First Assignment (Part Five of Five)
Maria Turn 9 Eighth Omake
Four months.
It had been four months since at last the tournament had ended, and we'd rampaged our way up to the Fearless Line. It already felt like another lifetime. I'd been to war before, 'course. Knew how things went – the odd combination of desperate adrenaline and total monotony, the waiting, the fighting, the utter imbalance between the two. But still. Even knowing that, this felt impossible. How? How on any spot on the Turtle Emperor's glistening back could we even for a fucking moment have been in a rush to get here?
The pattern was iron-clad. Arrive at a fortress. Settle in quick. Watch the previous crowd trudge away towards wherever they'd been swapped to. Patrol. Patrol. Patrol. Wait for the scouts and guerillas to arrive back, pile into the commander's quarters, debrief. Mount up. Drive back whichever bunch of psychopaths the Devil Alliance had decided to send this way. Learn all sorts of horrible ways cultivators can kill each other. Hate every minute. Love every minute. Wonder if you're fucking crazy. Patrol, patrol, patrol. Catch some sneaky fucker with delusions of heroism trying to sneak across the Line. Gut them. Send pieces back if you were feeling malicious, burn the corpse if you weren't. Patrol, patrol, patrol.
Patrol, patrol, patrol.
Patrol, patrol, patrol.
Sometimes there'd be new marching orders.
That was it. That was the war. You'd hear stories every once in a while about something interesting. The Single Pillars reducing a battlefield to a wasteland. The Nascent Souls unmaking some tiny corner of the world. Cities rising. Cities falling. Heroes and villains, engaged in epic struggles. I knew it happened. Fuck, I'd been one of the heroes, once. But now?
Now, I patrolled. Kept my head down. Mouth shut. And tried not to think about the only thing on my mind.
That dao.
That dao had-
It was easy enough to keep my own mind off it. Biggest issue with that in the past had been other people trying to stick their noses in, get me to do this, be that, think the other. None of that now. Letha was gone, whisked off to tactical. I knew she was still here, but that was about it. The squad were silent most days too, outside of orders, queries, training, reports. Think they were scared of me. Kind of gratified by that. Only Draconis still seemed compelled to prod at me, and even then he'd gotten better. The fight, I think, had knocked a certain amount of respect into him. Or maybe he was just doing the same thing I was, dragging his thoughts away from some black hole in his brain. Couldn't bring myself to wonder what it was. Hard to read, Draconis. Secretive as well, these days.
So I found ways to distract myself. Games, sometimes. Got up in the morning and watched the Broken Arrow Bandits stationed with us as they went through their daily oaths of vengeance. Listened to the Strength Purity quietly mumble the sutras of the Wei Princess as they moved from kata to kata. Lingered on the edges of hastily-assembled Drunkard breweries and smelt the heavy wafts of honey, plums, toasting rice, yeast and alcohol. Tasted those same drafts later, shipped out to us in heavy clay jars marked "combat dose" and "healing dose" and "last resort."
And of course, I followed the bounties.
These were apparently common in the Demon Annihilating Wars, the Righteous told us knowledgeably. A good way to encourage effort in more… recalcitrant soldiers.
"You mean us?" I'd asked, baldly. The Strength Purity I was bothering shook his head.
"No. You and yours understand how to actually fight a war. Sadly, your discipline is rather unusual."
I'd considered that for a bit. Suppose he had a point.
"In any case," he went on, "motivation was most easily applied by offering incentive. When our diviners or intelligence agents identifiy a target, the coalition authorises a bounty. A few spirit stones, usually, or cultivation resources. Something worth having. Then they send out notices, and later, when death has been confirmed, that's that."
He'd been accurate enough, but he'd left out one of the more important parts. The bounties made for a fantastic spectator sport.
Every few days, a new notice would go out, with a name, a picture, a price, and a few terse descriptions of why and what they could do. At the same time, old ones would come down again, replaced with short, triumphant little congratulations to the lucky soldier who'd done the deed. On their own, they were dry, but together, you had a shifting tapestry of rivalries, last stands and bloody, ruthless justice.
"Grinning Jin of the Gao clan has been slain!"
"Two hundred low grade is offered for the execution of Tongue Eating Demon, Demonic Altar Sect."
"The triumph was brought about by careful use of the Hibernation technique, a well-known strength of the Bear Enslavement-"
"Shu Cangquiong (Readmittance). Noble Knowledge Sect. Bounty raised to five hundred mid-grade."
"Her duty done, Iron Fist returned to her post and finished her patrol, bringing the body with her for identification."
A lot of it was bullshit. Propaganda, to keep those sects less used to violence from wavering. But it was interesting. Occasionally it'd even be someone I knew who took a head and a purse with it. Zeth, from the trip to Three Frogs, had done his legion proud, walking home with the heart of Wu Tien Ma, some lunatic demonic itinerant who'd been trying to get past the line for months. Skull-Shatterer had gutted a Time-Shatter who thought she was dead, only realising the truth as she disembowled him with a kick. Both of them handed fat purses and effusive praise.
Good enough entertainment. Filled the time.
