Seventy-five miles east of Xi'an, near the southeast corner of the Ordos Loop section of the Yellow River basin, south of the Wei River valley, at the eastern end of the Qin Mountains, in Southern Shaanxi Province lay one of the steepest mountains in the world, the Western of the Five Great Mountains of China. At barely one and a half miles, it wasn't really a very great mountain, at least physically. It still was a towering mass of rock with near-vertical sides, looming imposingly above the surrounding sparsely populated areas.

For over two millennia of human habitation it had been accessible through a single narrow ridge, followed by a foot-wide series of planks against the sheer mountain side. Twenty-two centuries of tradition and religion, for it had had a Daoist temple for longer than most other places in the country had known Daoists existed. And then came the vast political changes of recent times and since the 1980s it had been turned into a tourist attraction. Even more recently new changes swept through the area, subtler and more insidious.

The two guys watching the international news on a rickety portable television that crackled and hissed didn't care at all about the ancient, near-forgotten traditions of the rocks they stood upon. They cared far more about the freezing wind, the abysmal reception, and the source of their entertainment being on its last legs. The screen flickered and scrambled up into white noise until one of the men - a thirty-something native in rather worn clothes - slapped the back of the device. Miraculously, the white noise resolved into images of an unearthly beautiful blonde in a white and blue costume giving yet another interview on the other side of the Pacific.

"...tell us where you live?" a reporter's partially garbled voice asked. "...public has a right to know."

"Nope!" came the cheerful reply and even through the abysmal quality of the old portable TV the woman's voice rang like crystal. The two men paid more attention, while several older people gathered around them to watch as well. "...need to know, and frankly you don't. Besides, ...can be anywhere on Earth ...few minutes and feel as comfortable inside ...volcano as I would in a warm bath. ...would I live in just ...single location?"

Canned laughter, real laughter, and ribbing at the reporters' not so subtle demands for more access to the costumed heroine's time followed, most of them shot down with a megawatt smile and a toss of her long, silky blonde mane. Canned questions about her latest activities continued in this vein as they had over the past week. One reporter was shut down, finding himself cut off mid-sentence and unable to speak when he became too aggressive in his questioning. The men gathered around the telly laughed at that, and money changed hands between the two original watchers with the air of a long-standing bet rather than something more spontaneous.

By then the woman's interview had gathered a small crowd around the portable television, almost all of the tourists that had been on the mountain's peak gravitating towards it. Or perhaps they weren't tourists, for there were no foreigners among them. No children either. Men, women, young, old, they were all Asians between the ages of twenty and sixty five. A strange crowd - and so absorbed with the news that they failed to notice when their surroundings subtly... changed.

Shadows lengthened despite the early morning. Silence spread, followed by an odd chill. Small paper talismans hanging from the corners of the ancient monastery and the narrow staircase leading to it both flared an unnatural black then pale, sickly white before being reduced to ashes. Four people, three older men and a young woman, that had not gravitated around the TV noticed and scrambled, eyes widening and faces paling. A split second before they could cry out a warning, everyone's shadows rose from the ground and grabbed at their heads.

Everyone distracted by an interview halfway across the planet died before they could even notice anything wrong as their own shadows decapitated them. The four that weren't managed to draw more of the paper talismans just in time and brandishing them against the shadows made the unnatural entities disperse. Then they drew fans, sword canes, even a hand axe, all with more of the talismans stuck to them and frantically looked around for the source of the threat.

"Tsk, you guys just lost me a bet," a young, nasal voice whined from nowhere. "You could have died quietly but nooo, you had to be vigilant and shit." The shadows of nearby trees, wooden posts, even buildings stretched unnaturally to grasp at the four survivors that shook like leaves in a hurricane but again their obviously enchanted strips of paper flared with protective energies that dispersed them.

"Stop complaining and kill them, boy," a much older man's voice harshly demanded, it too lacking a point of origin. "Should we tarry much longer the eyes of our enemies will seek us out."

"Oh shut up, Wizard," the first voice shot back derisively. "The Girl Scouts are in South America dealing with your new pet, aren't they? By the time they notice we'll be gone and these scrubs will be dead."

