Yi Cao scowled as he marched down the halls, mezannines, concourses, and tunnels of Aarppaa station. They changed every hundred or so yards, shifting in a dizzying madness that made little effort to make any sense and which he made little effort to make sense of in return.
He kept one hand balled into a fist as he lost himself in the bustling hive of people and people like things, kept the other wrapped tight around the broken shoulder bag locked beneath one arm while his thoughts dwelt on the Young Master’s opinion of him.
He hadn’t thought he was proud. He’d never had much to be proud of. The oldest junior disciple. The poorest. The lowest of the low, or the highest, for a little while. The only one of his family to cut a channel and join the sect until his cousin arrived and nearly caught up to his twelve years of cultivation over the course of an afternoon.
The pendant the young master had scripted and given to him thumped against his chest as he marched down a hall with people walking along all four walls, each of them standing upright in relation to their side as though it were the floor.
As if he would sell his mother.
He tried to remember his mother and stopped when he realized just how little he could recall.
A husky voice. Warmth. The flavor of some stew.
He fiddled with he pendant while he tried to remember, then shook his head.
He hadn’t sold her. He’d just left and… never returned. It was different.
A mesmeric stone flashed before him. Bits of brass whirled where a well dressed man’s eye should be on its surface while the stone whispered to him about “Nesbo, Contract Lawyer” and text on the stone twisted through the new knowledge in Yi Cao’s brain. “Work the shift you deserve, not the one you are commanded.”
The hand fiddling with he stone curled back into a fist.
It was different.
He blinked.
Nesbo the Contract Lawyer pointed at him through the stone then disappeared in a flash to be replaced by images of rolling green hills, red clad cultivators practicing techniques in lines, and willow trees stirred by the wind above a traveling musician who plucked a haunting melody from a Pipa cradled upright in his arms.
“Return home with me, on a virtual vacation at the four Hearts vacation complex on the Q. Discover secret techniques to promote relaxation and inner peace accessible at all levels of cultivation.” The musician set down his Pipa and gestured behind him. “Visit any part of the continent, from resort towns in the popular Blue Stones Confederacy, to the fortressess of the Ice Crab Kingdom. Wander the forests of the Red Star Empire or take a hike along the scenic trails of the Kudrul Bison Clan.”
The background of the stone shifted with each destination and Yi Cao tore his eyes away as it flashed to forests that looked just like home.
Voice softened as though in response to Yi Cao’s shift in attention and it began to play music once again.
Yi Cao stared at the foot traffic moving around and above him, then craned his neck to study the people moving by on what looked to him like the ceiling. He wondered which way would even be up anymore, in relation to the hallways he’d entered the station by, then realized that he couldn’t even navigate back to the interdex liners and the circular plates if he’d wanted, or even Zihan or the spot he’d left him, realized, with an even greater shock, that he hadn’t seen one of the information kiosk’s he’d depended upon at Elleppu station in the hour he’d spent marching through Aarppaa station.
The music from the stone behind him twanged and panged as the musician played his instrument.
“Inner peace is just a vacation away.”
Yi Cao stood watching the people walking above him, holding his pendant and feeling very lost.
His bag was heavy. The thing was still damp from it’s brief immersion during the ambush on Elleppu station. He looked down at it as he felt the weight at his side again after an hour of ignoring the awkward bulk, then knelt down in the middle of the concourse to knot the two ends of the broken strap and swing it over his shoulder.
One problem solved, he thought. He stood, testing the weight against his hip then looked up again at the swarming crowds of people.
Just like downfall imperial city, he thought.
He still glanced one more time along the wall in the hopes of spotting the information sigil that wouldn’t be there, then surveyed the crowd of strangers in even stranger garb or stranger bodies. Some of them even looked human, or human enough.
The woman at the booth Yi Cao chose to approach didn’t smile when she looked up at him, though he gave her an uncertain smile of his own all the same. The woman wore traditional robes that would have looked garish back home while merely managing to be familiar and understated amidst the swarm of sai-borgs and monstrosities that flowed in a river past the woman’s booth.
