TITLE: Foreign Devils
AUTHOR: Indri
SUMMARY: The tale of the Chinese slayer.
SPOILERS: "Fool for Love".
RATING: PG-13.
PART: 1 of 3. Series is complete. 4800 words total.
DISCLAIMER: The Buffyverse is not mine.
FEEDBACK: archaeoindri@yahoo.com
This owes more to Tsui Hark than history, but corrections of glaring
errors more than welcome.
THANKS: To my brother "Inego" for answering my strange questions about
the uprising. All errors mine, though.
FOREIGN DEVILS
1. FOREIGNERS
Master Bao throws the three coins. He sits cross-legged at the point
where the path forks and pushes his long queue back over his shoulder
so that it does not disturb the coins. Shuhao has seen him do this
so often that she can recognise every hexagram of the I-Ching, but she
cannot divine their meaning. Instead she keeps watch, alert to the
motion of the moonlit trees, listening for rustles in the grass. She
senses nothing untoward, so soon she finds her mind wandering back to
yesterday's dream. Perhaps it is of the sort she should mention to
Master Bao.
Master Bao snorts a little and nods his head, scooping the up the
pieces with a single motion of his hand. "This way," he says, rising,
and she follows him down the path. The way is a little rocky, and
there are tree roots to trip over now and then, but both she and
Master Bao are sure-footed and used to travelling at night. She has
their supplies on her back and her swords by her side.
The day before, she dreamt she was one of those swords---she often
dreams of herself thus, as an instrument. She remembers gleaming
against a midday sky, which was strange in itself, for she seldom
dreams of daylight. The weaponsmith was exhibiting her to some
passerby. "Look at the fine workmanship!" he said. "Look at the
engraving!" And she found herself looking at her own engraving, which
seemed to form a maze. And then she was deep in the maze, and every
turn she took brought her to another dead end. Only, just as she was
beginning to despair, a hand reached down to her from behind a
wall. She thought it was her mother's. And she reached up to grasp it,
so her mother could pull her out, but Shuhao's hands were slippery
with something dark and she just couldn't hold on at all. Which was
when something unseen had seized her---and when she had woken, to
early evening shadows and Master Bao asking for his breakfast.
They reach the banks of a fast-flowing stream and pause to find the
best way to cross it. Shuhao spots where broad flat stones have been
thrown into the water and she points this out to Master Bao. He's on
the far shore and she is standing on the middlemost stone when she
feels it, and before she even realises that she has heard a sound, she
has her swords in her hands (one steel, one silver-edged and
ensorcelled so that its wounds are less easily healed). The sound is a
wailing, the plaintive cry of a lost infant, and on the bank she can
see a beautiful child, tears streaming down his face. Master Bao steps
toward it, clucking reassuringly, reaching into the folds of his
clothes for paper and fire. And in a moment he has dispelled the
illusion and the demon's true form is clear: a heavy-set man with wide
yellow eyes. Shuhao leaps once, twice, across the water and strikes
out with her blades. The demon's head rolls and its body explodes into
dust.
Master Bao smiles then and tells her to have something to eat---he
must find and destroy the powders the demon used for the spell. It
won't take him long---it never does---and they'll be on their way
again soon. Westwards, he says.
*
The wood gives way to a plain and the path becomes a road. There is
much more traffic now: travellers on foot, farmers trailing half-laden
carts, soldiers on horseback. Many passerby are injured or
weak-looking. Master Bao offers to trade medical help for food, but it
is the same story here as it has been for months: the harvest has been
bad. People are hoarding what they have or charging high prices. One
of the farmers, who has been beaten so badly that Master Bao assists
free of charge, complains that she and her husband were waylaid not a
mile from town and that all their produce was stolen. "And where were
the magistrate's people?" she demands. "Why have these brigands not
been arrested?"
A young man overhears her and comes to talk. He is carrying a
gun. "The magistrate does not care because he is Manchu, and they only
care for their own kind. He spends his time lining his own pockets,
and the pockets of the foreign ocean men who truly run the town."
Master Bao says nothing, but finishes binding up the farmer's
wounds. Shuhao thinks of her stomach. Her work makes her very hungry
and she hasn't eaten properly for a week. But it seems they are only a
day's journey now from the town. The magistrate will take care of them
there and they will tell him about the brigands.
The next day she dreams not of swords and mazes but of rice buns
filled with sweet bean paste.
*
They reach the town at daybreak, after a night in which they are
attacked by a whole gang of demons. One sliced open Shuhao's back
with a knife, so now she feels stiff and weary, and her clothes are
bloodstained and torn. Master Bao promises her a day or two of rest
once they have seen the magistrate.