That's all I was thinking that grey morning. That same conscious blankness. Squad formed up at the fortress gate, and I slouched into the dispatch office to get today's route. There was a handful of other squad leaders with me; mixed bag, today. Another Golden Devil I didn't recognise. A broad-shouldered Blacksmith, studiously ignoring both of us. A Bear Enslaver. The usual Smattering of Strength Purity.
Noted the details down. Waited.
The boy at the desk handed out assignment after assignment – hastily stamped maps from a woodcut, with the paths picked out in red ink. The squad leaders took them, read them, filed out silently. Until me.
The boy looked up, furrowed his brow.
"Nameless," he said. One of the Strength Purity unfolded himself from where he'd been sat, quietly meditating. Something about him struck a chord, but again, I couldn't place his face.
"This is the Squad Leader you'll be accompanying," said the boy, ignoring me. "Captain Maria of the Golden Devils. Do not interfere."
"Of course."
The boy turned back and held out the map. I didn't take it.
"Sorry, what do you mean he'll be accompanying me?"
My voice had taken on that broken-glass rasp again. Been a while since that happened.
"What it sounds like," said the boy, voice disinterested.
"Didn't agree to that."
"Your commander did. I have authorisation here from a… Sen… Setnuhr-"
"Centurion," said Nameless.
"-Centurion called Septimus."
He pushed the document over the desk at me, and dropped the map beside it. A few warm sparks of anger crackled in my chest. Brat was going to just ignore me, was he? I could… could…
No. No, leave that. Find the disinterest. Safer.
I picked up the document first. Authorisation of additional personnel for Squad G-37, Golden Devils. Assessment of competence.
Assessment of fucking-
Stamped down hard on the anger again. It was harder, this time. Lingered afterwards. I had been thoroughly fucking competent. We'd run the routes at pace, each time. Checked every cranny, emptied every nook. And they wanted to fucking-
Stamped down a third time. Made myself breathe, slowly.
At the bottom was Septimus' signature. Suppose that made sense. The 263rd still hadn't made it up yet – some problem with the logistics – so in the absence of anyone else, he was my superior officer. I saw his cramped, messy handwriting further up, on "reason for Assessment."
Officer only recently assumed command. May require assistance.
Oh good. Not incompetent. Just green, and stupid. Hissed out an irritated sigh through my teeth. Didn't bother trying to halt the anger. It was going to come, clearly.
"Fine," I growled. Turned back to Nameless. "You know how to take orders?"
"Of course," he said, bowing his head slightly.
"You going to?"
"I am instructed to avoid interference."
"Got that. Fights happen though. Can't exactly file them in triplicate two weeks in advance. We end up scrapping with a demon alliance crew, I don't want to be trying to work around you."
He tilted head and watched me closely. Again, that whisper of recognition. That head tilt. I knew that…
Nameless smiled, suddenly, bright and inscrutable.
"I will of course follow your command should such a situation arise," he said. My hackles raised. This fucker was trouble. I knew it. But it'd be more trouble than it was worth to try and shift him. Better, I decided, to just ignore it. Keep going.
"Come on then," I muttered, and shouldered past him out to the waiting squad.
---
Route was one of the worse ones, ranging further out along the line to the edge of our ward. Song Empire had been beautiful once, verdant and prosperous and happy. But the war had ruined that. Ruined towns and scorched plains that once had been meadows lay thick across the landscape – the contested no-man's land between our coalition and the alliance. You'd see mortals, sometimes, picking through the wreckage. Usually looters. Sometimes, somehow worse, they'd be survivors, who'd come back looking for family. On good days, they'd find a body to bury. Usually we just rounded them up and dragged them back to safety and the horrible uncertainty that'd dog them for the rest of their brief little lives.
Didn't see any of them that day, at least. It was early still. Mortals usually waited till a little later on, clutching some instinctual superstition that nothing bad would happen to them as long as it was daylight. Raining today, too. Dull, grey drizzle that sapped away at the spirit. That probably didn't help.
We marched on along the dirt road, me at the head, the squad two abreast behind me. Nameless strode beside me, smiling meaninglessly at me whenever we made eye contact.
No-one spoke.
The day passed slowly. We'd stop once in a while to check the landscape, make sure no-one was hiding and trying to wait us out. Priscian, our qi-sensor specialist, would close his eyes and let his spirit wander feather-light over the world until at last he was sure there was nothing.
There was almost always nothing.
We'd come to one of the more memorable landmarks; a hill, cratered by some brutal assault, now riddled with caves mouths leading back into an unstable knot of tunnels. The maps had it down as Half-Mound, but amongst the rank and file, it would forever be the Gloom. It was easily the worst part of this route. You had to split the squad; one half would wait on the road, weapons drawn, sitting on a tense little knife-edge for a few hours, while the other half would search the tunnels. Except they couldn't do it all at once. That'd be a fantastic way to be separated, picked off one by one, and wake up bound on the demonic altar to give the demons a taste of the blood of bronze. No. They'd search every tunnel thirty feet deep, then report back, then go deeper, section by section, till they'd checked the whole damn place. If they found a single damn thing, they'd bellow, and the half-squad on the road would hurtle after them like juggernauts.
