“Dame Hei polled the waters around Stillwater Lake, and the marshes to the north. She would pick up poor souls lost in the mists that wreath the lake for most of the year, yet none reached the far shore…” Tian read the passage, his voice alternating between a creaking falsetto and a moist enthusiasm. The aim was a sort of morbid storyteller, weaving graveyard tales by the fireside on a cold autumn night. He may have overdone it from the way little Han was scrambling backwards across the courtyard. Tian felt wronged. Was it his fault that he was a yin man? Was it his fault that he was full of wood and water qi?
Well, yes, those last two things were his fault, but he still didn’t feel like he should be blamed for them. Liren coughed.
“While I am definitely learning this, it also definitely doesn’t suit me. This is plainly a heretical art.”
“You know, I’m not sure about that.” Tian shook his head. “Read it again with me. It does need some powerful yin agents at the Earthly Realm, but at the Heavenly Realm, it’s just about condensing a lot of yin qi, specifically water qi, around you. None of it is particularly evil.”
“She enjoyed the way their little fingers tried to scratch her iron skin…” Liren read, then gave him a pointed look.
“Right, yes, the Drowned Dame wasn’t a nice person, however, no actual killing people is required to use the spell. It’s about luring people in and suppressing them in a concealing cloud of mist, as you pole along in a flying boat at high speeds. The boat is supposed to be the hard part to get, but we have a Heavenly tier folding boat, and the requirements for the pole aren’t anything special either. Just has to be Yin wood, and there are loads of it around. We have some in storage.”
Liren looked doubtfully at him. “We do? Not amongst the treasures we don’t.”
“What trashy treasures are you talking about? You just don’t appreciate what we have.” Tian produced ten excellent sticks, proud of how his collection had grown over the years. “Look at this beauty here. It was from a willow that fell into a bog. The outer layers became packed with mud, perfectly preserving the inner core and condensing its yin nature. I don’t know exactly what its species was originally, but I call it the Bogheart Willow Pole. I was thinking about making it into a staff, but it’s only at the Earthly Realm. It might not be worth it to forcibly upgrade it to the Heavenly Realm, if such a thing is even possible.”
He pushed the staff into Liren’s hands. It was quite tall and blindingly white, with thin streaks of black stretching down it. The stick was as wide around as her wrist. It was quite suitable as a pole to push a boat, Tian thought.
“When did you find this?”
“Mmm? Oh, it’s not exactly rare, you can find tons of downed trees in the boggy ground around Ancient Crane Monastery. I asked a brother about it, and he said that the animals are so strong, the weaker trees just get knocked over when they itch their backs or something.” Tian shrugged. “That was the best one I found, after peeling away a bunch of layers of crappy wood.”
“I’m glad you did, but… why?”
Tian blinked. “Do you, somehow, not see the stick?”
She looked at the stick in her hand. “I see it.”
“It is an excellent stick.”
“It’s pretty great for our purposes, yeah.”
“No, it is an excellent stick.”
Liren tilted her head to one side. “Is it?”
“Yes.”
“And that explains everything, does it?”
“Yes. Student Han, back me up on this.”
Han reluctantly nodded his head. He slowly sorted through his cards and pulled a rarely used one. “It is an excellent stick.”
Tian pointed at the card and gave Liren a look.
She looked up, lonely eyes gazing at the drifting white clouds. “It’s so hard, being the only sensible one.”
As the sun passed its peak, a little white cloud gathered around the city lord’s manor, then slowly lifted into the sky.
“Two hours!”
“I know. Dreadful.”
“Two. TWO! Do you know how long, how much of my life, I have spent studying a single spear art? A handful of moves of that spear art? And in two hours, just two hours, I can fly this damned boat!”
“Shocking. Shocking and disgraceful. Clearly they are the worst.”
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“You’re damned right they are.” Liren paused, then narrowed her eyes. “Who are?”
“Dunno. Whoever we are mad at right now. I’m backing you all the way, so long as you support my life-mission of slandering sword cultivators.”
“I can’t do that. It’s not slander if it’s the truth.”
Tian threw up his hands and sighed. “I’m helpless before your logic. I’ll just have to blindly support you.”
“Wise decision. Still, though, these transportation arts are ridiculous. First the flying swords, now this boat. I don’t think I’m a genius of transportation arts either.”
Tian grinned, but kept his mind on his breath. He was steadily pulling in all the water qi he could, letting Liren use it to support the boat and propel them through the air. “It’s the tools. I can understand why you never see crafters out and about, Heavens know how much effort it takes to make something like this. No wonder only elder level figures had sky barges. And… not even all of them, now that I think about it. Did Elder Rui have a sky barge?”
“Not that I know of. When I saw him flying, it was either on a sword or on the back of Elder Redmane. Though I feel like he should have had one, he is very senior. Maybe he has one but doesn’t use it often.” Liren pushed the boat along with the bogheart pole. “You know what? This really is an excellent pole.”
“See? And speaking of seeing, Student Han, what do you think of the view?”
