Swords v. Cthulhu

The Final Gift of Zhuge Liang Laurie Tom

Zhuge Liang was dead, and with him, Shu Han’s greatest hope of a unified China. The prime minister’s star trembled in the night sky instead of falling to Earth with the death of the great sage. Zhuge Liang had promised that it would remain until the Shu army had withdrawn, so their enemies would not know of his passing.

But that was small comfort for Jiang Wei, who entered his mentor’s tent to pack Zhuge Liang’s possessions for travel back to the river lands. Outside, Yang Yi marshaled the soldiers in accordance with the prime minister’s final wishes. No banners of mourning would be hung, or the soldiers of Cao Wei in their fortress would know that the Sleeping Dragon now slept for good. The Shu withdrawal would be quiet, orderly. Once they were safe, then they would mourn.

The tent flap opened again and Ma Yun stepped inside. He clasped his hands and gave a slight bow. “I thought I would find you here.”

“Did Yang Yi send you?”

Jiang Wei outranked Ma Yun, but the two had become friends over the six years and five expeditions that had made up Zhuge Liang’s attempts to pacify the north. Though others were contemptuous of Ma Yun and his oddly light voice, the soft timbre of a eunuch, Jiang Wei knew better. Ma Yun had been born a woman, but considered himself a man.

“No, I am simply concerned about your wellbeing,” said Ma Yun. “My men are helping load the carts, and they do not need my oversight for that.”

“Then you should rest. We’ll be marching soon.”

Ma Yun knelt beside Jiang Wei and said, “We will both rest when your work is done. Do you think I could sleep when you do not?”

Jiang Wei sighed, but handed his friend a lacquered box. “Still stubborn,” he said. “As soon as Sima Yi realizes we’ve abandoned camp, he’ll lead the Wei army in pursuit of us. The prime minister’s star will have fallen and they’ll know that he’s dead. We need time.”

“You’ll think of something. You have been his student these past six years. There is no better strategist to succeed him, and you know these northern lands better than anyone.”

Six years ago Jiang Wei had been an officer in the Wei army, until a paranoid commander had suspected him of collaborating with Shu. After he had fled for his life, Zhuge Liang had been the one to offer him refuge and gave him a position in his army. Now, at the prime minister’s final request, it would be Jiang Wei’s duty to pacify the land he had once called home.

“You could always dress a wooden figure in the prime minister’s clothes and stick it in his carriage,” said Ma Yun. “Wheel it around, and from a distance Sima Yi might think that the prime minister is still directing the battle.”

His voice was playful, but Jiang Wei could almost take the suggestion seriously. Sima Yi’s greatest weakness was his tendency to overthink the traps Zhuge Liang had laid for him. That was why the Wei army remained safely ensconced in their fortress rather than facing Shu on the battlefield. Even the prime minister’s attempts to insult the tactician’s honor had failed in the wake of Sima Yi’s paranoia.

Which gave Jiang Wei an idea.

“What about this? When we withdraw Sima Yi will follow us, like a wolf after the deer. He will expect a rear guard, but he will not anticipate an ambush, not when he sees the prime minister's star fall. We’ll only leave enough men to draw him out, while the rest of the army pulls back.”

“If he takes the Wei army out of the fortress, a single division is not going to be able to fight them all,” said Ma Yun.

“He won’t know that. The prime minister was a master of ambuscade. If the men fight like the entire army is at their backs, Sima Yi will think we faked our retreat to draw him out. He’ll run if he believes the prime minister is still alive.”

They could catch them in the Xiagu Pass. The Wei army would have to narrow itself to get through, and there was an overlook covered with trees that would hide ranks of archers and footmen. Give the commander enough doughty horsemen to charge through the Shu side of the pass and the Wei vanguard would feel like the whole Shu army was pressing down on them.

Ma Yun grinned. “I see why the prime minister thought highly of you. Who else sets an ambush when they’re running away?”

“Yang Yi would have to approve.”

“He would gladly do so, and lead it himself.”

