At the end of the thoroughfare through town, they came to the stronghold estate and were led by a guard across the courtyard to the stairs of the main house, at the top of which Jiang Huxin stood next to her husband, stony-faced. ‘Why are you here?’ She wasted no time on formality, but made her aversion known. ‘Come to lecture me on the sinfulness of my choices?’ She descended the stairs and stopped halfway down to address them.
Fen bowed before her, for her husband, as a duke, outranked him. ‘I would never assume to question the King’s will in this matter.’
‘Of course, you would not, little brother,’ Huxin allowed, ‘and you are most welcome in my home.’ Her eyes fell back upon her twin.
This was not the warm welcome Hudan had received from her sister last time this reunion played out, and knowing what a stick in the mud Jiang Hudan had been about the creed of her order, she suspected Huxin probably had good cause to be at odds with her.
‘I can hardly rebuke you for your choices and banishment, when I have made those same choices.’ Taren dropped a bombshell, and Huxin was clearly both shocked and delighted — Fen and Ji Shi were just plain shocked.
‘What?’ Fen gasped.
‘I don’t believe it,’ Huxin scoffed, although a little grin betrayed her hope. ‘Not the legendary Wu of perfection? Jiang Hudan would never defy her creed.’
‘Then explain how I could possibly be here?’ Taren challenged. ‘The great mother would never allow it.’
‘I thought you said that our Shifu knows you are here?’ Fen demanded.
‘She does know,’ Taren informed him. ‘When she banished me, she guessed where I would head.’ She looked back to her twin. ‘I can live without my creed, my order, my power … but I cannot live without my family.’
Huxin’s jaw was gaping, as tears moistened her eyes. ‘Then I welcome you to my home also, lest you be homeless.’
‘That is most gracious of you, dear sister,’ Taren grinned having always called her ‘brother’ before this day.
‘Come inside,’ Huxin invited, leading the way. ‘I should like to introduce you to your niece and nephew.’
‘I would like that,’ Taren smiled to accept the invitation, despite how odd the prospect seemed — the last time round she had been at the birth of the twins, clearly that had not been the case in this instance however.
This was not the only variation on their history that Taren discovered that afternoon. The change that was immediately apparent upon meeting her niece and nephew was that Jiang Huxin and Ji Shi’s brood were no longer a family of were-tigers. Huxin and her offspring were still shapeshifters and could assume tiger forms, but this was just one of an array of animal physiques they could adopt. Ji Shi did not possess any shapeshifting skills but had the ability to levitate, which was more akin to his timekeeper talent, which he had not tapped into in the timeline previous. Huxin, like Hudan, had developed her ability to teleport from one place to another, and Fen’s healing talents were as they were before. Taren figured these inherent soul traits had been developed by their Shifu during their time with the Wu on Li Shan.
The mystery of what had become of Ling Hu, Fen’s spirit tiger, was solved when Huxin informed she had in fact given birth to triplets — one of which was a tiny albino baby, who had died at birth. Ling Hu had never existed. The remaining twins, Zhen, a daughter, and Kao, a son, were strong and thriving here at Shao.
The rest of the day played out much as Taren remembered, in the company of family, good food, wine and conversation. There was a legendary game of hide and seek played that evening with the twins — for far more difficult than seeking toddlers or tiger cubs was attempting to seek something that might be as small as a mouse, or as scary as a coiled python!
The following day, after lunch, Fen joined Shi in his room of court, which allowed the Jiang sisters some quiet time in the garden to talk. The wind coming off the snow-capped mountains beyond Shao was freezing, but the sun burned brightly in the blue sky above and its warmth was not entirely lost. It was lovely just to sit in the stillness of the moment and take it all in.
‘I must say I’m surprised you haven’t said a word about Ji Dan since you arrived,’ Huxin noted.
Taren was alarmed by the topic, as her relationship with Huxin was so different this time around, how her relationship with Ji Dan had unfolded, she couldn’t even guess. ‘I do believe that the great mother might have exerted some control over my memory before I left Li Shan, for there is a great haze over my memory of the last few years.’
