The broken world

“This cannot be,” Gerel whispered. “The life of a nomad is short. You should already be old...” “Beings like me don’t age, don’t die. You thought those were just old wives’ tales?” the shaman smirked. Gerel’s thoughts turned to his mother. Fragments of memories, half-forgotten suspicions, resurfaced with painful clarity. She hadn’t aged either. When she died, she was as young and beautiful as the day he was born, though malnourishment, grueling labor, and endless torment should have turned her into a crone. He’d once dismissed it as the distortion of childhood memory, dusted over by time. But there were other memories, clearer ones: men — every single one — always drawn to her, bewitched. She hadn’t just been beautiful in his eyes. Naran wasn’t lying... But the inability to succumb to age or illness wasn’t the same as immortality. “If you believe your kind can’t die, step deeper into the cave,” Gerel spat, his voice cold. “You’ll learn something new.” A shadow passed across Naran’s face. If there was anything human left in him, Gerel thought, perhaps the duty to torment and kill his own kind still troubled him. “He’s freed himself,” Öelun said sharply. “Don’t hesitate, Naran. Kill him.” “What, just like that? No preamble?” Gerel tried to joke, though his voice wavered. “I would prefer a grander death for you, but time is short.” She paused, her voice hardening. “Very well. You’ll have your preamble.” And she ordered Naran, “Find out why they came. And who his companion is — he isn’t one of your kind, but he’s... odd.” Gerel braced for the blow, but the yaoguai merely looked at him. Silent. And then he entered his mind. The sensation was unmistakable — an alien presence rummaging through his thoughts, rough and invasive. Gerel felt as if cold, calloused fingers were clawing through his brain. Naran sifted through his memories, indifferent to the pain he caused. Worse, he became the absolute master of his mind, he could make Gerel do anything now — dance, writhe in agony, gouge out his own eyes. The yaoguai flipped through the pages of Gerel’s life like an impatient reader. His mother. Childhood in Cheongju, youth in Yuigui. Tokhung’s patronage. His years in the army. Yukinari... Naran found what he was looking for and released him, withdrawing that terrible gaze. Gerel fought the nausea rising in his throat, his hands trembling uncontrollably. First, they had mutilated his face. Then, the dead man had broken his fingers. And now, this. A stellar day. He tried not to think about what would happen when Naran decided to cause deliberate pain. The yaoguai could even force his prisoners to harm themselves, he realized. That was why Öelun carried no weapons, why her captives had lost all hope. “He didn’t lie,” the shaman reported. “He didn’t come with war in his heart. But he hasn’t told the whole truth, either. He’s seeking magic. He’s looking for the Strangers.” Öelun laughed. “Great minds think alike, don’t they? But you’re too late. There are no Strangers left in the South, except for the pitiful husks dying in this cave. And there’s no magic left.” “And what exactly did you accomplish by destroying it?” Gerel rasped. He was still shaking, his stomach churning from Naran’s invasion. “At least no one else will use their power... But you’re just stalling,” Öelun said, correctly reading his intent. “Enough talk. Kill him, Naran.” Naran’s elegant fingers seized Gerel’s neck, yanking him to his knees. Gerel tried to resist, but his body betrayed him. His arms and legs refused to obey, foreign and inert. Then a sharp, iron spike seemed to pierce the back of his skull, and he screamed. He didn’t know how long it lasted — an eternity, or perhaps only a second. Suddenly, a shadow detached itself from the far wall — the dead man — and hurled itself at the shaman. Naran lost his focus, his iron grip on Gerel’s mind releasing him. Gerel fell, scrambling away on trembling limbs. His whole body shook, and he waited, helpless, for the nausea to overtake him. The shaman and the undead wrestled, rolling across the cave floor. Naran tried to wield his power against Shadow, but it failed. “What... what are you?” he demanded, his voice trembling. “You have no soul. There’s nothing there, just... a dark well...” Gathering the last reserves of his strength, Gerel pushed himself to his feet. His legs wobbled beneath him, but he forced himself to take a step toward Öelun. The khatun’s gaze was fixed on