On the surface the near outbreak of plague, and the raging famine in Yuzhou was of much concern to them. With its ever growing casualties and blood curdling human suffering at fore, it would have been only natural for Lord Wei to summon an urgent meeting of the Grand Elder’s Council. And on the surface, it had. For a while.

“…since half of the Jinghai’s well known personage were already present for my grandson’s capping ceremony, it was only natural for us to proceed from there to these more secluded corners to conduct this formal affair. I beg your pardon, all too clear as I stand, that much of the theme for today's table is unpleasant, sordid at best. The famine sees no respite – and by this moment, the whole town of Anshui has been barricaded for a while.”

The location was still in Wei’s manor premises; time, on the very day of that auspicious occasion.

Like aged pieces of threadbare brocade, with their proper manners and airs, and silver hair crowned over their heads – although not much could be seen in that dark chamber, but a sniff of resemblance, a repertoire of ease and discomfort at the same time hung overhead which could be easily gleaned; these men were seated with a shared sense of despondency.

“…though we see no results, as of what we had expected from such great a measure when barricading all human communication in there –”

This declaration cued some shifting in the audience; rustling of fabrics followed screeching of pulled out chairs, gasping of some sort, a cough or two with clearing of throats. All instruments seemed to be being checked and ascertained to see them fully functioning for future use. The nervousness was palpable.

“Anshui, their inhabitants, and their recent antagonism – we have plenty of time to talk about all that. But let’s talk of this, unjust uprising we have been affronted with in the south first–”

Warm chairs, biting coldness and darkness of a chilly, rainy day.

The plague, as it turned out, was of less importance than the growing unrest in the southern Dajin; Lord Wei left no doubt in others mind of his growing concern over this particular event which he foresaw as a call of something more devilish. At that moment, the sunlight slowly crept down from the roof, stealing stealthily from the window panes, arousing every face to have a feature, all the shadows lost to show those haloed faces of twelve men in that cold chamber. Nothing pertinent, but age and authority, scowling or morose air lingered on the majority.

“Those barbarians in the south wouldn’t agree to renew another Agreement Pact - neither of their subordination to Dajin, nor the future extension of our monopoly over their markets; they were particularly unhappy with the current state of their affairs even before the famine at Anshui, we are told. Since this region lies under our jurisdiction, we were to negotiate with them in the coming winter, but no one could have foreseen such a bad turn of events. The famine followed the drought, a plague is at hand, the barricade can only save us only for a while before it becomes an epidemic. Now, we have been informed that we can see some uprising in nearby regions affiliated with the barbarian chief, over the rights of the Almenth plateau. Furthermore," here he looked pertinently at someone at the end of the table with his eagle like sharp eyes, “some young men from capital and Jinghai have added fuel to this raging fire, and the call for a separate recognition of this region has been successfully pushed anew inside the court. The age-old promise of the previous emperors is now being flagged and unearthed to ask for renewed recognition of this region as a separate country of its own; you go and ask them what they desire, more than ever you will hear them utter this common sentiment – the fire clan of the south wants autonomy. As their ancestors had in the past. Many sides to look into, here.”

With this bristling brisk introduction to current affairs, there was a moment of silence. A few coughs, a little movement in the dark – yet no one rose to speak. Lord Wei seemed to be framing the next declaration, as his finger kept tapping rhythmically over the wooden tabletop.

The court was still in chaos. The king was ill; the crown prince drowning in his own sorrows at the untimely death of his only offspring, the future heir to the crown, had relegated all his duties to others. An untimely nuisance but of a great consequence at present times. While the Dowager Empress Song – a figure of constant disregard inside the court herself – held a heavy title suitable to lead, but having no disposition suitable for that office or courage to set all things right, was finally left to her own comfort despite the urgency of the circumstances.

As such, quite naturally the second prince – the only other adult prince in the current Harem – had to take up the great responsibility of directing the court at such a tense moment of outer and inner unrest in the nation. Although there were many supporters behind him, this sudden shift of power had clearly been abrupt.

But Lord Wei, as he finished opening the meeting with all affairs explained to keen ears, had a niggling doubt which he did voice in shaded words and allusions – his senses screamed of incongruity, and all incrementing evidence supporting his fancies aligned, he had found that the present of what he saw itself sketched a very different kind of reality. Rather than facing a mutiny of some sort in the south, he feared another kind of unrest coming at them even before that, something that was both out of his hand and completely unstoppable. And, specifically somewhere in the east.

