For a blazing instant, the city was flushed with ecstasy. Maddened joy. Ferocious passion blazed in the hearts of men and women. Fear was banished. Sadness was banished. Manic energy exploded in every muscle and sinew. For a glorious moment, the heart of the city was pure yang.
But yang alone cannot long endure. The moment passed. Passion and ecstasy were exhaled, muscles relaxed, those wild thoughts lingered for a moment, causing flushed cheeks and reddened necks, but no harm was done. The blaze of light passed, but it left a lingering warmth on everyone.
The mortals of the Broadsky Kingdom might be ignorant on some things, but they lived knowing immortals walked amongst them, and that those immortals were daoists. Ying-yang theory, the five elements, everyone had heard of these things, even if they were vague on the details. The struggle in the courtyard had clearly come to an end. The only question was, did the Guardian Faerie succeed in sealing the yang treasure, or was this the final blessing she bestowed upon the city?
“I lift my prohibition on the Courtyard.” Tian’s voice echoed, tired but relieved, in the ears of those who needed to hear it. Separately, he instructed the servants to bring out a bath tub and snacks, then summoned Han.
“You did very well. Let me take care of you now.” Tian murmured. Liren looked like a divine being, soft bronze light radiating from her skin, wrapped in golden robes. He gently cupped her chin, pressing his forehead to hers. “You worked very hard.”
“I love you. I love you so damn much. I can’t remember why I’m so scared of that. I know I am but right now-”
“Shh. It’s okay. I know.” Tian stroked the back of her head.
“I want to-”
“I know.”
She moved to kiss him, and he let her, but he calmed the hands reaching for him. “Not now. I swear I will say yes when the time is right, but you aren’t in your right mind right now. You need to rest. It’s not every day you light a new sun inside of you.”
“I did it, Zihao. I condensed the third sun. I understand so much more now. Light isn’t what we think. It’s a spear. Yang qi, sunlight is the purest expression, and it’s all spears.”
“Mmmhmm. The servants are bringing a tub. Let’s give you a nice bath.”
She was sweaty, babbling, exhausted, eyes fever bright but barely able to stay open. The glow was fading from her skin, but very slowly. The dreadful power within her was growing more concealed, condensed, as her yin qi began to stabilize. He drew on the spirit stone on his lap, releasing it while drawing in the ambient qi. He made a bubble of qi dense air. It would help her recover slowly without needing the focus of real cultivation.
Soft, gentle, nurturing. Tian smiled as he softly stroked Liren’s head. Sometimes, it was a joy to be a yin man. Han arrived not long after the servants. Tian had the bath set up inside their house, so he met his student in the courtyard. It appeared Han had come running the whole way. Given the time, he must have rushed over from the wall. He was staring fixedly at the burnt and shattered flagstones in the middle of the courtyard.
“Is Teacher Hong-” He started to write, but Tian cut him off.
“Sis’ Liren is fine. Exhausted but fine. The treasure is suppressed. Does anyone know what the Yuu are building out there?”
Han shook his head, then wrote “Some people think it’s a catapult, but it’s too big, missing some parts and with some parts added that don’t seem to do anything useful. It’s probably going to be a few more days until they are finished building them, whatever they are.”
Tian nodded. “Since I know people will ask, report this. The two traitors were Heavenly cultivators belonging to the Radiant Sun Sect, known as Redspear and Stonecutter. I don’t know why they betrayed their kingdom and their sect, but they did. They used a few schemes to try and kill us, and to destroy the wall, but were obviously unsuccessful. As the rumors reported, they carried a number of explosive talismans, one of which possessed dreadful power. Sis’ Liren suppressed the power within herself. She will lock it away, safeguarding it, and if necessary, she will unleash it within the enemy’s ranks, killing as many of their Grand Shamans as she can manage.”
Tian’s voice was spare, uninflected, as though he was describing drawing well water. “Naturally, I will be by her side, on that hour and day.” He smiled slightly. “I have heard heroes of the rivers and lakes pledge that, though they were born on different days, they would die on the same day. Funny. She and I truly might be born on the same day. It seems a tidy way to arrange things.”
Han dropped to his knees, looking stunned. Tian chuckled and patted his shoulder before raising him back to his feet. “Not that I think that day is coming soon, Student Han. Remember what I taught you. Danger shows the path to safety, and there is opportunity in calamity. My good sister is strong. I called you to let you know the situation, and so you can report to those who might benefit from knowing the truth. You should also let the City Protector know that the plan we discussed will likely have to happen in the next few days, depending on what the Yuu are doing out there. Also, tell him that I took the liberty of visiting his library and reading the book he showed me. It was an enjoyable read, if long on aphorisms and short on concrete instructions. Still, the first chapter in particular was memorable.”
After Han left, Liren’s voice drifted from the house. “Liar.”
“You and he both know I spoke not a word of lie just now. I wasn’t even really trying to mislead him. Much. Actually, I don’t really tell lies. Maybe a little bit, but not about the important things. What in particular do you think I lied about?”
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“You know we aren’t born on the same day.”
“We might be. Obviously not on the same hour. I’m older. But it could be the same day.” Tian sounded immensely righteous. There was silence from inside the house. Then,
“I know I went wrong somewhere. I just can’t think where it was.” Liren muttered. “At what point did I think a shorty was a reliable companion?”
“Your height advantage is strictly temporary. Soon, six foot one, and the world, shall be mine.”
