無事不登三寶殿
wú shì bù dēng sānbǎodiàn
No one ascends to the temple without a reason.
To have a hidden agenda.

*~*~*~*~*~*

Kageyama Sho, assassin, guardian, slave, outcast, glared daggers at the melons on the fruit stall before him as he thought.

It had been three days since that trouble making vagrant of a girl had discovered him and Sanli at the old temple. Three hellish days of having to play courteous and consider her requests: "Oh, would you be so kind as to fill my canteen as well?" "I'd be most grateful if you'd carry my pack for me." "Oh, would you mind paying for my room? I'm a little short on coin."

Kageyama ground his teeth as he recalled the scene from three nights ago.

The girl rose in the corner of his vision and he froze. As she slowly, leisurely walked around the wall toward them and up the aisle, Kageyama was reminded of a priestess, reverently approaching the altar of her god.

She hadn't made a sound, the thick moss cushioning her wooden sandals, but Sanli had realized something was wrong and turned.

There was a pause, in which the sound of the rain pattering on the leaves of the forest was the only noise aside from their breath. Both parties wordlessly watched the other.

Kageyama's fingers flexed instinctively as he contemplated what to do. The prayer of the sixth god had been lost to all but a few. The girl probably had no idea what she had just witnessed, if she had heard at all. He started to think up things to say to explain why he and Sanli were here, lies to tell, half-truths to stretch-

And then the girl spoke. "Good evening, gentlemen. Lovely night for a heretical ritual, wouldn't you say?"

In the present Kageyama growled and glared harder at the melons. She had known exactly what she had witnessed.

"Are you trying to cut the melons just by looking at them, Sho Sensei?" Sanli asked. Kageyama glanced at him, so deep in though he hadn't heard Sanli come up beside him. Just like he hadn't heard the girl three nights ago.

Kageyama pointed out two melons and passed the stall keeper a coin. Melon in each hand he turned and made his way to the edge of the main square of the small town where they had spent the night. Wordlessly, Sanli followed.

They sat on the stone steps leading down to the stream that ran through the center of the town. The weather had been uncharacteristically cool and overcast, and the steps were still wet from the night before, but neither man cared.

Kageyama passed Sanli one of the melons to hold and then pulled a small knife from his boot to cut the other. Sanli smiled as he watched Kageyama check the knife to make sure it was clean, even though they both knew it was. Kageyama always took meticulous care of everything he owned, especially his knives.

The knife sunk though the melon's hull with a soft wet thunk. Kageyama carved a crescent shaped slice with two neat strokes, then held it to his mouth with the tip of the knife, his white teeth sinking into the dripping green flesh. Kageyama felt Sanli watching him. Since Sanli was a child, his curious eyes had drawn to Kageyama's mouth whenever he ate, as though expecting his guardian to suddenly sprout fangs and rip into his food like an animal.

It had annoyed Kageyama originally, but now he was amused by Sanli's continued curiosity, even after all these years.

Kageyama cut a second slice and held it out to his charge. Sanli took it and nibbled on it disinterestedly, watching Kageyama as he ate a third slice. As he was angrily hacking out a fourth, Sanli finally asked "What's bothering you, Sho Sensei?"

Kageyama scoffed, and Sanli waited, knowing better than to press for a reply. Finally, two melon slices later, Kageyama wiped the juice from his chin and said "It's my fault we're in this mess. I should have heard that girl sneak up on us the other night."

Sanli played with the melon rind in his hands, "It's not your fault, Sho Sensei. The rain started out of nowhere. It was just ill timing."

It had been ill timing. The rain had covered up the sounds of the girl's approach as well as her smell, which Kageyama's sharp senses would have picked up otherwise.

"Still, I should have done something at the temple to get rid of her. Argh, why is she still with us!?" Kageyama angrily threw the last melon rind into the fast moving water. It bobbed away and out of sight under a nearby bridge.

"If all she wants is to travel with us in exchange for forgetting what she saw, I'm fine with that," Sanli shrugged and copied Kageyama, his rind bouncing off the opposite bank before landing in the water.

