by T. A. Miles
“Yes, my lord,” Gai Ping replied, bowing once more before he returned to his morning duties, which at the moment involved preparation to leave the instant the heaviest of the rain ended.
THE RAIN STOPPED inside of an hour. Everyone labored with skillful haste to pick up camp and move onward. They left in stages, troop by troop clearing an area that could have been a small town in dimension. The road had become soft, but the time between the rain’s stopping and the camp’s packing had enabled the air of a belated flare of summer to dry the ground somewhat. Xu Liang did not believe there would be any prolonged bogging down of either men or equipment. It could be quite different with the next deluge. Conditions would only worsen with each rainfall, so it would be wise to reach the plank roads and the stone paths and bridges of the mountains sooner than later. Coming out of the Chi Hao Mountains would renew the potential for significant delay, particularly if the rains created flooding. The troops flanking the mountains would likely make better time. Regardless, there would still be enough of a waiting period at the point of rendezvous that a trip to the School of the Seven Mystics could be afforded.
Once again, Xu Liang rode alongside Shirisae with his small entourage of guards just behind. Not far away were Generals Zhou Biao and Hei Xue, riding to either side of the center which Xu Liang occupied. Each was responsible for ten thousand men. Officers just beneath their rank were spread throughout the units to convey command from the front. It was an orderly process, designed to accomplish what hovered incessantly on the brink of strategic hazard. One misdirection, however small, was as a drop of dew upon the surface of a pond. At this scale, the ripples swelled to waves potentially of tidal force. Xu Liang would be relying on the beleaguered state of Xun’s border troops to create just such a scenario. Wen Xiu had been instructed months ago to plant one of his men in the camp of Miao Yuntai. The aging general had reportedly seen little success since the start of the southern campaign, but that did not mean he had failed at every turn. If the operative was successfully in place among the enemy, then Xu Liang intended to utilize his presence to create a situation of chaotic confusion that would hopefully scatter and route Xun’s forces at a critical location. The initial plan had been for the event to occur at Liu Xe Gate, but it may have been that the success of the plan had only been partial, and the man had been planted elsewhere.
Xu Liang was forced to admit to himself that it was also possible that, under Ha Ming Jin’s guidance, Miao Yuntai had discovered the plant and eradicated the plot in the process. Undoubtedly, his former classmate would have encouraged his officers to be alert to any and all ploys. Xu Liang knew that it would be foolish to expect success, but he consoled himself with the fact that in games of strategy, it was often the simplest of moves that were the least anticipated by one’s opponent.
HA MING JIN paced the width of the short dais upon which his throne sat, occasionally throwing glances toward the ill-cast boulder still squatting several paces from it. At times he could not bear to be within the same room as it, but at other times, he believed that the key to solving the puzzle was to observe it. He’d tossed pebbles at it from a distance to see how it responded—it did nothing. To him that meant that Han Quan was either bluffing, or the spell was aware enough in its own right to discern experiments from attacks. Over a period of days, he had grown bold enough to approach it and to touch it without fear of absorbing some curse from it. Dragons could be symbols of luck, yes, but not always of good luck. He had no doubt that this egg was a box of misfortune. It need only be opened to blacken the horizons of any man foolish enough to trifle with it.
But was Han Quan such a fool? That he had even carried the egg suggested that he held no fear of it or of the unhappy potential gestating within it. It intrigued Ha Ming Jin that the elder had even gone to the nesting ground of a mature dragon and dared to harvest any of its progeny. What did that say of Han Quan? What did that say of the dragon?
There had been word passed across the land of the dragon’s defeat at the hands of six heroes—one of them being Xu Liang. The consensus was that he had been assisted by the gods, which Ha Ming Jin took to mean that his rival had found the Celestial Swords. So, it would seem that he was in some way favored. But Ha Ming Jin had known that from the start. A man is not put into the world as brilliant as the Imperial Tactician without some hand of the gods being involved.
