The broken world

They were taken beyond the city’s boundaries. No one bothered to blindfold him, and Gerel could clearly see where they were being led. They approached the base of one of the Three Brothers, then began to ascend. The path wound upwards to a cave, its entrance sealed by a door. That’s where they were taken. It struck him as odd — why keep prisoners far from the settlement? Surely, nomads wouldn’t be surprised with torture... One of his hands was shackled to the wall, allowing some limited movement. The dead man was restrained in the same way, seated across from him. When they’d been brought in, Gerel had barely caught glimpses of the cave in the restless flicker of torchlight. Now that their captors had left, total darkness enveloped the space, thick and impenetrable. Gerel wasn’t particularly concerned about his fate. If he were in Öelun Khatun's place, he would have keep the uninvited guests without food or water for a day or two to loosen their tongues before subjecting them to the interrogation chambers. That was likely her plan, which meant he wouldn’t be killed or maimed in the next day or so. And by then, his soldiers would attack Öelun's settlement and pull him out of this hole. But only minutes passed before the cave became unbearable. The smell. Gerel had expected the stench of confinement, the kind that lingers where people are locked away for too long. It wasn’t a thought that revolted him — he’d spent too many years in war, seen horrors far worse than the body's inevitable excrements. But this... This was something else entirely. The air reeked like a pit of rotting corpses, mingled with the scent of leprosy, drenched in shit. And, over it all, a bitter, spicy aroma drifted. He knew it all too well. The unmistakable scent of yaoguai. He tried to breathe covering his nose and mouth with his free hand like some squeamish nobleman, but it helped little. Gerel pulled at the ring in the wall that held his hand, testing its hold. It didn’t budge. It was designed to withstand resistance — perhaps even from captives much stronger than him. “Can you get us out of here?” he asked the dead man. “I could break my thumb — and yours — maybe then we’d slip free,” the dead man offered. “But the door is still locked from the outside.” For Yukinari, a shattered hand would heal within minutes. For Gerel, it would not. A broken thumb or suffocating in this wretched air? In that moment, he had no doubts. “Surely there’s something here that could help us escape. Break it.” A crack came from across the cave — the sound of bone snapping. Then quiet footsteps. Shadow, having managed to free his hand, approached him. “It will hurt, but not for long,” Yukinari said, his tone steady. For someone so painfully honest, he managed a rare lie — merciful as it was. A sharp snap — ugh... and his thumb hung useless. Gerel gritted his teeth, forcing his mangled hand through the iron cuff. Blinding pain. It didn’t work. “My index finger... break that too...” he said, his voice strained, desperate not to let it sound like a groan. While the dead man complied, Gerel tried to distract himself from the searing pain. He focused instead on another ache — lesser but constant. The gash on his cheek, courtesy of Öelun's whip, had already swollen. There would be a scar, and not a small one. But scars and a couple of broken fingers were a fair punishment for recklessness and arrogance, he supposed. It could have been worse. Much worse. Finally, with a pained cry, Gerel wrenched his disfigured hand free. His palm felt slick — perhaps with blood, though it was more likely sweat. Open fractures would have hurt far more. He found himself grateful for the darkness, sparing him the sight of his ruined fingers. He cradled his hand, whispering a fragile reassurance to himself: It’ll heal. If treated in time. “There was a torch on the wall by the entrance,” he recalled aloud. “And I’ve got a flint... somewhere. If you’ll help.” For now, all he could do was clutch his mangled hand. Yukinari fetched the torch, struck the flint, and lit it. The dim flame cast flickering shadows on the walls. The locked door offered no solutions. They could only venture deeper into the cave. “There’s someone else here,” Yukinari said suddenly, his voice sharp with clarity. As if in answer, a faint moan drifted from the shadows. By the far wall lay a yaoguai woman. Her beautiful red curls were the first thing to catch the eye — a cascade of fire which immediately revealed her supernatural origin. Hair of such length and thickness, and such vivid color, could not belong to a human. It was as if she was clothed in the flame of the Phoenix itself. Beneath ragged scraps of clothing and strands of hair, her skin was a mass of wounds. Nearby, but too far to reach, a human girl was chained to the wall by a ring — gaunt, impossibly thin, of the white blood, also with red hair but a more natural shade. But she was unmistakably dead. Flies swarmed her pale corpse. Glassy eyes stared blankly at the ceiling. Gerel knelt by the girl, startled by how her sharp features echoed his own. He reached out, gently closing her lifeless eyes. On the opposite wall slumped a yaoguai man. At first, Gerel thought