Sky Pride

Brother Fu’s bamboo raft looked exactly like the ones Tian remembered from the Agate River- a single layer of thick bamboo poles, bound with cross sections of bamboo at the front and rear. The tips of the raft were tilted up slightly, and that was about that.

Tian could imagine a cormorant fisherman with bare feet and short linen trousers polling the bamboo raft along, a straw rain cloak over his shoulders and a rough straw hat shading his head. There would be a basket for the catch, and stinking droppings where the trained cormorant relieved itself. Naturally, Brother Fu’s raft was a bit more refined.

With studied indifference, Brother Fu casually flicked his hand and caused faint lines of glowing green symbols to emerge on the wood. Poles rose from the sides of the raft, then met in the middle, spreading out once more to form a little shaded awning. Benches emerged under the awning, also made of fragrant bamboo.

“Have a seat, have a seat. We won’t be going far, but I can’t have you rocking the raft.” He waved Tian, Liren, Su, Wang and Lin aboard. The crane flew over and landed at the front of the raft. Tian gave her a sardonic look, which she ignored. The benches were remarkably comfortable for all that they looked like they were made by the latest in a long line of bums.

Everyone settled in, being equally studious in ignoring the transforming raft. Brother Fu planted a seemingly ordinary bamboo pole against the ground and shoved off. The raft smoothly slid out into the air, drifting along the side of the mountain. Tian had an urge to put out a fishing line. He controlled it. Heavens only knew what he would catch.

“Disciple Fu, if I might ask, do we have any knowledge about the state of the world outside the wards?” Su looked out into the sky. You should have been able to see vast swaths of the Broadsky Kingdom from so high up, but Starsieve’s array blurred it all into splotches of color and swirling mists. Some days, Tian thought, it felt like the mountain was floating in a white sea. Blue skies above, and still waters below.

“No, nothing. The diviners have done their best with astrology, but even then they report heaven’s secrets elude them. It’s all just lights in the sky to them, now.” Brother Fu chuckled. “Whatever Master did, he did it exceedingly thoroughly.”

Tian and Hong didn’t share a look, and kept their mouths shut. They hadn’t ever discussed what to reveal about Starsieve’s machinations, but they had been consistently surprised at how thoroughly their seniors had figured things out. They had even posted a notice near the Scripture Pavilion, occasionally updated as new information was discovered about their situation. Starsieve’s long silence had been noticed at the highest levels of the sect, and endlessly speculated on. Once it became clear who was, and was not, still on the mountain, many things were deduced.

“Are we any closer to understanding what the ward is?” Tian asked. Liren could usually see through an array with a glance or three, and having two young experts from the Five Elements Courtyard should more than suffice. None of them could so much as glimpse the array, Heavenly Person Mei very much included.

“We are fairly confident that it is a natural array using the art of wind and water originally laid out by the Eight Directions Palace as a mountain protecting formation. However, as you can guess from my saying ‘We are fairly confident,’ we don’t actually know. The array core is hidden, and the odds of finding it are practically zero.”

“Zero? Even though it’s a very big mountain, Heavenly People can fly and have extraordinary senses. Can it really evade everyone?” Tian asked. Brother Fu sighed and shook his head.

“It is rather hard to understandably explain how tens of thousands of years of continual human habitation changes a place, especially one the size of this mountain, particularly as qi dense as this mountain is. To say there are man-made structures everywhere, while not literally accurate, it is pretty close. There is also the internal volume of the mountain to consider, as well as the fact that it might not be visible to our senses.”

“Might not be visible, Father?”

“Storage rings.” Brother Fu smiled slightly.

“I’m afraid I don’t follow, Father.”

“You can hold a cartload, or more, of goods in a little band of metal that fits around your finger. Clearly they are either being shrunk unimaginably small, or stored in a separate place that doesn’t entirely overlap with our own space. Just a single point of connection, in fact. We are fairly sure that’s what’s happening here- the eye or key of the array exists in a hidden space somewhere, waiting to be found or for the right conditions to occur.”

The raft was sinking through the air now, seeming to slide down the slope of the mountain towards the base. You could taste the changes in the air, the feeling of the humidity on your skin. It was a little warmer too, though the qi was less dense here.