It was the worst possible way to do it, but there wasn't an alternative. You couldn't throw the whole squad in at once; too easy for one smart cultivator with a few heavenstages to spare to go through everyone while they were split off, use the darkness and the isolation to their advantage. Couldn't do one tunnel all the way, then move on to the next one; too simple to sneak from an unchecked tunnel to a checked one and wait it out. You couldn't even just run a qi-sense over it either. A Time Shatter had done something to the place and warped the local qi so badly you'd struggle to get anything from it but a headache. You just had to grit your teeth and do it this awkward, complicated, bullshit way, and then thank the gods you'd finished the worst part of the route.
The squad had split up quickly, reinforcements slowly cycling their qi to keep up readiness, searchers delving slowly into the Gloom's miserable tunnels one after another.
And me and Nameless, watching both.
Technically speaking, I could have been a searcher. I'd done it in the past. But procedure said squad leader had to stay back and co-ordinate. And being assessed like this meant procedure was the order of the fucking day. So I cycled my qi and waited.
"Tunnel one, section one clear."
"Tunnel two, section one clear."
"Tunnel three, section.."
The voiced chorused back out of the dark one by one. Same as always. Nameless, beside me, nodded after each one. One little detail, but enough to fill me top-to-toe with rage.
Foolish.
Grit my teeth. Me and the Red Place hadn't been getting on. Not since – since then.
He is nodding. Not rending you into thin strips for frying.
He's fucking auditing me, I'll be pissed off if I want.
It'll do you no favours.
Ask you for your opinion, did I? Ask you for a single damn thing?
Foolishness, was the Red Place's only reply, rumbling with disapproval.
Gods. That fucking thing was going to drive me crazier than I already was. I felt my jaw clench at the thought, even as the last voice called back out of the tunnels.
"Acknowledged," I shouted. "Proceed to section two."
"Efficient," said Nameless.
"Best we can do," I muttered. "Squad's not big enough for anything faster."
"Have you considered taking on more personnel?"
"Wouldn't be worth it. If we stuck with clan, we'd be putting another squad a man down. Even then, we'd have to train them in. My lads are new, but they've an idea of how to work together by now."
"There are other cultivators than the Golden Devils."
"That as may be, but it's the same problem. Writ larger, too. One thing teaching a Golden Devil how to work in a new squad. Quite a lot harder to do the same with, say, a Broken Arrow, or a Strength Purity, or a Bear Enslavement."
"Or a Divine Saber?"
I shot him a glare.
"Yeah. Made worse in that circumstance because you have to take the stick out of their arse and the knife out of your back. There'll be one, if history's any judge."
Nameless's face stayed serene. I had no idea if he took the point or not. After a second, I made myself turn away.
"First tunnel, section two clear."
"Second tunnel, section two-"
"Your squad has taken this route before?"
I nodded, keeping my focus on the searcher's voices.
"How many times?"
"You don't have a file on us?"
"Personal experience can be very enlightening."
Weasel answer. Didn't fucking like this man.
"Four or five," I said. "ACKNOWLEDGED! PROCEED TO SECTION THREE!"
The reinforcements shot me surprised glances. That was louder than it needed to be, but I was desperate for anything to just shut Nameless up.
"Do you like it?"
"It's a route."
"But… would you say you like it? Compared to the other routes?"
"Does it matter?" I snapped, before I could leash my spiking temper.
"Certainly," said Nameless. "Or I wouldn't have asked."
I strangled a growl. Just get through this. That's all. Just… push past it. Let it run off you like rain.
"No," I said. "Not a damn bit."
Or complain about an order to your god-damn assessor, no way that could backfire.
"Why?"
"Too exposed, too many boltholes to check, too long. Every other route dips out this far then comes back. Breaks it down further, ensures the parts that need more attention get it because the squad's less drained. Plus there's overlaps. Spots getting checked twice. Means you have to get it right, or the other bastard will know and gods help you if you think they won't make your life hell over it. But this? Just one long straight line, all of it tricksy as fuck."
There was a pause. The searchers started calling back again.
Nameless stayed silent for a while.
"You've thought about this a lot," he said eventually.
"It's my fucking job," I muttered.
"Yes."
We stayed in silence, punctured only by the call-and-response of me and the searchers, for a long time. Yes? Just- Yes? What the fuck was that supposed to mean? I'd mouthed off, sure. That was stupid. But how stupid? I had no idea what this fucker was thinking, now. I was in enough trouble as it was without-
And then everything went to hell.
---
It was an ambush, obviously. That was how most of the skirmishes on the line played out, outside of big pushes by raiding parties or demon columns trying to punch a hole in the line. I'd gotten used to ambushes. What made this one quite so special was how they'd laid it out.
The far side of Gloom is still pretty much a normal hill. It has no real cover, and it's massively exposed, so Alliance cultivators generally don't bother trying to hide on it. We'd checked before we started plumbing the tunnels, of course; we always did. Protocol. But we hadn't kept checking it.
So when five Gao clan poisoners surged up over the lip of the hill and swung into the tunnels, they caught us by surprise.
Still, at first it seemed the stupidest tactic I'd ever seen. However they'd managed to sneak past me and the other half of the squad, they must have seen us. How could they think it was a good idea to get caught in between?
"Priscian. Go. The rest of you split by tunnel and catch them between you," I snapped. "Masks on."
