Threads 194-Liminal 3

They landed without a sound on the crumbling courtyard in front of it, and Ling Qi found her eyes wandering to the withered trees and gardens. There was a deep melancholy here beyond the association of bare branches and dead flowers. Yet, in the corner of her eye, she could catch the shimmer of dreams, of people and life in what she knew instinctively to be the modern Sect. This was no abandoned ruin like she had went to with Bao Qian.

It was an echo and a reflection.

Somehow, she understood that it was on the edge of fading, and that one day soon, a new layer would appear atop it, and no longer would it rest upon the top of the tottering heap of human construction.

Without a word, she entered the dusty hall, Sixiang tagging along behind. In the smaller, humbler entryway, she pushed through skeins of shadow and mist in the shape of people, letting the whispering thoughts that held them together brush off of her mind. She came to stand before the Sect’s work board at the rear of the hall, looking at curled and yellow paper still clinging here and there.

She brushed her fingers across one, uncurling it and revealing the crumbling wax seal of the Argent Peak Sect.

It was good to be away from the clan. Away from relatives who looked on with disdain and cousins who sneered for his lack of ambition.

Ling Qi shook her head, the scent of ink filling her nose.

Home. This was home, not the cold and stifling manor house. Here in the library, she could study and research without concern for status among her sisters and dull men that she despised.

She pressed a hand to her temple, grimacing as whispers beat against her concentration.

It was good to be irrelevant. To not matter in the games of counts and duke. Here, children could be children for a time, not mere weapons and tools in the sharpening.

He raged at the blank walls of the hovel they called his home, incensed that his family would banish him to this backwater. What use was there in these sleepy scholars and decadent philosophizing? A man wielded the sword against the foes of the Empire!

Ling Qi let out a sharp hiss, banishing the whispers. Around her, the shades who had begun to gather scattered like dust before a gust of wind.

“Yeah, you’ve got it,” Sixiang praised. “But there are a lot more where those came from.”

“I’ll keep that in mind.” Ling Qi knew from studying basic history that the Argent Peak Sect had been a minor institution once, a place for arts and formation research like so many minor sects still were.

“A place to dump people who can’t or won’t get with the rat race,” Sixiang said mirthlessly, pacing around the room and peering at the faded paint upon its walls.

Ling Qi knew that, but she hadn’t really considered what it meant. She remembered that elaborate “temple” Xuan Shi had taken her to, which hadn’t even been an artificial tribulation but just a game for couples. It had seemed so absurd and frivolous that she had put it out of her mind.

She wondered what it must feel like for the handful of elders who remembered to see their home transformed so completely. It was sad that the world didn’t allow kind things to exist for long. You had to be strong to be safe, and to be strong, you couldn’t afford such leisure.

“Not everyone has to be powerful,” Sixiang disagreed. “I don’t think things would be better if they were.”

Ling Qi turned away from the job board. “That’s what Renxiang wants, I think. Maybe the foreigners have the best idea of it. The strongest go off to be spirits and protectors and leave everyone else to their own devices.”

“Of course, it’d be rough to convince anyone of that if they’re not already doing it,” Sixiang noted.

“Let’s keep going.”

At the back of the hall, the floor crumbled away into a twisting maze of broken foundation stones, supporting beams, and pieces of roofing. For the first time in many months, Ling Qi found herself physically picking her way along narrow paths and unstable footing. She couldn’t move here as she could outside.

Descending didn’t change the pressure of whispers on her mind, but they were less clear and less forceful here. Soon, she found her way out onto a wooden span, sticking out of the maze-like pile like a loose rib poking out of an unmarked grave. It gave her a greater view of the ruins that spread out below, built or carved into the side of the titanic tree.

It was a chaotic sprawl, uncounted layers of buildings piled impossibly atop each other. Roofs merged into foundations. The ruins hung like a dry and dead bush over the great platform of wood that supported it, and in the distance, she could hear the thunderous crumbling of material collapsing and falling endlessly into the mist below.

“What are you looking for?” Sixiang asked, standing beside her and looking out over the twisting labyrinth of castle, city, village, and more. Below, in the jumble, the streets thronged with both shades and faeries who lit the mad streets with their silver glow.

“I’m not really sure,” Ling Qi admitted. “I want to see what I can learn from the past, but I don’t quite know where to begin.”

Maybe she was thinking too hard about this. If there was any place to simply follow her impulses, it was here.

She trailed off as she felt a warmth in her hand and glanced down to see the compass. Its face was lit from within, and the crystal shard inside had stopped spinning and instead, vibrated in place, pointing out towards a mountain of jumbled palaces and rickety tree platforms.

The whole city shook, and she saw a wide boulevard below split apart, spilling junk and ruins to either side as something sinuous and scaly surfaced. Its back was iridescent green and shimmered with psychedelic color. She saw a reptilian head surface far in the distance before plunging back into the ruin.

This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

It was burrowing in the same direction the crystal was pointing in.

Ling Qi leapt down. Wind, dust, and whispers rushed past her ears as she twisted in midair, angling her body to land atop the rushing scales of the behemoth below. Wind bent and hardened, and this time, she jumped again off planes of hardened air.

Her feet struck the moving scales with a hard crack, and Ling Qi felt the vibration of impact shooting up her legs, forcing her to bend her knees to absorb the force. She skidded backward, the soft soles of her shoes sliding along the scales as if they were polished marble.The wind from the creature’s movement shoved her backward as well, resisting any attempt to control it. It was only as she neared the downward curve of the creature’s back that she managed to hook her fingers into the seam between two scales.

There, teetering on the edge of a fall into the chaotic ruins below, she finally stopped, wind whipping at her hair and clothes. She laughed.

“You’re definitely getting in the spirit of things!” Sixiang laughed as well, and only then did Ling Qi realize the muse had a grip on one of her sleeves. Sixiang was weightless and flapped freely behind her like a wind sock on a festival day. As she glanced back, the muse shimmered and shrunk, scrambling up onto her shoulder, no bigger than any of the infant faeries she had seen.