Yi Wu’s face hardened, and for a moment Dan feared he’d pushed his cause too far. ‘Wait outside … I will call for you when I am done with the more important matters of the day.’
Dan bowed in appreciation and returned to the outer chamber, with both his brothers frowning at him for upsetting their hostess.
Dan spent the next hour carefully contemplating the forthcoming audience. Shi was the first to emerge from the chamber, and as soon as he exited he breathed a huge sigh of relief. ‘She scares me,’ he whispered as he approached Dan and took a seat, ‘and yet she is very wise and caring also.’
‘I am sorry if my outburst made the situation more difficult,’ Dan said, sincerely remorseful.
‘Not at all. The Great Mother was very kind to me and has given her consent for me to ask Jiang Huxin to be my wife.’
The news tore Dan’s heart out. He’d never been so envious, yet he was happy for his brother. ‘A pleasing result. Congratulations.’
‘But I must wait until after the rite of Gao Mei to approach her, as the Great Mother wants her initiates focussing on their preparation,’ Shi added, still not confident enough to be truly excited about the news. ‘Now my hope is that she won’t reject me.’
Dan had heard Huxin speak of her affection for Shi, and smiled, happy to return his favour of this morning. ‘I know the only reason Jiang Huxin did not seduce you months ago was because Fa forbade her, as our king wanted you to find a wife.’
Shi’s eyes opened wide in wonderment at the news, and he smiled warmly at his brother. ‘Clearly, you and I should speak more often.’
Dan was amused, and his spirits lightened as he nodded to agree.
‘Will you stay with me at Li Shan tonight?’ Shi asked. ‘Our king will want to return to his queen at Haojing immediately following the rite, and will take Fen with him. Should everything not go as I hope, well … it would be good not to have to return to Haojing alone.’
‘Of course I will,’ Dan said, happy to oblige. ‘Provided the Great Mother does not banish me before evening.’
Shi gave a laugh, but frowned in concern as well. ‘It might be our king you have to worry about banishing you. He is most displeased.’
‘I thank you for the warning.’ Dan sat back and took a deep breath to await the reprimand that would come later.
‘May I ask why you were so abrupt?’
Dan observed Shi, seeing in him a warrior-like figure of a man, fair-haired like the Lord of the Elements, and not unlike the young male being he had seen within Yi Wu the last time they had spoken. It was the first time Dan had wondered whether Shi knew about the supernatural agenda, and what other secrets he was hiding. ‘Do you know anything about the sons of the sky?’
‘No.’ Shi shook his head and leaned in, eager to hear more. Dan was sorry to disappoint him.
‘Then I cannot really explain my reasons for affronting Yi Wu,’ Dan said.
‘But it has something to do with Jiang Hudan?’ Shi asked, and Dan only nodded in response, before returning to his silent contemplation.
A little over an hour later, Fa exited the chamber, by which time Dan had grown very restless, and was up on his feet and ready to enter as the king approached him.
‘Speak to the Great Mother like that again and I will have you flogged! Am I making myself understood?’
It was seldom that Dan clashed heads with Fa, and he bowed his head humbly and nodded. ‘My deepest apologies, majesty.’
‘The Great Mother will see you now.’ Fa grabbed his arm as he moved off, and Dan turned back to heed his word. ‘She had best give me a glowing report of your encounter, or so help me, I will —’
‘— have me flogged, I understand,’ Dan stated deadpan, and Fa let him go.
‘Come Shi, time to eat.’ The king collected their brother and left Dan to his business.
The duke took a moment to truly compose himself before he entered the Great Mother’s presence this time. ‘Speak always from a place of love,’ Fen had advised in regard to addressing the Great Mother, and Dan endeavoured to abide by that guidance.
When he came before Yi Wu, she did not appear to be in a very loving frame of mind, however. ‘I believe we both know why you are so eager to converse this day, so let us speak plainly.’
Dan nodded to indicate that it would be appreciated. ‘I —’
‘Want Jiang Hudan for your wife,’ Yi Wu completed his sentence for him.
‘I had not intended to be so bold,’ Dan replied, honestly. ‘I sought only to have her exempted from the goddess rite this night.’
