名不見經傳
míngbùjiànjīngzhuàn
A name not encountered in the classics.
An unknown person. A nobody.
*~*~*~*~*~*
In Sanli's dream, it was raining.
He lay on his back on the cold ground, naked, eyes closed. The rain fell upon his skin, cool in an unpleasant way. It pooled in the hollows of his eyes and ran down the side of his face in a mockery of weeping.
Something, a rock or stick, jabbed into his back beside the spine. A sharp pain cut his middle. He knew where he was. He knew what he would see if he opened his eyes. He'd had this dream before.
His eyes flew open.
Sanli awoke, breathing heavily. The leather pouch around his neck bumped against his bare chest as he sat up. He looked around, rooting himself in reality, comforted by the unfamiliar inn walls and the faint grey light just starting to creep in the window.
Beside him the sheets were rumpled but empty. The voluptuous barmaid had left shortly after they had consummated their acquaintance, hopefully returning to an empty bed and not a husband who could chase Sanli from the town.
He raised a hand to his brow. Cold sweat mirrored the rain of his dreams. He wiped it away and slid, still naked, from the bed.
His clothes were thrown haphazardly around the room. He found his shirt and belt and trousers, but his undershorts eluded him.
He was peeking under the bed unsuccessfully when a thought occurred to him. The barmaid took them with her....
He dressed without them. Just as he was pulling on his shirt, a familiar triple knock came at the door.
"It's almost dawn," Kageyama said softly from the hall.
"I know," Sanli replied, buttoning his shirt with hasty fingers.
He threaded his belt through the loops of his pants and cinched the buckle, checking with a touch the small knife sheathed at his back, hidden beneath his shirt. He gathered up his things, stuffing them into his nap sack. Before he left, Sanli lifted the leather pouch from around his neck and dumped the contents out on the bed for quick inspection.
There on the worn inn bedding lay scattered a selection of small tubes made from cut segments of bamboo. Inside each tube was a wound scroll of paper, filled with hundreds of fine zih, the pictorial characters that made up the old written language of the Inner Kingdom.
Each scroll was a powerful pre-written spell.
Sanli had spent an hour writing each scroll, carefully drawing each stroke in the correct order and size, waiting for the ink to dry before beginning the next row, for fear of smudging. Each cylinder had been sealed with wax to protect the precious paper from water, in case the leather of the pouch should fail as a first line of defense. Even a slight deviation in the characters could lead to the spell backfiring or miscasting in undesirable ways.
Sanli hurriedly counted the cylinders as he shoved them back into the pouch. Seven remained.
When all the bamboo tubes had been returned one object still lay on the bedspread; a short segment of wood, about the length of a man's middle finger and the same thickness: a seal. The wood had been polished to a dark shine over time, all imperfections smoothed away until the wood was so dark and smooth it could have been made from jade.
Sanli picked the seal up and peered at one end, where the characters for 'green' and 'king' had been carved in relief.
"Such a small thing," he murmured.
The three knocks came again. Sanli stuffed the seal into the leather pouch and spun for the door.
*~*~*~*~*~*
Kageyama was waiting in the hall, face like early morning thunder. A strand of straw stuck from the bun coiled at the nape of his neck. Sanli realized where his mentor had spent the night.
"Morning Sho Sensei. Sleep well?" In response Kageyama turned and marched off.
"I slept excellently, thank you for asking." Sanli said as he hurried to catch up, one arm stuck in his knapsack. "You uh, have some straw in your hair." Kageyama huffed and kept walking.
They reached the stairs and Kageyama took them two at a time, legs quick, efficient. Sanli tried to do the same, but his heel slipped on the worn wood of the bottom stair. Kageyama's hand was suddenly at his elbow, steadying him.
"What are you doing rifling around in your pack? Shut it and let's go!" Kageyama grabbed Sanli's bag from him and began securing the buckles.
"Wait, I was trying to find my spare pair of undershorts...." Sanli protested as Kageyama spun him and slipped the strap over his head.
"What happened to the ones you had on? Wait, don't tell me, I don't want to know. You know when I said sleep in your own bed I meant ALONE." Kageyama turned and strode across the empty bar room where they had drunk themselves senseless the night before. Sanli's eyes trailed across the empty stool where the lute girl had sat and played as he hurried to catch up.
"I know you're technically ancient Sho Sensei, but that doesn't mean you have to act like an old man," Sanli teased. Kageyama ignored him.
They stepped out into the side courtyard of the inn. The cool predawn air made Sanli open his jaw wide in a huge gaping yawn.
"I already saddled Little Light for you, since I spent the night so conveniently nearby. You're welcome," Kageyama said, throwing a hand to where Sanli's dapple grey gelding stood hitched beside the water trough, idly cropping the grass peeking through the paving stones.
"You're most generous, Sho Sensei!" Sanli chimed. Kageyama grunted in response as he walked toward the stables.
Sanli untied Little Light and led him to the courtyard gates where Zakhar was waiting atop his scruffy brown plains horse, Dunya. The mare was fighting against her bit, eager to be off . Zakhar eyed Sanli as he approached. "Aiyeesh, Sanli, why are you walking like your pants are chafing your arse?"
