Beneath Ceaseless Skies #100 Read online

  Issue #100 • July 26, 2012

  A Double-Issue in Celebration of Our 100th Issue

  “In the Palace of the Jade Lion,” by Richard Parks

  “Ratcatcher,” by Garth Upshaw

  “The Three Feats of Agani,” by Christie Yant

  “Virtue’s Ghosts,” by Amanda M. Olson

  For more stories and Audio Fiction Podcasts, visit

  http://beneath-ceaseless-skies.com/

  IN THE PALACE OF THE JADE LION

  by Richard Parks

  Just before the Time of Troubles there lived in the Kingdom of Zhao a poor young scholar named Xu Jian. He owned nothing except the clothes on his back and a battered pen case, but he had done well in King Youmiu’s Royal Examinations and thus won a posting as Official Censor to a remote northern province. There were two drawbacks to this posting: The first was that he had no money for travel and would have to manage the journey unaided. The second was that he had to survive that journey in order to accept his post, and the northern road was infested with bandits, monsters, and dark spirits of all sorts.

  “If I refuse the post and stay here, I will starve,” he said to no one in particular. “Whereas, If I am slain by bandits or devoured by some demon beast on the journey north, at least my problems will be at an end.”

  Since he could see no obvious flaws in his argument, Xu Jian set out immediately on the northern road from the capital city Handan and made good progress for several days. Sometimes he was able to trade his tutoring skills for an occasional night’s lodging and a little money, but villages were few in that part of the country, and as often as not Xu Jian slept shivering in his robes under a sky full of cold stars.

  On the morning of the seventh day, he turned off the main road and onto a smaller trail parallel to it because that trail led for a while along the banks of a swift-flowing stream, and Xu Jian found himself badly in need of both a drink and a bath. When he had drunk his fill of the cold, clear water and braved the chill long enough to cleanse himself, he continued on that trail, expecting it to rejoin the main road further along. By noon he realized that he had been mistaken. He considered retracing his steps but hated the idea of delay. Besides, this trail also led north, so he knew he was still going in the right direction.

  “Bandits are more likely to haunt the main road,” he said to himself. “As this trail is obviously less traveled, it will be safer.”

  By nightfall, however, Xu Jian was having serious doubts about his reasoning. It was now obvious that the trail was in fact an old military road, built for a purpose long since served and forgotten. While he hadn’t expected to find any villages in this part of the country, it was clear now that no one at all used this road. Worse, as evening approached, he had seen several columns of mist rising from stone cairns and the caves that sometimes appeared in the hillsides. These, he well knew, were the signs of ancient tombs and the spirits that dwelled in them. Xu Jian now walked unprotected through a land of ghosts.

  He considered the matter, but he feared that the situation was hopeless. Xu Jian had eaten nothing at all that day and was too exhausted from the journey and the lack of nourishment to turn back. There was nothing for it but to find a place, preferably well-concealed, to spend the night.

  He came to a thick tangle of flowering wisteria growing in the crevice between two large rocks. The path between them offered not only a fragrant shelter from the wind but also a place to hide himself. He had no sooner settled in to rest when a glowing lantern appeared floating along the path between the rocks.

  “In my foolishness I have chosen to rest by an unquiet tomb,” Xu Jian said in despair, but he was too weak to even consider fleeing. His worst fears were confirmed when a terrible figure appeared in the cleft of the rock.

  It was a huge, glowing apparition of a soldier in armor, with nothing but a black shadow where his face should have been. He carried a halberd of moldering bronze, the point of which was aimed directly at Xu Jian’s heart. The ghostly soldier advanced, and his intent was clear. Xu Jian closed his eyes.

  “Please withdraw. We will deal with this matter.”

  The voice was female and, he was fairly sure, did not belong to the ghostly soldier. Xu Jian opened his eyes and noted with some relief that the soldier had disappeared. The lantern he had seen earlier now reappeared, and he realized that the lantern was not floating in the air as he had believed but rather was being carried by a winsome girl of about sixteen, impeccably dressed as a lady’s maid.

  She stopped a few paces away from him and bowed low. “I hope our faithful guardian did not frighten you. My mistress noticed you from her chamber window, and she cannot in good conscience allow a gentleman such as yourself to sleep on the cold ground. Please accept our hospitality for this evening.”

  Xu Jian was not a complete fool. He knew that the idea of any real humans living near this isolated and ghost-ridden stretch of road with a spectral watchman on guard was nonsense, but he considered his options and decided that he didn’t have any. He offered a silent prayer to any kindly gods who might have been listening and then followed the girl, who conducted him through the fissure in the rock, which soon led them to a large and finely constructed walled mansion compound within a pleasant valley. Silks hung from the rafters, and the wood accents on the hallways and chambers were exquisitely carved.

  “What is your name, girl?” Xu Jian asked, “And what is this wonderful place?”

  “I am called Patience, may it please you,” the girl said. “And this is my mistress’s home, the Palace of the Jade Lion.”

  “Patience, are you leading me to my doom?”

  “I am obeying my mistress’s instructions,” Patience said, and she smiled.