‘You don’t remember the Battle of Mu?’ Huxin was shocked.
‘We defeated Daji,’ Taren was fairly sure that was the case.
‘Her dark magic proved no match for our psychic skill,’ Huxin boasted.
Taren learned that the evil spouse of the last Shang emperor had not been a were-fox, as before, but had been dubbed a fox in character only, as she was so sly and cunning.
‘But what of the time after we occupied the Shang capital at Yin?’ Taren quizzed. ‘Did we find a pit beneath the castle?’
‘The dragon pit, where the emperor kept his huge pet lizard men,’ Huxin emphasised. ‘You were there when Ji Fa and his brothers slayed them all.’
‘And Fa was injured?’ Taren posed.
‘No,’ Huxin frowned, ‘no one was injured, bar the creatures. We all attended the victory ceremony the following day, followed by Fen’s wedding.’
‘Fen’s wedding?’ Taren sat forward in her chair shocked and pleased by the news. ‘Of course!’ She internalised her reasoning — if none were injured combating the reptilians hiding out beneath the city, then He Nuan was never killed by Dragonface, and Ji Fa was never infected by his mysterious reoccurring wound.
‘Surely you remember our little brother’s wedding?’ Huxin maintained, and Taren nodded to appease her sister’s disgust.
‘So what killed Ji Fa?’ Taren queried.
‘A broken heart, I suspect,’ Huxin voiced her view, ‘he never did recover from losing his queen in childbirth.’
‘Fen was not there to save her?’ Taren figured if there was no Dragonface, then no one had laid the plot to kidnap the healer and leave the Queen in peril.
‘Our brother’s healing talent is good, but even he could not repair the damage in time to save her life.’ Huxin advised. ‘I don’t know that he’s ever forgiven himself for that.’
‘Fen was not kidnapped,’ Taren concluded, to confirm her prior theory, and then looked to Huxin who appeared most concerned for her.
‘Our little brother is right, you are behaving very strangely.’ Huxin was distracted as she spied the head of the exterior rushing double-time up the garden path towards them.
‘Speaking of Ji Dan,’ Taren commented to her sister as they awaited the messenger’s arrival.
‘My Lady,’ the servant began, ‘the Master told me to let you know we have another guest …’ He seemed very excited. ‘Zhou Gong is here!’
Huxin looked to her sister wondering how Hudan had predicted the duke’s arrival. ‘You knew he was coming here?’
‘Call it intuition,’ Taren replied.
Huxin nodded to dismiss her servant, and looked back to Hudan. ‘But why would Zhou Gong suddenly decide to visit Shao?’
‘Your guess is as good as mine,’ Taren allowed, and at this point it probably was.
‘And I thought winter in Shao was going to be fairly uneventful,’ Huxin sat back in her chair to ponder the event. ‘But it is shaping up to be rather interesting indeed.’
‘Unforgettable, I dare say,’ Taren agreed.
There was one last truly important deed that Jiang Hudan needed to accomplish prior to her death and that was to convince Ji Dan to return to be mentor and guardian of the child king, Ji Song, from whom, if history held true to form, Ji Dan had just estranged himself. In the last timeline Jiang Hudan had been the cause of their falling out; but this time there was no telling what their dispute was, nor how they could be reconciled.
The Duke of Zhou did not join the family for dinner, and Taren was not surprised as the last time this instance played out, Ji Dan had not been well and had stayed in his room for the entire evening. But unlike last time, Jiang did not drink her fill of wine by the fire, only water, as she needed her wits about her for this meeting.
Lying awake in her bed, as the hour of the rat spend towards a close, she wondered how exactly to play her next move. Last time she had presented herself at Dan’s door, half drunk, but then they’d been lovers, and such behaviour was overlooked. If their relationship had unfolded differently, such an approach would be considered most improper.
Still, if they did not talk and become engaged this night, then they would not wed on the morrow, so Taren had a spare day up her sleeve. Hence, she decided it would be best to let their conversation unfold in its own due course, and wait for Ji Dan to seek her out.
