Bao woke up on his nest of straws and blankets. He was back at the grove inside his tent and when he remembered about the previous encounter, he jumped to a sitting position, much to his regret as he felt the wound on his back strike him with searing pain. There was a tight bandage wrapped around his body and on his back, a strong scent of crushed herbs.
"Calm yourself, Bao," said Yachi. The old man was enjoying a cup of tea on the table before Bao's bed, one leg crossed on top of the other. On the table beside him, aside from the kettle and tea leaves, there were medicines and ointments all created from fresh ingredients.
"The exorcist…Nami…" Bao grunted and pressed his hand against his forehead. He was still hazy and weak but he forced his strength back.
"Liang is outside, repenting through meditation. As for Nami, she hasn't returned yet." Yachi got up from the wooden stool and sat beside Bao on the bed to examine the bandages he wrapped last night. Medical aid was no stranger to Yachi but he had difficulty in fixing Bao's wound with all the fur in the way. He had to shave the coat around the wound.
"The bleeding has stopped," Yachi remarked, "But I advise you not to travel or move strenuously the couple of days to follow."
Bao was stubborn. "No time," he said and got up. "Avolar Nami was abducted by fox spirits along with the children we salvaged from Kumokage." He cursed. "Has the sun risen already?"
"It is midday, Bao," Yachi replied which made the leopard mutter a silent curse again. "Where is the exorcist?" he asked.
"By the pond."
Bao left the tent immediately.
Midday seemed like dawn at all times before night comes along to shadow them. Although there were times, like this day, when the clouds were thin enough to permit a haze of sunlight, masking the surroundings vibrantly. The children frolicked in the grassy fields as the older ones prepared lunch. Bao walked slowly toward the pond where he could already see the exorcist's idle figure meditating just before the ground met water.
"Exorcist," Bao announced.
Liang looked over her shoulder and oriented herself toward the leopard without getting up. "I have a name. Liang, if Yachi hasn't told you yet. And you are Bao. My sincerest apologies for what I have done."
Bao raised an eyebrow at the young exorcist. "You obstructed my pursuit with an abducted friend," he said.
"Bold of you to proclaim," Liang replied. "You ambushed me and then accused me of theft."
Bao looked at Liang for a moment, recalling the events of last night. And it turned out that the exorcist was right. He was quick to relent, owning the consequence of his action. "That I did… but I did not come here to clear that matter with you."
"You just came for the apology then?"
"And more." Bao sat in front of Liang so they now face each other eye to eye. "Before our encounter last night, our avolar was abducted by fox spirits. I was tracking them until Makaskas arrived with the horses."
Liang suddenly felt guilty. It was not her fault, she was aware of that, and she hated feeling responsible when she didn't have any reason to be. "You could have chosen to ignore me and continue your pursuit. The choice was yours."
"And it was my mistake, I know. By now, they could be anywhere. And I need your help finding them."
Liang paused. Up until this point, she was hesitant. She still was and she hated how her every action to avoid getting involved in this matter leaded to her full involvement. She ought to decline but judging from the leopard's expression, she didn't really have a choice. Bao asking her for help was a mere guise of courtesy.
Liang sighed deeply. "Yachi…" she said. "After Yachi brought me here…I figured he wanted me to teach these children exorcism. You plan on waging war against the Tiger?"
Bao sat on the ground, thinking they were going to converse for a while. He confirmed his plan with Liang. "That is a matter only known to those who are willing to overthrow Zhaohu's reign." Before Liang could say anything, Bao continued, "And you do not wish to be involved, that is clear. But the matter I wish to involve you for now is the search for Avolar Nami and the two children we lost."
Liang eyed the leopard keenly but she relented. "I'll help you find them but afterwards, I'll be going my separate way." Without waiting for Bao's reply, Liang got up and stretched her back and legs then she headed toward the tent. Bao followed.