‘On what basis?’ Yi Wu sounded appalled. ‘This is her life, her calling —’
‘On a soul level, we belong to one another,’ Dan interrupted, defending his request.
‘Not in this life,’ she insisted, although she was sounding a little more empathetic now.
The spirit inside Yi Wu suddenly burst through her physical persona and a young lord of the sky stood addressing him in her stead. ‘Let me be clear,’ this spirit said in a friendly fashion, rising to approach Dan.
The duke backed away warily, for he recognised the fellow from his dreams, and had the peculiar sense that he knew and trusted him, better than he did the Great Mother. This son of the sky was slighter in frame than the one inside Shi, and slighter than the Lord of the Elements. Telmo was build more like a scholar and very pretty for a man — like Fen Gong and the spirit lord who was concealed within the healer.
‘You are not another of my sons, are you?’ Dan was circumspect.
The fair lord smiled, finding the assumption funny. ‘No. You could say I have been something of a mentor to you through the ages, just as Yi Wu is now, and this is why I beg you to listen to what we have to tell you.’
‘Which is?’ Dan’s jaw clenched with a premonition that the news would not be to his liking.
‘Shanyu Jiang Hudan and Zhou Gong Dan never fell in love,’ he stated clearly. ‘They worked together to the benefit of Zhou, but nothing more. This is how this must play out if you are both to live until your dying day.’
‘What does that mean?’ Dan said irritably, as the Lord of the Elements had used the same expression.
‘It means … that is how history must unfold to avoid affecting this timeline. You must do what you were destined to do here or the effect on the future will be catastrophic.’
‘Why? Why me?’ Dan protested.
‘Because you are who you are,’ the spirit replied, sounded weary of repeating himself. ‘And this is not the first, or last, time you will lead a civilisation to greatness. We are aware of the exact time, date and location of your death, and we then plan to recruit you back into our fold. But once you change causality, as Rhun did last time he interfered with your destiny, then all bets are off! We could lose any of you unexpectedly at any time and our higher quest would be thwarted. It is only the dreams from your time with us that have triggered the attraction you have to Hudan now.’
Could it be true? It was a lot to swallow, and Dan was overwhelmed and having trouble processing it all.
‘I promised Taren that she would have all the skills required to resume her quest beyond this life. If Hudan marries you, her greatest potential will not be realised, and when the time of her reckoning comes she shall be ill-prepared to deal with it. That is why, even now, without consciously knowing it, she is completely dedicated to the Wu way, which is not just a course of study, but a way of life! Do you really think being a wife would provide her that same satisfaction? It is not that she does not love you, but that she loves her higher purpose more, and so should you.’
‘Then just excuse her from the rite,’ Dan appealed. ‘That is all I ask.’
‘I am bound to see history unfold as it should.’ The fair lord stated his case again, hoping Dan would finally comprehend it. ‘And Jiang Hudan was not excused. Do you see?’
Dan wanted to scream, wanted to cry, but breathed deeply to contain his frustration.
‘If I could o
ffer some advice?’
Dan merely nodded tongue-tied at present.
‘You should really have more faith in heaven’s sense of fair play.’
‘Why?’ Dan snapped. ‘Was it not heaven that landed me in this torment?’
‘By your own will,’ he replied, and Dan was shocked out of his resentment. ‘I should think that feeling as you do about your beloved you must have had a very good reason to voluntarily part from her for this mission.’ The lad raised his eyebrows to urge him to consider that premise, before he returned to Yi Wu’s chair. ‘There is a bigger and far more glorious picture, I assure you. This life you lead now is just a tiny moment in the ocean of Lucian’s life. I respectfully suggest that you keep that in mind.’
‘Tell me one thing?’ Dan appealed, for his own peace of mind. ‘Did Zhou Gong Dan ever marry again? Am I expected to spawn more offspring?’
The lord frowned slightly, intrigued, but answered the question. ‘Actually, no, he never did.’
In one way that was a huge relief, but in another, rather heartbreaking. ‘So, perhaps they were in love, but no one else knew about it?’
