Five Kingdoms

by T. A. Miles

  Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Map: Sheng Fan

  Map: Sheng Fan

  The Silent Emperor

  Prologue: Unlikely Allies

  One: Sea of a Thousand Winters

  Two: The Weight of Truth

  Three: The Path to Destiny

  Four: Landfall

  Five: Valley of Kings

  Six: Forest Guardian

  Seven: Into Sheng Fan

  Eight: The Mountain Fortress of the Peacock

  Nine: The White Tiger of the Mountains

  Ten: The Yellow Tortoise of the River

  Eleven: Persistence of Fire

  Twelve: Of Gods and Long-Tailed Birds

  Thirteen: Through the Gate of Heavenly Protection

  Fourteen: Tests of Trust

  Fifteen: Winds from the North, Fires from the South

  Sixteen: Loyalties

  Seventeen: The Heart of Chaos

  Eighteen: A Silent Oath of Brotherhood

  Nineteen: Deceptions

  Twenty: Heart of Stone

  Twenty-one: Enemy of the Song

  Twenty-two: Six Celestial Swords

  Twenty-three: Trenches of Fire

  Twenty-four: Emergence of Chaos

  Twenty-five: The Teachings of Pan Xiu

  Twenty-six: Rise and Fall of the Sun

  Epilogue: The Vulture and the Wolf

  About the Author

  More from Raventide Books

  A Raventide Books Publication

  Ames, IA

  Copyright © T.A. Miles 2015

  Map © T.A. Miles 2016, map elements by Ignacio Portilla M.

  Cover Illustration by Charlie Creber: creberart@gmail.com

  Ebook design & formatting by Write Dream Repeat Book Design LLC

  Digital Edition: ISBN-10:0-9975034-2-4

  ISBN-13:978-0-9975034-2-5

  Five Kingdoms is a work of fiction. All incidents and dialogue, along with all characters are products of the author’s imagination. Any similarities to any person, living or dead, is merely coincidental.

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publishers.

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  The Oracle of Si Shiren foresaw his coming; one who would rule without mandate, but in the interest of the Mandate, and for the good of the people and the preservation of the land. He would whisper bold words that would be felt long before they were heard. His would be a voice on the wind, gusting across the land with the speed of a tempest. With the rain, the people would hear promises of peace, and yearn for it. With the resounding crash of thunder, the people would hear strength, and feel it. With the calm after the storm, the people would hear wisdom, and follow it.

  —From the Book of Springs

  Unlikely Allies

  Unlikely...the word doesn’t seem to fit. Then again, what else does one call the alliance of two dwarves—myself and my niece—a mountain elf, a fire elf, an Andarian knight, and a large handful of Fanese men, which includes one strayed Fanese ox?

  As I sit huddled in a cave in the extreme northern parts of Yvaria, freezing my beard off, scratching out another page of my memoirs, I see children before me—with the exception of one fellow ancient, who doesn’t happen to speak my language, nor I his.

  Shirisae is actually the eldest of the brood, though she is still young for her kind. Proud, beautiful, and strong of mind and body; the Phoenix Elf is the sister who loves and guides, and protects in the absence of a mother. She didn’t start out that way—she had her moments of selfishness and thoughtlessness, sure as a lamb will frolic—but when it came time to assume a stronger role, she stepped into it with fortitude and grace. She watches the others with her golden eyes now, proud and protective as a lioness over her cubs. Even Alere, whom she once despised for his icy nature, has received more than one look from his fellow elf that almost half resembled something in the way of a tender—well, maybe more kind...probably just civil—smile. The lass is trying.

  Alere doesn’t make it easy for anyone to give a mule’s hind end about him. He speaks little and when he does open that frost-rimed mouth of his, it’s usually just to state some fact that the victim of his conversation was happier not knowing. Gods forbid, we can’t all be as perfect as the white elf.

  Perfect...

