Mikulov expelled all stray thoughts from his consciousness and focused wholly on the necessity to heal this blight. He performed any small act he could think of, no matter how meaningless. He lifted his hands to the creature. He moved his lips in unintelligible speech, mumbling words that were vaguely comforting and reassuring, and when he saw how low it hovered above him, he stretched out his arms and embraced the creature, feeling energy flow through him to it. Finally, after seemingly endless minutes of excruciating concentration, his eyes closed and his arms slumped to the floor as exhaustion overcame him.
He lay insensate, too weak to move. Sleep claimed him at last, a gossamer kiss upon his brow.
He knew not how long he lay there, nor did he know how it came to be that he recovered enough strength to open his eyes and lift his head, but finally he did so and saw that he was alone. Nothing floated above him or menaced him in any way. Long he waited, yet at last he accepted what his instincts told him. The lesion was no more. The wound, healed, was gone.
Rising to an elbow, he beheld a second, smaller room he had not seen before, hardly larger than a monk's cell at the monastery; apparently, healing the lesion had triggered this chamber's opening. Within, Mikulov found sustenance—a pitcher of water to slake his thirst and salted meat to nourish his body. As weak as he was, Mikulov took no joy in replenishing himself. Instead, he ate and drank slowly, passionlessly, each moment spent contemplating all he had learned. He examined the hidden chamber and pondered the instrument that provided for its concealment. Power it was, clearly, perhaps prepared by the masters, crafted to thrive in perpetuity. Mikulov could feel it with his nascent abilities; his trial this day had thrown a door wide open within his mind, and he found he could now sense the force of the gods where it flowed, to a minor degree at least. And as he mechanically chewed the tough meat and washed it down with water, he peered around the room and discovered that more power surrounded him than he had initially thought. Far more.
Swallowing, he tightened his scrutiny.
Mikulov understood instinctively that the summoning of a mystical being such as the lesion required both control and command; its appearance must coincide roughly with that of new arrivals from the monastery, while its disappearance—depending on whether it had been healed—must signal the opening of the inner chamber to nourish the victor.
Or carry away the corpse of the vanquished.
Not only could Mikulov feel the power, but he now recognized its purpose as well: concealment. The masters had hidden something else down here. Mikulov's heart began to pound as he contemplated what it could be, but he instantly imposed calm upon his thoughts and emotions, reminding himself of the means through which the monks of the Floating Sky Monastery could channel the force of the gods—a balanced spirit.
Without haste, Mikulov breathed deeply and evenly, and when he was completely at peace, he reached out and touched the power and, with a wave of his hand, bid it, Begone.
Thus was another chamber laid bare, and the corpses of his fellow novitiates that lay within.
Many there were, all of them stark, gruesome in their decay, yet plaintive as well, bereft in their abandonment. Given how few novitiates underwent this challenge, the bodies in this chamber—some were skeletons thick with dust; others, desiccated corpses in various stages of decomposition—must represent all of the rebellious children who'd dreamt of becoming monks since ages past. His eyes took each of them in, and he finally found one that captured his attention, for it was apparently more recent than the others, and larger as well.
Gachev was always taller than the rest of us.
Looking into his former tormentor's eyes, Mikulov recalled hearing the boy's voice in his mind. If you follow your impulses rather than the gods, then you will never save me. At the time, Mikulov had been confused by the use of the word save, but he understood it now.
In truth, Mikulov realized, by that warning, Gachev saved me.
Like their bodies lying in a heap within the hidden chamber, had the spirits of all those children been trapped? Was that what Gachev meant by save? If so, they were trapped no longer. After the provisions had restored vitality to his body and mind, Mikulov returned to the surface to locate a suitable spot. He was not surprised that Gachev was not waiting for him, but he felt lonely nonetheless.
He would never be able to assemble sufficient wood for a funeral pyre, not for so many bodies, but he hoped it would be enough that they emerged from their hidden chamber and experienced the heat of the sun once more upon their bones before being laid to their enduring rest.
Long it took him to carry them in his arms; many trips he was forced to make, and it was well past nightfall when he finished. He carried out Gachev after all the rest and laid his body atop the others. He rested for the night, for he was in no hurry. Finally the morning came, and after they felt the sun's kiss one last time, Mikulov covered them with stones, creating a massive monument to the monastery's dead. He spoke no words over it when he was done. He felt capable of none. Instead, he turned and staggered in the direction of home, bidding a brief farewell to the former novitiates, his lost brothers and sisters.
It was a day and a half after his victory when Mikulov made his triumphant, unhurried return to the Floating Sky Monastery. The sun had long since passed its zenith and seemed to plummet toward the western horizon, but it still illuminated the portal through which he had departed. There, he found Vedenin, hunched and wizened, shifting uncomfortably from foot to foot. Mikulov had the impression that he had stood vigil thus for many hours, though the scowl on his face appeared to give the ancient monk strength.
