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She felt in the air an overwhelming want.
They must have immured the shamans starting at the bottom of the prison. Jiang could not be far from where they stood. Rin ran faster, felt the stone scrape under her feet. Up before her, her torch illuminated a plinth carved in the image of a stooped gatekeeper. She came to a sudden halt.
This had to be Jiang.
Altan caught up to her. “Don’t just take off like that.”
“He’s here,” she said, shining her torch up at the plinth. “He’s in there.”
“Move,” said Altan.
She had barely stepped out of the way when Altan slammed the end of his trident into the plinth.
When the rubble cleared, Jiang’s serene form was revealed under a layer of crumbling dust. He lay perfectly still against the rock, the sides of his mouth curved faintly upward as if he found something deeply amusing. He might have been sleeping.
He opened his eyes, looked them up and down, and blinked. “You might have knocked first.”
Rin stepped toward him. “Master?”
Jiang tilted his head sideways. “Have you gotten taller?”
“We’re here to rescue you,” said Rin, although the words sounded stupid as soon as she uttered them. No one could have forced Jiang into the mountain. He must have wanted to be there.
But she didn’t care why he had come here; she had found him, she had released him, she had his attention now. “We need your help. Please.”
Jiang stepped forward out of the stone and shook his limbs as if working out the kinks. He brushed the dust meticulously off his robes. Then he uttered mildly, “You should not be here. It’s not your time.”
“You don’t understand—”
“And you do not listen.” He was not smiling anymore. “The Seal is breaking. I can feel it—it’s almost gone. If I leave this mountain, all sorts of terrible things will come into your world.”
“So it’s true,” Altan said. “You’re the Gatekeeper.”
Jiang looked irritated. “What did I just say about not listening?”
But Altan was flushed with excitement. “You are the most powerful shaman in Nikara history! You can unlock this entire mountain! You could command this army!”
“That’s your plan?” Jiang gaped at him as if in disbelief that anyone could be this stupid. “Are you mad?”
“We . . .” Altan faltered, then regained his composure. “I’m not—”
Jiang buried his face in his palm, like an exasperated schoolteacher. “The boy wants to set everyone in this mountain free. The boy wants to unleash the contents of the Chuluu Korikh on the world.”
“It’s that, or let Nikan fall,” Altan snapped.
“Then let it.”
“What?”
“You don’t know what the Federation is capable of,” Rin said. “You didn’t see what they did to Golyn Niis.”
“I saw more than you think,” said Jiang. “But this is not the way. This path leads only to darkness.”
“How can there be more darkness?” she screamed in frustration. Her voice echoed off the cavernous walls. “How can things possibly get worse than this? Even you took the risks, you opened the void . . .”
“That was my mistake,” Jiang said regretfully, like a child who had been chastened. “I never should have done that. I should have let them take Sinegard.”
“Don’t you dare,” Rin hissed. “You opened the void, you let the beasts through, and you ran and hid here to let us deal with the consequences. When are you going to stop hiding? When are you going to stop being such a damn coward? What are you running from?”
Jiang looked pained. “It’s easy to be brave. Harder to know when not to fight. I’ve learned that lesson.”
“Master, please . . .”
“If you unleash this on Mugen, you will ensure that this war will continue for generations,” said Jiang. “You will do more than burn entire provinces to the ground. You will rip apart the very fabric of the universe. These are not men entombed in this mountain; these are gods. They will treat the material world as a plaything. They will shape nature according to their will. They will level mountains and redraw rivers. They will turn the mortal world into the same chaotic flow of primal forces that constitutes the Pantheon. But in the Pantheon, the gods are balanced. Life and death, light and dark—each of the sixty-four entities has its opposite. Bring the gods into your world, and that balance will shatter. You will turn your world to ash, and only demons will live in the rubble.”
When Jiang finished speaking, the silence rang heavily in the darkness.
“I can control them,” said Altan, though even to Rin he sounded hesitant, like a boy insisting to himself that he could fly. “There are men in those bodies. The gods can’t run free. I’ve done it with my people. Suni should have been locked up here years ago, but I’ve tamed him, I can talk them back from the madness—”
“You are mad.” Jiang’s voice was almost a whisper, containing as much awe as disbelief. “You’re blinded by your own desire for vengeance. Why are you doing this?” He reached out and grasped Altan’s shoulder. “For the Empire? For love of the country? Which is it, Trengsin? What story have you told yourself?”
“I want to save Nikan,” Altan insisted. He repeated in a strained voice, as if trying to convince himself, “I want to save Nikan.”
“No, you don’t,” said Jiang. “You want to raze Mugen.”
“They’re the same thing!”
“There is a world of difference between them, and the fact that you don’t see that is why you can’t do this. Your patriotism is a farce. You dress up your crusade with moral arguments, when in truth you would let millions die if it means you get your so-called justice. That’s what will happen if you open the Chuluu Korikh, you know,” said Jiang. “It won’t be just Mugen that pays to sate your need for retribution, but anyone unlucky enough to be caught in this storm of insanity. Chaos does not discriminate, Trengsin, and that’s why this prison was designed to never be unlocked.” He sighed. “But of course, you don’t care.”
Altan could not have looked more shocked if Jiang had struck him across the face.
“You have not cared about anything for a very long time,” Jiang continued. He regarded Altan with pity. “You are broken. You’re hardly yourself anymore.”
“I’m trying to save my country,” Altan reiterated hollowly. “And you’re a coward.”
“I am terrified,” Jiang acknowledged. “But only because I’m starting to remember who I once was. Don’t go down that path. Your country is ash. You can’t bring it back with blood.”
Altan gaped at him, unable to respond.
Jiang tilted his head to the side. “Irjah knew, didn’t he?”
Altan blinked rapidly. He looked terrified. “What? Irjah didn’t—Irjah never—”
“Oh, he knew.” Jiang sighed. “He must have known. Daji would have told him—Daji saw what I didn’t, Daji would have made sure Irjah knew how to keep you tame.”
