The Legend of Bin Lin Hai and the Founding of the Children of the Flame
Translated from the ancient scrolls and intended for the incomplete manuscript: “A Shining Light in the Burning Citadel: the Complete History of the Children of the Flame.”
by Bookmaster Bo Fanza Hi
Obtained by The Department of Collections, Returns, and Acquisitions
Original Collection Date and Location (by Bookmaster Bo): 16 Zhuye i0374. The Relentless Pyre. Shanmujia, Zhidao. 7:468:PDK-3
LIBRARY CLASSIFICATION CODE: Restricted - Level 3 of 3.
Scroll 3: Bin Lin Hai Confronts the Local Lord
Bin Lin Hai waits for her audience with the Mountain Lord, sitting alone in a large antechamber as towering statues of his royal ancestors stare down at her. It is customary to make commoners wait and bask in the glory of these elder rulers, so they understand the authority of the Mountain Lord and his family. When they stand before the throne, they are to display the proper respect, and the longer that one must sit beneath the statues, the more displeased the Mountain Lord is with them.
Bin Lin Hai waits for a very long time.
After many hours, the heavy lock on the throne room entrance is pulled away with a metallic scrape. The doors open slowly, and through them walks a man wearing a long silk robe with well-sculpted hair in a neat bun and a long, midnight black beard that reaches down to his waist. He stands over her. Examines her. She feels nothing but his disapproval.
“The Mountain Lord will see you now.”
He turns and heads back into the chamber. Lin Hai follows him. She feels as if she must cower behind him as she enters the audience chamber of the Mountain Lords. It stretches out wide in front of her, and high above she sees a large chandelier, the one rumored to be made from the teeth of an ancient dragon that used to call the mountain home.
She walks toward him over a dark red path painted on the stone floor. She makes her way through the crowd, past each person dressed in fine robes, and they stare down at her as she approaches the throne.
It is then that Bin Lin Hai stands before the Mountain Lord Ta Chu Kun, He Who Touches the Sky. His youth surprises her. He has large pimples on his face, red marks of adolescence, and his royal mustache has barely begun to grow. He lays across the ancient throne of his ancestors and looks down at her, his gaze filled with both contempt and amusement.
“Who are you, who have come into the chamber of the great Mountain Lords? You are covered in the filth and grime of the mountainside. Were you not instructed to clean yourself? Were you not told to enter with dignity and respect?”
Bin Lin Hai searches for words, but none come. She can only fall to her knees, attempting to respect the young ruler.
She takes the last of her father’s words off her back and avoids Ta Chu Kun’s gaze as she offers the banner to him.
“My noble Lord, I am Bin Lin Hai, and I have brought my father’s words to your great keep so they might hang with honor in your audience chamber. As he was instructed to make them, so was I tasked with bringing them to you.”
“You are late,” he tells her, his voice cracking with youth. The Mountain Lord rises from his seat and walks over to her. He grabs the banner and unfurls it. It rolls crooked across the floor as the delicate paper creases and hits a nearby candle stand, causing wax to fall upon it.
“Your father was hired to make five banners, one for each of the ancient virtues. This is only one: the virtue of Obedience.”
Bin Lin Hai looks at her father’s words, disrespected and thrown across the ground as if they were a rug to be stepped upon. Tears well in her eyes. Again, she tries to answer, but no words can come.
“Your father is as disrespectful as he is incompetent. Look at these brush strokes. This is the work of a great wordsmith? No. This is unacceptable, and I will not be treated this way. Look at the beautiful banners that already hang upon my walls. Why should they be removed and replaced by such inferior work?”
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The Lord walks back to his throne and lies across it. He looks down at Lin Hai.
“Stand up.”
Fearing more disrespect to her father’s work, she complies.
“Tell your father the gifts I give you are for him so he may remember his failure. Show him the bruises on your stomach and the welts on your back. Tell him that you are to return here with all five banners and that they will be an appropriate response to my virtue.”
A granite-like hand punches into her stomach. She falls to her knees, gasping for her breath. After a moment, Lin Hai looks up to see a large guard in shining, silver armor standing over her. She shields herself as he pulls out a gnarled whip. It cracks and slashes at her skin. She looks to the nobles around her, thinking they too must be shocked at what has begun. But to her surprise, they lean in, clearly enjoying the sight of her punishment. Others in the crowd look on as well, approving of the pain inflicted upon her.