“So, gentlemen, we must not forget the east as we wrestle with the south issue. We have such formidable neighbors like Temeir’s losing their wars at present times there, it’s only right for us to dwell some more on those grounds. With that, let’s begin our meeting – hoping that such great minds as are present with us today, with their keen insights on the raging pulses of the world will serve as carriers for better answers to our predicament.”

Lord Wei finished with his low voice, never halting in his languid tone. His eyes finally found all the occupants searchingly, trying to glean any recourse, any alternative that hadn’t already sifted through his own mind. He did know a little more than he let on. There was much mischief in current affairs. Some from the court itself, while some certainly did come from a foreign interventions - some very powerful figure’s were dictating orders, from whose influence no country could save itself. But he was also aware, the majority in the room had already gleaned some of that, if not all.

In perspective though, if it were the intentions of the Gods above, then what could he, a mortal do? If they desired chaos, they got chaos; and when the battlefields strewn with broken bones and flesh of humankind, and rotting carcasses of once dignified men became an inevitability, Lord Wei could then at least save his conscience of having any heavy pangs by saying, ‘look, they left me nowhere to go. I could have only done that, wouldn't I?!’

A cowardly sentiment, but the times had chiseled out all his rough edges and left him with no impression of his youthful bravery in the face of injustice. And it wouldn't even be the first time that such an incongruous event had been demanded of him. He had sacrificed much; counted more black heads leaving under white sheets from under the glazed tiles of Weijia, six-feet under the ground, than he cared to count. He hadn’t let those deep losses stop him, why would the blood of others dyeing his lapel stop him now?

Sometimes, even with his loyal heart bowed down in low obeisance to his great Masters in Heaven, with their omniscient gazes, and all knowing hearts, he was pushed to doubt if the Gods he had talked with were actual Gods, not demons themselves impersonating them. Now, there was no doubt left of their being the gods, or rather immortals; he could only mourn that he had met some of the most malevolent kind in the bunches. There was a decided selfishness of purpose in their brows and deeply entrenched indifference to human suffering in their dealings. Malevolent spirits, weren’t they like that in old tales?

Here, though, Lord Wei was aroused from his ponderings by a gentle tap.

“Lord Wei, are you sure that you have guessed it right? That there will be a war in Daxia? Between those mutineers and loyal supporters of the dynasty?” The speaker was a gentle looking man, his beard touching the table surface. His sonorous voice entrenched in worry captured everyone’s attention. “How will it affect us, if say, the last Jing landholdings in Daxia lose their current battles like the Temeir’s had done near their western desert frontier’s? Those people will surely want to enter Dajin by that time through our eastern Turin pass. Are we certain that the battle will not reach our frontiers too soon? Will the mutiny in Daxia settle down before it reaches us in the east?”

‘Did the gods desire the upcoming war between Dajin and Daxia so bad, even at the cost of eventually burning out all their most fanatic devotees in Daxia?’ this question seized their imaginations yet no lips dared to utter this blasphemy. No one even uttered the name of those people who had uprooted the stable old kingdom like Daxia, which had been neighboring them for centuries past, in just a matter of a few years.

“Unfortunately…I am not.” Lord Wei rubbed his face and then he stood up from his chair. He walked up to the window sill, peering through the gray lands. “Yet I dare say, no one of us CAN be, Master Song. The things of our great Masters are not to be thought of by us mindless human beings, with all our limited human senses. All I can say is that, let’s not rush to any conclusions yet. There is a need for preparations, yes, but let’s steer clear from ‘guessing’ what their intentions are or are not.” There was no clue to be found in this decrepit consoling.

But everyone heard the underlined meaning. ‘If it’s a war that they asked us to wage, what else could they do but prepare?’

Lord Wei didn’t look sardonic, yet his words contained a strange flavor. Yes, it felt like helplessness to many ears. Something everyone in the room had been afflicted with once or twice in their small term in the office. Serving Gods was not a piece of cake – they had to shut their eyes and cut their throats a number of times to just appear as decent unthinking slaves as much as they could– while still appearing useful. There was a fine balance to be maintained in their piety. ‘It was nothing short of an art,’ someone deliberated on this.

"True. What a disaster! We can only hope to see Daxia stand its ground if it can.”

“Their nobility might be in shambles but the martial strength should probably hold for a few more years - or are they even past that much? We cannot be certain of their victory, but we can pray for them to hold a while longer. Who would have thought, the mighty lions of deserts, those Temeir would lose?! If we fall like them…Dajin will not only fall to ruins, we would be shouldering millions of blood debts and a fate worse than death!” A weasel like man sported his caricature of a long face, as his mouth drew into a line with muted anger and his haggard sallow skin sagged further into his bones.