And he was Ma Yun’s superior, which meant if Yang Yi led the ambush, then Ma Yun would be among those who stayed behind.

“It’s a worthy gamble,” said his friend. “If it meant the rest of the army could escape safely, I would hold off all of Wei alone. And I trust your strategy. Few men have ever outsmarted the prime minister, and you are one of them. That is why he has entrusted all this to you.” Ma Yun indicated the whole of the tent’s interior, but that wasn’t entirely true. Jiang Wei would not replace the prime minister in political affairs, but in war the campaign plans would fall to him.

“Will you notify Yang Yi that I wish to see him?” said Jiang Wei.

Ma Yun clasped his hands and bowed before standing. “Yes, Commander.”

Yang Yi was more of a minister than a warrior. Logistics was his strength, but he had good subordinates beneath him, men like Ma Yun, who could be trusted with their own judgment on the battlefield.

Jiang Wei picked up a heavy set of books from beside Zhuge Liang’s deathbed, surprised by how the very touch of them gave him a sensation of age and decay. They shouldn’t have lain so long beside a dead man. They were so old they had been written on bamboo slats rather than paper, and the script was antiquated, in the Qin style. These were not the prime minister’s own works.

The word Leng was inscribed on the first slat of each of the books, followed by a volume number. Jiang Wei unfolded one to find a treatise of some sort, something that the prime minister himself must have studied, but he could not ignore a feeling of wrongness about it, of something vile seeping from the bamboo.

Zhuge Liang could read the stars better than anyone. He could call on the wind, the fog. Perhaps this was where he had learned such things.

The book described terrible ceremonies, demons that Jiang Wei had never heard of, and obeisances that must be made to such creatures. He did not think the prime minister would have dabbled in such arts, but perhaps his enemies might. Zhuge Liang prepared for many things, and did not leave anything to chance when adequate foresight would provide.

That was why the Shu army, although half the size of the Wei, had managed a stalemate on the Wuzhang Plains.

Still, the rituals and symbols disturbed Jiang Wei, and he did not know this land of Leng from whence the books had come. They placed it far to the west, beyond the barbarian lands but before the palace of the Queen Mother of the West. Though Zhuge Liang had not left these books specifically for his successor, if he was to serve as the inheritor of the prime minister’s will, then he would have to understand these as well.

It was not until he felt a hand on his shoulder that he realized he had spent more time reading than packing. Yang Yi had arrived, his lined face written with as much concern as the gray that streaked his beard.

“The prime minister would not expect you to rise immediately as general in his place,” said Yang Yi. “Give yourself time to study. After all, he entrusted you alone with his strategies, and not until his final hour. He knows even you will need time to read them.”

Jiang Wei bowed his head, ashamed, not because he had been found idle, but because it had not been Zhuge Liang’s stratagems he had been reading. He folded the book back. “I understand,” he said. “I only pray that Heaven does not find me inadequate.”

Over the next few nights they left the cooking fires lit, as though the camp was still full of soldiers, while the Shu officers led the army out in stages by cover of darkness. Jiang Wei took the rear guard. His soldiers were seasoned veterans. If Yang Yi’s ambush failed, Jiang Wei’s men would still allow the bulk of the Shu army to escape, but it would be costly. He couldn’t let it come to that.

At daybreak the day after their departure, his scouts came to him with word of Sima Yi’s pursuit. By now they had reached the Xiagu Pass and Yang Yi’s men were in position, Ma Yun among them. They would see the Wei vanguard coming on horseback soon. Jiang Wei would slow the rear guard on the other side of the pass, forcing Sima Yi’s eager soldiers to push through the ambush to reach them.

Let the Wei tactician think that he had caught up to his fleeing foe.

But as the sun crested the mountains, Jiang Wei did not like what he saw. A gleam on the high ground of the pass. Though swords must be sheathed and arrows still in their quivers, it was not impossible that some errant soldier’s spear had caught the light, and if he could see it, then Wei could as well. If it came to Sima Yi’s attention, then the Wei army would not enter the pass, and Yang Yi did not have enough men to take them head-on.