The guard kicks and slaps her, then forces her to her feet and makes her face the Mountain Lord as she stands upon her father’s words. He rips open her robes to expose her back and cracks the whip. A large red welt instantly appears.
Lin Hai looks up and stares at the Mountain Lord. The whip cracks again, sharp and painful. But the pain steels her. The feelings she once could not name return.
She looks to the assembled nobles and again sees the same emptiness in their eyes. These are the people who gave the world the Five Virtues? There is no Charity here. No Humility. She was not greeted with Hospitality or given Dignity. Perhaps there was Obedience, but it was not obtained in celebration of the other four Virtues. It is not honest.
She looks at the words of her father, now stained with small drops of her blood.
“Look at me,” she hears Ta Chu Kun say.
For the last time, she obeys the Mountain Lord. She looks at the small boy lying upon the throne and sees the truth of his power. It is little more than what the people in the room have given him. And Bin Lai understands the truth that any power given is a power that can be taken. And she knows what she must do.
Bin Lin Hai reaches into the pocket of her robes and grips the stone from the cave. She can feel its power as tiny wisps of smoke appear around the edges of her hair. The Mountain Lord leans forward, curious as to their origin. She looks up at him. Her eyes defy the pain that courses through her.
“Harder,” he says through a snarl. “Teach her Humility. Teach her Obedience.”
The guard reaches back and prepares a heavy strike upon Lin Hai’s back.
A scream of agony erupts from his mouth. A large plume of smoke pours from his gauntlet. He drops his whip and rips the gauntlet off, revealing a hand covered in a bright blue blaze. It spreads up his arm, across his chest, then down his legs, and up to his face. The guard falls to the ground, curled in pain. The Mountain Lord recoils in his seat as his favorite torturer cooks alive in his bright silver armor.
The crowd of nobles runs to the chamber entrance, but Bin Lin Hai sets forth another mighty blaze in front of the door and blocks their escape. She stands and turns to them, and as she raises her hand, the candlelight from the dragontooth chandelier crawls down to her. With a slow wave, she sends a line of fire across the floor that catches on the nobles’ silken robes. Lin Hai shows no emotion as they scream and beg for their lives. The flames spread from their flesh and begin to crawl across the banners hanging on the walls and rugs covering the floor. The chamber’s destruction is complete, leaving only the Mountain Lord cowering on his throne.
He drops to his knees, with the fire licking his feet and hands.
“Mercy!” he begs Bin Lin Hai. “Please spare me! Had I known of your greatness, I never would have treated you in such a way.”
Lin Hai walks over to him as the flames crawl around her. They run up her arms and legs, singing her clothes. She feels the pain of the fire upon her, but it is nothing compared to how she feels as she watches as the tears streaming down his cheeks evaporate into steam.
She thinks to herself, “Do you not know the greatness in all beings? Is that not what the Five Virtues were to teach us?”
She looks down at the pitiful boy before her and thinks of responding, of revealing her thoughts. The welts on her back sting, and the bruises on her stomach are fresh and throbbing. And at this moment, she understands the truth that explanations are unnecessary for some people. If she were to let the Lord go, he would not change. He would never honor the Five Virtues. If she shows him mercy, many more people will have painful scars on their backs and bruises upon their stomachs.
She does not speak to him as she walks past him to sit upon the throne of his ancestors, now blackened and singed.
And so it was that Bin Lin Hai covered the Mountain Lord with bright yellow flames. She forces herself to watch as he slowly burns alive on the floor of his keep, and his body turns to ashes.
Our sacred elder sister closes her eyes. She focuses her thoughts and spreads the flames out of the chamber, into the waiting room, and beyond the doors. Her justice flows like a burning river, through the long hallway to the front entrance, then up against the walls and through the stairwells of the keep. Into bedrooms and kitchens, creeping up through floors and ceilings. Within moments, the entire keep is engulfed in a fire that can be seen far into the distance. It is a fire of power that burns bright to this day. And smoke will forever float up from Bin Lin Hai’s new home.
Soon, the brave and curious in nearby villages will see the smoke and be compelled to venture into the mountains. They will discover what happened at the keep and meet its new master. And some will find a chosen family in the ashes.
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