by T. A. Miles
As if to illustrate the thought, the Phoenix’s fire swelled along the edges of the pavilion, surrounding it. The Spirit of Death flexed the edges of its being as if to create some barrier between itself and the fire. It did not withdraw, nor did it did attempt to expel or harm Xu Liang’s projected form.
They continued to observe each other. Eventually, Xu Liang lowered his focus to the orb beneath his fingers. He carefully cleared the tendrils of shadow away, looking upon the erratic cloud pattern once more. Gently, he slid his hand over them in one direction, drawing the formations to move in a uniform and slower flow. In the process, some were parted, and he was able to look into the sphere and see a very young man.
Once again, there was some suggestion of reflection in the appearance of the individual he witnessed. The boy possessed beauty of form and grace of manner. The image of him studying a scroll suggested dedication to nurturing his intellect. But there was a figure sitting on the floor behind him. What appeared to be the ghostly figure of a woman was stooped over on her knees, leaning against the young man with one emaciated hand clinging to his robes and in his long hair. Her eyes were hollow and her mouth almost smiling.
It disturbed Xu Liang, enough that he could not look upon it for long. He slid his fingers further across the sphere. The image was pulled away, into the shapes of the clouds, and a new scene formed. It depicted the village already on his subconscious, appearing as desolated and abandoned as before. This time the ghost was knelt upon the ground, beside a puddle Xu Liang had walked alongside of in his earlier dream. Again, she clutched the hair of the boy, but the locks were stretched to the stoop of the house Xu Liang had already visited, where the young man currently stood, facing indoors.
Xu Liang had been within the house. He remembered what he had seen; the tree which had grown beside the Death Pavilion, rendered of bits of bone on the floor of the house. It was a curse emblem.
“Curses are not the practice of mystics,” Xu Liang said, reminded of the dragon scale amulet.
“No,” Che Wen Tai confirmed. “They are the practice of sorcerers.”
“Who is the boy?” Xu Liang asked.
“His name is Lei Kui,” the elder answered. While the words formed, the boy in the setting in front of Xu Liang began to turn his head, as if he heard. “As a boy, he came to us misguided by pain and with a talent for desolation. We refused his request to become a student, but allowed him to shelter within the temple residences. At that time the Death Pavilion was accessible, but marked without a master.
“The boy was drawn to it and went to it during the night—I felt him pass through the Wisdom Pavilion. I and others went to retrieve him, but he had already called upon the Spirit of Death. Zhai Liao answered as if awaiting the moment when the boy would arrive. The spirit embraced Lei Kui while he sat in meditation before the statue of the beast-companion. I was unable to separate them. Even calling upon the Spirit of Ancestral Wisdom, I could not dislodge the grip of Zhai Liao.”
The child image of Lei Kui turned enough to look directly at Xu Liang. His eyes had shifted from brown to a bloody tone that stood bright against the white surrounding them. He was cursed.
“The direct blessing of the Spirit of Death is as possession,” Che Wen Tai said. “Envesseled within the boy, through his pain, Zhai Liao has come into contact with the mortal plane. He is a harbinger of Chaos.”
“You tried to keep the boy here,” Xu Liang realized.
Pause preceded the elder’s words. “The bridge was cut. Barriers were put around the pavilion by myself, and by others.”
“How did he escape?” Xu Liang asked, presuming that physically, Lei Kui had done just that, and that neither a prison nor a tomb was acquired after all.
No answer came, or could be heard from Che Wen Tai.
Xu Liang began to rephrase. “He did escape…”
The ghost of the girl lurched forward, mouth open as if to moan protest, though no sound was expressed.
Xu Liang withdrew from the sphere. The hand of the ghost followed, as savagely as the skeletal hand that had emerged from the scroll written by Cai Shi-meng. It latched around his wrist, detaining him for a burning instant before he pulled free with enough force that he fell to the floor. The hand tried to follow, taking hold of his hair. He felt a strong draw toward the sphere, as if it were pulling him into it, then glimpsed the arm and shoulder of the ghost. In that moment it became more as if the specter was attempting to use his hair to pull itself out. He knew in that moment that he had slipped from his controlled spiritual projection and had descended into what was nearer a dream state.