The town itself sits inside a loop of river and is bound to one side
by the slopes of gentle hills. Shuhao gets a strange feeling under
her skin as she looks at it. At first she thinks she is sensing more
demons, but she comes to doubt this after a while. Then she thinks the
feeling must be due to bloodloss and that perhaps she's more tired
than she thought. But then they reach the first buildings and she
realises there is more to it than that. She stops walking.
Master Bao stops also and turns to look back at her. He answers her
unspoken question.
"Yes," he says, "this was your home. This is the town you were born
in."
*
The magistrate is a worried-looking man, flanked by three assistants
and one gruff ocean man in a stiff, ungainly suit. "Just what is it
that you want?" he asks again.
Master Bao tries to explain. The coins have brought him and his
demon-slayer to the town. The magistrate should provide them with
shelter, food and supplies. In return they will rid the town of its
demons.
"We don't have any demons!" the magistrate snaps. He keeps glancing at
the ocean man: the latter seems very sceptical of Master Bao.
Shuhao shuffles tiredly on her feet. This has never happened before;
before now the magistrates have always known who she was and what was
expected. Why is it different now? How will they pay for their food
and fresh clothes? They'll have to sleep outdoors like vagabonds to
save money. No sweet rice buns after all.
Master Bao seems bewildered, and she's never seen him like that. "My
charge," he says, for the sixth time, "is The Slayer," as if
repetition alone will make the magistrate understand. It doesn't work:
they are summarily dismissed.
They find themselves standing out in the street, weary, unwashed and
hungry. Master Bao says nothing and does nothing. Shuhao
waits. Master Bao will know what to do.
But instead, help comes scurrying out of the magistrate's compound. It
is one of the magistrate's assistants. "I am in charge of the
treasury," he says. "I know who you are. I will authorise what you
need."
Master Bao thanks him, but still looks confused. "How can he not
know?"
"He knows," the treasurer says, "but he's afraid of the devils."
Shuhao looks up. "Then we will kill them," she says, feeling sure at
last of her duty.
Master Bao places his hand on her wrist. "He means the foreign
devils," he says, quietly. "The ocean men."
*
They go to an inn near the market where Shuhao can at last eat her
fill. There is soup, buns, rice, even chicken, and she eats until she
fears she'll be sick. She wants to sleep then, but Master Bao insists
that she bathe first, so he can properly attend to the wound on her
back. Then at last she lies down, exhausted. But now she can't get to
sleep.
Instead she lies awake remembering the first time she met one of the
foreigners. It was not long after Master Bao had found her. He had
taken her many miles away to a monastery in the hills, where nuns
taught her how to fight and scholars taught her about demons. Master
Bao was one of the scholars: he knew much about magic and could speak
many languages. So when a man arrived from distant Europe, it was
Master Bao who went to see him. He also took Shuhao.
Shuhao had heard that the ocean men were tall and gangly, with hair
and eyes of unnatural hue. So she was a little disappointed to find
that Mr Bellwether was short, dark-haired and dark-eyed. Why, from the
back he almost looked like a person. But he smelt wrong, like sour
milk.
Mr Bellwether could not speak her tongue, although he knew a little of
the language of the coast and Master Bao spoke a little of Mr
Bellwether's native tongue. Little Shuhao had tried to be attentive
while the two men struggled with their words, but after a while she
started to fall asleep, tired from her morning lessons with the
nuns. Master Bao had slapped her across the toes to wake her up.
"This man," he explained, "is my counterpart from far to the west. He
guided the last slayer but two. He is here to exchange information and
to warn us of what grows powerful in his homeland, in case it
threatens us."
"They have slayers far away?" Shuhao asked. She had always thought
of them as Han people like herself.
"The slayer always appears where she is most needed," Master Bao
said. "If anything, foreign lands have more need of them than us."
Shuhao nodded. That made sense. She wondered suddenly, "What was his
slayer like?"
Master Bao asked, in the foreigner's language, and Mr Bellwether's
round face grew solemn and sad. He said something to Master Bao.
"Dutiful and brave and a credit to her nation. She was from
`Hu-ails'."
Mr Bellwether rummaged in his bag and drew out two silver objects hung
on chains. He presented one each to Master Bao and to Shuhao. "To be
hung around the neck," Master Bao added unnecessarily.
After Mr Bellwether had excused himself, Shuhao asked, "Is this not
a Christian symbol?" And Master Bao had replied that yes it was, but
it still warded off demons nevertheless.
"The fish is a Christian symbol too," he said. "Do you suggest that we
stop eating fish?"
So Shuhao had placed it around her neck. She wore it for years,
until a battle with a slug-demon broke the chain and sent the cross
sinking deep into the mud of a river. Until this moment, she has not
thought of it since.
