Tea for Two

A short story set in a world I base loosly on ancient China. I love the imagery, and texture of the Chinese culture and would love to pass that on through the stories that I set in that land.

Tea Poured for Two

 

            The small room above the carpet seller’s shop seemed to stand still as the young lady silently poured the tea.  Her dark black, glassy hair grew unevenly around the scar that marred her otherwise perfect doll face.  Her one good eye never strayed far from the task she had been given, even though it was uncommon for the old man to entertain visitors like this one.  The visitor’s bright red hair, which marked him as one of the northern Bucka-reed, was close cropped, except for a thin braid decorated with small bones, beads and jewels.  His skin was much paler than hers although it wasn’t that different from the old man, who rarely went out of doors during daylight hours.  Twin long-shafted hand axes, the traditional fraanccii of the northern tribes, were slung crossed on his back, adding a threatening quality to his otherwise respectful countenance. 

            Smoke gently floating from censures around the room seemed to pause, curling as the tea was poured into the small cups.  Stray beams of sunlight, somehow finding their way through the heavy cloths hung around the room, catching and highlighting the wisps of smoke curling through the air.  The noises of the commotions of the people outside on the crowded streets in the market district of Raan’ Tamar, the bustling capital of the GauxQua kingdom, faded for the moment as the last drop of tea fills the visitor’s cup. 

            The old man shook slightly as the moment passed and looked up at the young woman setting the tea pot back onto the tray.  “You may go now, granddaughter.  This man and I have some old business to discuss and much of it would tire young ears like yours.   Make yourself comfortable outside in the hall and wait for me there.”

            The girl inclined her head slightly towards the old man and turning quickly left the room.  Both men wait silently until she had left and then took their cups and sipped the tea.  The old man looked at the visitor silently as he set down his cup, folding his hands in his lap.  The visitor, while taking small sips of the tea, looked around at the small room he had been brought to when he asked to see the old man.  The cloths blocking most of the afternoon sun out were predominately red and orange, with a few golden embroideries accenting the otherwise plain hangings.  The few pieces of furniture where worn with age but carefully cleaned and maintained.

            Finally, the visitor set his cup down and broke the silence, “I will give you a chance to return on your own, old one.”  He spoke slowly and with great reverence.  With his head inclined to show deference, he waited for the old man to reply.

            The old man also looked around at the room.  His eyes took in the familiar surroundings and then settled on his visitor, “Have I done anything wrong, desesnda?  I take in the ones that you would throw away, keep them safe and give them a life.  Why should I leave this place that has become my home?”

            The visitor looked up at the old man, “I did not come here to discuss this with you, old one.  You must leave for your own lands.”

            “But I am old and the journey could kill me.  Surely you could just tell the ones that you report to that I was gone when you got here.  I will leave for another city as soon as it can be arranged; you have my honor, desesnda.”

            “I would take your honor and your word, if it were only up to me.  But you break the rules by being here, you must leave.”  The patience in his voice was now wearing thin.  “I know the girl is one of your five douanji, old man.  Surrender them now and leave this realm.”

            The old man looked hard at his visitor, “You have made your choice then, hunter.  Suffer your lessons well.”

            As he said the last words, blackness flowed out of the pupils of his eyes, staining the whites of his eyes until they were as black as the Ugaana pools deep in the caves of the Guoul Mountains. He slowly spread his arms wide, fingers outstretched as he rolled his head back, and a low moan coming from his half open mouth.  The cloths hanging about the room started to flutter and weave in a breeze the visitor could not feel.

Suddenly the roof of the room exploded upwards as the old man stood to his full height, towering over the other man.  The hanging cloths now wove and danced around the old man like a living flame.  Five coils of inky black smoke snake out of his back and flow down into the ruined building.

By this time, the visitor was on his feet and had his two fraanccii out and was standing in a ready stance.  Looking down to the street, he picks out three figures running towards the store.  “Find the five douanji.  I’ll keep him busy until then,” he shouted down at them before turning his full attention to the thing glaring down at him.

“Fine then, mortal desesnda, banish me if you can but I will feast on your blood before the damned sun sleeps,” the towering creature roared at him.

Keeping his fraanccii crossed in front of him, the visitor slowly circled to his left, moving carefully to avoid the debris scattered in the room.  As the creature swipes at him with claw-like fingers extended, he ducks under the razor sharp fingernails and spins past the creatures body slashing with the twin axes.  Black smoke curls out of the cuts on the daemon’s side, rolling around its body and mixing with the cords flowing from its back.  As the smoke joins the cuts on its side seal up and heal completely.

The daemon throws his head back laughing a laugh that sounds more like the rasp of steel across bone.  “We can play this game all day if you like, desesnda, and when the sun sleeps, I will suck sweet marrow from your bones and revel in your undying screams.”

