Flying Swords, chpt 11 (Patreon)

Chapter Eleven

Morning brought more chatter from Shanlin, who was now regaling them with a description of how beasts could sometimes cultivate enough magic to speak. It was like yesterday hadn’t happened, as if he hadn’t come back to eat overcooked lotus out of a cooling pot while ignoring Leander’s attempts to subtly encourage him to talk about his fears.

As a father, Leander feared he sucked. He shouldn’t be surprised. He lacked most interpersonal skills.

It was equally awkward between him and Creek. Xi. Xi. He had to remember the name right. Xi.  They had slept in the same room in beds on the opposite side, but they hadn’t exchanged more than a few terse words.  This is why Leander had always lived alone.

“And then there’s the qilin,” Shanlin nattered on. “It’s like a deer, only with bits of dragon, like scales and the beard, and it brings really, really good news. Sometimes it talks because it has a lot of chi, but other stories have it showing up when someone amazing is going to be born,” he said between bites of rice porridge and egg. Leander should be grateful that Shanlin’s words filled the painful silence between him and Xi, but it was giving him a headache.

Despite wanting to shout at Shanlin to shut up, Leander nodded as though qilin were both the most fascinating creatures in the world and simultaneously so mysterious that he had never before heard of them despite having lived in China before. 

“When Confusious was born, a qilin appeared and dropped a piece of linen that said that the couple’s child would have the grace and intelligence of a royal without being born in the royal line.”

“Confucius,” Leander corrected his pronunciation.

“Confucius,” Shanlin echoed carefully.

What did American schools teach that he didn’t know that name? Leander was tempted to write a scathing letter. Maybe insulting someone else would ease some of the stress he was feeling.  He glanced at Xi who was carving rivers in his porridge.  Maybe not.

“We should leave soon. Go upstairs and put on your robe,” Leander said.  Shanlin still tended to dip his long sleeves into his meal, so he had left the robe upstairs and come down in only the undershirt and ankle-length pants that went under the robe.

“Shi!” he agreed enthusiastically, taking his empty bowl to the sink before heading upstairs.

Leander turned his attention to Xi.  “We can’t afford to waste food. If you’re not going to eat that, give it to me so I can,” he said, looking at the porridge.

Xi scooped up a huge blob and shoved it in his mouth. While he made a face, he did swallow. 

“I work for Master Yang, collecting plants and infusing them with chi to make them more potent. I’ll be out most of the day, but Shanlin and I will be back before the sun goes behind the mountains.” Leander wanted to stop there, but as much as he would like to avoid his new, judgmental housemate, their fates were now linked. They were, in the eyes of this village, family. That meant that what one did reflected on all of them.

“Be very polite to everyone. If someone comes by, apologize for not having access to the storeroom where the refreshments are. Offer them water and a chance to come in and sit. Do not disagree with anything they say, even if you think it’s stupid. Just call it interesting and say you’ll think about the subject.”

“I do know how to be polite,” Xi said, frustration coloring his voice.

“The vast majority of people on this planet do not know how to be polite to the extent the Chinese expect. They will tear you down behind your back and plot against you with an enthusiasm that is frankly terrifying, but they will never argue with you in public.” Leander frowned. “Hopefully. If one of the villagers calls you out to your face, that generally means you’ve lost so much respect that they don’t care if everyone sees them disrespect you.  Or it means you’re family.” Leander had seen families say things to each other that no one else would be allowed to even think.

“I planned to go with you. That way I can avoid trouble.”

Leander froze. On one hand, that would keep Xi away from the other villagers. On the other, Leander desperately wanted to escape all human interaction. He was drained to the point that his tongue was sore from holding back all the insults he wanted to say.  He needed to recharge.

“I could help you find plants. If you show me a sample of what you want to find, I could send my shadows to find it.”

“Master Yang is paying me pennies per plant, so I only bring him one small sample of each different plant,” Leander said.

Xi laughed. “You are still a master of malicious compliance.”

“You’re still annoying,” Leander snapped back. Xi jerked as if he’d been slapped, but before the guilt could gnaw on Leander’s rougher edges, Xi started laughing.

“I had forgotten what you were like when you were in a bad mood.”