AUTHOR: Indri
SUMMARY: The tale of the Chinese slayer.
SPOILERS: "Fool for Love".
RATING: PG-13.
PART: 1 of 3. Series is complete. 4800 words total.
DISCLAIMER: The Buffyverse is not mine.
FEEDBACK: archaeoindri@yahoo.com
This owes more to Tsui Hark than history, but corrections of glaring
errors more than welcome.
THANKS: To my brother "Inego" for answering my strange questions about
the uprising. All errors mine, though.
FOREIGN DEVILS
1. FOREIGNERS
Master Bao throws the three coins. He sits cross-legged at the point
where the path forks and pushes his long queue back over his shoulder
so that it does not disturb the coins. Shuhao has seen him do this
so often that she can recognise every hexagram of the I-Ching, but she
cannot divine their meaning. Instead she keeps watch, alert to the
motion of the moonlit trees, listening for rustles in the grass. She
senses nothing untoward, so soon she finds her mind wandering back to
yesterday's dream. Perhaps it is of the sort she should mention to
Master Bao.
Master Bao snorts a little and nods his head, scooping the up the
pieces with a single motion of his hand. "This way," he says, rising,
and she follows him down the path. The way is a little rocky, and
there are tree roots to trip over now and then, but both she and
Master Bao are sure-footed and used to travelling at night. She has
their supplies on her back and her swords by her side.
The day before, she dreamt she was one of those swords---she often
dreams of herself thus, as an instrument. She remembers gleaming
against a midday sky, which was strange in itself, for she seldom
dreams of daylight. The weaponsmith was exhibiting her to some
passerby. "Look at the fine workmanship!" he said. "Look at the
engraving!" And she found herself looking at her own engraving, which
seemed to form a maze. And then she was deep in the maze, and every
turn she took brought her to another dead end. Only, just as she was
beginning to despair, a hand reached down to her from behind a
wall. She thought it was her mother's. And she reached up to grasp it,
so her mother could pull her out, but Shuhao's hands were slippery
with something dark and she just couldn't hold on at all. Which was
when something unseen had seized her---and when she had woken, to
early evening shadows and Master Bao asking for his breakfast.
They reach the banks of a fast-flowing stream and pause to find the
best way to cross it. Shuhao spots where broad flat stones have been
thrown into the water and she points this out to Master Bao. He's on
the far shore and she is standing on the middlemost stone when she
feels it, and before she even realises that she has heard a sound, she
has her swords in her hands (one steel, one silver-edged and
ensorcelled so that its wounds are less easily healed). The sound is a
wailing, the plaintive cry of a lost infant, and on the bank she can
see a beautiful child, tears streaming down his face. Master Bao steps
toward it, clucking reassuringly, reaching into the folds of his
clothes for paper and fire. And in a moment he has dispelled the
illusion and the demon's true form is clear: a heavy-set man with wide
yellow eyes. Shuhao leaps once, twice, across the water and strikes
out with her blades. The demon's head rolls and its body explodes into
dust.
Master Bao smiles then and tells her to have something to eat---he
must find and destroy the powders the demon used for the spell. It
won't take him long---it never does---and they'll be on their way
again soon. Westwards, he says.
*
The wood gives way to a plain and the path becomes a road. There is
much more traffic now: travellers on foot, farmers trailing half-laden
carts, soldiers on horseback. Many passerby are injured or
weak-looking. Master Bao offers to trade medical help for food, but it
is the same story here as it has been for months: the harvest has been
bad. People are hoarding what they have or charging high prices. One
of the farmers, who has been beaten so badly that Master Bao assists
free of charge, complains that she and her husband were waylaid not a
mile from town and that all their produce was stolen. "And where were
the magistrate's people?" she demands. "Why have these brigands not
been arrested?"
A young man overhears her and comes to talk. He is carrying a
gun. "The magistrate does not care because he is Manchu, and they only
care for their own kind. He spends his time lining his own pockets,
and the pockets of the foreign ocean men who truly run the town."
Master Bao says nothing, but finishes binding up the farmer's
wounds. Shuhao thinks of her stomach. Her work makes her very hungry
and she hasn't eaten properly for a week. But it seems they are only a
day's journey now from the town. The magistrate will take care of them
there and they will tell him about the brigands.
The next day she dreams not of swords and mazes but of rice buns
filled with sweet bean paste.
*
They reach the town at daybreak, after a night in which they are
attacked by a whole gang of demons. One sliced open Shuhao's back
with a knife, so now she feels stiff and weary, and her clothes are
bloodstained and torn. Master Bao promises her a day or two of rest
once they have seen the magistrate.
