Chapter Nine: A Vision of Jade
The Dagger of Deng-Wa now sat securely in the strong grip of the Khan's paw. The blade was not what he had expected, but it was certainly not to be confused with anything else. Like most weapons of its size, it had no guard, only a night-black hilt with a yin-yang symbol carved at the pommel. It looked to be of stained ivory, but he couldn't be sure. The blade however, was like nothing he had ever seen.
"The uh, blade… any idea why it does… that?" he asked, eyes wide with wonderment.
"Your guess is as good as mine. But I can assure you - this is the one." the same snow leopardess that had bribed the Lord of Xiangyang answered him with a proud smile.
The blade was unusually sinuous, the number of curves and redirections too many to count with ease; but what really made it stand out was the shaking. Starting from the hilt and running the length of the snake-like blade were radiating pulses of energy that made the dagger vibrate in the wielder's paw ever-so-slightly.
And here I thought that flower would be the strangest thing I'd see... at least this year.
"The journey back was uneventful, I take it?" He was still examining his exquisite prize.
"It was a short one; the lord granted the services of his condors to our envoy. Of course, it was under the condition we make a small detour over the desert to drop some… dead weight. All part of our negotiations, I suppose."
The Khan looked downwards, smiling and shaking his head.
"You have proved yourself more than capable once again, daughter." he said, the leopardess beaming instantly at his words.
"Thank you, father. But if I might ask…" She hesitated, evidently unwilling to cross some unseen line.
"What is it, Yuelen?"
"While I would never question your judgement as my Khan, might I ask why we have committed nearly all the Khanate's remaining funds to this one weapon?"
"You're too humble; you must understand, this is not a weapon, but instead the key to our conquest of China."
She looked at him blankly. The light in the Khan's quarters around them was low enough that her father's eyes gave off a slight glow.
"Allow me to explain, eh?" He gestured toward a nearby table where the two sat down and he poured them each a drink.
When she took a sip, she gagged at the surprisingly strong alcohol.
"Ack! Tengri above, father! You actually drink this stuff?"
"I'd say we have cause for celebration, wouldn't you agree?" He showed a mischievous grin and proceeded to down his drink in a single shot; the larger snow leopard toyed with the dagger in his off paw before conversing with his daughter once more.
"You were there when Subutai gave his 'little vision' a month or so back, no?"
"Of course, we were all there… except mother, naturally."
"Yes, she never did care for divination or the workings of the gods - tigers are scrupulous creatures like that." Having finished his drink, he grabbed the bottle and started to take large sips from it. "But you always took after me - not just in looks, but in cunning, too. You've been ten times as helpful in these past years as that brother of yours."
Yuelen grinned deeply, as she had always craved such validation from her father.
"And like me, you understand the importance of signs from the heavens, don't you?"
"Naturally."
"Well, the sheep said we are to be led to victory by a great warrior – a warrior that we don't know of, and can't know of until they come to us." He produced the black and white lotus, miraculously unwilted despite its age, and looked at it critically. "I don't like the sound of that. All my years of warfighting have taught me that you never have such a powerful unknown factor like that on the battlefield. And this warrior could be anybody! What if their loyalties don't lie entirely with me?"
"I share your concern, but I still don't see where the dagger fits into all this…" He held up a paw to silence her.
"I'm getting there!" Taking another aggressive sip from the bottle of spirits, he stabbed the dagger into the table between them.
"I needed a way to ensure the warrior is under my complete control; a leg-up on him, so to speak. And my research led me to this: The Dagger of Deng-Wa. It's an ancient relic of the enemy, and was once used with brutal efficiency against our ancestors. It's been said that it makes the person wielding it invincible; imagine my surprise when my spies in China revealed it had been rediscovered early last month."
Yuelen struggled to keep pace with these revelations, as she had, in actuality, placed little stock in the sayings of shamans and soothsayers. But her father continued, nonetheless.
"I am now convinced this conquest is destined to happen - how else could the stars align like they have? Every time I have a problem the solution falls right into my paws! We'll have an unstoppable warrior on our side, plus an invincible weapon to keep them in check - we can't lose!"
Having heard his plan, she couldn't decide if it was genius or downright stupid. Yuelen was leaning towards the latter at the moment; the way he had thrown up a fist at his last words made it clear her father thought it was the former.
"Only problem is, I haven't the foggiest how the damn thing works." He tapped at the blade playfully with his claws. "But I'm willing to bet the shaman knows."
"Shall I fetch Subutai?"
"No need, already sent for him."
As they waited for the old sheep to arrive, Yuelen chronicled the successful mission in greater detail; her father seemed more interested in steadily working at his drink than listening to the minutia of the negotiations.
When he entered the candlelit room, the argali's walking stick hit the ground abruptly as he saw the weapon embedded in the table between the two leopards, its constant vibrations slowly digging itself out of the wood.
"The Dagger of Deng-Wa! How is this possible?"
"Money, that's how. Lots and lots of money." the big snow leopard said, chuckling at his own words.
