Five Kingdoms

by T. A. Miles

  With that determination, he placed his brush down and rose from the desk. He left his office and proceeded to the garden, which—apart from the past safety of the temple—had been a preferred place for him to meditate. Upon passing into the cool night air, he detected a presence. It was not Tristus this time, but Alere.

  The elf was sat upon the grass, looking up at the starlight. Xu Liang traced his gaze upward, admitting that it was a remarkably fair sky and worthy of notice. Still, he felt that Alere’s timing was not incidental.

  “The timeless dance of the Celestial Dragons,” he said of the stars while he took steps toward the bearer of the Twilight Blade. And then, as he recalled the elf’s belief’s, he added, “Or the sparkling veil of your mother goddess.”

  Alere looked at him and said nothing. He seemed not to be in a mood for conversations of gods now.

  Xu Liang sat down beside the elf, facing him. He recalled that the last time Alere had looked upon him with such silence, it was while he formulated a critique. This time, Xu Liang decided not to presume what concerned his ally. “What troubles you?”

  “Many things,” Alere replied candidly. “But they are not all topics I would seek to trouble you with.”

  “And the ones that are?” Xu Liang prompted.

  Alere surprised him by saying, “I cannot bring myself to care for Shirisae.”

  The information itself was not necessarily what surprised him, nor how bluntly he had stated it. Rather, it was that he had elected to speak of the matter at all.

  Xu Liang looked upon Alere’s pale features. The implacable stillness of his demeanor rendered any approach an uncertain affair. If there was anything Xu Liang had learned about the Verressi elf in their time together, it was that. Worse was the manner in which Alere set a topic down, as if all facets of it were clear and self-evident, and if one failed to see that—and to see it quickly—then he might withdraw the topic altogether. It seemed that way, but Xu Liang felt confident that it was in actuality Alere’s discomfort with having shared at all that would have him draw away if there was a lack of comprehension, or a lingering silence from his audience. For that reason, Xu Liang knew that he should cherish these moments.

  “You cannot forgive her people for the neglect you believe they paid yours,” he said, recalling that Alere had stated as much on more than one occasion.

  “I cannot,” Alere replied. “She carries no remorse and offers little dignity to those she and her people have deemed merely victims. It’s discouraging, that a future leader of a people should be so aloof.”

  Xu Liang nodded, understanding. It was more than assigned duty or acknowledgment of the Mandate that inspired his devotion to the Song, and to his empress; it was admiration and love, both of which had been earned. If Song Da-Xiao were a careless or cruel leader, his service would weigh differently in his heart and perhaps he would have been persuaded by others in the interest of Sheng Fan. But the Empress cared for her people, and for the land. Xu Liang suspected that if Shirisae did not also care for her people, she would not have come to Sheng Fan.

  But that was not the trouble for Alere. The trouble was that she did not seem to care for his people.

  “It is important to hold on to the past,” Xu Liang said, drawing his answer as one sifting through sand. He looked only for the pieces of value, and let the rest fall away. “We must cherish the moments of glory, and we must seek to learn from the moments of failure. If, in studying our failures, we believe that we have learned to distrust and to despise, then we must take up a new study. Gardens planted in bitter soil are sure to fail.”

  Alere looked up at the sky once again. He gave no indication of whether or not he was affected by the words. And then he said, “I’m reminded of the bog surrounding Vorhaven’s manor.”

  “What of it?” Xu Liang asked with interest.

  “The presence of the keirveshen had spoiled the land,” the elf replied. “And it was Vorhaven’s bitterness which spoiled him…and all that he touched.”

  Xu Liang believed that he understood what Alere was conveying. He didn’t know why that inspired him to reach his hand out to the elf, but he did not question nor did he attempt to retract the action.

  Alere looked at Xu Liang, then at the hand he offered.

  The sureness of the moment started to drift away. Xu Liang began to see how much—in spite of all they had experienced as a group—they had failed to connect with one another. His hand started to close.