The town itself sits inside a loop of river and is bound to one side
by the slopes of gentle hills. Shuhao gets a strange feeling under
her skin as she looks at it. At first she thinks she is sensing more
demons, but she comes to doubt this after a while. Then she thinks the
feeling must be due to bloodloss and that perhaps she's more tired
than she thought. But then they reach the first buildings and she
realises there is more to it than that. She stops walking.
Master Bao stops also and turns to look back at her. He answers her
unspoken question.
"Yes," he says, "this was your home. This is the town you were born
in."
*
The magistrate is a worried-looking man, flanked by three assistants
and one gruff ocean man in a stiff, ungainly suit. "Just what is it
that you want?" he asks again.
Master Bao tries to explain. The coins have brought him and his
demon-slayer to the town. The magistrate should provide them with
shelter, food and supplies. In return they will rid the town of its
demons.
"We don't have any demons!" the magistrate snaps. He keeps glancing at
the ocean man: the latter seems very sceptical of Master Bao.
Shuhao shuffles tiredly on her feet. This has never happened before;
before now the magistrates have always known who she was and what was
expected. Why is it different now? How will they pay for their food
and fresh clothes? They'll have to sleep outdoors like vagabonds to
save money. No sweet rice buns after all.
Master Bao seems bewildered, and she's never seen him like that. "My
charge," he says, for the sixth time, "is The Slayer," as if
repetition alone will make the magistrate understand. It doesn't work:
they are summarily dismissed.
They find themselves standing out in the street, weary, unwashed and
hungry. Master Bao says nothing and does nothing. Shuhao
waits. Master Bao will know what to do.
But instead, help comes scurrying out of the magistrate's compound. It
is one of the magistrate's assistants. "I am in charge of the
treasury," he says. "I know who you are. I will authorise what you
need."
Master Bao thanks him, but still looks confused. "How can he not
know?"
"He knows," the treasurer says, "but he's afraid of the devils."
Shuhao looks up. "Then we will kill them," she says, feeling sure at
last of her duty.
Master Bao places his hand on her wrist. "He means the foreign
devils," he says, quietly. "The ocean men."
*
They go to an inn near the market where Shuhao can at last eat her
fill. There is soup, buns, rice, even chicken, and she eats until she
fears she'll be sick. She wants to sleep then, but Master Bao insists
that she bathe first, so he can properly attend to the wound on her
back. Then at last she lies down, exhausted. But now she can't get to
sleep.
Instead she lies awake remembering the first time she met one of the
foreigners. It was not long after Master Bao had found her. He had
taken her many miles away to a monastery in the hills, where nuns
taught her how to fight and scholars taught her about demons. Master
Bao was one of the scholars: he knew much about magic and could speak
many languages. So when a man arrived from distant Europe, it was
Master Bao who went to see him. He also took Shuhao.
Shuhao had heard that the ocean men were tall and gangly, with hair
and eyes of unnatural hue. So she was a little disappointed to find
that Mr Bellwether was short, dark-haired and dark-eyed. Why, from the
back he almost looked like a person. But he smelt wrong, like sour
milk.
Mr Bellwether could not speak her tongue, although he knew a little of
the language of the coast and Master Bao spoke a little of Mr
Bellwether's native tongue. Little Shuhao had tried to be attentive
while the two men struggled with their words, but after a while she
started to fall asleep, tired from her morning lessons with the
nuns. Master Bao had slapped her across the toes to wake her up.
"This man," he explained, "is my counterpart from far to the west. He
guided the last slayer but two. He is here to exchange information and
to warn us of what grows powerful in his homeland, in case it
threatens us."
"They have slayers far away?" Shuhao asked. She had always thought
of them as Han people like herself.
"The slayer always appears where she is most needed," Master Bao
said. "If anything, foreign lands have more need of them than us."
Shuhao nodded. That made sense. She wondered suddenly, "What was his
slayer like?"
Master Bao asked, in the foreigner's language, and Mr Bellwether's
round face grew solemn and sad. He said something to Master Bao.
"Dutiful and brave and a credit to her nation. She was from
`Hu-ails'."
Mr Bellwether rummaged in his bag and drew out two silver objects hung
on chains. He presented one each to Master Bao and to Shuhao. "To be
hung around the neck," Master Bao added unnecessarily.
After Mr Bellwether had excused himself, Shuhao asked, "Is this not
a Christian symbol?" And Master Bao had replied that yes it was, but
it still warded off demons nevertheless.
"The fish is a Christian symbol too," he said. "Do you suggest that we
stop eating fish?"
So Shuhao had placed it around her neck. She wore it for years,
until a battle with a slug-demon broke the chain and sent the cross
sinking deep into the mud of a river. Until this moment, she has not
thought of it since.