They cleared an area in Bao's tent of the table and crates. Yachi and Makaskas were at the edge of the room and Bao was by the entrance. Liang occupied Bao's straw bed and she took a few deep breaths to align her energy. She rarely used magic in the past twenty years for fear that she might get captured and killed. Zhaohu had eyes everywhere—eyes unseen by strangers to the mystical arts. Whenever Liang did try to use magic, she made sure to kill every witness…spirit and human alike.
"Before I begin, I must warn everyone that even before Zhaohu's conquest, I was never the ace of exorcists. If something goes wrong…try as much not to kill me."
Liang pressed her hands against each other and began chanting under her breath. From afar, her chants sounded like a hum. Her diction of syllables seemed to merge as one long buzz the longer she kept on. After a few cycles of the chant, there joined an unfamiliar, deeper voice. Makaskas and Yachi were alarmed, thinking if they were joined by a second party but they saw nothing and no one. Then there joined another voice and another until there was as if a whole group of exorcists chanting with Liang. The whole tent was filled with the hum of voices all chanting harmoniously with the exorcist. Liang's untied hair floated as though gravity might have affected it differently but she remained intact on the bed.
Bao felt the energy gather inside the tent. He felt it around him as though he was submerged in water. Makaskas was at unease, drawing his weapon at the uncertainty of their situation but Bao merely raised a hand to stop Makaskas from what he was thinking.
The lamp above the tent began to sway and the lid of the crates rustled. Yachi was in awe as he watched an exorcist in action. Liang continued chanting, now with more voices than ever. Then she opened her eyes, blank and white as snow, but she did not stop chanting. She pointed one finger on the earth and drew a circle without leaving her place. The earth followed the direction of her finger, tracing itself a circle of dirt. The whole tent was shaking from the gathered magic but Liang did not stop. When the circle was completed, Liang ceased chanting and with her, all the other voices. It was silent. The energy stopped its motion like still water but it did not subside.
She recited in her Northern tongue, "I call upon the heralds of Shiyan the primordial god of death: Open thy gate and send me a spirit of the air. Arise, shadow, arise!"
The energy within the tent began its motion once again. It circled around them, blowing tufts of hair and shaking the objects. It gathered within the dirt circle and a thick, black smoke appeared. It had red eyes and no more. Then it, too, swirled as though it was flushed from the earth and then it was gone and in its place stood an ebony raven with shiny feathers.
Makaskas unclenched his jaw and opened his eyes when the motion had stilled. He was underwhelmed by the result. "A crow? All that for a crow?"
Liang eyed the B'koli sharply then she extended her hand where the raven flew and perched. "Take to the sky and search for a nine-tailed fox with two younglings. They hold two children and an avolar with them." At Liang's command, the crow took flight immediately.
"Now what?" Makaskas folded his arms.
"Now, we wait." Liang said. She drew a deep breath and lied on the bed, recuperating the energy she lost.
Bao went out of the tent without even a word of praise or gratitude. Makaskas eyed the exorcist suspiciously before following after Bao shortly. The only one who seemed to have appreciated Liang's effort was Yachi who pulled out a chair and sat beside Liang. He was still in awe after witnessing such power. There was beauty and fear in watching an exorcist perform and he almost couldn't quite remember the last time he saw an exorcist use magic. His household held great respect for the exorcists. They housed the Vagabonds—the order of exorcists that roamed the lands, keeping forgotten spirits at peace and vanquishing shadows wherever they went. They sent crops to the Eastern Koi Temple and daily offerings to Akako's oracle and acolytes. Reminiscing now made him nostalgic and he almost couldn't quite believe that he sits before one of the people he held in great esteem.
"You have a lot of power within you," Yachi remarked.
Liang waved him off. "The art of summoning a familiar. It's one of the first things taught in the north temple. It's child's play." An inopportune smile invaded Liang's face as she recalled carefree days back at the temple. There were times when they would hide from the elders and summon familiars to make them battle. It was their version of rock, paper and scissor but with more action. Prizes for the victors in their game usually involved a day's or week's claim of pastry ration and Liang always had too much sweets kept in her chamber.