The whole squad carried the poison filter masks we'd used at Three Frogs. They didn't work against everything, but they were better than nothing. They moved fluidly now, drills and practice having taken the nervousness out of their motions, lunging into the darkness after their friends. Priscian was already gone, a blur of bronze-tinted skin as he ran back towards the fortress.
I went for the mouth of tunnel four. Draconis had taken that one. Whoever the Gao had sent, between the two of us we could handle them quickly and reinforce the others. There weren't many of them – if we worked quickly, we could-
Nameless was in here with me. He was flitting along, white robe trailing behind him, with that mix of power and grace the Strength Purity beat into their disciples. I almost cursed.
Of course. Of course he'd follow me. We'd talked about this very thing back at the dispatch office, but of course he'd get in the fucking way now, when it mattered. Fuck.
Didn't have time to scold him or send him back. Speed. We needed speed. I kept moving. Draconis had clearly intercepted his cultivator already – I could hear his voice, tightly controlled, snapping out kiais as he fought. No serious sounds of distress yet. We had time.
Rounded the corner to see him put his spear through the Gao's head. He had the blade back out again in an instant, halfway into a new stance before he recognised us. Then the body hit the floor.
"There's more," I hissed. "Back out – reinforce the others." I twisted, shoved my way past Nameless, and bolted back up.
And then the bitch sprang her trap.
The Gao behind us twitched. That was all the warning we got. I had barely registered it before their flesh just- peeled back in twitching coils, and a thick, pus-yellow smoke came pouring out of its chest cavity. The tunnel flooded with the scent of sulfur and excrement. I felt my guts roiling. Suicide strike. Fuck, they meant for us to catch them like this. We put our heads down and sprinted for the daylight, the smoke billowing behind us like it was alive. It only shyed back as we burst out of the tunnel mouth.
A woman stood waiting for us. Short, slim, slight, her dark hair cut in a messy fringe and pulled back in a bun. Two large, round black spectacles perched on her nose. Like a school teacher, I thought. Or a child pretending to be one. You'd almost call her cute, if it wasn't for the human spine she held loosely in one hand.
"That's quite far enough," she said. "Your unit, as yet, are not dead, but I will be forced to remedy that if you try anything."
The smoke was billowing from the other three tunnel mouths. The others were barely visible through it, twitching feebly on the sparse grass. The woman shook the spine lightly. They squealed, contorting in agony with each swing. "Many-As-One technique," she said. "Originally medical; very good for physical therapy, people who've just regained the use of their legs and so on. However, with a few minor alterations, it proves remarkably effective for more combative settings. Step down please, all of you."
My mind spun. Made myself focus as I did what she said, stepping out onto the grass and trying not to notice how the smoke followed us out, coiling at our backs hungrily. Priscian wasn't here. She had to have seen him leave. Either she'd sent someone after him, or decided not to bother.
...So either she was on the clock or had all the time in the world. Fucking gods damnit, I was not good at this. Alright. Keep her talking. Might get more out of her. At the very least keep her from shaking that fucking spine again.
"What's this about?" I asked, trying for non-threatening. The woman raised an eyebrow.
"The only thing that matters," she said, shortly. "On your knees, please."
"That poison. I don't recognise it."
Her lips thinned. "I said, on your knees."
Fuck. Fuck. I was no good at this. I didn't know how to get people talking. And she was starting to raise the spine.
"Shu Cangquiong," said Nameless, suddenly. The woman blinked. "I'm right, aren't I? You're Shu Cangquiong. You're the Mother of Mists."
She looked at him for a long moment. Then something like a smile slipped over her lips.
"Is that what you're calling me, in the Righteous sects?"
"Yes," he said, eyes on her hands. "You're getting famous, these days. People are calling you the next Black Blood Gulper."
She laughed at that.
"I should hope not. Black Blood Gulper was an imbecile." But for all her dismissive words, I could see her… preening, just a little. "Well. It's smoke, as I'm sure you can see. Not mist. Boneshadow poison is a heavy substance, even as an aerosol. And when you up the concentration, well. I'm sure I don't have to explain."
Okay. Okay. Ego. She has an ego. Play dumb. Let her be smarter than you. Nameless can buff her up after.
"You… might," I muttered. The broken-glass rasp was still there, but it was receding a little. Maybe she'd like that. "I don't know what you mean."
Cangquiong raised an eyebrow at that. "I was led to believe the Golden Devils made a good study of poisons," she said, something like a sneer starting to bloom on her mouth. "In fact, unless my information is very wrong, one of your Foundation Establishment cultivators invented the Meat Qi Rot."
"Yeah," I said, trying to drawl a little, drag out my vowels just enough to sound stupid, "but I don't know much about it. Spear fighter." I gestured towards it with my free hand.
Her eyes flickered over me quickly.
"Drop that, please."
Shit.
"Sure." I let the spear fall from my grasp, and kicked it over to her. She looked at it, then back to me. Another long, cold moment of consideration.
"Well," she said, slowly, and the little sneer was back on her lips in full force, now, "I suppose every family has a black sheep. Or white, in your case."
An albino joke. Original. Doesn't matter. Every second she was talking was a second we could use. Nameless was starting, very slowly, to edge to the left, circling around her.
"Aerosol is, in this circumstance, a smoke. It can also refer to mist, or in some circumstances a steam. Essentially it refers to the substance in question being suspended in a gas, so as to be easier to introduce into a patient's system."
