David

The tides of Sky River were less gentle at night. They crashed along the banks with enough force to turn the water white and made enough noise that they could hear it from nearly two hundred meters away. But here by the ship, the water was clear enough that the light from the moon and the stars pierced into the murky depths below. David could not tell how deep the riverbed was over where they sailed.

Sailing had been smooth - the ship moved through the center of the river without veering towards land, even though there had been more than one sharp bend along the river. Twice, David considered waking Jing but each time the ship managed to correct its course and find a more amenable current before he even stood up.

During the day, with the wind in their favor, they passed by settlements and trading posts every hour or so. As they had moved further north, the forests that flanked Sky River on both sides thinned significantly. They had left the mountain range where the Falling Leaves had been built and ventured into floodplains. Behind them, the curvature of the earth hid all the peaks except Cloud Mountain itself. Soon, that too would disappear over the horizon.

The distance between clusters of villages and small settlements lengthened as the number of compounds, small houses and farmsteads increased. Numerous streams and tributaries ran off the river into the distance, bringing fish of many colors inland.

Not anchoring the ship by the shore for the night was a good decision. They were moving almost as quickly as they were during the day. David estimated that three hours after Jing had fallen asleep was when he could no longer see Cloud Mountain at all. Trees had become scarce and the road beside the river had doubled in width.

It was at this point when Wen finally spoke again.

"Why aren't the two of you cultivating?"

It was a silly question. David had heard the quiet sound of silkworms in the darkness for a while now. He had fallen into the trance of the Song at least as many times as the ship had nearly gone off course. Both times, Alice had given him nudge in the ribs to warn him. Both times, she'd apologized softly into his ear when the ship corrected itself.

He didn't mind - it was better to be sure they wouldn't run aground, especially since the shore was still rocky. They might not have gotten lucky.

David looked at Wen sharply, then shrugged. Over the course of a day, he had come to realize that Wen rarely said things that were true. How sure he was about something mapped directly to how likely it was something that Wen had made it up.

Wen was contrarian by nature. But rather than disdaining the way others viewed him, he valued his reputation above all else. Wen took Alice's barbed compliments as earnest praise far too many times for David to take him seriously. He also had a rather rigid worldview, which leaked out of him episodically in the form of tactless diatribes about, well, everything.

Like everyone else on the boat, including David, he enjoyed talking too much and had strong opinions. But since that very first exchange with Alice that almost led to a fight, arguments had become the primary source of entertainment on the ship.

Wen thought that modern music was no good, that ships were poorly designed in this era, that women shouldn't be allowed to leave the house without supervision, that men shouldn't be allowed to leave the house without supervision, that cities were the bane of civilization, that the countryside had no culture - amongst many other things. He also thought that everyone on the ship agreed with him entirely.

"Master once said that if you don't cultivate whenever you have the chance, you might never have the chance again. I might still be establishing my foundation at twenty two but I only awakened when I had become a man. Six years is a great achievement. Almost unheard of in the True Sutra sect, and we're pretty high up on the list of sects people would love to enter."

David rolled his eyes.

"You'll never amount to anything if you don't take the chances given to you," Wen continued, imparting wisdom to his junior. "If you're not cultivating, you're not advancing. If you don't advance, won't you feel shame about everything your masters have done for you? They made many sacrifices in their own cultivation to teach you. That would be unfilial."

David nodded.

"After all, to be unfilial is to be unwise. To be unwise is to have learned poor habits. The wise are not learned. Those who have learned bad habits are not wise."

"Thank you, Daoist Wen. Very cool," said Alice. David felt a chuckle run through her even if he didn't quite hear it. She had been leaning against him for a while and they'd both been thinking in silence. Sleep had eluded the pair but, at least to David, considering the Song was close enough. They were both growing less tired as the night passed, if Alice's increased fidgeting could be taken that way.

Wen nodded enthusiastically.

"You are as the Dao says - a bowl that is useful even when not filled," said Alice, as solemnly as she could.

Wen smiled proudly. "I try my best to be. This is why they call me the Gentleman of the Sword in Falcon Peak."

David was sure they did.

"To hear such recognition of my comprehension from disciples of a Great Sect warms my heart and gives me strength."

Now Alice was also nodding in time with David.

Wen stopped pacing to lean against the banister on the hull and his Song slipped into silence. He looked like he was thinking. Alice poked David in the ribs so he'd stop nodding.

"At least our sleeping Brother Jing thinks that the two of you are disciples from one of the Great Sects." Wen gave a long suffering sigh. "A man like that makes too many assumptions without much information. That's fine for business, but it's too simple a worldview. Daoists like us aren't simple people, after all."

Alice seemed to find Jing at least a little attractive, so David began nodding again.

She didn’t feel that way about Wen at all. Wen might have been very classically handsome but the glint in Alice's eyes told David that she found him about as attractive as the merchant back at the trading post where they'd boarded the ship.

