A revised bit of my work from a long-ago, fondly remembered writing group. For links related to my other writing either free to read or available for purchase, visit here.
Yan Qi took a reflective draw from her long-stemmed pipe, blowing the smoke in a fine straight line toward the fire in the hearth and watching as the flames licked it up. Yet again she ran her hand through her hair, or rather what was left of it. She was cropped as close as a monk.
“You have been scythed, Autumn Grass,” she murmured, yet again; and her thoughts returned to a far land and interesting times.
***
No one of the imperial court’s innermost circle had doubted the Son of Heaven would grace this transitory plane for only a short time. His habitual indulgence in stupefying substances and the pleasures of the table, as well as carnal exhaustion in the company of countless favorites, had left their mark very soon and aged him far beyond his years, which would have numbered forty in the Dragon Month. As it was, he had expired in the Month of the Pig, depriving his disconsolate subjects of their opportunity to fund a natal celebration as heedlessly lavish as his febrile imagination might contrive.
Scarcely had he breathed his last than the entire court had erupted in every permissible extremity of grief for the departed Son of Heaven. Some of the distraught imperial ministers had piously hoped that the time-hallowed practice of including sacrificed retainers in the burial would be revived, and the court poisoners were accordingly put on alert to their rather unseemly glee; but the Emperor’s iconoclastic obstinacy had been firmly manifest in his will. Only terracotta figures—of life size, to be sure—would attend him in his tomb. Capable workmen duly shaped and painted the hundreds of soldiers and servants required, but the most noted artists of the realm were given the exacting task of faithfully rendering the likenesses of the emperor’s ladies. The famed Li Wan himself was charged with portraying the graces of the reigning favorites, among which exalted cadre Yan Qi was astonished to find herself included.
“The clay at least does not despise you, Lady,” the sculptor had said a bit tersely, after perhaps an hour had passed in silence as Yan Qui stood unmoving in her thankfully undemanding pose. Li Wan was a busy man at present and temperamental at any time, and truncated Yan’s title as much out of convenience as rudeness, since Yan was neither Empress, nor a primary concubine, nor a beauty. When he had at last completed his work, however, he honored Yan with a wholly unexpected bow. “You might be one of my best. I will make a copy, since it would be wrong to bury you forever.” And so he did, having embellished her likeness with tasteful ornaments wrought from his own fancy; and the original found its way over time to the Asian collection of the Louvre.
The Emperor had further stipulated in his will that none of his ladies would be suffered to knock out their pearl teeth or scarify their petal cheeks in his honor, and his order was scrupulously obeyed. It was, however, incontrovertible custom to cut off the hair of the head in mourning, and the ladies of the court duly complied, since they had been denied the bliss of joining their lord in his tomb. Still, there were some whose extravagance of grief was such that they locked themselves in their quarters once they heard the order, and had to be forcefully persuaded to emerge by the imperial guard. The great courtyard of the First Palace became the official shearing-room, and its central square was soon heaped with fragrant masses of long black locks, among which the most fine and raven-glossy had been Yan Qi’s.
Sitting before the mirror of her day chamber in the Third Palace, Yan had impassively regarded her unpainted face, shaven head and stark white garb of coarsest weave, the bodice of which she kept prudently sprinkled with water to simulate the marks of tears. Some ladies, she was aware, used oil for the purpose because of its lasting qualities, but the stains were unconvincing. All around her the noise of wailing and weeping tore at the air, rising and falling in stridently orchestrated waves.
“It is really regrettable,” a smooth voice over by the room’s eastern corner quietly commented, threading its way with graceful sureness amid the howlings and shriekings. Yan Qi gazed past her reflection to see Court Sorcerer Jung Lao sitting at her study-table, slim and lithe, clad in a long robe of stunningly inappropriate crimson silk, an ornate ewer of wine and two slim goblets in front of him. Lifting the elegant silver vessel, he began to pour in the difficult manner most admired, a stream high, slender and splashless. “It is indeed unfortunate,” he continued while thus engaged, “that the Son of Heaven in his mercy elected not to honor the established practice of his ancestors, who went to their last homes accompanied by fresh corpses rather than hollow clay simulacrums. The old custom made, so to speak, a clean sweep; no troublesome persons left behind to vex the new administration. As it now is, the Empress will most naturally exact revenge upon those she considered her enemies…or rivals.” By now the second silver cup was full. “Let us drink to her august son, the successor. Join me.”
Yan Qi turned to regard her unexpected guest. “This is the first time that you ever deigned to visit. How glad I am that I and my quarters were in fit condition to receive you.”
If he noted Yan’s implicit reproach, Jung Lao chose to ignore it. “I selected the time with care. When the Emperor still honored our unworthy realm, a private meeting between a undoubtedly ambitious concubine and an imperial mage with ample powers to satisfy those ambitions would hardly have been countenanced.”