After hours of anxious, broken sleep, Taren rose at the crack of dawn, rugged up and headed outdoors for a stroll in the icy mist that hung over the garden. Breathing the frosty air served to alert all her senses, which were waning from lack of rest. It was exciting to be back in ancient Zhou with her cosmic memory intact, she appreciated being able to comprehend how unique this moment truly was. Jiang Hudan had had no idea that this was to be the last full day of her life — her last day to make an impact on the civilisation that she had helped bring into being and that the female aspect of her soul-mind was about to leave behind.
What concerned Taren most was successfully navigating her coming conversation with the Duke of Zhou, having no recollection of their dealings previous to this day.
Azazèl, please guide me through this. This seemed an odd request really, as the Grigori were causal beings who brought about the will of their physical manifestations, but they also had a much broader view of evolution in its entirety, which was all unfolding at once. Guide me towards the best possible outcome for everyone involved, she quantified her request.
As if to reassure her, the sun cleared the mountains beyond; the mist lit up all around her and began to thin and rise. Now that she could see further than her hand in front of her, she spotted the chair where she had been seated with Huxin the day before, and took a seat to watch the cloud haze swirl into the sky and evaporate.
‘It is a great surprise to find you at Shao, Brother Hudan.’
Taren witnessed Ji Dan emerge from the mist, and when she cast her mind back to this day — that in the last timeline had been their wedding day — there was a minor difference in Dan’s appearance, and that was that he still had the little beard on his chin. This was significant, as the last time around the duke had shaved off this beard to please her. The fact that he still wore it seemed to indicate that they had not been so intimate with each other in this time and place. She was incredibly relieved not to have visited his room last night, for she may have caused a very embarrassing incident.
‘I could say the same of you brother Dan,’ Taren added, ‘although I am no longer a brother of the House of Yi Wu Li Shan.’
Ji Dan did not appear surprised to hear this. ‘Could that be because the House of Yi Wu Li Shan is no longer in existence?’
Taren forced a smile — last time they’d had this conversation, this announcement had been a shock to Hudan, but this time she understood the cosmic agenda. ‘The time of peril in this land is now over. The great mother and her house have moved on to more pressing trials and times.’
‘Shifu Yi has not adequately trained our new king,’ Dan voiced his doubts about the great mother’s judgement in this case.
‘It is for you to train him, Zhou Gong,’ Taren advised kindly. ‘Ji Fa left that duty in your capable hands.’
‘My nephew will not listen to me,’ Dan protested, ‘he will not adhere to the rule of heaven without Yi Wu’s direct instruction.’
‘One day he will,’ Taren assured him, ‘and you will be the cause of that realisation in him.’
Dan shook his head, he did not want to doubt her prediction, yet equally did not wish to believe it. ‘Is that why you remained here, despite Li Shan’s departure … to sway my decision to resign?’
Taren realised that was precisely the reason. ‘How is Zhou Gong to become the brightest star in Tian’s sky, without influence in the Zhou court?’
Exasperated with the topic, Ji Dan took a seat beside her and changed the subject. ‘And where will you go now that you cannot return to your cloister?’
She forced a smile to be honest. ‘I shall be joining the great mother as soon as I have convinced you to return to Haojing and aid our new king with a rebellion that is brewing at Yin.’
Dan’s eyes parted wide in horror. ‘You’re leaving?’ He nearly choked on the question. ‘Even more than Shifu Yi, or brother Fen, you have been my greatest teacher.’
Taren was choking on emotion now, despite that their parting would be a short one in her reality; for Dan, however, it would last for ten years. ‘It is a great honour that you consider me thus, but you have taught me in equal measure. Still, I thought you might be more concerned with the challenges at hand.’
Dan didn’t want to take the bait, but reluctantly he did. ‘The Wu have foreseen a rebellion?’ he queried.
‘Is it not written in the Jade Book?’ Taren was going out on a limb here, but she hoped it still existed.