the struggle before her, bewildered by the turn of events. She hadn’t yet processed the idea that her ultimate weapon could falter. Her distraction allowed Gerel to move unnoticed, his good hand reaching for the dagger at her belt. He didn’t so much grab her as collapse onto her, his weight pinning her to the cave floor. He pressed the blade to her throat. Öelun froze, a thin line of blood trickling down her neck. “I’m going to kill your mistress, Naran,” Gerel declared, addressing the struggling pair. In truth, he wasn’t sure if this would work. If Öelun controlled the yaoguai through fear, her death might be a relief. But the fight stopped. Naran ceased his struggle, allowing the undead to pin his arms behind him. He could have retaliated, sent that iron spike back into Gerel’s mind — but he hesitated, fearing that split-second might be enough for Gerel to harm Öelun. “Forgive me, Öelun,” the yaoguai murmured. It sounded nothing like an address to a mistress. In that moment, Gerel understood. Naran wasn’t bound to Öelun by fear. Nor by hatred of Cheongju’s people. Not even vengeance drove his service. No, everything he did — torturing and killing his own kind all these years — he did out of love for her. So much for mourning your husband, Gerel nearly said, but even after all the horrors Öelun had committed, the thought felt too petty to voice. Naran’s eyes were filled with concern for her, while she gazed back at him calmly, fearlessly. To anyone else, they might have seemed a laughable couple — a beautiful, ageless yaoguai and a deranged, aging woman — but to Gerel, they were anything but. For a fleeting moment, he even felt pity for Naran. He thought: when you love someone, nothing else matters — not their madness, not the destruction they might bring. Without them, there’s nothing. And yet... no. Gerel believed — no, knew — that love should make people better. Yukinari made him better. He loved him not just for the light he brought into his life but for how he inspired Gerel to become — or at least want to become — a better man, to feel human and not some kind of freak. Love wasn’t just a feeling. It was a transformation. Perhaps Naran and Öelun had become lovers long ago, before her descent into madness. Maybe her courage, her strength had enchanted him, maybe even the flame of hatred that had burned within her. Perhaps he still saw her as the girl once was, blind to the hollow cicada shell she had become. The yaoguai’s gaze was wholly fixed on Öelun and on the dagger pressed to her neck, oblivious to the movement in the shadows behind him. He didn’t see the Redhead, freed from the ring on the wall, crawling toward him. Slowly. Stealthily. When he did notice her — it was too late. Her hand gripped his hair and his clothing, and then her hands erupted in flame, blindingly bright like a dozen torches. Naran erupted too. Shadow leaped back just in time, the fire barely grazing him. Naran struggled to free himself, but Redhead held firm. He tried to wield his mental weapons against her, but the pain broke his focus. His clothes burned, shedding smoky tatters. He flailed from wall to wall, screaming. She didn’t scream. Silent and implacable, she poured into him all the hatred that had festered during two years of captivity.   When Öelun Khatun approached Naran’s charred, blackened body, her face grew weary and old. She seemed to finally understand that there was nothing left to hope for. They emerged from the cave together. The dead man dragged resisting Öelun. Gerel carried Redhead. The fire hadn’t harmed her, though her clothes had burned away, leaving her body covered in black soot. Even without burns, she was already a mass of wounds, her body a landscape of pain. Gerel could feel it even through the cloak he’d wrapped her in; every touch seemed to cause her agony. The dead man brought Öelun Khatun to the edge of the rocky platform at the cave entrance. The platform was visible from below. Gerel blew his horn, and when the combatants looked up and saw their khatun captured — and Gerel alive — the resistance crumbled swiftly. After they brought Shapeshifter out of the cave, he died. Just before his final breath, he had regained consciousness for a moment. Opening his eyes, he saw the sky instead of the soot-darkened cave ceiling. “The sun,” he said. “The sun…” Tears ran down his cheeks. Then his eyes closed again — for the last time. His face convulsed in one final flicker of transformation. One brow remained thick, the other turned fine and pale; his hair mingled in tufts of black, red, and gold. Redhead lay nearby, also turning her face toward the sunlight, though she didn’t seem ready to die just yet.   