“Thank you for leading the way, Prime Servant Candidate Tian.” Wang bowed very properly, and offered Tian a single fried bread stick. “Please look after me in the future as well. I will be in your care.”
“Please specify who I should betray to maintain your favor, Prime Servant Candidate Tian.” Sister Su bowed and offered two bread sticks. “As you can see, I am already much more sincere than certain people scheming for your position.”
“Fools, they cannot see your greatness as I do, Prime Servant Candidate Tian. They are only fit for field labor, or the mines.” Lin handed over exactly enough tea to fill one teapot.
She seemed excessively pleased about calling someone else a potential servant, in Tian’s opinion, but since she had given him some of the Harmony Village Tea he had been looking for, he was prepared to assign her to the comparatively pleasant laundry. He glanced over at Liren.
“Nothing from you? I fear cleaning out the Tiger Latrines may be your future calling.”
“I refuse to yield to petty tyranny. Perhaps once you reach the lofty heights of Actual Servant. Also, more importantly, would tiger latrines be a latrine for tigers, a latrine made out of tigers, or a latrine made by tigers?”
“You underestimate the greatness of the Eight Directions Palace. It’s all three. Special breeds of tigers, obviously, they take hierarchy even more seriously than we do. Some are born to be latrines, others to make them, and fewer still to use them. Don’t look down on the job, these are tigers worth knowing.” Tian nodded very wisely.
“I am moved beyond words by your blatant favoritism. I think I have a half eaten malt candy here I can offer…” She started patting her robe. “I swear I had it in a pocket somewhere. I’ll find it eventually.”
“No hurry, I can rent you a shovel until you find it. You don’t have to rent it once you give me the candy, of course. Then you can buy it with a loan against your future wages. A great benefit.” He eyeballed the tea for a moment longer, then grinned. “I can finally do something I’ve wanted to do for ages.”
He pulled out a tiny green orange skin, long since dried almost brown. It had been carefully split open so that the flesh could be removed while keeping the skin largely in one piece. Tian set out an ordinary tea pot and his fancy kettle, as well as a few cups. He carefully loaded the tea into the orange skin, doing his best to keep everything reasonably intact.
“If it was being done properly, I’d leave this to age for a few years, but we can call this a trial run. These are the skins of the Solar Oranges that Liren and I found. I thought they would make amazing tea oranges if we could get some Harmony Village Tea, but Sister Lin is the only person I know who has some. So now that we can bring all the pieces together…”
“Tea time?” Brother Wang asked with a grin.
“Yes. Consider it the broadminded generosity of a prime servant candidate, before I have you assigned to the lead mines.”
“Does the Mountain have lead mines?” Brother Wang asked.
“No, you will have to make the lead first, pack it into the ground, then mine it. I’m sorry, but I can’t provide you with any meals until you start pulling lead out of the ground. I have quotas of my own to meet, you see. Fearing the strong and bullying the weak, that’s how you make prime servant candidate.” Tian looked over at Lin. “I usually infuse my tea with my elemental understanding, but if you would prefer I didn’t-”
She waved her hand with forced casualness. “If there is one thing this trial teaches, it’s don’t be petty. Let’s see what’s so damn special about your tea.”
Liren coughed and looked pointedly at Wang, who rolled his eyes and produced a few bags of roasted melon seeds to share.
Tian poured his vital energy into the kettle, warming it to boiling before pouring it over the orange. He let it steep for almost a minute, poured the wash over his tea pets, then refilled the pot. He let the tea steep a little longer than he usually would, just to give the flavor of the dried orange and the tightly bundled tea a chance to develop, then poured for his guests, and finally, himself. A tea service short on ceremony, but full of affection.
“Mellow but a touch astringent, kind of woody, but you get a little hint of the orange… pretty good, I’d say.” Liren gave her evaluation, and the nods around Tian’s little tea table agreed with her.
