Sha Yan Shi and the Mandate of Heaven
“I don’t understand! Are you a coward? Does the burning wrath of my love terrify you so?”
“Sha Yan Shi, wait… look… Ow, damn it!” In her anger, the catgirl lashed out at the Solar with her wooden sword. The bokken came down hard on his shoulder; such was the wielder’s fury that it would have crippled his arm were he not twice-schooled in the Ox-Body Technique. Nameless Ravine contemplated invoking the Heavenly Guardian Defense, but The Promise growled when his hand touched it. The blade’s message was clear: “I was meant for mighty deeds. Leave me out of this.”
So he took the blow on his shoulder; his travelling garb did nothing to dull the impact. His caste mark flared in anger, and he grabbed the catgirl’s arm and threw her to the ground in a wrestling hold. There she lay, pinned and engangled, her tail twitching with newfound delight.
“Mmrowww, so you want to play after all.” The solar blushed and rolled to his feet. “No, Sha Yan Shi. I am not interested in ‘playing’. We’re here for a very important reason. We are servants of the Mandate of Heaven. We are here to…”
She had heard this speech before, and she interrupted “…to ascertain the movements and actions of the Mask of Winters’ spies and servants. You’ve said this before. But what’s the point? If you kill his servants, he’ll just send more. I’m tired of these mouse-games. What do they have to do with us, anyway?”
He snarled, and his caste mark burned on his forehead. “First of all, Sha Yan Shi, there is no ‘us’. Second, it is through constant vigilance that we show the Mask that his defiance is useless, and that he will pay a terrible price for meddling in the affairs of Creation. I am a Chosen of the Sun. Deeds like this are my birthright and my debt to heaven. And as for you, you can either assist me in this, or you can go back where you came from.”
“You are a coward, then.” She sniffed the air defiantly, and bounded down the hill away from the camp.
Shai Mei watched the whole thing from the supply cart; when she saw the utterly confounded look on Nameless Ravine’s face, she couldn’t contain her laugh. He cast her a baleful look, and she gave him a snappy salute in return and ducked behind the cart.
Storming out of camp towards the plains, Sha Yan Shi spied a familiar figure on watch. “You, Monk.”
Soho bowed. “How may I be of service, blood-of-Luna?”
“You’ve read his musty scriptures, right?”
“They’re a little naive and overzealous in places, but I found them quite refreshing on the whole. If you’re really looking for musty scriptures, I’d happily recommend…”
“Nevermind that. I just want to know why he’s so obsessed with this whole ‘Mandate of Heaven’ thing.”
“Well then, child…”
“I am no child! I am a warrior of my people! I’ve vanquished…”
“Yes, yes, I know. Well then, milady, consider this. You grew up among the Chosen of Luna, did you not?”
“Yeah, my mother Sha Mo Hou, and Unfettered Moon, and Deadly Mountain Rat and Nu Mou Tsuru”.
“And you remember their strength, and their cunning, and their wisdom?”
“Of course. Unfettered Moon once wrestled a thousand Jokun single-handedly. And Deadly Mountain Rat could outfox a… well… a thousand foxes. Really clever foxes too, not the stupid kind.”
Soho nodded sagely. “And are you as clever or as mighty as they are?”
“I… erm… mrow…”
“Well?”
“No, I’m not. But I am still really mighty, AND really clever. Did I ever tell you about the time I tried to ensnare Nameless Ravine using…”
Soho cut her off. “Yes, I believe you did. That was clever indeed. But you asked me to tell you about Nameless Ravine, now didn’t you?” Sha Yan Shi plopped down on the grass to listen; even agitated as she was, she couldn’t resist a good story… especially given the subject matter.
“When Nameless Ravine grew up, he was a mortal. His father was a monk, and he was clever, but not nearly so clever as Deadly Mountain Rat. And Nameless Ravine himself practiced with a staff and a sword, and he was mighty, but not nearly so mighty as Unfettered Moon. And he grew up in a world that venerated the Dragon-Bloods. Now Dragon-Bloods like me are very mighty and very clever. Not as much as your lunar friends, but far more clever and mighty than Nameless Ravine or his father Chokhan.”
“And Nameless Ravine loved the Dragon-Bloods for their might and their cleverness; he grew up with tales of the 108 Heroic Dragons of Rivermark. But he also grew up with tales of the terrible Anathema of the First Age, whose crimes and wickedness are too numerous to list here.” Soho took a drink of water from a flask, and continued. “Now suddenly one day, Nameless Ravine wakes up to find that he has been exalted by the sun. Suddenly, overnight, his sword is mightier than any Dragon-Blood, and the words that flow from his brush are so clever that they could convince even the most stubborn of the 108 Heroes of old. Now, Nameless Ravine has a problem.”
Sha Yan Shi scratched her head. “What’s the problem? Exaltation is good, right?”
“Well, there’s lots of different kinds of Exaltation. There’s Terrestrial Exaltation – that’s what happened to me – and that’s good. Then there’s Lunar Exaltation like your family has, which I can only assume is good.” Sha Yan Shi beamed. “But there’s also Abyssal Exaltation, which is what happens if you’re a Deathknight. Deathknights are extraordinarily mighty, and just clever enough to be dangerous. They’re also deeply, terribly evil.”
“But what about Open Skies Above? I’ve heard she was an Abyssal.”
“She’s… unusual. All the Deathknights are evil, but she made the decision to turn away from evil and become good. Remember that, it’ll be important in a bit.”
“Okay, but what about Nameless Ravine?”
“Nameless Ravine was given Solar Exaltation. Now, maybe Solar exaltation is good, and maybe it’s evil. I really don’t know. But I do know that the last time the world saw Solar Exalted, it was at the closing of the First Age, a thousand years ago. At that time, the Solars were terribly evil; as bad as the Abyssals, or even worse. That’s why the Dragon-Bloods and the Immaculate Order, who overthrew the evil Solars, declared them Anathema. And Nameless Ravine grew up hearing tales of the 108 Heroic Dragons of Rivermark… and who were their foes? Their foes were the 108 Terrible Fiends of the Sun. This is the power that Nameless Ravine had when he exalted.”
“Oh, mrow, that’s… complicated. So he doesn’t know whether he’s a hero or a demon.”
“That is the root of his dilemma. So, you asked me why he is so obsessed with the Mandate of Heaven.”
“Yeah, why?”
“Because he thinks that if he performs righteous and heroic deeds, and if he models his conduct after the heroes of old, then the Dragon-Bloods will decide that he is not a demon after all. But in this Time of Tumult, how can he be sure that his deeds are fitting for a hero? He cannot ask his father for guidance, for his own station outranks that of his father. He cannot ask his mother, who vanished a long time ago. He cannot ask his sifu, for what sifu can there be for one such as him? So for guidance…”
“…he turns to the Mandate of Heaven.”
“Yes. Remember what happened to Open Skies? Nameless Ravine feels that if Heaven can redeem a wholly evil thing like a Deathknight, then surely Heaven can vindicate a Solar Knight like himself.”
“How did you learn all this?”
“It’s plain as day, in those so-called ‘musty scriptures’ you so disdained. When we get back to the Retreat, you should read his writings, and consider them carefully.”
“Hmm…” The story clearly over, Sha Yan Shi was lost in thought. She wandered away from the monk, without so much as a word of thanks for the story.
Soho, too, found himself lost in thought. At length, he frowned and shook his head. “Did I just preach a homily about the life of a young Anathema?” He smiled to himself and shrugged. “I suppose I did. Sifu V'Neef Pahul was right – their virtue is insidious.”
