Chapter 999 — Departures

CHAPTER 999

Departures

“One year from the lake!” Long Zhenlei shouted out of the carriage window. “Brother Shi, write it down! One year from that day! Same lake!”

Thunder sparked from the iron wheels onto the frozen road. Half of Shuoyang watched the Fifth Prince leave, keeping clear of his carriage.

“I heard you, Your Highness,” Shi Feng said, raising his right hand. His left arm was still in a sling across his chest, though the hand in it worked well enough. “You said it four times at breakfast.”

“Then I’ll say it a fifth time!” Long Zhenlei said, leaning so far out that Lei Wanjun had to catch the back of his collar. “And you’d better have broken through by then. If you come back to that ice at late Shattering Void, I’ll send you home!”

“If I’m still late Shattering Void, you’ll still lose,” Shi Feng said.

The crowd at the gate made a sound halfway between a gasp and a laugh. Long Zhenlei didn’t get angry. He threw his head back and roared, and the thunder on the wheels jumped with him.

“Uncle Lei! Did you hear what he just said to me?” Long Zhenlei asked, delighted.

“This old man heard, Your Highness,” Lei Wanjun said, hauling him back inside by the collar. “Sit down before you fall under your own wheels.”

Xie Yuejian sat her grey horse beside the carriage, straight and still in the cold. She hadn’t said a word all morning. Now she turned her head and looked at Shi Feng’s sling.

“He’ll train every day of that year,” Xie Yuejian said, her hand resting on her sword hilt. “Every day. You should know that.”

“I’ll keep it in mind, Lady Xie,” Shi Feng said.

“Keep it in your arm,” Xie Yuejian said, and touched her heels to the horse.

The carriage rolled. Lei Zhenhai chased it with boots His Highness had left under the bed. The whole south gate watched the deacon run half a li before Long Zhenlei reached from the window and caught them without looking.

“One year!” Long Zhenlei shouted back over the snow.

The thunder faded down the road. Shi Feng lowered his hand, still smiling at the prince’s excitement.

Yan Lianbi left an hour later, by the Pavilion’s own sledge. The law-steward came to the tower steps with a long lacquered case under one arm, sealed in Pavilion grey wax at both ends.

“The record of the hearing,” Yan Lianbi said, tapping the case. “Every page, the finding and the spar terms, sealed in this tower. It goes to the Old Tower Master’s own shelf. If anyone in Tianjing wants to read it, they’ll have to ask him.”

“Nobody asks him for anything,” Shi Feng said.

“That’s the point, Guest Elder,” Yan Lianbi said, and bowed. “Once bitten by a snake, a man fears a rope for ten years. The Censorate has been bitten. I don’t think you’ll see another commission for a long while.”

“Thank you for the page of rules,” Shi Feng said, bowing back. “I read it every night.”

“You read it once and found three ways around it,” Yan Lianbi said dryly. “I watched you do it.”

The sledge slid away south. Qin Wuyan came and stood at the top of the tower steps with his hands in his sleeves, and said nothing.

The Yelü came at noon.

Yelü Hong walked into the tower hall on his own feet. Twenty days ago half his meridians had been frozen, and he’d been carried. Now he stood straight again, broad and grey-bearded in wolf fur, and two of his sons followed him carrying nothing at all, because their father had refused to let them carry him.

“Master Shi,” Yelü Hong said, and bowed with both fists. “You wouldn’t let my house stand as your witness. Will you let it ask you a favour instead?”

“Ask,” Shi Feng said.

Yelü Hong took a folded paper from his fur. It was sealed with a ring of black wax and pressed with a wolf’s head.

“Our frontier fort sits in the northern wilds, eleven days past the last beacon,” Yelü Hong said. “The ground there freezes nine months of the year, and in the other three it grows things that grow nowhere else. Frost-Vein Ginseng. Nine-Night Lichen. Profound Heaven-grade herbs. The cutters at the fort won’t dig them without my seal on the season’s order. It’s the old rule of my house.”

“And the last riders who carried your seal?” Shi Feng asked.

“There were two,” Yelü Hong said. His face darkened. “Neither arrived. The fort sent a runner south to ask where the order was, and the runner found their horses. Bandits, the beacon said.”

Shi Feng took the paper and held it for a moment.

Shi Feng wasn’t interested in a fee. He wanted to see the northern herb grounds himself. The lost riders were worrying, but he intended to travel north anyway. One day he would reach for Profound Heaven himself, and the herbs he’d need for it were exactly the kind that only grew in a place like that. He’d rather see where they grew, and know the men who dug them, before the day came when he needed them badly.

“I’ll carry it,” Shi Feng said. “In return, I’d like to buy from your fort’s harvest at your house price, every season, for as long as I live.”

“Done!” Yelü Hong said at once, and slapped his knee. “The Yelü say a word once! Kind deeds repaid with kind deeds, Master Shi. Our fort’s door is yours.”

He bowed again and left with his sons. Shi Feng put the order in his ring and looked at Qin Wuyan.

“North, Senior Qin,” Shi Feng said. “Eleven days past the last beacon.”

Qin Wuyan looked out of the tower’s high window at the white country beyond the walls, where two riders hadn’t arrived.

“North,” Qin Wuyan said.