Wand SMoke:
The Seven Scholars

The Wrest of Conscience

by MarQuese Liddle

Long before the commissioning and construction of the terror galley, Tòngkŭ, pirate captain Fènghuáng was no captain at all. He was not even a mate but a mere seaman aboard a nameless vessel, yet another drop of blood in the Uminoken.

Aboard that ship, Fènghuáng sailed up and down the coast, raiding and ravaging, pillaging and plundering, never questioning his motives so long as he was free from the confinement of Hashima island.

But then, one dark and misty morning, a storm blew in. Fight as they may, the pirates could not hope to slay the wind which tossed their junk like a toy boat in a child’s washbasin. They were blown off course far, far toward the northern oblivion, where only gray sea-wraiths and mermaids may linger long.

The sky showed just as gray as the mist on the water, opaque fog covering all means of discovering where they were. Thus lost, the crew defied the commands of their captain, mutinied, and tied him to a mast before making at once for the first bit of dry land to crop its snowy head on the endless horizon.

They anchored without much trouble, and, despite the warning cries of their captive former captain, gathered together into skiffs and paddled for the shore.

Now a new man led them. He was the former captain’s first mate, and unlike his predecessor, he ruled with the cunning of steel and the inflexibility of iron. No sooner did they moor did he order the crew into scouting parties and builders of camp. They’d resupply on the island if they could, then they’d figure which way was south and be gone by tomorrow morning.

Fènghuáng was placed among the hunting parties, three men apiece armed with boarding pikes for sticking wild boars or whatever game might live on that Ahuras-forsaken island. A score more pirates were made to stay behind and cut lumber for camp. These men resisted at first. From their spot on the strand, they could yet hear the old captain’s moans; and despite the cold, each of the trees which grew along the beach bore luscious, orange and yellow, star-shaped fruit. The builders felt it was foolish to fell such an easy food-source for the sake of wood. They’d rather gather what they could and take refuge on the ship.

The new captain would have none of it. He knew that many of the men harbored remorse and even loyalty for the former captain and that, with bellies full of fresh fruit, the crew could no longer be brought to heel by desperation masking their feelings of guilt.

And so, he ordered the trees axed and the fruit cast either into the sea or into nets to be used as lures by the hunters. Those who refused to obey were hacked to pieces the same as the trees. Then they, too, were either tossed into the sea or else made into bait for the benefit of the hunting parties. Thus laden with fishing nets dripping bloody juice were the scouts sent into the snowy woods.

Fènghuáng’s party found fortune early on, discovering tracks of some kind, though none of the seaman recognized the animal. Nevertheless, eager to put distance between themselves and their new captain, they followed the prints recklessly down a steep descent, never minding how their quarry managed it.

The tracks ended at the center of the island, in the deepest crevasse of the woods where stood an ancient temple ruin built into the hill face, the only entrance to which hid behind an icy waterfall. It was a perilous crossing. Frozen shards dropped like daggers at unpredictable intervals into the temple’s moat.

The pirates assumed their feast for the evening must be hiding within.

They had no choice, then, Fènghuáng concluded. As a young man with nothing to lose, nothing to live for, and no aim in the world, he leapt through the falls and was struck by the cold. Sheets of ice shattered, slicing the pirate as if he’d smashed a glass firmament before landing flat-footed and falling hard onto the frozen floor.

Slashed, shivering, and sore from his ungraceful fall, Fènghuáng sighed, relieved that the Ahuras spared his life. Then he waited patiently for his companions. They never came. His pirate brethren were too afraid to continue further along their path, and so they turned back. But just as the course of a river flows only lower and forward, the pair of cowardly scouts found return impossible. They could not climb the sheer, steep, icy ascent. They could only scream, trapped between the chill and whatever made those tracks.

Fènghuáng shivered once more, for he, too, was trapped with whatever yokai were devouring his fellows. Yet again, his only option was to press onward, deeper into the ruin where a hole in the temple roof let in the only illumination.

Fènghuáng could feel the eyes on him as he traversed the darkness, yet he could see nothing save for the distant light. Only once he crossed under the shaft himself did his ghost-white knuckles cease gripping his pike so tightly.

Before him, dead center beneath the skylight, lay arranged a long stone table set with platters, plates, bowls, and cups. Benches ran either side, and at one end rose a throne likewise hewn from stone. Unfortunately for a hungry, shivering pirate, no food nor hearth were apparent anywhere with which to fill his belly or warm his hide.