‘That is very thin ice you are skating upon, Zhou Gong. I’d be very, very careful, if I were you. Unless, of course, you want to have to come back and do this mission again, with the odds stacked even further against us.’ Once the lord was seated he withdrew from open view and the feminine persona of Yi Wu returned. Her eyes were closed and when they parted, she regarded Dan fondly. ‘Are we done here?’
Dan, still wide-eyed and reeling, nodded his head sombrely. ‘It would seem so.’
‘So, we leave it entirely up to you whether or not you choose to pursue your affection for Jiang Hudan,’ the Great Mother summed up,
Dan clenched his jaw, for in reality it seemed he had no option at all. ‘It may have been Fa named in the Jade Book, but I am the one who has been cursed,’ he considered, bitterly.
‘We, the sons of the sky, are all living under a curse, Zhou Gong.’
‘How do you bear it?’ he asked in an honest appeal for a cure.
‘I channel my frustration into beneficial pursuits, just as you will do,’ she informed him. ‘You know how much there is to be done for our land, yet your mind is distracted from your purpose. The only solution is to let time and distance do this work and cut your ties with Jiang Hudan.’
‘All ties?’ Dan had hoped they could at least write to one another. ‘She wishes to document my work —’
‘Which she can follow via a correspondence with her brother, Fen,’ Yi Wu insisted. ‘If you truly want what is best for the both of you and history at large, you will say your goodbyes this visit and never intentionally seek her for personal gratification again.’
‘But if the realm has need of her …?’ Dan argued.
‘That would be the will of heaven, not yours,’ she ruled, and Dan was devastated.
‘My heart goes out to you, brother Dan … it does,’ she asserted, as he glared at her, feeling wounded and unwillingly restrained. ‘But you sent me here to guide you, and guide you I must.’
‘I sent you?’ His frown deepened.
The Great Mother nodded. ‘You are the captain of this mission. Too much information?’ Yi Wu queried, as Dan’s jaw dropped and he appeared to be going into shock. ‘Perhaps some food and rest might be in order?’
‘Yes,’ Dan groaned, as his brain felt like it was splitting open in an attempt to fathom the enormity of his destiny, which seemingly appeared to extend far beyond the barriers of this life. The idea was mind-blowing. ‘I am immortal?’ He staggered and gave a laugh as the room blurred, and his free-wheeling form crashed to the floor in an unconscious heap.
Hudan stood with ten of her Wu brothers in the goddess temple, her face painted, her hair bound up in an ornate head-dress, her body shaved clean of hair and perfumed. Naked beneath her long white veil, she was indistinguishable from every other potential candidate seeking to be chosen to embody the goddess Gao Mei this night for the King of Zhou.
The eleven of them represented the eleven heads of the goddess Gao Mei: the goddess who sees all, and hears all cries from the human world; she who brings children, particularly sons.
One of them would be chosen by the ancient chimera bird, Feng-Huang, which resided atop of the mighty Kunlun mountain range of which Bayan Har Shan formed part. These mountains, which Ji Shi had reportedly sprung from, seemed to be a hotbed of supernatural activity. The legendary bird had a male aspect, Feng, and a female aspect, Huang, and presided over every other bird in the land … it was known to have the beak of a rooster, the face of a swallow, the forehead of a fowl, the neck of a snake, the breast of a goose, the back of a tortoise, the hindquarters of a stag and the tail of a fish. Feng-Huang would only appear in the most harmonious and joyous of situations. Its coming always heralded the beginning of a new era of imperial rule, and bestowed the perfect balance of yin and yang upon heaven’s mandate.
It was exciting to be standing on the threshold of such a rare event. Hudan had been fasting for days and had been given a brew, along with the other candidates, that would suspend inhibitions whilst invoking a calm, euphoric state of being. Even so, Hudan’s stomach was in a knot and her head was a mass of conflicting thoughts which fed the whirl of conflicting emotions in her chest, which made her stomach knot tighter. To be honest, she could not decide whether it would be better to be chosen as Fa’s goddess this night or not. If she were to be selected, the event would change Dan’s affection for her and he might seek love in more realistic places, perhaps finding happiness as, indeed, he deserved.
