by Jeannie Lin
Tale of the Drunken Sword
Jeannie Lin
A Tang Dynasty martial arts fantasy from bestselling author Jeannie Lin.
Lu Yan is a hard-drinking, womanizing scholar on a crooked path to enlightenment. When a mysterious woman at a roadside inn warns him of an approaching horde of demons, it's time for Lu Yan to sober up and discover what he's made of. Now if he could only find his sword...
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Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Author's Note
Other Books by Jeannie Lin
Acknowledgments
1
Lu Yan opened one eye. Opening both eyes would have required strength he wasn’t sure he had to spare. He was facedown on the sleeping mat, the woven bamboo cutting a pattern into his cheek.
“You’re awake.”
The voice belonged to a woman. All he knew about her was she was in his room and didn’t sound particularly sweet about it.
With a groan, Lu Yan rolled onto his back and scrubbed a hand over his face. His most recent memories had been left scattered on the floor while he had partially walked, partially been dragged through the inn to his room. He retrieved the pieces as he struggled awake.
He could see an oil lamp burning. A woman stood in the corner.
“Spring Moon?” he murmured, his words slurring from one to the next. The wine downstairs had affected him more than he realized.
“No,” came the reply, soft yet sharp.
There had been another sing-song girl helping him into bed. He struggled to remember her name.
“Not her either,” the woman cut in.
Instead of the colorful silks the two song girls had worn, this young woman was dressed in a flowing white robe. That in itself seemed out of place, white usually being relegated to funerals or temple functions. She also lacked the plump prettiness and coy expressions that Spring Moon and her friend had plied him with all evening. In comparison, the mystery woman’s demeanor was somber. She regarded him coolly, her features almost statuesque, they were rendered with such care.
The look she gave him was not exactly disapproval, but it was certainly intense scrutiny. He sat up to try to address her properly and found he was in his clothes. Even his boots were still on.
Now this was a complete disgrace. Lu Yan prided himself on how well he handled his drink, but here he was retreating to his room early to collapse in a slovenly heap. He couldn’t figure it out. He was off-balance and not just that night. He’d felt as if night was day and up was down for a while now.
“The lady has the look of a gentlewoman,” he began, quite proud for his eloquence given the circumstances. He swallowed, his throat yearning for water. Or at least more wine. “What are you doing alone with the likes of me?”
He grinned as he said it. Lu Yan meant no harm. He wasn’t in the business of ruining anyone’s reputation who didn’t want to be ruined.
“I am here to warn you.”
His smile faltered. “About what?”
“Gui.” Demons. Her expression didn’t waver as she spoke the word. She came away from the wall to step toward him. “Guai.”
Freaks. On his grave, freaks were the worst.
With a hard shake of his head, he reached for his sword only to find that it wasn’t there.
Lu Yan dragged himself to his feet to stare at the empty wall.
“I swear I left it right there.”
He searched his memories. Actually, he couldn’t swear on the whereabouts of the sword. The night came back in flashes. One of the flashes was of him balancing a porcelain cup on the blade while his drinking companions filled the cup with wine.
“Well, this won’t do,” he muttered.
A long shadow cast up alongside him. The mystery woman stood patiently for him to gather his wits. Who was she anyway? The innkeeper’s wife? No, couldn’t be. The proprietor had been old and balding, while Lu Yan’s nighttime visitor was young. A daughter maybe? Though she really looked too pretty to be related to that guy.
"They're coming," she reminded him.
That’s right. The demons and freaks. Lu Yan shook his head, trying to clear it. "When?"
"Soon."
He could have asked why, but he knew already that there was no why when it came to demons. He also knew it never helped to panic.
It wasn’t the first time otherworldly creatures had come to interrupt a perfectly good night of revelry. Every being under heaven and even beneath the earth yearned for yin and yang essence to sustain themselves. Humans naturally possessed a balance of the essences, whether or not they’d sought to cultivate. Gui and guai possessed none and sometimes got it in their heads, or whatever body parts they were graced with, to steal someone else’s.
Perhaps it was the gathering of people at this inn in a remote forest that had attracted the demons. Untrained and defenseless, the guests at the inn that night must have seemed like a tempting snack.
Despite his current disoriented state, Lu Yan had spent a good deal of time in meditation, going over all sorts of mental practices. He certainly wasn’t going to put up with some wayward demon making a meal out of his hard-earned life force.
Lu Yan took a moment to right himself, tying back his hair which had come loose into a top-knot and smoothing out his robe. Throughout it all, the woman in white continued to watch him with a serene countenance. In the flickering light of the oil lamp, she appeared illuminated, almost otherworldly. Despite her warning, she didn’t seem alarmed at all at the prospect of coming face-to-face with demons.
“Are you a demon yourself, by any chance?” he asked.
“I am not.”
His lips quirked. "That’s good to hear. Now I really must find my sword."
He was recalling the balancing act with the wine cup on his blade. Holding the sword by the hilt, he would toss the cup into the air then catch it before tilting the wine into his mouth. That had gone on for a few rounds to great cheer.
