篝火狐鳴
Gōuhuǒhúmíng
Bonfires and fox cries.
Incite rebellion and foment dissent by telling tales.
*~*~*~*~*~*

    I sat across the fire from Sanli, staring at the small pink petals floating in my tea and trying to think of a safe topic for conversation. Sanli's cloak was draped across my shoulders (for the shock I was undoubtedly feeling after my run in with the sawpig) and smelled of pine sap and grass and horses. I was rather hot truthfully, it was a warm evening, but I could hardly refuse his chivalry now that he was offering it again.

I settled on travel as a good topic. "Have you been to this area before?" I asked him politely.

"Zakhar and Sho Sensei have, but this is my first trip." He took the iron kettle from the rock it sat on beside the fire and poured me more tea before topping up his own cup. I watched the petals whirl in my cup like leaves caught in a miniature tempest.

"Where do you live when you're not traveling, Sir Sanli?" I asked.

"I split my time between Zhanghai and Linjing." Zhanghai was the largest city on the east coast of the empire, and a major trading hub. The city was so named because that was where the Zhang River, 'Zhang', met the sea, 'hai'. The Zhang river connected not only Lu's Eastern Kingdom, but also the central and northern regions of the empire with ocean trade. It's importance as a trade city could not be overemphasized.

I took a small sip of my tea. If Zhanghai was the Green Kingdom's commercial capital, then Linjing was the political one. In the old language the city's name meant 'forest capital'. A smaller city, Linjing had arisen primarily as a result of the extravagant summer palace that Lu had built in the low mountains nearby. The city was known for its high population of the rich and influential who made the city their home, hoping to curry favor with the Green Throne via proximity.

I wondered if Sanli was from one of those wealthy families. He had called himself a trader last night. I studied him, even as he sat watching me with his strange green eyes.

I sensed we both knew the other was keeping a secret.

He sat back and rested his elbows on his knees. His eyes found mine. "What about you, Lady Four Strings? Where do you go back to when your traveling is done?"

"I'm always traveling," I said, blushing at the ridiculous pseudonym I had given him last night. I should have picked a more bearable name. "And please, call me Ao."

"Always traveling? Nowhere to call home, Ao?" he asked, a soft smile played across his handsome face. His tone suggested pity. I didn't need it.

I smiled down at my tea cup. "This is good tea. What is it?"

He shifted the iron kettle on its stone away from the fire. "Sweet Chrysanthemum. It helps to relax the mind and body. I drink it every night before sleeping."

I wrapped my hands around the warm cup. "Trouble sleeping?" I asked him casually, taking a sip of tea. "Bad dreams?"

Sanli's smile tightened. He nodded at my hands wrapped around the cup. "Those are interesting rings." By which he meant the fact that I wore one on each finger. The rings themselves appeared ordinary. "Are they scribed?"

"They are," I answered. Each ring had zih worked into them. Some of the zih were visible, and some weren't, making it nearly impossible to tell what kind of spell the rings carried. Only I knew the true extent of the enchantment.

"May I see them?" Sanli asked, holding out one of his hands, into which I placed my own. His hands were smooth and warm. He turned my hand this way and that, examining. He went to slip the large bronze ring off my thumb and I quickly withdrew my hand.

He held his hands up in apology. "Forgive me. I have a fascination for zih. I would love to see the ring up close. "

I smiled at him and tucked my be-ringed hands back around my cup, out of reach. "Maybe in the fall. My fingers swell in summer, and the rings don't come off so easily." A lie. It was not more difficult to take the rings off in summer than it was in winter.

I lied so easily. Had it always been this way?

He ran a hand through his dark hair, obviously not believing my lie, but said "I see" and left it at that. He said nothing for a while, and I sensed him withdrawing, getting hazy and further away, as though my lie had drawn a cloud between us. For some reason I disliked it. So I offered him something else.