Tian found his hand stroking the table. It was the same one he had picked up in the Redstone Wastes, a short-legged thing meant for people sitting on cushions or little stools. The wood wasn’t anything precious, and the bottom of the legs were pretty scuffed. A mortal might not even want it in their house. It had become something invisibly important to him. He never really thought about it, but would miss it dreadfully if it should break. Was that, too, yin? New pleasures and an old table, a moment of tranquillity livened with joy.
“I’ve had tea oranges before, but this is a pretty good orange. You might want to get your hands on some older Harmony Village Tea, though. With care, you can age it for decades.” Lin suggested.
“I would love to. Regrettably, we are in a giant bird cage these days.” Tian gave Lin a look. She gave him one back.
“You know all the tea varieties are the same kind of tree leaf, right? The difference is in processing and the land the tree grows on. We have a lot of old folks who love their tea on this mountain, and some of them, at some point, learned how to process tea.”
Tian thought that was an excellent point, and rewarded her with a fresh cup. She sniffed and took a long sip. Her eyelids dropped, as her eyes focused down on the tea.
“What a strange thing. It’s not just the taste of the tea, it’s in the warmth of the cup and the texture as the tea fills your mouth, pouring down your throat into your stomach. Fire and water, but not a fire of obliteration, or illumination. A Tea Fire. I couldn’t have imagined such a thing. And then there is the water carrying that fire, spreading through your body, filling you, moistening your organs, vivifying you. Making supple what was brittle. Not the water of winter’s death, or of spring rains, or still ponds or deep rivers. A small water, warmed by humans, shaped by humans, connecting humans, yet still part of nature.”
She looked up at Tian and smiled, and it was the warmest, truest smile he had ever seen on her face. “It’s a bit lacking in metal, though.”
Tian raised his cup and sipped the tea. It really was just ‘pretty good.’ The flavors needed time, years really, to properly age and mellow together. That was fine. He had the time, and there was nothing cultivators loved so much as a project.
“I’ll work on that.” Tian chuckled, and refilled the tea pot.
Refreshed and restored, they set off. Tian’s mind was still on what Sister Lin had said. Metal condensed water, generating it in the elemental chart. The aspect of earth he always found in the cup and the mountain the tea grew on, but metal always seemed so far removed from what he felt made a good tea service. He tried to make up for it with precision, an aspect of metal, but it was lacking. Something else must be found.
Coin purchased cups and tea leaves, but Tian discarded that thought immediately. Tian’s heart was illuminated by a clay lamp, not deafened by the clatter of a golden abacus. What parts of himself exemplified metal, and how could he bring them out in his tea? He meditated on it as they walked through the chiming music of the stone forest, enjoying the moment and savoring the chance to think about the important things.
It wasn’t too much further until they reached the next barrier on the path, which came in the form of a giant sculpture garden. It was a few dozen yards in diameter, with statues ranging from the size of Tian’s palm to towering figures more than twenty feet tall. Each was vividly painted, leaving no question as to what the statue might be representing.
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There were fast moving waves, licking fire, trees, rocks, rich earth, homes, terrified people, livestock, the animals of the woods and fields and oceans, all in distress. Above them all were a broken mountain, and two furious deities, one dressed in blue and white, the other in red and black.
“Gods of fire and water? Emperors? Supreme cultivators? It’s the wrong shade of blue for our uniform. Do any of you recognize any of this?” Tian asked.
There was a bout of synchronized head shaking, though Tian thought one of the denials looked a bit hesitant.
“Sister Lin?”
“I don’t know exactly what it is, but it does remind me of a story I heard. But I heard it from my uncle, who had been living in the Green Dragon Kingdom, so it might not be relevant.”
“Eight Directions Palace covered multiple kingdoms. Who knows if Green Dragon Kingdom is one of their successor states?” Liren encouraged her. “Let’s hear it.”