Yan barely shrugged. “I have neither known nor been especially impressed by influence, riches, youth, or beauty. Small wonder that the ladies of the celestial court gave me the name Autumn Grass.”
“Some qualities are no less remarkable for being ineffable.”
Exerting her will to keep her face as smoothly impassive as the Wushi's was, Yan watched as he lifted his glass. “It is, as I am sure you know, a capital crime to indulge in alcohol during the period of imperial mourning.”
Jung Lao’s inscrutable mask of a face made a faint upturning at the lips. “Everyone in the palace is indulging today. Drunk with wine, or witless with opium, or both. And no wonder, for the new Son of Heaven is a callow idiot with strong and stupid opinions. His reign faces almost certain calamity.”
Yan Qi did not return Jung Lao's graceful toast, and drank the precious vintage in a single draught. “What becomes of us?”
Jung Lao filled her cup anew, and answered the crude question it as it deserved, with blandly vague indifference. “The Empress has numbered the days of many, including our own. Reason would seem to ordain departure with discreet and immediate haste. I have found a suitable haven, arranged well before the current lamentable misfortune.”
Yan Qi was unsurprised that the erstwhile court sorcerer pointedly excluded her from his plans. As she sipped the rich wine meant only for the most select of palates, a privilege she would more than likely never taste again, she considered which places in the world—unlike her esteemed teacher, she was limited to one world only—would afford her simple shelter, much less extend a welcome.
He seemed to have divined her thoughts, as was too often the case. “I would suggest, as interim sanctuary, an amusing place called the Inn Between Realms. All sorts of odd types, human or otherwise, find refuge there, and you'd be well entertained by the incessant intrigue. I certainly was, enough that I'd be glad to return.”
“Then you propose that we make the journey together?”
Jung Lao's facial immobility made a slight, unfathomable shift. “Not at this time. I'm called elsewhere, by a power whose service I swore to enter as soon as my current obligation ended. Perhaps the scope of my duties will eventually include the Inn.” The slightest hesitation. “I hope so.”
Their eyes met for what seemed a long time, in silence broken only by muffled waves and throes of court mourning. To Yan's surprise, Jung Lao looked away first, and the subtle music of his voice sharpened.
“Go and make ready. No finery; riding gear only, concealed by a hooded cloak. Take your jewels for barter, but hide them well. You are to resemble a mere traveler of humble means, a wandering anchorite, asking nothing but a place by the fireside and the simplest fare.”
At the mention of riding gear Yan felt her breath catch, then hasten as she felt the winds of her homeland, memory so strong that she had to close her eyes against it. Her sole, invaluable freedom as the Emperor's chattel had been to accompany him on the hunt, galloping at his side; and he had always enjoyed watching her rise in the stirrups at top speed, drawing her bow to bring down the prey with a single shot. “There are grasslands around this Inn?”
“There is everything. Wide steppes, high mountains, deep forests, seashores, rivers, deserts, all readily reachable.”
“But how will my language be understood?”
“The moment you arrive, you'll find yourself speaking a tongue called Common. I've no idea how it happens, but it's extremely useful.”
Yan smiled. “You describe a realm of fable.”
“It is nothing less. Now go and prepare. Take this, too; you'll need it.” The mage materialized a dagger, slim and plain in its leather sheath. “There will be many dangers.”
Drawing the weapon and testing its edge, Yan gave a nod of thanks. “An excellent blade. Will it prevail against a dragon?”
“I'd not try to find out. But certainly ogres, manticores, and basilisks.” The mage lifted his head at a sudden clamor of shouts and steel rising above the wailings in the courtyard. “Soldiers of the Empress. You have less time than I thought. My Art will hold the door, but be quick.”
While Jung Lao calmly savored another libation and yet another from the apparently inexhaustible ewer, seeming to meditate on his next plane of existence, Yan went to her bedchamber and packed the few belongings she deemed necessary, then changed out of her mourning dress into the garments Jung Lao had specified. It did not take long, and the planar transition from imperial palace to Inn fireside proved to be brief and not overly disorienting. The court sorcerer and the concubine had not said farewell to one another; her full bow from the waist and his faint inclination of head more than sufficed.
***
Her bowl of vaporing tea at her side, her pipe in her relaxed hand sending up delicate curls of smoke, Yan reclined on her cushions and regarded the play of flames in the hearth, her ears attuned to the many comfortable, harmless, reassuring sounds around her; but she saw far beyond the fire, even as she heard past the darkness trouble at no great distance, growing ever nearer.
© Carolyn Kephart, 2022
Image courtesy of AI Art Generator.
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