Below, the visitor’s three companions had made it to the shop’s door.  Bursting through the door they see a room piled high on all sides with rolled carpets and rugs of all sizes.  A movement in one dark corner caught their attention and the largest of the three motioned the others to spread out.  The one woman of the group, grasping her naginata, a spear like weapon tipped with a two foot curved blade, moved left watching the shadows in the dim room.  The smaller man, his short bow drawn to his cheek, scanned the room, taking a few slow steps to his right staying near the middle of the open space in the room.  The last, a large man with a large kimshoon, a large hand-and-a-half sword with a wide curved blade for slashing, moved towards the movement in the shadows.

A small figure crouched over a form bent back over a pile of rugs.  As he turned to look at the three interlopers, blood ran down from his mouth and chin.  The body on the rugs had been bent back and its throat ripped out.  Pure black eyes stared malevolently at the three, and then moved the body back with his one good arm.  The other arm lay across his chest shriveled up and useless.  A thick chord of black smoke moved across his body, caressing him as he hissed a wordless warning to the three.

Without waiting for his companions to act the archer let fly with an arrow and had another drawn as the first embedded itself into the man-creatures neck.  The creature launched itself towards the advancing swordsman, arms held out stiffly as it flew towards his throat.  The big man moved easily to the side as the woman’s naginata impaled the creature in midair.  With a wide sweeping slash, the swordsman severed the creature’s head, which rolled across the room and melted into a pool of black water.  The impaled body continued to twitch and writhe on the end of the naginata as she lowered the end down to the floor.

“If you could get this thing off my naginata, we can get on with this business, Siansie,” she said after she had tried to pull her spear out of the headless body.

The swordsman laughed gruffly as he reached down and pulled the body free of the blade.  “Getting impatient, my little plum cake?” he asked.

“I’ll be your ‘little plum cake’ when the Tien Lung makes you his bride.  Until then use my name you oaf, and try to keep the worse of the mess off of me next time.”  She grimaced as she wiped some of the dark blood that had splattered on her when he decapitated the creature from her face.

“Sure, Sutekko, so until the golden one decides to marry me, I will continue to plague you.  So where do we hunt next, Narrah.” 

The archer glanced at the other two and pointed with the still drawn arrow.  “That doorway should lead to the upper level and any back rooms the douanji would be hiding in.”

In the ruined room above the rug sellers shop the two opponents circled warily, A scream more felt then heard echoed from the daemon as one of the five smoky rahgish lashed free and wrapped around him, pinning him in place for a moment.  The stocky Bucka-reed warrior took advantage of the momentary advantage and rushed straight at the daemon screaming a battle cry as he charged.  As he neared the giant creature, he drew into himself, launched upwards somersaulting towards its head, and then planted both his fraanccii into the creature’s neck as he continued to swing over the top of its head, ripping chunks of flesh out of its neck. 

The creature roared in anger as it regained use of its body and swung around, backhanding the desesnda and sending him flying, off balance, into the low table and cushions they had been sitting on just minutes before.  The gaping wounds on its neck spewed dark black blood and smoke; slowly they began to close but not before the daemon’s chest was stained with its own blood.

The daemon reached out to grasp its opponent, who barely managed to stay free by batting away the hand with his axes and rolling across the rubble strewn room.  He had hardly made it to his feet when the daemon smashed a fist down at him, shaking the building and knocking the warrior off balance again.  Rolling across a clear spot in the floor the warrior slashed the creature’s ankles and then come to his feet in one fluid motion. 

Both opponents began circling again looking for an opening; while below the other three desesnda, daemon hunters in the old tongue, continued searching for the daemon’s mortal douanji.

Siansie led the way down the stairs, followed by Narrah with his bow still drawn.  Sutekko brought up the rear, watching behind them as the descended into the shop’s basement.  The stairwell opened into a large open room, empty now except for the lone form sitting in the middle of the floor.  She sits with her legs folded and her hands, palms up, resting lightly on her knees.  Her eyes are open wide and staring straight ahead into empty space; the irises and whites have turned completely black like the other douanji in the room above.  Small glowing lights seem dance in the air above her open palms; when the three enter the room, they burst fully into flame and roar towards the trio, growing as they speed across the room. 

Narrah speaks one word as he looses his arrow and the arrow leaps from the bowstring, splitting in two and colliding with the two flaming balls.  In an explosion with no light or sound, just a sudden blast of air, the fire balls and arrows disappear, leaving the room shrouded in darkness.  Another softly spoken word, the sound of the bowstring releasing and then light floods the room from an arrow shot into one of the beams in the roof above.

