EBE B3 Chapter 2
B3 Chapter 2
Orange-crest woke late, on the day of his departure. The sun was already rising high into the sky, the manifold gentle hues of the dawn already departed. The sunlight that filtered into his master's cave was the harsh blue and white glow of the day, the sort of light that made any drunkard, or apprehensive monkey, squint shut their eyes against its coming.The cold light of day merged strangely with the smoky amber glow cast by the Ring of Fire, painting the dim walls with washes of color like blood upon water. Orange-crest stared blearily at the drifting lights.
He did not want to get up.
The resolution to leave had come to him suddenly. He'd known he would from the outset. He couldn't do otherwise. But it didn't have to be today.
Yet, it also did have to be today.
Orange-crest wondered if he had wasted this year upon Mount Yuelu. It was an impossible question. Grief had left him a hollow shell. But how could he not grieve his master? If he'd not been destroyed by what he'd lost, would he not have regretted his cold and stony heart even more than he regretted the emptiness that had left his days short and hollow?
No, it wasn't that.
Had he wasted the time he'd spent at cultivation? A full year, to advance a pair of small realms.
Humans would have called him a monstrous prodigy. The seventh stage of Qi Condensation by his eighth winter of living, and his second as a cultivator? They had thought him impressive at the fourth stage. Few men knew he had made the fifth a mere week later. No humans at all knew his progress had continued after.
Mount Yuelu was not rich in qi, but orange-crest had found that he hardly needed external qi to continue his advancement. On the many days when he'd sought an escape from his self-devouring thoughts, he'd turned to exploring the shape of his meridians, tracing the passages through which his qi circulated.
He'd found something that surprised him, yet made perfect sense in hindsight. Little nodules of qi that did not respond to his will. The droplets were dense. Denser than his qi, not fully solid, but stable. They felt almost like the long-dried bubbles of sap that scarred trees oft bore, tacky and malleable to the touch, but only yielding up their still liquid contents under great pressure.
The holy land had tainted him in the best of ways.
Orange-crest did not know exactly what they were. His master was silent, and his king rarely spoke of the mysteries of cultivation. But he suspected they were small pockets of Foundation Establishment qi. Fragments of something too profound to be absorbed into his subtle body directly, but not so far beyond him that with effort he could not cultivate them.
The little nodules were strange things. More than just power, they oft carried the ghosts of strong emotions, or flashes of memories not his own. Many came from Grand Elder Tian. Orange-crest knew the shape of his face now. A man who had often walked his road meekly, yet had walked it farther than most could dream. Dragged against his will into matters he wished he could wash his hands of, not by another, but by his own nature. Fond of speaking unwelcome truths to others, and whispering gentle lies to himself.
Others had to be the memories of Old Xiang. They were so kind, and oft so terrible. Orange-crest understood a little better now some of his master's words in those final days. What he'd said about the Azure Mountain Sect making a weapon of him. It was one thing to see the choices Old Xiang had made. Another to understand them. How could a man love so many so much, and still send them to their deaths?
Once, he'd seen his master's young face through Old Xiang's eyes. He'd wept for the better part of a day after. The Li Xun of half a century ago looked more like the one orange-crest had come to love than the one of today did.
And a rare few were formless-gleam's. He did not dwell on those.
It had felt like a good idea to clean himself out. Li Xun had spoken very abstractly of qi deviation. Said the signs of it were as numerous as the causes. Inconsistency in one's nature. Cultivating malign or unwholesome influences. Forcing advancements too quickly. These felt like the sort of things that might lead one in that direction.
No, it was not the year he'd spent cultivating orange-crest regretted.
His master had told him that Ren Yuhan had attained the sixth stage in one year, and they had made him sect master for it. Orange-crest lagged behind the sect master. But not by much. Perhaps his growth this year had been slow by the standards he'd become accustomed to training with his master. But it had not been wasted.
"My brothers and sisters."
There it was.
Orange-crest groaned and rolled over, accepting his fated wakefulness.
That was what he regretted. He'd been so empty. So adrift on strange winds. The year had flown by, and he felt more estranged from his kin than he had when he'd lived upon the Azure Mountain.
He could linger. But he shouldn't. He could not change the past. The only days his to spend were tomorrows. And he knew how he needed to spend these coming ones.
"I've been a bad brother. Bad uncle."
Wasn't that the truth? The orange-crest who could be the companion the monkeys of Mount Yuelu deserved was the orange-crest who could not help but leave. If he stayed this night, he would stay this week. If he stayed this week, he would stay the season. Winter was coming. It would only make sense to spend it here. If he stayed the season, orange-crest did not know when he would leave.
One day he would return as he should have. Whole, and present. Able to show his brothers and sisters who he was, and see who they were with eyes unblinkered.