"There's no way that's all she wants! That girl is a snake if I ever saw one." Kageyama reached for the second melon and Sanli passed it to him. Kageyama started hacking it up as well, the slices growing more irregular with his anger. "We should have left her in the forest for the sawpigs and wood wolves to get. No one would miss her."

Kageyama was so busy with the melon, he didn't notice Sanli's face darken. "Could you have left her there, alone in the wood, knowing she may very well die?" Sanli asked quietly, hands between his knees. Suddenly Kageyama felt like he wasn't just talking about the girl anymore.

"Of course not," he answered. "I'm just worried. I know you have good intentions San, but that doesn't make what you're doing any less dangerous."

Sanli's smile tightened. "I'm a grown man, Sho Sensei." As he always did when Sanli declared himself 'grown', Kageyama clamped his mouth shut to keep from smiling. Unlike many of his kind, Kageyama had great respect for human lives, but it was hard not to be condescending to creatures a few decades old when you counted your life in centuries.

"You don't need to keep worrying for me," Sanli continued, glaring at Kageyama's twitching lip. "I'm not a lost little boy anymore."

"I know, I know that, but to me you'll always be-" Kageyama began, but Sanli had already stood and walked off in the direction of the inn they were staying at.

Across the square Zakhar was standing at the melon stall. "Hey Ao, how about this one?" He asked, hefting the largest watermelon on the stall on one shoulder. The girl nodded and Zakhar passed a few coins to the stall owner, who tucked them away greedily.

Kageyama Sho groaned and placed his head in his sticky melon covered hands.

*~*~*~*~*~*

In the days that followed, Kageyama found his eyes following the girl, watching for any hint of her true nature or her intentions.

All evidence pointed to her being human. She smelled human, she looked human, and her heartbeat, which Kageyama's sharp ears could hear when close enough, beat as a human's would. Zakhar's tattoos, scribed to detect nearby Mu'ren, didn't move at all when she was around, no matter how close she got.

Yet Kageyama could not shake the feeling that there was something odd about her.

Her ability to keep up, for one thing. Kageyama had expected her to tire of walking and insist on riding with one of the men the first day. She didn't though, and when Sanli had finally offered, she had refused, saying something about trusting her own two legs more. Kageyama could have sworn Little Light, Sanli's horse, looked relieved.

Her appetite was not normal either. One night, they had stopped at an inn famous for its roast goose. Kageyama and the other two men had shared a bird between them, while the girl had eaten one on her own (which Sanli had payed for, as the girl had conveniently forgotten her purse).

Yet another thing that was unusual about her, and that Kageyama found particularly irritating, was her complete lack of fear of him.

Five days after she had spied on them at the old temple, the four travelers were on a narrow forest road between villages. The trees overhead grew tall trying to beat their neighbors in a race toward the sunlight, and the road far below was covered in their shadows.

The path was too narrow for two horses abreast, so Zakhar and Sanli rode single file ahead of him. Kageyama suddenly sensed her presence beside him, even before he heard the soft clack of her wooden traveling sandals.

"I was curious, Lord Kageyama, how old are you exactly?" She tipped her head as though thinking. "You look younger than Zakhar and Sanli, but they both use respectful terms when they address you."

He looked down from Makabe at the young girl looking up at him. Her skin was smooth and unmarked, her eyes wide and innocent, yet there was something in them that set him on edge. "Cut the cow crap. We both know you know I'm mu'ren."

Her smile, slow and sly when it came, was not innocent at all. "We do now," she said. "So....... what are you?"

"Excuse me?" He ducked under a low hanging vine.

"What are you? A great beast? A dragon? A what do you call them.... a kappa?"

"Why should I tell you? This is not a conversation you have with someone you just met." Kageyama couldn't believe this little slip of a human girl had the gall to ask him.

"Ahhh come on.... I'll tell you what I am." She leaned toward him in mock conspiracy and Makabe shied away. Loudly, so the forest around them could hear, she whispered,"I'm a dragon."

"You're deranged, that's what you are." Kageyama muttered, calming Makabe and steering him straight.

She ignored him and continued pondering. "You seem to have all your hair, so I'm guessing probably not a kappa."

"If you're so observant, you can figure it out on your own."

"Oh, I will," she said over her shoulder, and she sped to catch up with Sanli.

