Forest of a Thousand Lanterns

by Julie C. Dao

  The one who appeared to be their leader advanced until its wicked, intelligent face was inches from Shiro’s nose. The muscles rippled along its elegant haunches as it flexed its tail menacingly. Then, in a voice as old as the wind, it said, “We are the demon guardians of the forest. We protect it from men like you, who set fire to our trees without a second thought.”

  “We do not mean any harm,” Shiro repeated, and the demon’s ears flicked at his respectful tone. “We were ambushed and our attackers carry the torches, as you see.”

  The tengaru had formed a tight circle around the masked men, who pressed close together as the demons snarled and snapped at their ankles. Several beasts closed in behind Wei and Hideki, and one of them was even watching Xifeng through the screen of ferns and grass. She shrank back as Wei turned to her, lips forming her name.

  “Day by day,” the tengaru rasped, “we see our trees felled and leaves trampled. The beauty of this world is fading all too fast through the cruelty and thoughtlessness of men.”

  “These are the men who killed our friends and set fire to your branches,” Shiro said adamantly, indicating the attackers with his free hand. “We were merely passing through. We bring important correspondence to Emperor Jun from the king of Kamatsu.”

  The demons’ eyes flickered at the word Kamatsu, spoken in Shiro’s lilting accent. The leader turned its back, and Xifeng saw with relief that the tengaru believed the ambassador. They fixed their stares on the masked assassins, pronouncing judgment, just as one of the panicked men leapt forward and began swinging his sword, felling several demons. A pulse of anger vibrated through the creatures as though they shared one body and their mouths drew back in a collective scream of fury. They leapt onto the attackers, talons slicing clothes and flesh like ribbons.

  Shiro, Hideki, and Wei scrambled backward, tripping over branches and Isao’s remains. Wei opened his arms and Xifeng ran into them, pressing her face against his chest. She knew she would hear the slashing of sharp talons and the endless screaming long after this night.

  But the cries of pain stopped within seconds. Xifeng opened one eye to see the last surviving assassin stab a tengaru with his spear. Four of its comrades immediately pinned him against a tree while a fifth smashed its barbed tail against the man’s broken body. He collapsed in a lifeless, unmoving heap of flesh and bone.

  Slowly, the tengaru turned as one to face the survivors and approached in unison, one blood-splattered paw at a time.

  Wei’s knuckles tensed on the hilt of his sword. “Let us go.”

  “Let you go?” the demon leader sneered. “Let you go, when our fallen lie like crushed poppies?”

  The woodland had become a gory burial ground of men and tengaru. Their torn bodies made odd, dark shapes across the forest floor. Suddenly, the demons nearest the corpses spun in a blur of red and orange. The whirl of activity removed the corpses and put out the dying embers, and then they vanished, leaving only three tengaru, who faced the survivors with suspicious eyes.

  “We have done nothing to wrong you, great guardians,” Shiro said quietly.

  “Haven’t you? You lured death and evil into our midst,” the demon replied. “Those killers were sent after you to ensure all in your party died. We were summoned to help you.”

  Xifeng trembled at the truth in those words. Had the tengaru not intervened, and with only Hideki and Wei able to fight, they would have been overpowered and slaughtered, one by one. But who had known they would need aid?

  “We seek to save our forest, not you,” the tengaru continued. “We’d do better to kill you and be done with the whole affair.”

  Shiro’s brow furrowed. “I assume the blame. I am ambassador to Kamatsu’s king. The assassins may have been sent by someone who opposes our treaty with Emperor Jun.”

  Xifeng stared at his presumption. She felt, deep down, that Guma’s cards would tell her the attackers had been sent for her—that this had been the Fool’s first move, an enemy defensive launched to keep her from her fate. But that might be presumption on her own part, for her Empress destiny seemed as far away as home in these death-filled woods.

  “Whichever one of you is responsible does not matter now,” said the tengaru. “We have all suffered a great loss tonight. Our queen will wish to speak to you.” For a brief moment, its eyes met Xifeng’s with all the knowledge of the world in its depths, and she turned her face back to Wei, feeling a deep, enduring chill in her bones.

