Tales of Destiny

Wen Qin tried to steel his nerves, staring up the gangplank of the great treasure ship. Already the decks swarmed with disciples. They darted too and fro performing the innumerable tasks needed to ready a ship this size for launch. He looked down at the stone dock under his feet, shaped from the landscape by cultivators far beyond him.This was the last time he would be standing on land for the better part of a year.

A grumbling harrumph from an older disciple behind him set Wen Qin hurrying up the wooden walkway. He clutched his bag to his chest. He deserved to be here, he was qualified, his time in the Outer Sect of the Pearl Coast Sect had proven that. Now he was ready for a real voyage, not just simple testing trips out into the reefs around the Sect lands.

“Ho there, slow yourself boy,” a gruff voice called out as his worn boots clacked on the polished deck.

The speaker was a great bear of a man, with shoulders twice as wide as Wen Qin’s slim frame. He wore a loose and billowing shirt of linen that left his chest open to the air. Wen Qin pulled his eyes away from muscle glistening with damp sea spray to the man’s frowning face. His features were square and hard, as if curved from granite, his black hair pulled back into a single tight braid.

“Quartermaster Zhu,” Wen Qin said, ducking his head politely. “Disciple Wen reporting for assignment.”

“Eager,” the older and bigger man chuffed, clapping a hand on his shoulder.”Try to keep that attitude when we’ve been a month without sight of land. Remind me which department you’re with boy?”

“Navigation sir,” Wen Jin said, straightening up in a hurry. He did not want to hold up the line.

“Hm, high achiever.” Wen Qin felt a small thrill of pride at the Quartermaster’s thin smile. “Apprentice navigators are roomed two decks down, aft side, the bunkroom marked with that star. Key yourself to the communal storage trunk and deposit your things, then report to Master Navigator Yen at the helm. Hup to boy,”

A harsh clap on his back sent Wen Qin scurrying toward the rear of the ship where he could see the stairway leading belowdecks. Already the Quartermaster was turning to the next disciple, around the deck, Wen Qin spied three more of the imposing man guiding and directing disciples. Such was the power of the fourth realm Wen Qin thought. He’d get there one day himself.

As he buried downstairs though he found himself pausing, a heated pressure was on his back, that felt like stinging sea spray and the kiss of sharp steel. It could only be the captain. Truly, he was honored to be aboard the flagship of this great treasure fleet, captained by a Lord of the great Jin family. Perhaps he might be so lucky as to glimpse such a paragon of cultivation on this journey!

The first days of the voyage were hectic, Wen Qin spent his days following Master Navigator Yen along with the five other apprentice navigators selected, hanging on the sharp tongued man’s every word as he walked them through a Navigators duties and taught them them the true ways of reading wind and stars and waves, far more advanced than the mundane methods and simple arts they had been able to learn in the Outer Sect.

In his free moments Wen Qin explored the ship, familiarizing himself with every inch of the decks. He found that his friend He Shu was aboard the flagship as well, in the landers contingent. It was good to spend a moment with his former roommate again! They reminisced of the hardscrabble trials of the Outer Sect, where He Shu’s brawn and spearmanship combined with Wen Qin’s wit and divination had seen them through the many trials the Pearl Coast put before it’s Outer Sect disciples.

And of course there was the sea. Wen Qin found it hard to pull his eyes from the rolling waves at times. It stretched on forever, far beyond their flotilla, by the seventh day of the journey there was no sight of land save for the occasional wind lashed rock poking up from the surf in the distance.

When their ships caught the great northern current and began to sail west, the journey took on a tenser edge. The flagship had less troubles, but more than once, while performing his duties Wen Qin saw the smaller ships assaulted by sea beasts, unshaped horrors from the deep sea, slopping and writhing atop the decks as before they were fought off by the disciples and forced back into the sea. Never did the senior crew help, save for once, when what seemed a whole island of rippling blue grey flesh rose from the waves in their way, and two alien yellow eyes, larger than Wen Qin himself peered upon them with a baleful intelligence. Wen Qin had seen great tree like limbs stretching in shadow beneath the whole of the fleet, and for the first time since he had been a mortal, he felt the cold of death in his heart.

That was the first time he saw the captain in person. One moment the forward bow had been empty, scattering disciples working to slow and turn the ship in a panic and in the next, a rich aristocratic voice spoke.

“Halt. Maintain course,” spoke the captain and no one could question.

