Cultivators cull beasts and monsters regularly everywhere that humans reside. Too often they consider themselves the masters of the land. They believe themselves the most powerful, given their intelligence and humanity’s natural cunning allowing them to cultivate their techniques and auras…but they forget that even a wild beast acting on instinct alone can glimpse visions of the Heavens and learn their own, beastly techniques. – Sizin Kar, Storm Dragon Patriarch
* * *
Xinya waited. Then she waited some more. Then she waited so long that it started raining, and she was forced to retreat to the forest’s edge.
Though the trees offered only marginal protection from the rain, it was better than just standing out in the open and getting soaked. She’d promised Mister Tsuyuki that she wouldn’t follow them down into the crevice, and, even if it was boring and wet, she didn’t want to risk him refusing to train her further.
Xinya could feel that she was close to a breakthrough. She felt confident that she knew the nature of the moon fairly well after her last chat with Tsuyuki about it, but that still left her to mull over lightning. How would she master that one? She had no master to teach her. Her father had taught her some of her basic characters for reading, but she didn’t know of anyone who would have books or scrolls on the subject that she could muddle through. All she knew was what Tsuyuki had told her.
Lightning is the will of the heavens.
What on earth does that even mean?! She had scratched her head on the subject so much that Chiho had scolded her for messing up her hair, and still had no answers. How could lightning represent the will of anything? And, if the heavens were at play, why pick lightning and not the sun or the moon? Those were arguably more common, powerful sources of qi. Why bother with lightning of all things as the medium?
As the rain came down in heavy sheets, she sat against the base of a tall tree. Thunder rumbled nearby, but she knew from experience that the odds of lightning striking near enough to see were slim, which was a shame. If she could just observe it directly, maybe she’d get a better sense of what its nature was, just as she’d done with the moon.
She put her knuckle between her teeth, idly biting down as she reviewed everything she knew about storms. To a fisherman, storms were bad news. Xinya had heard all manner of stories from the guild about wicked monsters that dwelled in the storm. Fengmori, sea serpents, raiju, and apparently, most recently, a wicked looking ship filled with ghosts. But, of those monsters, only the raiju, a type of dog yokai infused with the power of lightning, was directly related to what she was presently studying.
Raiju were apparently a mixed bag, if the legends were to be believed, and Xinya wasn’t sure if they were or not. None had ever been seen in the Moon-Soaked Shore as far as she knew, preferring the western reaches of the Pearlescent Valley and beyond. All her stories were filtered in through merchants and travelling fishermen. All those stories described them as wicked beasts of the sky who would randomly strike the ground during a storm. Xinya bit her knuckle harder. What could that say about their nature? Or that of lightning itself?
The sound of skittering legs pulled her from her thoughts. Chiho trilled a soft alarm, and Xinya jumped to her feet. Enemies were near. She needed to hide. But…where could she hide from a spider that was almost as tall as she was? Looking frantically around, she noticed a patch of taller grass on the far side of the crevice.
Without a second thought, she raced towards the edge, pumping her legs faster than ever before. Chiho raced ahead, ready to help her cross the gap.
Only the skittering only got louder. She chanced a glance back, only to immediately wish she hadn’t. An enormous spider, even bigger than her, was chasing after her, hunger clear in its beady eyes. Adrenaline shot into her veins as she put on another burst of speed and rushed to the edge of the ravine.
“Chiho!” she shouted. The little pin trilled back its agreement just as she slammed her feet down and jumped with all her strength. Her hand wrapped around Chiho as she sailed through the air, and she heard the snapping of wicked pincers just behind her. Back in Saikan, she’d prided herself on her ability to run along the fences and jump between the canals. Who knew those skills would come in handy here?
However, unlike the canals, there was no water beneath her, only open air as far as the eye could see. Fear filled her as she gripped Chiho in her trembling hand. The hairpin vibrated gently, almost soothingly as it carried her across the gap and dropped her on the far side.
Hiding in the grass was no longer an option. It would see her and know where she was. Her only hope was to keep running and hope that it would lose interest. Chiho flew ahead, leading her uphill. She followed. It was her guardian, after all. She could trust it.
A thudding sound heralded the next segment of the chase. The spider had jumped the gap, Xinya was sure of it, but she didn’t dare look back. Instead, she ran with all her might. Fear and terror added their speed to her small legs as she fled.
Unauthorized usage: this tale is on Amazon without the author's consent. Report any sightings.
But then, she was forced to skid to a halt. At the top of the ridge was a cliff which gave way to a river nearly a hundred feet down. No way would she survive a jump like that, even with Chiho’s help, but the pin was insistent. It wanted her to jump.
Xinya turned. The spider was close, and it seemed even bigger than it had been the first time she’d spotted it. Her heart beat in her chest. Was she about to see her mother and father again in the afterlife? She didn’t want to die yet, but what could she do against such a monster? She was all alone. Her hands trembled, but she balled them into tiny fists anyway. If she was going to die, she’d die fighting.