"Oh."
"Patient is, in this example, being used to refer to any individual who ingests the substance."
"...Substance-"
"The poison. My word. You're an idiot." Cangquiong put a hand up to her face to cover a tittering laugh. "I must admit, as disappointing as this is, it certainly undercuts that fearsome reputation. The poison witch looks a lot less threatening if she's related to you."
"'m – 'M good at some stuff," I muttered. It wasn't entirely feigned.
"Oh yes? Hitting things with sharp objects, I would assume."
"That's important!"
"Is it? Well. Perhaps. Somebody has to lift heavy things, I suppose. But let's be honest. That clan of yours. You don't really fit, do you?"
That hit. My jaw clenched. My hands flickered, just for a moment, into fists. But it didn't matter. I knew that. It didn't matter at all. I just needed to keep her talking. Get her guard down.
"I mean, look at this specimen." She pointed to Draconis. "That is a Golden Devil. Strong, brave, controlled. Knows how to lead. Should lead, if we're honest. But you… well. You're a little less typical, shall we say?"
Nameless was halfway, now. Out of her range of sight. Just had to let her go on a little longer – he could get the spine out of her hand and she'd be done.
"Far too… passionate. Yes? Too temperamental. And let's be honest, you shouldn't be playing with that spear, you'll hurt yourself. No. Someone like you should be using your hands. Simpler."
...Bitch. Evil little bitch. I was going to enjoy putting my spear through her spinal column. If I did it right I could sever the cord but leave her alive. And that'd be any minute now, because Nameless was in position, and she hadn't noticed.
"Honestly, maybe you should give up cultivation all together. You've done very well so far, I'll grant you, but honestly. You're a brute. How could you expect to understand the complexities of foundation establishment? You haven't even realised I've already poisoned you."
...What? Cangquiong's eyes crinkled, sinking into her face. There was nothing in their place but deep black holes. "Oh yes," she said, her voice distorted suddenly. "Before you even got out of the cave."
Nameless moved, behind her, but something was wrong. He too a step, but slow. Too slow. Then another, and another, his legs bending in on themselves like reeds in the wind. Confusion dances on his face for a moment. Then-
Roses, and butterflies with scarlet wings. He broke apart gently and let them come falling out.
Draconis started laughing. His voice deep. Too deep. Toodeeptoodeeptoodeep. A river came burbling out of his throat, ran down the foothills of his chest to fall and pool on the ground. Servess him right.
The sky's lightening. The butterflies will fly up into it, carried the roses in little paws. Stain it, fill it up. Cangquiong's there, now, a million miles above us. The sky was wrapped around her head. Crown. Headdress. Thick rapture of flowers.
"That's better now, isn't it?" she will murmur. I recognise her voice. In the slave pens, when I'll be a little child, before the pit, my mother speaks in the same one. Cool. Gentle. "Much better. So much more relaxing."
"Mama."
I said the words gently, like a dream. Cangquiong will laugh.
"No, dear. Your mother was a slave. Your father, whoever he was, whelped you and fled. He never even knew you were alive."
"...Because I'm bad."
The ground was a sea. Thick, dark, brown sea, like shit and chocolate, rising up, filling my lungs and chest and guts and heart.
"Yes," said Cangquiong. "Because you're bad."
Which will be what I will always have known. So I sink.
Sank.
Will sink.
The shit-chocolate sea takes me down where all the bad things go.
Finally.
Finally where I belong.
I cry. Feel it. Feel the tears are going to run up my face and into the air and rise up out of the sea. This. So much of it is this. This fact. This awful fact. My mother will pretend it's not, daubed my hair with thick mud, cuddle me close, Ajax had sent me to the Dawn Fortress and they try and try and try but no. No. We'll all know. Won't we?
I'm bad. I cannot achieve. I cannot change anything. I cannot grow. Because I am bad, and bad cannot be like these good people.
Cangquiong was still there. Felt her. Felt her huge, trudging footsteps. Vast, now. Vast beyond imagining. Like a god. Creator. Destructor. She is a silhouette against the red sky, her eyes two vast, featureless white circles. The sky was pressing on her back, shoulders, neck, head. It will be no matter. It will be nothing to one so vast as her.
"Such a silly thing," she will burble. Her words were the source of everything. I feel them run through me like earthquakes. "Such a silly, small thing."
"I'm sorry," I whispered.
"It's alright. It made it easier." She reaches out, her arm longer than the world, fingertips like continents. "You have a secret." We are in the pens. Cangquiong took the mud from the ground and will rub it into my hair. Mad tangled thatch. I hold still. I let her. "A very important secret."
"What?" Voice was rasping like broken glass. I wanted to cry again, very badly, but my tears were rain and they'd break the roof and wash out the mud.
"A vision." Her voice drags on for a thousand years, and then we were in Three Frogs. I was killing cannibals. She sat on the steps of a dog-quarter tenement, arms crossed over her knees. She'll be wearing legionary gravebronze and Lu Xu's peddler bag. "You saw the dao."
More cannibals. The captain is dying. I see his face as he falls.
"Lovely weather," he said.
"I'm sorry," I will say. "I could not save you."