He was a beautiful man by any measure, upright and broad shouldered. His eyes were so dark that they seemed nearly black under the evening sky. His honey brown hair spilled down his shoulders like luxurious silk, curling and unbound. He wore a silk shirt of blue and green, and loose black pants tucked into high boots cut from the skin of some scaled creature. He stood on the thin rail in perfect balance. His hand rested on the carved bone hilt of the sword that hung sheathed on his back. It was a strange curved thing, not quite saber and not quite sword, of the style that only the Jin clan used.

He stared down at the churning waters and the island sized beast before them. His smile was wide and carefree. Above, the pale glittering crescent of the moon shone down like a grin of its own.

Wen Qin shivered as the drifting wind became akin to razors kissing his skin.

“This old grandfather is not going to cause us trouble, is he?” The Captain, Jin Seung said, without his smile wavering one bit.

The great island beast fled as if pursued by all the devils in hell.

Wen Qin looked on as the captain turned and stepped down to the deck, and felt a surge of longing. One day he too would be so poised, so confident, so utterly comfortable and unafraid. This he promised to himself

Then the Quartermaster bawled at him to resume his star watching and he hurried back to his task.

***

It was months before the first trial came. They had gone beyond the red jungle, the lands conquered and claimed by the great general five hundred years ago, and were now in barbarian waters. His hard work paid off, of the six apprentice navigators, he was selected to guide and navigate the fleet of riverships being sent up to plunder the barbarians crude river temple.

He performed his role perfectly, not one single ship was caught on a stone or reef, and their passage was silent and his arts slipped them through the net of foreign formations which the barbarians had wrought to alert them to attack. He saw the temple just before they landed, built astride the river, surrounded by a village. It was… beautiful in a way far more ornate than what he would have expected from non imperial savages. The ships hit the beach, and the landing disciples swarmed out into the settlement.

It was here that Wen Qin found himself troubled. When he was young his village, a tiny place far from the well patrolled coast, had been assailed by bandits. His parents hut had been far from the town center and so they had been spared. But he had always remembered the fear he had felt held in his mothers arms beneath a blanket as outside a village burned and his neighbors screamed.

It was one of the things that drove him, he never wished to feel that fear again. Yet now, mechanically working to turn the ships about for a swift exit before the barbarians warriors could arrive in force, he found himself trying not to listen. The Treasure Fleet was one of the pride’s of the Empire, striking out into the uncivilized lands far from their shore to bring exotic treasure and riches home. They were heroes by any measure.

So why did the screaming sound the same?

The trip was a success, his friend He Shu, returned with a bag full of precious stones and exotic fruits, bragging of slaying three barbarians. Somehow his face had never looked less handsome. His friend had asked him what was wrong, and he had just replied that he didn’t care for the smoke. He Shu had laughed and called him delicate. Perhaps he wasn’t wrong. Wen Qin took his accolades upon their return, but was secretly glad that he had to let the others their turn.

Three more times they sent out the raiding fleet and three times they returned heavy with plunder, they were well west of the Western Territories now pushing toward the edges of the map. The weather began to grow worse, a strong rain pouring down that made a thick mist rise from the sea. It was on the third night after the storm had blown in that it had happened. He was high on the mast, in a narrow wooden nest equipped with an intricate bronze spyglass. Playing lookout as was his duty for the night.

He saw shadows in the mist, to the southwest, from where the thin undulating line of the land could still be seen. First there was one, and then another and another and another. Shadows resolved into colorful sails, wide ships with shallow hulls some with one mast some with two. Some bore great structures on their center deck, miniature temples draped in gold and jewels, and on their decks warriors in gleaming armor swarmed.

He bawled out a warning, he hit the alarm gong, its ring resonating throughout the fleet. These ships were far smaller than theirs, but every bit as numerous. As Wen Qin rang the gong again and again, an unnatural sunrise bloomed on the decks of the advancing ships. The clouds churned and whorled, a chariot forming from mist and crackling lightning and in the chariot bloomed a slender figure, plated in bands of golden armor. His dark face was thunderous in fury, the crown-like helm of gems upon his head gleamed with murderous light.

In his right hand was a radiant spear, like a ray of the sun frozen in time, and even from here, Wen Qin could feel the burning heat that filled it, vaporizing mist and rain into steam. The man spoke, a language that sound rough and warlike to Wen Qin’s ears.

On the deck below, Captain Seung laughed, his ringing voice loud even at this distance, the wind echoed his laughter, and the storm began to kick up, filling their sails with the cruelly playful laughter like a thousand spirits.

“So even the most beaten dog can be brought to bite! To arms Disciples of Pearl Coast! To arms warriors of Jin!” Said his captain. “Tonight at last, you have your chance for true glory!”

Wen Qin felt a heavy weight in his stomach. Was this the truth of the peak of cultivation?