“What do you want?” She demanded.
Yi Cao’s smile wilted a little.
“You here for spice cake you’ll have to wait for Grandpa to return. The till’s locked and he’s got the only access.”
She waved the little device she’d been staring at in her hand as though in explanation and scrunched up her nose in disgust. “Just kid stuff on here.”
Yi Cao rifled through the new knowledge in his brain struggling for the language she’d addressed him in and managed a “No.” Before the woman, girl really, he saw now, probably just a year or two from his own age, waved a hand at him and turned back to her artifact.
“Come back later then.” She said.
“No. No.” Yi Cao managed again. It felt like pushing through a wall but the words finally came. “I, hoped for, some help.” Yi Cao managed. “I’m lost.” The words came easier as he used them, moving him, somehow, into the part of his brain where he had access to the entire language. He made a half bow over the empty mercantile booth. “This Yi Cao begs your forgiveness. But I was hoping to find an information Kiosk.”
“Yeah?” The girl raised one eyebrow but didn’t look up from her device. “Only thing rarer than them around here is the facilities, and those are always out of order.”
He nodded but waited. When he didn’t leave she looked up at him.
“Do I look like I’m here to give you directions?” She asked him.
Yi Cao shook his head. “This Yi Cao would never presume to know what you are here for.” He replied.
The girl rolled her eyes. “Shit of the gods.” She said. “Is that how people act on the homeworld?”
“No.” Yi Cao replied after a brief hesitation. “Not really. Except to beg.”
“And you’re begging.”
Yi Cao gave her another uncertain smile.
The girl sighed and looked at the device in her hands then she waved it at him. “Don’t you have one of these?” She asked.
Yi Cao looked at the thing, square, like a tile, with a thin pane of crystal at the top that flickered with light and text. He shook his head.
“Really?” The girl asked. “Shit. I’d hate to have your work contract. It sounds like you’re fucked.”
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Yi Cao pursed his lips but didn’t bother voicing his agreement. “How can I get one?” He asked.
“You got half a million credits?”
“I…”
“Then it sounds like your double fucked.” The girl replied.
Yi Cao scowled. “Could I borrow yours?” He asked.
She looked at him like he was nuts.
“I’m looking for somewhere for myself and a companion to stay.” Yi Cao told her. “Maybe you could suggest somewhere.”
The girl raised an eyebrow. “Well, I’m not looking to make new friends.” She said. She looked around. “Not here anyways.”
Yi Cao shook his head. “No. At, an inn, or a hotel. Something cheap.”
The girl sighed. “Would you even know how to get to an address if I gave you one?”
Yi Cao’s eyebrows drew together and the girl waved her hand while she shook her head.
“No. no. look. Fuck you. I’m not going to help you. Sorry, but that shit’s not gonna happen. I’m not giving you the fucking tutorial just cause your agency didn’t give it to you before you got here.
She leaned back into her seat again and thumbed over her shoulder down a tunnel like a hole in the wall, or floor, if you stood on it, behind her.
“You want help you go to the library.” She said. “Guo Gang’ll talk your ear off about whatever it is your looking for, and anything else besides. He used to work for an agency bringing people in before they retired him. Now he does the opposite, sells home world books and scriptures to the old folks and imports don’t know how to adjust to life on the rocks and won’t fucking shut up to save his life.”
Her artifact chimed and she turned back to it.
“I’m sure he’d be happy to talk to you. Probably fucking ecstatic, really.”
She tapped at the little machine with both thumbs, drawing text across the crystal through some technomancy beyond Yi Cao’s ken.
Yi Cao waited while she tapped at the device and she looked up at him with a scowl. “If you stand there much longer I’ll tell security you were pissing on my stall.”
Yi Cao shook his head. “No, that’s.” He half bowed again and stepped back. “I just, wonder how I’ll know it, when I see it.”
“The library?” She asked, voice rising. “By the name of course.” She waved a hand, shooing him away. “It’s right above the door.” She turned back to her device. “Fucking dimwit.” She breathed.
