***
Flame jerked violently awake, hand grasping for Xiang's sword. Li was here, and he wanted her head, or was it the other way around? She had to kill him; her hand reached for emptiness, but then she drew it back, appalled. Had she just murdered her father? The quiet of the guest room slowly calmed her, though the uncertainty of the dark left a lingering fear. Flame rose to open a window. Below her, the morning mist obfuscated the shear walls of Taihe mountain. The air swept her senses back to her.
Flame had been her father in her dream, and she had died believing the rest of her family to be dead. Jiang had said she always believed that Li had already murdered their father by the time he came for them. It was a false belief.
Wong, when she had pestered him enough while travelling to Taihe, had told her that it was the other way around. That had nearly made her turn around; it just proved that Li was a pitiless murderer, but then they'd reached Taihe, and Flame remembered that she didn't know nearly enough swordplay to face the prefect.
Prefect Li. Flame had been in his position during the final moments of the dream. She shuddered in disgust. What did Li have against her father, that he had to personally kill him? It had only been for his own honour, and what he thought was best for his son, and his family, all extensions of himself. The thought of being Li was sacrilege to her.
She drew the sword. The faint morning light revealed that the blade was patterned in several shades of grey. They seemed to streak the full length of the blade. Xiang had told her that it was due to slow cooling of the blade, effected by packing on clay. It gave the sword a harder edge.
She sheathed the blade. Her father's sword had been sheared clean through. Yet she now had a fine one, a harder one. But how long would she have to linger at Taihe, slowly working her way through the Taoist texts that the priests expected her to learn, before they would teach her? Flame didn't want to wait. Clearly, her dream, where she had been her father and ended up as Li, was meant to pass on some urgent message.
Flame contemplated Xiang's sword again. Quality of the sword didn't matter half as much as the quality of the swordsman, Xiang had told her. Then he had laughed and added that since the sword was an extension of its wielder, it was best that the extension be a fine one. Both mattered then, mused Flame, and Li, in the dream, had clearly possessed the latter. Flame needed to improve her skill, but Xiang's blade might even the odds. Sweeping on her day clothes, Flame resolved that she would demand to be taught.
Upon reaching the main hall of Nanyan, Flame realized that it was too early. The priests had not yet finished early morning altar services to their deity. She didn't know the name, though she had noticed an unfamiliar statue of a warrior, hand gripping a sword not unlike Xiang's. Flame decided instead that she would go through the form that Xiang had taught her, until the priests had finished. Drawing the blade, Flame began with the traditional salute, then brought the blade back to stab.
The mountain air lent vitality to her movements, as Flame executed a series of successive slashes and thrusts. She had already repeated the form at least five times more than she usually did, when the first signs of fatigue― stiffening starting from wrist and spreading to forearm, began. Maybe she should have warmed up, as her sister usually did. But then again, sword forms and Shaolin kuen did not seem at all alike to her. For starters, the latter had been created for self-cultivation. Flame wasn't sure what the sword form had been created for, but she had the suspicion that killing factored into the reasons.
“Do you know why we practise the sword, Daughter?” Flame almost stumbled mid-thrust. The speaker, however, was merely addressing her as an elder would the younger. Brushing her hair from her face, Flame saw a priestess regarding her seriously, though fine lines crinkled smilingly about the woman's eyes.
She shook her head in reply. The woman held a sword, fitted in an ornate scabbard. Flame thought that it was ceremonial, until the woman drew the blade. Despite the characters etched beautifully along the steel, Flame could see that the edge was very sharp.
“The sword is the highest extension of chi,” the priestess told her, “and we use it to practise passing one's energies beyond the body. Tao becomes most tangible to us through its physical form, through chi.” Flame contemplated the sharp edges of the woman's sword as she finished.
“Why is it sharp, then?” It seemed to Flame that a functional blade was utterly impractical for theological use. Also, the mysticism was making little sense to her.
“To cut one off from the forces that would prevent one from unifying with the Tao.”
“But why would I want to unify with the Tao?” The indirect answers were tiring her, and Flame felt that she was going in circles. The woman smiled sympathetically, adding to her irritation.
