Threads 262-Yonder 3

The short journey through the woods proved pleasant. There was no rising hostility or pressure in the air, and their only watchers were circling birds and small beasts that skittered away at their passage. There was, however, a tension in the air, a feeling like the earth and the wind and the water holding their breaths.

“This place is contested,” Ling Qi assessed.

“Like a much besieged castle,” Gan Guangli agreed.

She saw their greeters long before Gan Guangli, and she reached the open meadow at the base of a larger hill around which the shallow river flowed. There were a half dozen of these odd little beasts. They had long-haired pelts in colors ranging from brown to black, blunt but rodent-like heads, and strange tails half the length of their own bodies, were wide and flat like a boat oar with a rough scaly texture.

Five of them sat on the haunches, waving their front paws and seemingly chattering to the sixth member, who sat in the center, It was about twice as large as the other beasts, as tall as a short human while sitting on its haunches, and had a shimmering white pelt. Strangely, for a beast, it also had something like a harness on its body from which what looked like little stone tools dangled.

“Five attendants. One leader,” Ling Qi reported.

“Cultivation?”

“First and second realm. Leader is low third, second stage or thereabout.`

Gan Guangli raised his eyebrows. “Displaying submission then.”

“Maybe. They’re not imperial spirits. Might have different conventions,” Ling Qi shot back.

“True. Still seeking to avoid violent confrontation.”

“Coming up quickly now,” Ling Qi finished. Any closer and continuing to whisper might be rude.

She saw the moment when the beasts sensed their approach. The smaller ones fanned out behind the larger, white furred beast, and fell back onto all fours. She felt a pang of pity. The smaller ones were terrified. However, the only feeling she sensed from their leader was resolve and acceptance.

The beast did not try to bow as they entered the clearing, instead only lowering its eyes. “Changin, son of Chalun, greets the Lord and Lady of the Peaks in Grandfather’s stead. Have you come at last to complete the pact?”

The voice she heard in her mind had a youthful and brash texture to it, but it was also subdued. She considered her answer, eyes scanning across the rest, feeling their trepidation. She considered the possibility of leading them around the truth, that she had no idea what they were talking about, but… No, that wasn’t what she wanted here.

“You have mistaken us. We come with greetings as new neighbors. I know nothing of preexisting pacts. Are there others of the human tribes in this area?”

Confusion in the form of glances and chattering noises resulted. Even the leader, Changin, seemed a little at a loss.

“There are the cloud people and the storm walkers, who chased them from these lands. Which are you?” he asked.

“In your parlance, the storm walkers. We are the people of the Emerald Seas and the Celestial Empire. We are at war with the cloud men. We are the deputies of Lady Cai, who is the heir of…”

She paused, thinking about how to frame it,before she decided to sing a few bars, a melody of harsh light and unyielding bark. She sang of a star crowning a great tree which pierced the heavens.

The beasts shivered, and even Changin recoiled.

“Forest people…”

“The horned men…”

“Burning North…”

“Our forefathers have told stories of the forest people. You are here to claim these lands?” Changin asked. There was a bitterness in his voice.

“These are our lands now, but men and beasts need not trample each other. We may each have our place.”

“We come as neighbors, not conquerors,” Gan Guangli supported.

There were shades of a lie there. In the end, they had claimed this land. Its conquest was already complete, but this, Ling Qi thought, was an acceptable softening of the truth where its harshest edge would only do harm.

The third realm spirit before them considered this response. A loud thwack of his strange tail silenced the less self-controlled beasts behind him. “If so, pledge no bloodshed in the Falling Waters Palace with true words, and I will show you to Grandfather, who may decide such things.”

It was a little impertinent to demand a serious vow given their relative cultivation, but her pride wasn’t so stiff as to be offended. At the same time, she couldn’t show herself to be easily pushed.

She allowed her hold on her domain to loosen. The gleam of stars in her hair intensified, and when her lips parted to speak, a cold mist billowed out. As a freezing wind, she swore, “We envoys will shed no blood nor take lives in the Falling Waters Palace, save in our defense. So I bind us until we speak with our lady again. This, I swear upon my power.”

“So I swear upon my power,” Gan Guangli agreed in a voice of grinding rock.

A temporary promise with a sharp cut off. She didn’t hold any antipathy for these beasts, but she was not a fool to make lengthy promises to unknown spirits. Similarly, she would only swear on something simple and obvious, which even the dimmest beasts and spirits would recognize.

Changin bowed his head. Having already pressed them, there was nothing more he could say. “Then please, guests, follow me.”

They followed Changin and his attendants further up the river, and soon, the true span of the beasts’ workings became clear. Ling Qi sensed the change in the air as they crossed the threshold of the spirit court’s holding, the way the whirling chaos of natural qi straightened and hardened, taking on an artificial feel. The first physical sign was a rough span of cut wood and branches woven and wedged together into a dam holding back some of the river’s flow. A small, artificial lake, as clear and clean as Snowblossom Lake, was formed behind the dam.

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And there were many of them. As they proceeded upstream, Ling Qi saw that the beasts had diverted the waters’ flow many times, forming pools and ponds of varying size and in great numbers. The trees were much more spaced here, and bright sunlight shone on the sparkling waters. A river that would have been a single, great span instead became a widely spread wetland full of flowing shallow waters.

From those waters, she saw many beasts watching them. She saw the slim shapes of river otters flashing beneath the surface and peeking from the ponds, and there were other smaller furred rodents in various shapes and sizes, as well as frogs and toads.

The area had a scenic beauty to it, but at the same time, it was damaged. She saw many of the strange dams and nests partially washed away, and busy crews of the flat-tailed beasts were working hard, dragging logs and breaking them down, pulling things back into place. When she considered the way the Sect Head’s domain worked…

Changin caught her watching such a crew as they proceeded and confirmed her suspicion. “The rains have been harsh.”