Moving around the fire I sat on the log beside him. I took a stick from the pile we had gathered earlier and started to trace in the fresh ash trailing from the fire pit. First I drew the part of my name that symbolizes life, two horizontal lines with a vertical line running through them, and beneath them the crooked finger that represented 10,000. Beside that the single line that symbolized one and one only, and beneath that the simple pair of curving lines for control, governing. And to the left and underneath it all ran the dots and zigzagging line that stood for the road, long and winding.

I finished and said nothing, letting him look to see if he could figure it out on his own. His fingers traced the air above the symbols, deciphering their meaning. "For 10,000 years, you've traveled this road alone?" He asked hesitantly, frowning as he thought. We were close, and I noticed a dimple appeared in one of his cheeks as he frowned.

"Not quite," I said. I took his hand, finger still pointed, and guided him as he traced the air above the ash once more. "For 10,000 years, I alone have chosen my road."

He laughed, and I realized he had been genuine in his enthusiasm for zih. "How poetic. Ao. I'm jealous. All I have is 'someone's third son' in my name."

I smiled and shrugged. "You give your name meaning. Not the other way around. Change it if you want. It's just a name, after all. "

He smiled back, and our eyes met.Then he looked away, "Just a name huh."

*~*~*~*~*~*

A little while later Zakhar returned with the wayward horses and tethered them once more at the side of the clearing. Kageyama followed a moment later with the sawpig, skinned and cleaned, its dangerous head removed, and soon we sat drinking tea and watching it roast over the fire.

I glanced at Kageyama. He had expertly cleaned the pig in a matter of minutes and now sat impassively turning the spit. Not a member of the Daqu Clan then, the Great Boar clan. He had also killed the pig, so he wasn't a kirin or a fenghuang, or any of the other mu'ren who could not take life. That ruled out a handful of a thousand possibilities.

I reached for my lute to alleviate the silence. The men seemed content with it, but if I wanted silence, I would travel alone. Before I could strum out the first chord of a song, Zakhar's giant hand wrapped around mine on the neck. He shook his head.

"Not here," he glanced around us, then toward the still illuminated staircase rising into the night.

"Afraid more pigs might be lurking?" I asked.

He chuckled, but shook his head. "Something worse."

I put my lute down. "Well then, how about a story?"

"We're not here to entertain you," Kageyama growled, poking at the pig to test its doneness.

"I'll entertain you then. Any requests?" Sanli and Zakhar glanced at one another and shrugged.

"I'll hear whatever you care to tell," said Sanli.

I looked around the clearing, searching for inspiration. My eyes alighted on the worn zih carved into the glowing lanterns, and I was reminded of Sanli's enthusiasm for zih.

"This is the story of how the Golden Emperor Jinyan created magic."

I paused for dramatic effect and then began.

*~*~*~*~*~*

As you know, when the Old Gods were still gods, humans lived little better than cattle. When the New Gods came in to their thrones, they promised humans they would never be oppressed by gods or mu'ren again. The New Gods, The Five, used ancient magic to create a powerful barrier, The Wall, around the Inner Kingdom. This barrier kept unwanted mu'ren out, and forced those within it to take human form, and stay in it, so as to protect the humans around them.

'The Circle', the people called this barrier and the land it encompassed. The great equalizer.

However, despite The Circle, humans still found themselves exploited by the stronger and longer lived mu'ren.

Jinyan, the Golden Emperor, tried to think up a way to fix this. Unfortunately, since he's a cotton headed idiot, he ended up just writing poetry all day and daydreaming-

"What ridiculous thing are you doing now?" Kageyama interrupted me, glaring at me sternly across the roasting pig. Sanli was trying hard not to smile and Zakhar was taking advantage of his beard to hide his own grin.

I ignored Kageyama and continued.

As I was saying, all he thought up was a bunch of cow-crap poetry. He decided to give up for the day and spend the rest of the afternoon drinking with Lulin, The Green King, and composing yet more poetry.