Soldiers brought forward several young nomads dressed in finery, their hands bound behind their backs — Öelun’s sons, heirs to her ulus. Their mother sat nearby, bound as well, her eyes black with hatred as she watched Gerel. “Do you know who I am?” Gerel asked. “The whole land of the Sun Bird knows who you are, murderer,” one youth spat. He was barely past twenty. Gerel remembered Öelun’s firstborn as a red-faced infant. The boy had been born shortly before seven-year-old Gerel and his mother had been sold to Cheongju. Yet Gerel’s memory retained the child’s name: Tsagaan-taiji. “Look!” Tsagaan called to the Cheongju soldiers surrounding them. “Look who you serve — this monster! He’s not even human!” “Did you also consider the people you tortured in the cave to be less than human?” Gerel asked. “We did it to grow stronger. To protect our land from you and your kind. You’re the one to blame for their deaths!” All of them had been touched by Öelun’s madness, complicit in the torment of the Strangers. The whole tribe. Damned creatures… A dark wave of Gerel’s old hatred for the nomads rose in him. He could still see the bloody stains on the cave walls, the Shapeshifter’s face as they’d carried him into the light. “And their children?” he asked, forcing calm into his voice. Tsagaan-taiji answered immediately: “We killed them so they wouldn’t grow up to be like you.” One of Tsagaan’s younger brothers, noticing the change in Gerel’s face, added with the reckless bravado of youth: “How does it feel, knowing all your kin died in agony?” How sharp, almost painfully sweet, the sensation of a throat beneath your fingers… The boy gasped, a wave of animal fear washing over him. “Spare me!” he choked out. “I’m a Stranger’s child too — my father is the wise Naran! You and I are of the same blood!” “Did you consider those you kept in the cave your kin as well?” The boy fell silent. Perhaps he couldn’t speak with Gerel’s fingers tightening around his neck. He trembled violently. Gerel knew he must look fearsome — wolfish eyes, a twisted grin. “And how did it feel to hang your ‘kin’ on a hook—” Gerel began but faltered when his gaze met Yukinari’s. The dead man sat nearby, indifferent as always, but Gerel’s memory stirred: “I admired you because you've never been truly cruel — not beyond necessity.…” The memory struck like an unwelcome guest. Why did you say that, Yukinari? What the hell was this nonsense… It’s not true — and it never was true… he thought. Even so, Gerel withdrew his hand. He suppressed the urge to wipe it on his trousers and instead asked, almost calmly: “What other tribes are allied with Öelun?” The boy coughed, doubling over. His elder brother — Tsagaan-taiji — spoke in his stead: “The ulus of Tumur Khan and the clan of Tselmeg Khatun… They will all follow you if you show mercy. Lord, spare my brother — he spoke without thinking. He’s not even fifteen…” Redhead’s daughter wasn’t even ten, thought Gerel. The appeal to mercy only fueled his disgust. When raiding border towns, nomads never spared women or children. Öelun’s eldest son awaited Gerel’s response with hope. Gerel glanced again at Yukinari. The dead man’s face was shadowed, unreadable, but Gerel imagined the living Yukinari watching him with quiet worry. Well? What will you do? What does it matter to you? Who made you my conscience? Gerel thought bitterly but said aloud: “I’ll execute no one but your mother — she’s mad. The rest of you will swear not to break the peace with Cheongju or harm another Stranger.” The boy exhaled in relief. The brothers swore in unison not to attack the Land of the Tiger or harm any of yaoguai or their children. Gerel didn’t believe them. Foolish. So foolish. Why did I say that? These savages don’t forgive weakness. The cubs will grow into wolves… Once more, his eyes flicked to Yukinari. The dead man turned his dark gaze on Gerel, impassive as ever.   