NOVEL WEB 45 – Good morning, cruel world
It was a time of ill tidings.
The first message arrived from Sek'suen a few days after Wong Tang surged into the room where her disciple was convalescing.
“What was in the antidote pills?” she asked, after checking Gou Dzing's pulse and under his eyelids.
“Charcoal, field mint, crampbark... asafoetida...”
Wong Tang stood beside him, meditatively smoking. “Good. You were able to observe even in that situation.”
When she left, Gou Dzing thought he could hear her counting under her breath.
The letter bore the deal of the Gou Family, and when Gou Dzing opened it with shaking hands, he recognised the brush strokes of his father's writing.
The Gou Patriarch has been seriously injured, the letter read, and Gou Hei Lok had been found dead. These were both understood to be the work of demons, and those traitorous humans who sided with them.
Hence, Gou Dzing, having met with both victims not long before each incident, and also known to have connections with demons, was to be removed from the family register. This person could no longer use the name of 'Gou'.
How am I still here?
The nameless young man sat alone in his room with the letter until Gaam Yuk Ying returned, impassive as usual.
Once those silvery eyes had finished slowly deciphering the words, he said, “Yuen Muk.”
Eye of the Hawk.
That was right. There was that name. Yuen Muk.
“Yuk Ying,” said the newly renamed Yuen Muk. “It's amazing... It's just a name, but to think they can just take it like that...”
“They can't.” Gaam Yuk Ying curled his fingers between Yuen Muk's. “I can still call you Dzing.”
“No.” Yuen Muk kissed his boyfriend's hands gratefully. “No, I... I don't want that any more.”
“Yuen Muk...” Gaam Yuk Ying repeated. His hands felt a little different, callused in new places.
“You went to see your Master?”
“I went to see... Yes.”
“And?”
“Good.”
“Distract me a little, Yuk Ying,” Yuen Muk wheedled, laying his head down on Gaam Yuk Ying's lap. The puppy eyes returned.
“Put those away.”
“Put what away?”
Gaam Yuk Ying tickled Yuen Muk's ribs until he wriggled.
“Stop! Stop! Y- Ying!”
“Oh? You liked that?”
Yuen Muk's face was suddenly serious. “I... We never had a proper chance to talk, did we? After... Yuk Ying, I still...” Sitting up, his hand drifted to the triangular folded collars of the plain robes that Gaam Yuk Ying wore. He rubbed the fabric between his fingers contemplatively.
“This is too thick for Dzue. Aren't you hot?”
Gaam Yuk Ying said, “Then take it off.”
Yuen Muk did as he was told.
“Leave it,” was the response when he began to do the same with the inner shirt. Yuen Muk sighed and dropped his head on Gaam Yuk Ying's shoulder.
“I keep thinking... I just want to stop thinking for a moment.”
Gaam Yuk Ying pushed him flat on the bed. Deft hands easily undid his robes. Yuen Muk dazedly looked up at his boyfriend as Gaam Yuk Ying removed the hairpin from his long, dark hair.
“Then stop thinking.”
The second message arrived the next morning.
Wong Tang's voice rang through the closed door of the bedroom. “Disciples. Teem Djeung Baak has attacked Mount Faa.”
In a flurry of robes, Gaam Yuk Ying and Yuen Muk rushed out, half-dressed. Yiu Tsing and Lo Fu Ngaa whirled behind them as Gaam Yuk Ying retied his hair, and then they were all racing through the palace and out into the city.
Neither Gaam Yuk Ying nor Yuen Muk had really seen much of Ming Yuet, beyond impressions of the tall, glowing towers, perpetual mist, and marine humidity. Whether the former of the pair was interested was not clear, but Yuen Muk couldn't help but cast longing glances around and behind as they flashed through the city and gained the footslopes of Hau Dzak in less than a minute.
He could only catch glimpses – huge, sprawling stores glittering with unknown artefacts, the smell of barbecued meat and chilli sauce, sprigs of spent red incense sticks sprouting like grass from cracks beside doorways, the sound of crashing maa-dzeuk tiles and excited voices.
Up the misty mountainside they glided, Yuen Muk a little further behind his lover and his master. He had become aware last night of how much he still needed to recover from the Loom Poison his cousin had fed him, and even now he could feel his usual stamina slipping quickly away.
“Master...”
She glanced back towards him. “We'll fly.”
Her already willow-like form elongated further, golden scales flashing through the fog as she transformed. Glittering steam emanated from her nostrils.
The two humans hopped up her forelegs and settled at her neck, holding tight to her shimmering mane. Almost before they were seated, Wong Tang had shot straight into the air, rising until they were above the cloud line. A peach-coloured dawn sky greeted them, but this beautiful sight did nothing to relieve their feelings.
“Master, do you know what happened?”
“Other than that woman appearing, I have no idea. The message was short and rushed.”
“Not good,” said Gaam Yuk Ying.
The clouds had extended well inland. Yuen Muk twisted around to look back towards Ming Yuet, and saw, far in the distance, what seemed like a sinkhole in the black stormclouds that seemed to suck his heart down with it. “Is that... a typhoon? Isn't it too early in the year?”
Gaam Yuk Ying glanced grimly at it, his eyes narrowing.
“Ming Dzue will deal with it,” Wong Tang said, not looking back. “This wouldn't be the first time.”
Yuen Muk pulled his eyes reluctantly away, focusing on his breath and the dancing movement of the long metal pieces in Gaam Yuk Ying's earlobes.