When Yachi asked what Liang was smiling about, she snapped back to reality, the smile fading, and merely nodded her head left and right to dismiss the question.
"The world was so much better back then," she said.
Yachi sighed and sympathized with Liang. He didn't know if it was the right time to begin convincing the exorcist to join their cause. But he was desperate and hopeful, and disregarded Liang's sentiments for his own selfish reasons. "It could be better again. Take a chance."
But Liang did not relent. "You are filled with false hope, old one," Liang said. "Our extinction is our own doing. Best you know that."
Upon hearing Liang's statement, Yachi realized something about Liang's reluctance. All this time he thought Liang was afraid and so despaired that she would not even try to win the war but there was something else. There was wrath. For whom, he did not know.
"Young dragon." Yachi swallowed. "Do you think we deserve this?"
Liang was indifferent. "In some ways, no but in in more ways, we do."
"What makes you think that?"
Liang looked at Yachi coldly like she could slay the old man where he sat but after that fearful façade, she only ended up in tears—tears she tried to hide for so long and tears she did not even know were escaping her eyes.
"Do you even know what happened at the first tragedy?" Liang's voice was low. She wiped her tears away with the cloth of her tunic as the chaos replayed inside her mind. The panic, the screams and the pleas for mercy all shouted in Liang's ears as though it was just outside the tent. "Our temples were invincible to shadows. At that time, even I could send Zhaohu back to the pit where he came from. But we were betrayed." Liang gritted her teeth. "The eight lords of Liang and Emperor Wang, the emperor of Hatsukochi, Haeguk and Aagjamin and the tribe leaders of Ma'alon. All of them…they were supposed to protect us."
Yachi barely understood what Liang was saying. When the temples fell one by one, many rumors about the first tragedy arose. Some said there was a forest fire that burned the protective seals that constituted the spirit barrier. Some blamed the gods, saying they stopped all magic. And some even blamed the exorcists themselves for their own demise. The emperor of Hatsukochi's version was what Yachi believed and if Liang's words contradicted his past emperor's, then he would have been a fool for twenty years. So he listened to Liang's tale of the first tragedy, hoping that somehow his emperor's words would ring truth or similarity to what Liang was about to say.
"We are powerless against our kin," Liang said. She loosened the strings of her leather bracers and set it aside on the bed. She extended her arms to Yachi, showing the old man what looked like black ink tattooed around Liang's wrist in a somewhat tribal pattern. Looking closer, the pattern seemed like an ancient runic writing. Yachi couldn't familiarize if the marks were from any of the five kingdoms. It looked nothing like he had seen before and he had seen a lot.
"These are shackles," Liang said. "All exorcists and practitioners of the temples acquire these when they vow loyalty. It is given by the gods so that our magic cannot harm humans... not directly at least. So that made us defenseless against our kind." Liang took her bracers and wore it again. Then she looked at Yachi coldly. "What did your emperor tell you?"
Yachi didn't like what he was about to find out. As he sits now, his emperor had become a disgraced liar, rotting somewhere. "He told us a lie…that the exorcists had grown complacent. Your barriers waned enough for a number of shadows to invade and overwhelm the temples."
Liang chuckled wryly, running her arm across her wet nose to wipe it. "We had elders to protect us. Even the deities feared them. And each one of those elders could vanquish hordes of shadows. Even with the barrier gone, we were still invincible to shadows no matter how many." Liang paused for a moment, eyes red. Then she swallowed. "So tell me, Yachi. How did they defeat us?"
There was a pang in Yachi's chest—a pain born of guilt and sympathy. He shared Liang's despair. He wished he knew the truth sooner. All he wanted now was to ease Liang's pain. Liang carried it for twenty years and now, Yachi had an epiphany of Liang's reluctance.
"You weren't invaded by shadows…" Yachi said.
"Not at first," Liang replied.
With a bitter heart, Yachi admitted. "You were invaded by humans."