Threads 235-Expanse 1

“Your thoughts, Ling Qi?” Cai Renxiang asked. She stood beside an ornate table set in the middle of the snowy field. A map of high quality lay weighted upon it, and fresh ink was drying in the icy air. Ling Qi glanced across it, taking in the marked out course of the river and a few other locations already spied.

They were not doing this alone. Cartographic teams were already building temporary shelters by the lakeside below, but there were limits to what first and second realms could do.

Ling Qi blew out a breath. “We’ll be exposed, like I said, taking the furthest south region. But this river can definitely be tamed for shipping. It will just need a lot of work in some places. There are many good locations for fields as well, despite the cold. Zhengui thinks there are fires underground, heating the earth and keeping it from freezing entirely.”

“We will be exposed at first,” Cai Renxiang agreed, already knowing her objections. “But we are close to the Wang as well, and the campaigns are not over. Showing that we do not cower from martial duty is important to the success of our more peaceful projects.”

“It is not a pleasant acknowledgement that such views must be catered to, but it does not do to ignore the realities on the ground,” Gan Guangli said, cupping his chin. “There are many good locations for fortification in the south as well. With good planning, we can make this place secure.”

“The news on the soil is pleasant, by the by.” Cai Renxiang looked up from the map. “Does your Zhengui believe these fires under the earth are dangerous?”

<Gui does not think it is that kind of fire. It is hot smelly water and bits of fire-in-earth.>

<I, Zhen, have traced the lines of the earth’s veins. If Big Sister lets us roam, I may keep the pressure light.>

“Mostly, no,” Ling Qi spoke for him. ”And where it is, he thinks he can bleed any dangerous pressure off these veins of the earth.”

“Very good,” Cai Renxiang said. “And the mountain in the southeast, cloaked peak to root in thunderclouds?”

“From asking some contacts,” Ling Qi said, thinking of Yu Nuan and her new spirit, “and my own scouting, I believe Thunderclap Mountain is the winter grazing site of a family or small herd of dragon horses.”

“Troubling,” Gan Guangli glanced toward the dark smudge on the southern sky. “We will have to discern their grazing routes and ensure we are not in their way.”

Dragon horses, or qilin, were very powerful spirits, just shy of actual dragons themselves and with an ornery temperament to match. They were one of the few species of spirit beasts which could naturally attain the sixth realm.

Cai Renxiang’s inkbrush swiftly wrote a note, encircling the dot representing the mountain in a wide zone. “I will inform the cartographers to keep a twenty kilometer distance and to carry gifts of fresh fruit until we can discern their breed and negotiate.”

“Were there any more notable items in your initial flyover?” her liege asked.

“Only a few very large beasts,” Ling Qi replied, moving up to the table to jot down a few more places where she had seen something particularly large and mobile.

“Good. Now, I will be overseeing and organizing the cartographic teams. Ling Qi, Gan Guangli, I charge you with more thoroughly mapping the lines of the river and the places it descends into the earth. I expect daily reports on this,” Cai Renxiang ordered crisply. “If you believe my presence will open a venue you could not handle on your own, inform me, and I will arrive as necessary.”

The two of them voiced their agreement and bowed as Cai Renxiang dismissed both table and map to storage, leaving only four impressions in the snow to show it had ever been there. She bid them farewell and descended to the lake below.

Ling Qi looked at Gan Guangli. “Are you concerned by how long it is taking her to speak of whatever her mother said to her?”

Gan Guangli rolled his broad shoulders, peering up at the sky. “Not as of yet. I trust the resolve in our lady’s eyes. She has not lost her goal. She is only uncertain of the path. She will speak to us when her thoughts are in order.”

“Aren’t you yang cultivators supposed to be the pushy ones?” Ling Qi asked as they began to walk south along the river’s edge.

“I give my support freely, openly, and without obfuscation. Is that not enough? Let me turn the question to you, Miss Ling. What scares you so about her silence?”

“The Duchess is terrifying. Yet somehow, Cai Renxiang, who I saw near the edge of breaking, however briefly, under stress, is now so much more…”

“You worry that the Duchess changed something, perhaps by force?”

She let out a long breath. “I do.”

“Well, it is arrogant of me, perhaps, as one who has been absent so long,” Gan Guangli said thoughtfully. “But… I do not believe so. Lady Cai remains Lady Cai, tempered where once she was perhaps brittle, but Lady Cai all the same.”

Ling Qi chuckled. “That’s the first time I’ve ever heard you say something that could even be construed as negative about her, Gan Guangli. Should I be watching you for treason?”

He laughed, the booming sound scaring up birds from the trees. “Alas, I have revealed myself!”

Ling Qi snorted and shook her head. She wished she could have his confidence, but in the end, she just had to trust their lady. Right now, they had a river to explore.

A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

***

Ling Qi lost count of the pockets of air in the stone and earth they found. Most were just that, pockets in the porous stone that lay under the soil in the region, half-flooded and bearing only small populations of odd fish or silt with odd minerals. Others stretched on, forming galleries not unlike those she had seen beneath the thunder palace, with structures of damp stone that nonetheless held a vibrant, lively qi.

In some places where the river and its tributaries went under the earth, they found only claustrophobic tunnels, passages barely wider than the water that flowed through them. In others, they found pools and lakes, hidden grottos among the stone filled with odd plants which they dutifully retrieved cuttings and samples from for testing at the Sect.

In one instance, they found a mountain whose eastern half looked as if it were a sculpture whose maker had ripped a great fistful of clay from. This left it almost hollow in a way that should have led to collapse. Within was a clear, still lake of water, bitter with salt, and surrounded by strange and brittle fungal blooms like scraggly trees, the air filled with visible, drifting spores. The very air seemed to drink in light and heat and sound, and although Gan Guangli was very uncomfortable with the saline grotto, Ling Qi found herself feeling relaxed, especially as she gazed into the shrouded depths of the saltwater pool. The air was thick with darkness and hunger, a silent isolation that resonated with her oldest arts.