A greenish smoke started spreading over the plateau. It looked at least as ominous and unnatural as the shadows had, a fog bank glowing venomous green even as it took the shape of fanged maws and leering faces. Those apparitions descended on the four survivors, who started shooting energy bolts out of their fans and swords at them. Unfortunately, for all the bolts burned through the fog with no resistance, there was always more fog and the apparitions reformed instantly. What was more, their protective talismans did not react to the obvious attack at all. The moment an apparition touched the older, white-bearded man among them he started shaking. Those shakes turned to full convulsions in moments and bleeding first from the mouth, then the nose, eyes and ears. Despite the bleeding being far too little and any other evidence of damage being entirely absent, the old man died in seconds. The other three followed.

"Told ya they were scrubs," a young, thin, wasted-looking Mexican said as he faded into visibility.

"This was not part of the plan!" the older man's voice hissed, its owner still invisible. "Return to cover immediately!"

"Calm down, old man," the teenager cackled. "The Chinese were so paranoid after Webhead's latest stunt, they scrubbed all tech from their black sites and then some. There's no digital shit in a ten mile radius."

"Oh? What about that thing behind you?" the older voice demanded testily.

"That's an old analog TV, you filthy luddite. These guys must have a transmitter set up across the valley or something. What the grunts will do for entertainment, am I right?" He picked up the still working portable television and whistled appreciatively at the continuing interview. "Can't blame the poor sods, Wennefer got a killer bod."

"She's also one of the few people that could still stop us so drop that thing and get to work."

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"Nah, all brawn, no brains," the teenager countered, brown mists puffing up from his skin and reaching for the nearest building. "Reckon I could take her."

"We shall see," the old man's voice said.

A thin layer of brick and mortar crumbled as soon as the brown mists touched it, falling to dust as if from the weight of centuries, only to reveal plating of reinforced steel. The mist changed color, becoming a reddish-brown, and the metal rusted, pitted and wore away as easily as the brick and mortar had. In maybe a dozen seconds where a fake renovated temple had stood now was empty air and a gaping pit descending into darkness.

xxxx

Fifteen million, six hundred and eighty-four thousand, one hundred and three...

Fifteen million, six hundred and eighty-four thousand, one hundred and four...

Fifteen million, six hundred and eighty-four thousand, one hundred and five...

He kept the count as he always did, each number to a beat of his heart, each beat matching the one before and the one before that, back to the beginning. For three beats he breathed in, for one he paused, for three he exhaled. It was not traditional, but he'd never cared for tradition. If he had he'd have never left his village, he'd never found glory. It was orderly though, which helped temper his rage.

A thick, solid piece of steel engulfed his legs up to above the knees. Two of equal thickness, one on each side, engulfed his arms almost to the shoulders. Little space was left in the lightless, deeply buried cell, nothing beyond him and his bindings. That had enraged him at first, but now it was only pleasing. Would they have treated him so if they did not fear him? Would they have left him alive if they didn't know the time would come they would need him? He was not a prisoner here, for what men both feared and needed was no prisoner. No, he merely waited... and practiced.

He drank in the fear, the bowel-loosening dread felt by those in power that knew of him, those who went to bed every night secure in their power only to see him in their nightmares. He took in the sacrifices; the wealth, the effort, the sweat and blood expended to keep him contained in this place. Resources sacrificed in the altar of their terror, ultimately addressed to him so he would not destroy them. What fools were they, to believe this was a prison. To bind themselves to him in such a way out of fear... but then, few even among those with magic understood how magic worked. How it had originally been intended to work, by the dark gods that, in their benevolence, spread their glory among the unworthy of Earth.

But he was not unworthy, so the terror and the sacrifice coalesced around him. He took them in, gathered the power in his core, cycled it through every corner of his body so all would be exposed to and nurtured by the power in turn. The excess he gathered and compressed with his will, shaped with his desires. The fools that built this temple of terror to his name thought him bound and powerless, but why would one need limbs to wield power? Limbs could fail, limbs could be broken. The mind could not, as all that made you "you" continued to exist.