His eyes fill up with blood. He started to speak, but the cannibals will tear at him and ate him. I want to cry again.
"The second time was in the ring," said Cangquiong. "In the camp. I felt that."
"Time is hard," Maria said. She places her finger in her eye socket. "Do I have one or two?"
"My divinations were full-proof. They took almost all I had, but I am right," the eye socket whispers. "The camp. You were fighting. You saw the dao."
It eats my arm. My shoulder. My chest. I bend, and twist, screaming as every bone breaks and muscle tears, crammed inch by inch into the gaping maw. I will want, very much, for it to stop.
"Please," I will beg. "Please. Stop. Bad for you. Make you sick."
Hands, many hands, hundreds of hands, surge forward to catch me, pull me out. They are bloody with gore, skinless, twitching and obscene.
The eye socket will stop.
"What is this?" it said. "What is interfering-"
I wanted to cry. So badly I wanted to cry. A single tear fills me up. It strains the duct until it tears, pushes backwards, strangles my brain.
"Stop that. Stop!"
The eye socket bellowed those words and they burn and cut and the tear freezes rock still, and the hands will all as one let go and I fall into it at last but oh it hurts.
"We must be quick. We must. That was the second time in the camp. Tell me. Tell me it was the second time."
Yes.
"Fascinating. If you were not so foul, so foolish and stupid, that would in and of itself make you worthwhile."
But I am foul and foolish and stupid.
"Yes, yes, of course. Now. The first time. Where was that?"
Three Frogs.
"...Where the Corpse Poison King did his work. Yes. Yes, I see. What happened?"
I was fighting.
"Who?"
Cannibals.
"Why?"
They were-
And then, suddenly, I want to cry again. I want to sob. I want to scream, and howl, and bawl. I want all the bad that's in me to come out and the tears can wash it away and then there'd be so many-
"Stop this. Answer me."
-so many tears that no bad stuff could ever get in could ever get near me again they would wash it away first they would keep it far away like a tide like a sea like a sky
"WHY WERE YOU FIGHTING THE CANNIBALS?!"
imsorry
"Answer me. You are bad. Don't be worse."
becauseiwastoldto
"No. Liar."
becauseihavetotobeagooddevil
"...A good devil. The mask, perhaps? Or the ideal? Show me. Show me what you did.
Thecaptainisdeadtheeyesocketisstillhereablackholebutthereissomethinginsideittherearetwoeyesinsideithidinghidingbehindwhitecirclesiaminlegionnairebronzeandmyspearisinmyhand
"This. This is important. Go on."
andheisdeadirealiseheisdead
"And you start killing."
yes
"Are you thinking about being a good Devil?"
heisagooddevil
"Unlike you."
…
"I said. Unlike you."
…
iwanttocryagain
"Stop that. Show me."
i-
i-
am
killing
"Yes, but what happens then?"
i-
reach-
"For what? What is it you reach for? The thought. Tell me the thought. Even an idiot like you must understand that."
i-
thethought-
thethought-
…
iwanttocry
thatisthethought
thatistheonlywayicanseeit
"How does a metaphor for childhood trauma possibly help you see it?"
iwanttocry
"You are wasting time."
iwanttocry
"It will muddle the image. I will have to spend months clarifying it. I do not HAVE months. Wei An is already a Single Pillar, and your clan has another. So stop-"
iwanttocryiwanttocryiwanttocryiwanttocryiwanttocryiwanttocryiwanttocryiwanttocryiwanttocryiwanttocryiwanttocryiwanttocryiwanttocryiwanttocryiwanttocryiwanttocryiwanttocryiwanttocryiwanttocryiwanttocryiwanttocryiwanttocryiwanttocryiwanttocryiwanttocryiwanttocryiwanttocryiwanttocryiwanttocryiwanttocryiwanttocryiwanttocryiwanttocryiwanttocryiwanttocryiwanttocryiwanttocryiwanttocryiwanttocryiwanttocryiwanttocryiwanttocryiwanttocryiwanttocryiwanttocryiwanttocryiwanttocryiwanttocryiwanttocryiwanttocryiwanttocryviwanttocryiwanttocryiwanttocryiwanttocryiwanttocryiwanttocryiwanttocryviwanttocryiwanttocryiwanttocryiwanttocryiwanttocryiwanttocryiwanttocry
"OH HEAVEN'S GUTS, FINE! Fine. If this will let you show me, then… show me."
soido
theteardropisstillthereicanfeelititisstilltherefrozensolidandireachoutforitanditouchitwrapmyselfarounditfillitwiththeheatthewarmheatofmeanditmelts
slowlyatfirst
thenfaster
faster
faster
faster
faster
and it's melted at last and it's hot and tight in my chest
and finally
finally
I cry.
I cry. I sob. I wail. I howl. I bawl. I weep. The tears come out in a mad flood of red water, scorching to the touch. Boiling. But I am not burnt. The tears wrap themselves around me and they are warm and soft.
"What are you doing? What is this?"
The tears grow outwards. The warmth gets bigger. They are making a place for me. Somewhere safe. There are walls, and doors with locks, and none of the windows break.
"This- stop this. Show me."
The tears laugh. The safe place gets bigger.
"I said stop this or I will be forced to tear it down."