In retrospect, he should have considered the sunlight, the time of day Sima Yi would catch up to them. Jiang Wei knew immediately what Zhuge Liang would have done to correct this mistake, but he was not the prime minister. He didn’t have the power.

But he knew a little now. The second volume of the books from Leng discussed the fog.

He ordered a soldier to the wagon that carried the materials bequeathed to him by the prime minister, and the man returned with the book placed in a satchel. Jiang Wei verified that it was the right volume before slinging the heavy bag over his shoulder. Now he just needed a suitable view of the battlefield.

Jiang Wei called over one of his lieutenants and said, “I have a few preparations of my own before the Wei vanguard reaches the pass. I should be back shortly, but if I do not return before the ambush begins, I need you to take your horsemen to reinforce Yang Yi.”

Some of the men cheered, believing that he would pull off a stunt equal to that of Zhuge Liang, but Jiang Wei knew better. He was not his mentor. But Shu had done much for him, given him a home when his own had cast him out.

Jiang Wei would do what he must.

He rode his horse to an outcropping on the southern side of the pass and carefully dismounted, holding his bladed spear. The bamboo slats clacked as he unfolded the centuries-old script and laid the book at his feet. Jiang Wei drew his knife and prayed for his parents’ forgiveness, as he had no animal that he could sacrifice in this moment of need.

In a patch of dirt he drew what the book called the Sign of Qi, written with the character for air or vapor. The sign itself did not match any word he knew and the sight of it made him shiver. There was a strangeness in how the lines came together, making angles where there should be none. He could look at a portion of it and it was just a symbol, but to look at the whole invited a sinister impossibility.

Jiang Wei sliced the fat part of his hand with his knife and clenched it into a fist, squeezing drops of blood on to the Sign of Qi.

In the next moment, mist writhed from the shadows of the peaks and sloughed down the mountains as a thick cloud. It hid Yang Yi’s men from the Wei army below, and a moment later, hid the rest of the world from Jiang Wei.

Then the howling began.

Their voices did not sound like any wolves he’d heard, and he could hear the sound of feet slapping against stone and dirt. For beasts, they did not seem interested in hiding from their prey.

Jiang Wei could barely see the ground beneath him, and sidled close to his horse, but the mare reared and screamed, eyes rolling white, and nearly kicked him as she plunged back down and galloped into the fog. It was not like her. He looked at the sign he had drawn, blood filling the crevices in unnaturally even measure, except where a single stamp of his mare’s hoof had ruined it.

He wasn’t sure if that changed anything, any more than he had expected that the fog he called would cover him as well. It was thicker than what he remembered seeing around the overlook where Yang Yi’s men were hidden, and he had an eerie suspicion that the fog around him was different. He had not fully read the books from Leng.

Jiang Wei lifted his spear and swept it ahead of him. If there were wolves, he would not be easy prey. He carefully retraced the path he had taken, and when his spear did not touch anything, he knew the way was clear.

Ahead of him, something smelled. Oily, like burning fat. A moan broke through the fog, followed by a soft cackle and the squelching of something wet. Jiang Wei did not remember signs of anyone else on his way up the mountainside, nor did the noise-maker seem particularly intent on remaining hidden. Uncertain of his — or its — allegiance, Jiang Wei crept toward the shuffling and smacking, taking care to prod the air with his spear so he would not walk into something he could not see. The fog had been so dense at first that he could not make out anything past arm’s length, but as he grew closer to the sound, he could see it thin. A little more of his spear came into view, then more.

Shapes formed in the mist. Hunched and bony, and clothed like beggars in old silks, they squatted around a pile of soiled clothes that they picked at with clawed, red hands and canine teeth. Slop dripped from their jaws, and they lapped it back up with long, sinuous tongues.

The pile moaned, and as Jiang Wei neared, he saw that it was still human in shape, though soft, as though the flesh would not hold to the bones. The air no longer smelled solely of fat, but of blood as well. And the silk hat that sat atop the head of the quivering mass, the feathered fan that lay beside the body... He recognized them both.

“Prime minister!” Jiang Wei shouted.