"No… I had thought the weapon was lost to the ages, destroyed!"
The Khan finished the last of the drink and eyed his shaman suspiciously. "Is that fear I hear in your voice, Subutai?"
The old hermit shook his head with unease. "I foresaw a favorable future for you, did I not? You are now playing with forces that are beyond your control; I will have no part in this."
The leopard's dark brow furrowed heavily. "That's a shame, as last I checked old man, it was your duty to have a part in this."
"Hmph! You speak to me as if I was a common servant!" The Argali collected his walking stick, his shock since being replaced by anger. "Have you already forgotten that it was my military stratagems that allowed your line to become rulers of all Mongolia?"
"Of course not!" the Khan spat.
"My duty to the Khanate has been paid in full, ten times over. I don't owe you a thing." With that, the aged sheep turned and left abruptly.
The Khan rose to pursue him, but he found standing to be something of a task with the immense amount of alcohol he had consumed taking effect. He started to topple over, but Yuelen quickly caught him and aided his balance.
"That old bastard!" he roared. Unable to walk, he threw his empty bottle which shattered against one of the guards outside; a fact discernible by an audible shocked yelp.
Damn - why does this always happen when I just want one small drink?
"Easy father, best you sit down now." Yuelen said between laughs; it was extremely amusing how vulnerable her father looked in this drunken capacity, as she was so used to him giving off an aura of grandeur and invincibility.
Seeing no point in trying to follow the defiant shaman, his rage subsided and he acquiesced to her demands, reclining against the closest of the many lavish floor pillows that were strewn about the Khan's quarters.
"Funny - it's almost like he knew I wasn't going to be able to follow him..."
"I wonder what tipped him off..." Yuelen joked.
The larger leopard flicked an annoyed paw in the direction the sheep had left. "Bah. He will come around - I'll see to that."
"I'm sure he will." the leopardess replied with even more sardonic flair, reclining against the pillow opposite him and producing a morin khuur from a nearby table.
"All that sarcasm's going to get you in trouble someday, girl." You get a little drunk and everybody seems to think they can disrespect you all the sudden.
His daughter didn't rise to his challenge, responding instead by playing the first notes of a slow tune on the eccentric two-stringed instrument.
She was masterful in her playing, the blade of the bow gliding over the strings with a fluidity and control he could never hope to match; it was a good tune, one that his mother had played for him as a cub. Sleep started to creep up on him, and the music carried him straight into the realm of dreams.
In his vision he could see his goal: the subjugation of all China and the ascendance of his royal line in dynastic succession. It lay ahead of him, but between was a chasm so deep he could never hope to see the bottom. The sky was gold, as was the landscape around him, and the air he breathed was warm and comforting. But the chasm was not so.
Up from the abyss, a chilled wind that assaulted his nape made him stagger backwards. The pace of the music in the air changed, gaining momentum and depth in its cadence. Steeling himself, he found the courage to glance over the rim of the crevasse and began to make out lights below. At first, he thought it could be his eyes playing tricks when gazing into such darkness, but it was there. It was a green vaporous fog, that despite its weighty nature, was ascending to him at miraculous speed. When it reached the top of the chasm, it overtook the land around him in a crippling darkness, as it blotted out the sun entirely. The fog condensed into dark figures that surrounded him, the remaining vapors coalescing at their legs and disseminating upwards to the sky, cloaking them from his vision.
The music was expediting even more now, the uncontrolled tempo practically sprinting. The figures did not move, only surveyed him with their ominously large eyes. Those eyes… they were piercingly green, as if backlit by some unholy jade fire. The forms seemed content to remain concealed from his sight, slowly pacing, their gaze never leaving him. At last, the one that stood closest him started to approach, its movements uncanny and erratic, but still imposing. As it came closer, the vapor settled, revealing a dragon covered in ornate Chinese clothing… black and white clothing. He thought of the lotus flower at once.
Could this be the warrior?
The dragon made no move to attack, his comrades lingering in the veil of the fog with only their squinted luminescent eyes discernible. Suddenly, the leopard felt a slight weight in his right paw; he looked down to find himself in possession of the Dagger of Deng-Wa. It looked much different now, because in the place of the shiny metallic coloration, the blade was now glowing with a gold so deep he could practically swim in it. Still, the dragon did not move, only tilting its head slightly to one side, patiently waiting for the Khan's next action. For a while, the leopard was unsure of what to do.
The decision was made for him when the dagger in his paw lurched with a sudden magnetism, as if just now sensing the presence of the dragon before him. He tried to pull it back to his person, but instead his paw pads began to lose traction on the ground below. The dragon, still entirely unfazed, watched the bright gold weapon jerk toward him steadily as it won the tug-of-war with its wielder. As it neared the lizard's chest, the leopard tried especially hard to pull it away, but it was to no avail. At the last possible moment, the dragon began to raise an arm and the dagger flew right out of the Khan's paw, stopping with the point of the serpentine blade a mere inch from the tip of the creature's claw.