  Xu Liang certainly tries to be. If this dysfunctional, ragtag assembly of adventurers could truly be considered a family, the mystic is the model son become head of his own house. Patient, studious...meticulously groomed. Even now he sits upon the filthy ground as if it is a plush cushion, every fold of his robes perfect, regardless of wear and weathering…every hair in place in spite of its great lengths…his expression imperturbable while he travels deeper into his thoughts, never quite losing himself. The man stays ever alert to the others around him, always prepared to answer a question or to end a dispute. Thinker, mediator, sorcerer, and even warrior...he knows no boundary, except for his health. He’s skilled, but he’s not strong. His mind and soul are determined, but his body has never been as willing. It rebels now, quietly. Most of the others don’t notice. They’re under his spell, charmed by his leadership. The lad’s cheated death. The others view his survival as some magical will to survive, believing that he will live simply because he will not allow himself to die. The elders among us know that the young mage has cheated death, but he has not fooled it altogether.

  The ‘elders’ among us.

  As I mentioned before, there’s only one other than myself. An old guard, one of five bodyguards remaining to the Fanese mystic; Xu Liang, who is also a nobleman of his land, entitled to wear perfectly excessive layers of silk, to study to his heart’s content, and to collect human shields. He has six of them now, counting Fu Ran—the ox who abandoned his homeland and who can’t seem to shake its traditions, or his sentiment toward the man he once served. But that’s a story for later, and it brings me now to the boy.

  Of course, he’s told me plenty of times that he’s not a boy and, age wise, I suppose he’s right, but when I look at Tristus Edainien, all I can see—and have ever seen—is a lonely young lad in his father’s armor. His smiles are wounded, his eyes shining more often than not with tears. I didn’t sympathize with him at first—not much—but, as with the elves, the lad has grown on me. And he’s grown attached to my niece. Separating the two of them is like peeling the bark off a Calliprian Tower Tree; in the end it’s just not worth the effort. I suppose it’s good for both of them. Neither ever had any siblings, and that’s what they’ve become to one another; like one of the closest brother and sister pairs a body ever met. I hope I never see the day their paths are forced apart. Gods know higher forces have tried—and tried breaking up the lot of us, I might add. It’s not an innocent exploratory outing I’ve gotten myself into this time around. Chaos is rising, and it may just be up to this motley assortment of friends and allies—blessed with the power of six otherworldly weapons—to put it to rest.

  As usual, the future of human, dwarf, and elf kind rests on the shoulders of the young. It’s a good thing they’ve got me around to keep them in line. There’s nothing worse than a pup drunk off his own power!

  Sea of a Thousand Winters

  They rode hard and rested only when it was absolutely necessary. Still, there was nothing to be done about mishaps due to weather, due to weari
ness of both the horses and the people, and due to two assaults by lingering groups of the keirveshen early into their trek from Lower Yvaria. As well, there had been one attack by bandits roaming the Northern Flatlands. The aptly named terrain had turned out to be very much like its southern counterpart, except that the snow appeared to never melt off, regardless of where and when the sun shone upon it. Xu Liang had felt a particular unease with traveling that route, all the while contemplating the possibility of coming upon another giant. It was likely that the concern had not been his alone, though no one had spoken of either the previous incident in the Lower Flatlands, or of the prospect of it repeating in the upper realm. It may have been that the danger was still too recent for all of them and that, for that reason, they had reached a silent consensus to not provoke fate.

  Whatever the reason and whatever fate’s intentions, injuries among the group had been relatively few and minor in Upper Yvaria. There were no losses of life, but a definitive lack of hope was stirring among them when the companions finally arrived in Willenthurn, twenty-one days after their departure from Vilciel…three days late.