It should not be possible. Zhuge Liang was dead. Jiang Wei had seen the placement of the body in its box himself.

He did not know what the creatures were, pale-skinned with the bodies of men and the faces of wolves, but he charged at them. It did not matter if it was six against one, not if the prime minister was alive.

The group scattered, howling, some of them on two legs, others on four. Jiang Wei had heard of beasts of such advanced age that they became demons, but despite their silk robes and the jade pendants he now saw hanging from their throats, these creatures did not give any appearance of wisdom. Just savagery.

He caught one with the blade of his spear and it writhed away with a hiss. Out of the corner of his eye he saw another leap at him, and he bludgeoned it with the butt of his weapon. His spear gave him a good reach — he often wielded one from the back of his horse, and any part of it could be used to attack or defend.

Jiang Wei dodged a slavering pair of jaws, and impaled his next assailant in the soft of the belly. He stepped back, pulling his weapon free and letting the whimpering creature fall. He had no time to rest. The tassel around the base of his spearhead bobbed and wove with every strike, blurring the movement of the blade.

One of the monsters grazed him. He could feel the blood run along his upper arm, in the gap between his forearm and shoulder guards. It felt hot, painful beyond what it should be. There had probably been filth in that creature’s nails.

And these monsters had been tearing with them into his mentor.

He didn’t know how long he had been fighting, but they kept standing up. Nothing stopped them. Not slices across the throat, holes in the gut, nor broken bones. Jiang Wei panted, feeling his head swim. If these were men they would be dead by now, but if they took just a moment’s rest, they gathered to their feet, little more than winded.

Then one of them sat back and gibbered at him as though it expected he would understand.

Jiang Wei did not let it continue. His spear buried itself just beneath the creature’s collarbone.

One of the other beasts howled, and he wrenched his spear back to block it, only to feel the blade catch. The jade pendant...

He raised his left arm and felt the creature’s crushing jaws bite down on the leather forearm guard. Jiang Wei gritted his teeth and heaved the spear with his right arm, hard enough to break the cord. He swung it over his head and jammed the point down into the monster’s back.

The wolf-thing let go of Jiang Wei and he flung it away from him. He turned to the others, but their eyes were not on him, instead watching the one who had spoken, who now scrabbled at the dirt with its long nails to grab at the fallen pendant. Triumphant, it gathered its trinket in its hands.

Jiang Wei smashed it with his spear.

“I’ll do worse,” he said.

The creature bared its teeth but did not attack, and now the others gave him a wide berth, restlessly padding from side to side.

Shoulders heaving, Jiang Wei was not certain he could live up to his words, but the pendant had obviously meant something to the wolf-thing, and if fear of losing their own pendants would encourage the others to reconsider, he was more than willing to shatter the next one to come within reach.

His enemies seemed to reach the same conclusion. They bounded back into the fog, eyeing him as they fled. The speaker shook and curled its lips, then turned its head in disgust and loped into the void.

When he could no longer hear their footsteps, Jiang Wei turned to the crumpled mass behind him.

“Prime minister!”

Jiang Wei had seen men disemboweled and mutilated on the battlefield, but never anything like this, where the very flesh had turned to sludge, and Zhuge Liang was still alive!

“Your student, Jiang Wei, is here,” he said, kneeling by his mentor.

He wanted to help him, but he wasn’t sure how. The prime minister lay face down, and his liquefying body could not be explained by wounds alone. Maybe there was something in the book he’d used. Jiang Wei had left it by the Sign of Qi, but the fog was thinning now. He would be able to find it shortly.

Battle cries rang in the distance. The ambush must have started.

His mentor murmured something Jiang Wei did not catch, so he set down his spear and steeled himself as he gripped Zhuge Liang’s shoulder. The flesh slid beneath his hand.

“Hold on. I’ll turn you over, prime minister. Shall I prop you up? I see a place you can rest.”

