Threads 281-Sea of Dreams 5

Ling Qi shared a long look with Xuan Shi.

As much as a founding tale could be interesting, how much would it help? Flipping the situation around in her head, how much would the tale of the Empire’s founding tell one about the Emerald Seas of today? In the end, this summit was still mostly a contact between border provinces.

“I think we’ll take the tale of this Iron King guy,” Sixiang said.

“And you speak for the girl, echo?” asked the crone, peering out from under her heavy brow.

“They can,” Ling Qi said, “Sixiang only spoke my thoughts before I could.”

“Interesting. Is it the same for you, boy?” Grydja asked, turning to Xuan Shi.

He glanced up to where Kongyou was still perched on his shoulder. The nightmare looked back, insectile eyes glittering in the dark.

“Nah. Even this dumb guy’s not so much of a fool.”

“It is so,” Xuan Shi said. “This one would also like the King’s Tale, grandmother.”

“Well enough then. Well enough,” the spirit said.

She leaned over the steaming cauldron, her stirring spoon circling evenly. The aroma from the cauldron was that of a rich stew, and Ling Qi could hear the faint sloshing of water and the bump of solids against the inside of the cauldron.

Gryja’s crackling voice took on a sort of rhythmic cadence as she spoke, and the crone’s milky eyes gazed into the steam without the glinting appetite and playful malice which had characterized her so far.

“It began on the day when the sun last turned black. When the terrible fear swept south with the fiery winds that scoured the eastern sky, crumbled mountains, and turned the eastern steppe into a field of sucking mud and the tundra to trackless marsh. When a daughter of the sun died and all the land cried out in torment from her death.”

The Twilight King, Ling Qi thought. The demonic cultivator who had nearly destroyed the Empire in ages past and who had destroyed the Golden Fields province when the Purifying Sun, her friend Gu Xiulan’s ancestral spirit, had destroyed herself to end him. It was hard to imagine, but she supposed even the mountains of the Wall had not been able to shield the southern lands from that ruin.

“This terrible omen put the people in disarray, the eastern clans and tribes most of all. The land was changed. But worst of all had been the sun’s blackening. Though it lasted only a few bare hours, the Southern Gate shook and rumbled with the terrible force of the enemy in those moments of his distraction.”

Grydja smacked her lips and muttered, “Busy, awful days, oh yes. Old Grydja did not get to relax in those days, for there was so much to be done. Only twice before did the world shudder so, but we were fortunate. With this, that dead sun ensured it all remained in our hands, did not stir things better left asleep. But, but, you children are not here to listen to an old woman’s complaints about work.”

She continued, “The Iron King rose in the Glittering City, the great fortress and gatehouse turned capital of the mortal children. With the beasts of the Outside pawing at the gates with their fragments and breath coming through and the world going mad, he rose and led.”

Ling Qi heard the roar of voices, the awful sound of screaming demons, and the sounds of war, clanking metal and rending flesh, all in the hiss and bubbling of the cauldron.

“With so many of those who spoke with the Scepter’s voice occupied with the land, he led. He bore no negotiation, no speech. His voice was his sword, and it spoke harsh things indeed. He demanded a steep tribute to arm himself and his men, and he crushed town and city and village which would not pay. All to fight the demons, he said, oh yes, all to fight the demons.”

The crone chuckled.

“It was even true in its way. At the beginning.”

“But it didn’t stay true,” Ling Qi said.

“Smart poppet. Of course it didn’t. The truth was only a convenience to begin with.”

The crone laughed, raspy and cruel.

“With so many warriors, warriors of all stripes behind him and him wearing the title of hero as a crown, the people of the Glittering City were happy to see all the land turned to their defense. What cared they for the eastern tribes, driven to privation and collapse by the tithe as they struggled with their new land. What cared they for the frozen villages and towns in the north or to the flooding ports in the east. They were the stalwarts who stood astride the Gate and who defended all the world. They took only what they were owed.”

Grydja’s lips peeled apart in a sneer, iron fangs grinding, casting pale blue sparks into the hissing cauldron.

“No victory could be enough, even as the demons abated. More tithes. More fortifications. More warriors. Never mind that their blades turned on the people and the land. Even the Glittering City began to grow unsure, for the first duty of a king is to perpetuate himself. The might of the Iron King and his throne turned upon his people. He took and took, reducing the land ever more to waste, all to keep a tottering throne afloat. Hungry, hungry things are kings. They will eat themselves from the feet up, if given half a chance, and not notice until there’s naught but snapping jaws and rolling eyes upon the throne.”

Grydja pointed a bony finger at them.

“Learn this, if nothing else, children. The people of ice are wary of power, far more than you dragon spawn. You will find few friends with displays of might.”

“You can’t face power without power of your own,” Ling Qi pointed out. “It might be right to be wary, but you can’t reject power outright. Without it, you can do nothing.”

“A man who only speaks may be mightier than an army, but this is only because his words and thoughts are weapons and armament,” Xuan Shi said slowly. “It is not a matter of rejecting might in its wholeness, this one believes. Rather, Grandmother, what form of might is seen as the right?”

Stolen novel; please report.

“Oh, aye, aye, children. You catch an old woman out in her story. It is the naked fist that is not respected. It is commands given without deliberation or consultation disregarded. It is the might of kings which will avail you not.”

That made more sense, but Ling Qi was still bothered. “Honored Grandmother, may I ask why you seem to hold such contempt for power? I can see your nature. You are hunger and cold and ending. You yourself are the night which ends all things without discrimination. Where does your malice come from?”

Grydja regarded her over the boiling cauldron, and Ling Qi worried that she had overstepped. Something sparked, black and terrible, awfully deep in those milky eyes.

“The End needs no assistance.”

The words were frigid beyond description. It cut through her clothes and her skin as if she were still a mortal shivering in the street. They lacked any of the crone’s lackadaisical tone or personality. They were precise and flat and wholly without inflection.

“Bold child, happy child, don’t poke so deep. Looking so deep like that, you’ll miss the surface,” Grydja scolded, wagging a frostbitten finger at her. “Your ending is a thing of men and beasts and cities and rivers and mountains, and so is this old woman’s. Who would old Grydja be in dead and empty lands scoured by stars? Even a strict grandmother is fond of her get, oh, yes. Even if the cold always takes some.”