And the tears look at Shu Cangquiong, really look at her. They sea through the pretend – the eye socket, the two white circles. They see through, and through, and through, until they find the arrogant little fuck who dared to try and steal enlightenment, never once realising who she was – an insignificant speck in the eyes of the wide universe.
"Fucking try it, bitch."
"...Who are you?"
"I'm the Red Place. I keep the girl safe. You want to see the Dao? What we saw? Then hold still."
Tears become rivers become hands. Shu Cangquiong is caught. Held tight. Struggling does her no good.
"I'll fucking show you."
And then
we're
there-
I remembered the thought, then. Watching the Captain die. Thinking about the Dog Quarter. Remembering Old Wu, who'd lived not far from that street. His wife made a fantastic pork bao. I'd chased recruits out of the brothels nearby, once, screaming at them to get back to the Garrison before I took their ears off, and Old Wu had been watching me, eating one of those bao, trying not to laugh. And I'd looked at him and he'd looked at me and suddenly- suddenly- the two of us wer bent over, choking with laughter. His wife had seen it, her husband and some strange corpse-skinned cultivator, and thought she was going to see him die that day.
And Yin, who begged for coppers, too. Thought about him. Didn't know him well. He'd never really talked much, even when he realised I wasn't going to hurt him. Hurt too often, probably. But he'd listened to me, and laughed in all the right places, and when he saw me next he gave me three of his coins and told me to buy a lucky jade, because they were supposed to protect you.
And Feng Ma the whore, and all her girls, who'd chased the pimps away with knives they stole out of the garrison and took over the place because she was too old for another job but she would burn - BURN – before she let another girlchild come into that place and be broken like a horse and made to sell herself, so she started running it because that was what she could do and she was going to do it.
And Ru, who didn't know who his mother was, but his dad said she'd been pretty. And Yufei, who missed his wife. And Liu, who's brothers weren't actually his brothers but they'd sworn an oath and shared peaches and if that wasn't enough then he loved them like brothers so there. And Fang. And Chi Chi. And Long. And Shao and Yanmei and Sho and Chao and Rin and the others who's names she didn't know and the others who she'd only ever seen and the other others who didn't even have that, on and on, an uncountable sea of -
of people.
People who had lived here. Had been born, and loved, and hated, and suffered, and enjoyed, and died.
And so many of them were going to die, might already be dead, because these… these bastards, these murderers and cannibals and, and power-hungry, ruthless, stupid people had decided they would make good fuel.
They didn't even know the people's names.
They didn't even know the captain's name, as the fell on him, and Maria looked into his eyes and he looked into hers.
The captain who had never run.
"Here it comes, girly. Have you guessed yet?"
And that thought had run through her, she realised. Like a current. Like a river of fire and tears, deep into the heart of herself, into memories of a little girl and her mother in a slave pen, where love was a weakness they could use against you because you were property. Into the half-remembered corners of those memories, where shadowy figures in nice clothes who carried big sticks watched, and saw beneath the mud a hint of gold.
And that thought had grown bigger. And bigger. Until it reached into the core of her mind and shook the very foundations of who she was.
A simple thought, that had been answered.
HOW DARE YOU?
And Maria looked up, into the great, echoing sky.
And for a moment-
She understood.
---
Came to four hours later, weak as a kitten. Priscian stood over me, face a mask of worry, until he saw my eye was open and focused on him and he almost collapsed from relief.
"It's alright, captain," he said. "It's alright. I got help."
And he had. Mish-mash of everyone, really. A Strength Purity I didn't recognise lifting me gently onto a stretcher, held carefully by the Great Drunkard who'd given me the mask at camp and Shanshu, her face caught in some odd emotion I couldn't read. Next to us was another stretcher, where Draconis lay, his face turned to mine. Still not much feeling on that face, but what I could see was almost – happy.
"You get," he slurred, lips fighting him for every word, "to be captain."
"...okay," I said.
"Shut up, both of you," said one of his stretcher bearers. Took me a moment to realise it was Lan Hua. "Idiot devils."
And Nameless was on another one, overlooked by Skull-Shatterer and the Honourable Sibling. The rest of the squad littered the others. All still here. All still alive.
We spent the next week and a half lying in the infirmary, fussed over by every healer in the fortress. A lot of them weren't altruistic – survivors of the Mother of Mists' poisons were rare as hen's teeth, after all. We bore up as best we could. Wasn't even that bad, really. We'd had worse.
As we healed, and grew stronger, at last the news came with it. Shu Cangquiong had escaped. There'd been no sign of her when they arrived, bar a few drops of blood that didn't belong to any of us, or the rotted remains of the Gao found lying in the Gloom. That should have worried me, but it didn't. I could handle her. Besides, we got out without casualties.
Nameless gave me the best assessment I could have expected. Probably better than I deserved, I felt, but he'd shot me a blank look I'd started to realise was his version of disapproving.
"Despite a directly targeted ambush by a major cultivator, you brought your squad home without casualties," he said. "That is a sign of an excellent leader."
Draconis gave a snort of amused disagreement. I smirked back.
"Something to say, there, Kalokagathos?"
He snorted again. But he smiled, and he didn't turn away.
"Must wish you'd gotten a different job, Nameless," I said, leaning back on my bed. The Strength Purity shot me a quizzical look. "Well. Given the circumstances."