"It has been more than a full day since the test was finished," he said, and in those words Mikulov indeed learned a great deal. As he had suspected, the lesion's disappearance had signaled an end to the test, which not only triggered the hidden portal's opening but alerted the masters as well. They had been waiting all this time.
"The rest of my brethren grew tired; therefore only I remain," Vedenin said. Of course, Mikulov thought. How could he pass up an opportunity to criticize my performance against the lesion? It must pain him enormously that I return in triumph.
Mikulov walked slowly and silently toward him. "I had much to do, my brother," he said, and though his voice was hoarse from nine days of disuse, still he took tremendous satisfaction out of the new honorific he used. No longer was the old man Master Vedenin, but brother, for Mikulov had earned the right to be a monk of the Floating Sky Monastery. Yet he knew that his education had only just begun, that the masters often spent decades instructing new monks, so he was careful not to inflect his voice with brashness or pride; instead, he spoke to Vedenin with all proper respect.
And just enough self-righteous rage to prevent the older monk from responding.
"I found a great deal more than food and water in the hidden chamber," Mikulov continued, and he saw the monk's eyes widen slightly.
"Enough to occupy you for a night and a day?" the old man said, his indignation apparently not quite as justified as his anger moments ago.
Mikulov gazed deeply into the man's eyes and never wavered. At long last he nodded and said, "Indeed there was, for there is little wood in the mountains, and I had many of my brethren to bury."
The memory was fresh in his mind, and from the stunned look on Vedenin's face, it must have been visible on his own visage as well.
Vedenin and his fellow masters might or might not have believed Mikulov would succeed, but clearly they had not intended for him to discover the hidden dead.
Mikulov pushed past Vedenin. It was neither hasty nor brusque, yet it brought the old monk out of his shocked reverie. "You are late and your studies await," the man barked behind him. "You will go to the lyceum immediately."
Mikulov shook his head wearily, all of his labors suddenly burdening him at once. "Not yet, Vedenin," he said. "First, I will eat; then I will bathe."
The monk's eyes narrowed in fury, and it was with visible effort that he main
tained even a semblance of his usual authority. "You will address me as..." He faltered. "As Brother Vedenin."
Mikulov allowed himself a smile. Oh, how it must gall him to be unable to say master, he mused. How he must hate the fact we are now brothers. But then a new thought struck him, and his smile faded. I am one of the youngest to ever become a monk. Gratitude overcame him.
"Study I shall, Brother," he said with genuine humility and respect. "But I reek of the dead and would not insult the gods by approaching them so befouled. First I shall eat; then I shall bathe, and then I shall study." He would not be baited, and his days of accepting condescension were over. And while the old man sputtered, Mikulov walked away, offering over his shoulder, "Good night, Brother."
On his return to the Floating Sky Monastery, Mikulov had thought long and hard about the loneliness that had suffused his life, and realized that with his success in the mountains, he had at last gained the family he had sought for so many years. Yet it had not happened as he'd planned. Though he would be expected to address his fellow monks as "brother" or "sister" from now on, Mikulov's true family lay elsewhere. His closest kin rested behind him, at the mountain's summit, not inside this monastery.
The orphan and the jeweler
"Before my first sunset in Zhou, I was insulted; stripped of currency, clothing, and dignity; and left for dead in a puddle. I have since been told I was fortunate to escape so lightly." —Abd al-Hazir, Xiansai Chronicles
Smiling into the rushing wind, Jia leapt from a chimney and fell toward the jagged tiles of the gambling house's roof. Her dagger bumped lightly against her lower back. In ten minutes, she would use it to kill a man. In a second, she would have to deal with the prospect of landing.
None of that mattered right now. She was flying.
Zhou was a ten-mile-long, mismatched jumble of elegant stone temples and shanty taverns, fortified towers and sagging tenements, all crammed into the cradle of the Guozhi mountain range. Since roads were seen as a waste of precious space, it was more a city of hidden, crooked alleys than streets and plazas. Anything could happen to the careless down there, and often did.
Jia rolled as she landed, her padded armor taking the silent brunt of the impact, and was back on her feet and sprinting in half a second. Up here, she could choose her own path. No dead ends or last stands. Just miles of rooftops and freedom in all directions. She could pretend that she had no obligations. That she was free to go anywhere.
Windows flashed by, the sour-faced gamblers within too occupied by their losing hands to notice her. However, Elder Brother Qiu, sitting by the man he was assigned to kill, did. He raised an irritated eyebrow at her recklessness, and she waved cheerfully. Being spotted by members of the Tenth Family didn't count as a failure of the test. They were trained to see things.
Nine Great Families ruled Zhou, each named for the industry it dominated within the city. The Tenth Family had no name other than its number. Its monopoly was crime: theft, smuggling, vice, and murder.
The family had raised Jia since she was an infant. She wasn't the only one. Most strays and foundlings who survived Zhou's deadly streets ended up on the Tenth's metaphorical doorstep sooner or later. The Tenth Family gave these orphans food, a bed, and useful training. And when they turned eighteen, it gave them a choice.
