Sinister, Part Six

At that very moment, Jin Ling, still unconscious, suddenly sat up.

In front of them both, eyes still shut, he staggered up from the ground. Wei Wuxian, wanting to see what he meant to do, kept still — and watched as Jin Ling slowly skirted around him, lifted one leg, stepped back into the wall, and stood once more in the very spot from which he had just been dug, his hands lying flat at his sides, his posture identical to before, down to the last detail.

Wei Wuxian hauled him back out of the wall, torn between amusement and unease, and was just about to tell Lan Wangji that this was no place to linger when a burst of furious barking from somewhere far off startled him into a flinch. The black-maned spirit-hound had, ever since they went in, sat obediently at the cave mouth wagging its tail, waiting anxious and pitiful for them to bring its master out, not letting out a single stray bark — yet now it was howling more savagely than at any moment before.

Lan Wangji said, 'Something is wrong outside the fort.'

He reached out to help Jin Ling up, but Wei Wuxian got there first, hoisting the boy onto his back. 'Let's go and see!'

The two of them raced back the way they had come, and the moment they ducked out of the cave mouth they saw the black-maned spirit-hound with its back to them, facing one direction, a low growl rumbling from the bottom of its throat. Wei Wuxian had steeled himself to come this far, but that sound was the one thing he could not bear, and he backed away several steps in spite of himself — just as the dog whipped its head around, saw him with Jin Ling on his back, and came bounding straight at them. Wei Wuxian let out a wretched yelp and was on the verge of flinging Jin Ling away when Lan Wangji crossed over in a single stride to plant himself between them.

The black-maned spirit-hound braked at once and tucked its tail again; the only reason it did not loll out its tongue was that it had something clamped in its mouth. Lan Wangji walked up, bent down, and worked a scrap of cloth from between its teeth, then came back and held it out for Wei Wuxian to see — it seemed to be a piece of someone's lapel. Someone must have prowled or spied nearby just now, at least one person, and a suspicious one at that, or the black-maned spirit-hound's barking would not have been so full of hostility. Wei Wuxian said, 'Whoever it was hasn't gone far. After them!'

But Lan Wangji said, 'No need. I know who it is.'

Wei Wuxian said, 'So do I. Whoever spread the rumors on Wayfarer's Ridge, loosed the Walking Corpse, set the maze, raised the Stone Fortress — it has to be the same lot. The sabers too. But if we don't catch them in the act now, catching them later will be a headache.'

Lan Wangji said, 'I'll go after them. You and Jin Ling?'

Wei Wuxian said, 'I'll take him down Wayfarer's Ridge and settle somewhere back in Qinghe Town — that place where we met the physician earlier. We'll meet there.'

The exchange was rushed; Lan Wangji had paused only a moment when Wei Wuxian added, 'Go on, any later and they'll be gone without a trace. I'll come!'

At those words — 'I'll come' — Lan Wangji gave him a long, deep look, said nothing more, and turned to leave. The black-maned spirit-hound made to lunge again at once, and Wei Wuxian cried out in a panic, 'Wait wait wait wait! Take the dog! Take the dog away!!!'

Lan Wangji had no choice but to double back, looking down at the black-maned spirit-hound from above; it dared not defy him, and fell in whimpering at his heels to follow him off, glancing back now and then at Jin Ling. Wei Wuxian wiped the sweat from his brow, looked back once at that bone-white cluster of stone forts, shouldered Jin Ling again, and headed down Wayfarer's Ridge alone.

By now it was nearing dusk; he carried an unconscious youth on his back, both of them caked in dirt and a sorry sight, drawing one stare after another from passersby. Wei Wuxian returned to the very street where Jin Ling had set his dog on him by daylight, found an inn, and with the money he had fished off Lan Wangji bought two sets of new clothes and took a room. He first stripped off the Sparks Amidst Snow Family Crest Robe that had been buried in the earth and gone all wrinkled, then tugged off the boy's boots — and abruptly his hands stilled.

There seemed to be a shadow over Jin Ling's calf. Wei Wuxian crouched and rolled the trouser leg high, and found it was no shadow but a patch of black bruising — and not the bruising of any ordinary injury, but the Curse Mark.

