The pair slowed as night fell. Nai practically launched herself up out of the saddle and landed lightly on her toes as they began to leave the road, crossing a field of wild grass towards a small copse of trees a small way off. She took the reins of her mount, brushing her short black hair away from her face as she slowed. Emilia glanced up at the moon, as it began to rise. Half-full. She glanced back towards Nai, noting that the dark blue over clothes the woman wore blended into the night almost perfectly. She really didn’t think that she’d be able to pick out the woman from the shadows if she weren’t moving.
“We’re stopping here for the night?” Emilia asked.
Nai nodded.
“There’s a way station maintained by Langshen within the grove to allow officials to travel the roads more safely.”
Emilia managed to get off of her horse with considerably more difficulty, grumbling as she adjusted her skirt, and made sure her sword was properly seated in its place at her left hip. She pulled her cloak off of her saddlebags, wrapping it around her to ward against the chill as she patted her horse’s flank. She grabbed the reigns, turning to follow Nai and frowned as she looked into the trees. She couldn’t see any sign of a safe house. Or, any house, really. Not even a fire pit. Just… grass. Plants. A boulder or two left behind by some geological process she didn’t understand.
“What safe house?” She asked. “This is just…trees?”
Nai smiled, her grin dimly illuminated in the shifting light, and stopped next to a large boulder a tree had grown up against.
“There are many places like this scattered across Yosae for the nobles, and their officials. This is one such location. Three will-shapers over the course of three days wove special enchantments to ward it from… wandering eyes.They are destroyed and reset every time the great seat of Langshen changes hands, so only those Hyungjae-Langshen has trusted with their location know of these safe houses. I doubt even a spirit-guide such as yourself would be able to find it without knowledge from someone like me.”
Nai pulled a small gemstone from her pocket, and seemed to tap it against the air in front of her. Emilia would have thought that the maid-servant was tricking her, or testing her na?veté, were it not for the ripple she could see through the air a moment later.
Nai pocketed the gem.
“Trust me Miss Yun, no one knows about these safe houses but the Jut’layi and his officials. We will find no better place to rest between here and Liyúng.”
Nai stepped forward, and the air ripped for a moment, before she simply disappeared, the horse entering the space right behind her.
Emilia gritted her teeth, and pulled her horse along to follow the woman in dark clothing.
She shuddered, as she crossed the border, a sensation like water rippling over her skin unnerving her as she took a step forward in the dark. The sillouhette of her assigned maidservant came back into view, and Emilia blinked as she caught sight of a simple cabin, nestled in a clearing between the trees.
Emilia also noticed the dark shape crumpled in the entrance to the cabin a moment later she saw the gouges in the doorframe, the deep rents in the soil from something large moving very fast.
She drew her piandao with a sharp breath, the hiss of steel catching Nai’s attention, as the woman had been facing away, towards the hitching post at the rear of the cabin. Nai followed the direction of Emilia’s guard and her gaze landed on the dead body.
“Shit.” Nai hissed, reaching into her sleeves and pulling out two silvered daggers from inside her stiff sleeves.
Emilia stepped up next to her, dropping the tip of her blade slightly as she kept her eyes locked on the tree line.
“It seems that your secret safe house is neither as secret, nor as safe, as you would have wanted.” She muttered.
Nai grimaced.
Emilia took a soft step forward, the toe of her boot pressing lightly into the ground as she began to walk towards the cabin. Nai seemed to dance around the girl, steps as dainty and deft as ever, protecting Emilia!s back as the girl approached the body. Emilia made a note to herself to ask her ‘maidservant’ about that later.
Emilia paused above the body, and sang out a single warbling note, the starlight and fading sun gathering for a moment in front of her like rivers of light, before drifting forward above the body.
Nai side-eyed the light, watching as Emilia knelt down, her free hand tipping the body to the side.
“By the gods…” Emilia whispered.
“What? What is is?” Nai asked through clenched teeth, bouncing slightly on the balls of her feet, head snapping to watch the grove around them as much as she could.
Emilia swallowed. The man looked like he had been a tax collector from Langshen, judging by the clothes and the brass buttons on the collar. With her light floating gently in the doorway, Emilia could see that there had been one other person traveling with him, as the body of a second man was folded over the bed at the far end of the single room with a gaping hole in his chest, splintered ribs catching the summoned light. Emilia forced herself to look down at the man on the ground. His torso was shredded, deep gouges carved into his neck and shoulders.
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His head, conspicuously, was missing.
Emilia pressed her hand to her mouth to force down any sounds of disgust. She looked for other clues. He had fallen onto his side. Firewood toppled out of his arms. The blood was dried, and the body had only just started to stink.
“The body has been here for about a day, I think, given the chilly weather and general lack of insects. He-his head was bitten off, It seems.”
“Bitten?” Nai asked without looking down, “Not cut?”
Emilia leaned closer, using the tip of her sword to move the cloth aside. The gashes were ragged. Messy. Deep, but only into the flesh. They were too messy to be sword cuts.
“Something with claws did this. He died quickly, it caught him by surprise when he had the door open.” Emilia whispered. “Whatever killed this man then rushed in and killed the second.”
Nai nodded curtly.
“Watch the trees.”
Emilia turned to look out into the dark, the light drifting as it sensed her desires to float away from the cabin into the trees, bobbing erratically through the dark. She gripped her sword tighter, and gritted her teeth. She heard the occasional sound from inside the cabin, as Nai moved things. Each creak, groan, or footstep setting her further on edge. A moment later, the short-haired woman stood at Emilia’s side. Eyes locked onto the tree line. Even though she had fought some monsters before, on her travels, this was still more than she felt she was ready for.
