Chapter Twenty-Nine #2
Lim decided against his normal caution, and took hold of Xian’s shoulders, urging him gently.
‘Turn about…look at me, Xian. Never mind those flowers.’ He waited until he held the prince’s troubled gaze and prayed he’d choose the right words; the man looked ready to sink into the same panic that had taken him in Kunming.
‘I will not pretend to know what it must be like for you, nor what it means to be a huli jing, but I know a thing or two about the fox. He is stealthy and cunning, and a cleverer animal I’ve not met.
’ When Xian seemed unconvinced, he pushed on.
‘Instinct drives him to walk through a creek to throw off a hunter. He walks in such a way, his back feet land in the print left by the front, making him harder to trace—’
‘Lim, I don’t have four legs. How does this help me?’ Violet eyes darted back towards the flowers. ‘I have so much to learn, and none to teach me. I shall make mistakes, ones that might endanger you. I should never have told—’
‘Hey!’ Lim’s curt cry had Xian’s mouth rounding with surprise. ‘Do you think me so feeble I cannot handle myself?’
‘No, of course not. But this is such a—’
‘I have a talent for bajiquan that would leave you speechless.’
Xian’s lips twitched, and Lim felt his shoulders slacken beneath his palms. ‘You know the martial art of the emperor’s bodyguards?’
Lim gave him a lop-sided grin. ‘One day I will show you. But for now, Xian, do not worry about me. Focus on yourself. Listen to your instincts. Those incredible instincts, born of the fox spirit you hold.’
Xian’s tensions melted beneath Lim’s hands. His shoulders lifted with a deep intake of breath. ‘I must return to my rooms.’ He nodded at his own words. ‘Yes. That is it. But I hate to leave you here—’
Lim took his hands from Xian’s shoulders with regret and hunched into a stance he imagined an emperor’s bodyguard might make, if he had a clue what he was doing.
‘Go on now. We shall see in the New Year together. Chen is overworked enough, he’ll keep me busy, and the hours will pass quickly I hope. ’
Xian’s eyes drifted over Lim’s body; cruel of the prince, really, for how it stirred a weary shoemaker. ‘I think you are a better shoemaker than a bajiquan master, Song Lim.’
‘Get on with you, your highness. Before I’m forced to teach you otherwise.’ The thought of man-handling Xian had Lim abandoning his posturing, shifting away before unsightly protrusions could mortify them both. ‘How shall I find you, when the time comes?’
‘I will find you.’ He touched his nose and grinned with charming impertinence.
Lim stared at him, appalled. ‘I do stink.’
Xian bent down to remove the slippers, tucking them both into the folds of his sleeve, and setting his feet into his plainer shoes.
‘I also know exactly where you are, Lim. That too is helpful. Until midnight?’
‘Until midnight.’ He watched Xian move through the flowers — leaving no hint of his passing — and disappear down the side of the workshop where a path led back out to the thoroughfare.
He stood for a long while, taking in all that had just happened, his hand running over the dampness of Xian’s tears on his jacket.
Lim was dirty and road-weary, his clothes thick with the dust and grime of his travels, but Xian had clung to him, regardless.
Lim would never get the sound of the prince’s sorrow out of his mind, but he was awash with the most spectacular happiness.
‘You have utterly ruined me,’ he whispered to the empty garden. ‘I’m done for. And yours entirely.’
A bang nearby had him almost jumping out of his skin.
He spun about, his pulse maddened. The noise had come from a door or a gate, he suspected, but the door at the back of the workshop was wide open as he’d left it, and the only gate he could see on the far side of the garden, a simple structure of wooden panels, was closed.
Realising how long he’d wasted swooning over his prince, Lim rushed back into the workshop, praying he had time to place the shackles back on before Chen returned.
He did not wish to give the man any cause to send word to the captain that his guest was being troublesome.
Lim just had to keep his mouth shut for a few hours and submit to being a fool’s assistant.
