~SHAN JIANG~

"You have not changed one bit," Jiang lied. He missed Tien Lyn's pink-cheeked enthusiasm but respected the purpose etched in the first fine lines by her eyes and lips. She must have laughed a lot since he'd last seen her.

"And you've changed for the better, Jiang," she teased.

"Ah, you have one-upped me without even trying. Three years in the countryside have not dulled your manners," he gave a fond look to his growing paunch. His hairline started to recede too, leaving him with a higher forehead. "All and all, respectability has caught up to me."

She shook her head. "You are still a rascal enough to aid a fugitive."

"Are you ready to set out on your next adventure?" he tried to keep it light, despite his apprehension. He did not think Rustam should have let her go.

She certainly looked the part of a virago, dressed in nondescript trousers and tunic, walking shoes and leg wraps. Her hair was braided into two long plaits, the way she used to have it during her captivity. She carried a tightly bound travel bundle on her back and a simple walking staff.

"I am almost ready," she pointed out a bench by a gigantic bush of peonies covered by red flowers almost as big as her head. "Please, sit with me for a moment before we start out."

Something told him not to argue. They sat in silence until the doors of Rustam's manor opened, and the four apprentices rushed out excitedly like any other children would when they are released from chores to go see a festival. Kestrel held Xi firmly by the hand. She was the only one of the quartet to notice them and quickly pulled him along saying something obviously enticing into his ear.

Jiang gave the children a few moments to overtake them, and then led Tien Lyn into the crowd of revellers. Even with his task on his mind, he could not stand around and gawk, but he spared a glance or two to the dragon dancers and the fire eaters, always his favourite. Still, he kept an eye out for trouble.

When he noticed a guard taking a closer look at Tien Lyn, he grabbed her by the shoulder and they pushed through a denser knot of people cheering on a strongman twisting perfectly serviceable farming implements into gigantic good luck charms and scurried into a side alley.

"Let's wait out here," he said catching his breath.

It proved to be a wrong move. The guards blocked off the exit but stepped aside for the wide-shouldered woman in black scales. As a nod to the festivities, she traded her halberd for an axe. One of Zha Yao's pistols sat on her hips, which remained far too narrow for a woman of childbearing years.

"Gracious Lady Tien Lyn! I am scandalized!" Deserving Du mocked as she advanced on them. "And I have had shoes made to dance at your wedding to the Good Emperor Zha Yao..."

He gulped. "Ah, Deserving Du! We were—-"

"Shush, Jiang. I've heard this Lady tell tales better than you've ever done."

He gasped and tried to object, but Tien Lyn put her palm on his shoulder. "Don't interfere between us."

He looked from one angry woman to another and muttered: "Why would I?"

"You can do what you want with me," Tien Lyn told Du. "But I won't tell you where I was going or with whom."

Deserving Du's wide mouth stretched into a terrifying red grin. She coughed out a laugh and unfastened one of the pistols from her hip. She weighed it in her hands, stroking its muzzle. Her berry-like eyes almost disappeared when she half-closed them dreamily. "Once I wanted nothing more than putting a bullet through your heart. Or your bitch of a mother's if she had anything but stone in her chest."

Her eyes flew open and she'd suddenly stuffed the pistol into Tien Lyn's hand. "Here, you have it. It seems fitting, seeing how we both did not marry our glorious Emperor."

"I'd never meant to," Tien Lyn said. The weapon looked awkward in her hands.

"That's what made me hate you the most," Du scoffed. "Night after night I sat there remembering how you lied through your teeth to get out of something I wanted more than anything else.

But then I thought maybe if a puppy like you can reject him, so can I. I thought, alright, maybe a woman can give a man everything, let him drink her up till the last drop, and still walk on.

Turned out that was right. He sent me away to Xichon, well, turned out I loved Xichon. Turned out I don't want to be a cursed Empress anyway. The last one called Du was not a great one, isn't that right, Jiang?"

He shrugged. "I will present you with a brief yet exhaustive analysis of her reign at the earliest opportunity."

"Stuff it," Du snorted. "I am getting married in the fall."

"You make her That Other Du, my lady," he inserted a compliment with a bow.

"You'll always be a whore, Jiang, historian or singer." She shook her head ruefully, and turned back to Tien Lyn, "So, I figured I'd say 'thanks' to you before you run off with your demon."

Tien Lyn held up the pistol like an Emperor's gift, before stuffing it into her belt. "Thank you as well, Deserving Du."

"You don't know half of it yet." Du lowered her voice so the guards won't overhear. Jiang crept up closer. "The pistols, they have a voice of sorts. They push you to do things, brave or mad things. And they will always kill whoever you take a shot at. They are a pain in the arse to reload, so choose your targets wisely, and try to resupply the powder and the shots."

She gave Tien Lyn the horn and a pouch full of the lead balls, then clapped her on the shoulder for a good measure. "Well, good luck, Gracious Lady."

Du snapped her fingers at the guards and walked on, her hips swaying like a brawler's.

"Du!" Tien Lyn called after her. "Who's the lucky man?"

She chuckled and threw a final grin over her shoulder: "Zhenshi, who else? We're almost of an age, you know? The cheeky brat looked younger because he grew up on soft cushions, while I've slept on dirt floors. The old fart has named him his heir after he'd heard the news, just to spite the rest of their brood."

"Congratulations to you both!" Tien Lyn said sincerely.

***

The crowds grew even thicker as they approached the Hill of Five Seasons, and the entertainment became more refined. There were spiritual shows and lots of dancing. Despite suffering heavy losses in the war, the faeries were everywhere.