What was more worrying was that she stood in the centre of the semicircle that she and her brothers formed around one side of the pool in the temple. Beneath the central circular opening in the roof of the holy space, a stone altar block had been placed; padded and covered in the finest silk, it was for the chosen goddess to lie upon. The one who was chosen by Feng-Huang would prostrate herself on the altar beneath her veil and await the king’s pleasure. The other candidates would remain present, their backs turned in silent vigil. The goddess was expected to endure the rite as silently as she found humanly possible: if she vocalised her rapture it was a clear sign of the king’s prowess. Ji Fa was expected to abstain from ejaculating during the rite, so that the blessings of Gao Mei were bestowed upon his queen. To seed one of the vestals of Li Shan would be considered a poor show and a bad omen for the Ji family rule.
As Yi Wu entered the temple carrying Taiji, the doors closed and the king remained outside. The candidates raised their voices in song to herald her arrival and to sanctify the holy space. The Great Mother walked across the surface of the pool to stand before the altar facing her initiates, and she sang an oscillating note. The Taiji sphere lit up, and streams of brilliantly coloured light shot out from it, whirling around each other as the rainbow of light rose into the night sky and formed a bright mass.
‘Come Feng-Huang,
Of six celestial bodies!
With the face of the sky,
The eyes of the sun,
The moon on your back,
Your wings like the wind,
Your feet of the earth,
And a tail of planets,
Select for our king,
The body of Gao Mei,
Who will channel the next prince
Into the Zhou dynasty!’
Above the temple the mass formed into a huge celestial bird afire with colour as it swooped down into the temple and slowed to hover behind Yi Wu, observing everyone.
Even seen through Hudan’s silken veil, the fluidity, brilliance and colour of Feng-Huang’s form was mesmerising. Its long tail swirled like seaweed in water and its wings were spread wide and flapped like fine silk in the breeze. But Hudan caught her breath when the undulating apparition made a move, as it was headed straight for her.
When Dan awoke he was briefly disoriented, and then, noting night had fallen, he snapped to attention and came to a sitting p
osition. ‘Hudan!’
He realised the rite must have started, and scampered up … he knew not why, as there was nothing he could do to stop it.
‘My lord?’
Dan spun around to see Fen. ‘What are you doing here? Is it over?’
Fen nodded. ‘The king is in the next room awaiting Yi Wu’s summons and the goddess’s verdict,’ Fen grinned. ‘But as I could hear her pleasure from outside the temple, I would say the imperial mandate is his.’
Dan grimaced at the news. He knew what Hudan’s pleasure sounded like and if he’d been awake he would already know the outcome. The duke charged out of the room and headed next door to see the king.
When announced, the duke entered, holding back his panic. ‘Well?’
Fa raised his brow, appearing very ill at ease. ‘That was really difficult.’
‘But was your goddess … her?’ Dan pushed, and Fa frowned.
‘I don’t think so,’ was the best the king could say, as he was too preoccupied with his own frustration at present.
‘You don’t think so?’ Dan pushed. How could he have just made love to a woman and not be able to identify her?
‘Her face was painted and she was veiled in the moonlight,’ Fa said, holding up both hands in apology as Jiang Huxin entered.
‘Yi Wu will see you now, brother Fa,’ she said, sporting a huge grin.
‘Praise Tian for that!’ Fa was eager to leave, and moved on immediately.
‘Brother Huxin?’ Dan caught her arm on the way out, but she was shaking her head before he’d asked the question.
‘I wasn’t there and I haven’t seen her yet,’ she said sharply, as she followed the king and Fen to their meeting.
Left alone and agitated, Dan resigned himself to the fact that Hudan was the only one who really knew the truth, and once the house had settled for the night, Dan had a very good idea where he might find her.
Alongside Fen, Huxin was proud to bear witness to Yi Wu’s bestowing of Tian’s mandate. Yi Wu presented the king with a beautiful ritual set consisting of six jade worshipping items: a bi-disk for the worship of heaven’s deities; a cong for earthly spirits; the Guik tablet and the zhang, huang, and tiger plaques were for worshipping the four deities of the four directions.