One moment, Joshi had been hammering blows into Feng just according to the plan. With the inhibitor around his ankle, Feng wasn't properly able to channel lux. Joshi had been forcing him back, step by step, toward the lux moat. He was certain if he could force Feng in, that his body would be unmade.

He was waiting for the next distraction from Chang-li when Feng executed a Peak of Mental Refinement level technique. A blast of concentrated will burst over Joshi. He stumbled back, quickly regaining his balance, but not in time. Feng tossed the inhibitor band to the sand, turned on Chang-li, and hurled something at him. Chang-li's hand defensively caught whatever it was in the air, and then he vanished completely. He hadn't exploded or dissolved or been burned away; he just vanished as though he'd never been there.

Joshi's mouth dropped open. Magen circled overhead, making distressed noises. The lux creature didn't know where Chang-li had gone either. Feng turned back to Joshi, his sword in hand once more.

"Now," he said, "we shall finish this the way it should be. Cultivator to cultivator. I've been looking forward to this for a while. Your underling has interfered enough."

"What did you do to him?" Joshi demanded.

"Just sent him where he can't be found." Feng broke into a sneer. "Do you know, that was my whole tower boon, but a waste. I don't need such a ‘treasure’. I thought maybe I'd sell it, but this seems like a better use, don't you think? Worry about yourself, not him.” Feng was standing a few feet from Joshi in a beautiful pose Joshi assumed was some sort of sword stance. He held the sword in his right hand, his left hand up with the sword point over his arm, as he watched Joshi for movement.

"I have been looking forward to this since the day you came to camp," he spat. "You dared to step in on my turf without even the decency to pay me the respect I am due."

"You deserve no more respect than you can earn," Joshi said.

"You think to stand in judgment over me?" Feng demanded. "This is a plot, isn't it? I knew the Morning Mist sect was a facade. Who sent you? One of our rivals, no doubt, to interfere with my claim of the Indigo Princess. It ends now, though. You will die, and she will be mine."

"Hiroko doesn't belong to anyone," Joshi snarled. He pulled in lux from the surroundings, cycled it through his body, feeling his rage fueling it with power.

"You have no chance against me. You haven't even reached Peak of Mental Refinement," Feng taunted. “Without your underling here to distract me, you're nothing."

"Then why do you stand there rather than coming at me?" Joshi demanded.

Feng's expression slipped for a moment. Joshi knew he was right. Feng was afraid of him. But why?

Then he guessed. He smiled and watched as Feng's expression changed to alarm. "So, you do know the truth?" Joshi said. "You are quite right to fear me. I am not foolish enough to come here alone. You think Chang-li was my only helper?" He raised his voice. "Come on out, the rest of you. Show yourselves."

"I'm not that big a fool," Feng began.

But as the voice behind him echoed "Fool!" he couldn't help but turn. Magen was there, hovering, and for an instant Feng was transfixed, staring. Joshi used the opening to rush in, a lux-reinforced right fist smashing into Feng's face. Feng stumbled back. Joshi followed with a left hook to Feng's stomach. The cultivator threw up his hands, losing his grip on his sword, which dissolved into lux.

For a moment, Joshi thought he might have regained control of the fight. Then Feng threw a technique at Joshi's feet. The ground exploded upward in shards. Joshi shielded himself with his lux shield, and Feng was gone. His taunting voice echoed around. Joshi turned on the spot, looking for him.

"A valiant try. I look forward to destroying you now."

Another technique crashed down right beside Joshi. He couldn't tell where it had come from. A bolt of yellow lux sizzled past his head. Joshi dodged just in time. If he'd had hair, it would have been singed off. Next, from a completely opposite direction came a green and blue weave. He avoided most of it, but an edge caught him. His vision blurred with colors, his ears filled with sound.

"Find him," Joshi instructed Magen, who soared around. He was busy untangling his own vision as the lux creature searched.

There was Feng, perched atop the nearest mushroom tree, his hands folded across his chest and a superior look on his face. "I don't know what she sees in you," Feng sneered. "But it won't matter after today. I'm bringing back your head and laying that at her feet as a wedding present."

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There it was. The end of Joshi's hopes. He'd tried teamwork, and Chang-li had disappeared. He'd tried trickery, and Feng saw through it. He was no match for him, strength to strength. Feng had him bettered and beaten.

Joshi didn't even see the next technique that struck him. It was another blue mental technique that knocked him to his knees. He struggled to get up, the weight of pressing despair pushing him down again. Feng's footsteps crunched toward him. Through Magen's eyes, he could see the cultivator approaching, something dangling in his hands.

"You know, I have an even better thought," Feng said. He reached out and took Joshi's limp hand and held it out. "I think I'll take all of you back, not just your head, and show the princess just what a pathetic excuse of a man you are." He snapped something around Joshi's hand and let his arm fall. As Feng stood over him gloating, Joshi felt the touch of cold metal on his wrist and the numbing of his mind as the inhibitor band took effect. He knew that touch, had spent months with an inhibitor around his neck, cutting him off from all lux, not just most of it the way this band did.