There was a sound he thought was assent, and he carefully lifted his mentor. The prime minister’s face was wasted, his cheeks hanging loosely from his skull, but Jiang Wei could still recognize him. He supported Zhuge Liang’s head and shoulders as he dragged him to a steep slab of stone, and tried to ignore the wet trail they left behind, the sticky dampness that seeped around his hands and into the crevices of his armor.

“You can rest here,” said Jiang Wei. “I’ll go look for my horse, and if I can’t find her I’ll go get the men... ”

“You are kind,” said the prime minister, “but what you see is no longer all of Zhuge Liang. This is only his spirit. His body is where it should be.”

“Even so, I am not leaving you to those creatures.”

The prime minister looked at Jiang Wei with eyes that could no longer see, as though someone had taken sand and scratched the color from his irises.

“I do not want you to delve further into the Seven Cryptical Books of Hsan,” said Zhuge Liang. Jiang Wei did not recognize the word Hsan. It did not sound Chinese, not in any of the dialects he knew.

“I did not tell you of them because I do not want you to pay as I have. This old fool was fine with the coming of the ghouls. It is payment for a true understanding of the books.”

“Why?” Jiang Wei demanded. “Why would you do such a thing? You were already a great scholar when our First Ruler came to you, when we were still one empire beneath one emperor!”

“Jiang Wei... you know the size of Shu Han. Wei has always held the power. We could only win by out-thinking them, by using powers they could not match, and when we could, by winning over talented officers like you.”

It was not right. Jiang Wei did not know what hurt more, knowing what his mentor had bargained with, or what he had been willing to sacrifice. He squeezed his eyes shut and bowed his head.

“These powers do not care about Shu,” said Zhuge Liang. “They are beyond the wars of men, but they will use us when it suits. They have already taken most of what they wished, and when the fog lifts and you are no longer beside me, they will take the rest.”

“Prime minister,” said Jiang Wei, his voice ragged. “Am I not to follow you? Is not the campaign in the north my responsibility now?”

“Would you do anything for Shu, as I have?”

Jiang Wei swallowed. “I do not know enough, and perhaps I do not wish to, but I used one of the books to call this fog, even knowing that the consequences might be dire, because I wish to protect our people.”

“Pull me up,” said Zhuge Liang. “Take me to where you wrote the sign.”

The fog was almost gone. Jiang Wei slipped an arm around the prime minister’s sagging back and draped one dripping limb across his shoulders to help support him. Together they walked. It was not comfortable, feeling the sloughing body of his mentor seep against his skin, but he would not complain.

“The Wei army is still there,” said Jiang Wei when they got to the overlook.

A part of him wanted to disbelieve. He thought the fog together with the ambush would have been enough. Only the prime minister had been able to command the elements.

“Sima Yi has often had good intuition,” said Zhuge Liang. “It will take more than a little fog to make him disbelieve the stars.”

“What more can we do?”

“You can set me down and return to your soldiers. You are leading the rear guard, are you not?”

“The rear guard should have already engaged. If Sima Yi has not retreated by now, many men will die. Though I can run to join them, I do not think that I alone could change the tide of battle. Prime minister, can you not do one more prayer? Use me as your hands if you must.”

“There is not enough of me to serve as a proper vessel,” said Zhuge Liang, “and what I did to myself I cannot ask of you. Those things you fought were once men, and if you follow this path as long as I have, you will become either them, or me. It is not enough just to read the Books of Hsan. To master them one must partake of another human’s flesh. It is a most unholy thing.”

Zhuge Liang spoke calmly, as though the matter truly was that simple, when it wasn’t at all.

“There was always flesh in abundance on the battlefield,” the prime minister noted wryly. “But there are no enemies close by you now, and I know you are not the kind of man who would slaughter his own. For both those things I am grateful.”

But Ma Yun was fighting down below, if he was still alive. Jiang Wei sagged to his knees, Zhuge Liang sliding down along with him.

“Then I will have failed,” said Jiang Wei.

Zhuge Liang shook his head. “No more than I. But I can make you an offer.” The prime minister twitched, struggling as he shifted to better face Jiang Wei. “My spirit flesh will soon be gone regardless. It is not what the books desire, but it will be enough to allow you to command the elements, just this once, for a short while.”