“There isn’t much to tell. It’s a creation myth from the local religion. Basically the god of water and the god of fire got into an argument, which then escalated into killing uncountable numbers of living creatures and eventually breaking the heavens with a bit of knocked over mountain. Eventually, a goddess intervened, settled the two of them down and patched up the world. She managed to stop the fires and the floods, heal the earth, and eventually fixed the hole in the heavens. Unfortunately, the damage was so severe that the whole planet got tilted. This explains why the heavens are spinning and rivers flow from west to east.”
“They don’t, though.” Sister Su objected.
“The two biggest ones in the Green Dragon Kingdom do.” Lin spread her hands. “Like I said, it’s a story from the local folk religion. The statues made me think of it, but I don’t know if it’s at all connected.”
Brother Wang lightly rubbed his hands together. “Are there any key features you remember from the story? Do the gods have symbolic weapons, or was there a precious artifact that featured in the story? Maybe a holy animal or something?”
“If there were things like that, Uncle didn’t mention them. This was a story he told me when I was a little girl, so he may have left some things out. Let me think.” Lin looked at the statue with half hooded eyes.
“He mostly talked about the goddess. She is described as a maiden, sometimes quite young, sometimes a teenager. I thought she sounded amazing. She gathered up reeds and mixed them with mud to make dams to stop the floods, burnt more reeds and turned them into ashes, then buried the fire with the ashes. The holes in the ground were filled that way too, as a way to heal the earth. There wasn’t any fixing the mountain, so maybe she used pieces of the mountain for that as well.”
“Alright, we have reeds, floods, fires and ashes so far, and the broken bits of the mountain. Anything else? How did she fix the heavens?” Wang asked.
“She found a five colored stone from the dawn of creation and she flew up into the heavens, raining flowers behind her. Then she fixed the stone into the heavens, which patched them up and kept the creatures from outside the universe from coming in and causing havoc.”
“So I guess we are looking for a five colored stone, then.” Liren concluded. “This feels like an illusion array, and I don’t want to find out what will happen if we break it.”
The group set off to explore the garden. The sculptures were all well made, in Tian’s opinion, and he appreciated the bright and lively colors, but that was about the limit of his ability to evaluate them. He had never really had much interest in sculpture, or formal gardens for that matter.
“What a complete mess.” Lin, on the other hand, came from a family that had existed since at least the founding of the Ancient Crane Monastery. She had garden opinions.
“Is there a problem, Sister Lin?” Wang asked.
“Yes. The sculptures have been placed without any sense of proportion or aesthetics, nor is there some underlying theme like nature or the interplay of elements. It’s all a jumbled mess.”
Tian looked carefully at the statues and saw… absolutely nothing different. They looked fine. They were in a place that was neither good nor bad.
“Perhaps that is part of the test. It wouldn’t be much of a trial if we just had to find a multicolored stone. Could we have to put the statues in their proper places?” Su suggested.
The five shared a look. Nobody had any better suggestions.
“But what would be the right place? Are we just supposed to guess the taste of the elders who designed the test?” Tian asked.
“Dunno. Put things where they feel right? It’s supposed to be a test of fire and water, so the waves and the flames seem kind of obvious.” Liren suggested. “Heavens know they are full of elemental energy as it is.”
Tian set his hand on a dashing wave, and had to control a grunt. “Cold. I think most people would find this uncomfortably cold.”
Brother Wang put his hand on a wave, and yanked it back with an oath. “You could call it that! There should be frost forming on these things!”
Tian found a flame and put his hand on it. He didn’t feel anything for a moment, then it was his turn to yank his hand away. “Hot! Damned hot!”
“Looks like we have figured out the ‘trial’ part of this trial.” Liren grinned. “Some of us can move different elements with different degrees of ease. Another trial that requires teamwork. Or exceptional abilities, I suppose.”