And yet, Fènghuáng, suddenly weary, found the stone benches surprisingly appealing. As if he had not just heard his companions being murdered moments before, he lay himself along one bench and drifted into a deep slumber.

When Fènghuáng awoke, warm daylight still shone down from the opening. Moreover, the platters, plates, bowls, and cups were full, all of them brimming with raw, red gore—all but for one fruit-laden plate set in front of the throne.

Starving, as though it had been a week and not a day since the pirate had last eaten, he stole the empty seat at the table’s end, dropped his weapon, and immediately began partaking of the orange and yellow star-shaped fruit. However, it was not long before he could no longer ignore the surrounding gore, and sooner still did he recognize the freshly butchered flesh and blood filling the platters and cups as that of his former fellows.

Fènghuáng froze, fruit yet stuffing his mouth, stifling his scream as dozens and dozens of ruddy-mawed and red-fingered monkeys took their seats. They were dark creatures, black or brown or burnt bronze of hair with eyes aglow like molten stone but for one who squatted atop the table, staring impatiently toward the throne. This one, silver-blond of fur and with eyes of hazel, hardly seemed to notice Fènghuáng in his chair.

The pirate swallowed his mouthful of stolen supper, then he slowly stood to run. He did not make it more than two steps before the silver macaque grabbed him, its pink claws strong as hooks of iron. There was no escape. Even if Fènghuáng somehow fled from the cave, the monkey clung fast to his back. No matter how he reached, he could not force the beast off of him.

Then he recalled the gruesome feast, and the pirate became afraid that the macaque on his back would fast become a demon, that he would then become the silver monkey’s feast. But the macaque did not snap his neck; nor did it claw out his eyes; nor did it bite his throat open. The monkey merely pulled the pirate’s knotted locks, plucking lice as it forced Fènghuáng’s eyes from the horror at the table to that hidden in the shadowy corner of the cavernous ruin.

There, silhouetted by the sparse sunlight reflected off the frosted floor, glinted what seemed to the pirate to be a woman. She was encased in ice, though despite her features being obscured, Fènghuáng felt certain of her bewitching allure. It was his seaman’s superstition which made him so sure, just as it was his prejudice which spurred him to fight against the monkey’s pull. He had to flee, for a woman’s beauty at sea could mean only utter destruction.

But the more forcefully he struggled, the more the pirate fell under his possessor’s influence. The macaque tugged Fènghuáng’s knotted locks, and he could only watch himself approach the glimmering omen. Not until his body traversed the darkness of its own accord did the pirate find the presence of mind to question why his demon monkey had left him alive to begin with. Quickened by fear, his mind decided he must be a sacrifice to appease whatever beast leered from the shadows.

Three eyes ringed black and gold glowed amidst the darkness, then all three of those eyes vanished as that creature of the abyss lifted its upper-maw like a west Steppe crocodile. Blue-black fangs shined like futilely oiled, tarnished silver. And from its gullet, golden fire stinking like the bowels of the earth rose in the back of its throat.

As if by the monkey’s whispers, Fènghuáng knew that to be bitten by this beast meant that his spirit as well as his flesh would be forever consumed in those gold-yellow flames. So as the abyssal creature lunged, and as the pirate gave up his struggle, he least expected to survive, tumbling like an acrobat, guided by the macaque on his back.

No words were spoken between them. They did not share a tongue, only a mutual intuition as the monkey pulled one knotted lock and then another.

Under the monkey’s direction, Fènghuáng fled back to the banquet table and under its shaft of light. Gone were the demons who had devoured his companions. All that remained were blood-stained dishes and that which the pirate had abandoned out of fear—the spear.

Diving and rolling like a monkey himself, Fènghuáng snatched the massive boarding pike and sprung to his feet on the far side of the table. Arm cocked, he aimed the long, thick, square, iron head as if the pike were a javelin. There he stood for what felt to be till the end of time, for what was really but a second gone past like a flash of lightning. The black dragon burst forth from shadow into the light, and with the strength and reflexes of the monkey on his back, Fènghuáng hurled his weapon into the beast’s breast.

What happened next, only Ryōshin and the captain know for certain. For after their encounter at the northern oblivion, they fled their dragon and never dared return.