Chapter 120 — Seven-Mile Vale

The mountain path was narrow and wound twisting, and from the hard stone walls on either side jagged rocks thrust out without warning—one careless step and a man would crack his skull against them.

Around the rock faces water dripped ceaselessly in many places, pooling wherever it fell most thickly into small, still basins. In the dim, sunken spots above and below, green moss had taken hold, filling the air with a faint, damp, cool-smelling breath.

Ming Li and Xiaobai twisted and turned through seven bends and eight crooks, and only after no small effort did they finally emerge from that mountain passage whose age no man could reckon, and see the light of day once more.

That day the sun had only just risen, and after the gray gloom of the past several days the weather seemed remarkably clear.

Stepping out from the dark passage, they were struck full in the face by the sunlight, and both Ming Li and Xiaobai could not help narrowing their eyes, feeling as though the light pouring down from the sky bore a fair halo of rings that settled upon them.

After a moment, when their eyes had grown used to it, the bustling noise from somewhere ahead began to reach them.

The two looked forward, and all at once the world opened wide: ringed round by ranges of mountains lay a broad, flat, fertile stretch of land spread out before them.

Houses rose one after another, one upon the next, rich in the flavor of the Miao people, some built against the slopes and some clustered close together. A clear brook, rising in the deep mountains ahead, wound its way through this land that seemed a paradise cut off from the world. Many of the Miao dwellings stood upon its banks.

And upon the water, seen from afar, the Miao had built three bridges, no two of them alike. The first was of wood, the crudest of all: two great logs lashed together and laid across from bank to bank—that was a bridge.

The other two were both stone, and each had a character of its own. One was built of great blocks of stone, rough and solid, laid flat across the narrow stream with heavy slabs set over them—just the simple, practical way of bridge-building here in the southern borderlands.

But the last stone bridge was made of small stones, and had no piers at all. It was an arch, every stone fitted tight to the next, spanning the air and leaping the stream, and in its look it was entirely the manner of the Central Plains. That such a thing should appear in this place was passing strange.

Ming Li took it all in, and something stirred in his heart, though he let nothing show on his face. He and Xiaobai walked on, and the crowds grew denser, the bustle livelier. All around them was mostly the native speech of the Miao, and to Ming Li's ear it was a jabber of sounds from which he could not make out a single word in half a day.

Xiaobai walked at his side, glancing about. Many of the Miao they passed looked their way, and seeing unfamiliar faces, looked a few times more—though there was no particular hostility in it. After a few steps she said to Ming Li in a low voice, "It seems these southern borderlands have grown much more peaceful over the years."

Ming Li was taken aback, not following her. "What do you mean?"

Xiaobai said, "When I came to this place in those days, the ordinary Miao looked on outsiders as though facing a great enemy, their eyes full of vigilance and suspicion. In those years the strife among the Five Tribes was fierce and cruel, and quarrels among the clans broke out without cease. If an outsider dared come to Seven-Mile Vale without some means of defending himself, he was more likely than not to meet a bad end. But from the look of things today, these past years must have seen far less fighting."

Ming Li nodded slightly and looked around. By now they were walking among the Miao. The broad road ran along one side of the stream—on one hand the closely packed dwellings of the Miao, on the other the clear water, with rows of green trees along the bank.

At a glance, the Miao houses were mostly built of timber, their style utterly unlike that of the Central Plains: square and four-cornered, plain and unadorned, and upon the corners of the roofs, the front doors, and the edges of the walls hung the bones of fierce beasts—the more savage the animal the more commonly they were seen. This, he supposed, must be Miao custom, a way of displaying the courage of the household.

Along both sides of the road the Miao had set out stalls, though what they sold was mostly the pelts and raw flesh of wild beasts; only after walking a few more steps would one see, here and there, a stall or two dealing in trinkets—small jewels and jade.

Xiaobai smiled. "The furs here are all first-rate goods, and the prices are very cheap besides. If you want any, buying a few pieces here would be a great bargain."

The corner of Ming Li's mouth twitched, but he said not a word and walked straight on. Gradually he came to the riverbank and looked down: the water was limpid beyond compare, and standing on the bank one could see the stones beneath the surface, and the great fish and small darting and sporting in the stream beyond all counting.

Some way off, it seemed waterfowl swept past, flapping their wings down onto the water's face, lifting their heads to look about a time or two, then folding their wings contentedly and gliding gently over the surface.

All things under heaven and earth, in this place, were wondrously in harmony.

Xiaobai came slowly over. Little Gray, who had at some point found its way back onto her shoulder, poked its head out curiously and peered down at the stream.

"What now?" Ming Li said mildly.

Xiaobai thought for a moment. "Three hundred years have passed, after all. If that person from back then had no cultivation like ours, he is most likely long dead. We should first look for the place where that man once lived."

Ming Li nodded silently. "Where is he?"

Xiaobai smiled faintly and pointed ahead. "There."

Ming Li raised his head to look, and suddenly started. Where Xiaobai's finger pointed lay deep within the Miao settlement: a stone platform built halfway up the mountainside, standing far above the ordinary Miao dwellings.

Ming Li frowned and said in a low voice, "An altar."

Xiaobai smiled. "Just so."

Ming Li fell silent, though a faint anxiety stirred in his heart—not for any other reason than that an altar held a special meaning in these southern borderlands.

He had come to the southern frontier many times in years past. Preoccupied as he was, bent wholly on finding the mysterious Black Sorcerer Tribe, he had never paid serious heed to the customs of the south, yet certain basic things he knew.

In the far southern marches, the five tribes of Zhuang, Miao, Tu, Li, and Gaoshan each held their own territory; and being of different clans, they worshipped different gods and faiths. But among every one of the tribes there were places set aside for the sacrifice of gods and ancestors—altars.

Among the tribes of the southern frontier, the altar in truth held a position of the highest honor. In the eyes of most of the tribal peoples, most of the time, what the sorcerer at the altar said and what the great and mysterious gods said were in fact no different. In the old days, when the strife among the Five Tribes was at its fiercest, every war still had to be first submitted to the sorcerer at the altar, the circumstances explained to the gods, and the gods' permission—that is, the great sorcerer's own spoken consent—obtained, before a clan chief could launch a new war.

From this one may see what standing the altar and its sorcerer held here in the southern borderlands!

And these sorcerers, so far as he knew, had always seldom received outsiders.

Ming Li was silent a moment, then turned to Xiaobai. "That is the Miao altar. The man you spoke of—can he be..."