The bright light from the enchanted arrow showed the girl still sitting in the same position, now with black wisps of smoke encircling her form.  Within seconds, wisps of smoke begin to seep out of the floor, twisting and holding around their ankles and claves.  Narrah looses a third arrow at the seated douanji, just to have it absorbed by the inky smoke surrounding her.  He quickly begins chanting while he looses arrow after arrow at her.  As he chants the wisps of smoke holding their feet loosen their grip, spreading about the floor like snakes looking for prey.  Siansie and Sutekko run forward weapons ready towards the figure.

Siansie swings his sword down through the douanji, who doesn’t move or blink as the big man slashes.  His sword passes cleanly through the woman, clanging loudly on the stone floor beneath her.  The sword’s edge seemed to have no more affect on her than on the smoke surrounding her.  Swearing loudly, he slashes again and again at the seated form. 

“Get out of the way!” Sutekko yells at him as she pulls back her naginata.  As she throws the spear, it turns into a bolt of lightning, piercing both the smoke and douanji.  The seated figures eyes blink as the spear materializes through her body.  The smoke around her dissipates as she begins to cough up big gouts of thick black blood.  Narrah’s last two arrows sink into her throat and chest as Siansie swings one last time, burying his sword through her collar bone and well into her chest.

The douanji’s body turned to ash as the three watch, a few final wisps of smoke slithering across the room and then all is still.  Arranged neatly around the pile of ash are nine of Narrah’s arrows returned from wherever the smoke had taken them to.   As Narrah began to gather them up, the three heard a low stomping, getting louder from the other side of a door set in the opposite wall.

As soon as the three had turned towards the noise the thin door bursts out towards them in a splintering shower of wood.  A lumbering giant of a man burst into the room with a wordless howl of rage.  His body looked like it had been put together out of soft clay by someone with only a rudimentary grasp of human anatomy.  His arms were heavily muscled but way too ling for his body; his hands were very large but almost unusable because many of the fingers were fused together forming large clods of flesh.  His face was a mask of melted flesh, only one completely black eye was visible under his bulging forehead, and his nose was a twisted lump set off the center of his face.

The douanji stopped for a brief moment before rushing towards Sutekko, who happened to be the closest of the three daemon hunters standing in the room.  Siansie rushed to help her as she frantically began blocking the furious attacks.  The douanji ignored Siansie’s attacks on his back as he pushed Sutekko towards the wall.  Sutekko blocked and parried as much as she was able to, but the attacks came too fast and too strong for her to deflect all of them and soon one of the douanji’s fists makes solid contact against her ribs and she falls to the ground, rolling to stay away from the blows raining down upon her. 

Siansie takes advantage of Sutekko’s being on the ground and steps over her placing himself directly in the path of the furious blows.  He swings his kimshoon around in a tight arc, slashing the wide, sharp edge across the throat of the raging creature.  Dark blood sprays from the open wound as the douanji focuses his attention on Siansie.  The big swordsman swats the raining blows away with the flat of his sword, slashing with the edge to push his opponent back.  A smile spreads across his face as they fight back across the room.  “Finally, a fight that I can understand,” he shouts back over his shoulder as he lashes out with a fresh attack.

His swings cut the douanji’s thick skin and break bones as he pushes it across the room, back towards the shattered door.  As the douanji weakens, Siansie’s attacks become tighter and more precise, scoring hits that slow the douanji and weaken him to the point that he stops swinging and just covers his head with his massive arms.  One last blow cuts neatly into the douanji’s midsection, severing skin and muscle as his intestines ooze out with the dark thick blood.  As he falls to the floor, his body turns from flesh to rock and then to a fine sandy dust that scatters in the rush of air behind the last swing. 

Narrah looked up from where Sutekko was laying on the ground, “I think her arm may be broken and her shoulder is definitely out of socket.  The shoulder I can fix, but her arm will take much time to heal.”

“Do what you can now, we still have two more to hunt down before the old one can be banished and I think Raal would like us to hurry as much as we can,” Siansie replied as he looked around the room for any clue where the other two douanji might be hiding.

Above the other three desesnda, Raal twisted his way across the litter filled room, barely avoiding the smashing blows of the daemon.  As the last two rahgish have disappeared from the daemon’s back, the creature had grown more reckless in his attacks.  Ignoring the minor wounds now covering its body, it presses Raal back through the wreckage of the room. 

With a shout it jumps back from the daemon hunter, gathering the remaining strips of cloth that had been hanging around the room into a swirling ball between its outstretched hands.  A shouted word in the tongue of the daemon’s homelands ignites the ball of cloth in a swirling mass of flames.  Reaching back the creature hurls the ball of flames at the winded hunter.