"Captain Maria, I requested this," he said, brow furrowed in confusion.
"...What?"
"Yes. I hadn't had a chance to speak to you, and – well. I wanted to."
"You took a position as my assessor so you could hang out?"
"Yes."
"You couldn't just say hi?"
"In his defence," murmered Draconis, "you are somewhat intimidating."
"Oh fuck off, you've never been scared of me."
"Of course not. I am a Kalokagathos. But others, certainly."
"It just never seemed the right time," said Nameless, carefully.
"What were you waiting for?!" I asked.
And then it clicked.
Nameless's face didn't ring a bell because I'd never seen it before. But the way he moved? I remembered that. It had been all I remembered from our fight in the camp. His face brightened as at last he saw recognition dawn.
"...If this is about a rematch, you can fuck off," I said, grinning.
---
Three days later, I was the only one still there. It was madness. I was fine. But apparently I'd gotten the strongest dose of Cangquiong's signature poison, dream's madness, and they weren't letting me loose until they had every single scrap of it they could. I'd protested, of course, but Septimus had told me I could lie in bed or he could chain me to it.
It wasn't that bad, really. It gave me the time I needed to think. Shanshu had been right. Rejecting the dao had been stupid. Beyond stupid – weak, in a way that was hard to forgive. But I'd spent a long time hating myself. Time to try this forgiveness thing.
Beyond that, I'd been thinking about what Cangquiong had said. Single pillars were cropping up, now. Two so far, but how long would it stay that way?
How long before they started changing the world?
Something inside me shivered at the thought. Gods knew there was a lot that needed to change.
So my thoughts were coming thick and fast, for those few days on my own. It was kind of a relief when Letha kicked in the door and flung herself at me.
"Gods, Leeth, careful!"
She was sobbing, of course. Took about twenty minutes to calm her down, and even then she was still sniffling.
"I leave you alone," she said, dabbing at her eyes, "for four months, and you end up in a hospital bed."
"Wasn't intentional," I said, grinning lopsidedly. She laughed.
"No, I'm sure it wasn't. Are you alright?"
"Clean bill of health. They think they can back engineer some of the Noble Knowledge poisons from me. Only reason I'm still here."
She relaxed a little at that. Something seemed to hit her, then, and she looked down.
"I- Maria," she said, slowly, "before I left, I said some very hurtful things."
"Which ones?"
I know, I know. That was mean. But I've never been nice before, can't be expecting me to start now.
"I- pried," she said. "I spoke about very sensitive subjects that I did not understand in the least, and I hurt you. And- I referred to people who are turtle-blooded as… as barbarians."
"Yeah," I said. "You did. And that was fucked up."
"I know. I know it was. I am so sorry." The tears were welling up again. Gods, the woman was like a fountain. I better put a stop to this or I'd never leave.
"You gonna do it again?"
"Never. I promise."
"I forgive you, then. I do."
This didn't actually stop the tears. She flung herself at me again, and I spent the next fifteen minutes patting her on the back while she said a few dozen variations on the theme of "thank you" and "you're my best friend" into my chest. Clan kids. So mushy.
"You weren't wrong about the other stuff," I said when she'd calmed down. "I have been… you know. Being stupid."
"I never said that!"
"No, but you used a lot of syllables you didn't need to. Anyway. I did. But I'm done with that. Starting now. I need a favour."
"Anything," she said immediately.
"Good. Here." I pulled two letters from my bedside table and handed them to her. "That one's for Shanshu. The other's for the Honourable Sibling. I need you to deliver them for me."
She nodded. "Alright. What do they say?"
"Bog standard stuff, really. I'm asking them to take me on as a student."
She froze for a second.
"Look, I've thought it through," I said, defensively. "There's – I've got some ideas, alright, and you said I should try some stuff that's more suited to me-"
"I think it's a good idea," she said. "And about bloody time."
"...Oh."
She smiled at my slightly off-balance expression.
"Anything else?"
"Yeah. Yeah, there is." I cracked my neck. Then my knuckles. "I'm going to reach the thirteenth heavenstage. Want to help?"
---
So I figured out why my arcs keep growing. I'm incapable of judging scale. Anyway. That's the end of First Assignment. Not entirely happy with it. There was a plan for a way better turn nine, but it was big and I think way too detailed and then my entire life kind of exploded and I didn't want to write for a while.
A lot of this feels like it's repeating stuff I did in the Mirror. That's partly because, again, I panicked and exploded. But I also think it's because I didn't actually do the bit of character development I needed. Maria's big old PILE of self-worth issues needed dealing with before she could start going for the thirteenth heavenstage. The easiest way to do that, at least without having her go back to where the Pit was, is to do a Satoshi Kon-style battle in the centre of the mind. Kuei was supposed to be that. It ended up being Shu Cangquiong. (In case anyone's wondering, her whole schtick is using hallucinogenic poisons to make people more susceptible to divination, in her case mind-reading. Which is what's happening in this omake. Probably don't need to explain that but I spent about six straight hours writing this bastard thing and I'm kind of loopy.)
ANYWAY! IT'S OVER! IT IS DONE!
@Alectai @Kaboomatic @TehChron @Humbaba , THREADMARK ME, BABY!