“There are also, for lack of a better term, death regions on the mountain. There are only a few, and they are quite high up. The Sect Master’s residence is at the border of the lowest of them, and as far as I’m aware, no person currently living on Ancient Crane Mountain has ever set foot on the mountain peak. It is possible that the formation eye is located in such a death region or death zone or forbidden region or whatever we are calling it this week.” He shook his head, white beard whipping about.

Brother Wang smiled slightly. “Could these sealed testing grounds evolve into one of those forbidden regions?” 𝕗𝚛𝚎𝚎𝐰𝗲𝗯𝗻𝚘𝚟𝚎𝗹.𝕔𝐨𝕞

Brother Fu nodded approvingly. “Good question. It could be highly fatal, but wouldn’t qualify. The key distinction is qi density. Generally, a higher density of qi is better, however, there is a limit. Think of qi like sunshine or air. You would die without it, but you would also die with too much of it. Forbidden Regions are like standing in the light of a hundred suns, at noon, on the summer solstice. And then the things that live in those places may take notice of you.”

“There are things living in the forbidden zones?” Sister Su leaned forward.

“Oh yes. They don’t leave the zones. I think it would be akin to trying to breathe underwater for them. Still, the records of the ancients tell us they are powerful beyond hope or reason. We call ourselves the masters or owners of this mountain, but as a practical matter, that is only true of the energy poor regions. Comparatively poor, anyway. Perhaps we should simply call ourselves the human lords.” Brother Fu shook his head. “None of which is relevant to your excursion. It should be passable by anyone within the Earthly Realm, and should not require exquisite arts to complete. It was intended to screen ‘mortal’ servants. Not potential future disciples, servants. So even with more than ten thousand years of accumulation, the environment should be passable for you all. Difficult, dangerous, but passable.”

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The raft drifted down to a rather dull stretch of road. There was a short, grassy mound to one side, and a path splitting off the road and running between two steep hills. They really were very low on the mountain.

“How far are we from Mountain Gate City?” Tian asked.

“By road? A few hundred miles, given all the switchbacks and horizontal travel. Vertically, however, we are only about half a mile higher. The top of the Steps of Ascension end where the wards begin. As you can imagine, it was one of the first things we checked.” Brother Fu chuckled. “You wouldn’t have seen it, but the bottom of the ten thousand steps is in the City. There aren’t literally ten thousand steps, by the way, the number is symbolic. There is a receiving platform at the end, where you get picked up by an elder and an immortal crane. The walk is around five miles, and very meaningful.”

He took a deep breath and sighed. “I was quite regretful over the fact that I would die before I saw you climb them. Now I still won’t see you climb them. What a strange world we live in. I’ve said everything I ought to, and you have everything you should need. Off you go, the lot of you. Take care of yourselves, and remember, you can always leave and try again. Nobody is scoring this. This is about the fortune you can seize. Just be aware that the first time will generally yield the greatest fortune, so be daring, but sensible. Go, before I ramble even more.”

The juniors bowed and left the raft. Tian noticed the crane ducked her head before she stepped off. It nearly made him trip over his feet. She had never done that before, and it wasn’t something he had taught her. Except… maybe by example. But it would mean understanding when to bow and not to bow. Not crane thinking. Was she inching towards awakening her spiritual intelligence? Tian tried to make eye contact with Sister Lin, who firmly refused to meet his gaze.

He was surrounded by petty sisters. Fortunately, Sister Su was still sensible, and Brother Wang could be relied upon for any matters other than money or saying things that might upset the monastery. Though these days, that latter point might be less of an issue. They were all reliable in a fight. That counted for quite a lot. Tian half smiled and walked forward, not noticing that the others had waited for him to lead.

The entrance to the valley was marked by a heavy stone pillar carved with ancient script, and a narrow gap through some boulders. The gap was quite small, Brother Wang would have to squeeze unpleasantly to crawl through it.

“‘Testing Ground- Fire and Ice Valley….’” Sister Su’s voice slowly read the characters, then trailed off. “It seems my study of the ancient characters was insufficient. I cannot properly translate the rest of them.”

“Could you take a guess, Sister?” Tian asked.

