11 Lishi shu'Ling (2/2)

Lishi, almost without realizing, had begun whispering a chant herself, and as the glow hissed in the air toward the Guji—who still smiled—she cupped her hands before her and brought them together. The ball of blue fire fizzled, sputtered, and vanished long before it reached the Guji. The Mategician, standing stupefied in the plaza as his attack failed, went down under a rush of the Huangd Patrol. She saw his capture as she staggered with the release of her spell and the inevitable weariness surged over her. For a moment, there was darkness at the edges of her vision and she thought she might faint entirely away, but the shadow passed, leaving her with only an immense fatigue.

The disturbance was over almost as quickly as it had begun, the Huangd Patrol re-forming their line as the attacker was hustled away from the plaza into one of the nearest buildings with his hands bound and his mouth gagged, as the Guji—who seemed entirely unshaken and unperturbed by the incident—raised his voice over the noise of the crowd to finish the blessing. He gestured to the Huangd Patrol, making obvious his intention to continue the procession, and the patrol formed an opening in the crowd for the Guji to pass through in his carriage.

The Guji looked at Lishi and gestured to her.

For a breath, she thought she'd been mistaken, until the torii-driver spoke in a harsh, awed whisper. "Go on, Miss. The Guji asks for you." She forced herself to ignore the desire to do nothing more than lay down and close her eyes as the inevitable weariness of spell-casting washed over her. Hesitantly, her legs aching, she walked toward the carriage, glancing somewhat nervously at the an'torii who stared at her as she approached.

She went to one knee alongside the globe and bowed her head, giving the Guji the sign of Inari.

"Get up, Miss. Please," she heard the Guji say, his voice amused. "And come up here with me. I'd like to speak with my new protector." She heard a few of the an'torii behind her snicker at that, and her face reddened. But the Guji was extending a stubby arm toward her and one of the carriage-torii had opened a door in Inari's globe for her, revealing a set of short stairs that led to the platform on which the Guji stood under his canopy of silk. She climbed up to him, going to a knee again as she reached the platform. Kneeling, she was as tall as the Guji. She took the hand he extended to her and touched her lips to his palm. She felt him lifting her up and she rose. "Can you stand?" he whispered to her.

"For a bit," she answered.

"Then you should sit." He pulled down a seat built into the compartment of the carriage. "It's just as well, after all. Otherwise, you'd have to stand there," he told her, and she noticed that the platform to the Guji's left was several inches lower. "Appearances," he told her with a gentle smile, and she gratefully sank down onto the hard wooden seat, her head no longer higher than his. "I see that you've learned how to reverse an incantation as well as to create one, Miss shu'Ling. Strange, I didn't think that was something that was generally taught to acolytes. Nor, I think, does Hu'Torii shu'Chang know of counter-spells that can be cast quite so quickly."

Lishi felt her cheeks flush again, but the fatigue made her response slow. "Guji, I—"

He waved off her protest with a gentle laugh. "I was never in any real danger. The Mategician haven't the faith to truly use the Misogi. His attack would never have reached me, even if you'd done nothing, not with the an'torii here. And I have my own defenses if they'd failed." His grin tempered what might have been a rebuke.

"I'm sorry for my presumption," she told him. "I should have realized..."

"There's no need to apologize, Miss. You've only shown me that what I was told about you was correct. Now, ride with me so we can talk—no matter what happens, it's important that the schedule isn't interrupted, after all. It's all about appearances."

What does he mean, 'what I was told about you ...'? Again, the Guji's quick, genuine smile made Lishi relax and cooled the flush in her cheeks. The torii alongside the carriage were chanting, the silk awning above them flapping in the breeze as the acolytes holding it began to move and the carriage rolled smoothly and slowly forward. The an'torii filed behind the carriage and behind them the hu' and ei'tori, and finally the acolyte choir, while the patrol with their long staffs moved into formation on either side of the street and the procession turned out from the plaza onto the Main Boulevard. The Guji waved to the crowds lining the boulevard even as he continued to speak to Lishi. "Surely you wondered why I would ask to meet with you."

"You asked, Guji?" she managed to blurt out. "I thought ..."

"I know what you thought," Guji wan'Tsung answered. "You were wrong."