As Jinyan was busy killing off more and more of his intelligence with wine, Baihu, the White Queen, happened to come by. Jinyan mentioned to her his dilemma, to which she, always being an interfering busybody, promptly sat down and came up with a very sound solution that of course benefited her. She took brush and ink and wrote out her proposal neatly on several sheets of paper, gave it to Jinyan, and left the two men drinking. She had more important things to do. Officious bit-

Kageyama cleared his throat over my profanity. I continued.

Now it happened Jinyan had an appointment with Zhuque, The Red Duke, the next day. Zhuque, being experienced in ancient magic, was going to help Jinyan come up with a way to help protect the humans within the Circle. Unfortunately, because he had drunk too much the day before, our most honorable Golden Emperor woke up late and severely hungover.

Jinyan stumbled around in a fog getting ready, grabbed the papers Baihu had written out for him the day before and rushed to the place he had agreed to meet Zhuque. He arrived out of breath and nauseous, more green than gold, and presented the papers to Zhuque. Except for he was in such a hurry that morning he grabbed the poems he had written the day before instead of Baihu's careful plans. Zhuque was somewhat confused, but assuming the Golden Emperor had a method to his madness, used the poems to create spells humans could use to tap into The Circle's power.

And that is the reason all of our spells today are terrible poems. The End.

"They're not that bad" said Sanli, trying hard to hide his smile. "I like some of them. I can't say I've ever heard that, uh, version of the story before."

"It's my own personal version," I said, smiling back at him. And probably the one closest to the truth. Zakhar was laughing so hard his great shoulders shook.

"Your irreverence is dangerous," Kageyama said, his dark eyes reflecting the fire between us as he watched me.

I've been told that before by scarier creatures than you, I thought, but instead asked sweetly, "You have such an angelic voice, Kageyama-sensei, perhaps you'd care to tell the next story?"

"No," he said gruffly. He took a serrated knife from where it rested by the fire warming and started to cut off the outermost layers of meat. I watched him cut, noting the knife was too dull and blunt to be what had made the cut that had killed the saw pig earlier.

"Hmmm," I mused. "Why not tell the story about The Sixth God. We're going to her shrine, after all." I looked to Sanli.

Sanli was surprised. "You know her story?"

"Oh yes, I know all the versions. The tragic one, the bloody one, the romantic one." The real one. "Which one would you care to hear?"

"Are you TRYING to antagonize your gods?" Kageyama Sho interrupted, looking at me pointedly as he shoved a plate of sawed off saw pig meat in my direction. "I think that is quite enough heresy for tonight."

I wanted to shout that they weren't my gods, but restrained myself.

As I took the plate I staged whispered to Sanli. "I'll save those stories for another time. Maybe when Lord Sho isn't around." Sanli looked carefully at Kageyama, saw he was concentrating on the meat, and then smiled his agreement.

There was silence as we ate our roughly cooked and cut meat. It was better than I expected, and I had to slow myself and wipe my chin often with the back of my hand to keep juice from dribbling off it. I would need to wash in the stream later.

Zakhar broke the silence by saying, "Well, if we're all done with legends, perhaps I can tell you about how I wound up naked in the middle of the Goba Desert with nothing but a peacock perched on my head."

"A live peacock?" I asked, reaching for more meat.

"It was moving and trying to peck my eyes out, so I'd say so," Zakhar replied with a wide grin.

"This sounds like something I need to hear," I agreed, laughing.

Zakhar leaned back on the log he was sitting on to rifle around in his pack. "You do indeed. And you need to hear it while drinking... THIS!" He triumphantly pulled out a giant wine skin from his pack. It was huge, probably enough for ten people to get drunk on.

Zakhar fished out a set of small wooden mugs as well, filled them with white rice wine from the flask, and passed a cup to each of us, and soon I was laughing too loud at his ridiculous stories.

*~*~*~*~*~*

Hours later, I lay listening, but not really comprehending.

