by T. A. Miles
Even though their first meeting occurred when Xu Liang was already a man and the blood shared between them had never been spoken of, he still felt the connection to his natural father. Xiang Wu seemed aloof, but it was understandable. He had lost two sons without including Xu Liang, both stillbirths. His fourth son was still a boy and no one to carry on his position as Lord of Ying yet, if he should be somehow removed from that position. Unlike Xu Hong, he had earned all of his fame within the Empire on his own and the strength of Ying rested solely on his shoulders. Somehow he maintained the northern region and also his position as its governor. Xu Liang, who was aware of but not imbibed of his rank above both his natural and adoptive fathers, couldn’t help but to respect Xiang Wu and to feel some pride in succeeding as his son. He felt pride and at the same time he regretted that he could not sometimes be recognized as a son of Ying.
The foolishness of the notion made him smile inwardly. What did it matter whether he was recognized as a son of Ying or of Du? Ultimately they were all children of Sheng Fan. He served his Empress above all. Immediately beneath Sheng Fan’s sovereign, he had no choice but to serve his recognized paternal family. He always felt sentimental before leaving his homeland. He would recover once the river had carried him out to sea, delivering him to a land where he would be surrounded by people who didn’t try or care to understand the structure of family and government in Sheng Fan.
Unfortunately, he was having some difficulty convincing any of the boats lining Ti Lao Bay to leave on such short notice for such a lengthy journey. He hated to resort to using his station with the Empress in this instance, but if he must he would present the seal of Imperial Office and commandeer a vessel.
For his previous expeditions there had always been much more time to plan, to arrange the necessary accommodations. Haste juxtaposed against caution made such planning impossible now. It would be imprudent to present a trail of communication and contracts or imperial orders for an enemy to follow ahead of him, although now, in light of the previous assault his company had suffered, the effort seemed futile.
An old woman selling bowls of rice with portions of fresh fish put the dilemma momentarily aside. Xu Liang moved through the crowded outer streets near the docks, unconsciously following her sales pitch. He had not eaten for several days, but that was not the reason he was drawn to the stand. The growling stomachs of his bodyguards actually threatened to break his concentration.
“Fish!” the elder called out. “Caught this morning!” She noticed Xu Liang approaching and made quick eye contact. Her smile broadened. “Fresh fish,” she encouraged. “You’re hungry, yes? Have some.”
She was already serving. She scooped the rice into a generous bowl and began selecting recently cut portions of fish. There were the remains of older fish lying close by on the same table, but she had undoubtedly noticed the lavish dress and courtly manner of her customer, and didn’t dare to offend with less than what she’d advertised.
“You’re handsome, but you’re thin.” She handed him the bowl and Xu Liang paid her. “You eat more, okay?”
He smiled. “Thank you, madam. You are a woman of ineffable wisdom.” She nodded pleasantly and Xu Liang added, “Might I trouble you for seven more?”
Her smile faded briefly. She watched him hand the first bowl back to one of his men and her confusion ended. The enormous grin returned and she bowed informally. “Seven more. Yes.”
The food was delivered. Xu Liang paid the woman and thanked her, then waited while his men stood in the general vicinity of the stand and ate their afternoon meal. It was much more convenient to buy food in a place such as Ti Lao than to trouble with the rations, and it would also save the rations for when they might truly need them. There was no telling precisely where this journey would set them and under what conditions. Xu Liang knew there were mountains to cross after crossing the ocean. They were cold mountains. Life was sparse and they would not be able to rely on hunting.
“The woman is right,” came the voice of his eldest guard.
Xu Liang looked at the older man attentively. “About what, Gai Ping?”
The man swallowed a mouthful of rice. “You should eat more.”