Orange-crest girded himself for the journey. It didn't take long. He strapped Han Jian's gourd to his side, securing it with a strip of woven grass and bark. He'd fill it before he left. A bit of wine to remember home. He'd leave the rest for his pack, an apology for how he'd lived this last year.
He grabbed Yang Wei's staff. Elder Lu's storage ring was already on his finger. Gold-mantle had given him a few pointers about how such a ring might be opened, but even with his Nascent Soul cultivation base, opening Elder Lu's ring without destroying it was beyond him. He said it was easiest for one to unlock a storage ring if their cultivation was similar to that of the one who'd locked it. And though his fur was the same color that Elder Lu had worshipped, gold-mantle could not possibly have been more different from Elder Lu.
Orange-crest would figure it out. He would need the riches within, so he would figure it out.
"I've said everything that needs to be said, master. All that remains is the doing."
Li Xun did not answer.
"You would have known what to do."
Orange-crest knew the words were a lie. His master wasn't perfect.
"We should have walked these roads together."
The flames did not crackle. They burned no wood, after all.
"Grand Elder Tian showed me fate. How its hands and strings move, behind the veil. But you showed me something else. That we can be what we make of ourselves. That we can make others, and the world, more than it was. What is fate, before that?"
Orange-crest's knuckles whitened around his staff.
"Hear me, master. Your disciple will return and heal you. And when he does, you will be proud of the monkey, and the alchemist, that he has become."
His heart heavy, and mind buzzing, orange-crest turned and left his master alone in his cave. He took half a dozen strides out of the dark, into the light.
And then he tripped.
"You kick me!" Shadow-tail shouted, the little monkey hopping around in a distinctly uninjured fashion.
"Don't get underfoot then."
"I sneak! Is shadow-tail!"
"If you're being sneaky, then it's your fault I tripped on you."
"I sneak! You no kick! Bad uncle!"
"I suppose I have been something of a bad uncle." Orange-crest agreed.
Shadow-tail rushed in front of orange-crest, forcing the older monkey to a stop. He drew himself up to his full height, barely coming up to the top of orange-crest's thigh.
Shadow-tail cleared his throat.
"Ah duhmanhd campensaton!" he said, in his best attempt at the elegant tongue, butchering the words so thoroughly a human might have stir-fried them.
"You demand compensation?"
"You kick me! I kick you! I hurt twice! Give ups!"
The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.
"I should never have taught you those words. I just thought it might be funny, seeing you say them to gold-mantle."
"Too much talk! You should ups! Ups!" Shadow-tail insisted.
"Fine, fine." Orange-crest bent down, lifting big-butt's son like he weighed nothing. The yearling was not the only one of big-butt's children to enjoy airtime.
Many monkeys did not appreciate the idea of flying as much as orange-crest did, but he supposed it should not be surprising that quick-fingers' children liked high places. She climbed like she'd been born in a tree after all.
Orange-crest tossed his nephew up into the air, then caught him again around the waist.
"More ups!"
"Higher." Orange-crest corrected, tossing the little monkey higher.
"Higher!" Shadow-tail repeated, as he fell once more.
"I never did tell you of Han Jian, did I?" Orange-crest mused, mixing languages, as he tossed his nephew up and down. "He is a hairless one. He does the best ups. Better than me. Maybe even better than the Monkey King. Certainly, he gives ups more readily. Once, he tossed me across a mountain. I flew like a bird."
"Too many words!" Shadow-tail complained. "More higher!"
Orange-crest launched into his tale all the same. He had too much to say before he left, and not enough time to say it. The words drifted in one of shadow-tail's ears, and out the other, with only a brief interruption when he demanded orange-crest stop tossing him and instead spin his staff around above his head while shadow-tail hung from the far end of it.
Yet, orange-crest was not the only one deep in thought that morning. Shadow-tail was young, but the change in his uncle did not pass him unnoticed.
Shadow-tail had only left orange-crest's side for a few minutes, before pie-bald and broad-back fell upon him.
"We found a new thing!" Pie-bald said.
"New thing?"
"Come! Come!" Pie-bald insisted. "Maybe good for wine? You make more if good, yes?"
Pie-bald was among the laziest of Mount Yuelu's monkeys. Only big-butt and the elderly were his match in contests of sloth. It was passing strange to see him in the company of broad-back, who had hardly needed asking to help orange-crest dig out the fire-pit. It was stranger still for him to drag his junior brothers around the mountain.
The three monkeys, and shadow-tail, who followed just at the edge of hearing, wandered the mountain together. Twice orange-crest forced them on detours, to show them one wine tree or another. Broad-back inquired about projects, and orange-crest found himself struggling to convey the many secrets of human construction like nails and carving through a mixture of the true-tongue and wild gesticulation.
It took half the afternoon before pie-bald finally found once more what he was looking for.
"Those are hawthorns."
