Tian and Hong went down to the riverbank. The crane was sleeping the reeds, happily full from a productive day of hunting. She didn’t like whatever was going on in the Water Fortress, but it was the instinctive dislike of an animal avoiding a wildfire. She couldn’t explain why it was bad. It just was.
The moonlight was thin tonight. Bright stars, and enough moonlight to see by, but it felt thin. Some nights you could practically scoop the moonlight out of the air with your hands. Tonight, it fell past them like a cold drizzle. Hong sprawled on the grass, arms and legs flopping out with studied ease. It only took seconds for her to lose the relaxation in her body. Her hands tensed, her knees slowly drew towards her chin.
“There is an order to things, in heaven and on earth. A hierarchy, and rituals enforcing that hierarchy. The rituals aren’t exactly law, but they sort of are. Some are religious, some aren't, but doing the rituals, that is, treating the rituals with absolute seriousness and devotion, is kind of religious. But it’s not religion for you or me or any of those murdered villagers. It’s a religion just for the Emperor and the very top officials.”
Tian spoke softly, because the night demanded it, but with great authority and satisfaction. He pretty much never got to tell people about the secular world, let alone Liren. Usually, she was the one doing the explaining. It was a good time to affirm his authority as the Senior Brother.
“Not really seeing what this has to do with kids being burned alive in iron cages to make ink, Brother.”Hong started curling up on herself.
Tian silently scolded himself. He knew she would be fragile tonight. He damn well knew better, and he still felt like he had to show off and make a point of being the big brother. So much for compassion and humility.
Tian pulled out his heavily thumbed Lives of the Virtuous Ministers of Wu. “‘To rule a land requires not simply the blessings of fortune but a conferment from the Celestial Court. To rule a people is an entrustment, an enfeoffment, a mandate. A mandate that can be lost if the earthly court fails to properly replicate the rules, rites and forms of the Celestial Court. It is for this reason that the Ministry of Rites was established and holds equal rank with the Ministries of Justice, War, Works, Revenue and Personnel.”
He flipped to another page. “To maintain order amongst the people and ensure the blessings of heaven upon the world, the Ministry of Rites establishes the rituals of the Imperial Cult and the State Sacrifices. It ensures the civic rituals are conformed to by the people, demonstrating that the Emperor administers the Kingdom with compassion, and justice, bringing the endless blessings of good governance to his subjects.”
Hong didn’t look at where he was pointing at the book. Her eyes were on the far bank of the river, where it started to widen out into the lake. He could tell she was seeing none of it, lost in her thoughts.
“They felt… no, they were bandits. They were arguing that the earthly kingdom had failed, and the kingdom failed because they failed to obey the laws of the Celestial Court. So they filed a petition to the true ruling power, the Celestial Emperor. Written in the ashes of children. Because nothing says there has been a breakdown in the blessings of good governance like a parody of an official document written in the burned bodies of the next generation.” Her voice was numb, lost in horror and wonder. “That’s not bandit thinking. Someone put that idea in their head.”
“I can’t even begin to imagine why they thought the Gods would give the petition more weight if it was written in an ink made of… evil. If it’s not a heretic scheme, I truly don’t know what is.” Tian shrugged helplessly. “Though I don’t really know the first thing about the Gods. Frankly, they seem mad.”
Liren pulled her knees up, and rested her head on them. “Yes. Yes they do. I’ve known it since I was six years old. But the heavens are too far away for my spear to reach.”
Tian sighed. “This doesn’t have to be our problem, you know. Just because we discovered it, that doesn’t make it our job to fix it. They can’t even order us to. Well, Elder Rui can, but you know what I mean. I certainly don’t want to breathe any more of the mortal air than I have to.”
Liren didn’t respond. Tian suppressed another sigh and began cultivating. She would start feeling better around sunrise. In the meantime, he could be here for her.
The next morning they set off on the Agate. Hong had eaten well at breakfast, and the worst seemed to have passed. Old Master Yu invited them for a chat before they set out.