  That smile wasn’t exactly reassuring, but Xu Jian had already resolved to meet whatever outcome fate had arranged for him with as much courage and dignity as he could manage, though he was less certain about how well his courage would hold. He followed Patience through the main hall and out into an immaculate garden. In the center pavilion, a magnificent meal had been laid out for him.

  “Our mistress sends her apologies for not greeting you in person,” Patience said. “but she bids you to please sit and refresh yourself.”

  Xu Jian assumed that the food was either poison or simply an illusion, but the aroma rising from the table was heavenly. There were meat dishes of pork and fowl, along with vegetables and fruit, and sugared lotus root and other delicacies he had never seen before. In Xu Jian’s famished condition he lacked the strength to resist any of it. He ate and drank heartily, and to his surprise he began to feel a little better.

  At this point a second maid appeared, a girl of about the same age and no less striking than the first, whose name, she said, was Wind Whisper. She brought fresh clothes, and together the maids led Xu Jian to a chamber where a large bronze cauldron filled with steaming hot water awaited him.

  “Ah. I am to be boiled alive, then?” he asked.

  “Honored Sir, you are to be bathed, and as you are alive now, we hope that is the condition you will maintain,” Patience said, and Xu Jian was certain that she was trying not to laugh.

  After he—with all politeness—refused their offers of assistance, the two maids discreetly withdrew, and Xu Jian disrobed and cautiously lowered himself into the cauldron. The water was hot but not scalding and had been scented with jasmine and cloves. Xu Jian felt the aches and pains of the day falling away from him, and by the time he emerged, he felt quite a bit restored. He dried and then dressed himself in clean robes, and when he left the chamber, he found Patience and Wind Whisper waiting for him. They le
d him to a large chamber with a fire burning in a brazier, a well-made and equipped writing table, and a comfortable-looking bed.

  “My mistress says that you are welcome to remain with us tonight and sends you her wishes for a pleasant journey tomorrow,” Patience said.

  She seemed about to bid him good night, but by this time Xu Jian’s curiosity was catching up to his fear. “May I ask who I am indebted to for this hospitality?”

  “The noble Lady Green Willow,” Patience said. “It is she who saw you in distress earlier this evening and bid us come to your assistance.”

  As a scholar and a well-read person, Xu Jian well knew the stories of the awful things that happened to people who slept near tombs. He also knew of all the variations on that tale where a handsome young man–surely not himself!—would be taken into a fine home and given all manner of good things but in the end would be visited in the night by the true mistress of the house, a malign ghost who would appear beautiful and seductive and come into his bed, only to drain away all the poor fool’s yang energy, leaving only his wretched husk of a body to be found lying on the cold hard ground the next morning. Everyone knew this was what ghosts did, and surely now he was among ghosts. Even so, he could not refrain from asking, “May I meet her? I wish to thank my benefactress in person.”

  Patience and Wind Whisper both bowed low, and Patience said, “Our mistress knows that you must be weary and does not wish to impose upon you. She has so instructed us.”

  Xu Jian considered this. “While it is true that I have traveled far today and remain very tired,” he said, “Lady Green Willow’s generosity has restored much of what my journey has taken from me. I would be shamed if I could not express my gratitude properly.”

  The two maids looked at each other. Xu Jian studied them as they did so. He wasn’t sure what he was looking for, perhaps a gleam of cruelty, or some sign of menace, but he did not find it. All he sensed in the two young women was a profound melancholy.

  Wind Whisper finally spoke, though Patience tried and failed to shush her. “Our mistress spends a part of every evening on the northern veranda, for that is her favorite view. We cannot escort you there, for that would be disobedient. However, if in the night you should happen to wander....”

  Patience glared at her and she said no more. They bowed then and took their leave. Xu Jian retired to the chamber prepared for him, but he did not remain there. He rested for a short time, and then he made his way through the empty palace to the north side of the building as Wind Whisper had instructed.

  A tall and lithe young woman, elegantly dressed in red and yellow silk, stood on the veranda by a railing; her hair was long and unbound, flowing over her shoulders like dark waters. Her face was turned away from him. She stood looking toward the northern mountains.

  “Young scholar,” she said without turning around, “it was foolish to seek me out. You know what we are.”

  Xu Jian found her frankness something of a relief. He always felt better in any situation when he trusted his understanding of it. Now it seemed that he had understood his peril full well.

  “I intend no offense, but only the dead dwell in this land,” Xu Jian said, “Yet such was my condition when your servants came to me that I was in your power regardless. I appreciate the kindness you have shown up until now, but if it is my time to die, then so be it.”

  Now Lady Green Willow turned to face him, and he immediately noticed two things: the first was that she was, without question, the most beautiful woman he had ever seen. The second was that she was crying.

  Xu Jian bowed, feeling his confusion return. “My Lady, what is the matter? Surely I cannot be the cause of your grief? As you do not know me, there is little reason for you to regret my passing.”

  “‘Little reason’? Young Sir, there is all the reason in the world! You know how this must end, and yet you have no idea how I have dreaded this day.”

  The scholar felt his confusion deepening. “But... why? The nature of a ghost is to be a creature of little substance save yin energy, incomplete, envious of the living. When you’ve drained my life away, you will be, at least in a small regard and for a short time, alive again.”