"But blue! And more sour! Only a little sandy!"
Orange-crest took a closer look at the little berries. They were really blue. Not black, truly blue. But they were shaped like hawthorns. Their flowers smelled like hawthorns.
Pie-bald leaned close to orange-crest.
"They taste... Cold." His older brother whispered conspiratorially.
Orange-crest plucked a few of the berries and tossed them into his mouth. His mouth immediately chilled, and almost began to feel a little numb. Traces of what was unmistakably some sort of thin yin qi began to seep into his meridians.
"I never knew these were here."
"Mountain has many secrets." Pie-bald said smugly. "Good fruit for wine, yes?"
"Why didn't you tell me before?"
"You no always share wine. I no always share secrets."
Orange-crest had only a few moments to consider the odd fruit, a variant of hawthorn he did not recognize from any of his master's many herbals, and the wines he might have made from it, before snow-fur emerged from the trees.
"Fish!" She chirped happily.
"Fish?"
"Fish-fingers is using fingers. Roasting fish! Come! Come!"
"Fish-fingers is sharing?" Orange-crest asked, dubious.
Snow-fur popped her lips, then patted his shoulder, running her fingers through orange-crest's fur. She liked orange-crest, but she wasn't usually this animated, this touchy. Orange-crest had not spent much time with snow-fur this past year. The clever white haired monkey aroused complicated feelings in him, her sleek white fur and cleverness too familiar for orange-crest to feel wholly comfortable around her these days.
"He must share with orange-crest. Can't not share roast fish with fire-monkey!" Her enthusiasm was infectious, and orange-crest found himself dragged along, a spring sneaking into his step.
Fish-fingers did indeed share, and that was what finally tipped orange-crest off. How easily the standoffish old monkey yielded up the lake's bounty. That, and the number of monkeys gathered by the lake. And the way snow-fur kept leaning against him. And the way fish-fingers offered to teach him to fish the right way, without his queer orange light. And the way broad-back insisted on wrestling with him after they ate.
They knew. He didn't know how. He wasn't sure what. But they knew.
"Can see stick?" Snow-fur asked, grabbing Yang Wei's staff where it lay before orange-crest could answer.
"Wait!"
Snow-fur was already off, but before orange-crest could move to chase after her, shadow-tail had begun climbing up his back, tugging at his fur.
"Sorry." Quick-fingers said, making no move to restrain her unruly offspring. "He likes you."
It took orange-crest all day and much of the evening to escape his pack.
He pinned broad-back half a dozen times. Exhausted shadow-tail with wild games, before insisting it was his turn to play with the yearling after big-butt vanished. He tracked down snow-fur, and easily ran the beautiful creature down. Yet, she forced him to chase her to the very end, to pin her soft and yielding body down to the forest floor before she stopped struggling, and returned his staff. His nose had been filled with the scent of her, sweet and musky and oddly floral.
His chest had been hot, his mouth dry, and his nether regions hotter still. Engorged, and grievously lacking in what his master liked to call modesty, orange-crest had found himself fleeing her wrapped up in a strange sort of shame. Her eyes had been knowing, and disappointed, and he'd felt like she was the cultivator and he the mortal monkey.
Flustered, confused, and possibly either triumphant or defeated, orange-crest had been very thankful for the fact that with his overwhelming cultivation, snow-fur had no chance at all of catching up to him when he ran away from her in turn.
He put that encounter from his mind firmly. Stuffed it down and away for a time when he could afford to think on such matters with clearer and more detached eyes.
"Stupid loving pack." Orange-crest muttered. "Stop being too good for me. Makes it hard to go."
Orange-crest had not said goodbye. That was a human thing, farewells. He could see the worth of it, but it was not how monkeys lived. They had known, and tried to stop him. That was a more honest farewell than even the heartfelt conversation his master had shared with Han Jian.
Alone, orange-crest descended the mountain. He found two monkeys waiting for him.
"Orange-crest." On big-butt's tongue, his name sounded like something between brother, and son. He saw the monkey orange-crest had been, unchanged by his year off the mountain.
"Orange-crest." Red-eyes saw only the change within him. There was a disdain on his tongue, but the most respectful sort of it. Red-eyes said orange-crest like Yang Wei said 'Monkey'.
"I'm going."
"I know." Big-butt said.
"I'm coming." Red-eyes insisted.
"Yes. And no."
"Yes!" Red-eyes screeched. "I come! It is my turn!"
Big-butt gently placed one massive palm upon red-eyes' head. "Shh. I talk first. You can fight him after."
Rare, were moments that red-eyes found discretion to be the better part of valor. But he knew full well he had no hope of even slowing orange-crest down if he fought him immediately after big-butt.
"You go." Big-butt said simply. "You come back. All of you, come back. You are a good uncle."