Later, reflecting, Gerel realized he no longer hated the southerners. The embers of hatred that had burned in him for years flared and died after Öelun Khatun’s cave. Yes, the nomads were savages. They knew nothing but killing and plunder. They had done him a lot of harm. They would almost certainly break their oaths. But it no longer concerned him. His mother’s boundless kindness had always seemed like weakness. But maybe he’d been wrong all along. Perhaps she had been right: what cannot be changed must be accepted. “Don’t hold on to anger; there’s too much of it in the world,” she used to say. “Let others hate — your task is to forgive. It will hurt, but the pain will pass.” To forgive… The word didn’t suit what he’d seen in Öelun Khatun’s cave. But perhaps “to accept” did.   Redhead survived. Her wounds healed with inhuman speed. Within a week, she could walk with a staff, though her face remained blank, indifferent. “What will you do now?” he asked. “If I could help you in your search, I would. But I have no answers to your questions.” “That’s fine. Just try to recover first.” They sat on the mountainside, looking down at the steppe, a sea of blooming red poppies mixed with tiny yellow and blue flowers. She had been right — the steppe in spring was beautiful. “And try not to burn these people. I made peace with them.” He meant it as a joke, but she didn’t smile.   The dream was thick, like a swamp. He stood again on the wooden pier, his boots soaked through, salt spray stinging his cheeks. The gray waves crashed against dark rocks. It was the same dream — or vision — that Master Fox had called his heart-world. But now, Gerel didn't feel at home here. He felt uneasy, as if trapped in a nightmare. In one of the nightmares that had haunted him since he was thirteen. The same sense of something watching him, rotting and vile. And the smell. Two threads of smell, now he clearly felt both: the spicy, peppery smell of yaoguai — and blood. Like in that damned cave of mad Öelun. Miracle and death always go hand in hand. He heard a rustle behind him. He could wake up now. He always did, in nightmares like this. It's not hard when you know you're dreaming, and at such moments he always knew. As usual, his body was heavy from fear — he couldn't scream, he couldn't breathe. It was almost unbearable to feel the cold of this dark figure on his back, to imagine the look of its dead eyes. He could wake up... But this time, he didn’t. Without turning around, he waited, teeth clenched. And felt cold, dead fingers on his neck. Gently running her hands over his shoulders, the shadow circled around him — the boards of the pier creaking under her steps — until he finally saw her face. He had known whose face it would be, but he had expected to see gaping black voids for eyes, lips rotting or crumbling into dust. For fifteen years, he had gathered the courage to look directly at that face — and now it was just ordinary. Exactly as he remembered it. Exactly as it had been in his childhood. His mother’s face, not the bloodied snarl of a monster. His mother smiled, resting her hands on his shoulders. Gerel stared silently into her kind blue eyes, as clear as meadow flowers. She was more beautiful than anyone in the world, his mother. For the first time, her face did not slip away, did not blur like it used to in his memories; he saw it clearly, as though under a magnifying glass. Now, she looked younger than him, no more than twenty, and still he was struck by how much her face resembled his own. His mother’s hair — those fantastic blonde locks, impossible for someone from the Middle Kingdoms — was braided. Light skin, with a faint sprinkling of freckles across the bridge of her nose. Everything she had, she gave to him, even her appearance. Her lips trembled slightly, as if she was searching for the right words and couldn't find them. Or perhaps no such words existed. He, too, had imagined this meeting dozens of times, and each time, he had been at a loss for what to say: Mother, forgive me, forgive me, I’m so sorry. I couldn’t save you. I tried to avenge you, to take revenge on the whole world for you, but I failed — and I couldn’t become the man you would have wanted me to be, either… “I miss you, Mother,” he finally said, simply. She nodded, her blue eyes filling with tears. “And I miss you, my darling.” “Will we ever meet again?” “We will. But not as we are now. Maybe I’ll become a butterfly or a pebble on a streambed — or perhaps I’ll manage to be reborn as a lush, green tree…” “I’ll recognize you, no matter what you look like. You’ll be the most beautiful tree in the forest, Mother, and birds will always sing in your branches.” She smiled, her gaze fixed on his face, as if afraid she won’t have enough time to take it all in. “Yes. But don’t rush to