  “Ambassador,” Hideki protested, but Shiro held up a hand.

  “We will go. If the queen requires our presence, we will appear before her.”

  “I did not offer you a choice, but that is a wise decision all the same,” said the tengaru. “Your horses wait over there.”

  The three Dagovadian horses stood in a circle around Wei’s old mare, as though protecting her. Hideki helped Shiro onto one and mounted another. Wei lifted Xifeng onto his gray horse, but the demons hissed in protest when he made to climb up behind her.

  “You each ride alone,” the leader commanded, and Wei mounted Ken’s steed instead.

  One of the tengaru took the lead beside Hideki, followed by Shiro and then Xifeng. The other two demons prowled on either side of Wei in the rear. Every so often, as they traveled through the dark woodland, Xifeng heard the swish of their barbed tails. She knew it was a warning; they could be silent when they chose.

  A faint light kissed the forest as the sun began to rise. Surrounded by trees as they were, Xifeng could not tell which direction the light came from. It made her feel unsteady and disoriented, which only intensified as the rays danced off dewy leaves and waxy trunks of spruce, adding blinding reflections to the air.

  Wei murmured her name and she nodded wearily to show she was all right. She wished she were home again, sleeping in her old room beside Ning. Her bones and head ached, and her whole body trembled at the end that might befall her. It seemed all of Guma’s teachings would go to waste now, if the tengaru intended to kill them all. She would be dead at eighteen, lost to the world before she had even seen it—before she had even lived. Perhaps this destiny was only what Guma wished for and not what she truly foresaw; perhaps it had been a terrible mistake for Xifeng to leave her.

  “Empress, indeed,” she whispered. The tengaru in front turned to peer at her, though it couldn’t possibly have heard. She fell silent, trying not to imagine what manner of death it might soon give her.

  An hour later, they passed a massive granite formation cutting through the underbrush. Xifeng saw crevices high in the rock wall, irregularly placed, and curiosity overcame her fear. “Please, what are those holes?” she called to the tengaru in front.

  In full daylight, the demon was less menacing—rather like a small, strange horse. But its eyes were still disturbing, and the preternatural awareness in them made her skin crawl.

  “Tombs,” it told her. “The resting places of men long forgotten. This was the site of a great battle many ages ago.”

  Xifeng’s hands shook, imagining the carnage she had witnessed last night, only magnified: destroyed bodies littering the ground and trees lacquered with fresh blood. “My Guma used to be angry with me for being reluctant to hunt. I think I can see why now.”

  “Can you?”

  “Taking one small life is nothing compared with the violence of the world.” She turned away from the tengaru’s knowing eyes, suspecting that it judged her poorly for such a conclusion. She rubbed a hand over her left cheek, wishing she hadn’t said anything.

  They traveled all afternoon and evening, and when night fell once more, the sky through the trees deepened from gold to midnight blue, like a stain of ink on paper. The glaring play of light off leaf and tree disappeared, and Xifeng sighed with relief when they stopped to rest beneath the trees and the tengaru’s watchful eyes.

  Several long days passed in a haze of exhaustion. They rested only at the demons�
� discretion and rode without speaking more than a few words, for the tengaru—like the trees of the forest—seemed to command silence. Finally, on their tenth evening in the woodlands, the trees began to grow farther apart and the grass became softer under the horses’ hooves. In front, Hideki and Shiro sat erect and vigilant on their horses.

  “Have we arrived?” Shiro asked, and the demon gave him a curt nod.

  An enormous clearing greeted them as soon as they were free of the trees. Sweetly fragrant grass blanketed the space, and in the center lay an immense pond as calm and bright as the stars it reflected. Willows bent their graceful heads into the water, their branches humming with gentle birdsong. A breeze carried the scent of the moon-white lotuses resting on the pond’s surface like sleeping maidens.

  An island stood on the pond, sheltered by four curving oaks adorned with garlands of white flowers. The whole structure resembled a pagoda created by nature itself, reposing in a secret kingdom of peace. Its beauty filled Xifeng with a deep longing for tranquility, and a strange, foreboding sorrow that she might never find it.

