Five Kingdoms (2 page)

Sea of a Thousand Winters

T
hey rode hard
and rested only when it was absolutely necessary. Still, there was nothing to be done about mishaps due to weather, due to weariness of both the horses and the people, and due to two assaults by lingering groups of the keirveshen early into their trek from Lower Yvaria. As well, there had been one attack by bandits roaming the Northern Flatlands. The aptly named terrain had turned out to be very much like its southern counterpart, except that the snow appeared to never melt off, regardless of where and when the sun shone upon it. Xu Liang had felt a particular unease with traveling that route, all the while contemplating the possibility of coming upon another giant. It was likely that the concern had not been his alone, though no one had spoken of either the previous incident in the Lower Flatlands, or of the prospect of it repeating in the upper realm. It may have been that the danger was still too recent for all of them and that, for that reason, they had reached a silent consensus to not provoke fate.

Whatever the reason and whatever fate’s intentions, injuries among the group had been relatively few and minor in Upper Yvaria. There were no losses of life, but a definitive lack of hope was stirring among them when the companions finally arrived in Willenthurn, twenty-one days after their departure from Vilciel…three days late.

Sedschal’s Inn was
packed to the very seams of its structure the night ten more strangers came seeking shelter. Willenthurn, being a port city, was undoubtedly accustomed to strange folk wandering its streets. That served as a benefit in avoiding a surplus of attention from those who dared the weather. Unfortunately, it turned out that there were no rooms left available at the inn when they arrived. In fact, there had not been any available for several hours, if not more than a day. Reportedly, the town had been under the assault of a blizzard for the past three days prior to the companions’ arrival. Patrons leaving in the morning were returning early in the evening after learning that their ships—or they themselves—were going nowhere in the ever-deepening snow and the gale-force winds that whipped it about in icy sheets.

Xu Liang and the others had struggled to make it into town—the plateau landscape of the Northern Flatlands made it nearly impossible to see ahead of them—and none of them had gone untouched by the cold’s harsh bite, not even Alere or Shirisae. The elves were immune to common illness as humans understood it, but their skin was no better shield against the driving pellets of ice, or the sheer force of the wind itself, or the deeply penetrating cold. Both elves huddled among their companions on a space of floor the group had managed to claim—like so many other latecomers were forced to do—and shivered while their skin and bones ached just as much as everyone else’s.

Xu Liang, who no longer benefited from the protection of a highly fortified spirit, and who’d never partaken of a long, grueling trek through lands quite so harsh as what the northernmost region had offered, sat staring at two places on his hand where the skin had split open for no apparent reason other than cold and dryness. The wounds were small and didn’t bleed much, or ache beyond a mildly vexing sting, but he envisioned the damage worse, and suddenly thought he had an idea of what it felt like to have a farmer’s hands. The matter was, of course, trivial in comparison to the internal damages that had been done to him both by the ice giant, and by the Phoenix.

“You should...let Taya put something on that.”

The voice was vaguely familiar, Xu Liang thought to himself, somewhat caustically. He recalled having heard it more than twenty days ago, but not since, at least not in a direct manner.

Xu Liang lowered his hand so that the sleeve of his robe draped it, then glanced at Tristus, feeling instant remorse for his thoughts. Who was he to speak to them of unity, if he himself was undermining it with resentment or impatience?

Of the bearers of the Celestial Swords, only Guang Ci seemed to be making a genuine effort to insert himself into the role, to bond with his fellow bearers in the way that the Blades themselves longed to unite with one another through attentiveness and sincerity. It seemed that way, but Xu Liang couldn’t be certain since the guard may well have been doing nothing more than following his master’s instructions to not disregard the importance of the brotherhood the Blades formed. The language barrier ensured that he could do little more than regard his fellow bearers through the wordless act of fighting alongside them. How could Guang Ci truly understand and trust people who spoke in tongues he couldn’t begin to comprehend? And what of the ingrained contempt nearly all Fanese people felt toward outsiders? Would that renew itself once they returned home? What about the darkness inherent of the Night Blade, the malice the others had reported to Xu Liang—each in their own unsettling words—which generated from the sword, and had driven its two previous bearers mad?

Guang Ci was nothing, if not strong-willed. Xu Liang knew that well and he suspected that this Malek Vorhaven the others had mentioned had been inclined to dark thoughts to begin with, thus making the Night Blade’s work easy. Guang Ci was a man of honor and dignity, even if impetuous at times. Perhaps he could come to understand the Night Blade and govern its power, rather than be governed by it.

“Why would gods who were supposed to be good forge a weapon so...evil?” Taya asked, apparently seeing what Xu Liang’s gaze had settled on.

