Planetary: Mercury, page 14
Wei stepped up onto the plinth, and as she did, she felt as if something, or someone, was watching her. It was an immense feeling, as if the person watching her was incredibly important, that his mere presence was enough for her to notice him. But there was no one near.
The surface of the basin, filled with quicksilver, was like a mirror, reflecting a perfect replica of the clouds and the azure expanse above her. But that peace was short-lived, as Ha Wen called up. “Master! Come quickly!”
They hurried down to the stone room. There, Ha Wen stood, a blank scroll outstretched and held to the side. Wei stared at him, before turning to the silver globe, which now glowed with an eerie light, a cousin to the filtered light of sunshine underwater.
A harsh ray of brilliance shot out, striking the scroll with a hiss. Smoke curled up from the dazzling white scroll as the beam inched down, and then, it was gone.
Wei blinked, trying to get the afterimages that had burned themselves into her vision to fade away. There, on the scroll, another poem was burned. The serpent river winds through the valley/Carrying the venom of the betrayer.
“A strange portent, truly,” the Sage breathed. “I must confront the Imperial Sorcerer with this. Both of you, retire to your quarters. You will need to be rested for the days to come.” Ha Wen bowed and walked downstairs. Wei nodded, before bowing and following the other apprentice out.
She still couldn’t shake the feeling that she was being watched. It still clung to her, the way wet garments clung to skin, as she left the tower.
Chapter 4: Of Wine and Hidden Sight
The feeling of being watched had only grown stronger, and Wei had confided in the Sage and told him of that sensation. He had informed the Imperial Sorcerer, and two days later the Sage had returned to Wei, telling her there was nothing there, that it probably was merely bad memories associating themselves with the Tower. After all, a partner of hers had died there.
But Wei didn’t believe him.
She didn’t think he was lying; the old man was kindly enough to her. But she thought he missed something. The sensation didn’t fade the more time she spent in the Tower, as blood-stained memories would, but intensified, like steam building inside a teakettle over a fire.
So, as the Sage Quangdau instructed her on how to lift the Pearl using a strange pulley system, Wei concocted a plan. As the Sage instructed her on the phases of the moon and how they impacted the interpretation of fates, Wei planned a date. And as the Sage trained her to care for the hollow quicksilver globe (she had to polish both inside and outside, for both surfaces of glass had to be free of dust), she schemed and plotted her course through the massive palace.
Now, it was the night of a full moon, and it was time to begin her master plan.
Wei strode through the halls, praying to the gods that her deception worked. She was a thief, but had spent some time as a forger, and a chance meeting with the Imperial Alchemist let her figure out how to falsify his signature, but it wasn’t perfect.
She turned a corner and shoved open the door before her, entering a chamber of chaos.
“More dough! More dough!”
“Get me the salt!”
“I need sesame oil, sesame oil over here!”
“And what do you need?” Wei turned to face a rather rotund cook. His shaved head glistened in the lights cast by cooking flames and a string of ever-burning lanterns. Cooks were required to shave their heads, so that no hair could fall into the food of the Emperor while it was being prepared.
“Ah, um, the Imperial Alchemist sent me.” She flashed the paper, showing only a glimpse of the signature, before tucking it back into her robe. “He wishes for wine.”
“Bah. Probably trying to either experiment or get drunk.” The cook grumbled, before marching out of sight.
Wei had precious little time. There was a door to her right that led to a supply closet, and she needed to slip in there, grab the other thing she needed, and get out. Quickly, she entered the storage room.
It was dark, lined with dozens of shelves full of different plates and bowls. There were platters bearing different symbols, icons of the Fish of Plenty, to signify a good harvest, swimming through seas of fruit and grapes. There was a peacock, one of the Emperor’s mother’s favorites, and of course, dragons, made of chips of rare blood-red jade. But Wei didn’t need any of those.
She just needed simple wood or ceramic. There! That would work. She grabbed the dish, a wide and shallow thing that was practically a flat disc, and tucked it in her robe. She was naturally thin, and she prayed to heaven that the cook didn’t notice the dish.