The workshop was empty, with no sign of Chen’s approach. Xian had said himself he was uncertain of his new talents, so perhaps Chen was further away than he’d thought.
He locked the shackles — pressing his lips as the metal rubbed at raw skin — and sat for a while in the workshop’s emptiness before the rattling of dishes reached him.
The door at the back of the workshop, the one Lim had just used, swung open. Unease churned in his empty stomach.
‘Who’s there?’
‘I have returned,’ Chen coughed. ‘Do not spite me, your highness. I’ve done all you asked.’
The shoemaker peered around the edge of the door; the tray held before him, the bowl there rattling so hard Lim feared his long-awaited meal would be ruined.
The rich waft of the fried sauce noodles had Lim’s mouth watering.
Delightful as the lotus seeds were, he’d not eaten well for days.
Having found Xian, despite the anxious hours that lay ahead, Lim was ravenous.
‘His Highness has left. He has duties more important than you or I, this evening, but will send someone later to ensure you have done as he asked.’ He nodded at the bowl. ‘I can see you’ve done well enough with food.’
‘The prince is not here, you are certain?’
‘I am certain. He trusts he made himself clear enough that there was no need to stay. Will you bring that in before it grows cold?’
Chen stepped into the room, his throat bobbing as he swallowed. ‘Zhajianmian, as was requested.’ He nodded over his shoulder. ‘Come, come. The prince is gone…it is only the shoemaker.’
Another man stepped in behind him; every inch as reticent as Chen.
He wore thin spectacles on his wrinkled face, his queue a stubby grey braid at his back, and carried a cloth bag over one hunched shoulder.
‘The herbalist…to tend to your shoulder,’ Chen offered.
‘I’ve done all that his highness asked.’
He shuffled to the bench, nudging the tray into the clutter.
‘Here, I’ll take that.’ Lim’s stomach rumbled loud enough Xian might have heard it. He picked up the chopsticks, digging them into the darkened noodles, shovelling them into his mouth before the herbalist was entirely in the room.
The man reminded Lim of a beaten dog, unsure if he should trail after his master or not.
‘Go on then, Master Huang. See to Master Lim’s shoulder, so I can set him to work.’
But the man still hesitated, clutching at the strap of his bag, wrinkling his nose beneath the wire of his glasses. ‘Are you sure?’
‘Of course I’m sure,’ Chen snapped, but Lim had glimpsed the look that passed between them; these idiots were frightened of him.
‘I’ll not bite, Master Huang,’ Lim said through a mouthful of noodles, grinning. ‘But I cannot vouch for my prince if he hears I am to lose an arm because you’d not put a balm on my cut.’
Chen used the tray to urge the other man forward; waving at him like a farmer shepherding their chickens with a stick.
‘Do it.’
‘It might be too much,’ Master Huang whispered.
Lim frowned, sitting himself down on a stool, bowl in hand, gulping down the noodles so fast he was sure he’d have indigestion. They were decent; not so good as Heng’s, though, with a tang to the fermented beans that sat heavily on his tongue. But hunger overruled fussiness.
‘Better to be sure,’ Chen said, scowled at his companion. ‘We cannot take a risk with the shoemaker.’
The herbalist’s hands shook as he withdrew a small jar from his bag and removed the straw stopper; the strong waft of vinegar mixed with pungent perilla leaf.
Lim screwed up his face, wiping at his sauce-laden lips. ‘That smells as though it could kill a tiger. Go easy with it. I’m ripe enough as it is.’ Poor Xian suffered already with a stinking shoemaker.
‘Be ready for the sting, Master Song,’ Huang said, as meek in voice as he was in manner. ‘Keep yourself still, if you could please.’
Holding still meant pausing in the devouring of his meal; the bottom of the bowl sadly evident through the skerrick of noodles that remained.
Lim sighed. And winced. The lotion, the green of horse manure, burned a little as the man dabbed at the cut.