Raal’s eyes widen as the daemon fire rushes towards him.  Without looking, he leaps backwards and summersaults off the building onto the street below.  The fire crashes into the spot that Raal had been standing just as he cleared the edge of the building.  Splinter’s of burning wood fly out from the impact as the side of the building explodes out onto the street.

Raal lands on his feet in the middle of the deserted street both of his fraanccii crossed before him as he scans the burning building above for any sign of the daemon.  The daemon leaps out of the flaming building, onto the street in front of Raal, swatting him with one still burning arm, while he regains his balance with the other. Although Raal rolls with the backhand slap, when he gets up he has lost his hold on one of the axes and quickly switches to a single axe technique, swinging the axe in quick tight arcs in front of himself.

The daemon roared in fury as its opponent managed to stay out of his reach, weaving through the rubble strewn street.  Ghostly tongues of white fire began to twist and climb up its arms as its roars built.  Wildly powerful swings smashed abandoned carts in the street, setting the remains on fire.  The daemon roughly pushed through the rubble as Raal backs nimbly through flaming piles swing his one axe in front of him to keep the creature back.

In its haste, the daemon stumbled over a cart left by a fleeing fish vendor spilling fish across the street and forcing him to catch his balance.  Raal seized the opportunity and rolled under the creatures wildly swinging arm as it caught its balance and slashed his axe across its inner thigh.  Dark, thick blood spouted out of the fresh wound, smoking and pitting the cobbled street where it splattered.  Raal finished the roll on his feet and dashed over to his fallen axe, picking it up as he ran past it.

The daemon screamed in pain and rage, spinning around and jumping towards Raal as he picked up his dropped fraanccii.  An overhead blow crushed Raal to the ground as he barely got his axes up to protect himself.  A straight jab from the creature’s other hand shot Raal back into the side of a building where he lay, unmoving, as the creature walked towards him.

Summoning all of his strength, Raal rolled to the side and stood facing the approaching daemon.  Axes in hand, he waited as the daemon strode towards him through the rubble of the street.  Just out of striking range his steps falter as one of the last two rahgish recoils into the creature’s back.  A look of pain creases the daemon’s expression as he looks at Raal with eyes that now burn with tears.  “Gone.  They are all gone but the little one and your companions will kill her too.  You heartless b******s will die a misery beyond the mortal veil.  I will hold your beating hearts in my hand while your intestines choke the life out of you.  I will be waiting for you desesnda, mark my words well.”

The daemon opened his mouth wide and breathed the last of the smoky ropes into his lungs.  Drawing deeply on the cord, he slowly dissipated into a black inky smoke that ran along the ground finding its way into the cracks and crevices of the street.  Raal shook himself as if in a dream and turned towards the ruined rug seller’s shop.

Narrah had finally spotted the fourth douanji hiding on the top of the fence, hiding among the bamboo plants growing in the small open area behind the building.  His first two arrows had slipped past the thin form balancing on the fence.  Siansie held Sutekko gently at the doorway as they watched the douanji almost float out of the way of Narrah’s arrows. 

Narrah spoke softly as he released hi third arrow.  As it sped towards the shadowed form on the fence, it seemed to flicker in and out of place in the bright sun.  The douanji again floated to one side as the arrow sped towards him, only to stop in amazement looking down at the shaft sticking out of his shoulder.  As he stared down, two other arrows found their mark in his chest.  A look of sad disbelief crossed his face as he looked up at Narrah and faded into a wisp of fleeting smoke.

“We had better find the last one quickly,” Siansie growled, “that explosion nearly knocked the building down and Raal will need our help now.” 

“She’ll be near him, wherever he is,” Sutekko said between clenched teeth.  “Let’s look back near the stairs going to the upper level.”

Smoke filled the corridors leading to the front of the broken shop.  Beams had fallen from the ceiling leaving small gaps for the group to fight their way through.  At last they came to the remains of the stairs, to find them blocked with the rubble from the rooms above.  A quiet sobbing alerted them to the girls hiding place in the front of the shop, where they had entered just a few moments earlier. 

There hiding near the broken doorway huddled the small girl who had poured the tea.  Her hair lay matted with dirt and she looked at the three sadly with tears streaming down he cheeks.  Narrah stopped at the doorway into the front room, unable to draw his bow to kill the young girl.  Siansie set Sutekko down against the counter and drew his kimshoon from the sheath on his back. 

With a fierce cry, he rushes across the room, sword raised to end the last douanji’s life. His sword streaked silver through the smoke filled air and hit solidly into Raal’s upraised arm, shielding the last of the douanji from Siansie’s sword.

“I think we’ll let this one live,” Raal said through clenched teeth “her master has fled this world and we just might need some karma after this days bloody work.”

 

 

 

Author's Note

This isn't really a final copy. I want to take out some of the "magic" make it seem more "real" not so fake, but this is a start.