Sky Pride

As far as Sister Su was concerned, she and Daoist Mei had gone from desperate rivals to firmest allies. She would no longer hear a single bad, or even cautionary, word about her new sister.

“It is quite obvious. She chose the most optimal outcome for the greatest number of people. It relied on her taking a leap of faith. Trusting in her assessment of both Brother Wang and yourself. An act of commendable wisdom and courage. I, naturally, will meet honor with honor, and develop the best system for maximal happiness for everyone in this marriage.”

Sister Su forced herself to her feet and staggered over to her desk, grabbing blank sheets of paper, setting out ink and a clean brush. Volumes of law, biographies and courtly records fell from her ring like an avalanche tumbling down on a large, unsuspecting, man.

“Oh… good. And… what will Brother Wang think about all this?” Tian struggled to keep in the laughter.

“He will be delighted, once he knows. I will have everything organized first. That way he only has to nod, and all will be well. And stamp the marriage contract, obviously, but I will handle the administrative minutia.” The thought that the twenty six year old Wang might not want to be married clearly did not occur to Sister Su. It seemed useless to mention it now.

The books were opened and references found, while Su’s left hand was wholly involved with grinding the ink. Dog-hair brushes, immaculately clean, were laid out on top of books with titles like “The Thirty Six Stratagems of the Bedchamber” and “Phoenix and Dragon Contending.”

Brother Wang was a big man, easily surpassing six foot one. Tian could only trust that he was tall enough and broad enough to take on the combined might of Sister Su and the soon-to-be-if-not-already Martial Aunt Mei. Though how the sects were going to resolve that little issue was mercifully not his problem.

He thought, for all of five minutes.

“Junior Tian Zihao, kindly drag your troublemaking ass up to my Windblown Manor. Now.”

Tian didn’t know that flying clouds could slam into the ground hard enough to make a booming thud. The one from the Manor did. He meekly stepped onboard, and was whisked directly to Elder Feng’s office. Very directly. Straight around the back of the Manor, up to her walk-out windows and deposited, swaying slightly from the speed and sudden acceleration changes, onto the carpet.

“What a generous, compassionate, caring young man you are. Truly an emblem of virtue for the younger generation,” Elder Feng said, in much the same way a judge might lead up to pronouncing death by four horses.

“What a pity you can’t offer a shred, the tiniest shred, of that thoughtfulness to your Elder. Someone who has, for most of a year now, been wracking her brain trying to keep her Sect alive, keep the Alliance she worked very hard to make intact, and keep five deeply wounded children from killing themselves and each other. Which, with the way some of you looked at knives when you thought no one was watching, was damned hard! Do you know what a suicide watch is? Can you even imagine spending a year doing it for five people and managing the sect’s diplomacy at the same time?!”

Tian cupped his hands and bowed. He didn’t really consider the Elders reliable, but there was no question that, like Elder Rui, Elder Feng had done her best for him. For all of them.

Elder Feng exhaled hard and recovered some of her composure.

“In fairness to you, most of the time I was trying to guess which day moral disgust would see you walking off into the jungle without a backward glance. Others had me a bit more on edge.”

She rapped the table, failing to notice her knuckles were leaving dents in the ancient wood.

“Let us quickly review. You arrived at the Courtyard and picked a fight at the welcome banquet. All good stuff, you really slapped their faces to a rosy pink. Cheered me up no end, and you worked splendidly with your Sister Hong to humiliate both juniors and elders. Your Brother Wang really walloped them too. The array? Adequate. Loved how you finally clicked with the crane, and even picked up on the lesson about leadership I was hoping you would learn. Ditto the waterfall. Junior Wang was the real hero there, loved the chair idea for oppression, but your man-bird dominance pose was memorable. I think it was the combination of repeated dominance displays, followed by the surreal image of a literal crane displaying dominance over them. The tinge of unreality, making them doubt their own lives. That really ground in a feeling of humiliated inferiority in dozens of promising juniors.”