But even if he was directly delivered from the Jade Emperor Himself, he was yet mortal and suffered mortal detriment. His notoriously weak health was one. There was no one throughout Sheng Fan unaware that the consequences of Xu Liang’s surpassing skill and beauty was physical weakness. He had exerted himself heavily on his quest, undoubtedly. His efforts against a god-beast, followed immediately by an arduous campaign would surely have spent him, perhaps beyond recovery. If that were so, then one only need wait for his death.
If only it could be so easy, Ha Ming Jin lamented. Even a dying man could maintain the will to persist, given the proper motivation. One thing that neither he nor his opponent lacked was motivation. And now there was Han Quan’s motivation to consider as well. The elder was embittered against Xu Liang and against the Song. He was a traitor in every respect—no one to trust. But the geomancer also had his skills; skills that could be used to achieve an advantage against Ji.
The dragon’s egg and the mystery about it was his leverage. Ha Ming Jin wondered how he would make it his own leverage instead.
He would require a mystic. A mystic with enough skill and strength would be able to undo Han Quan’s enchantment. Ha Ming Jin knew of only one not committed entirely to the School of the Seven Mystics or with significant loyalties to the Empress—or who lived too far away to be reached with any haste.
But the xylomancer Jun Kai was quite private and quite resilient to invitation to become a contributing vassal in the construction of a new dynasty. He preferred to remain a hermit in the Cheng Goro forest. It would take an exceptional demonstration of charisma and sincerity to persuade him, but Ha Ming Jin did not believe it was impossible. It would have to be done in secret. Han Quan would undoubtedly attempt to interfere with the presence of another mystic. As one of the Seven Mystics, the elder maintained a reputation as the most particular about taking on pupils, and the most critical of his peers. It was not a wonder that his personality had collided so dramatically with Xu Liang’s. Xu Liang was a willing teacher, even if a ruthless strategist.
Ha Ming Jin stepped to his throne and settled into it. He was decided. He would seek out the mystic Jun Kai, and he would seize Han Quan’s advantage and make it his own. If Han Quan wished to be a member of his court, then he would earn it through deeds of loyalty, not demonstrations of magic.
ER CHIONG TURNED out to be a quiet, studious man, who came and went with scarcely a sign of his having done so. Taya grew accustomed to him with relative ease, though she did form a habit in only one and a half days of looking eagerly for evidence that the secretary’s comings and goings might actually have been someone else’s—namely, her uncle and the others. She knew better than to hope that anyone called off the battle Xu Liang and Shirisae were headed to—though she still thought to herself that it would be a nice turnip for her personal stew to have the war cancelled and everyone back at home. Though it wasn’t her home, she was getting comfortable with it quite fast.
She decided she would have to keep that detail from her uncle, since he’d only hound her about her initial refusal to take so much as a single step north with the stranger Xu Liang had been to her then when they’d made plans to travel south to see the elves of Shillan. Well, she’d gotten elves; the northern variety, who seemed a bit too prickly at first, but now she would have to admit that she feared for their safety as much as she did any of the others—maybe even Alere.
Elves aside, she’d also gotten her share of adventure and risk she could have done well without. All of the challenge they’d faced as a group presently made her want to keep everyone safe and alive, and in the comfort of Xu
Liang’s home specifically for the Heartstone’s eternity. She never minded the unlikeliness of her desire where that last bit was concerned.
She imagined that Xu Liang’s servants felt quite crowded enough, though they moved around her with ease, sometimes as if she were merely a piece of furniture. Not that she could blame them. It was difficult to strike up a conversation with someone who knew less than a dozen words in the local language. She had been introduced to more than a dozen, but she didn’t feel comfortable with them. They were used much differently than the languages of the west, except maybe elvish. And she only presumed that because, of all of them, it was the elves who seemed to have the greatest ease with comprehending the structure of the language while the rest of them were stringing words together awkwardly, like jewelry crafters who were blind to color and symmetry.
It made Taya glad she never decided to become a crafter. She much preferred plants and was grateful that all of her adventuring had given her the opportunity to know it.
