“Or you can stay in Golyn Niis. You can fight with the remnants of the Nikara army and you can try to win this war without the help of the gods. You can remain Jiang’s good girl, you can heed his warnings, and you can shy away from the power that you know you have.” He extended his hand to her. “But I need your help. I need another Speerly.”
She glanced down at his slender brown fingers.
If she helped him free this army, would that make her a monster? Would they be guilty of everything Chaghan had accused them of?
Perhaps. But what else did they have to lose? The invaders who had already pumped her country full of opium and left it to rot had returned to finish the job.
She reached for his hand, curled her fingers around his. The sensation of his skin under hers was a feeling unlike anything she had dared to imagine. Alone in the library, with only the ancient scrolls of Old Nikan to bear witness, she pledged her allegiance.
“I’m with you,” she said.
Chapter 23
The Chuluu Korikh
From
Long before the days of the Red Emperor, this country was not yet a great empire, but a sparse land populated by a small scattering of tribes. These tribesmen were horse-riding nomads from the north, who had been cast out of the Hinterlands by the hordes of the great khan. Now they struggled to survive in this strange, warm land.
They were ignorant of many things: the cycles of the rain, the tides of the Murui River, the variations of soil. They knew not how to plow the land or to sow seeds so they could grow food instead of hunt for it. They needed guidance. They needed the gods.
But the deities of the Pantheon were yet reluctant to grant their aid to mankind.
“Men are selfish and petty,” argued Erlang Shen, Grand Marshal of the Heavenly Forces. “Their life spans are so short that they give no thought to the future of the land. If we lend them aid, they will drain this earth and squabble among themselves. There will be no peace.”
“But they are suffering now.” Erlang Shen’s twin sister, the beautiful Sanshengmu, led the opposing faction. “We have the power to help them. Why do we withhold it?”
“You are blind, sister,” said Erlang Shen. “You think too highly of mortals. They give nothing to the universe, and the universe owes them nothing in return. If they cannot survive, then let them die.”
He issued a heavenly order forbidding any entity in the Pantheon from interfering with mortal matters. But Sanshengmu, always the gentler of the two, was convinced that her brother was too quick to judge mankind. She hatched a plan to descend to Earth in secret, in hopes of proving to the Pantheon that men were worthy of help from the gods. However, Erlang Shen was alerted to Sanshengmu’s plot at the last moment, and he gave chase. In her haste to escape from her brother, Sanshengmu landed badly on Earth.
She lay on the road for three days. Her mortal guise was of a woman of uncommon beauty. In those times, that was a dangerous thing to be.
The first man who found her, a soldier, raped her and left her for dead.
The second man, a merchant, took her clothes but left her behind, as she would have been too heavy for his wagon.
The third man was a hunter. When he saw Sanshengmu he took off his cloak and wrapped her in it. Then he carried her back to his tent.
“Why are you helping me?” Sanshengmu asked. “You are a human. You live only to prey upon each other. You have no compassion. All you do is satisfy your own greed.”
“Not all humans,” said the hunter. “Not me.”
By the time they reached his tent, Sanshengmu had fallen in love.
She married the hunter. She taught the men of the hunter’s tribe many things: how to chant at the sky for rain, how to read the patterns of the weather in the cracked shell of a tortoise, how to burn incense to appease the deities of agriculture in return for a bountiful harvest.
The hunter’s tribe flourished and spread across the fertile land of Nikan. Word spread of the living goddess who had come to Earth. Sanshengmu’s worshippers increased in number across the country. The men of Nikan lit incense and built statues in her honor, the first divine entity they had ever known of.
And in time, she bore the hunter a child.
From his throne in the heavens, Erlang Shen watched, and grew enraged.