The Curse Mark was a brand the Evil Spirits set upon their prey; once it appeared, it meant the person had crossed something monstrous beyond measure. Having left its mark, it would surely come back for you — perhaps after a long while, perhaps this very night. At the least it would take the marked limb; at the worst, simply your life.

Jin Ling's whole leg had gone black, the bruise still creeping upward. Wei Wuxian had never seen a Curse Mark so deep in color or spread so wide; the longer he looked, the graver his face became. He let the trouser leg fall, undid Jin Ling's inner robe, and seeing his chest and belly still clean and unmarked, the Curse Mark not yet reaching there, he let out a breath of relief at last.

And at that moment, Jin Ling opened his eyes.

He lay dazed for a good while; then, his body bare and chilled on every side by the cold draft, he came sharply to his senses, scrambled up in a single roll, and roared, his face flushing crimson, 'Wha— wha— what are you doing!'

Wei Wuxian said with a grin, 'Well now, you're awake.'

As though gripped by some enormous fright, Jin Ling pulled the inner robe shut and shrank toward the corner of the bed. 'What do you want! Where are my clothes?! Where's my sword?! Where's my dog?!'

Wei Wuxian said, 'I was just about to dress you.'

His look and tone were as kindly as some old grandmother bundling a little grandson against the cold. Jin Ling, hair loose and wild, pressed himself to the wall. 'I'm not a cut-sleeve!!!'

Wei Wuxian said in delight, 'What a coincidence — I am!!!'

Jin Ling snatched up his sword from beside the bed, with all the fierce, chaste resolve of one who would kill the man at his next step forward and then himself to keep his honor clean. It was all Wei Wuxian could do to stop laughing; clutching his belly, he said, 'What are you so afraid of, it was only a joke! I dug you out of that wall with all my sweat and toil, and you don't even say thanks.'

Even in the thick of it Jin Ling raised a hand and raked it through his tangled hair, smoothing it into something more presentable, and snarled, 'If not for that, you— you— you'd dare strip my clothes off — I— I— I'd have killed you ten thousand times over already!'

Wei Wuxian said, 'Don't. Dying once is misery enough. All right, all right, put the sword down.'

In his muddle, Jin Ling did as told and put the sword down.

During the Spirit Inquiry, though his living soul had left his body and he remembered everything only dimly, he knew in a hazy way that it was the man before him who had dug him free and carried him all the way down the mountain on his back. For a stretch after being buried in the wall he had still been conscious, his heart sunk in terror and despair past all bearing — and yet the one to break through that wall, to break through that terror and despair, had turned out to be this very man he had loathed at first sight. His face went white, then red, dizzy and mortified, his thoughts still drifting and finding no solid ground, when all at once he glimpsed through the window that the sky had darkened, sparse stars pricking through, and started in alarm. Just as Wei Wuxian bent to gather the new clothes scattered on the floor, Jin Ling sprang down from the bed, pulled on his boots, snatched up his outer robe, and bolted from the room.

Wei Wuxian had assumed that after suffering so badly the boy would be listless for a good while, never guessing that the young are sheer vigor itself, sprightly again in the blink of an eye and gone like a gust of wind. Remembering the far from trivial Curse Mark on his leg, he shouted in haste, 'What are you running for! Come back!'

Pulling the muddy, crumpled Family Crest Robe over himself as he ran, Jin Ling shouted back, 'Don't you come after me!' Nimble of build and long of leg, he cleared the stairs in two or three bounds and shot out of the inn. Wei Wuxian gave chase down street after street, only to lose him without a trace.

After searching a while, with twilight come down and the people on the streets thinning out, Wei Wuxian's teeth itched with vexation. 'The nerve. This child, the absolute nerve of him!'

At his wits' end, just as he was about to give up, the irritated voice of a young man carried from the far end of the long street ahead: 'A few words from me and you run off without a trace — are you some pampered young miss? Your temper's getting worse by the day!'

Jiang Cheng!