She stepped out, just in time. The cook ran back, holding a skin of wine. “Tell the Imperial Alchemist that the next time he wishes to get soused, he can bloody well come and get the wine himself, instead of sending someone else to do it.”
“Thank you,” Wei said, bowing slightly, the dish pressing against her stomach. She turned and stepped out.
It was a quick jog to the garden, but Wei took longer, constantly turning around at odd, irregular times to try and catch any potential pursuer off-guard. But eventually she was satisfied that no one was following her, and she entered the garden.
She was one of the Kueh, the tribesmen that inhabited the mountainous province to the north. Until recently, they were content to live in those parts of the mountains considered uninhabitable, and the lord of that province was content to let them be. Sending tax collectors up to their villages was too difficult, but they didn’t produce much to tax, anyway. They existed in mutual apathy, and that was how the Kueh had lived.
But then, when Wei had just been a child, that had changed. The banners of the lord had arrived, and his soldiers had slain most of the Kueh, and condemned the survivors to a life of running, all to purge the warlord’s province in an act of supposed religious devotion. The Kueh’s strange and peculiar arts were deemed witchcraft, an unclean abomination of the sorceries practiced in the Empire.
It was this art that Wei was about to do.
She hurriedly rushed past a rhododendron bush, and stopped. She dropped the flagon of wine and pulled out the bowl, before making sure the bowl was level on the ground. She sat down cross-legged before the empty bowl, held the wine in her hands, and emptied it into the bowl. Wei tossed aside the skin, now empty, and waited for the blood-red wine to settle, for it to reach that mirror-like stillness that brought the stars down into the bowl. And then, Wei focused.
The Kueh had learned the gift of sight. Those inclined towards stone could stare into glass-like crystal or polished rock, and tear away at the ages of the past. They could see battles in the earlier ages, acts and deeds that had happen centuries ago. Those inclined towards air and wind could search the mist, and see into the future. But like the shifting winds, the future always changed. And there were those, like Wei, who were inclined towards water. And water, as it traveled to swiftly, didn’t move the sight through time, but distance.
Wei’s mother had taken her down to the river when she was young, before the sickness and the madness had claimed her, and night after night, she taught Wei how to focus her life energy and see beyond the space she existed in. She had taught her how to see across miles using only water, in the years before her mother’s wits had escaped her, and she talked of consorting with dragons and spirits.
And then, one night, she used wine instead. She had Wei peer at a mansion, and Wei saw strange colors and what appeared to be glowing strings. Wine, her mother had explained, was a richer liquid; it saw past location, into the realms of magic and spirit.
And that was exactly what Wei needed to do.
She focused on the Tower, imagining herself on the top, at the star-gazing platform. She could feel the wind on her face, hear the creak of wood as she took imaginary steps. The wine, dark like blood in the shadows of night, changed. The shadows on its surface warped, and the muddled form of the tower began to appear. Wei smiled, and continued to focus. There was something there, something above the tower, something vast and coiled and ever-shifting. She focused, trying to see closer, see the strange anomaly clearly.
And then it was over when the dish flew aside, kicked by a delicate silk slipper.
The wine, and the image it bore, splashed against a tree, staining it as if blood had been spilled. Wei let out a startled cry, backing up on all fours, staring up at the furious visage of the Sage.
“You have no idea what you have just done,” he snapped.
“I… what, are you going to accuse me of witchcraft?”
“No. I lived amongst the Kueh. I know of their scrying arts.” He glared. “But you tried to peer upon the Tower with magic. I was there, directing the wards and giving them energy. Had I not noticed that the source of this magic came from within the palace, I would had let the wards loose with fire and steel and frost.” He sighed. “Anything outside the Tower itself is suspect, and with a few words, whoever is trying to watch the Tower will be slain.”
“I… I’m sorry,” Wei said. “Forgive me.”