There was an old sword stowed away with his belongings. One he hadn’t used in ages, but it wasn’t suitable for demon-slaying.
So he’d left his good sword in the tavern downstairs. The woman in white followed behind him as he exited the sleeping room. Her footsteps were whisper soft and she didn’t speak as he moved down the corridor to the stairs.
He still didn’t know why she had come to his chamber, but that was a lesser question in the face of oncoming monsters. Perhaps she was some divine messenger. Perhaps he was still sleeping and this was an extremely vivid dream.
Her sudden appearance was a mystery. Lu Yan had always been irresistibly drawn to mysteries. He didn’t sense any danger from her and he usually had good instincts when it came to things like that. Of course, he’d been caught unarmed by a woman who’d managed to slip into his room without him being aware of it.
His instincts, like the rest of him, had been off-balance lately.
“An interesting story about the sword,” he began. “It came into my possession during an encounter with a tiger.”
He glanced over his shoulder to see if the mystery woman was impressed. She was decidedly not.
The tavern below was still alive with activity. It was rare for him to retire from a gathering so early. There had been no lack of good wine, though perhaps a shortage of interesting conversation. There was a salt inspector, Chou, who was traveling alone on some county business. The other pair of guests were a goods merchant from Hangzhou and his not-too-bright nephew Liang. The two song girls, Spring Moon and…the other one, were sweet-tempered and could play a passable tune, but lacked the refinement of the courtesan
s of the pleasure houses of Changan. Overseeing them all was the innkeeper, a man named Wen Jun with thinning hair who encouraged everyone to drink and eat their fill while he kept track of the tally on the beads of his abacus.
An amiable and welcoming lot, even if there wasn’t a challenging game of Go between them. Given the circumstances, Lu Yan may have drunk too much too fast. The wine had been surprisingly good and surprisingly strong.
Unfortunately, they would be easy prey. Lu Yan debated telling them about the coming danger but held off. The first key to dealing with the netherworld was to stay calm. The second was to be properly armed.
“My friends!” Lu Yan announced, coming off the stairs. He tottered on the last step. He was a bit drunker than he thought. “I see you’re all still at the battlefront.”
The party greeted him heartily. “Back to join us, Master Lu?” the merchant asked, his cheeks flushed from the drink.
Spring Moon leaned to refill the merchant’s cup while the nephew tried in vain to catch her attention with something clever. Beside them the salt inspector raised his cup jubilantly. Inspector Chou had heard of such raucous nights in the capital cities, but alas, his route had him weighing and measuring salt in small county trading houses.
“Regretfully, I cannot,” Lu Yan declined. “You have all bested me tonight.”
There was a disappointed groan from the party and, Lu Yan had to admit, he was a bit disappointed in himself too. He usually could drink until dawn while reciting the entirety of Kong Fuzi’s Analects. And he certainly wouldn’t wander off without his sword. The blade had become his signature. It was as famous as he was.
He hoped he hadn’t lost it last night in a wager he couldn’t remember.
“Has anyone seen my sword?” he asked.
“I saw your sword,” Spring Moon said with a chuckle, her eyebrow lifting slyly. “But it didn’t want to play.”
Lu Yan shot her a half-grin. “I must have left it down here.”
The mystery woman glided down the stairs and crossed behind him to look out the window, completely dismissing the drinking party as she swept past. She presented an elegant figure, tall and lithe with a dancer’s grace. Every eye stopped to watch as she floated past.
In the bright lanterns of the tavern, what he’d thought was a white robe now appeared steel gray, made of fine woven silk that caught the light.
“What are you about, young miss?” the innkeeper demanded. He typically knew exactly who was staying at his inn. He launched a questioning look at Lu Yan, who could only shake his head.
“Elder sister, this location is already booked,” the “other” sing-song girl remarked territorially. “There’s no business for you here.”
“Now, ladies,” Liang said loudly. “Let’s not be jealous.”
The young man shot to his feet and went toward the mystery woman, perhaps seeing a chance of also gaining a pretty companion to pour wine and fawn over him. The other two girls clearly had no interest.
The mystery woman turned in a flurry of pale silk just as Liang reached to put an arm around her in an overly-friendly manner. She raised her hand to warn him off, but Liang’s arm circled her slender waist for just a moment before he recoiled, yowling in pain. The room fell into a stunned silence as a razor-thin red line appeared down his arm. Blood began to flow from the wound.
Spring Moon and her companion jumped up to try to help the poor youth while Lu Yan looked at the mystery woman in astonishment. She ignored the others to speak directly to him.
“There’s not much time.”
Realization washed over him like a sobering dash of cold water to the face. Suddenly everything made sense and didn’t make sense.
He tilted his head as he regarded the young woman curiously. “You’re my sword.”
2
The sword had first come to him through mysterious circumstances.
Lu Yan had been walking through the forest. This was after his two failed attempts to pass the imperial exams and he’d been unsure whether to try again.