Wei Wuxian ducked hurriedly into an alley. An instant later Jin Ling's voice rose too: 'Haven't I come back safe and sound? Stop nagging me!'

So Jin Ling had not come to Qinghe Town alone. No wonder — last time, at Mount Dafan, Jiang Cheng had backed him up, so why would he stay away this time? Only, by the look of it, the two of them, uncle and nephew, had quarreled in Qinghe Town, and that was why Jin Ling had gone up Wayfarer's Ridge by himself. His frantic dash just now must have come of Jiang Cheng threatening him with a thrashing, or some such, if he wasn't back before dark.

Jiang Cheng said, 'Safe and sound? You look like you've rolled in a mud ditch and you call that safe and sound? Have you no shame, going about in your sect uniform — get back and change at once! Now talk: what did you run into today?'

Jin Ling said impatiently, 'I told you, I didn't run into anything. I took a tumble, a wasted trip. Ow!' He yelped. 'Don't yank me like that! I'm not three years old!'

Jiang Cheng said sharply, 'So I can't keep you in hand, is that it! I'm telling you, even at thirty I could still yank you about. Next time you dare go wandering off alone without a word, it'll be the whip!'

Jin Ling said, 'It's exactly because I don't want help and don't want minding that I went alone.'

Wei Wuxian thought, 'Whatever else, Jiang Cheng's charge that he's got the temper of a pampered young miss — that's spot on.'

Jiang Cheng said, 'So what now? Catch anything? And where's that black-maned spirit-hound your uncle gave you?'

Chased off by Lan Zhan to who knew what corner. No sooner had Wei Wuxian thought it than, from the other end of the alley, came two familiar barks.

Wei Wuxian's face changed in an instant; his legs moved of their own accord, and he shot out like a poisoned arrow with something at its tail. The black-maned spirit-hound came racing from the other end of the alley, swept past Wei Wuxian, and bounded up to Jin Ling's legs, brushing him affectionately with its tail.

If the dog had turned up here, it meant Lan Wangji had most likely already caught the one who had been spying near the stone fort and gone on to their appointed meeting place. But just now Wei Wuxian had no leisure to think on any of that.

That dash of his had carried him right out in front of Jiang Cheng and Jin Ling — and a great crowd of Jiang disciples besides.

The two sides held in a standoff for a moment, and then Wei Wuxian silently turned and fled.

He had not gone many steps when a crackle of electricity sounded, and a length of purple current snaked up his calf like a venomous serpent. A numbing, tingling ache and itch flooded through him from the legs up, and then he was jerked backward and went straight down. Next his chest tightened as someone hauled him up by the back of his collar. With lightning reflexes Wei Wuxian reached for the Spirit-Locking Pouch, only to have it snatched away a step ahead of him.

Jiang Cheng dragged him along, walked a few steps to the nearest shopfront, and kicked open the door panels that had already been half put up.

The shopkeeper, near to closing for the night, suddenly saw a handsome young man in fine rich dress and with no friendly look about him kick the door open and stride in, a person held in one hand, for all the world as though he meant to slit the man open then and there in the middle of the shop; he was too frightened to make a sound. One of the disciples came forward, said a few low words, and pressed silver into his palm, and he hurried off into the back room and did not come out again. No order was needed: in moments several Yunmeng Jiang Clan disciples scattered out and ringed the shop tight, inside and out, leaving not a gap.

Jin Ling stood off to the side, his eyes full of words he held back and a wavering, suspicious unease. Jiang Cheng said to him viciously, 'I'll deal with you later. Stay right here!'

For as long as he could remember, Jin Ling had never seen such a look on Jiang Cheng's face. This uncle of his, who though still young already held sole command of the great cultivation house Yunmeng Jiang Clan, was cold and grim the year round, sparing neither mercy nor goodwill in anything he said. But now, though he was straining to suppress every needless flicker of expression, his eyes were frighteningly bright.

That face, forever written over with arrogance and scorn, forever overcast, seemed now to sharpen in its every part, so that one could scarcely tell whether it was teeth gritted in fury, hatred sunk to the marrow, or sheer wild joy.