"Guess who has a choice in this matter?” Another one, sitting beside him, couldn't take much of his useless rhetoric. “Neither did we in the past, nor do we now! Why worry about worthless stuff that only fate can decide? We are past the stage where talking about Daxia could have brought us some insight - am I right? It would be better to see if there is any agreement we can reach with those southern barbarians before they break out in struggle in our own frontier. If the war with Daxia is imminent, then a close friction with barbarians will only be a foolhardy expedition at this point... What we don't need at this moment is an additional internal chaos weighing our minds with so much at stake!" Master Fang XueXian refuted while he looked pointedly at his weasel-like friend seated beside him, his hands still busy rotating his rosary bead.

"By lord-! That wasn't what I meant at all! If your glare means to remind me that fear mongering will not bring us anywhere - You are doing me injustice, if you phrase it like that, my lordship. In no way was fear-mongering my purpose by stating risks as facts; what I meant was for all of us to see what our future holds, if we are not careful with our steps - !" here though, he was cut-off from further explanation by another raised voice.

“On a lighter note, the matter of the second prince and your granddaughter…Lord Wei. Congratulations on securing close ties between Jinghai and Imperial City. With this fateful marriage, we can be more confident representing Jinghai, from our side better in the capital. No one can blame us for being abrupt in the court or lackeys of certain well known circle’s. A legitimate connection between in-laws will weigh on our side more, more than any casual links we had forged over the years with all those delegates had done in the past.” Master Song tapped his fingers over the table as he said softly after some recollection.

This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings.

There were several humming agreements over this statement.

“It’s all good and merry till it stifles out like another collapsed marriage we have just recently seen.” Master Rong had his head down, as if counting the lines engraved on his palms. “When the Princess of Hunak was sent to Daxia, no one could have imagined that a love affair of such a small woman would boil down to an outright mutiny…Lord Wei, can you assure us that what follows will not be something grimmer than our expectations of more benefit? The second prince is a man of great destiny, he will have more affairs even after this marriage. Loyalty to only one person throughout the matrimony - have you told your granddaughter that she cannot ask for that? Some women will be given as gifts, some earned in wars by her future husband. If your granddaughter turns out to be the kind of Princess of Hunak –”

He shook his head, tutting at this imagined state of affairs. Many people turned towards him with raised brows.

“That is a very foreseeable situation if this holy matrimony doesn’t go as planned. All your children seem averse to happiness of this sort – can we be assured that this child, this granddaughter of yours doesn’t have a mind of her own and is well settled to sacrifice her happiness for the greater good? Because the second prince will never be only her husband but a far greater figure in our history of Dajin, the greatest to ever come!”

As a previous Minister of Royal Affairs, old Master Rong was quite open to voicing his doubts about some eventualities. He was looking gravely at Lord Wei, his hands though, were now clenched under the table. “Not that I am being overly fussy… I assure you of that, I am certainly not. That my concerns lie in the troubles that might arise from any misconduct in this matrimony forged only for benefits, is only natural. If this marriage breaks, what we face is not only a tense connection with the Imperial line, few broken confidences between delegates but more likely the wrath of Gods. Who dares to cross them-or even think of that?! They have shown great concern for our second princes’ marriage, have they not?”

Here he stopped. His eyes were as dreamy as they were in the beginning. No one would ever discover, as the darkness covered under its folds, the lines bleeding on his palms, his nails broken from fervor clinging to his cloak.

Lord Wei took a deep look at the languid old gentleman, his eyes a little more focused than it had been a while before. He walked back naturally to his chair, gently caressing the wooden surface of his chair, as he addressed others.

“No one should worry over this more than me, my Gentlemen. If you have concerns of this nature about my home, or its affair, I request you to cease them at this very moment. Our Wei house had taken the pledge with the Gods, Master Rong, that we will be the leading family in Dajin – the principal family that will assure them of the worship and sacrifices to the Moon goddess.” Silence followed.

“I assure you; we don’t take it lightly. The previous affairs as you might as well say out loud, between my youngest daughter Wei Cuihua and her childhood engagement with our highness the emperor, was as much my Wei Jia’s fault as it was your house’s. We failed to secure a treaty by marriage fifteen years ago. Jinghai faced several man-made disasters, uncountable sanctions, pushing its economy decades behind than it should be right now. The court was angry, the general populace furious. It was a personal loss – no one seemed to recognize that! Understandable - but coming out from you? No. After that for several years we were patient in our handlings. What my granddaughter has learned is only virtue of a good woman, with no bad influence to hinder her mind.”

The chair screeched at being pulled, and the sleeves rustled.