*~*~*~*~*~*

Later that day, when they stopped for a rest, Kageyama announced they would be camping just outside the next village instead of staying at the inn. His announcement was met with groans.

"No more inns. We're going to run out of coin before we get back to Zhanghai." He glared at Ao, to let her know it was her fault.

The girl smirked from atop the rock she had stretched out on when they stopped to rest."Well then, with the coin we save on a room, I propose we buy dinner. The egg tarts there are divine," she said.

"What? No!" Kageyama exploded. "Why do you think you get a say in this? Why does she think she has a say in this?" He looked to the other two men for support. Zakhar laughed and Sanli just shrugged. "No inn, no egg tart. We'll hunt or fish tonight." Zakhar, still laughing, walked down to a nearby stream to fill his canteen, and Sanli followed. The girl slipped off her rock and approached Kageyama. He turned his back to her and started gathering together his things in preparation for leaving.

She stopped and spoke from behind him. "Zhong Wengao. He's the magistrate in the next town and a good friend of mine. I'm thinking of stopping and seeing him. We always drink far too much together. Sometimes I let slip things I don't mean to." Kageyama stopped packing but said nothing. "Perhaps about some forbidden rituals that I've recently witnessed-"

Kageyama rounded on her, arms raised in exasperation. "Tiger's teeth! Girl, are you honestly threatening me over egg tart right now?!"

The girl looked unabashed. "As I said, they're divine."

Kageyama sighed.

He put down his pack on the leaf strewn ground and approached her slowly, as a predator approaches trapped prey. Watching him warily, she took a step back, and another, stopping when her back met a tree. Smiling, Kageyama kept going, leaning down until their faces were a fingers length apart. She met his eyes warily, as an animal does when it knows it has been cornered.

Kageyama bent down, his mouth beside her ear, voice low. "I don't know what you want here girl, but I can assure you, you won't get it." He leaned closer, arm caging her against the tree from the other side.

The girl said nothing, but this close to her neck he could vividly hear her pulse beating harder, faster, like the thump of horse hooves on a dirt road breaking to canter.

Glad his threat was working, he moved closer, breath hot on her neck. She smelled of sweat and jasmine oil, water and forest, and something else he could not name. "Threaten us again, and I'll leave you somewhere they'll never even find your bones."

"Sho Sensei?" Kageyama turned, which was awkward, close as he was to the girl. Sanli had returned, canteen filled, and was watching them in surprise. "What are you doing?"

Satisfied he had finally scared the girl into obedience, Kageyama took a step back.

Just as he did, the girl, Ao, took a step forward. She rested a hand on his forearm, her nails lightly drawing across the many scars that zigzagged bag and forth across his flesh. Kageyama looked down at her hand in surprise. "Lord Kageyama was just telling me how much he wanted me to introduce you to my friend Zhong Wengao when we reach the next town."

Wrenching his arm from her grasp with a snarl, Kageyama looked down at the girl in disbelief. She looked up at him and smiled cheerily. "Right, Sho Sensei?"

"No!" Was this girl fearless or just stupid? At a loss for what else he could do, he found himself simply yelling again "No egg tarts!" like a petulant child.

"Come on Kageyama. We can get more coin when we get back to the coast," Zakhar had returned, and was watching the exchange with Sanli.

"Oh for the love of- fine! We can get the ruddy tarts!" Kageyama threw his arms up in the air as he walked back to his things. "But just the tarts! No three course meals or ten-year-wine or whole goose."

"Deal." The girl followed him and stuck out her hand for him to shake. Kageyama wondered if she had picked up the gesture from Zakhar.  "I'll even agree to help you fish. I'm good at it," she said.

Ignoring her hand, Kageyama tied his pack to Makabe's saddle. "You better be, with the amount you eat," he said, then swung onto Makabe and rode ahead.

*~*~*~*~*~*

That was how, hours later, they all sat around a too-small table at the nearby inn, staring at a plate piled high with creamy egg tarts that had just been placed before them.

The girl had been surprisingly good at fishing, rolling up her linen pants and wading into the river near their campsite without complaint. She caught enough for herself and Zakhar, who became unbelievable clumsy the second he set foot in water, constantly slipping and splashing and scaring all the fish away.