he too was dead. But when Yukinari brought the torch to him, his eyes fluttered open. “R-redhead... is it you?” His voice was barely a whisper, the words muddled. His gaze was vacant, unfocused. A sudden spasm rippled through his face, as though an unseen hand had disturbed the surface of water. His features shifted — eyes smoky blue, hair chestnut. Another ripple; his face became became black-eyed again but unmistakably feminine. Then masculine again, yet unrecognizable. One more shudder, and the yaoguai’s eyes closed. Whether unconscious or dead, it was impossible to tell. The walls of the cave bore dark smears and splashes of something that could only be blood. Shackles lined the stone, each clearly meant to hold prisoners like them. In the shadows stood a table, scattered with instruments that looked vaguely surgical. Fine tools, the work of Yuigui craftsmanship — but it was clear no one here was being healed. Strangely, there were no tools for torture. No racks, no iron brands, no braziers for heating blades. That made it worse. Torture he could understand. This was something else entirely. Next to the tool table, from the ceiling, another Stranger's corpse dangled on a hook. It had no head, and Gerel assumed it was a yaoguai only because the flies avoided it. The torso had been flayed open, the flesh pinned back to reveal bones and organs. It wasn’t that Gerel was unfamiliar with death or suffering. War had shown him horrors aplenty. He’d wielded the blade himself, butchered, bled, and broken bones. And yet, something about this cave unsettled him more than anything he’d seen before. For a second, Gerel thought he had fallen into one of his dreams, where he was a boy again, small and powerless, and his mother was wounded or dying. But this wasn’t a dream. Even his fevered mind couldn’t conjure a nightmare as grotesque as this. Seeing all this and feeling the stench, mixing with the wonderful spicy smell, which since childhood meant the very essence of magic for him, was beyond his strength — he wanted to run away from here as far as possible. But there was nowhere to run. He found Yukinari's hand in the darkness and grabbed it with his good hand. Yukinari didn't object, his palm was cool, steady. Gerel clung to it like a drowning man. A faint rustling behind him snapped him back. The redhead woman was alive, conscious, and not insane. She had managed to turn to face them. Her eyes were also completely inhuman, amber, like two tongues of flame. They fixed on Gerel with unnerving clarity. “Kill me,” she said in the nomads’ tongue, her voice cutting through the gloom. “No one’s dying. I’ll free you,” Gerel replied, scanning her injuries. Her arms and legs, at least, were there. But beyond that... the dried blood coating her skin hid too much. “How? By breaking my hand too?” She tried to grin but coughed instead. “It’s pointless. You think you’re clever for escaping those shackles? That woman never comes alone.” “Öelun Khatun?” “Yes. She always brings her servant, the tribe’s shaman. He’s like me.” “A yaoguai?” “I don’t know that word. Here, they call us spirits. Or demons. Somehow, the khatun controls him. He’s strong — there’s no fighting him.” Her gaze, strangely hungry, drifted to the torch in Yukinari’s hand. “That flame... bring it closer.” Before Gerel could stop her, she reached into the fire. The torch extinguished, snuffed out by her touch. Unperturbed, Yukinari struck the flint again. The cycle repeated, over and over. Each time, the yaoguai extinguished the flame as if drinking it. “What happened here?” Gerel asked, breaking the silence. “She’s studying us,” the woman replied. “She brings here all the... yaoguai,” Redhead carefully pronounced the foreign word, “...that she finds in the steppes. She tries to understand the essence of our magic. Experiments on us, dissects our bodies. Tortures us to see what happens. Öelun wants to possess this power.” “How long have you been here?” “What season is it?” He hesitated. Forgetting the nomads’ term for the month of growth, he said simply, “The third month.” “The third... So, soon the poppies will bloom... I’d like to see that. Or the sky again...” Her voice trailed off. “I’ve been here almost two years.” Two years. Gerel remembered Jin-ho’s words: “I always thought the yaoguai were just a myth... They say that about fifteen years ago, there were quite a few of them. What happened?” Öelun had happened. A woman consumed by hate and vengeance. That’s why Jin-ho had never seen a yaoguai. Why Gerel himself hadn’t encountered one in so long that he’d nearly dismissed them as legend. “Is anyone else alive?” “No. Just me and Shapeshifter. And he’s nearly gone. Blind—” she gestured weakly toward the headless corpse—“died a week ago. Erdene... only a few days. The rest... are long gone.” “Erdene? Your daughter?” “She was.” “She was just human... Why would they need her?” “They needed me.” Torture the child to control the parent. Gerel couldn’t call Öelun Khatun a monster; he’d done the same before. He was no better than her, of course. But what she did to the Strangers was frighteningly senseless, like any madness. "...If I could explain to that madwoman how magic works, I would," Redhead