He’d encountered a tiger that day who leapt onto the path before him. Unarmed Lu Yan froze on the path and faced the tiger without fear. That part wasn’t true — he’d felt plenty of fear. But in his heart, he knew immediately that if he tried to fight, the tiger would eat him. If he tried to run, the tiger would also eat him. Instead, he tried to strike up a conversation.
“Greetings, Lord Tiger,” he called out, hoping the tiger was not hungry.
The animal growled, the sound like the low rumbling of thunder, and began to stalk toward him, green eyes narrowed intently. At that moment, Lu Yan looked downward to find a sword where, only a moment ago, there had been no sword. It was a straight and narrow blade, double-edged and sharpened to a point. He grabbed the weapon and held it up just as the tiger lunged at him. The tip of the blade pierced the tiger’s chest. The creature promptly vanished, but the sword remained.
The sword had been with him since. In addition to having appeared to save him from a tiger-apparition, the blade was well-crafted and exquisitely balanced. As with many scholars, Lu Yan was also a student of the sword. This one fit in his hands as if it were made for him. The edge never appeared to dull, and he’d been undefeated since it had come into his possession.
Now it stood—now she stood beside him at the entrance to the inn, placidly watching a blanket of black clouds rolling toward them through an otherwise clear sky. She had been a silent, enduring, unbreakable ally in all of his exploits. He felt a pang of embarrassment for having used her to flip wine cups just a few hours ago.
“Jian,” he began.
Jian was a fitting name, being the type of sword she was. She didn’t deny it. In fact, the more he thought of it, there was nothing else she could be.
“I’ve always wondered something.”
Jian turned to face him. Her features were as exquisite as her metalwork. Every detail honed and carefully crafted. This wasn’t the first time he’d spoken to his sword, though it was the first time she’d been able to respond.
“The first time — with the tiger. How did that come to be?”
She glanced sideways at him, as if not understanding the question.
He’d always boasted that his sword would warn him of evil. He wasn’t certain of it. How could anyone be certain of anything from the world of ghosts and monsters? Yet in the few encounters he’d certainly had with demon-kind, Lu Yan could swear his sword had warned him. It would grow warm in his hands, humming with a vibration like the strings of an instrument emitting song. It would be faint, but he could sense it.
“How did you come to be there in the forest that day?” he wondered. “Did you have any say in the matter?”
“If you always began your battles by asking how and why, I would have fallen into someone else’s hands long ago.”
She was certainly cold enough to be made of steel. And as unforgiving, with two edges honed to cut from both sides. Suddenly his sword being a woman all along made perfect sense. Maybe he’d been too inebriated to notice a low humming from his bedside and she’d become impatient enough to take on an entirely different form to hold him to account.
“I’ve faced demons before,” he continued.
“I know.”
“Never this many at once,” Lu Yan said with a frown.
He couldn’t see any gui or guai, but he could sense them in the coming storm, riding on the wind and preparing to swoop in like carrion birds. He assumed that Jian could sense them too. Behind them, the patrons of the inn remained inside. The revelry had stopped at the talk of demons and a ritual of collective hand-wringing had begun. They were all looking to him, renowned swordsman, scholar, gentleman, and hero, to do something.
“I don’t suppose you’ll turn back into my sword for this fight?” he suggested, holding out his hand.
The look of disdain she sliced at him said, without a doubt, that she wasn’t and had never truly been his sword.
“Have you no other weapons
?” she asked archly.
He did have other weapons. Lu Yan glanced back up at the clouds which were closing in swiftly on the heels of the coming dawn. He took a deep, cleansing breath, and exhaled slowly. He’d better get started.
Lu Yan stood before the table in the common room while the rest of the inn’s occupants watched from the edges. All the necessary implements had been set before him. A writing brush made of horsehair, an inkstone, a pool of freshly ground cinnabar ink. In the center lay a stack of yellow strips of paper weighted down with a smooth black stone. The papers were blank and Lu Yan sought to do the same with his thoughts.
“Is he supposed to be doing something?” not-too-bright Liang whispered loudly.
The others hushed him in agitation and the youth shot them a belligerent look. His arm had been bandaged from wrist to elbow after he’d attempted to grab Jian by the waist. His encounter with magic hadn’t taught him any bit of patience or humility.
“When he’s ready,” Jian replied softly.
The room quieted again. For some reason, Lu Yan was finding it hard to focus his energy. It wasn’t the wine — he had a talent for controlling his level of drunkenness. At least he usually did. A dubious talent discovered in his student days. One’s body had an internal system of balance, circulation, and cleansing.
But lately something was interrupting the flow of qi within him. Nothing, not wine, women, or even lengthy bouts of meditation seemed to restore him.
He stared down at the blank papers. It was easy enough to pick up the brush, scribble red ink onto the paper, and claim it to be some bit of sorcery. But it would be nothing but that — scribbling. The demons would laugh at his poor attempt before they ate his heart.
When Lu Yan glanced up, he saw Jian watching him from across the table. Her expression was serene, without fear or impatience. Of course she wasn’t afraid. She was a weapon, an instrument, waiting to be wielded. In that moment, he envied her sense of purpose.