Chapter 98: Rancor, Part Twenty-One

Wei Wuxian, with Wen Ning in tow, made straight for the Guanyin Temple that stood in the heart of the city. By day he and Lan Wangji had scouted the approach, intending to return at night and search it properly, to break the array within and see what manner of thing it suppressed, and whether that knowledge might serve them against Jin Guangyao; but he had slept clear through to the hour of the Dog, and after waking that other matter had passed between them, and so the plan had come to nothing. Just now Wei Wuxian was sore in every fibre of himself, and it suited him well enough to go and stir up trouble at this dark node where Jin Guangyao might be found.

Deep in the night, with every household's lamps gone out and the great doors of the Guanyin Temple shut fast, the courtyard within seemed, from beyond the high wall, one unbroken stretch of black. Yet Wei Wuxian, two strides up the wall and not yet at its eaves, suddenly froze and thought, 'Something's off.'

Wen Ning froze too, and murmured, 'A boundary's been set.'

Wei Wuxian made a sign, and the two of them came down without a sound, slipped away from the gate, and rounded to a corner at the rear of the Guanyin Temple, where they climbed warily upward and, hidden behind one of the beast-figures along the eaves, at last leaned out to look into the courtyard.

And at that one look, both of them were struck dumb.

Within the Guanyin Temple all the lamps blazed, and the place was thronged with people: half of them monks, half cultivators in the Sparks Amidst Snow Robe. The two parties stood mingled together, quivers at their backs, bows in hand and swords drawn, as though guarding something, ranged in tight array and waiting, with now and then a low exchange of words. Only, because special concealing boundaries had been laid on all four sides of the Guanyin Temple, from the street beyond the high wall the temple looked nothing but pitch dark and silent, and not a flicker of its lamps nor murmur of its voices carried out.

But what struck Wei Wuxian dumb was neither the boundary nor those cultivators and counterfeit monks; it was the figure in white standing at the very centre of the courtyard.

Lan Xichen.

Lan Xichen wore no binding nor restraint of any kind; even his sword and his xiao, Liebing, still hung at his waist, and so calmly did he stand amid the crowd that the monks and cultivators bore themselves toward him with utmost deference, even murmuring their assent at his word.

After watching a while, Wei Wuxian whispered to Wen Ning, 'Go back to the inn, quick, and bring Hanguang-jun at once.'

Wen Ning gave a single nod and vanished. Wei Wuxian had not caught sight of Jin Guangyao, did not know whether he had come, nor whether the Stygian Tiger Seal was in his hands; after a moment's thought he bit through his fingertip and brought the bleeding finger toward the mouth of the Spirit-Locking Pouch at his waist. He meant to lure out a few small ghosts to help him summon some baleful things over without a sound. But just then, from the far end of the long street outside the Guanyin Temple, came a burst of barking.

On the spot, Wei Wuxian's soul fled clean out of him.

It was very nearly the death of him to choke down the urge to bolt straight for the sky; shaking, he clutched the eave-beast on the wall-head and listened to that barking draw nearer and nearer, his whole heart a knot of dread, the words rising in him unbidden: 'Help me, Lan Zhan, Lan Zhan, help.'

Having said it, as though he had drawn a little courage out of the name itself, he shook himself and forced himself calm. Wei Wuxian prayed with all his might that the dog was some masterless stray that would clear off at once; but heaven, after all, would not oblige, for through the barking there now rang a clear young voice, scolding, 'Fairy, shut it! It's the dead of night, do you mean to wake the whole street?!'

Jin Ling!

Lan Xichen's expression went sharp. Most of those Lanling Jin Clan cultivators knew the voice of their young master Jin Ling at once; they traded glances and nocked their arrows. The voice came on very fast, and in no time at all reached the gate of the Guanyin Temple. 'Hush! Hush! Bark again and I'll stew you! …Where in the world are you taking me?'

Wei Wuxian's heart hung high amid every kind of terror. 'Jin Ling, you wretched child, get out of here, now!!!'

But Jin Ling of all things drew up outside the Guanyin Temple, while Fairy howled and howled and seemed to circle all over, clawing at the ground and the wall. Jin Ling said, puzzled, 'Here?'

After a moment's quiet, he actually rapped at the door. 'Anyone there?'

Within the courtyard every cultivator held his breath, arrow on the string, drawn and trained on the gate but unloosed, as if waiting for an order. Lan Xichen said low, 'Do not harm him!'

His voice could not pass the boundary of the Guanyin Temple, and the others neither eased their guard nor lowered their bows. Jin Ling too seemed to sense something amiss: even with no night-watch or patrol inside, his pounding just now had been loud enough to wake any sleeper, and by no reckoning should there have been no stir at all. So he, outside the door, fell silent as well. Wei Wuxian had not yet let out his held breath when, all at once, a frenzy of barking rose again beyond the wall, and Jin Ling shouted in fury, 'Hey, what are you running off for now?!'

Wei Wuxian rejoiced. 'Good Fairy!!!'

Jin Ling called, 'Fairy! Come back! Damn it!'

Wei Wuxian thought, 'My little ancestor, go with it, the two of you, quick, get going!!! I'm begging you!!!'

But a moment later there came a faint, scarcely audible patter of grey stone trickling down. At first Wei Wuxian could not make out what the sound was; then, in an instant, a cold sweat broke over him. 'Oh no — the boy's climbing the wall!'

Over there, the moment Jin Ling came up he saw a whole courtyard of bows and arrows trained on him, and his pupils shrank to points. And one of the monks, perhaps having never set eyes on Jin Ling, or else resolved to silence any and every intruder, let fly an arrow that screamed off toward him!

By that shrill rending of the wind Wei Wuxian knew the archer for a master, and that should the shaft strike home it would pass clean through Jin Ling's chest and out the bone. The one thing at his hand to parry with was a single thing; in his urgency Wei Wuxian sprang up onto the wall-head and flung it out with a sweep of his arm, crying at the same moment, 'Jin Ling, run!'

What he hurled was the bamboo flute he had carried at his side ever since his return; the savagely speeding arrow was checked by it, knocked off true, and the bamboo flute burst into four splinters. Jin Ling's figure vanished from the wall-head — he must have gotten away. But now Wei Wuxian's hiding place stood betrayed as well, and a hundred and more feathered shafts came pelting down like a cloudburst, riddling the eave-beast he had used for cover into a hedgehog of arrows. A near thing, he thought; not one of these men was a poor shot, and their cultivation surely ran no shallower — whether Jin Ling could make his escape was a question still. He dropped down from the wall, pinched his fingers into a ring and was just about to whistle when a voice rose suddenly at his back, laughing, 'I'd advise Young Master Wei against it. A cracked flute is no great matter; but should a finger or a tongue go missing, that would be a sorrow indeed.'

Wei Wuxian withdrew his hand at once and agreed, 'You make a very good point.'

The man said, 'After you?'

Wei Wuxian nodded. 'Sect Leader Jin is too kind.'

Jin Guangyao said with a smile, 'It's only as it should be.'

With every show of unconcern they made a long, looping detour and walked round to the front of the Guanyin Temple, and Wei Wuxian had nothing at all to say.

The gate of the Guanyin Temple already stood open. Jin Ling had not, after all, gotten clear; held at sword's point by several monks, he looked at them, hesitated a moment, and still spoke first. 'Xiao-shushu.'

Jin Guangyao said, 'Hello there, A-Ling.'