“More lies. Why do you insist on terrorizing Han with our impending death?”
“Because I want him to live. I want him to love life. I want him to find immense meaning in it and value it, not holding it cheaply simply because it is a mortal life while he is surrounded by immortals. I want him to understand that an immortal is someone who is living longer, not forever, and not necessarily better. He will never be the same after meeting us. The whole course of his life has changed.” Tian’s voice turned a little desolate. “Have you noticed how he holds his spear? How he stands?”
“Yes?”
“He stands like you, Liren. He’s absorbed some of your spear dao. I guarantee that if he ran through a sword routine, you would see your spear dao in it. He will have picked up much of my dao too, though damned if I know how he will express it.”
Tian sighed. “He’s no son of mine, but I feel responsible for him. I want him to treasure those things a mortal can and should treasure. I want him to see the world without being mired in the mortal perspective. Someone living now, in the messy mortal world, who has glimpsed eternity in the purity of the heavens. I teach him that I revere life. I show him that an immortal can find someone he treasures more than an eternal life. And I hope he learns. He’s my student. I want him to have all the good things he can, with enough suffering so that he appreciates his blessings. I’m not so petty or insecure that I would deny him that. And for the life of me, I can’t help but feel we have harmed him. Tainted whatever his path would have been, with what ours is now.”
Liren was quiet for a while longer then asked “Chapter one?”
“When near, appear far. When strong, appear weak.”
“Are we strong?”
Tian smiled. “Getting stronger every day. Rest up, Sis. You are going to have the chance to show off soon.”
They spent the next few days trying to find out just how strong Liren had become without demolishing the City Lord’s manor. Or the city. It wasn’t easy. The City Lord would never know how close he came to death, saved only by Liren’s superb muscular control, and Tian’s surprising resilience. He had to step in frequently, to stop a blow or control her movement. The explosive force behind each lunge was quietly terrifying. Liren had once said that each new sun she lit doubled her strength, and while Tian didn’t know if that was exactly true, she was certainly a lot stronger than he was.
As her vital energy grew, her qi grew too. The Qi refining spell she used went from being reasonably quick to a blazing inferno. She was drawing in so much fire qi, Tian wondered which of them had studied an art based on devouring. Were fire sparrows big eaters? Was it some kind of atavism? Should he start gathering straw for a nest?
He asked her that last one, and she glared. Then grinned. “Only if you like sleeping on twigs. You won’t get away.”
It could have been a little idyl, were it not for the Yuu. They stopped their assaults for the moment, pulling back to the area around whatever they were constructing. They were huge machines. Enormous timbers had been carefully squared and cut, some on site, some brought in on wagons, then pieced together with iron bolts. The fulcrum rose, ultimately reaching a height thrice that of a man. The arm was far longer than an ordinary traction catapult, stretching almost fifty feet. Most puzzling was the heavy wooden box hanging from the front of the arm on a hinge.
“It looks like the box is designed to swing back and forth, and also pass through the legs holding up the axle that is the fulcrum of the big lever that is the arm? Do I have that right?” Tian asked.
“I think so.” Liren squinted and hesitated before shaking her head. “I don’t know. It’s some kind of catapult, but it only looks vaguely like the ones we have, and I don’t understand how those work either. Not really. Hey, do you see that guy? The one in the odd robes and the, I’m going to call it a hat?”
Tian squinted. Seeing things hundreds of yards away wasn’t much of a challenge for them, but there were a lot of people milling around. It took him a minute to see who she was pointing at. “Got him. Yes, he’s been around the construction site a lot, hasn’t he? It looks like he’s directing the building, but I’d swear he wasn’t a Yuu.”
They watched in silence for a while longer. “I had a nasty thought.” Liren grimaced.
“Oh?”
“The Yuu are steppe nomads, and the steppes cross more countries than just the Broadsky Kingdom.”
“Yes?”
“Just because they don’t have any siege engineers from here doesn’t mean they couldn’t have found siege engineers elsewhere.”
Tian joined her grimace. “Draw a picture. Try to capture a couple of angles of the catapult, particularly all the bits we don’t understand. Then have Little Han show it to our siege engineers. We might not know what Mr. Funny Hat is up to, but they might.”
They saw the reactions before Han ran back with a report. A lot of the structures on the wall got taken down, others were reinforced. Knife carts were wheeled out of their depots in the military district and placed in sheds or alleys around the city, ready to be rushed to plug a gap in the walls or gates if necessary. Soldiers were redeployed, rushing here and there, for what purpose the immortals couldn’t guess.
“It’s a catapult.” Han wrote.
Tian gave Han a very patient look. Liren mirrored it. His hand blurred as he wrote the next part of his explanation. “The engineers built models based on your drawings. If we are right, they can throw a stone three times further than our catapults can, or more. Some say that, depending on the counterbalance and the length of the arm, it might be as much as ten times. That means the stones are going to hit a whole lot harder. Hard enough to knock down the walls. Hard enough to knock down the gate. Not to mention all the other things on or near the walls.”
So all the roofed sentry houses would be obliterated, and the shielded brasiers, and presumably the ballistae and other defensive devices up on the wall. It would also make knocking down ladders or dumping boiling water or other nasty things down on the besiegers even more dangerous.
“This is not a catapult the kingdom uses?” Liren asked.
Han shook his head. “Not at all.”
Tian nodded. “Leave a will, Student Han. It’s too late to leave heirs. Then please carry my respects to the City Protector. It is time.”