She slammed back a small cup. Tian could smell floral wine.

“Publicly naming the scions of two of the Courtyard’s leading lineages the Fried Dough Daoists and making it stick was delightfully petty. So much so that I ‘accidentally’ addressed my counterpart as ‘Elder Oily,’ and had the pleasure of watching the other Heaven Watching Scholars hide their snickers.”

She poured herself a fresh cup from the slim porcelain carafe on her desk. “Jungle? Fine. Battle? Fine. Luring in more horrors? Excellent. Multiple possible right answers, but meeting elaborate schemes with simplicity and minimal action gave both juniors and seniors alike fits. The elders sure got the message, and I can tell you, they didn’t enjoy receiving it from a Junior. At high speed. Open palmed. To their face. In public. Cranes can fight, but will fly away if there is no hope of winning. Can array masters?”

Her smile was downright infernal. “You now have a reputation for unspeakable ruthlessness at the very highest echelons of the Five Elements Courtyard. And you are going to have a considerably more benevolent reputation when word gets back to the sect about how you healed Junior Lin’s dao heart. Not that she isn’t going to be a screaming migraine for those old bastards she calls her family.”

That got a savage smile from her, even as she downed the cup.

“And you were right- there was a big set-up around the temple. Huge temple defending array. The clay soldiers come to life and you have to form yet more arrays to suppress them if you want to study them. Defeating them, at the Earthly Realm, is quite impossible. Kind of taunting- ‘Oh, you like your fighty, stabby stuff don’t you? There is a huge opportunity here, but none for you! We don’t even want it, we are just practicing our arrays, lah dee dah.’ Regrettably, Daoist Mei wasn’t given the activation talisman for the temple protecting formation. Not being considered reliable, due to her not being part of a Manor. And her well known loose morals.”

Tian grinned, then suppressed his smile. Not the time.

“Which leads me to why I’m drinking this three hundred year old Sweet Wind Valley wine by myself at four in the afternoon in my office.” She waved the cup menacingly. “You already met or exceeded my hopes for the trip. And nobody really cared about Mei and Wang. One was playing the other, and if both were sincere, then there would be two broken hearts at the end of it all. I might care about Wang, but they didn’t care about Mei. So no problems.”

“Ah.”

“Oh we are well past ‘Ah.’ You are usually very careful. So why, Junior Tian, DID YOU THINK THAT YOUR LITTLE TEA PARTY WASN’T WATCHED BY THE ELDERS?!”

“You… never seemed to mind if other people knew about my tea, so…”

“OTHER PEOPLE Junior, aren’t a sect called The Five Elements Courtyard! Other People don’t break through to the Heavenly Person realm after a pleasant tea session. No tribulation lighting, ancestors be praised, but you know what? For most people, breaking through to the Heavenly Realm is the pinnacle of their ambition. Having a revelation about the dao in the process isn’t even something they can dream about. Yet you serve it up with a smile and disgraceful rice crackers. Sounds like Mei had a real revelation too- she’s bound for the ‘Ascending Phoenix Aerie’ with the other young ladies. Their equivalent of Core Disciples, with the understanding that many of them will be raised to their Direct Disciple equivalent.”

She exhaled heavily, her eyes flicking back and forth under heavy lids. “Coiling Dragon Pool. Before you ask about male core disciples.” She pinched the brow of her nose. “For Heaven’s sake, do the math, Junior! Your father ascends with a revelation powerful enough to trigger a heavenly tribulation, at the youthful age of two hundred and four. He is now a direct disciple. And not just any disciple. You want to guess who accepted his first disciple in six hundred years?”

“I couldn’t possibly, Elder.”

“I’ll give you a hint- it rhymes with Grand Elder, Daoist Master Starsieve. Which makes Disciple Fu disciple brothers with the current Sect Master!”

“Ahah. Ahaha. Ha. Ha. Go Dad?”

