Return to Earth Eternal Official Lore
21 | MAGES OF THE YELLOW RIVER
Over the next few years, Atan educated himself extensively on the history of the Middle Kingdom and on the art of governance. He became one of the Empress’s chief advisors and performed many valuable services for the Kingdom. In his sixth year of service, assassins were sent to slay the Empress of the Four Winds, that a rival House might assume leadership of the Jade Dynasty. Atan saved Wu Zetian’s life that night by spiriting her into a secret passage he had discovered while examining records of the chief architect of the Imperial Palace.
Freedom
As a reward for his service, the Empress granted Atan his freedom. Though greatly relieved, Atan had no life to go to elsewhere and so requested that he be allowed to stay and serve the Lotus Throne by learning the secrets of arcane magic. The Empress was most pleased. Atan had ever been a loyal servant and possessed an uncommonly quick mind. He could represent a great asset to the Jade Dynasty and all of the Middle Kingdom were he to become mighty in the magical arts, for unlike her other mages, Atan had no competing loyalties to House or Family. He was loyal to her and her alone.
The Empress consented to Atan’s request and sent him to a village called simply the Gardens of Mist where the Mages of the Yellow River dwelt. These Beasts were the keepers of the secrets of magic in the Middle Kingdom, and it was from them that Atan would learn.
Gardens of Mist
Upon arriving in the village, Atan was dismayed to see that the Gardens of Mist, which he had envisioned as a lush paradise, were nothing more than a dusty and dried up village of hovels next to a trickle of silty water that could be called a river only in the delirious dreams of the most optimistic among us. The Beasts living here seemed cheerful enough though, and soon an old Beast approached and introduced himself as Ping. The Beasts of the Yellow River did not have leaders per se, but Ping spoke for them in many cases.
Ping was, as was virtually everyone Atan met in the Middle Kingdom, fascinated by Atan’s stories of his “barbaric” homeland, but he would not agree to teach Atan the arts of magic. Instead, he wanted to teach Atan jokes, for the Beasts of the Yellow River had, in Ping’s opinion, the finest sense of humor in the world. Hadn’t they named their dry little village the Garden of Mists, after all? And had not Atan expected that the Beasts of the Yellow River might reside some length further down the river where it was more of a river than a bare trickle? Ping would erupt into lengthy chuckling whenever he found occasion to reference the Gardens or the Yellow River in conversation. He truly was a legendary comic, as he often told Atan.
Atan’s patience wore thin a week after arriving while Ping was telling yet another joke for the 8 th or 9 th time. He grabbed Ping by the shoulders and shouted, telling the old Beast to just…just shut up, or at least he tried to. Instead, he found himself unable to move, though nothing visible held him. It was the first magic Atan had seen since arriving in the Gardens of Mist, and it was what he had waited for.
Ping, no longer laughing, told Atan that he would not teach someone without a sense of humor, for no‐one with a sense of humor could fail to find Ping’s jokes funny, at least in Ping’s view. Humor, said Ping, was the key to maintaining humility and without humility there could be no genuine service to fellow Beasts.
However, as the Empress herself had sent Atan to them, Ping allowed that Atan could demonstrate his sense of humor by performing a particularly humorous task. Reluctantly, Atan agreed for he truly did wish to learn the arcane mysteries. Reluctantly, because he had little doubt that he would find Ping’s task about as funny as he found his jokes.
A day later, Ping summoned Atan to a small and distinctly unsmiling gathering of Beasts of the Yellow River, all old male and female Beasts. Ping informed Atan that these distinguished colleagues of his were also masters of the magical arts, but that the only way Atan would be permitted instruction would be to make one of them– any one of them – laugh.
Atan, who had, after all, led a difficult and tragedy‐filled life, was unsure how he could make these foreign Beasts break into a smile much less laugh.
Jokes
Atan tried a joke or two, which fell into an uncomfortable silence. He contorted his face into what he hoped were funny expressions. He tried an experimental cartwheel. He stared one of them down and then suddenly made a loud ‘whooping’ noise. He tried repeating a few of the jokes that Ping had told him. All he got for his effort was a yawn by a sleepy‐looking black and white Ursine‐like Beast. Ping told him he should stop warming up and start being funny.
Atan thought and thought. He simply wasn’t a very funny individual. He knew that and accepted it, but somehow he had to convince these dour old wizards that he had a sense of humor. Suddenly, he knew what he had to do. He asked the group to wait right there while he went and fetched a prop. He came back nine hours later, sure that this was within the scope of their humor. He expected them to have long ago gotten the “joke” and gone home, for it was now past midnight. Instead, he found the old Beasts sitting exactly where he had left them, looking placidly at him. Ping said that he felt he could use a good laugh right about now.
Another Try
Atan thought some more and then asked Ping and the rest to follow him. He led them outside to the Yellow River and asked them to wait by the river. He then crossed to the other side of the mighty trickle in a single stride, and began digging in the dry dirt a few dozen yards away from the stream. He had no tools, so simply dug with his bare hands. For hours he dug, until his hands were raw and blistered. Finally though, he had bored his way deeply enough that he found red clay underneath the parched soil. With great effort he gathered a great pile of clay next to the hole and then bit by bit carried it to the river, where Ping and his fellows waited, and made a pile of it on his side of the river.
When all the red clay had been moved to a pile next to the river, Atan started quickly throwing it all into the middle of the trickle that was the Yellow River at this point in its journey to the sea. Soon, the silty yellow trickle became a silty red trickle. Atan stood up, brushed his hands off and stepped across the streamlet to stand beside the group of wizened wizards. He said, “ Yellow River” and pointed at the river to emphasize its current state of redness.
Atan was sure this would be funny, for it was just the sort of joke Ping seemed to find hilarious. Once again though: failure. Although one of the old Beasts cocked an eyebrow, and perhaps another allowed the corner of her mouth to rise ever so slightly, nobody cracked a smile. Ping asked how many holes Atan planned on digging before getting down to some serious funny.
Surrender
Atan had no idea what to do now and did the only thing he could think of. He got down on his knees and pleaded with them to teach him magic. He reminded them of the oppressed land he had grown up in, of his village slaughter by the Bloodkin, and of his trials journeying to the Middle Kingdom. He spoke of his service to the Empress first as a slave and now as a free man.
Suddenly, Ping gave a short and began chuckling, and then they were all bent over wheezing and choking while they laughed themselves silly. Atan was baffled. Was his difficult life funny to them, he demanded to know?
Ping, catching his breath, expressed disbelief that Atan was being serious. Surely, he said, you realize that you will never be a free man? Slave or not, for good or ill, Ping said, Atan would always be bound to the Empress, for the Empress does not let value slip her grasp. Ping and his fellow Yellow River Beasts had simply assumed that Atan was making some sort of elaborate joke in referring to himself as free.
Atan, wisely, started chuckling right along with Ping, and Ping slapped him on the back in a comradely fashion. Atan knew that his life was about to change, again.
Student of Magic
For the next four years, Atan studied magic with Ping and other teachers of the Yellow River whenever he was not sleeping. He proved to be a quick study at magic, as with most things, and was progressing nicely. The Beasts of the Yellow River were masters of the magic of the four elements and Atan learned to weave them all together with his Will. Ping was of the opinion that Atan would someday be among the greatest of magic‐users, held back only by the fact that he began studying relatively late. He learned to weave together explosive balls of fire, to protect himself with earth and water, and to move himself with air. He was not a master of the arcane arts yet but he was well on his way.