“I found footprints in the blood.”
“And?”
“Demon.”
Emilia felt the blood leave her face.
“You’re sure?”
Nai nodded slowly. “The monster’s prints disappear in a mess farther in. It looks a lot like a spirit doscorpirating- so demon.”
Emilia took a deep breath. “Could you tell what it’s beast form looked like?”
Nai shook her head. “No.”
Emilia was silent for a while.
“I have a way to find out, but you’re going to have to be ok with me trying something…unorthodox.”
Nai said nothing, which Emilia took as acceptance.
“If this is a demon…” she hesitated, “my magic is going to draw it’s attention. Even if it was leaving, it will be coming here soon, we’ll need to be ready.”
“Understood, spirit-guide.”
Emilia ran back inside the cabin to the body on the bed, frantically bringing her liuquin from it’s place on her back into her hands, grabbing her bone pick and beginning to play, a prayer on her lips.
Lady Catrina, guide his soul to me, that we may speak.
It felt like reaching into a barrel with her eyes closed, as she began to play, began to fill the music with life, feeling her spirit reaching out for the thread that had once been tethered to this body before her.
Usually, when she tried something like this, she had connections. The person’s family, things they loved in life, their favorite foods as offerings. Here she had nothing. Not even a name. Each moment she pushed her spirit through the Liuqin to reach along the dark paths that led past the realm of the remembered. Those dark roads her soul recoiled at, where she found most deceased outside of Qúa.
she felt pressure, at the edge of her soul, and she reached out to it, spinning that thread into her music the way a seamstress spun thread for weaving.
Ghostly amber light began to shine faintly from the instrument as Emilia played, shifting into the traditional songs from Langshen. Emilia felt the energy sing in her blood, felt the light bloom from the strings before she saw it, and the golden light swirled inside the cabin. In the fog of light, Emilia saw a figure, a man. She closed her eyes, focusing on that thread, that distant scrap of memory, offering her vitality - the only thing she had to give this spirit now, and the shadowy figure stepped forward, emerging clearly into the space.
Exhaustion would not be far off. Emilia had little time. Even just to talk to this one spirit.
The man before her was indeed the same as the man on the bed, down to the gaping hole in his chest. He looked tired, confused, and disoriented.
“Where am I?” His voice seemed far away, as if shouted from between trees.
“The cabin where you died.” Emilia replied as calmly as she could, straining through the effort and her divided attention. “I apologize for interrupting your journey.”
“What do you -oh spirits of heaven!” Thr ghostly man covered his face as he fell to his knees. “I remember! It moved so fast, leaping from the darkness-it-it ATE him! Then it rushed for me and-“
Emilia let a sharp note in the melody reach out and pull the spirit’s attention back to her.
“I know. What is your name?”
“Lan-Guan.”
His shape solidified, his gaze cleared, and he seemed to actually be able to see her now.
“Lan-Guan, I offer you a deal, a bargain.”
“What could I want? I am already dead. It’s over for me.”
“What came for you will come for us soon. If you tell us exactly what you saw, exactly how you died, and quickly, I can offer you a chance to redeem yourself, an extension on your probation before you must continue your path to the halls of the judges. My mistress will allow remain in her halls as long as a mortal remembers you in the land of the living, and you will have a chance to improve the balance of your scales, before you are judged for the heavens.”
“A chance to improve?”
Emilia nodded.
“I accept.”
Emilia gasped as a rush of energy left her, true exhaustion of the soul settling in and nearly causing her to falter.
“Be quick, I can’t hold you here long.”
“We were returning from Liúng, bearing the collections from the six villages out in that direction. We stopped for the night, joking about how we were able to force Liúng to pay, even with their troubles.”
“Troubles?”
The ghost of Lan-Guan waved a hand dismissively. He appeared more tired, as Emilia’s energy ran thin. “A spirit gone mad. It didn’t matter to us, we had a job to do.”
Emilia missed a note, a sharp twang biting against the melody, and the light faded slightly. Emilia gasped.
“When the creature came, what did it look like?”
The ghost of the tax collector grew somber.
“I saw a man in a dark robe. He looked behind him when I called out. Then the THING charged from the trees. Legs like a wolf, with a deer’s head, but twisted and broken. It ate Yuti’s head in the blink of an eye. Then in two strides it was upon me, hand in my chest.”
The ghost shuddered, fading faster.
“The last thing my mortal eyes saw was the creature stuffing my heart into its mouth as it cackled with glee.”
Emilia collapsed, the light in the room fading almost immediatly, swear beading in her face as she panted, heart pounding as she heard the blood rushing in her ears. She collapsed, nearly falling against the cold, dead body bent over the bed before her.
Nai stared at her.
“What was that?” Nai asked. “I saw the light- it looked like a man, almost.”
Emilia gestured to the dead body on the bed.
“Lan-Guan. Tax collector.”
She forced herself to suck in a full breath as she leaned against the bedpost. Wincing as pain flared in her head as she tried to sit up. Nai backed into the room, eyes still trained on the forest, on the spectral light that danced in the trees.
“You spoke to him? I could hear your questions. I couldn’t hear the spirit though.”
“He saw the creature before it killed him.”
“And?”
“Elk’s head, twisted wolf-like body.” Emilia sat up fully, picking up her sword from its discarded location on the floor.
When Emilia met Nai’s eyes, she knew that what little hope of safety that night the servant might have held onto was gone.
Nai cracked her neck and Emilia noticed the tending of the muscles in the woman’s jaw.
“Shit.”
PATREON
