Threads 173-Emissary 8

Ling Qi’s eyebrows rose in surprise as she faced her escort in the hall outside of their suite. Ilsur looked back at her impassively, arms crossed over his chest.

“You are prepared for the meeting?” the barbarian asked.

“I am,” Ling Qi replied, squaring her shoulders and meeting his gaze. “I am surprised that you will be my guide.”

“It is a gesture of trust.” Ilsur smiled, but it did not reach his eyes.

<Makes sense, It’s like having a lord’s wife show you around back home,> Sixiang mused.

“Please lead on,” Ling Qi said, dipping her head. It did make sense given what they had learned. She wondered if the nomad’s pride as a man chafed at the role or if he had already come to accept such things.

They began to walk, Ling Qi remaining a step behind, keeping the older man in her sight as they walked. The guards at the bottom of the stair stepped smoothly aside, letting them mount the dark iron stairs.

“You do not care for me, do you, ‘Emissary’?” Ilsur asked as they climbed, not bothering to turn his head.

Ling Qi didn’t allow her expression to change. “I have no conflict with you.”

He snorted in amusement. “Your kin would strike me down if they had the chance. Do not ruin your honesty now, lowlander.”

Ling Qi pursed her lips, acknowledging Sixiang’s prod to not reply too swiftly. “The cloud people and the people of the Empire have fought for a very long time. Your kin raid and steal and kill. It would be stranger if I did like you.”

“This is fair,” Ilsur replied, his footfalls echoing on the metal stairs. “Yet this is true of all people. There is never enough for all. One tribe takes what it can from another, and the one who has been taken from plots to reverse these fortunes. So it has been since the Pure World was shattered.”

Ling Qi did not reply, and Ilsur peered back over his shoulder. “Hah, you understand, of course. I can hear your song of privation, lowlander. You know what it is to have your hollow belly devour all other concerns.”

“People do not need to be that way,” Ling Qi rebutted. “Your kin could trade for the things they need. It is not acceptable in the Empire to kill your neighbors for their things.”

She, of all people, couldn’t say anything about theft.

“It is not?” Ilsur asked. “You are strange then. My wife’s people, they say such things. But in the end, if you tell a village they cannot fight their neighbor’s warriors for the chance to hustle their sheep, it seems to me that they simply make the arrangement of who takes and who is taken from never changes.”

It took a moment for Ling Qi to respond, mostly because she couldn’t say that he was wholly wrong. “Sometimes, that is true. But that does not mean that it isn’t better than just stealing back and forth forever.”

“So my father believes,” Ilsur allowed, mounting the stairs landing. Ahead lay the hall of the redoubt’s second floor. Its iron walls were painted with blue sky overhead and green fields on either side, and the hard floor was carpeted with thick wool. “Follow closely, lowlander.”

Ling Qi nodded coolly, watching his back. Whatever problem Ilsur had with Cai Renxiang, he seemed, if not friendly, then at least less guarded with her. Perhaps she could learn a little more from the odd barbarian.

“Having met and spoken to your wife’s people, I have to wonder what it is like for you, living among them?” Ling Qi asked, following Ilsur into the well lit hall. The cloud tribes were known for being fairly patriarchal; there were no women khans as far as she knew. If even Gan Guangli was bothered by their proscriptions, then surely barbarians must chafe a great deal.

Ilsur did not answer her immediately as he led her past several closed doors. “It is strange, having warmth at all times and unending resources. Their expectations are stranger still, but at least here, only that fussy lump of a sun shaman is bothered by my hunting. I am pleased enough to suffer some discomfort for the future of my tribe.”

Ling Qi frowned. “I had gotten the impression that their opinions on the place of men and women were rather stronger.”

“They are in the south where their citadels stand and among those close to their gods.” Ilsur shrugged. “It is easy to say ‘this is how all things must be’ in the seat of power and comfort.”

“Your wife is one who is close to their gods though,” Ling Qi pointed out.

Ilsur gave a grunt of acknowledgement as they turned a corner. Ling Qi glimpsed a room through an open door, a warmly lit room hung with thick furs and trophy heads of animals both familiar and not. “Jaromila is different. Why do you think she is here among us?”

It confirmed what she had suspected. Those members of the Alaniar assigned here were people who did not fit perfectly with their wider society’s beliefs. “Still, I can hardly believe your people have gone along with this all smoothly.”

“Access to much richer land and graze and knowledge of rituals to propitiate the worst spirits goes a very long way.”

Her eyebrows rose. “What spirits do you speak of?”

Ilsur looked at her, a mirthless smile on his face. “Crone Winter terrifies the dark itself, but she requires sacrifice. If you are not of her people or fail to perform the correct rituals, she will instead take what she wishes.”

Something about the way he said “sacrifices” sounded ominous. These people seemed so pleasant and civilized, but she supposed considering the girl she had met in the shrine, it made sense.

<It’s a ritual. A human deliberately destroying something they value in your name is like a strong drug,> Sixiang murmured. <It’ll get through to almost anything, and the rush of it is real.>

Ling Qi knew that. Even in the Empire people poured out libations, burned offerings, and sometimes even sacrificed animals, though that was rare in cities outside of big festivals. Still, something else about what he had said bothered her.

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“You make it sound like Crone Winter is active in the world, taking things herself. I had thought her to be a great spirit,” Ling Qi said with a frown.

“Because she is. I have seen her vessel twice, once amongst the clouds at my father’s second wedding, and once in the harshest winter of my youth when the tribe lost many children to the cold. It is a horrible thing, and I hope I do not see it again.”

Ling Qi felt disquiet at Ilsur’s words. The fear in them was real, yet how could they be true? Having been in that shrine to the moon and the night, she was certain that the aspects were great spirits. What then had Ilsur seen? Something like Xin perhaps? An avatar of a greater spirit?