Nai-Bo walked briskly though the hallways behind the many rooms, passing through two of the seven kitchens, disregarding the Willshaper driving the flames that heated the water for the pipes, the steam-baths, the ovens and furnaces of the palace of Langshen. She had places to be, and she needed to be there quickly.
Everyone was preparing for the beginning of the day. Morning meals- for nobles, officials, and servants alike, being laid out, while cleaning staff furiously ensured any place lord Hyunjae wa slikely to traverse was pure of imperfection. Already, the warlord was in the training halls, and Nai knew from experience he would remain therefor at least the next two hours, training, grinding through training dummy after training dummy, before his phoenix guard took their positions, and did their best to challenge him.
The training served multiple purposes. The Jut’layi got a workout. His elite guard received the most brutal training imaginable, while being forced to understand they had no hope of taking his place. All others in the palace were cowed into subservience, intimately aware of the fact that to him, they could pose no threat whatsoever. His orders were to be obeyed- and she had every intention of doing so.
The last star still hung stubbornly in the sky when she glanced out the window at the stubbornly bright speck. Nai approached the end of the servants quarters, pausing at a narrow window to take in the bright shard of light shining in the pre-Dawn glow. She imagined that the girl didn’t even notice the insult the warlord had given her by assigning her here- didn’t even have the dignity to be humiliated by the fact that she- one of the spirit-guides - had not been assigned one of the many lavish rooms, with luxurious beds, silk bedsheets imported from Xo’Han, and opal ornaments with which to accommodate one’s self. The girl had stared wide eyed, as if even the servants’s hallways, and the single unfurnished room lacking even a mirror with which to ensure one’s hair properly communicated the appropriate role and social status, were luxurious.
She paused, before opening the door to leave the slim servant’s hallway. It didn’t matter, really. Her job was to watch the girl. To report back to the honored Jut’layi and ensure that this woman was a spirit guide. Spirits didn’t always follow the rules of mortals. This backwater, muddy girl from the foot of the mountains may well have been chosen as one of their voices. She would have to keep that in mind, regardless of the girl’s blatant lack of decorum.
Nai straightened her back, shook herself into proper form, and exited the servant’s passway.
To hear… music.
A cascade of quick notes, leaning into and supporting each other, bright, and… cheery?
She hesitated, stepping closer to the door in the middle of this hallway. Yes- it was music. She could see through the paper that lined the girl’s room that lights flickered inside the space, as the melody danced and swirled around itself. The maidservant paused. She’d never heard this melody before- or anything quite like it. She coughed, and rapped on the frame of the doorway.
The music slowed to a stop.
“Yes?”
Nai forced herself to maintain her bearing, as she tried to push down memories that she had trained many years to forget.
“The dawn is approaching- I have come to apply Lord Langshen’s seal, and to present your first test.”
She heard some light rustling from inside the room, before the door opened. The girl stood in the doorway, glancing behind her. Nai noted that a simple woven mat had been laid in the floor, covered in an equally simple cloth of woven resin and white patterns. What she found most appalling was the girl’s hair. For one, it was not the proper sleek, straight locks of all women of Yosae. It curled in on itself at the tips, and along the length, possessing a volume that screamed foreign blood to the servant. To make things worse, the girl did not bear the traditional flared disk styling of the spirit guides. She had pulled her hair up behind her head, tied it off, and pinned it in place with nothing but two brass needles.
It was, quite frankly, scandalous in the extreme.
“Is it alright if I leave my bedroll here? I assume I will be using this room again tonight?”
“Yes. This space is to be yours while you attempt the three trials presented by Lord Langshen.”
Nai was thus far not impressed with the girl. Her mother had clearly failed her in educating the young woman in the ways of society.
“Excelent.” The woman turned, lifting her black liuqin and slinging the stringed instrument over her shoulder with a practiced ease, that left it easily accessible. Then, with a faint puff of light, Nai watched as the wavy curls and voluminous undulations of the girl’s hair relaxed, straightening to match the texture of all the women of Yosae. “What is the nature of this first test?”
Nai glanced down at the girl’s clothes as she stepped closer, producing a wax plate and a round seal of carved stone. Her clothes were decent enough-they would do. The dress was clean, the clothes were clearly chosen for ease of travel. That, at least, would be a boon on their journey. Nai pressed the seal to the shoulder of the village girl’s overshirt, focusing on the seal, willing it to heat.