Stood upon a stool in the mystic’s kitchen, she busied herself cutting herbs, roots, and tubers over a steaming pot of poultry broth. The aroma was warm and full, and gave her ideas of wrapping in a blanket with a bowl and some round bread from home. Unfortunately, all of that had been eaten long before even leaving the western shores. She was endeavoring to make a Fanese version, but the nutty spices of Stormbright were not so easy to match in Sheng Fan. She had no doubt that there might be some equivalent to nearly anything—maybe even growing in Xu Liang’s extended garden—but it would take some experimenting and learning to index them properly.
Her journal—a much smaller article than her uncle’s tome—was being used for just such a thing, as well as for some of her Fanese studies. She hadn’t ever been enthused about finding much use for the pages—beyond pressing leaves and flowers in them—but now she was enjoying making her own catalog of Fanese herbs and spices, and listing what she believed to be their western counterparts alongside them. It would all have been too fulfilling, given the current state of things, except that she was paying for her fulfillment with daily servings of worry. They might have been hourly even.
The sound of voices carried into the room. Taya twisted on her perch to better listen, hopping down the moment she recognized Tristus’ gentle laughter. That could only mean that something right had gone on in the underground, and they had avoided disaster or tragedy.
She hurriedly shoved the root and knife in her hands onto the kitchen table, dusted off her hands on an oversized rag that she had knotted around her middle, then rushed to the hall. The grin on her face soured immediately when she saw the boys—they were filthy, and they reeked. Taya covered her nose.
“There you are, Taya,” Tristus began, coming toward her.
She immediately protested with both hands when he stooped to hug her, holding her breath and pushing against him when he ignored that protest. “No, no, no! What is that stench? Get off!”
Tarfan laughed. “That, lass, is the aroma of a foul beast!”
“It’s vile!” Taya took a step back from Tristus when he straightened with a look of mildly dismayed amusement on his pretty face that could not make up for stinking. “All of you, away from the kitchen! To the bath! How did you even get this far? Why didn’t the servants catch you?”
With her words came insistent ushering toward parts of the house dedicated to personal affairs, such as cleanliness. The servants must have heard the commotion. Two men—of the several men and women typically present within the house to attend to the order and tidiness of the mystic’s home—made their way into the passage and took over the ushering. Their words were undecipherable to anyone except Guang Ci, but they bowed as if with profuse apology. For what exactly, Taya couldn’t guess. It wasn’t their fault an elf, a dwarf, and two young men came into their master’s house stinking of dragon.
ONCE REFRESHED and properly separated from the rank odors that had accumulated in the cave below the city, Tristus and the others were permitted entrance into the other sections of Xu Liang’s home that the mystic had left open to them. The evening was cool, but pleasantly so, and so they took their meal outdoors, beneath the tranquil lantern glow of Xu Liang’s garden. It was a lovely setting, and would have been all the lovelier, of course, with the master of the house and their dear fire elf present. Not to mention all of the guards.
It was an easy adjustment for Tristus, separating Guang Ci from his fellows, but it was still different from what he and the others had been introduced to. But that was change. It was different. Normally, Tristus felt that he could go relatively unaffected by change, but he had only in the last year just come to something that he not only cherished, but that cherished him as well. And now he found himself quite nervous about anything changing.
Anything at all.
The thought turned his gaze toward Alere, who’d left his hair down to dry in the pleasant air of the shifting seasons. Somehow, the lack of braid made him appear older, accentuating the high and sharp features of his elven heritage. It was interesting to Tristus to have met a member of a race who held potential to be so ancient while he was still so young. It made him consider the fact that he’d personally never met an elven child, but the elves below Yvaria tended to keep their little ones very close to home, and there was no blaming them for that. The war was still ongoing, even if it was in a less aggressive phase while politicians on both sides made a begrudging effort to come to some terms other than generations more of bloodshed. Considering the amount of campaign training Tristus and his fellow knights had been experiencing as of late, he supposed that negotiations weren’t going particularly well.
