Threads 166-Emmisssary 1

Ling Qi opened her eyes with those words still echoing in her ears, brought out of her meditation by a hand on her shoulder. Looking up, she met Cai Renxiang’s eyes.

“We must begin planning our approach,” the other girl said. Her expression was stoic again, no sign of unpleasant emotion in her expression or voice.

“Ah, my apologies, Lady Cai,” Ling Qi replied, standing up and offering a bow.

“There is nothing to apologize for,” Cai Renxiang replied stiffly. “Do not cause me to remind you again.”

Ling Qi kept her head bowed for a moment before straightening. “As you like, my lady. All the same, please do not misunderstand my concerns.”

Cai Renxiang squeezed her eyes shut for just a moment. “Later,” she said roughly, “we may have a conversation on what you witnessed, Ling Qi.”

“Yes, Lady Cai,” Ling Qi agreed.

The other girl turned away and led her from the curtained-off meditation area. The others were already gathered. Zhen’s head snaked in through the entrance, resting on a cushion. Xia Lin stood stoically in the doorway, and the boys sat at attention while Hanyi lounged on a cushion, looking bored and unhappy.

“We have all had a moment to gather ourselves,” Cai Renxiang began as Ling Qi took a seat beside Gan Guangli. “We now come to the most important part of our mission: gaining a peaceful audience with these foreigners. It is likely they are already aware of our presence, which may bode well. We must decide how we are to approach our introduction. I believe it would be best for us to review our knowledge of the targets.”

Ling Qi felt eyes on her and began to speak. “I have only had limited interactions, but the group I witnessed at least seemed disinterested in war. There was some mention of a large building project, a ‘sky fortress.’ The woman who attempted to speak with me seemed even-tempered and perceptive.”

“My studies support similar conclusions to Miss Ling’s,” Meng Dan said, pushing his glasses up. “While my information is naturally much out of date, it does not indicate a particularly insular culture. Records indicate that they were not, then at least, a terribly expansive people. I believe that an emphasis on culture over the martial would be best.”

Cai Renxiang nodded once. “That much is agreed. However, there is the matter of our opening posture, which I think must be discussed.”

With a gesture, Cai Renxiang opened the conversation.

***

The mountain of iron loomed ahead. The ever-present snow was less here, but the wind was just as harsh, howling across the icy plateau they were crossing. A strange serenity suffused the air, a feel of meditative calm that reverberated between flakes of snow, thrumming through the energies that suffused stone and air.

The group had slowed down, walking openly at a quick but mortal pace to avoid the appearance of threat. Xia Lin and Ling Qi were at the head of their formation, followed by the others with Zhengui and Gan Guangli bringing up the rear.

“Do you see what I see?” Xia Lin asked lowly, leaning toward her. The armored girl pointed ahead to the silhouette of the mountain.

Ling Qi gave a shallow nod as she traced the contours of the mountain with her eyes. The odd shape of it, irregular and strange, had become more clear. Crude, weathered, and half-covered in sediment and hardy growth, the vast pile of iron held the shape of a man buried to the hips in the earth, hunched forward with immense hands clasped before his face.

“I do,” Ling Qi said. “It is not just a mountain spirit.”

Xia Lin gave a grunt of agreement. Ling Qi had felt the auras of mountains. They were difficult to make out, so slow and stolid that it was difficult to pick them from the background of the world, alien to the fleeting thoughts of humans and beasts alike. This being slumbered, ancient and distant, dreaming slow dreams, but there was a spark of liveliness in the calm qi unlike any mountain Ling Qi had ever seen.

If she didn’t know better, she thought it might have been human once.

“Just be prepared with your escape talisman,” Xia Lin said, looking unhappy. She tightened and relaxed her grip repetitively on the weapon leaned against her shoulder.

Ling Qi gave a hum of agreement and glanced down at the iron sliver she clasped in one hand. It thrummed in her grip, radiating chill. It felt as if the energies of the mountain were tugging gently at it. If she let it go, she felt like the sliver would fly toward their destination on its own.

They were near the base of the mountain now, no more than a few kilometers away. With the increasingly energetic shard in mind, Ling Qi raised her other hand, signaling a halt. She looked back to the others, receiving her liege’s nod. It was time.

Ling Qi stepped forward from Xia Lin, and Hanyi appeared at her side in a swirl of snowflakes. Her little sister regarded the mountain with wariness, her curiosity banked after the encounter with Black Skies Yearning. Back at the pavilion, they had workshopped their greeting; she just hoped it would be accepted.

Sixiang murmured, and Ling Qi nodded again, feeling them take hold of the wind, weaving musical qi into the air.

Hanyi took her hand, and they held the shard of iron between them as they began to sing. It was only a short little hymn, a greeting and an affirmation of inv