  “What is this place?” Hideki murmured.

  “This is the sanctuary of our queen,” spoke the tengaru. “She is the oldest and wisest of our kind, and has lived on Feng Lu since before the time of the Dragon Lords.”

  Xifeng slid from her horse, landing on the lush grass. She longed to take off her shoes to cool her feet, but didn’t dare do so before the tengaru’s stern eyes. The demons led them past a wide wooden platform on which four lanterns shone. The platform held a low table piled with food, as well as a few sleeping pallets.

  “They were expecting us,” she murmured to Wei, who nodded warily.

  They crossed a bridge curving over the pond, and the scent of flowers grew stronger as they approached the figure stirring within the pagoda of trees.

  The queen of the tengaru regarded them with eyes like twin moons, glowing against the ancient night sky of her face. She resembled the younger demons with her long, elegant horse head and sleek limbs, but her horns twisted like antlers, and her coat darkened to onyx around her nose and mouth. A bed of creamy blossoms supported her frail body like the tenderest of clouds.

  “You have brought death and destruction with you. Fear and hatred.” Her voice held surprising strength for such an old, fragile body. Her moon-eyes seemed to see straight through Xifeng, who forced herself to meet the gaze, and the queen gave a slight, pleased smile.

  “We destroyed the assassins they lured into the Great Forest, O Gentle One,” the tengaru leader told her. “One carried a deadly blade, and the others damaged many trees with their torch fire. Many of our own have been killed. A tragic waste, but one we could not avoid.”

  The queen spoke in a grave, sorrowful voice. “We do not condone men’s wars and violence in the sanctity of the Great Forest.”

  “We have the deepest respect for the Great Forest, Your Majesty,” Shiro said. “I believe the men came for me. I am a servant of the Boundless Sea, sent on a mission on behalf of our king.”

  Xifeng felt a surge of irritation. Surely, with a destiny like hers, she just as likely had been the killers’ target. But as quickly as it had come, her annoyance subsided into shame at her own conjecture. She sensed the queen’s attention returning to her at once.

  “We should execute them all to appease the gods,” one of the tengaru declared.

  Wei went rigid, but the queen only shook her elegant head. “I do not intend to execute any of them. My time on this earth is almost ended, but theirs has only begun. They each have a part to play in the story that will unfold.”

  She rose with difficulty. She was larger than the others, her head at the level of Xifeng’s elbow, but she was weak as a kitten. Each step she took seemed to pain her.

  “The war has ended between the forest and the sea, but the tension grows,” she continued. “There will be no peace on Feng Lu. I have seen how humans adapt to a cruel world. I have watched this continent of peace and plenty become the grasping, violent place it is now.”

  Hideki’s eyes flashed. “You speak truly, Your Majesty. Our treaty with Emperor Jun would seem to be fair and put him on an even footing with our king, allowing us to keep the jade on our shores. But we’ve been bullied into sharing a percentage. It’s a theft of our resources and a mockery of friendship, and the people are not fooled.” Shiro shook his head, but the soldier barreled on, beard quivering. “Kamatsu and the Great Forest have always been separate entities, though Jun may be Emperor of us all in name. His expectation that we accept unfair terms without question warrants a battle greater than the one we had.”

  “Warriors.” The queen’s voice held a note of amusement. “Desiring bloodshed where there is none, and wishing for more where there has already been enough. Make no mistake: my tengaru were summoned forth on your behalf, but they did so only to protect our forest.”

  “Who called for our aid?” Wei asked, but the queen shook her head with an enigmatic smile.

  “How do you know of these things, great queen? Of the ways of the world?” Shiro gestured to the surroundings, and Xifeng understood what he meant. The tengaru sanctuary seemed a world apart, removed from the troubles of mankind.

  “My sons and daughters bring me the news. And I have other ways of acquiring my knowledge.” The queen turned to the pond, which reflected the sky’s glittering beauty, and Xifeng saw the slightest tremor on its surface. She did not need Guma’s skill to sense that the most profound magic lay within its strange, solemn depths.