  It was then that Alere took hold of it with his own. The contact was warm and surprisingly not abrasive—as his sensitivities had come to regard most contact. It filled Xu Liang with a sense of brotherhood that he had been lacking for some years now, and which in the past had been brought to ruin by elements he could not resolve or control. Those marked some of his greatest failings. He was determined that the union of the Swords would not be among them.

  “I will not abandon any of you,” he said to Alere, because he suddenly felt that it needed to be said to someone. “It is my hope that none of us will abandon each other. There has been too much of that in this world—this world that we all share.”

  “It is my belief that you will never part from what you believe in,” Alere said. “It has kindled a hope in me that you will continue to believe in us, even more than you believe in the Swords.”

  It was true, that at one time Xu Liang might have considered such a sentiment preposterous. He had put all of his faith for Sheng Fan—apart from the Empress—in the Blades granted to them by the gods. He also believed at one time that they were primarily meant for Sheng Fan, before his own perspective on the worth of a world had expanded. There were still moments, however, when his inbuilt sense of superiority as a son of Sheng Fan rose to overtake his humility as a child of the Master. The Jade Emperor had not made a country, or even an Empire; he had made a world. All of the inhabitants of Dryth were siblings to one another, and all of them were equally threatened by Chaos.

  Xu Liang lifted his other hand, and placed it with Alere’s as well. “We struggle to maintain our identities and our sovereignties within a nation,” he said. “In doing so, we often exclude dignity and respect toward others. It may seem especially so, here in Sheng Fan. It is my hope that by unifying the land once again, a sense of security will be reestablished, and perhaps with it a sense of wonder about our neighbors.”

  “Elves are also guilty of attempting to exist in seclusion,” Alere admitted. “I understand that, in part, that’s why there was no one willing to come to our aid. We assumed in the mountains that, among elves, it would be different…that our common understanding of each other and a sense of kinship might bring others. It did not.”

  “I understand,” Xu Liang said, and gradually, their hands slipped apart. “It would be as one of the five kingdoms refusing to come to the aid of another. Unfortunately, we’ve come to that. Worse, we’ve been fighting amongst ourselves.”

  “I will help you to help your people,” Alere pledged. “Even if it brings no solace to the ghosts of my own.”

  Xu Liang bowed his head with a renewed sense of appreciation for the elf. Thinking back on the white tiger. Having observed it so closely—observing the beast and Alere watching each other across the snow—it had become evident to Xu Liang in those moments that the two might have recognized some kinship in one another. It was the first time that Xu Liang had witnessed Alere display a sense of kinship with anything outside of his memories of his family. To have that kinship extended onto himself now, Xu Liang felt that he also had been blessed.

  “You will know glory in this land,” he said to Alere, and it made him feel somehow stronger. Perhaps because it had given him a view of the future outside of the turmoil and suffering he knew Sheng Fan and the Empress were faced with, and that view was of success. Alere Shaederin would become the herald of the White Tiger’s blessing, and Xu Liang would do all within his power to shi
eld his path.

  Alere did not know what to make of Xu Liang’s statement. The Verressi Elves had known little of glory, and he himself had made a life of survival and vengeance. Both had been slow to establish and could still not be fully realized. He set aside thoughts of glory and what that might have meant in Sheng Fan, and allowed himself to briefly consider the sentiments that had passed between them, how it had felt comfortably familial. He’d been traveling with Xu Liang long enough…perhaps such feelings were to be expected. It may have been that the others felt it as well and had possibly been not as slow coming around to it as Alere had been. Still, he had difficulty regarding the dwarves or Shirisae, or even the guardsmen in such a manner. Since taking up this path with the mystic he had come to love only two of their group, and he loved each of those two differently. What he felt for Tristus was simpler for him to understand yet more difficult to realize. What he felt for Xu Liang had been more complicated coming to understand, and had been easily realized with the joining of their hands.

