Chapter 13: A Side Effect
~TIEN LYN~
Finch waved a scroll at Tien Lyn the moment she tiptoed into the library, "Lady, rejoice! A full set of rules for pigsty maintenance, and in crystal clear verses —" he looked more closely at her face and tucked the scroll into the voluminous sleeve of his black shirt. "M'lady, is something wrong?"
Not getting an immediate answer, the senior apprentice mimicked abject horror, "Surely you did not burn the tea leaves with water that was too hot?"
A wave of gratitude washed away her modesty and distrust like the spring flood waters would a poorly constructed dam. Tien Lyn told him everything: the wax Han Zheng, and the new dynasty, and not having a gift for magic or any useful skill at all. He listened and did not interrupt despite her sobs.
When she was done, she looked at the sympathetic man for an honest answer, "Is it true? About magic? That it does not run in the bloodlines?"
"Come and take a look," Finch pointed out scrolls that decorated the library walls. "These are the lineages of every mage alive, going back generations. The mages' names are in the golden script."
Tien Lyn walked from scroll to scroll. She unrolled the longer ones, the ones that had a few parts behind the most current part, re-rolled them and redid the beautiful bows. Finally, she began to see the pattern: very rarely each scroll had more than one name in the golden script, and those were separated by many generations and degrees of relation. Sometimes two mages were married, but...
"Finch? It looks like not a single mage has ever had children?"
"Ah, so you have noticed." Finch cleared his throat and assumed a lecturing tone. "Faeries of the Temple of Serene Joy are able to manipulate the five basic elements, but their covenant prohibits them from directly shaping the element of life, the qi. Demons manipulate the qi, but can rarely manage a strong control over the other four elements."
At this point, he gave her a look of a teacher who hoped the lesson was being appreciated. Tien Lyn hastily nodded. Faeries. Demons. Five elements. Qi.
"Human magic is not elemental," Finch went on. "It is an accidental ability of the human hsin, mind and emotion. Very few are born with this trait, and when the Understanding first manifests itself, it unsettles things around us, producing side-effects. My display of the lightning discharge was an example of such a side-effect. It is completely superfluous and nearly always avoidable."
"But, but--" Tien Lyn fumbled, and Finch interrupted her unceremoniously, "Oh, spells have their uses, of course, but they are the least important part of the Way of Understanding."
"If a mage does not rigorously discipline their mind and school emotion, they descend into madness," Finch went on, and Tien Lyn wondered if that had anything to do with Finch being so short on words the day before. He certainly grew more and more conversant in the Pagoda when he presumably did not have to have his mind at the ready.
"On a bad day you don't get to sleep to keep focused," Finch sighed. He paused, then finished in a very even voice. "Eventually magic supersedes all needs and wants of flesh, and repurposes everything you are for magic. It renders men impotent and women barren."
The soulful eyes belied his neutral tone. "What follows, is that we simply do not know if magic runs in the bloodlines, as no child was born to a mage after they manifested. Children born prior have as much chances to manifest as anyone else. I hope this answers your question."
Tien Lyn sighed. The world was becoming a sadder place by the hour for her. Maybe it always was, she had just never noticed.
"Thank you for telling me the truth, Finch. And I am sorry I've asked. It cannot be easy to know that you would never have a family of your own."
"Maybe," Finch replied. "The war mages are the Empire's most potent weapon. If we could have been bred, we most likely would have been. I don't fancy being bred. Would you?"
He looked at her directly, and she felt her face grow hot. What an odd thing to ask! With her ordained fate, she did not truly have a choice in the matter.
Aloud she repeated after him: "Maybe."
Finch placed his hand on her shoulders comfortingly, then switched back to the lighter tone. "Could you join forces with Lady Chen Guang in the kitchen? Your lady mother makes up for gaps in her culinary education with a refusal to yield, surrender, retreat or call for reinforcements. I am not a coward, but I fled."
"At least we can count on excellent tea," Tien Lyn sighed. "Wait! Can you taste the food and drink? Is not that a desire of flesh?"
Finch's face turned serious. "Lady, some mysteries are too sacred to be revealed. But do not be stingy on spice."
He headed down the stairs and out of doors to feed the hens, nurture the vegetable beds and, perhaps, practice the arcane art of mucking the pigsty.
Tien Lyn squared her shoulders and edged her way into the kitchen. "Mother? What do we need to do?"
Lady Chen Guang lifted her face from a cutting board and glared at something above her daughter's head. Her fine features made for polite smiles became distorted with an unfamiliar expression of anger. The soft eyes widened. The delicate nostrils flared out. The mouth normally painted down to a tiny dot, stretched into a snarl. The knife in Lady Chen Guang's hand waved fiercely to punctuate every word of an answer Tien Lyn had been afraid to ask so far:
"We need to live, Tien Lyn. We will need to live long enough to see the Emperor Wo Jia fall. And we will do whatever it takes to bring it about."
Tien Lyn's question, of course, was about soup, rice, and other foodstuffs. But the answer she'd gotten from her mother left her with no choice but to spiral back into despair. Faced by her mother's power of swift decision-making, she felt the usual pang of envy. The same way Lady Chen Guang used to know what color lanterns she wanted, she was now absolutely certain that she wanted to dethrone Wo Jia.
By contrast, Tien Lyn felt unsure.
She now admitted to herself that despite her long-cultivated reverence, she too had come to hate the Emperor for his unfairness and cruelty. She too wanted justice for her family. But Wo Jia was the Son of Heavens, and they were two women, friendless and dispossessed. They barely escaped the purge with their lives for now. They were nothing... or at least she was nothing.
Despite feeling impotent, Tien Lyn could not just abandon her mother to her cooking or to her vendetta. I will do what I can, however little it may be.
"Modest yet cruel was Empress Mei..." she started and found a knife for herself to attack the ranks of carrots, onions, and bok choy.
It was a far cry from Empress Mei's reign of terror, but it was a start.
Maybe there was a small chance for justice. The mage's bone horoscope foretold that she, Tien Lyn, would bring about the rise of a new dynasty. So the Wo Jia's line, the Dynasty of Clear Foresight, would fail.
Maybe.
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