They could leave with a generous bag of gold and choose their future. A great deal of the world was not Zhou, and there were many places where a young man or woman with a unique education could find a happy life.
Or, they could join the Tenth Family. And kill.
Jia had chosen the latter but wanted the former. She wanted to leave, to explore the world, but the Tenth was under attack. She couldn't abandon her family.
She sprang off the edge of the gambling house into the nestled stonework of Tong-Shi's temple1. It bristled with spirals of statues and intricate friezes, and was as good as a staircase to the right feet.
She climbed, rising above the squalid patchwork of the city, her boots scuffing across upraised palms and bowed heads, her fingertips trailing over the stone parables showing Xiansai's fifty-nine noble gods seducing, betraying, and fighting one another. Jia paid no attention. The Tenth had little use for the complicated theology of its homeland, with one notable exception.
Jia paused at the frieze depicting The First Theft. A statue of the laughing little god Zei ran across the sky, pursued by the wrath of the heavens.
"The trickster Zei crept among the sleeping gods," Elder Sister Rou had told the orphans of the Tenth many years ago. "With clever hands and a wide grin, he stole from his brothers and sisters until his pockets jingled. Then he scampered across the black sky, spilling jewels in his haste to escape. Most of them stayed where they were, becoming stars, but some blazed to the ground, shattering into a million pieces…"
Legend said that Zei was caught and banished from the heavens until he returned every stone. A thousand stories began that day, each more preposterous than the last. Xiansai worshiped fifty-nine gods, but it only loved one: Zei, the grinning trickster who fooled emperors, seduced river goddesses, and traveled the world disguised as a humble jeweler.
The thumbs of countless luck-seeking orphans had rubbed the head of the fleeing god almost smooth. Jia passed hers across his gleaming scalp and ran down a stone gutter into the fog of sweet wood smoke and acrid steam that hung over Zhou like a blanket.
Minutes later, she crouched on the edge of a roof, waiting. Li, thirteenth heir to the great Builder family, staggered out of a tavern below, supported by a prostitute who wouldn't be smiling if she knew what he had done to six of her sisters. Jia reached for her dagger…
… just as six Landholder thugs spilled from the alley. Li shouted, drew his fine dueling sword in a silver blur, and shoved the woman at them to buy time. A Landholder impatiently ran her through and pushed her aside. She crumpled, sightless eyes turning toward the sky.
Jia froze.
One of the Landholders lunged. Li batted the blade away with his own and slapped the would-be assassin, laughing. The thugs charged together, and Li gave ground, his sword darting about to deflect their clumsy slashes. None of them spared another glance for the fallen woman.
Jia realized that she had drawn her dagger. She stared at it. Her trainers had told her she was ruled by her passions. She took a deep breath.
She was here for only one death. Waiting was the best strategy. The Landholders might kill Li for her. Then, they'd go drinking to celebrate, and laugh and dance, and the woman would still be dead.
Jia sighed, then sprang into the melee below.
In the lowest level of the Shifting Estate2, Stepfather Yao laid a cup of steaming tea carefully before Jia.
"Drink," was all he said.
It was a dark liquid in a plain porcelain cup. It was rumored that the tea tasted faintly (and briefly) of cinnamon for those who had failed their test. The rumor was stupid. No one who failed was allowed to leave the Stepfather's office alive.
She exhaled sharply and gulped it down. It tasted like cinnamon.
"That was a foolish thing you did," said Stepfather Yao, folding his hands over his considerable belly. "Seven men are dead. I just asked for one."
Yao was not soft, despite his appearance; Jia had seen him break the back of one of Jagged Liang's watchmen with a single blow. The Stepfather was second only to the leader of the Tenth, the grim and silent Broken Man. She put her hands on the desk between her and Yao so she could glare at them if they trembled.
"That woman," she said, knowing that the observers had told him everything, "I could have saved her before Li butchered her like the others, and the Landholders killed her for no reason."
"One of them did," Stepfather Yao corrected.
"The others didn't punish him. They barely even noticed."
"No," Stepfather Yao said, eyes narrowing. "But they were not your assignment."
"I did what I—" she began. Stepfather Yao slapped the desk.
"They were not y
our assignment!"
"I don't care!" Jia shouted. "The Great Families war in the streets like it's a game! The woman worked for us, Stepfather. She was family, and they killed her!"
Stepfather Yao folded his hands.
"And so," he said, all traces of rage gone, "you jumped into the middle of a sword fight with only a dagger, and killed seven men."
"Six," she said. "Li tripped over one of the Landholder corpses and broke his neck."
"Amazing," Yao said. "But careless. There were so many witnesses."
A stone hand closed over Jia's heart. Being seen on her first mission meant failure, regardless of the circumstances. Failure meant the tea she had just drunk was poison.
"But somehow, none of them saw you," Stepfather Yao said, smiling. "Congratulations, Little Sister."
Jia melted into the chair, dizzy with relief.
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