said, her tone even and devoid of expression. "If I could give her my power, I’d surrender every last drop. But it’s impossible. If she would let me serve her, I’d do anything she asked — but that isn’t what she wants..." "Listen..." Gerel hesitated. What could you say to someone who’d lost everything? "You’ll get out of here." "No. There’s hardly any life left in me. And I have no reason to live without Erdene." "You’ll recover. There’s still so much ahead of you," he said, though he didn’t truly believe it himself. "You said you wanted to see the sky again. The steppe in bloom. My mother always told me there’s always hope..." "That’s because she had you." "No," he replied. "I doubt I ever gave my mother any hope. I was never any use to her. I couldn’t even help her..." Redhead’s amber eyes flared with anger. "Don’t ever say that. For us, children are born only if we truly want them." Gerel hadn’t known that. Fifteen years ago, he might have been bitter to hear it. Back then, when he was filled with hatred for the world, he might have even resented his mother for bringing him into it willingly — and then daring to die and leave him alone. But now, all he felt was sorrow, with no trace of anger. How scared she must have been. How lonely, to choose to bring him into a life as harsh as her own... "Hope..." Redhead said, her voice soft. "Hope is just another word for self-deception. Your mother was lucky she never learned what it’s like when there’s truly nothing left to hope for." "You can always hope for revenge," Gerel said thoughtlessly. He didn’t actually believe it. Long ago, he had realized the futility of trying to avenge oneself against the world. And Öelun Khatun was living proof of the terrible dead end vengeance could lead to if you didn’t know when to stop. But to his surprise, Redhead nodded. "Yes..." she said. And then, suddenly: "Fine. Break my wrist too. Free me. And let me warm my hands by that torch for a little while longer..." Her amber eyes suddenly seemed dark — impossible to read.   Two hours later, as Gerel had hoped, a battle began in the valley. The cave was close to the settlement, and the sounds of the fight carried clearly to them. Before long, they heard something else — footsteps. Someone was climbing up toward the cave. He and Yukinari returned to their places, pretending to be shackled again. The lock on the door clicked, and Öelun entered, accompanied by a long-haired man Gerel didn’t recognize. "Your soldiers attacked the village," she said coldly. "So much for your word." "You locked me up here, and you accuse me of breaking the truce?" he retorted, incredulous. This time, she didn’t bring the whip he’d already grown familiar with. She didn’t appear to carry any weapons at all, aside from a jeweled dagger sheathed at her belt, which looked more ornamental than functional. But Redhead had warned him about Öelun’s servant — the shaman... The tall man who had entered with the khatun stepped forward and pushed back his hair. Gerel caught sight of his face — and froze. Because he knew this man. Or rather — this creature. When Gerel was born, that man had already been the shaman of one of the tribes allied with the Baatar clan. Among the nomads, shamans always seemed to compete over who could look more outlandish. They wore layers of multi-colored robes like onions, rows of clay beads, masks, bells, feathers, and drums hanging from their belts. You could never tell if the figure before you was a man or a woman because apprentice shamans learned from childhood to adopt traits of the opposite gender — or to discard all signs of gender entirely, like an old, ill-fitting cloak. But the shaman of Mergen Khan’s tribe never pretended to be a woman. He didn’t wear decorations or carry a drum. He didn’t need any of it — without those trappings, it was plain to see that he was not like other men. He didn’t require special clothes; his very body was his adornment. Black-haired and dark-eyed, he wasn’t of the white blood like Gerel and his mother, but even so, he stood apart from the rest of his tribe like a mythical qilin among a herd of horses. He had enormous influence over Khan Mergen, and even Baatar respected him. Why did the nomads revere him as a great sorcerer, while they spat at Gerel’s mother, a yaoguai like him, calling her a demoness? Perhaps they believed only fair-haired Strangers were hostile to humans — Gerel couldn’t recall. Or perhaps it was simply that the shaman was clever and cunning, while his mother had never learned to stand up for herself. His name was beautiful: Naran — “Sun.” And he was beautiful too, impossibly so, like all yaoguai. Tall and slender, his features were perfectly carved, his face pale and bloodless — still and lifeless as a statue’s. His long hair always hung loose, flowing down his shoulders in a glossy black cascade that shone like liquid obsidian. And his eyes — large, slanted, framed by lashes so long they might have belonged to a girl. Eyes utterly inhuman. The same eyes now fixed on Gerel, calm and mocking, studying him as if he were some insect. The face was unchanged too, unnaturally beautiful and young. A quarter of a century had passed — and Naran hadn’t aged a day.