"Worthless piece of trash," Feng said. Joshi could hear the mockery of every overseer he'd dealt with. Feng had something in his hand, not a sword, a stick made of lux, supple. He raised it and smacked Joshi across the shoulders, knocking him forward into the sand. His oppressive technique bore Joshi down as the inhibitor band ate into his willpower.

"Get up, you," Feng said.

Joshi didn't respond. Feng kicked him in the shoulder and rolled him over onto his back. From here, Feng seemed to loom feet over him.

Joshi's mind was nearly blank, the way it had been so often in his days as a slave. That was what he had most hated. Not the work, not the beatings, not the way people treated him as less than a man. But the way his own mind refused to serve him. It was like nothing really mattered.

"This is ridiculous," Feng said. "Get up!" He struck Joshi in the face with his stick. It hurt, but distantly, in a way that didn't matter.

Joshi tried to get angry, but it didn't work. Anger was a distant concept, foreign to him. Only despair was real. He was being dragged to his feet. Feng had him by the wrists, was pulling him upright, his lux-enforced body giving him the strength to manhandle Joshi like a doll.

"I've used inhibitor bands," Feng's voice was distantly curious. "They've never had such an intense effect on me. What's wrong with you, man? You're acting like a slave." Then, suddenly, his eyes widened. "I thought I’d seen you somewhere before. Now I remember you. The slave. The big one they used to have hauling palanquins up and down the mountains. But how...how dare you!" He sounded outraged. "How dare you masquerade as a cultivator, you vermin. I'm going to take you back and hand you over to the Inquisitor. Forget about my own vengeance. This'll be far sweeter. They'll have you strung up and cut open for vultures to eat your insides while you're still alive, you worthless piece of trash."

Feng struck Joshi across the face with his open palm. It didn't matter. None of it mattered. Feng had won. He would have Hiroko, he would destroy the sect. He'd already disposed of Chang-li, and now he'd see to Joshi's own disposition. None of it mattered a bit. He was back where he'd been. No longer a man. Just a slave.

I am not a slave, was the tiniest whisper in his mind, the only part of him still remaining to himself. But it resonated with something else outside himself. Magen was there, hovering just by his ear, urging him to fight. Joshi reached for him with his feelings, through the bond between them.

There was all the brightness and hope and cheer in the world, bound up in the tiny incorporeal body of the little lux creature. It urged him to fight, to stand up, to remember who he was.

Who he was. He was not a slave. He was a man. He was the son of the Khan of the Darwur, a proud people who had not bowed to the Emperor, even as they fought to their last. He was a fighter, trained by the monks of Harupa to strive and step forward. He was a cultivator, taking his own steps along the heavenly climb. Nearing the Peak of Mental Refinement, with the aid of friends, people who were loyal to him.

He was a Young Master of the Morning Mist sect, and whatever anyone said, the sect was real, because they had made it so. It would be real if he could fight his way out from this place. If he chose to continue, and he would, he would. It mattered now, he saw that.

Hiroko's face came to his mind. She was a friend. He had friends. Hiroko and Chang-li, people who had counted on him, who had fought beside him, who mattered to him, what happened to them. Feng had done something to Chang-li, but maybe it wasn't too late to find out what.

Joshi took a deep, shuddering breath. He raised his hands, channeling his lux in the simplest pattern he knew, Purification of Mind and Soul. The blue lux technique Feng had ensnared him with fell away. He reached down and ripped the inhibitor bracelet from his wrist and threw it at Feng's head. Feng dodged, his face showing surprise. "What?"

Then Joshi was diving in, punching once more with renewed fury. This time, his Thousand Fist punch reflected back from six different angles. He realized that he'd stepped through the last veil. Feng must have sensed the change too.

"Y-you were fooling all along.” Feng stammered. “I knew it, I knew you had to be higher level than you were pretending. You've been at the Peak of Mental Refinement all this time, haven't you?"

Joshi threw back his head and laughed as Feng turned tail and ran back toward the bridge across the moat. He chased. Feng threw techniques. Joshi dodged them, Magen helping him spot them.

Feng touched the bridge, and Joshi was there. He seized Feng by the robes and pulled him back, throwing him to the sand. Feng threw up a weave with both hands, blocking Joshi, who stumbled back toward the brink of the moat himself.

Feng sprang up, sword in hand. He swung at Joshi. Joshi had nowhere to go. He drove forward, punching his shoulder into Feng's midsection and knocking the other man back. Then he was on top of him, punching and pummeling.

Feng snarled and spat, one eye swollen closed. Blood leaked from his nose and mouth. He thrust and knocked Joshi away, rolled to the side, and leapt back to his feet. Joshi was stronger now but Feng was still a superior opponent.

Then from nowhere, Chang-li appeared in a flash of purple light. He looked around. "Have I missed anything important?"