Horatio's Two Storms
The underworld is swept away with the rain. But would reciting a spell that had not yet been created truly activate it? Could knowing a spell from the future allow it to be cast in the past? The answer was yes. A spell was not an invention, but a discovery. It was the act of finding things that already existed through language and gesture, then giving them a name.
Did anyone claim a primitive man had invented fire simply because he lit one? No. Did anyone claim he had invented a flower simply because he named one he had never seen before? No. That was why Zhao Yun felt no anxiety. As he began to mutter the incantation, as if rewarding his certainty, the water sprinkled in perfect rhythm slowly began to rise from the ground.
"This is the story of a certain foolish man."
The water drifting slowly around Zhao Yun began to spin faster as his muttering quickened. When his voice grew loud enough to be understood, it sliced through the air and spun rapidly. From a distance it looked as if a great serpent were coiling around a man’s body.
"Long ago there was one called the Lord of the Desert. So vast was the desert he ruled that a man born in the west could walk his entire life eastward and never see the sea, only grow old buried in sand. A man born in the south could walk his entire life northward and never see snow, only grow old in the heat."
Zhao Yun began to recite the tale of a man born centuries later in a desert that once dreamed of Rome’s rebirth.
The Lord of the Desert was not born holding a vast sea of sand. Yet before he turned thirty the young man had seized the shining sands of an ancient empire. Before he passed forty he had dyed the barren desert itself with awe and terror. In the end he made his name whispered even beyond the shallow sea above his head and beneath the snow-capped mountains. People called him Horatio.
On the day Rome fell to nomads and demons, a child was born to a poor couple in a small tribe of North Africa. The baby grew stronger with each passing day. Before he was ten the entire tribe pinned their hopes on him. Before he was twenty he had become the greatest warrior of his people and began subjugating neighboring tribes. The old chieftain yielded his seat to the green youth and departed alone into the desert. In return, before his own thirtieth year the young man had unified every tribe the desert had separated, save those to the south. With only the Kingdom of Egypt to his right and the Hispania Empire above him, the tribes called their unifier Horatio. He was the first caster of the very spell Zhao Yun now invoked.
The ambitious young Horatio resolved to restore the fallen glory of Rome with his own hands and set his heart on invading the Hispania Empire. Every tribesman opposed him; even his family tried to dissuade him. Yet perhaps heaven itself aided the young warlord. On a day of raging storms he led a handful of soldiers into Hispania. Astonishingly, he won every battle from the first clash in the desert onward and claimed even the Hispania Empire before his fortieth year.
"When Horatio reached middle age he could never forget his first battle against the Hispania Empire. Therefore at his coronation he chose storm and desert as his symbols. The emperor’s banner was yellow, emblazoned with fierce winds that represented the tempest. Thus his people, with both reverence and fear, called the new Emperor of Hispania the God of Storm and Yellow."
The moment Zhao Yun spoke these words, the water spinning around him like a serpent began to devour dust and sand. The once-clear liquid grew turbid as it crawled across the floor in every direction. It was proof that Zhao Yun was reciting the incantation correctly. He let out a sigh of relief; until now he had been worried inside.
"Having become emperor, Horatio believed he had been chosen by heaven. How could he not? A poor child from a minor tribe had become master of both desert and empire! Therefore he resolved to answer heaven’s call and restore the glorious lands of old Rome."
Now ruler of most of North Africa and the Iberian Peninsula, Horatio burned with ambition to subjugate Gaul and seize the Italian Peninsula below it. If he claimed the old Kingdom of Carthage, Hispania, Gaul, and Italy, would not the entire western half of the fallen Rome belong to him? He was certain this would be the final labor heaven had ordained for him. At least until he met the other emperor who ruled Britannia and Germania—Imrik Johan.
"Once again all his subjects and family opposed him, yet Horatio, as always, refused to listen. He had already become Lord of the Desert with a mere handful of tribesmen and swallowed an empire; naturally he believed victory would be his again. But arrogance invites misfortune, and even a man called a god in human flesh was no exception."
The arrogant Horatio fought in unfamiliar dense forest without even conducting proper reconnaissance. Imrik Johan did not miss the opportunity his enemy’s hubris had granted.
"His rival, acting in heaven’s stead, delivered punishment to the arrogant Horatio. It was a humiliation that would be recorded in history. The God of Yellow and Storm was ambushed three times in the same battle by the same army. He lost every soldier who followed him and barely escaped the forest. When the humiliated emperor howled at the sky in resentment, heaven mocked him by sending the very storm that was his symbol, soaking the earth with rain."
Inside Zhao Yun’s tent the water continued to swell. What had begun as a single kettle’s worth now covered the floor and soaked his feet. The enlarged mass of water rippled heavily around his ankles, urging him on. It writhed and twisted around him as though demanding he finish the spell.
"Heaven! Heaven! Why have you summoned a storm now? Why do you shame me so? You already sent an emperor like me to this land—why then send a rival? Yet heaven gave no answer, only continued to wet Horatio’s face. If the so-called God of Storm could not even block the raindrops striking his own cheeks, what did it mean to be a god? What did it mean to be chosen by heaven? Only then did Horatio realize the truth: he too was merely a common man of the desert."
Horatio, who had barely fled with his life, never again spoke of conquering Rome’s former territories after his defeat. Instead he ruled his people with benevolence and wisdom. Decades later, when the Pharaoh of Egypt began committing atrocities and tormenting his own subjects, the aged Horatio set out on one final campaign to punish him. The terrified Pharaoh offered his people as sacrifices and attempted to drive Horatio and his army into madness with The King in Yellow’s Play. But Horatio, drawing upon the humiliation and resentment he had suffered long ago in Gaul, created a counter to that terrible spell.
"Therefore, soldiers, fear not! If heaven would not even choose this old man, how could it possibly choose some desert rabble? O you who called the sandstorm! Realize it—you too are nothing but an ordinary human! I, Horatio, shall pray to heaven and wash away your arrogance with a storm!"
That was the reversal technique Zhao Yun had been chanting—Horatio’s Two Storms.
The moment Zhao Yun finished the incantation, the water that had risen all the way to his neck suddenly evaporated with a sharp hiss. The steam that filled the tent slowly drifted out and rose into the sky. The once-clear heavens began to gather dark, heavy clouds as though a storm were about to break. It was the instant Zhang Jue’s ritual—borrowing the power of the King in Yellow and the Lord of the Sandstorm—became distorted into a rain-calling ceremony that honored a future emperor once called the God of Yellow and Storm.
Of course Zhang Jue knew none of this. So he advanced proudly, leading an enormous army of one hundred and fifty thousand Yellow Turbans with the sand and dust spat out by the ritual’s sacrificial victims trailing behind him, marching straight toward the suppression force’s main camp to settle the outcome.
Though their weapons and armor were shoddy, the oppressive weight of that colossal number was considerable. It was only natural, then, that the soldier on the watchtower who saw the vast Yellow Turban host approaching beat the drum with all his might.
Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom!
“The Yellow Turbans are here! They’re heading straight for the main camp!!!”
At the same time, the scout who had been observing the enemy’s movements from outside rushed urgently to Dong Zhuo and reported their advance. Thus began the first and final battle between the two armies locked in stalemate at Gulu in Ji Province.