  “War after war has come to this continent for all the ages of mankind. Since the Dragon Lords abandoned Feng Lu and their human children, they have left only strife and hatred behind.” A deep despair rang in the queen’s words, recalling a greener world full of song and joy, when the gods had walked the earth like men. “Still, there is a thread of hope for peace among its five kingdoms. Do you know the shrine in the Mountains of Enlightenment?”

  “It was a symbol of the alliance between the Dragon Lords,” Xifeng spoke, with another pang for Ken, who would have loved to hear this tale again. “They were ancient sons of the skies, and each ruled one of the five kingdoms of Feng Lu. They created the continent by bringing together the elements of the world: the wood of the Great Forest; the earth of the Sacred Grasslands; fire from the Everlasting Sands of Surjalana; metal from Dagovad, land of the Four Winds; and water from Kamatsu, the Kingdom of the Boundless Sea.”

  “They each contributed a treasure to the shrine, as a vow of friendship,” Hideki added. “But it didn’t last, and they stripped it of its relics.”

  “Why?” Wei asked, and for the first time, Xifeng felt ashamed of his ignorance.

  “Jealousy,” she said quickly, to take the tengaru’s scornful attention off him. But she saw the queen tilt her magnificent horned head, missing nothing. “The Lord of Surjalana envied the Dragon King, mightiest of the five, who ruled the Great Forest. He believed that title belonged to him, and his jealousy poisoned the others. They engaged in a terrible battle, then removed their treasures and returned to the heavens, battered in spirit and heart.”

  The demon queen turned her face upward, her eyes reflecting the dreams of the stars. “Still, there may come a day when the kingdoms unite once more. When a great ruler of mankind joins them in alliance against evil. Or perhaps it is only my idealistic heart that hopes for such joy.” She turned, and they all followed her gaze.

  A second bridge arched over the pond to the opposite side of the clearing, where imposing oaks stood like sentries by a stone gate. Beyond it lay another pond like a reflection of this one, in the middle of which stood a young sapling of a tree. Half of the tree reposed in winter, with clouds of snow wreathing its trunk, while the other half basked in spring, with pink-white buds emerging from its virginal branches.

  It brought to Xifeng’s mind the poem that had frightened Guma:

  The
moon shines down upon us, beloved

  The water a vast and eternal mirror

  A voice whispers from every tender branch

  Turn your face from the world’s apple-blossom fragility

  And embrace this boundless night

  The queen answered their unspoken question. “There have been no apple trees on the continent for more than a thousand years, save this one . . . the very last.”

  Gooseflesh rose on Xifeng’s skin. According to the old stories, the Dragon King had removed every trace of these trees when he returned to the heavens. “But what does this have to do with the tengaru coming to our rescue, Your Majesty? Or with whomever called for our aid?” she asked.

  The queen’s pointed ears swiveled. “Everything has to do with you.” But she explained no further and returned to her bed, head drooping against the blossoms. “You are my guests tonight. There is food, and you may drink of the waters of my pond and know you are safe in your sleep. You shall not be harmed. But you must leave this forest when the sun rises anew.” The light of her eyes disappeared as they closed.

  A breeze rose up then, swirling Xifeng’s long hair around her.

  For one breathtaking moment, she thought she could see her own face and that of Guma in the waters of the pond, side by side among the stars. But when she blinked, the images vanished, leaving nothing but a mirror of the sky.

  A simple, wholesome supper awaited them: nuts, berries, and roots from the forest and flaky, roasted fish from the pond. They ate by lantern light, speaking quietly though the tengaru were no longer guarding them. In the tranquil twilight, the clearing seemed to be alive. It seemed its truest self by night, like the whole of the Great Forest.

  Hideki picked at the roots with a grimace. “I don’t understand why they brought us here. We weren’t responsible for what happened.”

  “They must have their reasons,” Shiro said. “But it makes me uneasy, not knowing who called them to our rescue or why.”