“Tao is the source of all things. Upon becoming one with it, you may know peace.” Before Flame could puzzle out the meaning, the priestess had taken three steps onto an outcropping that jutted above a steep drop.
“Xiangu, priestess, I'm sorry for upsetting you. Please come back, you might die.” Panicked now, Flame didn't think that she sounded particularly persuasive, but she had to try, as a crisp wind was snapping and she didn't want the woman slipping. The drop was at least a thousand bu, and she did not want to be blamed if the priestess fell off. The woman didn't reply. Instead, she swept the blade in long, powerful strokes over the edge of the rocks. Flame could see that each stroke was aimed precisely, though the stone path was narrow and the woman barely had enough room to twist around in parries.
Flame watched as the form ended. The priestess still stood on the outcropping, robes flapping in the wind, sword grasped backhanded, as it had been in the beginning.
“Ah, xiangu, becoming one with the Tao doesn't entail dying, does it?” Flame really wished that the woman would come back.
“Did you not see the chi, a part of the Tao just now?” The priestess regarded her calmly while speaking. When Flame shook her head, the woman, to her dismay, repeated the form with faster, more violent strokes. Flame could hear the grinding of the woman's shoes on stone, as toes alternatively gripped and released the ground. Though the priestess's face was slightly flushed, Flame saw, through the blur of arm movements, that her expression was still placid. Several lines from a chapter of the Tao Te Ching, that she had read yesterday, came back to her:
Each separate being in the universe
returns to the common source.
Returning to the source is serenity
“'If you don’t realize the source, you stumble in confusion and sorrow.'” Having finished the form a second time, and with sword recoiled, the priestess concluded the verse that Flame had murmured. Flame was in awe of how serene the woman was, even after performing swordplay at full speed, with strokes fast enough to bring death.
“I moved quickly, so that the movement of chi might be more evident. Did you see it then, Daughter?”
Flame nodded, contemplating the woman's words. Could it be that her miseries over Li had been due to her failure to recognize this fact? This seemed like a notion that her sister would produce over meditation, but the priestess's demonstration seemed filled with truth. The woman had faced death, and while her respect for it still held, in the way her feet gripped the stone, she held no fear or hate over its hold. The placid expression and repetition of the form for Flame had shown this.
“You could find joy in such a realization,” the woman told her, as she finally returned from the edge.
“Could you teach me, xiangu?” Flame asked. She held out Xiang's blade. The priestess's expression again became serious.
“I might direct you to the correct path, but to learn mastery over the sword, one must discover the way alone.” The woman sheathed the sword with finality.
Flame had no idea why she did it, but she stepped onto the outcropping. The wind whistled below, and the edges of the cliff seemed sharp as swords. It seemed a horrible idea right away, as Flame realized that if she died, it would be completely her faul
t. But she had put herself in this spot. Whatever for? She supposed it was for speedy enlightenment. Looking at the priestess, she saw that the woman was gazing at the cliff that backdropped Flame's precipice.
She'd learn this lesson alone, then. Seven years at Yongtai had taught her a steady stance, and all Flame had to do was focus on the movements of her arm. The sword reached out to stab, extending over the edge. If she fell off, Li wouldn't even know, she thought. She relaxed her wrist, pulling the sword back in an evasive twist. The sheer cliffs rose before her, tall and forbidding. Flame ignored them, and concentrated on her motions. The stones wouldn't harm her if she stayed above them. But it would have comforted her if they didn't look so jagged.
A smooth pebble nearly tripped her, and Flame instantly stiffened into a ma bu, feet gripping at the rough patches of the outcropping. She slashed the sword slowly, wondering if the sword could cut to pieces the evil spirits that willed her to fall. The movement made her feel unbalanced, as if the sword wanted to pull her off. Maybe she was approaching the problem too aggressively. She tried to will her chi through her sword arm. If she could extend it into the sword, she could forget the sword entirely. It would be under complete control of her energies.