  Sedschal’s Inn was packed to the very seams of its structure the night ten more strangers came seeking shelter. Willenthurn, being a port city, was undoubtedly accustomed to strange folk wandering its streets. That served as a benefit in avoiding a surplus of attention from those who dared the weather. Unfortunately, it turned out that there were no rooms left available at the inn when they arrived. In fact, there had not been any available for several hours, if not more than a day. Reportedly, the town had been under the assault of a blizzard for the past three days prior to the companions’ arrival. Patrons leaving in the morning were returning early in the evening after learning that their ships—or they themselves—were going nowhere in the ever-deepening snow and the gale-force winds that whipped it about in icy sheets.

  Xu Liang and the others had struggled to make it into town—the plateau landscape of the Northern Flatlands made it nearly impossible to see ahead of them—and none of them had gone untouched by the cold’s harsh bite, not even Alere or Shirisae. The elves were immune to common illness as humans understood it, but their skin was no better shield against the driving pellets of ice, or the sheer force of the wind itself, or the deeply penetrating cold. Both elves huddled among their companions on a space of floor the group had managed to claim—like so many other latecomers were forced to do—and shivered while their skin and bones ached just as much as everyone else’s.

  Xu Liang, who no longer benefited from the protection of a highly fortified spirit, and who’d never partaken of a long, grueling trek through lands quite so harsh as what the northernmost region had offered, sat staring at two places on his hand where the skin had split open for no apparent reason other than cold and dryness. The wounds were small and didn’t bleed much, or ache beyond a mildly vexing sting, but he envisioned the damage worse, and suddenly thought he had an idea of what it felt like to have a farmer’s hands. The matter was, of course, trivial in comparison to the internal damages that had been done to him both by the ice giant, and by the Phoenix.

  “You should...let Taya put something on that.”

  The voice was vaguely familiar, Xu Liang thought to himself, somewhat caustically. He recalled having heard it more than twenty days ago, but not since, at least not in a direct manner.

  Xu Liang lowered his hand so that the sleeve of his robe draped it, then glanced at Tristus, feeling instant remorse for his thoughts. Who was he to speak to them of unity, if he himself was undermining it with resentment or impatience?

  Of the bearers of the Celestial Swords, only Guang Ci seemed to be making a genuine effort to insert himself into the role, to bond with his fellow bearers in the way that the Blades themselves longed to unite with one another through attentiveness and sincerity. It seemed that way, but Xu Liang couldn’t be certain since the guard may well have been doing nothing more than following his master’s instructions to not disregard the importance of the brotherhood the Blades formed. The language barrier ensured that he could do little more than regard his fellow bearers through the wordless act of fighting alongside them. How could Guang Ci truly understand and trust people who spoke in tongues he couldn’t begin to comprehend? And what of the ingrained contempt nearly all Fanese people felt toward outsiders? Would that renew itself once they returned home? What about the darkness inherent of the Night Blade, the malice the others had reported to Xu Liang—each in their own unsettling words—which generated from the sword, and had driven its two previous bearers mad?

  Guang Ci was nothing, if not strong-willed. Xu Liang knew that well and he suspected that this Malek Vorhaven the others had mentioned had been inclined to dark thoughts to begin with, thus making the Night Blade’s work easy. Guang Ci was a man of honor and dignity, even if impetuous at times. Perhaps he could come to understand the Night Blade and govern its power, rather than be governed by it.

  “Why would gods who were supposed to be good forge a weapon so...evil?” Taya asked, apparently seeing what Xu Liang’s gaze had settled on.

  “The gods cannot be so simply defined by such terms as good and evil,” Xu Liang answered. Then he looked away from the Night Blade, and at the young dwarf, adding, “In the legends of my homeland, the original bearers of the Dawn and Night Blades were birth brothers.”

  Taya looked upon him with interest piqued, and so Xu Liang felt inclined to continue.

  “As children,” he said, “they were attacked by a beast from the Infernal Regions—this would have been before the time of mortal man, when the Heavens and Hells existed as two realms side-by-side, touching but not embracing, ever close but always opposite. Our ancestral and spiritual beginnings were at the center of this, in the Womb of Thought, the place from which would be born all creatures of reason that would later come to inhabit the physical world.”