“I’ll note your concern,” Xu Liang answered, smiling faintly. He knew that Gai Ping was not making a comment about his slender frame, which appeared thinner due to his height—a trait he owed to his Xiang heritage. Rather, he understood that the man was making verbal note of the fact that he had not seen his master eat since they’d left the Imperial City. Xu Liang had neglected to inform his guards that he would be fasting throughout their journey. Strange as it seemed, not eating would be necessary to maintain his strength on this journey—not physically but spiritually. He would tax his magic to its limits in this effort and it would require much meditation and a level of inner pureness that one could not achieve through any form of indulgence. Even if that were not so, he wouldn’t feel right eating while she could not. So long as his Empress suffered, so would he.
Fortunately, there were ways to preserve the body under such conditions, strong meditation being the most effective of them. He was lucky to have found the time for it for the duration of their journey aboard the Swimming Dragon and he hoped to be able to do the same while crossing the Sea of Tahn.
When the men were finished eating, the bowls were deposited in a basket beside the old woman’s stand. Xu Liang led them back toward the ships, determined to have one chartered and underway before sunset. The disturbance along the docks didn’t make the task any easier.
Xu Liang stopped when he heard the shouting. Whatever went on, it was enough to have attracted the local law enforcement. The guardsmen were not having an easy time regaining control of the situation. That was made all the more obvious with the abrupt tossing of a guard into the observing crowd of civilians. When a second one came sailing toward Xu Liang, Xu Liang lifted his hand and discreetly enforced just enough of an invisible barrier to stop the body short of colliding with him and his men. The guardsman sat for a moment, stunned and possibly wondering what he’d hit, but he was too eager to return to the fight to debate the matter.
“We will go around them,” Xu Liang decided, changing his mind when he heard a very familiar laugh.
FU RAN HEFTED his huge two-handed sword again and swung wide. More guards flew, most of them landing harmlessly in the open space provided by the cautiously distant crowd. The blade wasn’t actually hitting any of them, else they’d all be dead by now. An enchantment he’d grown pleasantly accustomed to provided his weapon with a bit of extra reach, an unseen force that broke the air like the wake of a ship on the water and very efficiently spread an unwelcome crowd.
It was amusing when persistent men like Ti Lao’s guards kept coming back. It made Fu Ran laugh out loud, and probably had a lot to do with the stubbornness of his opponents. However, he was having too much fun to care about their persistence or their pride.
“To the infernal regions with all of you!” he shouted. “You’re a pathetic lot! Do you think I’d allow myself to be defeated by such as you! Are there no men among you?”
The guards were finally getting weary. It probably wouldn’t be long before someone decided to draw a bow.
A giant among men, Fu Ran made for an easy target. He’d grown naturally taller and stronger than most and trained to be stronger still. His sleeveless jerkin boasted the thickness of his arms. The size of his body—along with the size of his sword—his wild grin, and bold laughter put fear into enemy and ally alike. He’d shaven his head and tattooed dragons down the length of each arm to worsen his appearance. In some places he was known as the Laughing Devil. He would hate to have his reputation besmirched by a well-aimed arrow and so decided to put an end to the afternoon’s play. “I’ll take one more before taking my leave! Who dares?”
He expected a handful of guards again, in which case he would toss them a bit farther this time and be on his way. He was shocked when someone said softly, “I will dare it...if yo
u will.”
Fu Ran was prepared to laugh at the effete creature standing before him, until he took a second look, and recalled that only fools judged Xu Liang by his appearance. He smiled anyway and readied his sword. “This is going to hurt,” he warned.
Xu Liang inclined his head almost imperceptibly. “One of us, perhaps.”
Fu Ran laughed, and charged. Xu Liang stood idle, his hands pressed lightly together, as if prayer would save him. It might have, but Fu Ran carried no ordinary sword. The mystic closed his eyes and waited for the strike. Fu Ran lifted his weapon high and delivered it, somehow not surprised when Xu Liang quickly parted his hands and clapped them together again, trapping the blade between them. Fu Ran leaned all of his weight into his attack, but to no avail. Neither the sword nor the sorcerer holding it at bay would budge.
“You’ve gotten better,” Fu Ran said through his teeth. “I might actually work up a sweat!”
“It is not my wish to fight you, Fu Ran,” Xu Liang answered quietly. “I require but a moment of your time.”