  Alere had long been looking to the mystic for guidance, for mentoring that he had been denied without older siblings and in the absence of his parents. He had finished raising himself. After the fact, Alere wondered often if he had done so fairly and if he should continue in the direction he was headed. He was not prone to despairing, but there had been times when he felt lost. Coming upon the light of the Moon Blade in the Hallowen Forest was an event he would long remember, for it had cast both structure and order onto what could have become a path of chaos. Worse, it might have become a path of destruction.

  “Why don’t you believe that the Swords will be of use in the temple?” he finally asked. It was the question on his mind since coming to the garden after their return. He had not planned to discuss his resentment toward Shirisae, not immediately. The words had simply come prematurely.

  “I believe that carefully laid spells are at work,” Xu Liang answered.

  “You said that you heard the beating heart of the dragon,” Alere reminded.

  Xu Liang nodded. “Yes. And there still may be the presence of one, somewhere. However, …”

  “Aerkiren may cancel the effects of a laid spell,” Alere informed him, which drew a pause from the mystic. Looking over at him, he added, “If the blade is allowed to make contact with the source item.”

  Xu Liang’s brow lifted. “A mystic requires a base from which to lay the enchantment. If the effect is to carry on, rather than facilitate a single use, the base must be a source through which it can recycle.”

  “I noticed that our feet made no sound when we walked in the temple,” Alere said. “Is that typical?”

  “No,” Xu Liang replied. “It’s not. My concentration was such that I did not notice the absent sounds. We may assume, with that evidence, that the earth spell is based in the floor and is disrupting its natural properties. Your ability to observe remains impressive.”

  “I was not the only one of us who noticed,” Alere decided to say

  At that point, Xu Liang bowed where he sat, leaning forward for an extended moment. And then he said, “I had made complicated plans to counteract the spells. I now believe there is a better way. Would you return to the temple with me in the morning?”

  “I will,” Alere answered.

  Xu Liang offered a small smile. “In view of that, we should both take our rest.”

  “There’s one more thing,” Alere said, his thoughts shifting to the topic of Tristus.

  “What is it?” Xu Liang asked him.

  Alere looked at the mystic, hesitating as it occurred to him that the subject may not have been one that Xu Liang was aloof to—or even averse to—but rather one that was a strain to him. Just as Alere had risked putting uncomfortable tension between himself and Tristus by advancing the way that he had, Tristus may have done the same to Xu Liang. That Tristus accepted Alere’s position without it taxing their friendship did not mean that Xu Liang was able or willing to do the same. The mystic might have been at odds with himself on how to embrace the bond the Swords demanded of them without inviting the relationship that Tristus desired. To ask Xu Liang of his feelings may have been presumptuous, and unfair.

  “There is a subject that I had wanted to speak of,” Alere finally said, “but I’ve changed my mind. It concerns myself and Tristus.”

  “There is no trouble between the two of you,” Xu Liang guessed accurately.

  “There’s not,” Alere answered.

  “You’re not concerned where his heart lays,” the mystic probed next, undoubtedly inspired by their talk of Shirisae’s priorities.

  “I am,” Alere replied. “Though not in regard to the Blades.”

  Xu Liang did not seem to need the matter explained to him, though he did become quiet. Afterward, the both of them sat still and silent for what seemed a very long time, though Alere realized that not many breaths had actually passed between them before the mystic stood.

  “I did not wish to speak of it so abruptly,” Alere said, feeling an unfamiliar pang of true fear, something he had not felt so markedly since he was a child. It seemed strange to him that he should feel such a thing now in the face of what may have been Xu Liang’s disappointment.

  “But you did wish to speak of it,” Xu Liang told him. “You changed your mind in order to spare me or Tristus…perhaps both of us.”