Time slowed to a crawl as her doom surged forward up the ridge. Rain fell against her, soaking her clothes and hair…then her eyes lit up in surprise. Lightning streaked down towards the spider.
Light flashed before her, and it was like layers of the image were peeled away from the spider. It was…smaller…than before. It was still big enough to gobble her up without breaking a sweat, but it was definitely a size smaller than it had been a moment ago.
Then violet lightning crashed into the creature. It shrieked as the electricity coursed through first its shell, then its innards. Xinya relaxed, unbothered by the shockwave from the blast, completely mesmerized by the sight of the coursing purple stream of qi and power.
It had stripped away the illusion…destroyed the falsehoods before punishing the one who’d spun them. Was that the will of the heavens? Her mind raced as she remembered the stories of the raiju. Were they striking the ground at random? Or were they delivering punishment to the wicked?
As the corpse fell before her, she snapped back to the present. One thing was painfully clear to her. The spider was a deceiver. It used crafty tricks to distort reality. Tsuyuki said moon qi could create such illusions, and, if these spiders were using moon qi, then their matriarch could be even more skilled at their use! Tsuyuki, Pollen, and Pharyx could be walking into a trap, and they would realize too late!
“Chiho! Come on!” she called. The pin flew to her side as she raced down towards the crevice and jumped in. They needed to be warned!
* * *
“Is anyone else worried that we’re walking into a trap?” Pollen whispered after nearly an hour walking. “There are entirely too few spiders for the middle of their nest.”
As much as I wished otherwise, she was right. In the time since we’d descended into the darkness, we’d only encountered a handful of enemies, and those were barely more than hatchlings.
“Maybe our diversion is working?” Pharyx offered, though his tone was filled with tension and worry.
“Would you leave your nest empty if the enemy was at your door?” Pollen countered. Pharyx only snorted, making his thoughts on the matter quite clear.
With every step, things became more and more suspicious. My skin still crawled with a danger instinct that I couldn’t quite identify, and, more than once, I’d gotten the distinct feeling that we were being watched. Given the nature of spider-kind, this was more than worrying. Were we falling into a trap? Would we make one wrong step and find ourselves wrapped to the neck in sticky threads while the spiders laughed at our foolishness?
I kept an arrow nocked to my string, just in case…
If there was some small consolation, it was that the Bronze band connecting me to Tenri had loosened some over the last week. He was no longer in life-threatening danger, at least. I was able to breathe normally, once more.
Down twisting and winding paths we travelled. Every so often, Pollen would leave behind a few pink petals to mark our path. It might lead the enemy to us, but none of us wanted to go so far in defeating our enemies only to be trapped underground forever, lost and wandering in the dark. I’d done the whole “lost in an endless labyrinth” thing before, and it’s just not as delightful as it sounds.
Without warning, I felt a qualitative shift in the air around us. It was…hard to describe. The smell, the feel, the dampness, all seemed to lighten. Like we’d stepped into a wider space, even though the tunnel narrowed before us.
“Hold here,” I called to the two spirit beasts. They paused and Pharyx held out his light.
“Something wrong?”
I nodded. My neck prickled. We were being watched again, and yet…nothing. Frustration welled up within me and I resisted the urge to stamp my foot like a petulant child. The answer was right there. I could feel it on the edge of my mind, but I couldn’t see it with my stupid Bronze eyes.
Footsteps came from behind us, running frantically. Pharyx bared his lance, ready to strike, but this was not the eight-legged skittering of spiders. There were only two feet.
My face fell when Xinya came racing around the corner, only to come skidding to a halt when she saw us.
“I thought I told you to stay above,” I said coldly. Fear and anger mixed together into a throat-tightening panic. What was she doing here?! This was too dangerous for a mortal! What if a spider ate her?! Did she think to watch the battle? To learn something? Great, but what learning could she do if she was dead? Or if she sustained an injury too great to recover fully from?
“Yes, sir, but I-”
“Did I not say to follow my orders exactly?” I asked. She nodded.
“Yes, sir, but-”
I was about to interrupt her again, but Chiho flew before my face and trilled angrily. It calmed down a moment later, but its meaning was clear. It wanted Xinya to explain. I took a steadying breath, then nodded for her to continue.
She clasped her hands and bowed. “Please forgive me for defying you, Mister, but I needed to warn you!”
“Warn me of what?”
Xinya raised her head, and her violet eyes shone bright in the palm light I carried. “The illusions! The spiders above were using illusions!”
A sick feeling began to take hold in my stomach. If this was true…
According to Pollen and Pharyx, there was no visible qi here, but that just couldn’t be true. Something was wrong. On a hunch, I reached over to the wall to my right. Before I even touched it, my fingers began to prickle with qi.
“It seems the Witch of Heimian was not on the same Path as her kin,” I whispered urgently. “This tunnel is made of moon qi. It’s an illusion, a false reflection of reality.”