“Oh yes. Go Dad. Indeed. Did you… somehow… fail to connect the whole “Crush their next generation to establish the superiority of our own next generation” strategy to your own father’s elevation? Even if everything was going well, his breakthrough would be legendary. You might, just possibly, maybe, potentially, have noticed that things are not going well. The sect needs a rising legend. Direct Disciple Fu is it.”

She waved an elegant hand as she built momentum.

“So we have your famous father, who has become the new God of every elderly Level Nine and every frustrated reformer in eight kingdoms, then there is you, politically untouchable wildling that you are, who can give insights into the five elements via a cozy, if rustic, tea session. There is the Courtyard’s new direct disciple who is plunging headlong into what sounds like a three way marriage with Juniors Wang and Su. Two juniors who happen to be your close siblings in the sect and between your, and my, patronage, guaranteed high fliers as well.”

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Elder Feng fluttered her dainty fingertips, as though she were wishing her problems would fly away too.

“Mei breaks through right after you thoroughly, comprehensively, crushed the Courtyard’s youngest generation. And slapped their elders so hard, they will carry your hand print for years. Which puts an interesting spin in at least two directions on the whole ‘crushing the younger generation of the Courtyard’ assignment.”

Another small cup filled, and emptied. Then Elder Feng pressed on.

“You promoted someone to their upper echelons who doesn’t come from an established faction. Bad enough, and they all heard what she said too. So their core or direct-disciple tier disciple is a prime candidate to be poached by us. And I will be trying to poach her. I’d be crazy not to! Which means they are going to be very, very prickly about her. A lot of fine young gentlemen, and their enablers, are going to want to take steps about her, and I don’t mean apologize or make amends. But they can’t, because she is the rising hope of a humiliated sect! All going on while I’m trying to get those scheming, slimy, snobby, scumbags to make the regional array that we need. I know you disdain flowery words, so I will simply describe the present political situation as fucked!”

“I think Brother Wang was more hoping for a slow, sweet romance, actually. I don’t think he’s seriously thought about marriage at all.” Tian volunteered, desperately trying to pretend he didn’t hear an Elder repeatedly losing their composure.

“What does that have to do with anything?” Elder Feng snapped. Then softened her voice. “Two people you admire and desire, two people you pursued, hoping to devote themselves to a life with you? Most of us can only pray to be half so lucky. He wasn’t lying to you, he really did try to flirt with Su. He was just so damn arch and playful, she missed it entirely. Meanwhile, the poor girl was trying to flirt by arguing the comparative virtues of compulsory public service while glaring at him like a cat with distemper. This is what they all want, just faster than anyone expected. He’ll adjust.”

“Respectfully, Elder, all the things you mentioned sound like good things for us. If nothing else, threatening to steal away Daoist Mei would encourage them to cough up the goods, wouldn’t it?”

“Funny you should say stealing away. You look like you are about to get packed up.”

Tian forced his mind back on track. “Am I in danger?”

“Oh yes.”

“You think they will kidnap me?” Tian’s eyebrows shot up. He wanted to run, but they were already inside their territory. Where could he go?

“What kind of dilettante thugs do you think we are dealing with? They heard your little speech to Mei as clearly as I did. Things went as well as they did because you wholeheartedly extended your hospitality and compassion to her. They can’t even bribe you and hope for the same outcome. No, they want to give you whatever you want. Anything you want. With complete sincerity, they want you joyful, growing as a cultivator, and alive. Just so long as you stay in your little gilded cage, learning more about the elements and serving lots and lots of tea.”

“I don’t think I can be happy in a cage. I’m quite sure of it, actually.”

“I think they aim to persuade you otherwise. They want to poach all of you troublesome kids, but you and Hong Liren are definitely their top two picks. In a single, stunning move they reverse the tide and ensure their future hegemony. Wang and Su can be considered free extras as your tagalongs. Frustrated and ignored reformers, promised the ability to make real changes in how a kingdom runs thanks to the power of their wife. Then there is our guardian beast trainer. A scion of the Lin Clan is welcome wherever she goes. She has already felt the cold contempt of her family. Not too hard to pull over.”