He went to tell him so when dizziness struck. Lim clutched at his bowl, the room swaying from side to side. He’d not lied to Xian about his aversion to boats, but this was far worse than any waterbound journey he’d undertaken.
The entire workshop tilted.
A weight stacked itself on his eyelids, forcing them down, while the noodles churned themselves in his stomach.
‘What…what…’ he slurred; his teeth nipped at his uncooperative tongue. ‘You…done…’
But he knew the answer to a question his lips couldn’t form. The unpleasant tang in the noodles hadn’t come from inept cooking alone.
Too late, Lim realised the only idiot in this room was him.
A clatter made his ears ring. His fingers clutched at empty air.
The bowl had fallen from his grasp; he didn’t recall letting go.
Lim sought to pull away from the herbalist. The room tilted again, wildly this time, and he toppled from the stool. Crashing against the floorboards that seemed to roll like waves beneath him.
These stupid eggs had poisoned him.
A long, sickly groan made all his bones vibrate; a noise that was his, but weak and faded.
‘I told you the lotion as well would be too much,’ the herbalist whined, his voice like a pin scraping Lim’s skull.
‘How are we to know what a yaoguai can endure?’ Chen’s voice had an unpleasant echo Lim wanted to curl away from. ‘You said you’ve never dealt with one.’
Lim listened, dribbling his rage. A yaoguai? They thought he was a monster? They were idiots after all.
‘Chen, you said we were subduing him, but we may have killed this man.’
‘He’s no man, nor is that prince. You saw that light, when he put those shoes upon the prince’s feet.’
Lim moaned. How could two bumbling monkeys such as these two have kept themselves so hidden in the garden? He clamped his lips shut against the bitterness that rose to the back of his throat; he’d been too fixed on the prince, and Xian had been overcome by his troubles.
‘I saw a light, but it may have come from the water bowl, the brass catching the sun.’ The herbalist’s protest came like the buzzing of insects; chasing Lim down into the pit of his demise.
He’d kill them, monster or not. If he died, he’d find a way back from the afterlife and punish them for stealing him away from Xian.
‘The sun was too low for it to have caused that reflection. Did you not see how he slipped from his shackles without a key, then pretended to be my prisoner?’ Chen screeched like a raven.
‘And I’ve stared into the eyes of evil, Huang.
I was threatened by the prince in the foulest language you can imagine, and it was because of this creature.
He is the familiar of that Cursed Prince, I’m certain of it.
There is an unnatural closeness between them, you saw it as well as I.
Subduing a sorcerer’s familiar weakens their power. Any fool knows that.’
‘I’m a fool for getting involved. This not subduing, Chen! I aided you because you promised me shoes for my family and your gardens to grow more herbs, but now you have placed me in peril by having me kill a sorcerer’s pet?’
‘He may not die. This may be a trick.’ But even Chen didn’t sound convinced. ‘I promise you, the mandarin will thank me for this, and he’ll see his mistake in inviting the misfortune of that prince to this court. I’ll be rewarded, and share that reward with you.’
If Lim were not dying, he’d have sworn never again to underestimate how dangerous stupidity could be. But he was slipping away; his body spreading like melted iron. His leaden eyes closed with a fierce desire to sleep.
The men spoke over him. Their words bubbled and popped in Lim’s ears; no sense to be made of them.
Hands touched him, his low growls of warning dying behind his lips. Lim’s shrinking world jolted and dragged.
Metal clanked, robes rustled, men grunted with efforts Lim could not see from where he drifted down into the abyss.
Wood creaked, a heavy weight slamming.
‘Here, we must bolt him in. He may rise again more foul, as jiangshi, perhaps?’
Lim would take a more lethal form than a hopping zombie if he returned. He willed his arms to move, to claw at the hands that held him, dragged him, from a life he was not ready to leave.
But his bones had dissolved in the encroaching darkness.
The world was stolen from beneath him, and he was sent hurtling downwards. Lim crashed into a world that was hard as packed earth and stank of leather, where bleak oblivion awaited him.