Emilia’s eyes widened as the front of the stone began to steam, Nai pressing the stamp to the ax disk and pressing the seal into the clothing. Emilia winced.
“You will need to have this visible through the course of your trials, Emilia-Yun. Am I understood?”
”Yes miss Bo.”
“Very well… follow me. We’ll talk on the way. Can you ride?”
“Horses?”
“Yes.”
“I can when needed.”
“Good.”
——————————————
All signs of the yesterday’s storm had passed, as Emilia sat on the simple round saddle, loosely gripping the reigns as she followed Nai on the road that led out from Langshen to the north. She glanced down occasionally at the intricate pattern now marked onto her shoulders. The leaves here were already changing color, adopting the bright yellows and oranges of the season, and Emilia was fairly certain that the Haüe flowers would be blooming soon, pushing their amber heads up just in time for the first snows.
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She was grateful it was warm today- Yosae was not a small country, and she wasn’t sure exactly how far they needed to go.
“What can you tell me about this spirit the Jut’layi wants me to subdue?”
Nai glanced over at the younger woman, pursing her lips for a moment, her shoulder-length hair bobbing as their horses moved forward.
“It is a forest spirit. This much we know. According to the soldiers sent to investigate, it has been angered in some way. Livestock has been going missing, and any who go into the forest to collect takwal or firewood are found dead the next day.”
Emilia hesitated.
“How do they die?”
“How should I know? I haven’t been there, and the soldiers failed to present that detail in their reports.”
“Do you have their reports?”
Nai reached into her dark blue overshirt, pulling a slat of thin pressed bamboo from a pocket within. She tossed it casually to Emilia, who barely managed to catch it and pin it to her chest.
Emilia lifted the palm sized piece of bamboo, and started skimming what was clearly a compiled summary made by a scribe from multiple sources.
Nai smiled, glancing back.
Good-she can at least read official’s script. That is going to be important. Impressive, really, considering her upbringing.
Emilia, for her part, frowned. The report had frustratingly few details. Rough dates when things started to go wrong. The names of the missing people, a summary on the location.
it was the last part that worried Emilia. There were many places in the world where magic ran rampant- usually with disastrous effects. The most common of these were marked by holy sites, standing stones, or flourishing life even in the winter months when almost no water came in from the sea to the south. Almost always, such sites of wild, untamed magic were found in forests, beautiful canyons, or other such places.
there was always a downside to such wild magic though. The monsters. Normal creatures warped, twisted, and usually maddened, that made traveling anywhere precarious. She could see, from the hastily sketched map scrawled in the back of the slat, that the village of Liúng, their destination, sat at the edge of one of the more infamous regions of Yosae.
“The warlord wants me to solve a problem in the spirit-wood?” Emilia turned to Nai. “I’ve heard rumors about the place, most towns within the wood only exist due to bargains with the spirits!”
Nai shrugged. “Your meddling with the dead has Lord Langshen on edge. If you are to be worth keeping around, then the risk must promise greater reward.”
Emilia licked her lips nervously. “I don’t know much about the spirit wood- it’s a home to wild magic, strong spirits, many little gods, but… that’s all I know. How will I recognize the spirit we need to calm?”
Nai thought for a moment, the only sound on their stretch of dusty road being the jingle of their mounts harnesses and saddles, the clanking of the few cooking supplies they had brought with them, and the rustle of wind through the autumn leaves.
Finally, Nai responded.
“The spirit-wood, or, well, the towns built in it’s periphery, source almost all lumber used for the War chariots of Langshen. That lumber is sold to the shipyards of Goka and Chikra. This town is one place where it is harvested. Are you aware of why the gods of the spirit-wood allow these towns to take from their boughs?”
”The elders of the villaige of Xi’lo told me that many local gods require some kind of deal to exist peacefully. Offerings, or services, in exchange for that spirit’s help or protection. I imagine that these villages have deals with the local gods and spirits?”
”Correct, Miss Yun. Lord Langshen needs Liúng to resume production. Which means, that they must be able to enter the forest to fell trees, for his chariots, and harvest Takwal, for his soldier’s spear-shafts. Your job is to discern the exact cause of their threat, and neutralize it.”