Recently though, the quality and quantity of the power gifted to him so freely had dwindled. For over a week the sweet nectar of fear and doubt had been reduced to a mere trickle. Something else had drawn his subjects' attention away from him, stolen their fear. Thus he had changed tactics. Yet once again, the unworthy that sought to entrap him had offered the means of his advancement to him on a silver platter. For while the entirety of his temple had been originally meant to contain him, he no longer was its sole occupant. There were others here; still unworthy, but so much more than the powerless, mewling beings that wanted to use him as much as they were terrified by him. He could work with that; he'd learned to do so what now seemed so long ago.

So he waited and worked. Channeled a trickle of power not to himself but to a little tree.

棐

A curious little thing, with roots to dig deep in the foundation that was already there, leafy branches to drink in the nourishment that would be provided. A link to the seed that gave it birth as it, in turn, would be linked to its own seeds. And for once, it did look nice and traditional. So he did it again and again, and little by little his forest grew... until things changed anew. Sudden and great terror, very close but not at him, flaring briefly before being abruptly silenced. He could sense it through those subtle little links that let him see and hear, felt whom they thought themselves his jailors die to newcomers that offered something entirely different than fear. His temple was cracked, invaded, yet it no longer mattered for his long patience had brought opportunity.

The thick, reinforced metal door to his cell rusted away between one breath and the next, leaving not even dust behind. From the gloomy passage gaping open came a teenager with features a mix of Mexican and American and of the age he'd long since outgrown along with his blind rage and short-sighted plotting.

"Yo gramps," the boy that looked two decades his junior said in lieu of greetings. "We are busting all prisoners of this joint. Feel like coming along?"

"What makes you think I am a prisoner here?" he asked. Then he shrugged, and two-foot-thick broke with a tortured squeal of tearing metal. "No matter. You came at precisely the right time, as you were meant to." He walked out of his too-narrow cell, leaving the surprised teenager in his wake.

"I don't get it," the boy said but followed anyway.

Of course he did not get it. How could he, when he had not drank as deeply from the well of fear as he had? He would learn, for he was strong and worthy. But it was not yet his time. He walked out of the deepest basement and onto the first layer that had any lighting at all.

"Whoa, gramps, you're ripped," the boy marveled at his stature, as he should. "Bald, though. Too many push-ups, sit-ups and squats?"

He ignored his babbling and walked to the next heavily reinforced door. With some effort, he ripped it away and gained access to the cell and his dismal-looking occupant. A wasted person, yet with a little flare of power to his eyes. Just not enough to set him free, not at his wasted state. The pitiful prisoner looked up to him in fear.

"It is not yet your time," he told the man, then lifted a hand and power flowed. Flowed and formed one little tree. "But it could be. I could give you the power to leave this place, to go after those that did this to you... but there is a cost." The little tree got closer to the wasted man. "It will hurt. A lot." He bent lower until his glowing eyes were at the same level as the prisoner's rheumy orbs. "Thus the question; do you accept the gift that I offer?"

The prisoner barely had the strength to nod, but the gesture was superfluous; he'd long since learned how to read people like books... most of the time. The little tree descended until it touched the man's chest... then it became purple hot.

棐

The man screamed and writhed and tried to flail but could not... and in his agony he was reforged. Bones grew from little twigs to thick branches. Muscles swelled with power. Sickly skin became not only healthy but hard as steel and more. Greying hair gave way to lustrous black tresses, full of youthful vim and vigor. Eyes glowed with newfound power, power generated from the man's fear of his imprisonment yet far greater terror towards the unbearable agony he'd just experienced. It was that terror and the man's freedom that burned as sacrificial fuel for his rebirth. But the effects did not stop here; a tiny portion of the new power went towards perfect memory of the transformation. Every time the man saw the symbol that had taken root in his chest he would remember the agony he had experienced and he would fear. Every time he saw his new Master, or use his powers, he would fear their source. A single event and some subtle reminders would ensure a lifetime of low-key fear. And the fear of a person with power gave more back to the Master than a thousand worthless monkeys fleeing in terror.

He got out of the cell, his new disciple in tow; he had many more trees to plant.