“I know you took that last job more or less out of the goodness of your hearts, and I’m very glad you did. Consider this a sort of bonus. It seems like something you would like.” The old hero tossed a little pendant shaped like a crossed sword and saber to Tian. It was the length of his thumb, half again as wide, and made of bronze. The texture looked quite coarse, but with close examination, you could see it was covered in tiny writing.
“Academy Master?” Tian looked up at the grinning elder.
“You practice palm arts, right? Well, nothing in my library will be as good as what’s in your dao repository. The best immortal arts in the Broad Sky Kingdom are almost all to be found in Ancient Crane Monastery. Just how it is. However!” He held up a long finger. “What about mortal martial arts?”
“I have no idea. Would they even be useful?”
The old master grinned. “At the Earthly Realm, yes, some of them are highly effective. The very best mortal martial arts require careful management of internal energy, another way of saying qi or vital energy. Of course, we are talking about mortals here, so they would cultivate for twenty years to be able to use one particular blow and consider themselves amazing if they could do it twice in a day.”
“Right.” Tian nodded.
“This is, according to legend, the clue to finding the very best palm art ever devised in the Kingdom, and, according to those same legends, the most powerful unarmed martial art under the immortal realm, period.”
“The clue to finding the martial art, Elder Yu?” Hong asked.
“Well, if I had found it, I’d be using it, wouldn’t I?” The elder laughed shamelessly, stroking his long mustache. “The art was used by a few grandmasters before the current Kingdom was established. Unfortunately, it was just too hard for most people, even experts, to learn. It’s called the Eighteen Palms of Dragon Subduing, powerfully yang but the secret is in the withholding of energy. Or so I heard anyway. This pendant is supposed to act as a key- put it in the right place, and it meshes with something that already exists to reveal the hiding place of the manual.”
“You never found the right spot, I suppose.” Tian looked over the pendant carefully. The ‘writing’ was actually gibberish. Shapes that looked like characters, but weren’t.
“I did not. But since I got the pendant off the neck of Thousand Palms Han after fighting for three days and three nights, I am pretty confident that it’s legitimate. Old Thousand Palms might have been a cannibal and worse, but he was faithful to his martial dao. If he thought the charm was legitimate, it was.”
“Any clues at all?” Hong asked.
“Just this- the family that passed down the Eighteen Palms of Dragon Subduing were part of a mortal martial arts sect that was on the wrong side of the founding of the present kingdom. They had long since lost the ability to use the whole art, but the bits they still could use were enough to make them powerful fighters.”
“They were summarily executed?” Tian asked, thinking of how those stories tended to go in his history books.
“Shot with enough crossbow bolts that you could refeather a goose from the fletching. His Majesty was uninterested in taking them prisoner. But there was no way he’d leave such a powerful art out in the wild, even if he couldn’t use it. Someone in his inner circle must have gotten a hold of more clues. Something worth looking for, as you roam around the kingdom.”
His eyes slid over to Hong, and his grin deepened. “And lest you think your senior doesn't care about you, even after he recognized your kindred spirit, there is a reason an old saber monster like me went looking for a palm art.”
“Yes, Academy Master?” Liren asked.
“The Dragon Subduing Palms have brutal requirements in terms of yang qi. According to legend, it is impossible for women to learn. That’s mortal women, anyway. I expect you could manage if you wanted. But that’s not what’s interesting. What’s interesting is that the current Imperial Family doesn’t have any particularly impressive arts, nor are they notably yang. They have better martial arts than most mortals and they doubtless have hidden depths, but we’d hear about it if someone managed to master the Dragon Subduing Palms. They’d announce it to the four corners of the world.”
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“Yes… Academy Master.”
He rolled his eyes. “The reason I went looking for it in the first place is because that mortal martial arts sect I mentioned cultivated Sungold Yangfire Oranges. A cultivable spirit fruit, worthy of immortals, as it is a powerfully yang tonic without even needing alchemical refinement. Only, they hadn’t gotten any to ripen before the new Emperor rolled through. It seems the current empire has the same problem. Get the palm art, and you can probably get the orange trees, and I bet you can make them grow. Plant them up on the mountain, watch the qi fill them up. They’d do wonders for your body cultivation art.”
