The response sprang to her lips, the lantern in the darknessthat had kept her foot firmly planted in the light. “And it is the duty of those with power to protect those without,” Lan replied. They were her mother’s words, and she recalled speaking them to him so long ago. She’d thought they shared this belief—and perhaps that was what pushed her forward. One last attempt to understand him. To know whether he was beyond saving. “Zen, do you think the Demon Gods should be destroyed?”
His lips parted. He hesitated, and that was all the response she needed.
Lan stepped back. Cold air rushed into the space between them as she lowered That Which Cuts Stars. “You’ll have to kill me to get the location of the Crimson Phoenix,” she said, sheathing her blade in a decisive stroke. “And next time, Xan Temurezen, I won’t miss. Just as you taught me.”
She left him there, feeling only the absence left in the wake of his qì. When she stepped outside, the night air stung, biting and refreshing compared to the suffocating incense of the House of Drunken Orchids.This,Lan reminded herself, was reality. Better any day to face the cold, hard truth than to deceive herself into believing dreams of smoke and illusion.
She blinked. A strange sound had filled the night. Beneath the mournful low of the desert wind, it rolled out, slow and rhythmic, permeating the streets of Nakkar: the curved-roof pagodas and rammed-earth houses, the back alleys and dirt roads. It drowned out the faint sounds of laughter emanating from the brothel. It rolled over the distant songs of zithers and lutes across winehouses until the air seemed to tremble withit.
It was the sonorous toll of a bell, growing with each chime.
Lan’s hands came to rest on the ocarina and dagger hanging from her waist. The words of the innkeeper returned toher:The sound of a clock chiming, a bell tolling, children singing in the dark…
A gust of yin energies swept across the city. At that moment, the moon grew brighter behind the clouds.
Goosebumps broke across Lan’s arms.
At the top of the Öshangma Light Mountain, within the thick, roiling clouds, the shape of an ancient temple had appeared.
And the immortals danced
In a garden of blossoms on the clouds
Beneath a palace of jade amidst the stars,
Their shadows cast upon the earth only when the moon shone brightest.
—“The Immortals,”Hin Village Folktales: A Collection
Lan conjured a small Seal with her ocarina, one that pulled the qì of shadows toward her, just enough to let her blend in completely with the pockets of darkness offered by the silent streets. She slipped through the alleyways, past winehouses and taverns and sleepy residences, until suddenly, the roads and houses ended and she found herself at the bottom of the Öshangma Light Mountain.
The mountains on this side of the Last Kingdom were different from their lush, misty counterparts in the central regions. Here, the crags jutted sharp and unforgiving. The Öshangma Light Mountain rose at an impossibly steep angle; tall junipers shadowed any paths that might have wound up it, alternating with dry rock until they disappeared into the clouds.
Her heart slammed against her ribs. By some miracle, the innkeeper’s tale had held truth; here, before her, was a chance at the answers she sought. A chance to find the path to Shaklahira.
Lan craned her neck. The mountain was unnervinglysteep, and she could see no viable way up without using the Light Arts.
The tolling sound, though, had shifted, and now Lan understood that it was qì presenting itself to her in the form of music, spilling from the top of the mountain and winding through the spruces and pines. Its tone was soft, hollow, and blended in with the wind. Lan knew this music was a Seal, a question awaiting an answer. A half circle awaiting completion.
Who are you?
Lan brought her ocarina to her lips, closed her eyes, and played her response, placing notes in the cracks between those of the ghostly song, meeting each note as if making a moon whole, a circle fully drawn.
I am Sòng Lián, survivor of the Sòng clan and heir to the Order of Ten Thousand Flowers. I will bring an end to the Four Demon Gods and the vicious cycle of power, war, and bloodshed they have wrought upon this land and its peoples.
Her song shifted, became a key to a lock. Before her, the surface of the mountain rippled. Rock became translucent, an essence that just caught the shimmer of moonlight.
A forgotten Boundary Seal.
Lan stepped forward. Each such Seal was different, depending on the intention of its practitioner and what kind of qì they wove into it. The one that had protected the School of the White Pines had assessed the qì within the soul of a person attempting to pass through it, in order to ensure that they meant no harm. This Boundary Seal felt slightly different; as Lan passed through, cool currents of qì brushed against her, as though invisible people stood just several steps from her, whispering.
When she emerged, she was in a cavern of sorts. A set of stone stairs led up and out, disappearing somewhere onthe side of the mountain. It was brighter in here; moonlight poured in, illuminating murals on the walls and bestowing on them a patina of silver.
The pictures were of people draped in flowing silks and sashes, gliding on clouds. Interspersed with them were mythological creatures: the Demon Gods, a nine-tailed fox, a skull-headed wolf, a four-eyed bird. The legends of immortals had persisted among the Hin, yet as Lan studied the figures gliding among swirling stars and clouds, wonder and sadness arose equally inside her. Just how much of the beauty of life in this land had the humans destroyed over time?
Moving from one mural to the next, Lan marveled at the detail. She had read in one of the tomes in the school’s bookhouse that the Yuè had once created enchanted murals that could move and flow, like paintings come to life. The ones here, however, lay cold and unmoving, etched in stone. Lost to time.
When she reached the end of the cavern, she began to climb the steps that wound up and out of sight. A laugh burbled up in her chest.There are no shortcuts to the Way.
