The world grew dark as qì flowed into him with the roar of an ocean upturned. He was at once drowning and coming to life.
When Zen opened his eyes again, there was someone—something—else with him, seeing with his eyes and breathing with his mouth and moving his arms and legs.
He bent and picked up the girl before him, cradling her to his chest. She was so oddly light, her head lolling against the crook of his neck like that of a rag doll. He noted the blood leaking from her wound with a strange, clinical detachment.
He blinked. Sweat pricked at his forehead.I am Zen,he thought.I am in control. You answer tome.
The presence in his mind drew back. His vision cleared. The Boundary Seal wavered before him, the innocuous-looking pine tree seeming to watch as he approached.
Zen held his breath and stepped through.
He felt a resistance of qì for a moment, swirling over him like a thick fog. In that fog were whispers of souls lost to time, the breath of ghosts unforgotten against the nape of his neck, invisible claws reaching into the depths of his heart to test him. For a moment, he was afraid of what the Seal might find there—the monster he’d been when his grandmaster had carried him up this mountain eleven cycles ago, perhaps. Or the things his nightmares were made of: knives made of metals that burned and the conquerors who wielded them against people like him. And then, earlier still: distant screams, the smell of grass burning, blood seeping into his shoes. The ripple of a golden pennant beneath an unbroken blue sky.
Lan’s breathing hitched against him, rooting him back tothe present. Her cheek rested against his chest, the soft parts of her throat exposed. He could see the dark vein winding up her neck, the semblance of a heartbeat pulsing against it.
I can be of use to you,she’d said to him the first night they’d met. Rain-darkened lashes, eyes like pebbles beneath water, lips trembling.
Beneath it all, there had been fire. He’d sensed it. Any ordinary person might have given up, but the girl—she’d looked straight at him and asked him for an equivalent exchange.
Zen drew her closer, anchoring himself against the maelstrom in his mind.
The fog, the whispers, the claws retreated in a collective sigh. The storm cleared. As the Boundary Seal yielded to let him pass, a path opened between the pines, the clouds yielding to a spill of crisp sunshine with the diamond-cut quality of winter.
Zen climbed.
The presence—the power—in him was fading, retreating into the chasm in which it resided. Each step demanded more of him. In his arms, Lan grew heavier.
Nine hundred ninety-nine steps to the top. The first lesson of practitioning, wrought in the entryway to the school itself: There were no shortcuts to the Way.
Whether it was out of sheer will or desperation to live, Zen made it. The air grew misty and cold as he ascended, the steps wet with condensation, leaves and branches rustling in harmony with the sound of running water nearby. At last, the stone steps gave way to a flat expanse of ground; the bamboo and evergreens cleared, revealing a zigzag of temples nestled into the mountain, a pái’fang made of two stone pillars, and a large polished boulder that seemed to have sprung from the ground itself.
Before it all stood a man with robes that spilled like snow.
As Zen fell to his knees, the grandmaster of the School of the White Pines spoke, his voice as clear as a drop of ink unfurling in water. “Ah, just in time, Zen. The snow camellias have bloomed.”
The nobleman is indiscriminately kind toward both his equals and his inferiors.
—Kontencian Analects (Classic of Society),6:4
She came to slowly, pulling herself from the threads of sleep. The scene before her unfolded as though from a dream. Sunlight spilled onto her skin, soft and warm. A fresh breeze kissed her cheek, bringing with it the scent of rain and pine trees. High overhead rose a ceiling slatted with redwood, cornices adorned with carvings of mythical creatures and gods of the Hin pantheon. By her side: a folding screen, painted with figures of Hin scholars bent over scrolls amidst jagged mountains and winding rivers. It might have belonged to a study from her old courtyard house. In her state between wakefulness and slumber, she almost expected her chambermaid to come bustling through the wooden doors with a tray of steaming congee laden with nuts and jujubes.
Lan turned her head and immediately regretted it. Her left arm was bare, and protruding from her flesh were about a dozen long needles thinner than wisps of hair. Biting back a scream, she sat up, seized a fistful of the needles, and pulled.
The wound in her side pulsed with pain. Lan gritted herteeth, flung the needles to the floor, and ripped out another batch.
There was movement beyond the screen as she threw the last handful of needles to the floor. “Miss?” came an unfamiliar voice. A light tenor, soft and unimposing. “Are you awake?”
A young man appeared, dressed in a nondescript white páo cinched at the waist with a crisp blue sash. His complexion was as clear as spring water: a slim, gentle face framed by a fall of long hair that curled at his pale, slender neck. His upper lip broke at the center—a cleft lip, Lan realized, or what the village folk crudely calledrabbit lips.
Those lips parted in surprise as he beheld the scene before him: Lan, panting and swaying where she sat, the bandages on her side splitting, needles scattered over the floor.
“Oh no,” the newcomer said.
“What,” Lan panted, “is that? Who are you?”
The young man suddenly looked rather bashful. “Forgiveness—I seem to have left my mind and manners in my studies, as my shi’fù would say. My name is Shàn’jun, disciple of Medicine. I was…I was attempting to heal your arm through acupuncture.”
Shi’fù—master. Disciple of Medicine.Lan looked around her again. Beyond the screen, she could make out wooden shelves that lined the opposite wall—only instead of books, they were filled with boxes, drawers, and crates.