Fu Ran was still pushing. “About another second is all you’re going to get!”
“Then I shall be quick. Do you still sail aboard the Cloud Runner?”
The question took Fu Ran off guard. “What?”
Xu Liang spread his hands apart so that they still touched at the heels. Fu Ran and his sword were pushed backward by an invisible force—the wind itself, as guided by a mystic of Sheng Fan—of an aeromancer, specifically. Several steps came between Fu Ran and Xu Liang, but Fu Ran managed to keep his balance and his weapon, though it pulled awkwardly at his arm as the spell and the blade’s own immense weight tried to carry it still further back.
He got the weapon under his control once again and frowned this time after he laughed. The sound was more reflexive now, but still inspiring fear in most of his audience, he was certain. “Are you telling me that you can’t find a ship?”
“Are you saying that you have one?” the delicate man asked calmly.
Fu Ran answered with his blade, this time swinging wide rather than cutting down.
Xu Liang held his right hand out and drove the blade into the wood underfoot.
Fu Ran followed through with the swing anyway and spun out of it, facing his imperturbable opponent with a wicked grin on his face while a trail of plank shavings settled onto the scored walkway. “Sorcerous tricks! Would you dare to face me without your magic?”
Xu Liang stared a moment, revealing nothing with his tranquil expression. Then he took a disappointing step back.
So the years had changed him. The student-official Fu Ran had known never backed away from a challenge, even if it seemed too great for one of his fragile nature to overcome. He may not have charged at anything headlong, but he never fled. Imperial office must have finally been getting to him. He didn’t look any older, but maybe he was beginning to feel the weight of his position at last. Youth couldn’t be easy to hold onto, surrounded by scrolls and otherwise pinned beneath the heel of an over privileged, overbearing ruler. One had to flex his sword arm in order to keep it strong and Fu Ran doubted that Sheng Fan’s Imperial Tactician did much of that these days.
Fu Ran sighed and almost turned to leave. Almost, except that Xu Liang never took his eyes off of him and when he reached his hand back to one of his evident bodyguards, a sword was placed in it.
The mystic held the weapon as if it were as light as a paper fan. He said, “Would you dare to face me without your magic?”
Fu Ran’s grin returned. He untied the red tassel from his sword’s hilt and tucked it into his belt. “Scholars taking up arms in public brawls? What is the Empire coming to, I wonder?”
“Yes. I’m sure you do,” Xu Liang sighed.
Fu Ran took his sword in both hands and stalked his prey. “Maybe there is some of Xu Hong in you after all.”
“Xu Hong would have killed you already. I am still hoping to negotiate.”
Fu Ran chuckled and stepped into his attack, stopping short when someone cried out nearby. He looked as the Ti Lao guard fell on his face with a bolt from a crossbow sunk into his back. “Damn...” Fu Ran looked to Xu Liang to call off their match and saw that the man was already surrounded by his bodyguards. Instinct took over. “What are you idiots planning to do, stand around and get shot? Xu Liang! Come with me!”
The mystic didn’t look at him as he scanned the nearby rooftops. Fu Ran moved quickly behind the bodyguards while the civilian crowd scattered and the Ti Lao guards delayed any action, appearing too confused to do anything but gawk at their fallen man.
“Who would attack the Ti Lao guard?” Xu Liang pondered. He added softly, but with no humor, “Other than you?”
“That’s for the magistrate to find out,” Fu Ran decided, grabbing the mystic by the shoulder of his robe. “This way!”
The mystic’s intelligent brown eyes moved from one starkly angled roof to the next, and then narrowed. He suddenly pressed his hands together and began softly chanting.
“There’s no time!” Fu Ran wheeled the smaller man around, lowered somewhat, then bent him over his shoulder.
One of Xu Liang’s bodyguards protested at once. “Take your hands off my lord!”
Fu Ran elbowed the man in the face. “Get out of my way!”
The young guard fumbled back and Fu Ran dashed past him. Xu Liang was still chanting as he was hauled down the dock like a sack of grain. Fu Ran noted silently that even the smallest sack of grain might have weighed more than the Imperial official.