The ghost continued to drag itself up, as if from the Infernal Regions. The blackness of the Spirit of Death grew heavier, blocking out the sky and diminishing the light around the statue. In protest, the Phoenix dove into the space, its green fire layering over the shadows, creating a shelter for Xu Liang that reminded him of Pearl Moon’s dome. The Phoenix at times seemed to have adopted the sword’s tactics. At other times, they seemed to complement one another. It helped him to realize, as the reaching form of the ghost and the smothering dark of the Spirit of Death were shut out, that the Phoenix was as much an ally as an antagonist. It helped him to calm himself and to draw strength that he might use to return to the waking world.
THE MOUNTAIN MIST created a veritable wall in the time Xu Liang had been gone, having walked in spirit from his body. Only occasionally did it thin enough for Shirisae to see anything of what was happening. She’d gathered only snatches of his spirit in motion and discerned very little of any other spirits, though she knew they were there. She did not have to see them to feel their presence. There were moments where she had glimpsed a sphere and recently envisioned something reaching from it. The presence of a young woman leaped to mind, feeling eerily aggressive, but the sensation became obscured by Xu Liang’s presence. It left her feeling somewhat anxious, but not as if action was required of her.
The gleam of Firestorm lingered in the corner of her vision while the blade appeared to react to the swelling storm. The Moon Blade rested on the floor beside Xu Liang, seeming to glow no more than what could be considered normal for any of the Swords when they were in what Shirisae had come to consider a state of rest.
She walked over to it and then crouched down beside both the sword and Xu Liang. While he meditated, she observed the mystic’s features. At first, she searched for signs of strain, but none were present. Her search settled to observation. In the darkening air, the shadows brought definition to his brow and the center of his face, which appeared glowingly pale against the curtain of his own black hair. She found him lovelier than she would have admitted in a positive light at first. Her instinct had been to downplay Tristus’ adoration then. She was wrong to do so, and she was glad to have failed. The mystic’s beauty had been its own curse, inspiring misperception, unwanted adoration, and even persecution. It made sense to Shirisae that he might have felt similar stress with being D’Jenti now. Xu Liang held no interest in being a god or in being worshipped as one. At the same time, he may have been placing the value of a god onto a young girl who held no such power. Shirisae did not know enough to have an important opinion in that matter and she was unconcerned. Xu Liang believed in Song Da-Xiao and the family she had come from. That was what mattered.
“I will help you to support what you believe in,” Shirisae whispered in promise. There was scarcely even a breath to the words that followed. “You embody all that I have believed in, for all of my years.”
Xu Liang was lost in meditation, and so did not open his eyes or speak in response. The depth of his quietude dared Shirisae to lean forward. Hands braced on the floor between them, she hovered very near to his face, feeling the warmth of his skin radiate toward her own. An intensity of love swelled within her unlike any sensation she had known before. It brought an instant of weakness to her limbs, threatening to collapse her while simultaneously precluding any further movement. In that space, she could only linger near to
him, anticipating all of the life that could follow that single moment, if they were allowed. It filled her with optimism, and at the same time with fear that all of that promise might never be fulfilled.
When she was able, she drew a small breath to restrain her emotion and carry out the action she intended, which was to place a kiss softly on his cheek. But Xu Liang detected her presence, or her movement, and he turned his face to her without opening his eyes. Whether or not his intent was to halt her action, he accomplished only a heartbeat’s worth of hesitation before they mutually kissed one another.
In that moment, Shirisae felt the Phoenix flare. Though her eyes were closed, she could see its brilliance douse the air in multi-colored fire. She envisioned its wings rise toward the sky, emerging from Xu Liang himself, as if the Phoenix had been dwelling as a flame within the mystic’s heart and only just then truly awakened, unfurling with him at its center.