  Alere stood now as well. “Tristus already bears a wound he considers mortal in this matter. I can do him no further harm.” He detected Xu Liang’s offense, and so added, “I hoped to spare you.”

  “And my persistence deflected your efforts,” Xu Liang said, in a similar tone to which he had demonstrated when Alere had criticized his motivation back in Yvaria.

  It had not been Alere’s intent then, or now to draw shame from him.

  Perceptively, Xu Liang said, “You have done nothing wrong, Alere. Once again, you have made me aware.”

  Alere looked at him.

  And Xu Liang said, “Strain between two of us cannot be strain between only two of us. By now it can only be among all of us.”

  Alere agreed, but did so silently, allowing Xu Liang to withdraw from their conversation. He would not allow himself to worry that he had in any way damaged what had been established between them, because in his heart, he determined, it could not be. He would remain as devoted to this task as he was to eradicating the keirveshen, for the sake of his family, of which Xu Liang had become a part.

  Deceptions

  The Dragon’s heartbeat pervaded Xu Liang’s senses while he slept, though he did not dream of the temple again. He dreamed of sitting at his desk, studying the Cai Shi-meng scrolls. The characters danced upon the parchment, like the shadows of many forms. While he attempted to reread the writings, a voice whispered at a pace as erratic as the movement of the shadow characters.

  “I shall destroy those who killed my lord and all who support them. The Song shall pay for their treachery.”

  The edges of the scrolls curled and uncurled at the whim of a heated breeze, the rhythm of the Dragon’s heart underscoring the voice of Cai Shi-meng’s ghost.

  “The Song shall pay for their treachery,” it repeated. “At last I have discovered the tool necessary to exact my revenge. A weapon against the land…”

  Xu Liang observed the characters in their eerie dance, altering the words as he remembered them…shifting the meaning behind the Scholar General’s account of his famous uprising.

  “Chaos has been stirring,” the voice continued. “…an order I can’t ignore…”

  In the peripheries of Xu Liang’s vision, tongues of green flame licked the bases of the walls. The flames quickly grew, rising to the ceiling, casting a jade glow upon the shadowed scrolls.

  “…a command given to me by Chaos to expel the unworthy,” said the Scholar General. “To expel the unworthy who killed my lord and all who support them.”


  The fire traveled across the ceiling, boxing Xu Liang in a prison of flame.

  “I shall fulfill this task, and welcome the gods, should our paths cross,” Cai Shi-meng vowed. “I am not alone.”

  Xu Liang felt panic rise within him while the ghostly voice repeated the last statement. The heartbeat grew heavier, overtaking the words. Though he knew he was dreaming, Xu Liang’s instinct was to cover his ears. It did nothing to mute the Dragon, or the vengeful ghost.

  “All revenge is mine!” The bellowing of the demon who hounded Tristus bolted forward from memory. “And there is much of it here…”

  Other voices from his dreams with the Phoenix returned as swiftly.

  “I look at your silence as a betrayal!”

  “He cannot help himself.”

  “You killed her!”

  The forms in the shadows upon the scrolls became faces of suffering and hatred. Xu Liang swept the scrolls from the desktop. Before they cleared the surface, a black, skeletal hand latched around his wrist. Its touch was of ice, and simultaneously of burning. The sensation of pain felt all too familiar. Pulling his arm away brought the form of a man out of the scrolls…an apparition, perhaps of the scrolls’ author. The body was formed entirely of shadow, its features dark and barely decipherable beyond a basic shape.

  “Fate is against you!” the spirit screamed, gripping him still, mustering rage comparable to the demon the knight carried with him.

  Pain ignited within Xu Liang. He fell to the floor even before the shadow released him. As he lay there, pinned by torment from the pain at his chest as well as from the din of the Dragon’s incessant heartbeat, the door to his office opened slowly.

  Han Quan appeared, traced with the green cast of the fire that threatened to overtake the room. The older mystic smiled deviously, and said, “The Song shall pay for their treachery.”