Footsteps indicated that Xu Liang’s bodyguards were following. Fu Ran began to wonder himself who would fire on the Ti Lao guard. Maybe Ti Lao was under siege. That seemed unlikely, considering the direction of the attack. Barring a peasant uprising, an assault should have come from the river, or the fields farther out, not from within the city itself. At any rate, it was foolish to stand around and make a target out of oneself. If they wanted the Ti Lao guards, let them have them, Fu Ran thought.
A sudden wind came in from the across the water. Banners that had been relatively still in the previous breeze began to billow actively. Fu Ran had no sooner taken notice of the abrupt change in weather when a white horse strode into his path, carrying a man who was neither guard nor peasant. A handful of armed men jogged up to join the rider.
“Where do you think you’re going with that parcel?” the rider asked. His dyed yellow hair was tightly raveled behind him, looking like a long golden tail against his fanciful red silks. Several small charms hung off his tasseled belt, which almost made Fu Ran swallow his automatic laughter.
As it was part of his fierce image, he grinned anyway, holding his sword out in defiance.
The newcomer smiled back. It was an expression that chilled Fu Ran to his bones. “We’ll play...if you insist.”
The man started making telltale hand gestures and Fu Ran recalled that his enchanted tassel was currently tucked into his sash. “Damn! Is there nowhere in Sheng Fan a man can go without running into sorcerers?”
“You may put me down now,” Xu Liang suddenly said, and Fu Ran didn’t hesitate, reaching quickly for his only thread of magic and pressing it against the hilt of his sword as he took up the weapon in both hands. He lifted the sword just as the stranger was finishing his spell and hurling it in the form of a tumbling cloud of flame toward him. The enchantment allowed Fu Ran to deflect the assault and bat it harmlessly into the river.
The sorcerer seemed surprised.
Fu Ran laughed loudly. “Ha! Not as easy a game as you thought!”
The other’s dark eyes narrowed indignantly. “We’ll see.” He pointed dramatically at Fu Ran and the entourage he’d gained in abducting Xu Liang. “Kill all of them! At once!”
The armed strangers came. Xu Liang’s bodyguards began to respond.
“Stay back!” Fu Ran warned. Then he took a single step forward and swept his blade out in front of him. The sorcerer’s handful of men flew, one of them colliding into the sorcerer befo
re he could do anything to defend himself.
Fu Ran drew back, grinning triumphantly as the man gave a muffled cry and fell off his horse.
“Impressive,” Xu Liang said, and Fu Ran couldn’t tell if he was being sarcastic. The mystic added, “About my inquiry concerning your ship...”
“All of you follow me,” Fu Ran said quickly. He led them onto the nearest pier, toward a ship much taller and broader than the dragon boats Ti Lao Bay was used to having lined along its docks. If he didn’t know better, he would have guessed that Xu Liang had planned this wild departure. How better to avoid assassination than to draw attention, and a hell of a lot of it? However, he knew that the mystic was adamantly opposed to recklessness.
Fu Ran stopped halfway down the pier, ushering Xu Liang’s men past him, realizing belatedly that four of them were leading horses. In the crowd he hadn’t even noticed just how many guards the mystic had, let alone the horses. If that wasn’t enough, Xu Liang was walking, unconcerned, his hands tucked into the sleeves of his robes. The wind swept his hair behind him, where it seemed to float like a thousand glistening strands cast by caterpillars that spun black silk.
“Hurry!” Fu Ran urged, noticing that the blond sorcerer’s men were drawing bows.
“Do not worry,” Xu Liang said. “The wind will not let the arrows carry this far.”
Fu Ran watched the bowmen try anyway, tensing as he fought the urge to run to Xu Liang and shield him from the deadly rain. The arrows faltered and veered everywhere but at their aim. Fu Ran grinned broadly and railed at them. Their leader was back on his horse and, after a moment of glaring in the face of Fu Ran’s deliberate insolence, decided to retreat.