Han was having a lot of emotions. Tian saw him sprawled over the seat in the middle of the boat, clinging to the bench with both arms and both legs. He alternately pressed his head against the wood, squeezing his eyes shut, and slowly raised it just enough to peek over the edge.
Tian chuckled. “I had a rather different reaction the first time I went flying. Properly flying, I mean, on the back of Elder Redmane. The feeling of embracing the sky, of becoming one with the heavens, was…” Tian’s voice trailed off and he shook his head. “The feelings were too much. The horrors of what I saw and did, how my brothers and sisters suffered and died, what I saw the heretics doing, it was all too much. I couldn’t carry that weight. But Elder Redmane saw right through me. He knew what I needed. He carried me up into the sky and let me be free.”
He waved at the clouds around them. “Even now that I can fly on that blasted flying sword, I like this much better. I’m not alone. Someone is flying with me. My Liren.” Tian laughed softly. “A yin man must be a little possessive, I suppose.”
“I don’t hate it.” Liren smiled at him.
“To be free in the heavens, to unburden your mind and let the sky carry it, and to know that you are safe. That you are with someone you can utterly trust. You can open your heart and mind and let all the things burdening you fall upwards into the sky. I wanted you to have at least a little of that feeling. The chance to see the world from a perspective mortals cannot and do not. You could be the Emperor himself, and your feet wouldn’t leave the ground. But you have been free in the wild blue sky. What walls or borders could hold you now?”
Han’s head jerked around, looking unbelieving at Tian, who nodded and smiled, then tilted his head towards the side of the boat. “You know you can’t fall with us around. Why not have a look? Put down your burdens for a moment. Let them fall away. Open yourself to the sky, and breathe.”
Han paused for a moment, then forced himself to nod. He swung his legs over and set them on the floor. Letting go with his hands was a bigger effort. Tian could see them twitching to grab ahold again. Sitting up took two tries. Standing took three. In the end, he grabbed the side of the boat and pulled himself to his feet, eyes clenched tight. Then he opened them, and gasped.
Han stared out over the steppes, watching the clouds cast their shadows over the rough grass and sweet myrtle. Vultures and eagles circled high, falcons dove on quick rabbits and careful mice. Deer and antelope grazed, ever watchful of what could be stalking them through the grass. And him. In the midst of it all. Floating in a vastness so profound, was there a “him” at all? Or was he simply part of the single immensity called the dao?
Tian watched, feeling bittersweet. The moment lasted for a few minutes from his perspective. He wondered how long it was for Han. The young man fell back on the seat in a crumpled heap. Liren kept the boat moving steadily, making their way back to the fleeing former slaves. It had only been a day. They couldn’t have traveled far.
“It occurred to me that I don’t know what is ‘normal’ for a mortal teenager. I never was one, you see. Neither was Liren.”
“Oi!”
“You joined the convent at almost the same time I joined the temple. We were both eight. Or nine. Or whatever.”
“TEN!”
“Sure, maybe. The point is that you were raised around cultivators your whole life, and I lived in a garbage heap, then we joined the Ancient Crane Monastery and have watched mortal lives from outside ever since. The senior who sent us to you, Han, said explicitly that you had no fate with immortality. That senior is so far beyond us in power, no useful comparison can be made. The gap between him and I is far, far greater than the gap between you and me.”
Tian looked out over the side of the boat, watching the clouds for a moment before looking back at Han. “I thought I knew better, of course. I thought I could build you up, and if you got strong enough, and if I liked you enough to take the chance, you might be reborn a cultivator the same way I was. Bodily destruction and reconstruction. I no longer think I can do that. That senior knows better than me. I won’t kill you for the sake of a future you aren’t fated for in this life. I am known for my wild arrogance, but there is a limit.”
Han blinked in shock and gave Tian a disbelieving look. Then he looked over at Liren questioningly.
“He really does have a reputation for being intensely arrogant. There are some who think Tian Zihao is his daoist title, not his given name. He once told the most powerful human in the Kingdom, who also happens to be our sect master, that he wasn’t fit to be his master, nor were any of the elders he trained.”
“I did no such thing!”
“You absolutely did. And I silently endorsed it, and followed suit. What is there to say? You were right.”
She poled the boat through the sky, trailing wisps of white clouds behind them. “What my dao companion is trying to say, in his roundabout way, is that it’s not about how long you live, but how you live. Even for an immortal, the time before and after they die is infinitely longer than the moment of their existence. Live a mortal life, but find your dao. Find what piece of the world you are, and what you can do in the time you have. Try to do more good than bad, though nothing is ever one thing, and nothing lasts forever. So while you live, blaze! Live fiercely, love wildly, and laugh loudly even if the laughter only echoes in your heart!”
“And when it is time to rest, rest. Flow through life, then find moments of stillness. Find contentment. Then die well.” Tian looked out again at the clouds, this time smiling. “Though I think you will be very busy, this life. Sis’ I think I see them over there. Let’s show our student a battle worth his fighting.”