"I wish I could use my one shot on Weynala," Tien Lyn confessed.

He shook his head. "The assassination would only pour oil on the fire. Yu and I are not close, but I think he prefers you alive. Speaking of Yu, this way, please!"

The trail, that would have been pleasant if it did not weave its way through the faery lands, ended way too soon in front of a rock wall. Jiang sighed, but there was nothing for it but to climb. His shins and back started burning fast, so he let Tien Lyn overtake him. As she disappeared down the tunnel to the hidden cavern temple, Jiang called after her, "There are stairs on the other end."

He needn't have bothered: the girl jumped into Yu's arms.

"Are you ready to catch me, Sister Sayewa?" he inquired hopefully.

The faery lifted her eyes from the violets she was wrapping into a leaf to make a bouquet. "I don't intend to."

Groaning loudly enough to drown out the two whispering lovers, Jiang descended to the cavern's floor. "You two lovebirds are about to spend the rest of your lives in a man-less wilderness, can't this wait?"

The couple pulled apart slowly, still holding hands, inviting an indulgent smile to his lips. He really did not mind, it's just he had a lot to do yet before the day was out.

Yu and Sayewa kneeled before the portal, and in a moment, the shiny pentagon appeared.

"You go first, beloved," Yu said. "Be careful on the other side, do not fall."

Tien Lyn stepped through without hesitation.

Yu moved to follow her, but the lines began to fade as soon as he'd moved, and he pushed against the billowing must like a bee against a papered window.

Tien Lyn's face turned white in the mist.

"My creed," Sayewa said, "is of lesser importance to me than your friendship. Together, as the first time."

The faery grabbed the man's hand, and the magic lines brightened again. Sayewa stepped through so fast, that surprised Yu tumbled in after her. Just before the portal flickered out, Jiang caught the expression on his face and laughed into the fallen darkness. The echo laughed along. "You poor, poor soul!"

Once the portal finally glowed back to life to illuminate the cavern, he climbed the accursed wall and retraced his steps.

They were starting up the fireworks over Sutao, and he was even fortunate enough to catch a glimpse of the Good Emperor high above the crowds. The Chancellor played his hostess, looking more lovely from afar than any other lady in the Imperial entourage. What's more, Chen Guang appeared in her rightful place.

Zha Yao had Du when he was a brigand. Now he needs the Empress, and there she is. We'll just make a few tweaks to the songs, and re-write the Chronicles.

***

Jiang found the mage bent over his map in deep concentration. "You can go, Senior Apprentice," he told the diligent child and settled on Rustam's carpet to wait and eat a packet of pickled leeks he'd picked up on the way. He'd almost decided that the carpet maker had meant to show a flock of geese frolicking in the lotuses with their geometric abstractions, when the mage had finally acknowledged his presence.

"Is it done?"

He rubbed his neck: "Would I be here if it was not?"

"Sayewa?" Rustam prompted, his eyes narrowing at his flippancy.

"With them," he popped another leek into his mouth and decided against telling Rustam about Du's gift. "Where is she leading them?"

Rustam glanced at his map. "My sister's lands. She wrote that the people to the North fight a great city of the demons. Sayewa will persuade them to go there."

"Do you trust this faery?" Jiang came to look, but there was not much to see: Rustam's people's lands skirted one corner.

"Implicitly," Rustam replied. "She is young and talks of rebellion against her order, and of hidden knowledge, but at her very her core lies the desire to erase every demon in existence. It's her nature."

"Even Yu?" he managed to unbalance the mage with this question. Rustam left his map alone to sit down. Jiang did not want to hover over him, so he re-took his place on top of the probably-lotuses.

"She professes a certain fondness for him," the mage said after long consideration. "But feelings are your province, not mine."

"He looked bewildered when she came along," he mused. "I feel guilty."

The mage closed his eyes like a tired old man. "I gave my daughter what she wanted, her lover and obscurity. But I need Yu and his bond to her.

The treaty with the demons will not hold. When the horde comes, we'd better have recovered the knowledge we sacrificed along with the Laughing Men. The cost of learning it from naught is unimaginable. A faery and a demon in a human body can forearm us."

"Forget I asked," he ate his last leek and crumpled the parchment wrapper in his hand. "I leave the future to you. I shall go and whip the past into the acceptable shape."

Rustam walked him to the gates like an honoured guest and they exchanged bows.

Respectability did catch up with me.

***

The faithful scribes looked on in wonder when he came in at the crack of dawn and completely sober. His offices looked no different than yesterday. The benches were still barely visible under the stacks of ancient scrolls, ink pots in every colour poked through between them, and jars with drying brushes sat by the blank scrolls waiting for the burden of words.

For three years he'd commanded the small army that painstakingly revised the Imperial Chronicles, and they emerged victorious. Zha Yao's elevation now looked like the workings of the Heavenly Mandate.

Jiang sat down and picked up the scroll he was working on before leaving for his last meeting with the mage. For once, the words that came down to him through thousands of his brethren failed to soothe him. He propped his chin on his palm and surveyed his domain once more. The brush strokes fell on the paper, just a side note nobody would read. I sit on a mountain of words, but I can't spare a single one for Huo bleeding on the sand, Tien Lyn's last glimpse of her son, or Yu's helpless expression before he fell through the portal.

~The End~

Calgary, July 2018

AN: Thank you for making it to the very end! The journey continues in the sequel, War Mage Sixteen!  It is on my page, please, check it out! Love and 😘