While everyone on the ship who wasn't the Gentleman of the Sword, Wise Daoist of Falcon Peak, or the brightest star of the current generation of True Sutra sect didn't necessarily agree with his views, Wen was a deft hand at dividing them along social, moralistic and even political lines - Jing had looked quite angry when Wen had launched a verbal attack on the current Emperor. This wasn't a very ingratiating habit.

David thought that Alice's casual accusation of Wen not having any friends might have cut quite a bit deeper than she'd expected.

Alice, who was suddenly fascinated with the way her nails shone in the starlight, said nothing. This was how David was sure Alice was interested in knowing what Wen's theory about them was. If they had learned anything about Wen today, it was that he loved to be the center of attention. Showing disinterest got him to speak more and more colorfully. Hanging onto his words made Wen melodramatic and coy.

"I do think that you're from a Great Sect. But you haven't mentioned it a single time and you haven't even given us your names. People of your social class would never be so rude without a purpose."

Alice shrugged. "To escape notice is a virtue. That too is the Dao."

David had learned hours ago that between Wen and Alice, anything said on this stupid boat with the slightest confidence in a cryptic manner was a direct quote from the Tao Te Ching.

Wen leaned forward with conspiracy in his eyes and excitement in his gestures. "You're on the run, aren't you? You're not headed to Ping'an at all. You're not impressed by how 'early' Young Master Jiang has formed his core because you're used to seeing talented people - people like me."

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David nodded along.

"You were so desperate to get onto a ship that you paid fifteen taels. Three times what I paid for a shorter distance," Wen said. He cocked his head to the side in contemplation. "Though I've always been a deft hand at finding a bargain. I'm infamous at True Sutra's treasure pavilion for a reason, after all."

Wen gave Alice what was sure he thought was a charming grin. He looked a little bit like a stroke victim. David returned a noise of agreement, or pity.

"Where was I?" Wen asked, completely lost.

"The price of bringing bad karma with pirates," said Alice. Her smile was big and bright and aggravated. David tried not to find it too funny.

"Yes. Fifteen taels taken out of a coin purse. You didn't even have time to grab your rings, so neither of you have a change of clothing. Maybe they were confiscated. Even I don't know the minor details of your story. You were only able to take your instruments along with you."

Wen paused for dramatic effect. "And that saber."

It was the first time Wen had brought up Alice's saber, even though he had been critical of everything they were wearing and everything they had said and everything he assumed they believed.

"That saber is nothing like what I have. The scabbard is so old you can see hundreds of indents from hands that have carried it in the exact same way for centuries. I haven't taken a stick to it, obviously, but I was a carpenter's apprentice as a boy. Its measurements coincide with numbers associated with yin ideas in the bagua to hide it in plain sight without using any qi. Prehistorical feng shui."

David wished he could know if any of this was actually true, because it was quite fascinating. That was the issue with Wen. Most of what he said was interesting, whether he was right or wrong.

"I'm willing to bet the saber would catch the eye of an immortal if you drew it."

Alice had a sharp intake of breath.

"Scabbard or not, I've never seen a blade I did not understand at least in some way. But your saber eludes me. I didn't even notice you were armed until I wanted to challenge you to a duel."

Alice seemed as uncomfortable as David was. Her back had straightened imperceptibly. Though she didn't turn to share any of the meaningful looks they were both so fond of, she was no longer playing with her nails. Like David, she must have been fearing that she'd misjudge Wen's words if she looked away for even a second.

This was why David felt the need to deflect Wen's interest in the saber. "It's most likely the first of many swords you won't understand. That's just the nature of climbing through the world and traveling."

Wen shook his head, looking far more serious than he had been up to this point. David wondered if they should have just paid Jing another fifteen taels to be rid of him - or not stepped onto the ship at all.

"My Dao is the Sword, the Sword am I," said Wen, as explanation. There was a simple weight to those words - it had nothing of the congruous inevitability of David's scripture nor the myriad complexity of Alice's silkworms, but David recognized this resonance - harmonic and understated, loud but not in volume. David knew another one, after all.

It was time to start again.

This was a mantra - at least some proof that Wen's personality was, in part, a character he was playing.

"Even your reaction to my words betrays your roots," decided Wen, who was looking at the stars. "My master chose me from the Outer Sect after I'd been beaten badly by some of the other disciples. I had just become a student of the True Sutra and had made it to the third stage of Qi condensation. Slow for my age, but I awakened late."

Wen let out his breath through his nose, looking genuinely upset. "It would have been better for his health had Master not noticed me at all. Maybe it would have been better all around."

David sighed. Wen had told the story of how he'd risen through his Sect from nothing at least three times now. Wen had made sure they knew he was the sort of cultivator who pulled himself up by the bootstraps - the same way Jing had made sure they knew he hated sorghum wine. This was yet another variation of the story.

"Master said that he'd heard my true words while returning by way of the sky over the Outer Sect. Finding them before you open your penultimate meridian is uncommon and entirely useless, after all. You'll only ever need them after you lay siege to the final gate to build the Crimson Palace, after all."