The window beside their table was open, letting in the cooling night air and the sound of travelers passing on the road outside. Zakhar grabbed his beard in both hands and leaned out the window, wringing out a few more drops of water.

"You look a little wet there, Zakhar," commented Sanli dryly.

Zakhar shifted with a squelch in his seat. "If man were meant to fish he would have fins."

"How many Zakhar?" Kageyama asked, scanning the bar around him. He took a deep breath, through his nose, then another.

"A lot. I'd need to be nothing but fins. If it weren't for Ao here, I would'a gone hungry." He patted Ao on the shoulder. The girl nodded, mouth already full of tart.

"Not fins," said Kageyama, darting his eyes around the bar to show what he meant. "I meant how many mu'ren."

Kageyama had smelled the other mu'ren the second he had walked in. However, in the narrow, crowded tavern, filled with food and bodies, it was hard to distinguish what smell came from where.

"Oh," said Zakhar glancing down at his arms at the black lines there that only he could understand. Kageyama always wondered what they showed. Northern magic was something even he had little knowledge of.

"Two," said Zakhar after staring at his arms for a moment. "The man in green over at the bar and... I think the woman at the table by the window? A horse and a dog. Nothing to worry about."

Kageyama nodded and relaxed. Members of the Dama, or Great Horse Clan, ran from confrontation rather than inciting it, and the Daquan, the Great Hound clan, were almost universally amiable.

A low, pastry punctuated chuckle came from the girl. "Humans can be dangerous too, you know," she said around her third tart.

Kageyama looked at the girl. Flakes of pastry clung to the corners of her mouth and down her front like molting skin. For someone so obsessive about her personal hygiene, (she always insisted they camp near a water source so she could bathe), she ate like an animal.

At that moment the barman stopped by their table with their four tankards of ale. Kageyama took his and eagerly chugged some of the bitter liquid, hoping it would soften the edges of his aggravation.

"So... why do you want to summon The Sixth God exactly?" The girl asked.

Kageyama choked and bent over his mug, coughing ale back into it to avoid spraying it all over the table. He looked up to see Sanli doing something similar. Zakhar had frozen, a tart halfway to his mouth. "How does she know?" He asked.

"She... saw us at the temple... near Nan'ye," Sanli replied between coughs.

"Hah, and you tell me I need to be more careful," laughed Zakhar. "Oh this is rich. How the hell did she sneak up on YOU," he asked Kageyama.

"Rain," Kageyama growled out, wiping ale from his chin.

"Is anyone going to answer my question?" The girl repeated. "Why do you want to summon The-" Zakhar's giant hand quickly shot out and covered her mouth. Her eyes glared at him above his fingers, which covered half her face easily.

"Sorry, but I like my head where it is," he said, shrugging. The girl rolled her eyes, and he took his hand away, holding out an egg tart as a peace offering. The girl took it and shoved in her mouth, swallowing it almost whole.

"Fine. Why were you performing a certain ritual to a certain god the other night?" She said, wiping crumbs from her chin. Noticing the other crumbs down her front, she began brushing herself off indignantly, as though the crumbs had positioned themselves across her chest and lap of their own accord.

Kageyama and Zakhar looked to Sanli. Sanli paused, his dark green eyes thoughtful, before he answered. "I want to ask her a question."

The girl stopped battling with the crumbs and looked up. "That's it? Just a question? You mean ask FOR something, right? Money, power, success in love and war, that sort of thing?"

"No," said Sanli, shaking his head. "Just a simple question. Nothing else."

"Hmmm, I doubt that," said the girl, grabbing another egg tart and eating it greedily. "Nobuuhdy vrisits ah chemple rishout caush."

The three men looked confused.

She swallowed and repeated. "No one visits a temple without cause." Sanli just smiled and shrugged.

"And what about you, why were you at the temple that ni-" Kageyama started to ask cuttingly, but then a commotion outside on the road caught his attention. The window beside their table faced the road, but the inn itself was situated lower than the road. Looking out it, one could only see the feet and legs of those passing by, and in turn those on the inside were mostly obscured from the the view of those on the road.