  “Which was formed around a sleeping dragon,” Taya recalled.

  Xu Liang nodded. “Yes.”

  “So, what about the brothers?” the young dwarf asked.

  Xu Liang obliged her curiosity by continuing the tale. “While both brothers faced the monster bravely and survived the encounter, neither came away unscathed. Each of them was given a nightmare.

  “Zan Jang, bearer of the Dawn Blade, fought the darkness that had entered his thoughts, though it terrified him so greatly that he was said to have aged dramatically beneath the strain of what he had witnessed. While he maintained the strength of his youth, his hair had turned silver and forevermore there was a terrible sadness in his eyes. Zan Dexiu, bearer of the Night Blade, pulled his own dark dreams deeper inside of him and attempted to fortify his mind and soul against this affliction, to lock it away forever. His success was also his failure. The darkness trapped inside of him was as a seed of malevolence. Growing slowly, it would one day bear poison fruit—bitterness and envy that would drive two brothers apart.

  “They were destined to fall in love with the same woman. This woman would choose Zan Jang, and while Zan Jang would always place his brother first, even to the point of forsaking his lover, Zan Dexiu would forever remain cold toward him, secretly plotting betrayals that only a brother could forgive. Eventually, Zan Jang enlisted his services with Cheng Yu, adopted son of the Jade Emperor. Joining Zan Jang was Shi Tan, his lover and bearer of the Storm Blade. Zan Dexiu offered his services to the Jade Emperor himself, but was referred to his daughter, Mei Qiao. The goddess also held under her command the ancient and much revered warrior, Li Huan Yue, bearer of the Twilight Blade, said to have been the first to study the doctrines written by the Jade Emperor, who had existed previously as pure thought.”

  The atmosphere felt strangely quiet after Xu Liang had finished telling the tale. He realized when he opened his eyes—which had fallen shut during the recounting of the legend—that he had gained a greater audience than he’d started with. Strangers who had been huddled in the general vic
inity of the companions had turned their heads and listened in. A handful of children had wandered close, two having strayed into the circle the companions formed, where they sat in attentive silence, awed and delighted by the peculiar story they had undoubtedly not been expecting when their parents brought them in from the storm.

  “How does it end?” a small girl asked. She appeared no more than eight in years, but there was a promising light in her blue eyes, an awareness and intellect that was not often displayed by one so young.

  Intrigued by the depth of this child’s interest, Xu Liang said, “That is yet to be determined.”

  Taking that to mean that the inn’s incidental storyteller was finished performing for the night, the adults dispersed, returning to sit with their own companions or turning back around in their seats, if they were so fortunate as to have a table. Talk rose among those who considered themselves entertained, and those who didn’t. The children were eventually summoned by their parents, one of whom had the audacity to toss a few coins onto the rough wooden floor in front of Xu Liang.

  Everyone else in the group stared at the coins, their expressions illustrating various states of amaze at the concept of someone mistaking Xu Liang for a beggar.

  Xu Liang himself simply closed his eyes. His own shock came with the breath of laughter that escaped someone seated just to his left. Even as Xu Liang looked narrowly at Tristus, the knight was attempting to hide his amusement behind his glove. As Xu Liang and others continued to observe him, Tristus forced a cough and lowered his hand, biting his lip while his mouth insisted on forming a smile.

  “Sorry,” he murmured, but it was too late. The infection had already spread.

  To the other side of Tristus, Taya giggled behind her fist, which made Tarfan clear his throat in a blustery attempt to cover his own escaping laughter. Shirisae turned her head away to hide her grin from view while Alere smiled only a little. It was Fu Ran’s sudden bellowing that made everyone burst into some form of laughter with the exception of Xu Liang and his bodyguards, the latter of who witnessed the scene with curiosity.