The Sage glared at her. “You didn’t trust me, so you’ll be doing all the menial jobs for penance, but there isn’t any reason this needs to come up.” He turned. “Go sleep.”
Wei nodded, and scurried back to her room.
Chapter 5: A Sea of Quicksilver and the Firmament of Heaven
A month later, Wei had gotten the Sage’s trust back, which meant it was time to break that rule again.
She waited for the moon to wax full again, but this time she didn’t have to hunt down wine or a bowl. Everything had already been provided for her, even the excuse for her to be out in the middle of the night. After all, the Sage had said, the stars were not going to read themselves.
She waited at the top of the Tower, listening. She could still hear the creaking inside, which meant either the Imperial Sorcerer or the Sage was still inside. She needed them out, and all she had to do was wait, which wasn’t unusual. Deciphering star-charts was difficult enough.
Finally, Wei heard the footsteps below as the sorcerer departed, and watched the tiny light of his lantern weave its way across the yard, before disappearing into the labyrinth of the palace. Perfect. Now, she was all alone, in the only place that she could scry without being detected.
She faced the quicksilver basin, and focused. She stared at herself, and willed herself to see the real, unmasked version of the world around her. Wei watched the quicksilver intently.
And nothing.
She stared at her reflection, that strange feeling overwhelming her, as if she was being watched, watching her face and the stars above for any change. Nothing. Dismayed, Wei sighed and stepped away.
The quicksilver rippled.
Wei started, and turned to the basin, gripping the dragons around the basin. The mercury had rippled, faster than the viscous metal should have been able to. What had just happened?
Her hair seemed to become messier in the reflection, turning brighter and brighter as it sprouted from all around her face. Her nose broadened, farther than any human feature, while her eyes warped, transforming into cat-slit leonine points of luminous gold. Her mouth stretched, widened, and filled with razor sharp fangs. Her skin faded blue, and encrusted over with scales as giant antlers burst from her temples. The fierce visage suddenly zoomed towards the surface of the mercury, as if the quicksilver wasn’t a mirror, but a window.
Wei flew back as the cobalt dragon burst from the quicksilver, a long, sinuous beast, every scale on its length shining like sapphires. Slowly, she rose to her feet as the dragon circled the tower, before it’s terrible and imperious visage stared at her, the thing’s shaggy, maned head hovering over the basin of mercury.
“Wei,” the thing rumbled, with a voice as vast as the roaring wind, as deep as the Sea of the Ninefold Koi-Gods. “Daughter.”
Wei stopped, and blinked. “Daughter?”
The dragon shifted. “Did not your mother tell you? I gave her a charge to inform you of your parentage.”
“She had said I had divine blood in me. But she was sick. Dying of disease. Her brain was addled.”
The dragon gave her a flat glare. “You’re hearing it from your own father. Skepticism is unbecoming of you.”
“My mother lost her wits when I was sixteen. Not before.” Wei paused. “There’s no way she was seduced by an overgrown serpent.”
“You speak to a messenger of the gods, given authority by Heaven. You speak to Tai Lung, Dragon of the West. But your point stands.” The dragon circled the tower again, before flying towards a spot on the top of the tower, seeming to compress into a man-sized space. Tai Lung’s face blurred into a mess of scale and white fur, shifting, scales flying off and drifting away in the night breeze like autumn leaves.
A man in a tunic stood, strikingly handsome, with eyes of slate grey. “She fell for this.” When he saw Wei’s wide eyes, he sighed. “I am an immortal messenger of the gods. I have a few tricks.” His face grew concerned. “It appears, however, the messages I had sent, via my brother’s pearl, have fallen on deaf ears.”
“You sent us riddles!” Wei snapped.
“I sent you poetry, the language of beauty, the songs of Heaven,” Tai Lung said. “However, you appear to need visual proof. I shall take you.”
“Take me?” Wei asked. The man nodded, and the blue of his tunic encrusted over with scales, and his hair whitened as the scales climbed the way up his suddenly lengthening neck.