When they withdrew from each other, Shirisae tried to only see his face, but she could not ignore the lingering of the Flame’s etchings upon the air…in the shape of the Phoenix’s wings. She sat back slowly, bringing his hand with her, so that she might look at it. It looked the same, and it felt the same as it had when she’d held it in the garden at the Imperial City. She had seen the Phoenix manifest in Xu Liang’s presence before. That it had manifested now was perhaps no different than any time preceding it, except for the fact that she had been included directly.
It felt like the blessing of her god.
XU LIANG WITHDREW his hand from Shirisae’s, only so that he could stand and offer it to her again. She took his hand and rose to her feet. He had no words in the moment, and could only look upon her, and consider the loveliness of her. His meditation had become strangely silent within the Phoenix’s protection. It was almost too sheltering, or perhaps the presence of the Spirit of Death was simply too volatile. He had not felt that he was gaining any further strength through his efforts, until Shirisae’s voice slipped past his external concentration.
He had been moved by her words, and by the love that she continued to reveal to him. The beauty of it inspired him further, as a landscape he was compelled to paint. Shirisae moved him to set aside frustration and to find peace by another means. He had found it through contact. That contact had strengthened his spirit, and it had done so without the weakening of his physical self.
Her fingers shifted within his own, and he looked down at their hands together. He slid his thumb across her knuckles, then lifted his gaze to her face again. His free hand followed, and he set his fingertips gently upon her cheek. A tear was trapped incidentally by the action, and for the first time in his presence, Shirisae lowered her face. She had always met and challenged gazes. He decided that he would not like to see that changed now; he had no desire to lead alone, over a path they were discovering together.
His hand moved beneath her chin to beckon her gaze back to him. She returned it with tears he would not ask her to explain. Instead, he folded his arms around her, and held her to him for the second time. There was a clumsiness to the amount of love that he felt, one which continued to hold him to silence.
In the quiet moments that followed with Shirisae tucked against him, weeping with scarcely a sound, he came to realize that it was not silence. It was the strongest expression he had ever made.
Night’s Movement
A PERIOD OF REST was required before returning to the troops. Che Wen Tai accommodated them with food, drink, and a seat in the dining room at the school. The windows on the south wall were arranged high along the ceiling and only provided a view of the ground directly outside. For now, the Death Pavilion was well out of sight.
Xu Liang sat quietly with Shirisae beside him, each of them with a cup of warmed water, butter, leaves, and spices. It was a drink prepared almost exclusively at the school and, in a slightly different manifestation within the deeper mountains of Ying. As a very young man, Xu Liang had appreciated the texture of it more than the rest of its many features. Now, it was the warmth he valued highest. Since returning from the Wisdom Pavilion, he had begun to feel chilled while he replayed his spiritual experience at the Death Pavilion.
“Lei Kui’s mother was a sorceress from the north,” Che Wen Tai said while settling with his own cup. “She was the lover of Yan Huochou.”
“Ganzan Li’s assassin,” Xu Liang recalled from history.
Che Wen Tai nodded. “The man ordered by Song Rong to eliminate the Ganzan head. The immediate relatives were imprisoned or executed. The extended family went into hiding. Song Rong declared himself emperor.”
While the elder spoke, he waved his hand idly over his cup, causing the smoke and the natural striations of color and texture within the tea to swirl.
Xu Liang watched the motions, feeling compelled by his memory of the clouds within the vulture’s sphere. Eventually, he said, “Cai Shi-meng was the highest official of the Ganzan court, and fled. He returned with the Spear of Heaven.”
“He also attempted to execute all practitioners of folk magic,” Che Wen Tai explained, “blaming them in part for the assassination.”
“Lei Kui’s mother,” Shirisae contributed, able to do so while the ancient astralmancer held her spiritually within his sphere of influence.
Che Wen Tai looked across to the elf and bowed his head. “Cai Shi-meng was put down at Tiong Zhong, a village he believed to be key to the success of his rebellion and to the battle underway within the Yatzen province. The village was the home of the Lei family. Lei Kui’s mother was yet a girl at the time and was spared death by Yan Huochou. Years later, their son came to the school at the age of seventeen. That was forty-seven years ago.”