“This isn’t a bad mood.” Leander hated it when his rightful and just annoyance was dismissed as him being in a bad mood. He had a right to be annoyed with Xi. The smug bastard walked in acting like Leander didn’t understand the gravity of their situation. He acted like Leander didn’t even care about keeping Shanlin safe, when it was him who had given up everything to protect Finn’s boy. Xi had only run when his owners started to question his loyalty. He’d saved his own sorry skin. If they were in the States, Leander would have said all that and more. He would have gone all the way back to when they’d been in freshman algebra and Xi had earned them both detention by being too much of an idiot to hide that he was copying.

But they had to live together. “Fine,” he snapped. “Follow me and don’t talk to anyone.”

“Except you,” Xi said with a chuckle.  

Leander glared at him without speaking. If Leander had his way, no one would ever talk to him ever again. Maybe the sages who moved to a mountain peak to sit and cultivate magic had it right. People were a giant pain in his ass.

“Ready,” Shanlin said as he came thundering down the stairs. His voice was too loud and his smile too bright. Leander narrowed his eyes as he studied Finn’s annoying child.  That was the expression Finn always had when he was scheming.  Shanlin even had the habit of widening his eyes when caught, as though looking more innocent would fool Leander. The only question was what scheme he had rattling around in that skull of his. Leander was not in the mood for any Finn-style practical jokes, that’s for certain.

“Let’s go,” Leander said. He picked up the simplest of the baskets he’d woven yesterday and headed out the door, touching the vine that guarded the entrance on his way past.

“Shadows are almost as cool as plants,” Shanlin was telling Xi behind him, but Leander focused on the village. The longer they lived here, the more other villages would develop expectations of them. Leander needed to understand how these people interacted with each other and where the power lay. But he dare not use his magical methods to spy. This was a village of magical folk who could have any number of powers of their own. Leander couldn’t afford to anger any of them.

“Do you like the school?” Xi asked Shanlin.

Leander froze and sent a prayer up to a god he didn’t believe in anymore. Please do not allow Shanlin to insult the school, the children of potentially powerful villagers or the teacher who, no doubt, had high status of his own.

“It’s awesome–so much better than in America. I don’t have to avoid talking about magic or anything,” Shanlin said.

Leander blew out a breath, not realizing he was holding it until that moment.  He walked faster. Two boys were walking toward the teacher’s house, and one called out to Shanlin.  Shanlin started running, stopped to look at Leander, and Leander nodded.  Only then did he race to join his two new friends.

“God, he makes friends as easily as Finn,” Xi said quietly.

Leander didn’t respond, but Xi was right. Finn had always been the social one of the group. Even Leander who could never figure out how to have normal human interactions felt normal around him. Too bad he couldn’t figure out how to use a fucking condom. When Leander didn’t respond, Xi sighed, and the disapproval rolled off him like a fog.

Leander ignored it.

When he reached Master Yang’s house, the same servant woman who had given him the worn basket waited in the yard with that disagreeable donkey. It kept pulling on the reins, and the woman would yank the beast’s head around with far more strength than her slender frame suggested she possessed.

“I have found a more appropriate basket for you,” she said with a mocking partial bow so shallow as to not count at all.

Leander kept his expression neutral as he studied the huge basket that straddled the animal’s shoulders. He would be able to fit half a grocery store in the damn thing, and the wooden bottom meant he could, technically, fit an obscene number of roots in it without risking the basket falling apart. “I thank you for your consideration,” Leander said.

Xi looked from the woman to Leander, clearly sensing something was wrong. Luckily, he kept his mouth shut.

Master Yang threw open the door to his house and stepped out into the sunlight.  “How many more outsiders are planning to follow you, Boon Lian?” he demanded, no hint of propriety in his voice.

Leander bowed. “Honored Master Yang Xiangren, pillmaster to the village, I present my qilin Hu Xi.”

Master Yang scoffed. “I need ginseng. Significant amounts. Do not show up with one root, claiming the basket prevented you from doing your job.”

“Of course not, Master Yang. I am paid by the plant, so I am motivated to bring the great master as many plants as possible if I hope to build a future for my son. I am, however, limited by how many plants I can enrich with chi. If I bring you only ginseng, I will still only be able to bring you between fifteen and twenty plants, but if Master Yang wishes to purchase only ginseng, I can only oblige.”

Leander spoke loudly and clearly, making sure that everyone heard that he expected to get paid per root, and as he expected, Master Yang started to turn red.

“I offered ten yuan per plant when you had to search for each separate plant. If you find a cluster of ginseng, then you are not working as hard.”

“I must enrich each plant, regardless of how long it takes me to find it,” Leander countered.