bring our meeting closer, Gerel. There is still work for you to do in this life.” “You know?” he asked hesitantly. “You’ve found a friend,” his mother said with a nod. “I found someone too good for this broken world… someone like you. And I lost him, just like I lost you. Worse, even — you I merely failed to save, but him… I destroyed him with my own hands.” “No,” she said firmly. “You made a mistake. A terrible, enormous mistake. And Yukinari will never be the same. Nothing will ever be the same. But all is not lost.” “He’s dead, Mother.” “There is no death,” she said sternly. “Otherwise, we wouldn’t be speaking now. There is only love. Never forget that, my darling. Love and light. And golden rye fields, mossy autumn forests, the rhythm of the ocean waves, the starry night sky, and the bloom of plum trees. Life is not a punishment, even when it feels like there’s nothing but pain and emptiness. Life is a joy, and it becomes twice the joy when you have someone to share it with. I want you to know what that’s like. Save the person you still can save.” “I don’t think I can save anyone, Mother. Look…” He gestured toward the desolate, rocky landscape around them. His eyes lingered on a dead seagull, battered by the waves as they relentlessly hurled it against the stones. “That’s my world. I’m a bad person. Truly bad. Not the person you taught me to be.” But his mother only shrugged, as if she didn’t understand what he’s talking about. “Did I teach you to complain?” she asked, shaking her head. “My, my. You were braver as a child. Try looking harder. Maybe there’s something here besides dead birds? The heart-world is always bigger than it seems at first glance. Actually, there aren’t any separate worlds at all — only doors, not walls, and you can reach any heart if you try. Look around, my darling. See the boat?” He had noticed the boat during his first visit here. It still floated near the pier, rocking gently on the water. Some water has collected inside it, but it seemed sturdy enough. And what should he do with it? Try to explore the area? But he knows with absolute certainty that beyond the last island, where the sea meets the sky, there was nothing. The world ended there. He said as much: “But there’s nothing beyond the horizon. The edge of the world.” “That’s true, in a way,” she admitted reluctantly. “But edge or not, the boat isn’t here for nothing. You need to cross this sea. You already know that, don’t you? You’ve understood everything.” “Not everything. No one has told me where the Strangers come from, or whether it’s true, as Master Fox says, that our world is just one of the cups on a tray…” “One of the… cups?” His mother stifled a laugh behind her hand, suddenly looking impossibly young, like a girl. “Is it true?” Gerel asked seriously. “What happens if we cross the Wastelands? Will we reach somewhere, or will we die on the way?” His mother’s face grew serious, too. “The Wastelands obey strange laws. Do what your instincts tell you. You know how many travelers have perished there — only sun-bleached bones remain. But you are special, my darling. You can walk between worlds. I gave you everything I had… And the Wastelands might give you the drop of strength you’ve always lacked.” He froze, breath catching. So, all her stories about countless magical lands… Everything she had, she gave to him: not just light skin, pale hair and eyes, but also… “You had magic, didn’t you? If not for me, you would never have been a prisoner in this world, would you? But why, Mother, why? You could have left at any moment… But instead…” The words came with difficulty, but he cannot keep silent. “...You chose to stay here, in this awful world, where they beat you, dragged you by the hair, raped you, trampled you under hooves… Why?” She said nothing — and now, with a bitter line at her mouth, she looked almost old compared to the youthful brightness of just a moment ago. It was foolish to ask. He knew the answer: she stayed because no mother wants her child to be alone. A shiver ran through him. He shook his head, unwilling to accept the truth. “No, Mother, I’m not like you. I’m not special. I’m just a human. When you were gone, I wanted so badly to leave this cursed world, to go anywhere… But no one took me.” “You weren’t strong enough then. But now,” she said softly, “you don’t ask for help — instead, you want to help free someone you care about. And that always makes you stronger. It changes everything…”