Outside now Kageyama could see several sets of horse legs had stopped, muscled and healthy looking. A pair of sturdy looking carriage wheels squeaked to a halt at the edge of his vision. One of the horses pawed the road, dust rising beneath its restless hoof, and Kageyama's sharp eyes caught a flash of an insignia on the horse's iron shoe.

The seal of The Green King.

"Get down!" Kageyama said, ducking beneath the table and motioning to the other two men to do the same.

A split second later a voice rang out from the door. "Innkeep!"

The innkeep hurried to meet the man who stood in the doorway, but was slowed down by what seemed like uncontrollable bowing all the way across the tavern. From between the table and chair legs, Kageyama could see armored boots and the hem of a cloak in the familiar leaf green that was reserved for the servants of The Green Throne.

"I need your finest food and drink for four men," the man in the green cloak demanded. "Pack it for travel. As soon as possible." The innkeep rushed to obey, and the man turned from the door with a swish of his cloak and returned to where the rest of his party was waiting on the road outside.

"Who do you think it is?" whispered Zakhar.

"Four men... means at most three guards. Not enough for a royal escort..." said Sanli, eyes flicking left and right as he checked off conditions in his mind.

Kageyama drew a deep breath. Along with the smells of the inn, sour spilt ale, fresh baked pastry, fried garlic from a meat dish, and the varying stenches of the patrons, he could smell the strong sweet musk of horse from the window.

"One of the lower houses, probably," he said, and motioned it was safe to come out from under the table.

Kageyama and the others carefully emerged from beneath the table. Ao was watching them curiously, still munching on egg tarts. "Trouble with the Throne?" She asked.

Kageyama ignored her. Quickly he flagged down the innkeep, who was rushing around like a headless chicken uselessly hurrying the rest of his staff. "Innkeep, find out where those men are going and what road they're going by. Discreetly." He pressed a silver coin into the inkeep's palm.

The innkeep stopped and stared at the coin in his palm, then back up at Kageyama. "My lord, excuse this humble soul, but they're with the The Green Throne. It's more than my life's worth to question their comings and goings."

Kageyama pressed a second coin into the man's palm. "Well, I suppose it wouldn't be rude to ask," the innkeep said as he slipped the coins into his apron pocket. He hurried to where one of the cooks had just emerged from the kitchen, tottering under several large lacquer boxes filled with food. They both went outside and a second later the innkeep's voice rang out, unnaturally loud.

"May I inquire as to the most honorable lord's destination? I only ask because, well, the roads east of here have been troubled as of late. Bandits and such, unfortunately."

The soldier that had stood in the doorway answered. "The lord's business is his own. We already came from the east. The roads were fine. Are you saying The Green Kingdom is not safe?" Kageyama rolled his eyes.

The innkeep turned into a blubbering, apologizing mess. They all heard the clink of armor as the soldier remounted, then the whole party moved off with the clopping of hooves and trundle of wheels.

Almost collectively, the three men men at the table let out a breath.

"Do you gentlemen owe someone money, by any chance?" Ao asked.

"Something like that," answered Sanli.

"Phew. Good thing we tethered the horses out back," said Zakhar.

Kageyama agreed and reached for an egg tart, but the plate was already empty.

*~*~*~*~*~*

They continued heading east toward the coast. In the days that followed, the girl became increasingly persistent in asking Kageyama what he was. Kageyama was annoyed and baffled by her curiosity, until one afternoon as they made camp Zakhar sidled up to him, and, after checking to make sure Ao was out of earshot, said:

"Kageyama, do me a favor and don't tell the girl what you are. We have a bet going."

Kageyama lifted the heavy saddle from Makabe's back and placed it on the ground. "Ah, so this is why she's been pestering me all week. Is there anything you won't bet on, Zakhar?"

"No. And our bet expires tonight, so just don't say anything until after that."

"Wasn't intending to," said Kageyama, starting to rub down Makabe, the curry brush smoothing out wrinkles in the stallion's oil black coat. If he could help it, he wouldn't talk to the girl at all. Ever.

Suddenly a thought struck him and he turned. "Zakhar, your marks, they don't recognize the girl as mu'ren do they?"

"Nope, I told you. She's human."

"And me? Do they recognize what I am?"