“What we have realized in our current marriage with the second prince would have been realized a decade ago, and that remains a fact, a shortcoming that is only human of me – or you! But it was all a fault of chaotic circumstances and to say that any future conduct will be the same…? My granddaughter Wei Ziya, Old Master Rong, is a very sweet child who knows her own responsibilities and has been brought up as a candidate for this very marriage since her birth. She will never overstep her boundaries!” There was a decided air to this declaration.

Old Master Wei continued as he sat down, “and no, I don’t think any refutation from your side will make that sordid event of the past, any less of your family’s fault than it is, my dear lord, NO! As for your present concerns, we will fulfill our side of promise as we are expected to. We supply Dajin with sacrificial candidates. We hold the ceremony in our lands and above all, we have kept this worship under cover - from even the eyes of those in the capital -! That is the least we can do for our heavenly Masters and for Dajin. Second prince will be our hope, our future, our light in these murky times of darkness which knows no light – he will be the beacon of the new age that will lead us out of this mortal realm, and take our Dajin from a small place to the wider world of greatness… Hope he is to be, of the whole wide world, no doubt in that of course!(To doubt that our Weijia, with all our humble sacrifices will hinder that, is at best preposterous-! Or simply a negation of our pain!) If men knew of his future greatness, they would fall down on their knees and kiss his feet with gratitude; and being one such man in knowledge of his greatness, nothing I do will ever grieve me more than acting as a villain to his highness's dream! The gravity of the prophecy, the voices of reason, the future, the prosperity of our whole world - all lie on his shoulders and this we at Wei house have known from the moment we came under this pact! So DON’T point fingers!You- are in no position to do that.”

After a zealous refutation of the most vehement kind, Lord Wei didn’t just stop there but followed with his own doubts. No one in the council was unaware of the small friction between the Wei’s and the Rong’s. It was only natural that the majority hesitated to meddle in this small scuffle.

“…but Master Rong, will you please explain? Your constant protection of your offspring has proven to be a clear shortcoming instead. Everyone here will agree with me over this point. Your grandson was sent over to oversee a small frontier in the south – look, what he had made out of this small event? Rong YuGuang's constant championing of those barbarians right has brought us to our present dilemma. What about ancestral precepts of fulfilling vows and never supporting injustice, he says, forgetting that our land will be embroiled in a mutiny if those barbarians were allowed to succeed, or that eventually this small fulfillment of a mere vow will break the harmony of our great nation and push it into another long dark age of land-struggle between different clans!” Silence followed.

“There are many who are peering at us like hungry lions, looking for a moment for us to slip and lose. A mere vow, can it replace the great duty we have to our common dream to maintain our Dajin’s destiny as the greatest empire in the world? Can I ask as a member of this council, how have you allowed him in his capacity and allegiance, to mix with those barbarians in the south and keep doing that, and with so much audacity? If you were not a member of this council, I would have even doubted if your intentions held more than you let on.” The heightened voice had once more regained their previous calmness. By the end of his tense question, his slovenly pronouncement even caught others off guard.

“No trouble over that – he will eventually do as bid.” Master Rong could only promise this. The blush that reigned over his cheeks was invisible in the darkness, yet few close to him still spotted his shaking body.

“We all hope so.”

Lord Wei didn’t dwell further in pressing this long-time adversary of his, as his mind was clearly preoccupied with graver matters. Just like that, the friction simmered off on its own with no intervention needed. The two gentlemen in the midst of the heady exchange settled down, while the rest murmured amongst themselves. For a while, the meeting seemed to have come to a halt. But soon, with his decided airs, and a penchant for wearing smiles at odd times, Lord Wei once again tapped the table with his iron goblet, calling everyone’s attention.

He smiled to himself and began, “Everyone here to some extent is aware that the main reason for the establishment of this council was a need to channel a legitimate sacrifice for our Master’s. At present our greatest utility lies in our being able to realize this job with greatest perfection. I hereby announce to the council with greatest satisfaction and delight, that another sacrificial ceremony for Moon Goddess will take place a year later, this time on the tenth month on the day the Star of Chaos meets the Constellation of Orion." He announced tersely, his eyes overflowing with pride.

“What?!”

“It’s too soon, so soon…Why are they in such a hurry? It’s not even a full cycle since the last occurred a decade ago – and the tenth month -? The needed stars aren’t aligned, nor the season right, is it just haste?”

“No - this event is going to be a unique one. As I said, this time, all we need is a Star of Chaos meeting the Constellation of Orion.” Lord Wei patiently replied.

“Are you sure Lord Wei?”

“Pretty much.”