Master Yang came down his steps, his heavy belly shaking with each thudding footstep. “You are trying to take advantage of my good nature.” He spoke as if he had any good nature to take advantage of, and the listening servants would understand that as well as Leander.  Hell, Xi had likely figured out Master Yang’s true nature from the few words he had said.

Leander bowed. “I would always hope to find mutual benefit for any arrangement,” he said. That was almost true. He wanted any deal to benefit himself and for the other party to get enough out of it to avoid hard feelings. And with this deal, Master Yang had no right to any hard feelings at all. He was getting plants enriched beyond anything he could do. Leander knew that pills were not only highly valuable but also highly dependent on the quality of the ingredients.

Master Yang stalked forward, his eyes narrowed and a sense of foreboding filling the air around him.  “You should worry about benefiting the village. We have taken you in when your own country has thrown you aside. And yet you stand there and try to negotiate?”

Leander debated bringing Auntie Daiyu into the conversation, but he had the feeling she was the nuclear option.  “I do not negotiate at all, honored pill master,” he said. “We have agreed on ten yuan per plant, and given the difficulty of enriching the ingredients, I would ask for more, but I will not negotiate an agreement already made.”

“Master Yang,” the female servant said, “I have heard that he uses his powers on the reeds of the river instead of your ingredients.” Her smile was vicious. “In fact, it is said that his baskets can hold ling, which must take a great deal of chi to manage.”

“I have not heard that, and I am the one who wove the baskets in order to make a little more money to support my son,” Leander said. “I wove them to hold water, so anything more is a surprise to me.” Leander wasn’t sure what ling meant exactly. He knew lingshi were stones that were imbued with power–enough that cultivators could use them to develop their own abilities. They were little tiny spiritual energy batteries. Lingqi was some sort of spirit power that Leander didn’t understand, but ling by itself was a new term for him.

But if his baskets could hold ling, he assumed that had some value.

Master Yang looked from Leander to his servant girl, his eyes narrowing even more.  He raised a hand and she fell silent even though her mouth was open. He stepped down the final step and stared at Leander.  “If you hope to find peace here, you must honor those of us with roots in this land.”

Leander bowed. “Of course, Master Yang. I honor your knowledge and your power. To make pills is a great and honorable thing.” One that he couldn’t do half as well without Leander’s plants, and Leander assumed he knew that now that he’d had time to work with the supplies Leander had brought back yesterday.  He kept a neutral expression even though Yang was a short-sighted, pig-headed moron who would not just kill the golden goose but throw its body to the pigs if he had half a chance.  His brain was rattling around in his skull because it was too small to fill the space.  He breathed through his mouth because he wasn’t evolved enough to know how to use his nose. Leander fought to keep the insults behind his teeth.

“Yet you challenge me,” Yang said.

Leander bowed again. “Never, great Master Yang. If you wish me to expend all my chi on ginseng then I will bring you as many plants as I can. I will return as soon as I can with fifteen or twenty good sized roots, the largest I can find. You will make incredible pills with the roots I will harvest for you.”

Master Yang’s nose actually flared. Leander wondered if that was some affectation he used to intimidate people or if he genuinely had so little control over his emotions. That was strange because Leander had learned that controlling emotions and separating from the concerns of the world were vital for the sort of magical cultivation the Chinese used. Maybe Yang was just particularly bad at cultivating. Maybe he was skilled with making pills the way Leander was with plants, and he couldn’t do anything else particularly well.

Without another word, Yang turned and headed back up the stairs, disappearing into his house.

“Here.” The servant woman shoved the donkey’s reins at Leander.

“Thank you,” Leander said. He didn’t bow to her, and her eyes narrowed. Clearly she thought her own status was higher even though she was a servant. Either that or she expected Leander to be trying to impress her. Objectively, she was attractive, but Leander thought her cold expression made her look constipated. It wasn’t a good look, and Leander was not interested in women.  Leander led the donkey away from Master Yang’s house.

“Nice guy,” Xi whispered.

Leander glared him into silence.  As they walked, he lectured on Chinese magic. “Those with magic can develop a much wider range of skills. Many will have heightened senses, so it is particularly rude to make loud noises when people don’t expect it. For the same reason, people are expected to avoid strong smells.”

Xi made a show of sniffing the air. “There are some strong smells here.” The scent of cooking drifted on the breeze.

“Those are normal smells, delicious ones, even,” Leander said.

Xi gave him an incredulous look. Chinese cooking was not the same as Chinese-American, but Xi better get used to it if he planned to stay here.  At least he wasn’t making snide comments about Master Yang where someone might hear him. The man had power. A lot of it.