Xu Liang took the information into his mind. In his current state of annoyance, it was as a squid with prey, but no matter how aggressively he tried to disembowel the body of the words for the information at their core, he could not be satisfied. Finally, he asked—more insistently than he would have preferred in the presence of such a revered elder, “What connection, other than the circumstance of the school itself, does Han Quan have with Lei Kui?”
His tone drew an immediate and prolonged pause. He lowered his head to express apology to his elder, and in the same moment felt Shirisae’s hand gently at his elbow.
Che Wen Tai continued to withhold his answer. He placed his wizened hand down beside his cup.
Xu Liang observed him with helpless frustration that he continued to feel remorse over. The astralmancer was not an enemy in any sense, but a benefactor. To be so antagonized by the elder’s careful manner was, Xu Liang decided, the result of exhaustion after his efforts. Efforts that had introduced him to one of the darker forces under the Jade Emperor’s realm. He understood why the Seven Mystics had severed the eighth road of learning the elemental arts. At the same time, he could only wonder whether or not their refusal to guide had created a worse circumstance, allowing the talent to grow wildly and without tempering.
“Han Quan,” the elder finally said, “is possessed of the ghost of the Scholar General, and it is his desire to erect a new empire, on top of the ruins of the present one.”
The words were not what Xu Liang anticipated, in spite of comparisons he had already drawn between the former chancellor and the legendary general. Unfortunately, the evidence supported Che Wen Tai’s words long before the elder had spoken them.
Still… “Why did you say nothing of this before now?”
“What would you have done, Xu Liang?” was the elder’s response.
And to that, Xu Liang had no answer of his own.
“The Song are not strong enough to withstand the forces of Chaos,” Che Wen Tai continued. “They will be murdered, down to the last child.”
“I will not allow it,” Xu Liang said at once. “The Song have the Mandate, and now the Celestial Swords. One dragon has been defeated already.”
“The Swords are indeed a blessing,” Che Wen Tai conceded. Shortly afterward, he said, “But you are the blessed.”
THEY LEFT THE School of the Seven Mystics, having never encountered any other mystics who might have been present. Xu Liang assured Shirisae that he had never visited at a time when more than one or a few others were met in person. He claimed that he had felt the presence of others and he explained to her that there were times of convention when all of the masters living would come together at the school or elsewhere, but he had not witnessed such a gathering personally on the top of Ding Fa. Shirisae accepted that, allowing the esoteric order to remain so in her mind. She did not require deep explanation beyond what was immediately relevant. They had information about Han Quan. It was clear that it was not the information Xu Liang had expected and that he found it disturbing. There was more to the experience he’d had in meditation that disturbed him, but he had not come to the point of speaking of it yet. Shirisae would wait, feeling assured that he would eventually have it sorted in his mind and at that time, he would likely have whatever plan of action was required at hand as well. She had watched him work in such a manner for months now, through the end of spring, over the entirety of summer, and now into the brink of autumn. She had traveled with him over plateaus, across a frigid sea, through the sharp terrain of Aer and into the winter mountains of Northern Sheng Fan…into the green and gold hills of Ji. She would hope for them to never run out of time or distances to travel together.
Those thoughts carried her contently away from the school and back onto the treacherous path of its entry. She watched Xu Liang with admiration that continued to renew itself and she knew that she was caught in the freshness of discovery. As fond as she was of the energy she currently felt—all of it channeling toward him—she looked forward to the time when it would be replaced with feelings of comfortable knowing. If she was getting ahead of herself, she couldn’t be bothered to care. Unlike any of her premature convictions of the past, what was being carved out now, was not being shaped by her alone. She was still managing to feel young over it, but in an acceptable way, and in a way she believed she would overcome swiftly. She believed that she would have her mother’s support now. She was beginning to think that she had had Ahjenta’s blessing even before leaving Vilciel, but she would not allow herself to dwell on that presently. Thoughts of the Phoenix’s cycles threatened to depress her now, for many reasons, the simplest of all of them being that she and D’mitri had never known their father.