It was anathema. The very thought made Jiang Wei’s stomach churn.

“I asked you before,” said Zhuge Liang. “Would you do anything for Shu?”

Jiang Wei swallowed. “I would.”

“Then lay me down and pull back my robes.”

“How much?” asked Jiang Wei as he set down his mentor and tried to keep himself from shaking. His hands trembled as he loosened the prime minister’s sash and uncovered his pallid torso.

“Four mouthfuls. You must not be meek, and do not waste what you take.”

Jiang Wei wanted to turn away, but knew he could not. He had asked for this. He wanted to protect Shu, to give Ma Yun and Yang Yi a fighting chance, to save the lives of men who would otherwise be called to battle.

But still... His mentor’s pale flesh was thick and viscous, like congealed gruel. It would come away easily in his mouth even without a predator's fangs. Jiang Wei wanted to close his eyes.

He did not.

He bowed his head and tried not to think anything about the texture, the taste, only caring that each mouthful went down, and that his stomach did not reject it. This was Zhuge Liang’s sacrifice, and Jiang Wei was going to make the most of it.

On swallowing the last bite he felt sick, and hot, like he was burning, and he did not know if his earlier injury had caught up to him, or it was something in the spirit flesh.

“Now, remake the Sign of Qi,” said Zhuge Liang.

Jiang Wei did not see him anymore, did not see anything except the sigil carved in the dirt and the roiling battle in the distance. He traced it again, clearing the damage done by his horse, and cut himself without hesitation to feed the sign with blood.

Then he stood, and through the haze of heat, felt powerful, as though the prime minister was rising at his back, surrounding him, enveloping him. He didn’t need to restore the fog.

Jiang Wei spread his arms and called on the wind, blasting away the remnants of the fog and sending it hurtling northward up the canyon and through the Xiagu Pass. The gale was so strong that he could see the tiny figures of soldiers turn to face him, and in the back a rider madly wheeling about on his horse. Sima Yi.

The Wei tactician laid eyes on him, the figure on the overlook, and then turned, shouting and waving to fall back. A roar rose up from Yang Yi’s men as the Wei army fell in after its commander.

Jiang Wei wanted to smile, but he was burning, and was not certain how much of him was still standing. He needed to go back, though. He had promised Zhuge Liang that he would continue the campaign in the north, after the Shu had rested, after they had time to mourn. Jiang Wei staggered away, not seeing, only dimly aware that he had taken a horse on the way up and that he probably should look for it.

When he came to, he found himself riding in the crowded confines of a carriage. He struggled to sit up, and peered out the window. The white banners of mourning hung from the standards of nearby soldiers, and he knew that he was with the Shu army. They had withdrawn to safety. And riding beside the carriage was Ma Yun.

His friend smiled on seeing his face and brought his horse close. “You are awake! Thank Heaven!”

“You found me?” Jiang Wei asked.

“Your soldiers went looking when your horse came back without you. They said you were feverish and rambling. Was that you up on the hill? People are going to be talking for years about how a living Sima Yi ran from a dead Zhuge Liang.” Ma Yun chuckled. “I didn’t think you were going to take it seriously when I suggested putting up a wooden figure. Or did you yourself dress up as the prime minister?”

Jiang Wei looked away. “What do you think?”

Still, he was glad to see Ma Yun, to know that his dearest friend had survived.

“Probably you,” said Ma Yun, “but I’ll tell everyone that it was a wooden statue. It makes for a better story. But tell me, how did we get that wind and fog? I thought only the prime minister could call that.”

There were supposed to be no secrets between them, but Jiang Wei had never been entirely upfront with Ma Yun. He could not help wondering what his friend had been like as a woman, what made him want to live as a man, but he never asked. He sensed Ma Yun would not appreciate the intrusion, and Jiang Wei valued him too much to risk it.

So, he could not tell Ma Yun this either. At least his friend was alive. Jiang Wei wanted to believe he had saved him.

“That wasn’t me,” he said. “It was the prime minister’s final gift.”