"Of course not. You have the Green King's seal..." Zakhar's eyes widened as he realized Kageyama's train of thought. Then he laughed. "Haha, what would be the chances? Just leave the girl alone. She's harmless. And human." Zakhar turned and went off to search for firewood.

Kageyama turned back to Makabe. "I wouldn't be so certain...."

And there it was. Once the idea was planted, Kageyama could not get rid of it. It grew in his mind, spreading and branching like a crawling vine, and drew together all the different things over the past week that had stood apart, but Kageyama had been unable or uninterested in connecting. The girl's endurance, her appetite. Her confidence and lack of fear of him. The way she would ask questions and already seem to know the answers.

"I'm a dragon," she had said, and yet Kageyama had ignored her, taking her declaration as empty bragging and instead relied on the fact that Zakhar's tattoos didn't stir around her.

All the branching vines twined back to one root: The girl was mu'ren hiding in human form.

Just like him.

"Where is Ao?" Kageyama asked, standing abruptly from his task. Logs lay scattered haphazardly in the fire pit.

Sanli looked at him strangely. Perhaps because Kageyama had never called Ao anything other than 'that girl' before. "I think she went down to the stream to bathe."

"Is that so..." Kageyama said, with what he thought was nonchalance. Then, turning, he struck off into the undergrowth the opposite direction as the stream. Sanli watched him go suspiciously.

Kageyama circled back around the camp, out of sight, until he reached the stream. Silently he moved through the bushes, in a way he had practiced for centuries. He told himself what he was doing was for the good of their mission, and for Sanli's safety, but still his skin prickled like a guilty child sneaking food at night.

Now that he had finally thought on it, Kageyama was certain. The girl, Ao, was mu'ren, with a seal hiding her presence from Zakhar. All he would do is check, quickly, and find the seal on her body, to confirm his suspicions. In addition, if he could find something that told him what kind of mu'ren she was, lingering scales or a tail or such, it would help him contrive a plan to get rid of her.

Kageyama idly ran a hand across his shirt, checking the buttons. Beneath his shirt his own seal, the many zih seal of the Green King was written in ink, permanently stuck to his skin. It marked him as 'safe', as property of the Green King, and as such, he was able to pass in and out of any gate in the empire and fool all lower ranking enhancements, such as Zakhar's tattoos.

Many mu'ren would consider it a great honor, a blessing to wear the seal of the Green King on their skin. But for Kageyama, who had spent so much of his long life as his own master, it rankled.

A sudden splash and playful humming from up ahead caught Kageyama's focus. He slowed his movements, using the moss and thick leaf fall to cushion his foot falls, and occasionally using his hands to help him keep low below the screen of ferns and fallen trees.

Finally he reached a rotting log that blocked him from view of the bathing girl. Just a quick look, just to find out if she was mu'ren or not. Kageyama steeled himself.

Slowly, carefully, he stood and peered over the log, fingers sinking into the soft moss that covered it.

The girl stood in the stream, which was so shallow the water only came up to her ankles. As such, Kageyama could see her body in its entirety. The girl squatted down, filling a large leaf that she had twisted into a cone like shape with water and then standing and dumping it over her head. Her back was toward him, her hair thrown over one shoulder. Kageyama's quick eyes scanned her body, but there was nothing, no seal, no scales, not even a single scar. Perhaps on her front? As if to oblige him, the girl turned, bent to fill her leaf cup again, and then straightened...Kageyama quickly scanned her front as well, then ducked down behind the log again, ignoring his burning face.

There had been nothing. No seal, no zih in ink, no lingering scales or fur or tails from a mu'ren form. Just smooth white human skin. The girl was human. Feeling embarrassed and suddenly desperate to be elsewhere, Kageyama started to creep away on all fours...

"Stop," a voice commanded directly above him.

For the third time in less than a week, someone had managed to sneak up on him. Kageyama sighed.

Kageyama slowly raised his head and looked up along the shaft of an arrow that was pulled taunt on a rickety bow and pointed directly toward his eye. Behind the arrow stood a wizened old man, dressed in rags of brown and dark green to mimic the undergrowth. His eyes glinted from beneath long droopy eyebrows, and a steel grey beard hung sharply from his chin like an upside down mountain.

"Give me your valuables if you value your life," said the bandit.

*~*~*~*~*~*