"You can hardly do the ritual in front of her, can you," said a voice. It was that grumpy dark-eyed man. Yagekama? Kagehama? "Tomorrow we'll trudge up there again with Zakhar, he can make up some nonsense about the architecture and we can part ways. Finally." My back was to the men and the fire, but I heard someone come towards me.

"We can't leave her in the forest. What if another saw pig appears?" A second voice. The pretty-eyed prince. I like him.

Hagekama huffed irritably from just above me. I kept my eyes shut tight. "Fine. We'll take her to the nearest village and leave her there. Get her drunk again if necessary." A second later I felt his finger rest on my upper lip, just under my nose. It tickled. "Still breathing," he grunted, sounding displeased.

Then, surprisingly gently, he positioned my head and arms so I could not roll onto my back and propped my pack against my neck to prevent my head from turning.

"She drank almost as much as Zakhar. How is that possible?" Asked Sanli from nearby.

"Maybe she's part fish. Here, help me roll Zakhar over as well so the fool doesn't choke." I heard the two men struggle to turn the third man on his side. Then the sound of them moving around the clearing to gather together their things.

"Do you have the book?" Kageyama asked.

"Yes, it's in my saddlebag." More rummaging, and then, "Let's go."

I lay still, continuing to feign sleep even after the two men's footsteps had faded away up the stone steps.

After my fall from godhood, Yan's justification for sealing me in a human body had been that it would do me good to feel the frailty of humans and lesser creatures. At the time he spouted some nonsense about learning compassion for those weaker than me, which I had done my best to ignore and forget.

Despite our Great Golden Emperor's intentions, I was definitely not the same as most humans. My strength, for one, was greater than a human woman of my size, my speed faster, and my endurance not human like at all. It was the reason I had been able to keep up with three men on horses all day, and greatly aided my wandering lifestyle.

Less convenient however was the fact that my appetite was also much greater. I needed to consume about three times as much food as other humans my size. My husband liked to say there must be a little dragon living in my stomach stealing my food, and I would laugh, not at his joke, but at how close he was to the truth.

Thanks to my unordinary metabolism, the effects of the alcohol wore off in minutes, instead of hours. I could hear Zakhar snoring like a forge bellow nearby. Slowly I sat up, my nausea and dizziness nearly gone.

The fire had burned down, but I could hear the soft crack of embers settling. A few embers glowed in the dark like the orange eyes of some low bellied beast. In the darkness, the night sky above the clearing was like a splash of twinkling ink, the ragged outlines of the leaves fringing it in and keeping it from spilling further.

I stood, and quietly, quietly made my way to the stone staircase and up it.

I felt very visible as I made my way up the stairs, saturated in the turquoise light of the lanterns. The night was oddly still, no birds or animals stirred, and the insects were silent. A sense of waiting hung over the wood.

About half way up I discovered the reason for the quiet. It began to rain, a soft drizzle that patterned on the leaves overhead and filled the forest with a quiet staccato. Not an especially unusual occurrence, considering it was the tail end of the rainy season. But secretly, in a vain, childlike part of my mind no one else would ever know, I pretended it was an omen, a heralding. The rain god was returning to her temple.

I stopped there, on the wide steps, halfway up, and glanced around me, though I knew the forest was empty. Then I started to dance. I danced without thought, steps coming to me and disappearing as I skidded them out on the wet stone. I tried to recall the dance that the young priest had danced all those years ago, but the exact steps had faded from my mind, and all that remained was a distant impression, a whirl of grey and white robes, stuck in places to toned skin by the weight of water.

I stopped dancing abruptly, feeling foolish, and continued up the stair.

Soon I could see another gate looming out of the darkness. The stairs finished and I looked up at the gate. This one, unlike the magical gate below, had served as a physical barrier, and crumbling walls adjoined it. Carved into the stone lintel of the gate was the name of the temple. Anhuansi. Dark Fantasy Temple.