The fact that Song was king and not Dan, as the previous king had wished, meant the secret rewriting of the King’s will had taken place. The decision to do this was due to that which was decreed in the Jade Book — an ancient treasure secretly passed down through the Ji family from the time of the Yellow Emperor. This book listed the line of imperial succession of the land in chronological order, from the time of the book’s creation, until thousands of years from the present. The Jade Book had predicted the rise of Ji Fa and of his son, Ji Song. But as Song was too young to rule, Zhou Gong had been named as the boy king’s guardian and ally in the rebellion that was to arise in the wake of Ji Fa’s death.
Dan was stunned. ‘How do you know about the Jade Book?’
An enlightening reaction for Taren, as Ji Dan had obviously not shared this secret with her. ‘I am Wu.’ She explained away the detail to get to the point. ‘Has the Jade Book proved wrong to date? Do you really want to be the one to prove it so?’
‘What I want seems to have very little relevance.’ He stood, frustrated with his lot. ‘I would rather go wherever you are bound, than go back to the court of another self-serving tyrant in the making.’
‘That is not what the Jade Book said of the boy king’s reign.’ Taren argued on Song’s behalf. ‘A long-lasting peace is to follow this rebellion. But only you can rally enough support for the new king to put down the eastern uprising, which I feel sure Song’s new bride has already tried to warn him about.’
‘The wedding never took place,’ Dan informed. ‘The king’s betrothed has run off, I know not why?’
‘Could it be because she attempted to implicate Song’s uncles in a rebellion, and he thought she was just trying to make trouble and stall their wedding?’ Taren suggested, subtracting Dragonface from the equation of what she’d learned of the events following Jiang Hudan’s death.
‘That is impossible to know. When I went to speak with the bride to be, she knocked me out and escaped, and Song will not speak of what drove her to do this.’
‘Because admission would vindicate how much he needs your help,’ Taren reasoned. ‘Despite that you allowed his bride to escape.’
‘A bride should not be seeking to escape!’ Dan stressed what was more to the point.
‘I agree, I was commenting from Song’s perspective,’ Taren explained. ‘If he thought his chosen bride was just spinning tales to get his attention, her escape would have shattered that delusion, leaving him furious for being spurned, and secretly alarmed that her warning of rebellion could be true.’
‘Then he should have advised me of this instead of banishing me for lying on her behalf.�
�� Dan was seated once more.
‘Surely, you would not allow pride to take precedence over the will of heaven?’ Taren posed.
With a heavy exhalation of resignation, Dan looked to the swirling sunlit mists above. ‘I would not.’
They sat for the longest time in silence. Taren did not have to ask after his resolve, for this soul-mind would always do what he knew was in the greatest interests of all. Jiang Hudan may not have been intimately connected to Ji Dan in this life, but Taren still knew what Dan’s reservations were. Their soul quest was to seek knowledge and experience that went beyond this earthly state of being, Ji Dan feared that ultimate goal would escape him now that Li Shan had departed this world. ‘We all dwell beyond the limits of our living consciousness, where all that is baffling to us now is understood. We strive through many lives to return to this place, until we arrive at the realisation that we never actually left.’
The duke found the premise a pleasing one. ‘Strangely, I feel that you and I have already met in such a place.’
‘And will again,’ she returned his smile with one that was even more confident.
‘Well, if this is to be our final parting of the ways,’ Dan stood once again, to state more formally, ‘I am grateful for the knowledge you have bestowed on me, Shanyu Jiang Hudan, and for your counsel in times of peril.’
‘Wise counsel and knowledge are nothing without an open mind to receive them,’ she replied, standing also. ‘So the honour has been entirely mine, Zhou Gong Dan.’
They bowed to each other.
‘Those souls presently residing in this house,’ Taren referred to Shao, ‘will be firm allies, and can aid you to reach Haojing in time to avert disaster.’
‘Will you not even stay to talk strategy with us?’ he appealed. ‘I would greatly welcome your counsel one last time.’
Taren shook her head. ‘You are the most inspired mind in all the land, and I do not cherish the thought of a long drawn-out goodbye with my family.’
Eternity Gate Page 37
