Chapter 86 — King's Village

As for the southwest, there lies the great Deathmoor, whose very name turns men pale. Its climate is the very opposite of the northwestern wastes: of every ten days in the year, seven or eight bring rain, and strange plants grow thick as the hairs of an ox, rank and luxuriant. Such cold, damp places have always been the dwelling of the world's great poisons and savage beasts and venomous insects, and the marsh's peculiar poisonous vapors rise seething from the rotting mud whenever it rains. If a man breathes them in and has no proper antidote, in less than half an hour the poison strikes his heart and kills him. Beyond that, over a thousand years the rain-soaked and rotted bodies of beasts, trees, grasses and flowers have turned this place into a land of lurking peril: one careless misstep and a man is sucked down into the bottomless marsh, never to see the sun again, to die a wretched death.

Such a perilous place would ordinarily draw no one. But not long ago, word suddenly spread through the world that in the western Deathmoor a great golden pillar of light had burst upward, piercing the heavens, and burned without cease for a day and a night, so that even at midnight it lit that patch of sky bright as day. Only after three days did the golden light gradually fade, and from that time on, a vast and uncanny shrieking seemed always to come faintly from within the Deathmoor, filling those who dwelt at its edges with dread.

Once the news spread, the whole world was stirred. In the eyes of cultivators, numinous objects and divine artifacts have always possessed their own spirituality; such a great golden light must surely be the herald of some rare and wondrous treasure come into the world, summoning those whose fate it is to come. And judging by that pillar of light, the treasure's marvels were no small matter. For a time the world was shaken, and masters of both righteous and demon paths gathered in swarms.

Yet beneath that surface turmoil ran hidden currents, surging unseen.

Half a day's journey east of the Deathmoor lay a desolate, dwindling little village called King's Village, so named because its people worshipped a mysterious deity called the "Great King." Only this deity had never been very efficacious: it neither brought the villagers promotion or wealth, nor granted them abundant harvests and freedom from want.

And in truth, one need only think: living at the edge of such a Deathmoor, where now and then some monster would come bursting out of nowhere, or a venomous insect come running, and killing the livestock was the least of it—every year no small number of people died of such things. Those with any ability had long since left this cursed place for the Central Plains; those who remained were mostly folk with no spirit left in them.

But in these few days King's Village had suddenly grown lively, with cultivators of the true way coming and going. Though King's Village was not the only way into the Deathmoor, it was the nearest inhabited place to the marsh; most people came here before entering to buy dry rations and clean water, and within a few days the villagers had actually made a little money and gained a little spirit.

At the same time, because this was the nearest place to the Deathmoor, it was the villagers here who first noticed the golden pillar of light and the uncanny shrieking, and from them the word spread; and so many came here to inquire after news.

Only, once the people multiplied, there were naturally both righteous and demon among them, and within a few days this little place, King's Village, had seen more fights than anyone could count. Some unlucky fellows, before ever entering the Deathmoor, had already died here for no apparent reason—a sorry fate indeed.

Enough idle talk. On this day, Ming Li and the Wild Dog also arrived at King's Village and stood at the village entrance, where they saw people coming and going within, lively enough, quite reversing the dead and dreary look of former days.

When they reached the village, the wild dog looked this way and that, frowning and muttering something under his breath.

Xiao Hui, the monkey, had not seen so many people in days and was rather excited; perched on Ming Li's shoulder, he chirped shrilly. Ming Li patted him and glanced at the wild dog. "What are you doing?"

The wild-wolf Daoist said sourly, "I'm looking for an inn. We've walked this long—isn't it time we found somewhere to rest properly? What a godforsaken hole, not even an inn to be found!"

Ming Li said mildly, "What, did you think there'd be an inn here?"

The wild dog started. "What?"

Ming Li turned his eyes to the passersby thronging the street. Most were dressed too fine for folk who toiled for a living in Dawang Village. "Have you been here before?"

The wild dog spat. "Who'd be bored enough to come to a hellhole like this?"

Ming Li glanced at him. "Exactly. No outsiders ever come, and the villagers here have nothing to their names. What use would an inn be?"

The wild dog was struck dumb, and the look on his dog face turned several shades more miserable.

Just then, a burst of hawking came from the main street ahead. Someone was proclaiming loudly: "Foretell fifty years to come, divine three hundred years of fortune! Iron-tongued seer, brush that judges yin and yang—would you know the days ahead? Then come and have your fortune told!"

Ming Li and the wild dog both paused and looked toward the voice. At the roadside stood a battered old wooden table, and beside it a bamboo pole from which hung a canvas banner bearing four characters: "Immortal Points the Way." Next to the pole, an old man of imposing bearing was declaiming in a ringing voice—he it was who had just called out—and beside him a pretty young woman, drowsy and lovely, slumped against the table's edge with a look of helpless resignation.

These two were, needless to say, Zhou Yixuan and Xiao Wan. Zhou Yixuan had dragged Xiao Wan wandering the wide world; his skills were modest, yet he could never resist a lively crowd. Some time ago, hearing rumors of the Death Marsh, he had promptly ignored Xiao Wan's objections and hauled her off to Dawang Village.

Just now, in Zhou Yixuan's own words, his traveling funds were exhausted and the hero had come to his last road, so perforce he must tell fortunes in the street. Yet as he called out, his patter gradually changed shape: "... honored travelers, one and all, this immortal has received the true transmission of the Patriarch and can subdue the fiercest poisons under heaven. Now, within the Death Marsh the swamp gas is deadly venom; only let each of you purchase this sachet I sell, and you shall be proof against a hundred poisons, with a body incorruptible as diamond..."

Xiao Wan sighed quietly beside him. They had sat here for hours; Grandfather shouted himself hoarse, yet in truth not a single sachet had been sold. The locals believed him but could not afford his wares—Zhou Yixuan had set his prices outrageously high—while the outsiders were all cultivators of the Dao, folk of wide experience, and the look in their eyes said plainly: swindler. It was fortunate the righteous heroes were busy contending for treasures and had no time to bother with this fortune-teller; otherwise, should some hot-blooded disciple of a great master take it into his head to rid the people of a scourge, they would likely have found themselves in a fix they could not swallow.

Seeing Zhou Yixuan still calling out with undiminished vigor, Xiao Wan grew impatient and rose to her feet. She was just about to call her grandfather to stop when suddenly her vision blurred—someone had appeared before the wooden table without her noticing. A young man in pale blue robes, with fine, clear features, though his face was somehow rather pale.

"Miss, I'd like my fortune told," the young man said quietly, a faint smile at the corners of his mouth.