It was right above the door. In Imperial no less, along with a couple of other languages scripted onto the wall along the narrow side corridor occupied by various shops and offices whose purpose and import were less obvious to Yi Cao based upon bare titles like “Northern Shores Compensation Department”, “Rockmoor Labor and Statistics Office”, or one entitled “Mount Urukyakluk” which had a door too short for Yi Cao to fit into anyways, if he didn’t want to crawl.
The floor of the hall wasn’t shared by the floor he occupied as he approached it, nor by any of the other floors that ran perpendicular to its walls. For those on the wall it occupied, it probably looked like a hole in the floor with partially raised bumpers along each side to keep people from tripping blindly in if they weren’t paying attention. To Yi Cao though, the floor stood ninety degrees to his current orientation, with doors running along the floor and ceiling and tube lights lining the wall opposite the offshoot’s actual floor. When he tried putting his foot on the wall that was the floor to his own perspective he felt it slip and pull towards the actual floor standing next to him.
Huge blades spun behind a cage at the end of the short corridor, pushing fetid air past Yi Cao as he stood looking in and trying to figure out how to enter. Eventually a short man, no taller than Yi Cao’s hip though half that height seemed taken up by pointed fleshy ears, approached walking along the wall and just stepped over the threshold, swinging upright to continue walking along the new floor as though it were nothing. The man thing glanced at Yi Cao as it went by. It sneered when it saw him hesitating, showing sharp little teeth beneath sickly yellow eyes.
Eventually it stepped through the door to Mount Urukyakluk leaving Yi Cao along facing the hallway and the spinning caged machine.
Yi Cao grimaced, then followed its example.
For a moment, everything was wrong. Up and down, and sideways spun in his mind, and his body wobbled between different extremes, then he pushed off from the floor, into the hallway, and right ways up reasserted itself, ninety degrees to the right way up he’d stood on before.
He wobbled, half fell, half straightened, and caught himself on what should have been the floor but was now the wall. He steadied himself and took stock. Looked behind at the people now walking sideways straight up or down what looked like a wall to him, glanced down the long, long, long pit the concourse had become and turned quickly back to the hall in front of him and the door beneath the script reading “The Library”.
The door proved his next challenge. It bore no handle or latch, no string like they’d used at the family compound, and no iron or wooden bar to lift as they’d used in the sect. Not even the mechanisms with locks he’d seen in the wealthier homes of the inner disciple’s compound.
He stood there, puzzling at the mirror smooth surface, when the door slid open for him with a hiss. For a moment he didn’t go in, too surprised by it to enter, then, when it was obvious that the door wasn’t going to close while he waited by it, he stepped gingerly inside and looked around.
The stench of the rest of the station was absent here. Clean, almost cold, tiles lined the floor of what could only be called a vault. Painted stone made up the walls, hidden, for the most part, behind shelves filled with books bound in identical gray cloth covers, each stamped with a title in the artificer’s script.
An old man sat behind a white desk in one corner, a massive reading lens suspended over one eye from a pair of only slightly smaller glasses.
“Ah. Welcome. Welcome.” Something thumped on the old man’s desk. “Ah… this Guo Gang greets honored customer.” He half stood, pressed his hands together and bowed slightly over the desk. “He, hopes, anyways. Are you, ah, buying or selling?”
The door slid shut behind Yi Cao with a sigh, making Yi Cao jump a little and the old man chuckle.
Yi Cao watched the door slide home with a click, then turned, and made his way through the forest of chest high shelves to the old man’s desk. His brain fumbled with the words again.
“Do you, understand me?” He asked.
The old man’s eyes lit up. “Of course, of course.” He said. He held out a hand to grasp Yi Cao’s. “You must be new to The Tangle.” He said, using the artificer word “iara” which his brain flipped into “Tangle” even as the man said it. “Welcome welcome. This Guo Gang welcomes you. It has been so many years since I have spoken in the imperial tongue. I was stationed on the fifth stone, that is to say, in the fifth quadrant before I opened this little place as that contract expired. The fifth stone employs mostly men and women from the Flowing Garden Kingdom on the Southern continent, and they have their own royal language, or so they might say.” The old man rolled his eyes as though it were a joke they shared, then pulled at Yi Cao to lead him around the desk towards a small couch set beneath a set of multicolored lamps in the wall behind it.