It was another point of interest that the elves Tristus had met and come to adore were of the northern persuasion, and not actively partaking of the war carrying on south of their borders. He’d never really taken their existence into consideration, but he was guessing that that was the point to their having ventured so far north over the centuries—to escape the conflict and maybe to recover as a population. Sad, that it was not to be so for the Verressi Elves.
Tristus didn’t know what family Alere had left behind precisely, as the elf was not prone to conversation about them, but the notion of a house of pale, fair-faced siblings of Alere was plainly beautiful.
“Are you going to answer?” Alere asked him—suddenly, Tristus thought.
He blinked, escaping what may have been something of a trance, and looked about the low garden table at his friends. “Sorry, I must not have been listening.”
Of all of them, it was Alere—the object of his trance—who gave him the least interested expression. Normally, Tristus might have expected that, as it was a struggle to coax Alere to demonstrate interest in much, but in the last months the elf had been quicker to smile than that when it had to do with their friendship. Though, thinking better, Tristus suspected the moment that had passed might not have been about their friendship. Not precisely.
“I wanted to know, Tristus Edainien,” Taya began in her best scolding voice, which only endeared her further; Tristus didn’t know why she actually tried. “How you managed to bring down a cave ceiling without knocking yourself silly, but perhaps you didn’t.”
Tristus smiled at her, reaching forward for the wine carafe at the center of the table. He nodded in Tarfan’s direction. “We’ve your uncle to thank for that.”
Tarfan raised his heavy brow, as if to consider whether or not he should be taking offense. “Well,” he said, settling himself to accept the credit Tristus had passed to him, “I gave the lad a bit of direction. That’s true.”
“It is,” Tristus said, pouring wine into his cup.
That was when Tarfan drew a breath and began to extol his wisdom upon them. “You see, it was important to find a place for the lads to be positioned where the rocks wouldn’t roll over them, as the path was a slope.”
Tristus’ smile broadened, though Taya seemed rather quickly bored, now that her uncle was telling the tale.
&n
bsp; “A messenger has been sent after the troops en route to Fa Leng,” Huang Shang-san inserted.
“I’m glad,” Tristus replied.
Huang Shang-san bowed his head. “The matter will be taken before the Empress as well.”
“As it should be.” Tristus offered the wine to the elder, who accepted by holding out his cup. “I’m relieved that we found no more of the hatchlings within the burrow…for lack of a better term.”
Huang Shang-san took a moment to fully comprehend the words, then agreed with a nod.
Tristus had been thinking the cave was part of a vaster network, and he was quite pleased that they had learned otherwise. It was equally gratifying to know that the underground did not extend for days, but came to an outlet much sooner. It was difficult to imagine that one of advanced years could make such a journey alone—sorcerer or not. The ability to work spells of any element was not going to bolster endurance or add physical strength. Granted, it might all have been simpler, had Han Quan expired in the midst of attempting to escape, but somehow Tristus was doubting that scenario as well, which meant that the old man must have gone, knowing his chance of survival was high. He knew his trek would be no more than two days, depending on how long he stopped to rest. That only confirmed that he had planned all of it.
Tristus wished that he could be aiding Xu Liang in the locating and arrest of such an enemy—one bold enough, and reckless enough to enlist the aid of dragons. It was in the same league as Vorhaven employing the keirveshen.
But Xu Liang had gone off to war, and there was no telling when he would return. It was a shame he could not have delayed another day or two and taken the rest of them along with him. But again, it was war he’d gone to. The quest was over and all of them had much to learn. Even having been trained militarily, Tristus knew nothing of Sheng Fan’s methods or etiquette. There were rules to war where any organized military existed. To violate them in ignorance would only substantiate the disqualifying notions that many of Xu Liang’s peers may have been reserving only on account of the handling of the dragon. That victory wouldn’t hold to everyone’s hearts forever. It was better to remain patient and accept guidance, that they might incorporate themselves into a culture poised to reject them through right action, which would be directed by a proper understanding of the culture.