Tian had the sudden premonition that life was going to get very unpleasant for a number of people surnamed Lin in the near future.

“It’s very them. I can manage the marriage, and I can manage Lin. I can even manage Mei, wherever she lands. It’s just West Town’s Finest Young Thugs that have me worried.”

“Elder, Sister Hong is intensely loyal to her family, and my father is on track to be at the very, very top of the sect. What could they possibly bribe me with that would keep me here?”

“Oh, not much. How about the lives of everyone you love?” 𝐟𝕣𝗲𝕖𝕨𝗲𝐛𝗻𝗼𝐯𝗲𝚕.𝗰𝚘𝐦

Tian felt icy water pouring over him, snapping him into focus. Elder Feng’s expression was grim.

“They wouldn’t threaten you. That would really be too stupid. No, they will offer. Depot Four gets a new, far better, defensive array. The regional array we wanted? Done. Turning dead treasures into living direct disciples is a trade that would have them smiling in their sleep. Arrays to improve healing, to concentrate qi in a region, illusory arrays to assist with training, they would give it to you. Whatever you needed to feel like your leaving was better for the people you love than your staying.”

The icewater froze solid. Elder Feng didn’t slow down. “And refusal often offends. Which is why we are getting you and Hong out of here. Now. Right this-” There was another thud and Liren practically bounced off her own flying cloud. “Minute. She’s already being discussed as the Five Color Vanguard General.” Elder Feng looked contemplative.

“She had her own fun time with arrays while you were working with the crane. Did you know she made forty leading ladies of the younger generation here compose odes to her beauty, then perform them publicly? It turns out that if you beat someone hard enough, they become poets. And watching her casually shatter dozens of combat arrays in a few breaths was quite the beating. Particularly as she was using an array cracking technique she was very clearly inventing on the spot. Some of the Heaven Watching Scholars needed to go into secluded meditation to recover themselves after watching her.” Elder Feng’s contemplative look turned firm.

“Five Color Vanguard General is a position they are inventing just for her. I heard mutterings of selecting a ‘Vanguard’ unit of ‘soldiers’ for her to command, made up of their prettiest flatterers. Flattering someone with low self esteem is disgustingly easy. And her family has suffered dreadfully under the Monastery. They would naturally be invited over and given everything they needed for a fresh start here. Given the state of Hong Village, I expect they would have their luggage packed by the end of the first sentence, and would be tapping their feet over the delay by the end of the second.”

Elder Feng stopped bothering with the cup and had a swig directly from the bottle.

“I have had the advantage of watching you two for months now, and even though it offends my every instinct, I’m pretty damn sure I know what the two of you need. And it’s not more time in a quiet place, or arrays, or being good little sacrifices for other people. You two need to run wild, but in a useful way. So I’m not waiting around. You two menaces to my peace of mind are getting dropped off at Thundering Falls Temple, just over the border from the Three Rivers Kingdom.” She pointed out the still open window. At what, Tian didn’t know.

“From there, you two are to make your way into the interior of the Broad Sky Kingdom. I’m giving you both access to the Mission system. Disciple Tian, this is my token. I’m giving you permission to use it for the sole and exclusive purpose of sending letters across the country. You don’t have to be glued to each other, but stick together unless Elder Rui or I give you orders to the contrary. Nobody else below the Direct Disciple Level has any authority to order otherwise. Understood? No, that was rhetorical. Here is Daoist Wilddark. You may remember him as the giant crow Daoist Steelshimmer arrived riding.”

A black crow flew into the room and bobbed his head. A dizzy looking crane staggered in next to him. “A pleasure to finally make your acquaintance, both of you.” Elder Feng waved him down.

“He’s taking you two and the crane across the mountains. Neither of you left anything in your rooms. I will send your fondest regards to the others. Now. Scram!”