“Come, come, you must sit.” The old man said. “You must tell me what has brought you here and how this old man can help you. Tell me, has the alliance between your Red Star Immortal and the Six Flowers broken down yet? Has your nation raised up any new immortals in the last five years? How have the seasons treated the harvests since the battle of the Scarred Wasteland? I heard many years ago that the Ki storms from that war would ravage much of the empire’s southern farming for many generations and am keen to hear if it has been proven true.”
“I, I don’t know grandfather.” Yi Cao stammered as he allowed himself to be pulled toward the couch. “I’m only a junior outer disciple.”
“Oh?” The old man turned to regard him, eyes magnified to ridiculous proportions by the lenses that covered half his face. “Of what sect?”
Yi Cao shuffled in place. “The Hidden Heart Sect.” He said, then looked away. “Or I was.”
“Ah. Yes…” The old man nodded sadly, then lifted his glasses to scratch at one eyebrow, revealing small dark eyes beneath a beetling brow and deep crow’s feet. “No sects here I’m afraid.” He said. “No proper ones, anyways.” He snorted, then turned and sat, patting the seat opposite him on the couch as though in invitation.
“The agencies are a bit like sects, and then there are the, pretend sects that want you to think you can still pursue immortality on these rocks. Dreamers, all of them. I sell them a good number of books each year, and there’s a standing order from most of them for any kind of new scriptures or manuals that find their way here, but they’re living out a pipe dream. Trying to live like they did on the homeworld instead of just scraping up the cash to go back even though they’d be small fry in those kinds of waters, instead of the middle sized fish they are here.”
The old man smacked his lips. “Fish.” He said. “I miss fish. Miss a lot of things, really. They grow them up here, but it just isn’t the same. I think it’s the Ki, but I could be wrong.”
Yi Cao sat and the old man smiled at him. He touched a nob along the wall and it slid up to reveal a cabinet with a few cups and some kind of mechanism attached to a spigot.
“Tea?” Guo Gang asked with raised brow.
Yi Cao hesitated, then he nodded, and the old man poured a measure of steaming liquid from the device into a cup to hand to the young man before pouring one for himself.
“I always like to keep some on hand.” The old man confided as he blew on the steam rising from his own. “For old hands, like me, or new ones who need a reminder of the home we left.”
Yi Cao sipped, then stared down at the cup remembering other cups and mugs of tea he’d shared with the junior disciples, for all that they’d tasted nothing like this one.
“It always will be, you know,” the old man said, then waited for Yi Cao to look up at him, “home that is. We can leave, but it never leaves us. Some people forget that. You never should.”
Yi Cao nodded and sipped his tea.
“Now.” The old man said as he took his own sip and got comfortable. “It’s been a long time since I’ve had a visitor fresh from the Empire. You must tell this old man about your home and what brings you here to this inauspicious knot of rocks in the void.” He shifted a pillow to support his back and smiled at Yi Cao. “It’s been a long time since I’ve heard a new story.”
Yi Cao opened his mouth but hesitated.
What he wanted to say was “I came looking for an information kiosk”, but what came out of his mouth instead was:
“I took a soul oath.”
The old man’s eyes widened. “Did you now?” He took a sip from his drink and stared at Yi Cao through magnifying lenses.
Yi Cao stared back, somehow both horrified and yet relieved by the revelation he’d just shared with a total stranger.
“I, was not supposed to.” He added experimentally, feeling out his motivations for telling this man about his life when he’d just met him. “I was, just supposed to visit Elleppu station and go home, but I… met someone.”
The old man smiled. “Someone beautiful, I hope.”
Yi Cao grimaced and ran a hand through his hair. “No.” he said.
Then the story fell out of him.