“Do you know where to find the ginseng?” Xi asked.

“I think so, although I don’t want to take fifteen large roots from one place.” Leander also did not want to bring the best roots back, so he sorted through the locations he had found yesterday.  He was developing a mental map of the local vegetation, reinforced by his connection to the plants physically closest to him. Plants had a chemical understanding of the vegetation around them, so he could send his awareness sliding along that network.

“So, it sounds like we’ll finish early today,” Xi said with far more cheer than was appropriate. “What do you do for fun around here?”

“Work,” Leander said dryly.

“Sounds fun. Anything I can help with?”

“I started making baskets,” Leander said. “If the woman back there is telling the truth and no one misunderstood Auntie Daiyu, it sounds like they are more valuable than I thought.

“About that.” Xi hurried ahead and kicked a ball back to a cluster of young children who had kicked it out of bounds.  He turned back to face Leander. “What’s ling?”

“No idea,” Leander admitted. “I suspect it has something to do with spiritual energy, but I don’t know for sure.

“If your baskets can hold ling…” Xi gave him a significant look.

Leander nodded. “I know. After I have made more baskets, we’re going to visit Auntie Daiyu and get some answers.” If the baskets had value because of this ‘ling,’ Leander might be able to establish himself as a serious craftsman. That would give him more status than just being one of Master Yang’s servants. While he would accept that role if it kept him safe, he would rather not have his safety depend on others. Not anymore.

“I could help with the baskets,” Xi offered.  They had left the village now, and Xi moved to Leander’s side instead of walking ahead.  When Leander left the path, Xi followed. They walked through the flowers, and orange pedals rose into the air like a cloud.

“Baskets aren’t made of shadow,” Leander pointed out.

“No, but I know how to use shadows to create permanent stains. Shadows are more flexible than you’d think.”

Leander didn’t want Xi to become a big part of his life. It was hard enough to know that his life would be connected to Shanlin’s. It was like his skin was stretched too far because there was a new person under it. His life was small. He was used to being alone in his apartment with only his plants as companions. Their life cycles had become the only personal connections he had nurtured. But now Shanlin had wormed his way in, not only as someone he had to protect, but as someone who he changed to accommodate.

Asking him to take a new person into his life this quickly was too much.

“I don’t know why my baskets held ling,” he said, “so changing anything could damage that quality of the work. We can experiment after we determine the worth of the baskets.”

“Right.  But look.” Xi rested his hand on the basket strapped to the donkey’s back.  Some reeds started to darken while others slowly turned pale, as if they’d been sunbleached.  In seconds, the plain basket had deep brown and bleached pale gray strands woven together.  “Cool, right?  The color stays unless I reverse the process.

“Which you need to do,” Leander said sharply. “That is not our basket.”

Xi sighed. “You have not changed at all.”  He put his hand back on the basket and the color started to fade. “I can help. You don’t have to shut me out.”  The basket was normal again, and Leander leaned against it. Since they were stopped, the donkey grabbed a mouthful of flowers and started chewing.

“I’m not trying to shut you out,” Leander said. They were wasting time.

Xi snorted. “Right, like you didn’t shut out Tecca or Petel or me.  Hell, you shut Finn out even though you two loved each other more than any two people I’d ever seen.”

“Given that he got Tecca pregnant, clearly we weren’t that much in love,” Leander shot back.

“You knew Finn and Tecca messed around. You always said you were fine with that.”

“I was fine with teenagers fucking because they were exploring their options! I wasn’t fine with him getting her pregnant! I wasn’t fine with her taking over our life!”

“She lost the baby! She needed us after that!”

“I needed to know that my relationship wasn’t over, but Finn wasn’t there to say that. He was never fucking there to say anything I fucking needed him to say. And this is in the past. If you’re here to shove my nose in the mistakes of the past, you can find some other hiding place. Just because you ran away from your masters doesn’t mean I have to feed and clothe you,” he shouted.

Xi was pale, and guilt swamped Leander. He hadn’t meant to say any of that. Yes, maybe he felt it, but that was his pain. He hadn’t wanted to share it, and he definitely hadn’t meant to turn it into a weapon. But now the words were out there and the color had left Xi’s face.  Leander swallowed, not sure how to repair the cracks he had just left in their fragile friendship.

He opened his mouth, but before he could cobble together an inadequate apology, Xi’s eyes fluttered and he fell to the ground unconscious.