After levitating at that distance for several moments, the dragon tapped the blade precisely on its tip. The sound of a booming gong rang out in the leopard's ears, and a sea of red overtook the sunless sky. The music driving the dream climaxed, then settled into a somber slow drag. Still levitating between them, the mystical weapon started to bleed over from its hilt downward with a nefarious blood-red liquid. When the noxious substance had drowned out the gold completely, it hardened into a glassy maroon coating over the entirety of the blade. The dagger had always looked somewhat ominous, but now it just looked malevolent and dead, the pulsations that had once been running its length now absent.
The blade fell to the ground with a weighted thump that such a small object should not have been able to produce, and the eyes of the feline and lizard met. The dragon parted its maw as if about to speak, but the music ended abruptly, and the dream came to a premature end.
The Khan awoke with a start and saw that his daughter, having set the instrument aside, was shaking him awake.
"Sorry to wake you father, but you have a visitor."
The withdrawal after a few hours of sleep was hitting him in waves, the whole room looked blurry and her words sounded awkwardly distorted.
"Agggh! My head!"
Gods above! Maybe the girl was right… just how strong was that stuff?
Doing his best to stand and look somewhat presentable, he watched as Yuelen left and signaled the guards on her way outside to let the visitor in. For a moment he gazed back towards the dagger, which was still colored normally; it had since dug itself completely out of the table where he had been sitting earlier. He'd had many uncanny dreams before, but that one was a little too close to reality. Touching that dagger… it had done something with his mind, and he wasn't sure just what it was; he was put off by the fact that he had been jerked from a rather interesting dream, but the headache didn't make matters much better.
This better be good.
Surprisingly, his esteemed visitor was no warlord or clan chief, but a female golden cat that hastily entered and saluted him palm-in-fist as she bowed. She was dressed ruggedly, but not cheaply; she had durable loose black pants and a deep fuchsia-red tunic that was ornamented with a pattern he did not immediately recognize. Upon closer inspection, it turned out to be a subtle gilded pattern that mocked the feathers of an avian; even the sleeves of the tunic, despite being rounded normally in form, were decorated to emulate the staggered fringes of wing feathers. At her ankles and waist were dark grey wrappings, and she had tape running across her paws in a similar fashion. The cat was evidently a martial arts practitioner of some kind, and the empty sheath slung over her torso indicated she regularly carried a weapon, probably a polearm by the looks of it.
His guards had been competent enough to disarm her, but they had still just left him incapacitated and alone in the room with a potential assassin.
Someone's head is going to roll for that later.
He wanted to converse with her without slurring his speech, but he failed spectacularly.
"And just who the hell… might you be?"
Her wide feline orbs dawned over her still-saluting paws in shock; she was ostensibly not used to being addressed in such a manner.
"I'm- I'm…" She was tongue-tied at the leopard before her who smelled badly of drink and unwashed fur. He met the physical description of the Khan that she had anticipated, but she had not expected to see the ruler in such a… what was the best word? Compromised state.
"Well?" The Khan's frustration, as well as his severe headache, were increasingly apparent with each passing moment.
After a few more moments of awkwardness, she dropped her salute at last and began to speak in a more controlled manner.
"My name is Mei Ling; I am a master of both Chi and Kung Fu... and I have a debt to you that needs paid."
The Khan smiled.
Author's Notes:
- Turns out the Khan has a daughter... surprise?
- Judging by how wasted the Khan ends up by the end here, it's safe to assume that whatever he was drinking was pretty strong
- Some of you might be thinking I need to chill out with all the dream sequences; I would say that this was the last one, I would also say that there totally won't be one next chapter as well... but I'd be lying both times (I'm sorry, writing dream sequences is my guilty pleasure, and I can't help it!)
- Something I should probably address sooner rather than later: inter-species (hybrid) offspring are possible between any two species in my version of the KFP universe (the Khan's children, for example, are the result of a cross between a snow leopard and a Siberian tiger); Yuelen takes after her father because she looks like a snow leopard, but her build is noticeably larger than the average female leopard because she's half-tiger
- I should have mentioned this last chapter, but I have assumed that the Furious Five, except for Tigress, each have "real" Chinese names; Crane's surname Lu was inspired by the Zhou Dynasty state of Lu, the birthplace of Confucius (Xian is just a common personal name)
- The instrument that Yuelen plays in this chapter is the morin khuur, a close relative to the Chinese Erhu; it is considered by some to be a quintessential symbol of the Mongolian nation and culture
- And now, the golden cat master arrives on the scene...
- I had to come up with a different outfit for Mei Ling, because I really don't like her one from the short (also what is it with the cats wearing gloves in KFP? Like... why?); I tried to present it as somewhat utilitarian, but not without a little aesthetic flair: the fuchsia-red (deep red) tunic would contrast well with the darker parts of the outfit, but the subtle "feather" pattern (an homage to a dear friend, of course) has a gold color to it that would match with her eyes
- Thanks for reading! Let me know what you thought!