Within seconds, the man was gone, and the massive dragon was there, hanging in the air. “Climb on my back, o daughter of mine,” he said, “and we shall go to the place of treachery for you to see.”
Wei climbed on the thing’s back, the dragonscale warm to the touch, like stone that had drank in the heat of the summer sun. “Hold fast,” he said, his voice rumbling and deep. Around her neck, the collar stung, before flying off with a crack. “There. We can’t have you shackled, o daughter of mine, can we?” Wei felt her bare throat.
And they flew.
Wei screamed as the tower below her vanished, seeming to fall. But she wasn’t falling. She was soaring, the dragon’s sinuous form weaving its way between seas of clouds sparsely illuminated by moonlight. Wei shivered, looking down through the hole in the clouds at the tiny yellow lights below, like embers encrusted on dark wood, so small but so warm-looking.
“Dearest daughter, hold fast. We are near the firmament between the lower heavens and the upper heavens, the place of enlightened beings and deities. Hold fast, for the barrier is strong.”
Wei grabbed a handful of scale and shaggy fur as the dragon—her father, what an odd thought—sped up, the wind rushing by the two of them, flying through wet clouds and frigid skies. Higher, higher, higher they went, soaring into the sky. Wei buried her face into the fur of the dragon.
And then they broke through the firmament of heaven.
Warmth, subtle and comforting like a mother’s embrace, enveloped her. Slowly, with shaking hands, she lifted her eyes from the dragon’s back and looked around.
The sky… the dome of the higher heavens was studded with glowing points of starfire, strung together by thin lines of light. Constellations drawn together, but constellations didn’t move and shift around. Clouds, glistening and glimmering like sparkling sands, floated near the zenith of the dome. There was no sun or moon that Wei could see, but there was light.
That light came from the massive palace in the center of the dome, right below the zenith. Sloping roofs, carved out of a thousand shades of jade, walls made of every precious stone known to man. Below them, lost in the mists of the clouds, Wei thought she saw dark green leaves of bamboo forests.
Towers jutted out of the mist, bare cylinders made of gray stone. Atop them were the enlightened beings, most human, some not. They cast a strange amber radiance, peaceful and serene, across the higher heavens. Blossoms of light, taking the shape of the lotus, the rose, the chrysanthemum, were ever-blooming and ever-wilting from this light, as petals of wisdom given solid form drifted down into the lower heavens.
Wei tried to turn, to see the edge of the dome, but the vast surface vanished beyond what Wei’s mortal eyes could see. “We must go some distance,” the dragon said. His voice here rumbled with thunder, and she could see the shockwave of his words disturb the clouds. Whoever this dragon—her father—was, he had power and authority here.
They passed by a wall, black and lustrous like obsidian. There, inscribed on the wall, in burning, liquid fire, were characters similar to the clerical script. The priests had always claimed their writing was the language of the heavens. Wei stared at the writing, before looking away as her eyes hurt. The priests had a thread of truth to their claim.
“Hold on. We must enter the lower heavens again.” Before Wei could even react, they dove down.
Chapter 6: A Banner Raised in a Traitor’s Name
They flew through the air, and instead of the sudden burst of warmth that accompanied their entry into the upper heavens, there was cold, and Wei ached. The upper heavens had been so blissful and refreshing to her spirit, it seemed that the lower heavens were taxing on her soul.
She stared as the world below her grew larger, and held on tighter to the dragon. They were not in the capital anymore. No, instead… they were somewhere wild, somewhere far more remote.
Wei saw mountains peeking up between an ever-shifting sea of white clouds, a dark green like dusk jade, almost black. The moonlight made the low clouds that ringed the base of the mountain glow, like spun silver. She saw flashes of wings, of birds too large to be real, but when she peered after them, they weren’t birds after all; birds were not made of fire and mist. “What are they?” she asked.
“Spirits, o daughter of mine. Spirits heralding war, betrayal. Spirits to incite courage, spirits to feed on fear and despair. For whenever war comes, it calls spirits to it like vultures to carrion.”