Hong jolted, then bowed. The old warrior just chuckled and stroked his mustache.
The Academy Master entrusted them with a few letters to deliver once they reached a Temple. Tian would mildly abuse his letter-sending privilege with Elder Feng and see to it that they were carried across the north-east of the Broad Sky Kingdom. His own letters would be traveling much further. And the first step of sending them would be going to the nearest Temple.
Tian got everything just so in their fishing boat while Liren settled up a final bit of business with the Academy Master. She returned with a victorious air- at the last moment, a disciple had rushed in carrying the promised Gold Belly Carp. Their dinner tonight was now guaranteed, even if neither of them was much of a cook. Then they were off, racing up the Agate as the bands of yellow and purple stone rushed past.
“Brother…”
“Yes, Sister Liren?”
“You said that this heretical rebellion didn’t have to be our problem.”
“And I meant every word.”
“Then why are we going to the Bluestone City Temple?”
“It’s the closest one, Sister.”
“No it isn’t.”
“It is. It’s on the river.”
“Yeah, but overland we could get to Ashgrove Temple in three days. It will take us four days on the river to reach Bluestone City.”
“Yes, but, counterpoint, we will be on the river instead of running through rice paddies dodging peasants. It will therefore feel faster, and given the enormity and totality of the dao, things feeling faster is basically the same as being faster.” Tian spoke with great righteousness. He might have learned how to “stroll” but damned if sitting in a boat being rowed around wasn’t more comfortable.
“I think you just don’t want to run.”
“Slander. Lies and slander. Crane, defend me!”
The crane glanced over at him and remained silent. She was currently perched up on the side of the boat, but would fly off soon enough. Scouting the river ahead, or just hunting. She was a peaceable sort of companion, though she did tend to act up if things weren’t exciting enough. Tian figured that they were safe for a few days after the Water Fortress.
“No witnesses, silence is as good as an admission. Your guilt is confirmed. We are going to Bluestone City to track down the Magistrate and the Prefect.”
“Fine, yes, I don’t like leaving it like this. But there is a third person I want to find. The local Censor.”
Hong sniffed. “Aren’t Censors famously corrupt?”
“Some of them yes, some no. But their job is to be anti-corruption officers working directly for the throne. So if anyone knows what kind of dirty dealings are going on around the Bluestone City region, it’s going to be them.”
Hong leaned into the oar, darting between two slower moving riverboats. It was quite an odd sight- a veiled woman wearing leather gloves, standing on the stern of an old fishing boat and rowing upstream as a gentle young man and a crane lounged and chatted idly in the prow.
Immortals and devils walked the land in the Broadsky Kingdom. It might just be weirdos on the river, but people learned not to see things that might trouble them, just in case. The ordinary folk of the kingdom might be ignorant, but they weren’t stupid.
Four days later, they reached the Bluestone City docks. They were a chaotic whirl of fishing boats, merchant boats, farmers carrying vegetables and grains from their villages to market, and everywhere were shouting dockworkers trying to keep order. From what Tian could tell, they actually succeeded.
It was unmitigated chaos to Tian, but the grain got off the boat fast. Fruits and vegetables were fresh when they reached the market stalls and grocers. Merchants found warehouses and stevedores waiting for them. The sheer noise of it was overwhelming. Hong pulled up to a pier with causal confidence, leapt ashore, ignored the shouting dockworkers, and waited patiently for Tian to tie up. She then resolved the shouting dockworker problem by displaying three silver coins in her left hand, and a saber in her right.
The dockworker made the coins instantly vanish, smiles wreathing their faces as they promised the boat would be in perfect condition upon her return.
“Same as it ever was,” Tian grumbled. It was Liren’s solution to every mortal problem. The only thing that changed were the shiny metal disks she grabbed out of her ring. He was fairly sure she was grabbing at random.
“Oh don’t be so grumpy. It’s so lively here!”
“It looks like it’s going to rain.”
“Since when did you mind the rain?” She swept into the city, poking at fruit in the stalls, investigating the skewered shrimp being roasted on the streetside, and generally letting the city wash over her. Tian’s grumpiness settled down once they got away from the chaos of the docks, and he was right there with her having fun by the time they were three blocks into the city.
