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Casca walked through the deserted tavern, stepped behind the bar and through the door leading to the living quarters. He hurried up the rickety stairs to the small attic-room he used as a study. Crudely fashioned shelves on the walls buckled beneath rows of leather and vellum-bound books.
Stacks of rolled up scrolls and parchments were flung seemingly haphazardly in corners. A small desk with ornately carved legs stood under a dirty window overlooking the courtyard. Casca shoved the desk under a row of shelves. Clambering upon it, he reached for the uppermost shelf and ran his fingers along a row of books. He tugged out a slim plain-bound volume, and stepped down. In the last days of his life, Casca’s father had impressed upon him the importance of the unprepossessing looking book, suggesting the knowledge it held might be of significant help one day. An archaic Chenghuan symbol adorned the cover.
Casca was one of the few people outside Chenghuan who could read the ancient text. His father had been a trade ambassador to the court of the Emerald Emperor. As a boy of twelve summers growing up in the Ambassadors’ quarter of the many-spired sprawling Imperial palace complex in the capital city of Chengpian, he had loved exploring. One day, he had wandered into a large building and stopped mouth agape in wonder at the floor-to-ceiling shelves bearing stacks of bound parchments and rolled-up scrolls.
As he walked along the shelves, he failed to notice the figure sitting at a large desk with a pile of writings.
“Ah, young gwai-loh – round-eyed foreigner – what do you here?” The voice had startled him. The man had long black hair gathered atop his head in a queue in the style favoured by warriors, and wide-spaced brown eyes in a high-cheek-boned flat-planed face.
Caught by surprise, Casca had answered in halting Cheng. The man raised an eyebrow in surprise. “You speak our language?” Casca nodded, and a bit frightened, started to back out of the room. But the man held up a hand. “Wait, you don’t have to go.” He gestured at the shelves. “I noticed you seem fascinated by the writings. Would you like to learn how to read our words?”
Casca nodded again. The man smiled, then his expression changed, his brows drawing together into a frown. “It’s very difficult, young gwai-loh. Are you sure you still want to learn?”
Casca drew his shoulders back and met the man’s fierce gaze. “Yes.”
The man laughed, his eyes sparkling with humour. “Good. Meet me here at this time in three days, and we will begin your lessons.” As Casca turned to leave, his teacher-to-be spoke again. “My name is Xiang Tse. I will see you at the anointed time.”
Casca smiled as he remembered the delight on Xiang Tse’s face when he arrived at their assignment considerably earlier than agreed.
Casca jumped off the desk, pushed it back into place and sat before it. Thumbing open the volume, his smile faded as the demonic visage of a Gualich leered up at him from the first page. He settled down and began to read.
A considerable time later, he sat back and rubbed his eyes. Deciphering the Cheng text had been trying, and the cryptically worded last passage, particularly disturbing.
To those whose giri – duty, it is to oppose these demons, beware their red-bladed weapons that sunder flesh and kill, but do not kill. For they leave the soul trapped in the broken flesh where it suffers untold agony before the demons consume it at their leisure.
Casca shuddered in revulsion, for he reasoned this horror might be akin to tenderizing and seasoning a piece of meat before eating.