“I can. That’s why I’m sure my understanding is lacking.” Her eyes narrowed. “It’s playing with the words mortal and immortal, fire and ice, and the concepts of purification. Very roughly, ‘Mortal is obedient and ashamed before the immortal, freeze away impurity and let clean water descend, burn the water and let true qi rise, destruction and purification give rise to the void and immortality, serve with gratitude.’”

The valley wasn’t silent. There were birds singing in the distance, insects crying in the grass, the wind rushed gently through the trees and gave texture to the air. It felt silent, though, as the group contemplated the words.

“I consider myself filial. I listen to the seniors when they tell me things, and I’d say I’m pretty obedient. However, I think it is my duty to future generations to note that our ancestors were ankle-biting crazy. In fact, based on what I have seen over the last two years or so, I’d say that the more ancient they were, the crazier they were. The Eight Directions Palace was clearly rabid.” Tian stroked his chin thoughtfully.

There was another moment of stillness, then more nods.

“I can’t even bicker about it. Horrible.” Liren shook her head. “These people were obsessed with status and feeding. Did you notice that? Between Suneater and the Saintess…”

“Yeah.” Tian nodded. “They ate the weak, or at least those they perceived as weaker. Which I can understand, but it’s the way they all seem to really enjoy the suffering that spooks me. That’s not right. That’s some kicked in the head thinking.”

“Sorry, did you say the Eight Directions Palace, a legendary transcendent power that ruled over who knows how much of the world, were cannibals?” Brother Wang’s voice slowly rose in intensity, especially when Lin, Hong and Tian all started nodding their heads.

“Not in the sense of eating people for meat, but in just about every other sense, yes. Their own personal survival was the most important thing, and everything else was a distant second place,” Hong said. “Logically, there must be more to them than just that, or they never would have gotten so big or so powerful. But based on the little bit we have seen, it really does feel that way. Sister Su, Sister Lin? Any insight?”

“You know more about them than I do.” Lin grunted. “My clan originates from outside the Broadsky Kingdom, and according to family legend, we were nomadic for most of our existence. If my ancestors had any contact with the Eight Directions Palace, the stories haven’t reached me.”

“Nor are they well attested in the records I have read. Anything that pre-dates the founding of the Monastery tends to be in the private collections of Elders or the more powerful Heavenly People. I can say that they were broadly well regarded in their era, and for a time, remembered fondly.” Sister Su shook her head.

“Fondly?” Liren asked.

“Mmm. Nobody below the Earthly realm ever saw them, and nobody below the Heavenly Realm had anything they wanted. Broadly speaking. The term popularly used to describe cultivators was ‘immortal heroes,’ as they were famous for their meritorious actions. To the overwhelming majority of people, they were a mythical existence, only appearing at times of utter calamity or natural disasters, usually resolving the problem.” Su smiled faintly. “Records do not indicate how many of those disasters were caused by the Eight Directions Palace, however.”

Tian shook his head and craned his neck upwards. “I’m going to assume bad things happen if we try to climb over the rocks.”

“Seems likely.” Brother Wang nodded.

Tian sighed through his nose. Sometimes, it was annoying being the senior brother. It didn’t change his responsibility. He started pulling off his robes.

“Brother, do we need to have the dress code conversation again?” Liren asked, with considerably more than a point in her tone.

“No, I remember it. But I’ll be damned if I start this trial by getting my good robes covered in dirt. You guys do what you please, but speaking as an expert in crawling around in the dirt, I suggest durable linens or skin.” Tian stripped down to his underrobes, and crawled into the stone tunnel.

“There are a few stray rocks in here, but it seems mostly clear. Some animal droppings and skeletons, nothing worth worrying about.” He yelled back as he crawled deeper in. He could feel the density of the qi changing, settling heavily on his skin. There was a smell of water, and a prickly sort of smell he couldn’t put into words. His elemental sense was no use, as it was going mad bouncing between fire and water. But, to his immense relief, it wasn’t dark, wasn’t too narrow, and the claustrophobia was manageable. He scurried through the rocky tunnel and shot to his feet.

“I’m through! Come on- Ah!” Tian’s voice cut off with a yell. The ugliest monkey he had ever seen launched itself at his face, claws out and teeth bared. And worse, it was on fire.