Soon, they were diving. Gaam Yuk Ying's earrings flung tiny crackles of static energy as blue sparks as they dropped lower and lower.The two humans leaned sideways to see past Wong Tang's head, their eyes flashing gold and silver as the sight arts of their cultivation practices came into play. Yuen Muk could see the furthest; his vision peered through the dense clouds and found a mountain in flames.
“The Gales of Battle and Clear Sight Schools are on fire. The infirmary too...”
“I can smell it,” growled Wong Tang. “Ready your hearts, children.”
Yuen Muk was about to ask her what she meant, when his Dragon Eyes found something new.
A blackened shape, curled on its side.
And another.
And another.
They dropped out of the clouds to find an enormous flaming bird rising up to meet them. With a curved beak and a long tail of curling feathers in five colours, it was almost the same size as Wong Tang in her dragon form. Gaam Yuk Ying's hands automatically flew to the blades at his sides, but the bird spoke, the long narrow feathers of its crest drooping.
“Leoi Wo...” Ling Gwong's voice, spoken directly into their minds, was strained. “This is my fault.. I should never-”
“It's too late for that now, Ah Gwong. We must do what we can in the present. Snuff those fires. Has Old White returned yet?”
“Just now. He was on his way already and smelt the fire...”
They all landed and scattered instantly. Yuen Muk rushed through the Sect towards the infirmary, calling together Way of the Mountain disciples as he went, directing them to raise soil over the flames to douse them.
The infirmary was barely standing. He kicked aside burning timbers and threw aside stones with his internal energy and his bare hands until he found Dzik Suet slumped by one of the beds, coughing wetly. The doctor's hands and chest were covered in blood, his clothes and flesh apparently slashed by many knives.
“Yi-sang, don't move.” Yuen Muk crouched down before him and inspected his injuries rapidly.
The doctor laughed, his voice a thick rattle. “You'll be a great healer one day, Gou Dzing, but only a miracle doctor could save me now.” He panted shallowly, his face pale as the underbelly of a fish. “She's insane, that woman.”
“Teem Djeung Baak?”
“Keep your loved ones close, Gou Dzing. Don't let her get hold of them.”
Yuen Muk smiled gently. “Are you in a lot of pain, Yi-sang?”
“No... I don't really feel much right now.”
“Was there anyone else in here?”
“Luckily not. Just me...” He twitched, and sighed, and stopped speaking.
Yuen Muk drew as deep a breath as he could in the ash-laden air, and left the body where it lay.
Gaam Yuk Ying, on the other hand, had been slicing down burning timbers and kicking them away to prevent anything more catching alight. A sparse rain had begun to fall, but it was doing little to assist.
His foot caught on an arm sticking out from the remains of a building in the heart of the Clear Sight School. Lifting aside the rubble, he found Ying Fo, the Fire Master, staring blankly back at him, half of his face blasted and burned away. He was beyond help; Gaam Yuk Ying turned away and kept moving through the wreckage.
The Still Heart and Way of the Mountain Schools had, unsurprisingly, not been touched. Disciples from these two schools rushed about trying to put out fires with their Water and Earth energies, and to pull survivors from the wreckage, the smell of charred wood and flesh heavy on the air. Large drops of rain continued to fall, but reluctantly, doing nothing to extinguish the flames.
Wong Tang strode about, issuing orders and lifting enormous slabs of fallen building to allow others to check underneath them. Back in human form, Ling Gwong, shivering, dazedly moved from flame to flame, sometimes picking them up and swallowing them if they were small, sometimes making a snatching motion over them, causing the flames to vanish. Every now and then she would stop and whimper, clutching herself.
Gaam Bing chopped apart buildings beside his disciple. They moved silently and efficiently. In the Gales of Battle School, Gaam Yuk Ying helped a group of disciples extract another from a burning dormitory. Wiping sweat from his eyes with a blistered, blackened hand, he realised that the young disciple who was directing his fellows to safety looked somehow familiar. The child met his eyes.
“Thank you, Si-hing.” The boy bowed politely. He had narrow eyes and a several small moles sprinkled over his face.
“You... are Cheng Baak Gat.”
“That's right, Si-hing.”
Gaam Yuk Ying considered him wordlessly, then gave a sharp nod. “Good.” He turned and walked back into the burning compound, leaving Cheng Baak Gat blinking after him. The young boy quickly gathered himself and hurried after his fellow disciples, wondering if it would have killed his Senior Brother to be a little less odd.
The rain finally began to fall in earnest, and the work shifted from extinguishing fires to finding survivors, and then, to retrieving the dead. Each body was laid out carefully in the common courtyard of the Sect, many of them small. Dully, Yuen Muk and other healing disciples checked over each one for signs of life, unsuccessfully. In the end, twenty disciples, as well as Fire Master Ying Fo and Dzik Suet Yi-sang, lay next to each other in neat rows. Some bore knife marks, others several charred or crushed.
Wong Tang continued directing the shell-shocked disciples. “Those on guard duty who saw the attack, report to me. Seniors of Clear Sight, lead your juniors to the Way of the Mountain School. Gales of Battle, to the Still Heart School. Old White, take Ah Gwong with you and your disciples back to the Reflective Arts School. Gou- Yuen Muk, Gaam Yuk Ying, stay here.”
The two of them stood silently side by side, covered in ash and burns, their clothing blackened. Yuen Muk lifted his face to the rain, Gaam Yuk Ying stared down at the rows of bodies, his grip tight on the hilt of Lo Fu Ngaa.
A few disciples who had been on guard duty remained, many shivering in shock and the cold wetness that the rain brought.
Wong Tang's golden eyes were dull. She extracted her pipe, puffed on it for a moment before turning to them. There was a black smudge across her right cheek, and her brown and yellow robes were covered in ash.
“What happened here?”