"You are a good parent." Orange-crest was not talking about shadow-tail and the yearling. Not entirely.
Big-butt released red-eyes, ambling forward. He placed the same massive hand on orange-crest's shoulder.
"You would be too. Is easy. Just like uncle. But always."
"Like always." Orange-crest agreed, grabbing one of big-butt's massive sausage fingers and giving it a firm squeeze, just like he'd always done as an infant. Big-butt's laugh was a low rumbling thing.
"You are strange. Just like when you were little. The strange got bigger with you." Big-butt squeezed orange-crest's shoulder, then stepped past him. "Eat more. You still too skinny. Be here when you get back."
Then there were two. And red-eyes had begun to run low on patience.
"I come with you. Or you aren't leaving."
Orange-crest sighed. Only a fool argued with red-eyes. So instead, he stepped out of his skin.
He'd not yet shown his illusions to the others. It was the one talent he refrained from showing off. Humans found his ability impressive, but took its nature in stride. Monkeys saw more clearly. There was an eeriness in splitting the self, or changing it, even in falsehood. It felt like magic in a way his stone body and binding spells did not. His pack would not all politely cheer as they had when he sucked in half a cookfire and burped it back out.
His clone stared red-eyes down, as orange-crest carefully stepped around him.
"No turns." The false orange-crest said. "You want, you take."
"I want." Red-eyes agreed. "I take."
"My path is important. Not for fun. Not for fighting. Find your own."
"No. Show me good places. Then I leave you. Or help you. Maybe."
"No."
Red-eyes cracked his neck.
"Then you don't leave."
Orange-crest broke into a run at the same time as his illusory clone. Red-eyes started, but did not allow himself to be distracted by the unexpected noise. The clone charged, only to dive aside at the last moment, feigning an attempt at circling around red-eyes.
Red-eyes charged in turn, but the clone fell back, swinging a staff that made no noise as it cut the air.
By the time they stopped trading feints and red-eyes waded in to remove the clone's head from its shoulders with a single scything punch, orange-crest was long gone.
Gold-mantle awaited orange-crest near the foot of the mountain.
It was only right that he would be the last. The only one who could forbid him from leaving and enforce it.
"Orange-crest."
"Monkey King."
Gold-mantle's intake of breath was sharp.
"I am not him." He said, switching to the language of man.
Orange-crest met the eyes of the only king he'd ever known without flinching. Not as an equal. Never that. But as one who walked the same road. Perhaps one day orange-crest might surpass gold-mantle. He could imagine that, heresy that it was. But orange-crest could not imagine the pair of them as equals.
"He is not here." Orange-crest said. "And what use is there, for a king who is absent?"
It was only after the words left his mouth that orange-crest realized what he'd said.
"I didn't-"
Gold-mantle silenced him with an upraised hand, and a gentle pulse of qi. It was the first time orange-crest had truly felt his king's nature, since the eyes of his spirit had been opened. Yang Shui's steely will was the unimaginable, unbreathable, heights of cultivation. Gold-mantle's gentle power was the opposite. Unimposing, yet unyielding, and unshakeable. A monkey who might stand against all the world, and not be moved.
"Do not." His king commanded, "ever dare to apologize to me."
Orange-crest bowed his head. But he did not turn around.
"Come. Walk a while with me, before you depart our home once more."
Orange-crest obeyed. Night had fallen in earnest now. It was too late in the year for fireflies, and the moon was yet new, so the only light came from the distant stars above. His king spoke haltingly, but orange-crest did not interrupt him.
"I was old, when my spirit was awakened as yours has been. Not old by the standards of cultivators, but far older than you. I was yet older still when I learned the tongue of men, and began to navigate their society. I have met many creatures. Men and beasts. Yaoguai and demons. An old monkey might rest. One with eyes yet closed might content themselves with the joys of this place. But I knew you would leave from the moment you returned. You are young, and sharp-eyed. Even if your master had not been injured, you would have left anew. Whether in a season or a year, the wanderlust would have taken you. Better to enjoy this season of life, than deny it."
The last cicadas of the year buzzed and clicked around them.
"Will you watch over him?" Orange-crest asked. "Tend the fire, feed him water and wine?"
Gold-mantle laughed.
"Go, orange-crest. Do not ask questions you already know the answer to. This mountain might no longer be your home, but as you said, I am still your king."
Alone, a monkey descended from Mount Yuelu.
He walked proud and sure, standing tall, all fierce eyes and ropy muscle.
"King talks to orange-crest. King tells orange-crest secret things. King says red-eyes no go."
Red-eyes spat, then snorted. His nose was getting runny again. The pain and the flashes of light would come next. This time, he'd find something to distract him, when the pain came.
Just like the Monkey King had found himself a distraction, talking to orange-crest.
"Maybe I find Yang Wei. He sounds fun."