Two uncomfortable, confusing days later, Tian, Hong and the crane found themselves on the side of a gorge. There was a temple on the other side. It was no trouble to reach the temple, the gorge was spanned by a sturdy stone bridge just a hundred yards away.

“So. Here we are then.” Hong said. Tian nodded.

“Indeed.”

“Tea service, huh?”

“And the love of a good woman. Women. Possibly a good man.”

“I’m not so sure about that. Brother Wang makes looking helpless an artform, and acts like he speaks without thinking. Yet here he is- rich, politically untouchable, and wed to two beautiful women. One of whom, happy surprise, has just broken through to the Heavenly Realm. He couldn’t have planned the last point, but making himself a desirable pawn for both sides to covet and protect? I could see him scheming that far ahead.” Hong’s voice drifted off with the night wind.

Tian contemplated that silently for a few moments, then said, “At this point I’m seriously considering a vow of chastity and living as a hermit. I’m told it’s very traditional for daoists to live in caves. I could live in a cave. It sounds peaceful.” He looked wistfully into the night sky.

“Clear out a second cave, I’ll join you.”

They lapsed into silence. Two days of thinking over Elder Feng’s deduction. Could he really stand living in a golden cage in exchange for all that? It seemed that mortal air could be found on immortal mountains. The thought was enough to make him short of breath.

He was afraid of being lonely. But he was also afraid of being choked by the expectations of others. He had seen what it had done to his brothers and sisters.

“I think Elder Feng was paying us a sort of compliment. She figured we would figure that all out at some point, or one of their spies would reach us or something, and she wanted us to hear the truth from her first. Then she set us loose to do whatever we wanted.” Hong said.

“Some compliment. When you get right down to it, I could see the Monastery agreeing to pass us over with terms that good.” Tian grunted.

“Nah. That’s where you are wrong.” Hong grinned. “Merchant life really isn’t for you, is it?”

“Eh? And no, but, eh?”

“If they are willing to pay so much for the two of us, willing to pay without blinking according to Elder Feng, then what does that say about what we are worth? And if Elder Feng was willing to buy a favor from the Seven Star School to fly us away at speed, what does that say about how the Monastery values us? Hell, do you know of any level sevens whose official orders are ‘run around the kingdom adventuring?’”

Tian nodded. Worth more than a regional array. Not for who he was now, but for who he might become. Who they might become. And while he was growing, his brothers would be dying. A worthwhile trade. The Monastery only cared about the few elites who could change everything. What a great trade. What a delightful, wonderful trade.

In the end, what did he want? A lot of things. Well, what could he get? Right now, in this place, at this time?

He looked over the misty gorge, and for the first time in two days, smiled.

“Hey, Sister. Why don’t you go ahead of me? I’ll meet you at the temple in a day or less.”

“Brother Zihao? Oh, what’s this?! You gave me so much shit for taking off my robe-”

“Yes, but that’s different. You were being weird. I am being very sensible.” Tian stripped off his robes and put away his rosary. He pulled on cheap linen trousers he had bought from the store, along with a rough tunic. On his left he hung a calabash full of cold tea from his belt. He couldn’t find a good spot to put the bamboo flute so he kept it in his ring.

“This is sensible, is it?”

“Yes. Very. Sometimes, to be something, it helps to dress the part. It doesn’t change who you are inside, but it can help get your mind in the right place.” He unpinned his hair and let it fall down his back. He didn’t quite like the way Liren rocked back at the sight. He must look mad. In the spirit of compromise, he loosely tied his hair back. The moon was just off full, and the mists came rolling off the waterfalls and rising up from the gorge.

“I have been dreaming of this night for a long time.” The words came out on a soft breath.

“Brother Zihao?”

He extended his mind towards the crane, just as the manual had taught him. Sharing a memory. The crane shimmered in the night, then grew. Not as big as Elder Redmane, but big enough. He jumped onto her back.

The crane flapped her long wings, and with a mighty surge, Tian entered the sky.

END Vol. 3