The wind blew, and the cliffs began to take on the appearance of Li's stony face. When Flame looked again, however, after sweeping the sword closely around her shoulders in an evasive manoeuvre, the face was gone. Flame began to forget the cliffs below and around her, focusing solely on facing the death that faced her from misstep. There was no undoing any mistakes, no matter how good the rest of her form might be. Though the stones jutted threateningly and the cliffs climbed sharply all around, Flame ignored them all.
The form ended, and Flame felt confident enough to toss the sword into recoil. The handle spun up and she caught it stiffly, though firmly, before ending in a bow. Returning from the precipice, Flame felt a hundred thoughts clamouring for expression, but she could only choose one.
“Li will never again have hold over me.” She returned her sword to its scabbard. Her legs shook slightly, and the cliffs once again took on an overbearing look, but she was triumphant. She had faced death, the most final of all forces, and she had won.
“Hasty words for hasty actions.” The priestess appraised her seriously. She demonstrated a light catch with her blade. “When you are able to control your chi, it will return effortlessly. I will instruct you.”
Flame was relieved, though at the same time, she wondered what else there was left, now that she had faced down the end. The priestess seemed to sense the thought.
“I don't choose to instruct you for your ability, but for your need. You have recognized but one aspect of the Tao; when you have recognized it in all, you'll truly have no need of others.” The woman nodded at the cliff. “Then you will be able to face adversary calmly a thousand times, and even upon defeat― because it comes to all― you will accept it serenely, for by then, you will have joined with the Tao.”
In spite of the censure, Flame was pleased. She wasn't sure if she could handle another self-taught lesson. The precipice now looked extremely threatening, and she had no desire to step on it again. She didn't want to actually meet her death, even if Taoism told her not to fear it.
That night, despite having spent the day receiving lessons and a crimson robe to wear to next morning's rituals, Flame slept fitfully. In particular, she dreamed of duelling Li on the cliff's edge, at her father's behest, and then falling off. Flame woke wondering if she was Li or herself. The idea made her feel sick. Brief practice with her sword made the feeling reside. When she slept again, however, Flame dreamed herself into Li, with her father shouting something unintelligible in her ear.
Following the morning songs of flute and drum, Flame was called to receive a letter. The scroll was handed to her by a black-clad messenger. His clothes made her think of a crow. She unrolled the dispatch in front of him. The first thing that struck her eye was the large red stamp of a chop. She had seen it before, when Xiang had used it on the soldiers at the dock. Perhaps Xiang was sending her something from her sister. The characters were few, however, and that was unlike Jiang. Flame read them.
Elder Sister bids you come.
Li, screamed a voice in her mind, even as Flame recognized the magistrate's name set deeply in the chop mark. Her sister wanted her to come, the letter was saying, but Flame knew it was Li. Both of them. The rush of blood to her head sounded like a swell of drums, and Flame felt tears come. Li Xiang had been his father's son― deceitful and a breaker of trust. And now her sister was gone. That was probably what her father had been trying to tell her last night. In fact, maybe her dreams, which had been more vivid than ever at Nanyan, had been trying to warn her against staying here. Even Wong had told her not to stay. Drums and flutes sounded steadily in her head. Without pausing to shrug off her ceremonial robe, Flame flew through Nanyan temple, pausing only to retrieve both sword and coin. Strangely enough, the verses from Mulan ci came back to her.
Father has no adult son,
Mulan has no older brother.
Wish to buy a saddle and horse,
and serve in Father's place.
Flame had no trouble buying back the red horse that Wong had sold. A few taels of silver, accompanied by her desperate demeanour and prodding from her sword, encouraged the dealer to give the horse up faster than the rich Bianjing merchant his money. There was even a thousand wen to spare.
By nightfall, Flame was beating a path for Bianjing. Behind her, the Taihe mountains loomed colourless and devoid of grass. She didn't look back. Family urged vengeance, and she wasn't dead yet. Li had caught her again. Feeling fury in her heart, Flame urged her red mount on. She would reach Bianjing in about four days. Hopefully her family would forgive the delay, though her anger, at having ever let Li fool her, would not. Streaming along the road, and clad in sanguine red from shoulder to steed, Lian Flame gave the impression of a brightly burning brand.