David frowned. When they were finally alone, he would piece together this gibberish with Alice. For now, it remained just words - some of which were clearly inaccurate.

"Having true words before that point in a lower realm is talent beyond talent. Any of the Great Sects would fight for such a disciple. And even though you are also establishing your foundations - anywhere from fifty to five hundred years before you need to know of them, you understood what I'd said immediately. That means you've heard some before."

In a technical sense, he had. David, indeed, had come into contact with true words before. David wondered if Wen would be disappointed if he'd discovered that it probably wasn't that uncommon. Two out of every four people on this ship, after all, had spoken some. David grinned.

Wen had begun pacing again. "The story is even more complicated than I expected, isn't it?"

Now that David had heard Wen's mantra spoken aloud, it defined his steps clearly. The Song was not muted and indistinct as he'd first assumed. It was obvious to him, like a motif in a song that was everywhere after it was pointed out. The Song in Wen's steps was something that clashed harmonically with his own. As he expected, whether or not it came into conflict with Alice's was up to interpretation - as with every other Song.

Wen stared at Alice and then at the saber. David recognized the sudden triumph on Wen's face - he was about to say something absurd and was already congratulating himself for the adulation he would deserve for enlightening them.

"How does a girl who doesn't have a Core in a Lower Realm come to believe that a weapon like that could belong to her?"

He looked a little sad and bitter, suddenly. "I think the answer to that is a reminder that I'm not the only one who is special. You're like me, aren't you? You weren't born here."

Alice's hand found his forearm and her Song became many things, but some emotions were unmistakable. There was a little fear, a little violence. David felt her pulse quicken.

"Master said the stories are all the same. Found floating in the ocean during a storm by some master in seclusion or an old monster seeking Principle. A baby in a cradle with three gifts - one fate, one truth, one inheritance. Yi Tian."

Reliance and sky, in a phrase. To aid the heavens? To rely on the heavens? Once again, a pair of words with many meanings that Alice would probably explain to him.

Alice evidently did know what that meant because she found a derisive angle now. "Is this an elaborate setup to ask if I'd fallen from heaven? Are you hitting on me?"

Wen ignored her, surprising both of them.

"For someone like me, who had a master who always spoke his mind unflinchingly, even a matter like this is simple." Wen smiled grimly. He looked upwards again, past the sky, into the stars.

"The Palaces will come for you one day as surely as they will come for me. When we have crossed swords with the rabble of this realm - this prison, and learnt important lessons. And then they will hope that you don't resent them, that your Resolve would be their greatness."

Wen was completely sure of his words - thoughts that made no sense about things David had never heard of.

"They all wanted your treasure, didn't they." Wen sneered, his voice dropping to an angry whisper. "The rats bred in this world scrabble for the scraps of heaven's works ignoring the truths before their very eyes. They stole all three gifts of mine and killed my master. But they didn't manage to get me."

There was a strain of instability in his eyes now. "If I live to ascend, I hope the two of you will have ascended as well."

Wen sighed, long and loud. "I must confess, in all the twenty two years of my life, I've never been treated as well as I have been on this boat."

Now that was just a little bit sad. David found Alice's eyes. She looked at Wen with some contrition but remained suspicious.

"So I'll give you a bit of a warning. Leave before I come back. I won't ever forget what they've taken from me. And the vermin will remember too, as sure as summer rain. Because I know my Path, friends. My Dao is the sword, the Sword Am I. "

As suddenly as it had come, whatever strangeness in his demeanor had gone - and Wen Cheng was the judgmental, happy-go-lucky butt of every joke once more. "At least I managed to leave my sect with a decent hunk of steel." He chuckled, patting the pommel of the sword by his side.

He drew himself up to full height and took a deep breath, a sign that he was about to give them his invaluable advice. David made preparations to begin nodding.

"You probably shouldn't have sacrificed your position in your sect. It was unwise," said Wen to Alice. "You and your senior brother are in for a hard time. Maybe he'll die for you. Wouldn't you be really sad if he died for you? The Dao says that one of superior justice must act with feelings for others and you've caused a lot of trouble. But if you had given your enemies your saber, could you even consider yourself a Daoist?"

David tuned him out entirely, bobbing his head up and down. Wen continued to pontificate on the Dao, encouraged by the positive response. As Wen droned on, his volume increasing to the point that David wondered if he'd woken Jing, Alice went from offended, to exasperated, to dismissive, before she settled on bored.

"Many words lead to exhaustion. It is better to focus on the truth of your essence," said Alice, which David thought was the most useful quote yet.

To his credit, Wen slowly wound down and stopped. He went back to pacing silently as though their conversation had never happened.

David and Alice each slept for two hours, but never in the same moment. David had begun to notice how often Wen stared at Alice's saber. It was a more calculating stare than he liked.

When the sun rose and Jing finally woke, Alice insisted on teaching David how to play the stone flute.