“I’m starting to get a feel for the Eight Directions Palace. They expect you to work hard, be thoughtful, sensible, able to get along with others, or have a big enough fist to overcome all objections, and the copper skin and iron bones needed to bear the consequences.” Brother Wang rubbed his hands and started looking around for stones to push.
“Truly the ancients were remarkable. I would have thought someone would die if they were copper plated.” Tian shook his head. “And I can’t imagine the pain of having your bones replaced with iron copies.”
That brought the conversation to a halt for a second. Four members of the group seemed to simultaneously unlock their divine sense, communicated silently, and immediately set to work pushing stones around.
To no one’s particular surprise, the main thing that needed moving were the flames and the waves. Liren had the easiest time with the flames, finding them not particularly warm, while Lin found the waves to be not particularly cold. Brother Wang was able to move the boulders, while Sister Su found that the statues of the people were actually metal. The two gods and the mountains were immovable, as were the bigger structures.
“They must have been left as clues, ways to hint at how things were to be organized.”
“Brother Tian, it seems there is no role for you.” Sister Su shook her head. “The forest has no wood.”
“There should be reeds around, according to the story. I’ll keep looking.”
Even though he said it, he had already been through the sculpture garden four times without finding anything. The others didn’t have any luck either. They could move the stones around, but without more clues as to how they should be arranged, nothing was achieved.
Tian sat on the ground and settled in to meditate. Problems had solutions, trials were things to be overcome. The ancients had arranged four of the five elements here, and the core of the trial was water and fire. This was also, apparently, recreating an ancient story. Lastly, there was an illusory array here, concealing whatever was on the other side of the trial.
“Fire and water contended, ruining the earth. Presumably that meant floods and lightning and forest fires and things.”
He let his mind float, anchored by his breath. Just watching the thoughts rush past on the current. It was an effective way to quiet the noise and focus on what actually mattered.
“First, fire and water must battle. It’s only afterward that the reed goes in the hole to heal the earth. Well. Reeds.”
Without consciously noticing it, he put his hand over his heart. He still felt cold, but he knew that once his middle dantian reconnected, there was going to be a monstrous swell of yang qi flushing his whole body. Fire and water, with poor old wood caught in between. Just getting ready to grow when the land had cleared and the waters receded.
“We should arrange the fire and water to recreate the battle. Move the earth and the people too. Let’s see if any changes occur.” He started to get up when a stray thought intruded. “I wonder if Liren likes my white hair. She’s always fussing about it, and for some reason, it warms my heart.”
He had to sit down again for a moment to compose himself. He had told Brother Fu that he wasn’t feeling urges, and that was even more true now than it was before. The excess yin was weighing on him heavily, and a vast chasm yawned below him. Despite that, there was an insistent voice calling to him from that void, telling him to jump.
“Brother and sisters, I have an idea…” He walked over, cupping his fist. For some reason, he was finding it a little hard to look straight at Liren.
The plan worked, eventually. The idea was sound, but the details were varied. The rocks symbolizing earth had to be placed just-so, as did the people, before the fire and water could be properly arranged. Fire flowing from the fire god, water from the water god. It took hours of experimentation before any results were produced.
When the final flame was set, it started to sway, as though a heavy wind was driving it. The water danced under the same invisible wind. The air seemed to crackle with lightning and rumble with the thunder of fire and flood. The sculptures moved and tore the ground with their passing. The human statues sank into the ground. Eventually, all that was left were holes, the gods, and softly rising reeds at the edges of the water.
“Where has the metal gone?” Sister Su tilted her head. “I understand the allegory, and I suppose the fire refines the metal, but this seems too much.”
Liren chuckled. “Sister, aren’t you looking at the metal now?” She flicked her fingers at the group, then grinned at Tian. “Go on, Brother. Heal the land.”
It was the work of just a few minutes to gather armfulls of the stone reeds. They were just the right size to fill the gaps. Once the land was healed, the waters receded, and with it, the array. Revealing the true land of water and fire it had been concealing.