“The gods cannot be so simply defined by such terms as good and evil,” Xu Liang answered. Then he looked away from the Night Blade, and at the young dwarf, adding, “In the legends of my homeland, the original bearers of the Dawn and Night Blades were birth brothers.”

Taya looked upon him with interest piqued, and so Xu Liang felt inclined to continue.

“As children,” he said, “they were attacked by a beast from the Infernal Regions—this would have been before the time of mortal man, when the Heavens and Hells existed as two realms side-by-side, touching but not embracing, ever close but always opposite. Our ancestral and spiritual beginnings were at the center of this, in the Womb of Thought, the place from which would be born all creatures of reason that would later come to inhabit the physical world.”

“Which was formed around a sleeping dragon,” Taya recalled.

Xu Liang nodded. “Yes.”

“So, what about the brothers?” the young dwarf asked.

Xu Liang obliged her curiosity by continuing the tale. “While both brothers faced the monster bravely and survived the encounter, neither came away unscathed. Each of them was given a nightmare.

“Zan Jang, bearer of the Dawn Blade, fought the darkness that had entered his thoughts, though it terrified him so greatly that he was said to have aged dramatically beneath the strain of what he had witnessed. While he maintained the strength of his youth, his hair had turned silver and forevermore there was a terrible sadness in his eyes. Zan Dexiu, bearer of the Night Blade, pulled his own dark dreams deeper inside of him and attempted to fortify his mind and soul against this affliction, to lock it away forever. His success was also his failure. The darkness trapped inside of him was as a seed of malevolence. Growing slowly, it would one day bear poison fruit—bitterness and envy that would drive two brothers apart.

“They were destined to fall in love with the same woman. This woman would choose Zan Jang, and while Zan Jang would always place his brother first, even to the point of forsaking his lover, Zan Dexiu would forever remain cold toward him, secretly plotting betrayals that only a brother could forgive. Eventually, Zan Jang enlisted his services with Cheng Yu, adopted son of the Jade Emperor. Joining Zan Jang was Shi Tan, his lover and bearer of the Storm Blade. Zan Dexiu offered his services to the Jade Emperor himself, but was referred to his daughter, Mei Qiao. The goddess also held under her command the ancient and much revered warrior, Li Huan Yue, bearer of the Twilight Blade, said to have been the first to study the doctrines written by the Jade Emperor, who had existed previously as pure thought.”

The atmosphere felt strangely quiet after Xu Liang had finished telling the tale. He realized when he opened his eyes—which had fallen shut during the recounting of the legend—that he had gained a greater audience than he’d started with. Strangers who had been huddled in the general vicinity of the companions had turned their heads and listened in. A handful of children had wandered close, two having strayed into the circle the companions formed, where they sat in attentive silence, awed and delighted by the peculiar story they had undoubtedly not been expecting when their parents brought them in from the storm.

“How does it end?” a small girl asked. She appeared no more than eight in years, but there was a promising light in her blue eyes, an awareness and intellect that was not often displayed by one so young.

Intrigued by the depth of this child’s interest, Xu Liang said, “That is yet to be determined.”

Taking that to mean that the inn’s incidental storyteller was finished performing for the night, the adults dispersed, returning to sit with their own companions or turning back around in their seats, if they were so fortunate as to have a table. Talk rose among those who considered themselves entertained, and those who didn’t. The children were eventually summoned by their parents, one of whom had the audacity to toss a few coins onto the rough wooden floor in front of Xu Liang.

Everyone else in the group stared at the coins, their expressions illustrating various states of amaze at the concept of someone mistaking Xu Liang for a beggar.

Xu Liang himself simply closed his eyes. His own shock came with the breath of laughter that escaped someone seated just to his left. Even as Xu Liang looked narrowly at Tristus, the knight was attempting to hide his amusement behind his glove. As Xu Liang and others continued to observe him, Tristus forced a cough and lowered his hand, biting his lip while his mouth insisted on forming a smile.

“Sorry,” he murmured, but it was too late. The infection had already spread.

To the other side of Tristus, Taya giggled behind her fist, which made Tarfan clear his throat in a blustery attempt to cover his own escaping laughter. Shirisae turned her head away to hide her grin from view while Alere smiled only a little. It was Fu Ran’s sudden bellowing that made everyone burst into some form of laughter with the exception of Xu Liang and his bodyguards, the latter of who witnessed the scene with curiosity.

Xu Liang simply tucked his hands into his sleeves and maintained what he decided was a calm, dignified expression in the face of their collective amusement. “At least you are unified in something,” he said, which only made them laugh louder.

The night grew
darker, and colder. At some point, Alere had braved the storm to go to the stable next door—which was also run by the innkeeper—in order to check on the horses. By coincidence or some secret communication between the two of them, Gai Ping volunteered to go with the Verressi hunter. The two were not absent for long.