I passed through the gate and into the temple proper. Stone lanterns like the ones on the stairs were placed strategically through the grounds, illuminating what was left of the complex. Grass had replaced the flagstones of the temple courtyard and the buildings were in ruins, no more than empty hulls, the vacant bodies of beached vessels wrecked by time.

The clay tiles from the roofs had been stripped away, and without them the contents of the buildings, the things that hadn't been looted by unscrupulous hands, had been destroyed by nature and time. Only a few items remained to remind that people had once inhabited this place. Broken pottery, an old bronze lamp, a torn bit of tapestry hung in an alcove. A rotting wooden chair that had been dragged out and left in the courtyard, and miraculously still had all its legs, along with a cushion of moss.

The forest had come to reclaim the temple as its own, and trees pushed up through the flagstones, causing them to buckle upwards like boats on a turbulent sea. Ferns and crawling vines had tried to replace the missing roof tiles, creating a strange green canopy that hung from wall to wall. Moss carpeted everything in green.

Thanks to the moss my footsteps made no sound as I moved among the ruins. I heard voices coming from the area that had once been the main hall and slunk along behind a half fallen wall. The spiced scent of incense cut through the smooth smells of rain and greenery. A strange man-made anomaly in this area that nature had reclaimed. I peeked over the wall.

Kageyama and Sanli stood before what was left of the main alter. A candle burned and beside it a cone of incense placed in a bronze pan. A jade bracelet was placed near the incense. Kageyama stood a little back from the alter, arms crossed, shifting his weight from one leg to the other every so often. Sanli had his head bent and was reading from a book. I could not see the cover from where I crouched but I guessed it was most likely a copy of 'The Book of Mountains and Seas', a combination atlas/primer that pilgrims used to guide them to all the myriad temples and shrines in the Inner Kingdom.

"-It follows the wind secretly at night,
And moistens the world without a sound.
The clouds over the country roads are black-"

I froze. I knew these words. How could I not? It was my prayer.

The green-eyed prince was praying to me.

What irony.

He finished the prayer and lowered himself to his knees, then kowtowed with his forehead resting on the soft green of the mossy altar steps in supplication. Of course. Humans only came to pray when they wanted something.

I wondered what Sanli was asking for. He had traveled all the way out here to this forsaken temple to perform a forbidden ritual in the rain in the dead of night. It couldn't be anything good.

I leaned back against the wall, laughing silently to myself. There Sanli kneeled, praying to me, a god that no longer existed, and here I sat, behind the crumpled wall of my temple with rain soaking through my worn linen clothes and barely a coin to my name.

If Lu were still alive, he would laugh endlessly no doubt. Lu always said there was no such thing as coincidence. He would say I was destined to notice Sanli that night in Nan'ye and to follow him. That everything has a plan.

I, on the other hand, had never believed much in fate. Fate was something you grasped with your own six-fingered hands and dragged writhing and screaming the direction you wanted it to go.

I had always decided my own road, my own fate, and that would not change now.

I stood. Kageyama's eyes instantly snapped to me and he tensed. I walked my way around the wall and up the ancient aisle. Ruined columns lay toppled along and across the aisle, and I stepped over them. Sanli, sensing Kageyama tense, opened his eyes and turned, prayer finished or forgotten.

Both men watched me silently as I approached the altar steps. Sanli's handsome face was withdrawn, with a hint of what could have been fear in his eyes. Kageyama's face was most definitely angry. His hand hovered as though ready to draw a weapon from somewhere, and I suddenly vividly recalled his earlier warning that he would make me disappear if I became a threat.

He can try. I had found something I wanted, and I wasn't going anywhere.

I stopped at the bottom of the steps and raised one hand in casual greeting, smiling my most winning smile. "Good evening, gentlemen. Lovely night for a heretical ritual, wouldn't you say?"

*~*~*~*~*~*

❤️ Fanart by cupidities !