“Tell me you are kidding! By God! – we cannot do all this at once!? A war, and the sacrifice too! In the same year – by god, it seems impossible! Just don’t tell us that there is some more of this to come!”

“But we will have to.”

This news finally animated the faces of all the council members. Everyone had a different reaction, but all supported a mixed kind of shock over their faces. The root of their worries being that a sacrificial ceremony of that grand scale needed elaborate preparations even before the actual event – the previous ones had taken half a decade if not more! And this year was soon to come to an end!

"We have been told to prepare two brides. My two granddaughters, Wei Zhiruo and Wei Lina have been prophesied as the Chosen ones this time around. The rest will follow the arrangements of the council, as planned in previous years but we can cut out some ceremonies to hasten the preparation. But before that -”

Lord Wei looked up, taking a brief glance over the overcast heads of the twelve-member elder council. Every head at this moment faced him in apprehension: disagreeable ones, irritated ones, well-spoken or soft-spoken ones, as well as those who hardly spouted a word – every eye at the moment rested on his figure with guarded emotions.

“- the GODs have finally allowed our men to follow in a year to the lands above. Heaven… is at hand!”

There was something boiling in that madness, or the gravity with which he clipped those sentiments in his words. Yet, like a mirror, the same zealous emotion seized everyone in a moment – the eyes were rounded and red, the breathing struck a notch higher, the shivering followed and many startled out of their chairs as if to take a deeper look at the speaker. So many hastily uttered ‘ but is that the truth - you are not jesting, my lord?’ rang inside the chamber one after another. Although in return no words were said, but the expression - it alone acted as the best guide and made them all boil out in mirth! Even the most reticent Old Master Rong had his whiskers in twists, his bulging eye-balls flushed with tears.

The sunlight peaked silently through the window pane, the gray receded into foregrounds and everyone could see the echoing, reverberating dreams of each other – it was the dawn of destiny!

“Lord Zhang, have you decided on the future candidate to be sent back to the Cultivation realm?” Someone hurriedly shook master Zhang out of his stupor. “We have all made our selections – even Master Rong had long started preparing for the upcoming departure whenever it was to come– you must know, we have not much time to dwell over it. However angry you are with your youngest son, to us, he still appears to be the best candidate in all our eyes for accompanying the second prince.” Tulou Hu, the current head of Jinghai’s Yamen shook up his close friend, inadvertently arousing several disinterested heads. Even Lord Wei looked up.

“Yes, my son Zhang YuShi will follow the second prince in his quest.” Lord Zhang replied in a small muffled voice, unclear whether with happiness or general indifference.

Following this declaration, the council was once more abuzz with a pulse of general happiness. The expectation of this news was no less than the following hope they cherished in their hardened breasts, all beating with future uncertainties.

“Great! Great…we had expected something of this sort to tell you the truth–”

“Yes, a fine candidate! So, finally the last member of the expedition to ‘Heaven’ has been chosen now? Right in time-are we? When will they set-off? The date must have been determined, right, Lord Wei?”

“Two years, even less than that. That's why there is such a haste in this last sacrificial ceremony.” Lord Wei replied. “Great thing, you have told us Master Zhang. Several decades ago, in a battered cottage, some of us were present with our grandfathers, when that historical event took place.” Here in a ceremonial nostalgia, he spoke of the past, the hardships, and the toiling’s of their ventures.

“When the heavenly Master promised us a path, we had taken it as a recourse to all the exploitation that had occurred over the years in Dajin , thoughtlessly. In that war plagued Dajin, in its several tribes all vying for a throne and its patched-up entity, our forefathers could only see the help of god’s as to end at that - when the first king was christened an emperor of emperor's! No one could imagine, neither us nor our forefathers, that one day, that promise that vow of Gods would boil down to this and allow us to peer through our hazy destiny as a man and come out of these heavy chains! Not only will Dajin become the leading force in this world - but more than that-! We will become the sole conservator of our world, the country representing our world before Gods! With him, our second prince at helms, we will enter an era of influence, where we will no longer be paltry servants at call! We will be Masters of our fate, the divine will not be out of reach. To ask for a goblet of ambrosia to make us all immortals will not be a mere pipe-dream. Our world will have an heir, and we – as the supporters, will forge our paths into heaven itself! Our dreams have brought us to this day – may our deities bless us that we succeed in saving our homes from the likes that we have seen, becoming the best guardians that we have set out to become. For Dajin, for our world’s destiny - today, we have reached a milestone.” Lord Wei’s resonant voice died down in a whisper as he raised a halting toast to all.

“The day we have been looking for, after so long…”

“Sigh…ah, what a time to be alive…”

***