  She shook her head. “No, Young Sir, if I warm my spirit for a little while with your living energy, I will simply be reminded of what I was, and what I have become, and how all of the hopes and dreams of the living woman I once was have come to nothing. What person, alive or dead, would want to experience such a painful thing? Please, Young Sir, if you leave now, I may yet find the strength to let you do so. Go as far away from this place as you can.”

  Xu Jian sighed. “Again I must thank you for your generosity, but even as restored as I am, I could not get far enough tonight to escape this spirit-haunted land. If it is not to be you, Lady, then it will likely be another. I honestly do not wish to cause you more grief than you already bear, but if I must die tonight, I would rather spend that time with you.”

  Lady Green Willow covered her tears with her sleeves. When she showed her face again, she was more composed. She smiled a sad smile. “In that case, Young Sir, I will be as gentle as my nature allows. Please return to your rooms and wait for me.”

  Xu Jian bowed to the lovely ghost and slowly made his way back to his rooms through the empty and echoing Palace of the Jade Lion. Despite his great show of calm, he was in no particular hurry to die. In addition, the ghost’s plight had touched him deeply, and, try as he might, Xu Jian could not see how his death would serve either of them.

  “There has to be another way.”

  Xu Jian was a man of letters, not a man of action, and he did not have strength or skill at arms to serve him. All he had was his education and his love of learning and the untangling of mysteries, and he used them to consider the problem just as he had done to so many others in his life. He gathered all that he knew of ghosts, the overwhelming yin principle that characterized them—but no solution presented itself.

  After a while he sighed and did little but contemplate Lady Green Willow’s coming visit. He found himself wondering in what aspect she would reveal herself, now that they had spoken their true minds to each other and all pretenses were laid aside. Would she come as a horrible specter with long gnashing teeth and huge yellow eyes? Or perhaps as a cruel seductress, perfect of form, with a demeanor as cold as ice? Xu Jian allowed his imagination free rein, but when Lady Green Willow finally glided into his rooms, Xu Jian was astonished despite himself.

  The ghost appeared as a bride.

  Lady Green Willow wore a robe of red silk embroidered with yellow bats and other symbols of luck and prosperity. Her headdress was of intricately carved green jade, and her lips were as red as the silk of her dress. So striking was her appearance that for a few moments all Xu Jian could do was stare, and finally Lady Green Willow blushed.

  “I never had the chance to wear this, you know, before...,” she said almost shyly. “It was to be my wedding dress. I hope you don’t mind.”

  Xu Jian quickly stood and bowed to her. “It is rather I who should ask for pardon,” he said. “It occurs to me that I never asked what tragedy left you here in this desolate place. I would like to know, if the memory is not too painful.”

  She sighed. “My betrothed was the military governor of a border province. I was on my way north to be married when our party was stricken by a deadly fever. I was borne away by it, as were my two unfortunate servants, so our bones and ashes were buried here together.” Lady Green Willow looked away. “And so we remain, along with some other members of our military escort who suffered as well. I believe you met one of them.”

  He bowed again. “Now I understand why you turn your eyes to the north. He must have been a fine man.”

  She smiled then. “I was assured this was the case, but in truth, I never met him. It was all arranged by our families, as such things are, and it was ages ago. Whatever sort of man he was, he is dust and ashes now, so we at least share that much. No, I do not look toward him. I look tow
ard what might have been, Young Sir, and pray for release. Now it seems I must add you to my list of regrets as well. I think you are more resigned to this than I am.”

  He sighed. “Do not mistake me—I do not welcome death,” he said, “but I also know that few men could be privileged to have such a charming executioner....”

  Xu Jian’s tongue stopped as his mind suddenly began to race. For all his pondering and puzzling, he had seen no alternative to either his or Lady Green Willow’s unfortunate situation, but now he wondered if, perhaps, in her choice of dress she had given him the solution to this puzzle-box herself. What began as a notion turned into a glimmer, then a revelation. He almost grinned.

  “I should have thought of this before,” he said. “I really must be a fool; the solution seems so obvious now.”

  She frowned. “‘Solution?’ What are you talking about?”

  “Marry me,” he said.

  Lady Green Willow looked as if she wanted to burst into tears again. “Even if I must be your death, it is cruel of you to mock me,” she said, but Xu Jian was quick to deny that notion.

  “Sweet Lady, I assure you I am completely serious.”

  “But... it is impossible!”

  “Say rather that it has never been done. Are there obstacles, difficulties? As with any union, of course there are.”

  “Not the least of which is that I am a ghost and you are a living man,” she said dryly. “Such a union is an affront to Heaven!”

  He dismissed that. “Has death made you a demon, Lady? A monster? No! All who are mortal must die, but not all who die become ghosts. You did, and that is because your hopes and dreams as a living woman were so completely frustrated. Therefore, your defining characteristic is not death but rather an excess of the yin principle, which you would instinctively attempt to counter by taking my living energy. Thus you must realize that you are out of balance. Your present condition is not fate but rather a condition, an illness. An illness can be cured.”