Threads Of Destiny(Eastern Fantasy, Sequel to Forge of Destiny)

The heat was intense, even outside the high brickwork walls of the glassmaker's workshop, lurid orange and fiery yellow light spilled out of the vent-like windows in its walls, and smoke and ash churned from the stacks emerging from the roof. It was a dull looking building outwardly, undecorated, only its entrance frame painted in a brighter red to invite good fortune, but she could see even after her brief lessons with Meng Duyi, how its layout was set to invite clean winds and expel polluted ones, to take in the flow of natural Yang without letting it pool to unhealthy levels.

It was still a place of intense fire and light, and she felt her skin prickle a little being near it. Xia Anxi gave her an expectant look, so she loosened her hold on her qi, just a little, letting the winter wind scratch at the doors, and more importantly the attention of those inside.

She crossed her hands inside her sleeves and waited patiently for a response. She soon felt an acknowledging flare from within. It was a careful, meticulous qi, like an etching tool carefully cutting into fragile crystal, but baked by a low, consistent heat.

"The foreman will be out to see us in a moment," Ling Qi said. "I shall introduce you, and then let you explain your own needs if it pleases you."

"I won't complain if you feel I'm not overstepping in your city. It will make this less onerous for everyone."

"My city? Hardly. I don't think I am THAT tall," Ling Qi said.

He rolled his eyes, a little amusement cracking through. "Even were I blind to colors as rumors insist, I'd not make that mistake. You know what I mean."

"Is that a common rumor? I'd only heard the 'tin-ear' one."

"Most common. Though not as irritating as that one."

"I would of course, never doubt sir Xia's ear for music."

"As well you shouldn't. Percussion might be the specialty of the Bai's musicians, but we are hardly so limited."

"I'd looked into some pieces from the Lakes, they were all very heavy on lower notes, even ones below the range of mortals."

"And why not, a song you can feel in your bones is one you will always remember."

"I think something you remember because it resonates in your thoughts rather than lingering in your aching body is better."

"Well, you would be wrong then, wouldn't you?"

She huffed in amusement and tilted her head toward the door, behind which she sensed movement. So he hadn't frozen up entirely since they last spoke, she just needed to steer away from the subject of Bai Meizhen or provincial politics.

She put those thoughts from her mind as the door opened in a wash of heat and the shift foreman of the glassworks stepped out. He was a wide, rough brick of a man, a thick workman's smock stretched over his broad chest and a dark green bandanna over his bald head, to which was a fixed leather band that held a mechanical talisman, some kind of adjustable goggles. His face was pockmarked with countless tiny burn scars as were his bare hands and forearms, it was as if every hair had been seared from his body.

She judged him a stage higher than her in cultivation, but probably a good two centuries her elder, by the rugged and worn feel of his spirit.

"Good sir, Thank you for making time for my unscheduled appearance," Ling Qi said, lowering her head just a fraction and clasping her hands. Any more than that would be insulting and obsequious, given their relative ranks. "I am Baroness Ling Qi, in service to the young Miss Lady Cai."

His brows furrowed slightly, and he examined them closely, even as he bowed, much lower than she had. "This one is Gong Shu, shift foreman of this glassworks, under the honorable Wei family. How can this humble servant please the young miss?"

"I am tasked with showing our guest from the Thousand Lakes the industry of Xiangmen, while my Lady entertains the young miss of the Bai clan," Ling Qi said, gesturing to Xia Anxi. "He is most interested in seeing our glassworks, and perhaps arranging some orders.

He stepped forward, clasping his hands but not lowering his head. "Indeed, though it might be troublesome I must request a tour. My lady has an interest in certain fine glassworks, you see."

"Yes, young sir, Lady Ling, please, please come in," the older man said quickly. She could see his thoughts spinning frantically, his perception pinging from walls and ceiling to furnaces and floors, a sudden frenzy searching for any errors or untowardness. She pitied him a bit. "This one must humbly request that our guests tightly reign in your qi, lest it interrupt certain processes inside."

"Without a doubt, I'd not be so crude," Xia Anxi said carelessly. The slowly rolling waves of his qi retracted, leaving him feeling barely more than a mortal.

"Yes, of course," She agreed, doing the same. Shadows fading, cold withdrawing, until her hair barely even gleamed.

She followed them inside, letting Xia Anxi take the lead.

"May I ask if the honorable Lady Bai has a specific interest?" Gong Shu asked, his voice heavy with deferential caution.

"Oh, certainly yes. Very specific. She is interested in optical glass, the sort used in far-seeing talismans and navigation," Xia Anxi said. "So you need not worry about trying to please my eye with pretty aesthetics."

"I see. That is some relief, young sir. The Wei Glassworks is not mainly in the business of those things. Such pieces are highly valuable and must be worked on by a Master."

"But you do provide the raw material on which they ply their skills, no?"

"To an extent yes. The Wei Glassworks is contracted to the court astrology department. These orders are specialized and require the reservation of our best furnaces."

"Good, good, then if I am satisfied we can speak reservations. We would not deign put ourselves before our good friends the Cai in our own home."

"My lady knows the Bai clan would never be so uncouth, though she hopes her esteemed subjects will give our allies all due consideration," Ling Qi added

Gong Shu did not take a deep fortifying breath, he was more well-controlled than that, but Ling Qi could see the desire for it in the fluctuation of his qi. "The Wei Glassworks will not disappoint."

She let Xia Anxi take the lead from there, as they were toured through the facility, the lines of furnaces filled with molten glass, the frames where panes and other shapes were poured, and down through the blowers workshops where more delicate pieces were made and more.