"Because they are. The barmaid took my undershorts with her and Sho Sensei wouldn't give me time to find my spare." Zakhar barked with laughter. The sound shook the sleepy courtyard and startled a few dozing birds into flight.
Zakhar reigned in his laughter, along with his restless horse. "Maybe she wasn't satisfied and wanted to make her night worthwhile," he goaded.
"If that were the case she would have taken my purse. It was definitely a trophy," Sanli slipped a foot into his stirrup, grabbed his saddle with both hands and pulled himself atop his horse.
"Sure, sure, keep telling yourself that, pretty face. I don't know why you went with the barmaid. The lute girl was far more appealing." Zakhar stroked his bushy blond beard in contemplation.
Sanli glanced toward the stable entrance, through which he could see Kageyama tacking his own horse, a black stallion named Makabe. "I would have but... she seemed... off."
Zakhar raised his bushy eyebrows and peered at Sanli from under them. "If by off, you mean she was confident and assertive instead of a tittering moron, yes. But if you mean 'not human', then no." He nodded to his muscled, tattooed arms and the countless lines inked there. Sanli always felt he could see the marks shifting from the corner of his eye, but whenever he looked directly, nothing moved. "Not a stir. The lute girl was human."
"Oh?" Sanli shrugged indifferently. "Well, all the same, she was rude to Sho Sensei so..."
"That just makes her more attractive," Zakhar grinned, then sighed with exaggerated melancholy. "Such a shame. She was my ideal, no doubt, and yet it was definitely you she was after. Like every other girl in every village we come to. When you were born there must have been luck in your star. And you left none for poor Zakhar."
Sanli smiled, but like some of his smiles, this one didn't reach his eyes. "Maybe you would have more luck if you shaved, laoye."
Kageyama approached on Makabe at that moment and they filed out of the courtyard, ducking under the arch of the gate.
The three men rode down the street toward the center of town, horse hooves clopping loudly on the cobbles and echoing off the alley walls. Overhead the sky was starting to lighten, from grey to faint lavender to the palest blue. Objects started to cast their shadows.
They emerged in the town square where they had stood and watched the opera the night before. The square was noticeably empty, the people and booths from the night market gone. The only movement was a lone figure of a bent back old man sweeping the steps of the town hall.
"We'll take the eastern route up to the shrine," Kageyama said, steering Makabe toward the eastern exit of the square. "I asked the innkeep and he said neither bridge washed out, and that the eastern route is quicker. " He kicked Makabe into a trot.
Sanli let out a long sigh. "No breakfast then."
Zakhar reached out and cuffed the back of Sanli's head as he rode by. "It's YOUR fault he's in a bad mood. You're the one who made him sleep in the stables."
Sanli rubbed his head and followed. "He could have slept with the barmaid and I. I'm not against sharing."
Zakhar's laughter again shook the early morning quiet. The doves perched on the dragon gabled eaves of the town granary removed their heads from beneath their wings and cooed disapproval. The old man sweeping the steps looked up briefly before returning to his work.
*~*~*~*~*~*
When they reached the edge of town a few minutes later, streaks of pink had burst into the sky, highlighting the few wisps of clouds. The eastern horizon glowed as the sun crept ever closer.
Kageyama had reigned Makabe beside a small shrine set beside the road. Sanli and Zakhar did likewise.
The shrine was no more than a wooden crate set upon a stone plinth. The shadowy insides of the crate contained five small ceramic statues. A green deer, a black tortoise, a white tiger, a red bird, and a golden dragon. The animal counterparts of each god.
A rough thatch of straw on top of the crate protected the statues from most of the elements, but not from time. The statues were old, freckled with terra-cotta where the enamel had flaked away.
In addition to the five statues, there were three other objects: a bamboo cup of new incense sticks, a small oil lantern, lit, and a bowl of sand filled with the stubs of spent incense.
Sanli slid from Little Light and took a fresh stick of incense from the cup. He lit the incense from the small lantern and stuck it into the sand filled bowl. The sweet smelling smoke circled his bowed head, hands pressed together in a mime of prayer. On Dunya, Zakhar did the same, while Kageyama looked on.
Sanli raised his head, noticing as he did that the statue of the white tiger had been knocked on its side. He righted it and returned to his horse.
The three men left the town proper, the buildings ending abruptly in rice paddies filled with young rice plants of a vivid green. At that moment, the sun at last crested the eastern hill top making the rice plants impossibly greener, the light slanting sideways through the stalks like light through jade. The world glowed green.
A soft breeze came with the sun, and the still water the rice plants grew from rippled, refracting the light like the rippling scales of so many dancing fish. The rice swayed. Sanli closed his eyes, the new sun warm on his skin, the soft breeze cool in his hair.
"Come on Sanli, we're gonna lose Kageyama!"
Sanli looked back to the road where Zakhar and Dunya were waiting for him. He nudged Little Light into a trot and the horse complied with a toss of his head. When he reached Zakhar they both steered their horses along the slender line of road running atop the rice fields.