“If the guardian spirit of the town is enraged, and I destroy it, the town will be left defenseless won’t it?”
Nai regarded her for a moment. “That will be their issue, should it come to that. Their task to bargain with a new god. However, you should not assume it is the guardian spirit who has turned against Liúng. They may have done something to disrespect a local god, or perhaps angered a rival spirit to their guardian. Happens often.”
Emilia nodded. She thought for some time in silence, reading the reports again.
Seven people missing so far. Five confirmed dead. She grimaced. She’d never had to deal with such a murderous spirit herself. She sighed, handing the report back to Nai, who returned it to the pocket inside her shirt.
Emilia then slung her Liuqin off of her back, checking the tuning of her instrument. Nai’s nose twitched, but Emilia shrugged it off. Her first string was too loose. She carefully adjusted the carved bone pin to tune the errant string, plucking a few more times until the note was correct.
She hummed to herself as she began to pluck out a simple tune. Shang-Meiru had taught her this one. A walking song, he’d said.
She closed her eyes, and propped her left leg up in the saddle. Her horse was dutifully following Nai’s anyway. Emilia didn’t think she’d need to guide the mount for a while.
“Why do you play that?” Nai eventually asked.
Emilia turned.
“Sorry?” She kept the tune going.
“It is unbecoming for a spirit-guide to play as…. As any wandering minstrel would!”
Emilia smiled- a small, sly smile.
“You do not favor wandering minstrels then?”
Nai scowled, back stiff as a board, fists clutching the reigns.”of course not- they are vagabonds, wandering and begging from town to town, like leeches in a river taking the work of society.”
“Shame.” Emilia hummed. What tune might please or attract a forest spirit? She’d need to draw and talk to at least one once they arrived to get more information.
“I beg your pardon? Shame?”
“Yes- it’s a shame you don’t like music.”
“I enjoy music in it’s proper place. As entertainment while dining.”
“You never danced?”
Emilia watched the maidservant’s hackles raise as she turned to look back.
“No. The dances of the nobles are for them to enjoy.”
“I don’t mean noble’s dances. Those are stuffy, stiff, and lifeless as the frozen hells.”
Nai spluttered.
“I mean a real dance!” Emilia grinned, driving life into her instrument the same way she did at the festivals, using her pick to strike the wood of the Liuqin on an even beat she had skipped her feet to many times.
Nai’s eyes widened as spectral leaves began to swirl around the young woman, ghostly afterimages peeling off of branches to spin and twirl, leaping up and diving down, while the spirit-guide simply rested one foot across her saddle. Emilia watched the dancing leaves with unmasked glee, breaking into a laugh as her plucking built in strength, driving the leaves to a swirling crescendo. Emilia continued smiling and swaying with the tune as more and more ghostly leaves gathered, before she ended the melody with a single, clear note that echoed off of the trees, the echoes of leaves around her fading to amber daylight as the girl raised a hand to Nai, as if that display explained everything.
“Dancing!”
Nai turned her gaze back to the road.
“I haven’t danced like that in a long time, Miss Yun.”
Emilia’s forehead creased with worry.
“Why not?”
“It is a long way to Liúng. We should hurry.”
The servant girl snapped her reigns, driving her horse into a gallop across the dusty road, and Emilia squeaked as she tried to get her limbs in order, slinging her Liuqin around her back, kicking her heels to drive her horse to follow as she set her feet in the stirrups.
Nai glanced back. While she projected disgust at the unmasked emotion, the sincerity of the girl’s love of music, she knew that in reality she was jealous of the village girl. Jealous of a life where an honest laugh and a sincere smile would not be used against you in the warlord’s court. She wished such things were more common, but knew she would have to educate the girl, or the wolves of Langshen would eat her alive.
Socially, at least.
And, as Emilia’s current maidservant, if Lord Hyungjae deigned to accept the spirit guide into his court, then she would have her reputation colored by this girl’s actions. This temporary assignment would become somethung far more lasting.
She glanced back, and winced in pain.
The Yun girl rode her horse as a man would. Had she learned to ride from soldiers?
She lamented- for the hundredth time, that she had been assigned to perhaps the least refined spirit-guide to have ever graced the halls of Langshen.
It had only been a day.
She sighed.
She glanced back.
Just focus on the road, get to Liúng- I can do that much.
She drive her horse forward.