“Buy that for me, Sister Liren!”
“You can buy stuff, you have money.”
“True. Two skewers please, and a cup of the fruit juice.” Tian was almost bouncing with excitement.
“Good, good, now tell the nice lady that.” Hong urged.
“Why would I tell her, when I can tell you?”
“You are so weird. Sorry, Miss, my brother’s brain has never quite worked right. Four shrimp skewers please, and two cups of the… what kind of juice is this?”
“My own blend of pomegranate and blueberry, very rare, only available in limited quantities. You are lucky to have caught me early in the day!”
“You can buy things from stores. I know you can. Yet you keep doing this.” Hong grumbled. Tian ignored the grumbling. People looking indecently happy as they ate their seafood skewers are not genuine grumblers.
“Stores are full of greasy-minded people and cannot be trusted. I was just lucky that I met a fellow daoist with a kind heart back at the Five Elements Courtyard. He was the only saving grace of that whole mess.”
“The one you bullied into giving you a discount?”
Tian whirled and looked at Hong in shock. “I would never!”
“Millions wouldn’t believe you. I wish I was one of them. Are you going to finish your skewers?”
“Hell yes I am. Get more if you like. Oh, now that I’m thinking about money, was there any good loot from the bandits?”
“Mostly food and mortal stuff. I’ll dump it on whoever is managing the storehouses for the Temple, see what I can get for them. The ‘good stuff’ was just a spear that isn’t quite as good as what I’ve already got, some manuals that I wouldn’t use on a bet, and a saber that was actually pretty decent. Not enchanted or anything, just a good design, a sharp edge and good materials.”
“Oh nice! Are you selling it?” Tian asked. He had his own merchant project from Auntie Wu, which was actually making him a small, if very odd, profit. All other matters of trade he firmly handed over to Hong. As long as he was getting his share, all was well. And he trusted Liren to give him his fair share.
Such matters hadn’t needed to be mentioned more than once.
“Actually, and I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I pulled a you.”
“Pulled a ‘me?’”
“I gave the saber to the Academy Master. He looked pretty confused!” She laughed.
Tian thought it through, then nodded. He probably would have given the saber to the Academy Master too. The Master would use the saber to kill more heretics, which was payment enough for Tian. If the old man was already troubled with how to pay for the bandit hunting they were doing; he probably didn’t have the spirit stones to pay what the saber was actually worth.
They could hang on to it, of course. Someone would be willing to pay a decent price for it. They would find that person eventually. But the heretics needed killing now, not later. And what was the point of owning a saber if you weren’t going to use it to kill heretics?
“Good job, Sister Liren!”
“He came through with the fish in the end, to say nothing of a cryptic clue. It seemed right. Hey-”
A bell tolled, low and heavy, echoing across the city. No mortal bell would make such a sound. It was ringing fast, too.
“The Temple bell.” Tian breathed out. “They are ringing an alarm. And if it’s coming from the Temple…”
Angry shouts rose from all sides. Shutters and doors slammed shut, carts were wheeled into alleys. Screams started too, bouncing off the brick and plaster walls, skittering down the blue cobblestone streets. There was a howl of terrified people, watchmen frantically banging gongs, all screaming for the guards.
The two young immortals pulled their uniforms on, and drew their weapons. The crane came fluttering down from the rooftop, sharing what she had seen with Tian.
“Monsters. Short, covered in dense muscle, like a half-sized gorilla covered in porcupine quills and with fangs and claws. Looks like thousands of ‘em.” He reported. Where they were coming from, he couldn’t tell. They seemed to appear across half the city at the same time.
Hong grunted. “Cultivation?”
“Some. Mortals can barely hold them off with a spear, and can’t seem to keep up with their speed. I don’t think the mortals have managed to kill any, yet.”
“Doable. Which way do we attack?”
Tian thought quickly. “To the Temple. We will coordinate with them, and cleanse the city.”
Liren spun her spear lightly, then rested it on her shoulder. “Let's begin.”