upon the sorry state of her troops and shook her head. “Though it seems that you did not need as much of our aid as you had alluded to.”
“And I am immensely grateful for your timely arrival, your highness. However, we don’t have time for pissing matches,” Martin interjected, with Yao Xiu swearing she could hear a sneer in there somewhere. “I got the story from Suhaib, and it looks like you will be needing as much help as you can get keeping your empire intact.”
“Keeping my empire…? Ah, you mean Ye Heng’s little rebellion in the east? It is nothing; he will be easily dealt with as soon as we bring our affairs in order.”
“And what do you think will happen when you lose the general overseeing the defense of your capital? Shen Feng here is good at his job, and he’ll help you do just that. He would have broken through my defenses, overran the pyramid, if things ended up a little differently. And from what I’ve heard about this Ye Heng, he’s the type not to half-ass things.”
“How intriguing. It is as if we did not think of these things ourselves,” said the Empress, sarcasm dripping from every word.
“Oh? You weren’t going to ask him to cut open his belly, jump off a cliff, or push a dagger into his heart as punishment for obeying false orders that were crafted to look exactly like the real thing?”
The Empress paused for a moment, then brought up a hand under her veil as she squeezed out a giggle filled with venom. “Oh, Martin. If you were a regular man, I would have had your head chopped off and your genitals burned away for showing such insolence so many times now.”
The walker visibly shuddered before clenching its legs together. “Okay. Point taken. Sheesh. No need to be so creative with the punishments; I still remember what it’s like to have balls, you know. But still, I really think you should let Shen Feng off the hook right now. I mean, I’m the one who got stabbed in the back here, and I would much rather see the douche responsible for all this get what’s coming to him—not ripping into the guy who got duped by what he thought were your orders.
“And besides, think about what must be going through the minds of those guys right now.” The walker then raised a fist and pointed a thumb at the prisoners kneeling behind him, faces downcast as they knelt but ears burning as they listened intently into the conversation. “I’ve given them a bad enough time already. I think they really deserve to hear a little good news right about now, don’t you?
Her giggle deepened into a laugh that tapered off as she shook her head. “He never learns.” The laugh died in her throat as she turned her attention to Shen Feng. “Rise, Shen Feng, and face your Empress.”
He hesitated for the barest of moments before standing up on shaky legs, dirt crumbling off the forehead that had been planted to the ground moments ago.
“Our vassal has pleaded for our mercy regarding your punishment. We have considered it, and we find his plea to be of some merit. You will retain your position as General of the White Tiger. Gather what remains of your forces, send out what orders you need to, and prepare to help the General of the Azure Dragon deal with the traitor Ye Heng, who is now leading an uprising in the eastern provinces of Taiyo. We will also be expecting a more detailed report of events that occurred here. What say you?”