Chapter 136 — Soul Summoning

Within the Chamber of Cold Ice and Stone, there was only the shaman's low, ragged breathing. Hades and Mingli stood before the frail old man, their eyes fixed on his aged face. At this moment, the shaman's lingering life was the only hope the two of them had left.

When the shaman's breathing had slightly steadied, he raised his head and smiled at the two of them. Only then did Hades and Mingli relax a little. The shaman pondered for a moment, then said to Hades, "Sect Master, please find some blood. For the ghostly art of the Soul Summoning, fresh blood is best."

Mingli frowned slightly, but Hades had already nodded. "That is easily done." He turned to leave, then paused as though something had just occurred to him. He asked the shaman, "Master, this blood—should it be the blood of beasts or of men?"

The shaman was taken aback. He gave Hades a long, searching look, but answered nonetheless: "Beast blood will do, but if we speak of efficacy, human blood is best."

Hades nodded, strode to the door, and opened the stone gate. Azure Dragon and Yousi were both standing outside, and Mr. Ghost, all in black, stood a little further off. At the sight of Hades emerging so suddenly, Azure Dragon and Yousi both showed a flicker of surprise, but Hades paid them scarcely a glance. He addressed Mr. Ghost directly:

"Bring a basin of fresh human blood."

Azure Dragon and Yousi were both startled; Mr. Ghost merely nodded, turned, and left. Hades went back inside at once, leaving Azure Dragon and Yousi rooted where they stood, their faces slowly darkening.

Inside the Chamber of Cold Ice and Stone, the atmosphere had somehow turned strange. Mingli gazed silently at Bili lying there. After a long while, he turned to look at the shaman, who sat with eyes closed, conserving his strength, and then his gaze came to rest on Hades.

But Hades seemed to feel nothing at all. His expression was composed and at ease, his eyes fixed only on Bili. Now and then he glanced toward Mingli, but only in passing, never lingering for even a moment.

Two knocks sounded on the stone gate, which then slowly opened. Mr. Ghost entered bearing a bronze basin, which he set before the shaman. Then he nodded to Hades.

Hades gave a slight nod in return. Mr. Ghost said nothing more and quietly withdrew.

Dark red blood rocked gently in the bronze basin, and a thick, rank smell of blood filled the stone chamber.

The corner of Mingli's eye twitched slightly. He cast Hades a deep look, but Hades merely said to the shaman, slowly, "Master, the blood you asked for is here."

The shaman opened his eyes and looked at the basin of blood before him in silence. After a long pause, he gave a soft sigh. "Very well. Let us begin."

Bracing his strengthless body, the shaman slowly rose to his feet—but before he could even straighten, he was already swaying. Mingli stepped forward quickly and steadied him from the side.

The shaman glanced at him and gave a bitter smile, but made no further protest.

The frail old man slowly reached into his robe and fumbled about for a moment. When he drew out his hand, it held a red brush of peculiar design. The shaft was roughly as thick as a thumb and about the length of a man's palm, its butt carved in the shape of a dog's head. The red shaft, wrought of some unidentifiable material, was engraved with all manner of outlandish talismans and charms. At the very tip, a tuft of fine hairs was evenly set in place, their original color impossible to discern, for only a residue of dark red clung to them. It went without saying that whatever this brush had touched in the past had most likely been blood.

He gripped the brush and drew a deep breath.

Supported by Mingli, the shaman bent low and steeped the red brush in the blood for a moment, then lifted it out.

Blood dripped silently from the fine hairs at the brush's tip, one drop after another, falling into the bronze basin and sending tiny ripples spreading across the blood's surface.

Holding the brush aloft, the shaman slowly made his way, with Mingli's support, to the cold ice stone platform where Bili lay. Starting at the place where the platform met the floor, he slowly traced the first stroke.

The vivid color crept steadily across the once-smooth floor. With a faintly trembling hand, the old man drew blood talisman after blood talisman. All around was dead silence, and yet the atmosphere somehow seemed to grow tense by degrees.

Hades watched for a while, then quietly walked over to the bronze basin, lifted it, took a few steps, and set it down beside the shaman. The shaman, in the midst of drawing, raised his head to glance at him, nodded silently, and bent once more to his work.

More and more strokes of blood spread around Bili, centering on her cold ice platform. A strange sorcerous array, reeking of blood, was beginning to take shape.

The shaman's red brush was clearly a rare artifact of the Southern Wastes' shamanic arts as well. The blood it absorbed, once drawn onto the ground by the shaman, strangely congealed without drying, its color fresh and vivid; and at every corner and turn, not a single thread of blood splattered beyond the lines—as though a prison had been drawn upon the earth to hold the blood fast within.

As the shaman's breathing came again, gradually growing heavier, the blood-red patterns on the floor grew more and more intricate. Some of these bizarre figures resembled livestock or savage beasts, some birds of flight, and others were strange shapes beyond any recognition at all, appearing one after another, no two ever alike.

Only one thing was common to them all: every pattern was linked to the next. More and more blood was drawn from the bronze basin onto the floor by the red brush, and yet the blood upon the ground seemed even more brilliantly colored than it had been when first carried in.

The smell of blood in the air grew ever more overpowering. Within the stone chamber, apart from the shaman's breathing, there was not a single alien sound.

These blood-drawn patterns and arrays spread outward from the floor at the left shoulder of Bili's platform. Stroke by stroke, the shaman applied himself with single-minded care. Mingli supported him and watched with his own eyes as that vivid flush of blood came into being from nothing, from little to much, gradually gathering into an oval ring five feet in radius. By now, apart from a small patch of floor near the head of Bili's platform, the ground around her had turned to a sea of blood.

Once again Hades lifted the bronze basin, set it on the floor above the platform, and then slowly stepped aside. The strange array was nearly complete.

Countless linked patterns, great and small, glimmered with a blood-red light. At first glance they resembled nothing so much as a delta of interwoven waterways, the fresh, lively blood coursing joyously as though through living veins.

Surging from one place to another, turning back at the farthest reaches, like a gentle tide, ceaseless and unending.

The interwoven crimson gradually merged across the floor beneath their feet. At some point—no one could say when—the shaman's hand seemed to have begun trembling too much to hold the red brush any longer.

Mingli, supporting the old man's body, felt all the more clearly the agony emanating from that aged frame. Even he could not understand what it was that kept such a body going even now.

By this moment, the heavy gasping had turned hoarse. The shaman's forehead was soaked—and yet there was no more sweat left to flow.

Slowly, slowly, he stretched out his hand. The red brush, steeped in blood, drew the final stroke, and the last completed pattern joined with the very first blood figure he had drawn.

"Thup!"

With a low sound, the red brush fell limply to the ground. The weight in the crook of Mingli's arm suddenly grew leaden, and the shaman's body went slack.