The death of a shaman did not go unnoticed in the world of spirit. The shattering of Tyr sent a psychospiritual shock wave across the realm of things unknown.
It was felt far away in the peaks of the Wudang Mountains, where the Night Castle stood hidden from the world. It was felt by the Seer of the Bizarre Children, the lost son of the last true khan of the Hinterlands.
The pale Seer traversed the spirit plane as easily as passing through a door, and when he looked for his commander he saw only darkness and the shattered outline of what had once been human. He saw, on the horizon of things yet to come, a land covered in smoke and fire. He saw a battalion of ships crossing the narrow strait. He saw the beginning of a war.
“What do you see?” asked Altan Trengsin.
The white-haired Seer tilted his head to the sky, exposing long, jagged scars running down the sides of his pale neck. He uttered a harsh, cackling laugh.
“He’s gone,” he said. “He’s really gone.”
Altan’s fingers tightened on the Seer’s shoulder.
The Seer’s eyes flew open. Behind thin eyelids there was nothing but white. No pupils, no irises, no spot of color. Only a pale mountain landscape, like freshly fallen snow, like nothingness itself. “There has been a Hexagram.”
“Tell me,” Altan said.
The Seer turned to face him. “I see the truth of three things. One: we stand on the verge of war.”
“This we’ve known,” Altan said, but the Seer cut him off.
“Two: we have an enemy whom we love.”
Altan stiffened.
“Three: Tyr is lost.”
Altan swallowed hard. “What does that mean?”
The Seer took his hand. Brought it to his lips and kissed it.
“I have seen the end of things,” he said. “The shape of the world has changed. The gods now walk in men as they have not for a long, long time. Tyr will not return. The Bizarre Children answer to you now, and you alone.”
Altan exhaled slowly. He felt a tremendous sense of both grief and relief. He had no commander. No. He was the commander.
Tyr cannot stop me now, he thought.
Tyr’s death was felt by the Gatekeeper himself, who had lingered all these years, not quite dead but not quite alive, ensconced in the shell of a mortal but not mortal himself.
The Gatekeeper was broken and confused, and he had forgotten much of who he was, but one thing he would never forget was the stain of the Vipress’s venom.
The Gatekeeper felt her ancient power dissipate into the void that both separated them and brought them together. And he raised his head to the sky and knew that an enemy had returned.
It was felt by the young apprentice at Sinegard who meditated alone when her classmates slept. Who frowned at the disturbance she felt acutely but did not understand.
Who wondered, as she constantly did, what would happen if she disobeyed her master, swallowed the poppy seed, and traversed to commune again with the gods.
If she did more than commune. If she pulled one back down with her.
For although she was forbidden from calling the Phoenix, that did not stop the Phoenix from calling upon her.
Soon, whispered the Phoenix in her sleep. Soon you will call on me for my power, and when the time comes, you will not be able to resist. Soon you will ignore the warnings of the Woman and the Gatekeeper and fall into my fiery embrace.
I can make you great. I can make you a legend.
She tried to resist.
She tried to empty her mind, like Jiang had taught her; she tried to clear the anger and the fire from her head.
She found that she couldn’t.
She found that she didn’t want to.
On the first day of the seventh month, another border skirmish erupted, between the Eighteenth Battalion of the Federation Armed Forces and the Nikara patrol in Horse Province bordering the Hinterlands to the north. After six hours of combat, the parties reached a cease-fire. They passed the night in an uneasy truce.
On the second day, a Federation soldier did not report for morning patrol. After a thorough search of the camp, the Federation general at the border city of Muriden demanded the Nikara general open the gates of his camp to be searched.
The Nikara general refused.
On the third day, Emperor Ryohai of the Federation of Mugen issued by courier pigeon a formal demand to the Empress Su Daji for the return of his soldier at Muriden.
The Empress called the Twelve Warlords to her throne at Sinegard and deliberated for seventy-two hours.
On the sixth day, the Empress formally replied that Ryohai could go fuck himself.
On the seventh day, the Federation of Mugen declared war on the Empire of Nikan. Across the longbow island, women wept tears of joy and purchased likenesses of Emperor Ryohai to hang in their homes, men enlisted to serve in the reserve forces, and children ran in the streets screaming with the celebratory bloodlust of a nation at war.
On the eighth day, a battalion of Federation soldiers landed at the port of Muriden and decimated the city. When resisted by province Militia, they ordered that all the males in Muriden, children and babies included, be rounded up and shot.
The women were spared only by the Federation army’s haste to move inland. The battalion looted the villages as it went, seized grain and transport animals for their own. What they could not take with them, they killed. They needed no supply lines. They took from the land as they traveled. They marched across the heartland on a warpath to the capital.
On the thirteenth day, a courier eagle reached the office of Jima Lain at the Academy. It read simply:
Horse Province has fallen. Mugen comes for Sinegard.
“It’s sort of exciting, really,” Kitay said.
“Yes,” said Rin. “We’re about to be invaded by our centuries-old enemy after they breached a peace treaty that has maintained a fragile geopolitical stability for two decades. So very exciting.”
“At least now we know we have job security,” said Kitay. “Everyone wants more soldiers.”
“Could you be a little less glib about this?”
“Could you be less depressing?”
“Could we move a bit faster?” asked the magistrate.
Rin and Kitay glanced at each other.
Both of them would rather have been doing anything other than aiding the civilian evacuation effort. Since Sinegard was too far north for comfort, the Empire’s bureaucracy was moving to a wartime capital in the city of Golyn Niis to the south.
By the time the Federation battalion arrived, Sinegard would be nothing but a ghost city. A city of soldiers. In theory, this meant that Rin and Kitay had the incredibly important job of ensuring that the central leadership of the Empire survived even if the capital didn’t.
In practice, this meant dealing with very fat, very annoying city bureaucrats.
Kitay tried to hoist the last crate up into the wagon and promptly staggered under the weight. “What’s in this?” he demanded, wobbling as he tried to balance the crate on his hip.
Rin hastily reached down and helped Kitay ease the crate up onto the wagon, which was already teetering from the weight of the magistrate’s many possessions.
“My teapots,” said the magistrate. “See how I marked the side? Careful not to let it tilt.”
“Your teapots,” Kitay repeated incredulously. “Your teapots are a priority right now.”
“They were a gift to my father from the Dragon Emperor, may his soul rest in peace.” The magistrate surveyed the top-heavy wagon. “Oh, that reminds me—don’t forget the vase on the patio.”
He looked imploringly at Rin.
She was dazed from the afternoon heat, exhausted from hours of packing the magistrate’s entire estate into several ill-prepared moving vehicles. She noticed in her stupor that the magistrate’s jowls quivered hilariously when he spoke. Under different circumstances she might have pointed that out to Kitay. Under different circumstances, Kitay might have laughed.
The magistrate gestured again to the vase. “Be careful with that, will you? It’s as old as the Red Emperor. You might want to strap it down to the back of the wagon.”