Chapter 152 — The Golden Palace of Loulan

He gave Shen Mu no chance to speak, only muttering to himself: "My one fear is that this Shaman Sovereign will play some trick, wear me down in relays and leave me pinned. .

.

that would be awkward. .

.

" Before long, the Golden Palace of Loulan appeared at last before them all. Gazing from afar, Shen Mu saw that a lake had suddenly spread across the boundless grassland, its jade-green waters rippling, so vast it seemed an ocean set within the steppe.

Looking farther still, he dimly made out that beyond the lake rose range upon range of mountains, clad in silver and heaped with snow.

And among those towering peaks stood one summit blazing with golden light; only when Shen Mu opened his Soaring Heaven Eye did he see that it was no mountain of gold, but a sprawl of resplendent palaces. There were so many of them, covering the whole mountain snug and complete, that from a distance it looked like a golden mountain forged of gold.

On the grassland there was no fixed currency; only gold circulated, and all along the road they had paid for their meals with the gold ingots General Bian Zhenyun had given them. To the common folk of the steppe gold was a rare thing, of the highest value; yet these palaces were wrought of pure gold, extravagance plain for all to see.

When Libationer Bashan came to the lakeshore, Shen Mu looked about: a wooden boat lay moored there, and upon it stood a man with horns on his head, dressed in black, leaning on a bamboo pole at the bow. In the shallows of the lake, poles were stuck this way and that, and from each one hung a rotting human head.

"Great shamans harvest souls to cultivate their arts — they look more like a demon cult than our own Heavenly Sage Cult. " Shen Mu studied the man: his face was somewhat goatlike, yet a brown goat's face, unlike the usual white goat, and scant of hair.

"Goat-Face the Great Shaman?

" Shen Mu was briefly taken aback. Back in the capital he had treated several soldiers from the frontier posts who had been poisoned by shaman arts, and those men said they had met a horned barbarian who merely held up a mirror to them, whereupon they fell senseless.

Shen Mu had always assumed that the barbarians' great shamans wore masks; only now, seeing this great shaman in the wooden boat, did he know that horned barbarians truly existed.

The Goat-Face Great Shaman shot them a glance and said in a shrill voice: "Khagan of War, the Shaman Sovereign has waited a long while! Board the boat, if you please!

" Libationer Bashan stepped aboard, smiling: "This lake is the Weak Water; it has no buoyancy — even a feather sinks to the bottom. Only a boat of the Golden Palace of Loulan can ferry us across.

Let us board.

" Shen Mu and Ling Yuxiu climbed onto the wooden boat, and the Green Ox and Snow Fox came aboard as well. The great shaman's gaze settled on Shen Mu and Ling Yuxiu; he gave a cold laugh and poled the boat toward the far shore.

Ling Yuxiu laughed: "If we cannot walk across the Weak Water, why not go around it? Or simply fly over.

" The barbarian great shaman sneered: "Fly over?

Try the air here — see whether you can lift off at all. The air here is dead.

" "The air is dead?

" Ling Yuxiu was baffled.

Beside them the Green Ox rumbled in his muffled voice: "The air here truly is dead. You cannot fly. " He was skilled in commanding wind and thunder, and could sense that the air here did not move at all.

Ordinary folk breathe — inhale, exhale, and the air flows. But if the air does not flow, then with a single breath the air beneath your nostrils is drawn away and a vacuum forms; the air around cannot replenish it, and you suffocate of course. So it was with this lake of Weak Water: the air above it was pinned fast by some nameless force and did not move at all, and only while the wooden boat glided forward, carrying its passengers along with it, did breathing feel normal.

But the moment the boat stopped, the air beneath one's nose would be breathed away, and in time one would surely suffocate. As for flying arts, to rise from the surface of the lake was all but impossible; a flying art must agitate the air to form an upward lift.

Yet here, agitating the air only produced a vacuum, and there was no flying at all.

Snow Fox tried it too, and found that her spells for summoning wind and rain were utterly useless here. The barbarian great shaman chuckled: "Going around is not impossible.

But the Weak Water lake is too wide; a detour would take two days, and once you are in the snow mountains — heh heh — few who go in come out again.

" Ling Yuxiu clicked her tongue in dismay. Shen Mu quietly opened his Soaring Heaven Eye and his Azure Heaven Eye and surveyed the sky, where he dimly made out a gauze of mist, all but imperceptible, shrouding the whole breadth of the lake; his heart stirred: "This gauze must be what keeps the air from moving. " The gauze could not be touched, yet it truly existed — surely the prohibition Libationer Bashan had spoken of.

Absently he looked beneath the water, and his heart quivered: the whole floor of the lake was strewn with skeletons, sunk there in the depths.

Ling Yuxiu looked down as well and gave a low cry. Libationer Bashan said: "Those are all slaves used up in the Shaman Cult's cultivation.

" Shen Mu shivered with dread.

The Goat-Face Great Shaman poled swiftly; he had secret arts of his own, letting him come and go across the lake like the wind, and the Weak Water could not sink this boat.

Before long the wooden boat moored at the foot of the snow mountains, and the Goat-Face Great Shaman chuckled: "Khagan of War, after you! " Libationer Bashan smiled slightly and walked toward that golden-lit peak.

Toot, toot — From the mountain came long, deep blasts of horn, full and powerful, setting a man's eardrums and chest to resonating.

Far off, avalanches suddenly broke from one snow mountain after another, rumbling and crashing, lending the moment yet more weight.

Libationer Bashan burst out laughing, drowning out both the horns and the thunder of the avalanches.

Shen Mu and the others felt nothing amiss, but on the mountain his laughter set men's blood and qi seething, rushing to their heads, their skulls swelling as though about to burst, and none could press it down. Then a heavy voice came down from the mountain: "The Khagan of War's cultivation runs deep, deeper than in years past.

Why open with such a show of force? Khagan of War, come up the mountain and let us meet. " The voice rang clearly audible even through Libationer Bashan's laughter, aged yet brimming with power — plainly a peerless master.

"The Shaman Sovereign has spoken; I can hardly refuse. Only, this visit of mine is to blockade your mountain gate, not to reminisce.

" Libationer Bashan answered the aged voice across the distance, unhurried: "I shall come up now.

" Shen Mu looked up and saw a stairway paved in gold running all the way up the mountain, yet before they had gone far a great golden gateway barred the way, with no door leaves in it.

The gateway was cast entirely of gold, more than ten zhang tall and over twenty zhang wide, inlaid with precious jades and pearls — luxury indeed.

In those years it was Zaifu who had brought Libationer Bashan here; they had blockaded that gate for three months, defeated the young talents of the Golden Palace of Loulan, and beaten every expert who came rushing from all quarters of the steppe at the news. For this Libationer Bashan was honored by the steppe as the Martial Emperor.

And Zaifu, in those days, had fought a hundred-odd battles great and small, thrashed the entire elder generation of the Golden Palace of Loulan, and won the fair name of Heavenly Khagan, Heavenly Emperor.

Libationer Bashan led them to the gate, where many great shamans already stood waiting, along with steppe powerhouses who were no disciples of the Golden Palace yet kept watch there too — famous names of the steppe, come at the news. "Little Ox!