She let herself fade into the background and observed Xia Anxi. He was gregarious, whenit came to the foreman, the Bai pride was a high cold wall, but he was surprisingly good assuaging the inherent fear that accompanied the reputation of the Bai, and engaging the man on his own level.

She swiftly came to doubt his claim of ignorance about material art. He at least knew far more than her.

"When she said so, while Gong Shu left them to retrieve of sample pieces of completed optics, he gave her an arch look.

"It is not so difficult to learn enough to present an interested face no? I can flip through a mortal tome in a few minutes and remember enough of it to at seem like an intrigued novice when I ask questions."

"I suppose, so," Ling Qi allowed, looking out the window in the wall of the foreman's office overlooking the furnaces. She observed a man below reaching inside, swirling his fingers through the molten glass inside, only to squint down at the hardening droplets beading on his fingers after he pulled out. He shouted something to his fellows and another man came running with what looked like some kind of sieve on a pole... A skimmer?

"But if you'll excuse me, I hadn't thought you the type to be… bothered with that."

"And why not," he replied, crossing his arms defensively. "It's merely good sense. A defensive, frightened speaker gives far less away. Most craftsmen will go on and on about their art… and let slip other things when speaking of it."

Now she raised an eyebrow, looking him over. He turned up his chin.

"I can't deny that. I'd say you're just more comfortable with men like Gong Shu though."

"And what is that supposed to mean," he asked, eyes narrowing again.

"Alas, that I am but a poor host compared to Sir Gong," Ling Qi said, smiling brightly

Before he could rejoin, they both felt the foreman returning though. Xia Anxi gave her an unamused look.

Gog Shu looked very wary, entering his own office and glancing between them. The man's perception really wasn't bad, was it?

She didn't rightly know the details of crafting lenses like the ones the man brought to show them, some as wide as dinner plates, others small enough to balance on one's littlest fingertip

She could however, see the high purity of the glass, and the way they refracted qi in just the right way…

Each and every one was made to distort the light that passed through it, to warp the image which lay on the other side. Yet, each one was a tool of clarity, to allow on to accurately see what was very far away, or, if she understood correctly, things that were very small.

"You said that piece there was determined to be unusable only due to coming out poorly fit to the rest of the commissioned talisman?" She asked, breaking into the conversation between the two men.

Gong Shu furrowed his brow and nodded. "Yes. It is frustrating for an otherwise perfect lens to be discarded, but it makes for a good example piece of the cutting work."

"I'd like to purchase it if you might indulge me."

He only briefly looked confused. "...If the Baroness wishes, this Gong Sun would be happy to make a gift of it, although…"

The question in his voice was obvious. "I might have some use for it in cultivation is all," Ling Qi said. "And please you need not make it a gift."

Xia Anxi looked at her with a frown.

"If Baroness Ling insists, then… two green stones perhaps? It is only a lens…"

She met his eyes, searching deeper, only a brief glance. He was naming a price only a bit above the cost of the materials and labor put in, a razor-thin margin of profit…. And giving himself room to decrease it more if Ling Qi proved as mercurial as she seemed.

"A fair price, but please, finish your conversation with Sir Xia before we speak of it any further."

Then foreman sketched a small bow seeming relieved that she had accepted so simply. She let herself fade into the background as Xia Anxi finished his conversation with the man, haggling for a shipment of hand held far seeing devices to be delivered within a year's time to the Bai's Embassy as a test batch.

Soon, they were on their way out, and she had her package tucked under her arm. She had been warned not to put it into her storage ring as the spatial qi risked warping the glass.

"And what was that about," Xia Anxi asked as they strolled down the street, heading toward a clear patch in the industrial district where a garden had been laid down, for the folk here to use in rest and meditations. It was a humble place as far as the Cloud districts went, a field of raked white sand and carefully arranged and shaped stones, suited to the qi of earth and fire.

"Just a whim, I had a thought that I might like to cultivate on."

"Do I even want to know?"

"I don't know, do you?"

She hopped up onto a stone, sitting down cross-legged, and Qiyi's silk rippled, briefly puffing out like a cat shaking off its fur as her dress expelled the small amount of particulates that evaded the great formations above.

She watched them travel up, drawn in by the subtle currents of the wind.

He frowned, he didn't sit down himself, instead leaning against the polished iron fence that lined the path. "Sight. Obviously. You've painfully sharp eyes, though I'd think you would be past such mundane tools being useful, given your capability."

"It's not the seeing itself," Ling Qi said. "For that, my eyes are already better. It's the method. The lens distorts what passes through it, and yet, it brings clarity and a true seeing rather than confusion and deceit. I thought to cultivate on this a little."

Xia Anxi closed his eyes clearly rolling that over in his thoughts. "That seems a reach to me. The method the lenses use is not so different than that the mortal eye uses to take in light. Might as well say our own eyes distort everything we see."

She laughed. "Might as well indeed. If my experience at the summit taught me anything, it is how true that is."

He opened his eyes, searching her face, as if trying to find the dig in her words. He seemed more unsettled to not find it, and scrubbed a hand through his hair irritably. "What plan lies between you and my Lady, Baroness?"

She blinked, earnestly confused.

"Pardon?"

He stared at her, searching her face even more intently.

"...ugh. I don't know if that is worse."

"It is possible Lady Bai and Lady Cai might be arranging a prank…?"

She wouldn't put it past them, after their many betrayals the night before.

He looked deeply pained by her words, letting out a harsh breath.

"Baroness Ling, I asked once, and we traded… simple answers. I would ask again. What did you take from your journey through my thoughts?"

She frowned now, resting her chin on her hands. The framing was a little different now.

[ ] I took the sound of the waves and the wharves, and strum of mortal strings and sailors songs.

[ ] I took the sound of discipline and pride, the melody of masks, and the beat of regimental drums.