Ahead, the fields ended and the hills rose in forest. Kageyama was waiting for them again, just after a huge stone gateway. This marked the official limit of Nan'ye. The gate was large, about twice the height of Zakhar mounted on Dunya and nearly as wide. It was constructed from three pieces of roughly hewn stone: two pieces planted vertically in the ground with the third across the top to serve as lintel. In bygone times, two wooden doors had completed the holy pentad, but had long since rotted away and not been replaced as times grew peaceful.
Despite the ancientness and the lack of doors, potent zih were carved into stone, and Sanli felt their influence shiver across his shoulders as he walked under the gateway. Nan'ye had been a human town, and the zih would have kept any unwanted mu'ren out. A strong scribe must have carved the symbols, for them to still hold power after so many centuries. They would deny all but the most powerful mu'ren entry.
Not that there were many of those left, Sanli thought to himself, glancing at Kageyama's back as he and Makabe rode ahead.
The gate stood completely alone, no evidence of walls ever having risen beside it. Sanli knew this was because none were necessary. Somewhere, in alignment with the gates were four corner stones, also rife with zih, and these created the invisible boundary that had kept the unwelcome from the town.
Crunch.
Sanli heard the sound and glanced up and back, to the top of the ancient gateway where it had come from.
Black against the orange eastern sky, which was fast turning bluer as the sun rose, a figure sat, one hand raised to their mouth. Their feet dangled loosely above the gateway the three men and horses had just passed through.
Kageyama had stopped and turned Makabe, and Zakhar noticed the other two stop and did the same. "What?" He asked, looking between the two dark haired men.
Crunch. Zakhar's eyes also found the source of the noise.
Sanli realized who ever was sitting up there was eating an apple. The apple eater stood, and with a flick of their fingers sent the core spinning off into the forest at the side of the road. Then they stepped forward off the top gate as though they were stepping down a staircase, and dropped to the road below. The red dust of the road swirled around their sandals as they landed.
The newcomer straightened and started to approach. Kageyama steered Makabe slightly to place himself between Sanli and the stranger, a hand reflexively raised to hover above above his bare hip.
A young lad stopped before the three men. He was dressed in plain beige linen shirt and trousers, the kind that a trader might wear on the road. Over his shoulder was slung a bag, a drinking gourd and a lute, and in one hand he carried a waxed paper umbrella, grey-blue in color.
"Morning gentlemen. Care for an apple?"
Sanli blinked as he recognized the voice, then the lute, and realized it was the woman from the night before. In the fresh morning light, without her stylized makeup, Sanli realized she was little more than a girl, probably not much more than 20.
As Sanli studied her, the girl drew a small green apple from her bag and threw it in his direction. Kageyama quickly intercepted the projectile, sniffed it, and then took a bite. His nose wrinkled. The lute girl smiled. "Sorry. They're a little sour." She took another apple out of her pack and tossed it to Zakhar, who thanked her and bit into it, puckering his lips as he chewed.
Sanli shook his head to decline a third apple that appeared from the bag, and instead took the one Kageyama had already bitten from. He was surprised at her casual clothing. The embroidered silk gown from the night before was gone, and on her feet instead of silk slippers she wore thick wooden travel sandals, several fingers high so as to raise her feet above the mud and dust of the road. Plain faced with her hair done up on her head, she could have passed for a boy.
"Why are you dressed like a boy?" Sanli asked aloud, not caring if it was rude. The girl didn't seem to care either.
"For traveling, of course," she said winking at him over the saddle of Kageyama's horse.
Kageyama looked extremely displeased at her reappearance. "Traveling with whom?" he muttered.
The girl ignored him, eyes still focused on Sanli. She pulled a piece of paper from inside her shirt and held it up. "Well, don't you want your winnings?"
Sanli looked at the folded paper, and then remembered he had bet her her name if she lost their competition. He hadn't thought much of his words at the time. They had flowed from his mouth freely, as flirtations do. But here the girl was, at dawn, to keep up her end of the bet.
How... odd. How interesting.
Sanli re-fixed the flirtatious smile on his face from the night before and gestured to the paper. "Might I have the privilege of knowing your name then?"
The girl grinned and ducked directly under Makabe's stomach, before horse or rider realized what she was doing, and then stood beside Little Light, reaching up to hand Sanli the folded paper.
Again Kageyama intercepted, plucking the paper from the girl's slim fingers and opening it as they all watched. Kageyama frowned, eyebrows knitting together. "I don't know this character," Sanli was surprised to hear him say.
"It's an old character, no longer in use. It means to ramble, to rove, to play about," she replied, folding her arms.
"And how do you read it?" Kageyama asked pointedly. Sanli could tell he suspected the girl had created the character for her name on a whim, and he also thought it likely. If Sanli knew one thing it was that Sho Sensei knew every character.
The girl smiled, teeth white, and although Sanli could not see clearly in the faint morning light just starting to filter through the trees, he had a feeling her smile was off. It was too broad, there were too many teeth. It made the young girl's smile seem oddly predatory.
Sanli shivered. Perhaps because of the cooler air beneath the trees.
The girl noticed his discomfort, and her smile widened. "You may call me Ao," she said.
*~*~*~*~*~*
My first ever fanart, by cupidities ! ❤️