Alice

Earth Peak was loud no matter the hour, but it was always most crowded in the morning. Cultivators didn't need sleep, but it was a common habit to have tea with friends after the bells rang at sunrise. Nearly every one of the hundreds of circular tables seated a group. Alice estimated that close to a third of the sect was here.

The Ascending Sky had fewer disciples than most of the Great Sects - a few thousand at most. A handful of new disciples were accepted into the sect every year, but the size of the sect stayed roughly the same.

Cultivation was a dangerous profession.

Alice stood in front of the bulletin for outer disciples in the atrium of Earth Peak, sipping on a cup of tapioca tea and reading the sheets of paper nailed to the wall.

Helper needed for forging. Experience not required, but helpful. Reward of two hundred taels or specialist consultation if preferred. Seek Disciple Shu at sunrise in Sky Peak. I will be there every morning until the end of the month.

The last thing Alice wanted to do was participate in another forging.

Music lessons. Proficient in erhu, guqin and singing. Six hundred years of experience. Fifty taels per ke of instruction for beginners. Prices for advanced students on request. Seek Disciple Lai, here most evenings in Earth Peak.

A ke was an archaic measure of time, a day divided into a hundred parts - roughly fifteen minutes of time. That meant lessons were two hundred silver taels an hour - an outrageous sum of money. A thousand silver could be exchanged for a spirit stone. The Sect Master had bid four spirit stones for her saber. Alice took a gulp of her tea and tried to keep the displeasure off of her face.

Alice wondered how good she would be at playing the guqin with six centuries of experience. The only sure thing was that she'd have a much larger repertoire from recreating the music she'd heard. Maybe she’d write some originals.

Regardless, she wasn't paying for lessons unless she needed help with something.

Gardening. Experience required. Light sensitive fungi, airborne toxins. Experience required. Greenhouse eighty three, sundown. Seek Disciple Dongfang. Reward of three hundred taels upfront, percentage commission on sale of goods. Experience required. Poison cultivators need not apply.

Light sensitive fungi and airborne toxins, but a blanket ban on poison cultivators? Maybe what Qitai had said about how poison cultivators were treated was true.

Book Club. Join us on the first day of every month to discuss the classical and the contemporary. Room Fourteen, Four Winds Corridor, Earth Peak. Everyone welcome. This month, we are reading Meditations on the White River. Copies available on loan at the Lower Library and for sale at the Pavilion.

Alice hadn't been to any of the sect libraries or to the sect's treasure pavilion yet. That seemed like it would be a better use of time than staring at the bulletin. In fact, she didn't know where any of the libraries were - or where the treasure pavilion was, for that matter.

She turned around, scanning the room for someone she knew to ask for directions. After a few seconds, Alice caught a glimpse of a woman with a familiar flower in her hair, sipping tea alone.

She walked over to Daoist Liang's table. "You were wrong," said Alice, sitting down across from her.

"Wouldn't be the first time, or the last," said Daoist Liang, sipping on a cup of tea. "What am I wrong about?"

"Earlier in Sky Peak. I overheard you talking to an Elder. You said that none of the disciples were going to be chosen as the Fairy's successor."

Alice caught a flash of anger in her eyes - inexplicable and sudden, but it subsided immediately. "Who was picked?"

"The princess. She's going to be insufferable when she returns to the house." Alice put on her highest voice. "'Feiyan can't believe she's finally gotten the recognition she deserves! I've endured so many years of bad luck with a grin, and for my efforts, the heavens have finally rewarded me!'"

She expected Liang to at least smile, but the woman simply took another sip of her tea.

"Well, aren't you jealous? After all, she's going to get to spend so much time with the Sword Fairy," said Alice, hoping for at least some reaction.

"Why would I want to spend time with her?" Liang asked, visibly confused.

Alice frowned. The Weis had often joked about how Daoist Liang was furiously in love with the Fairy. Liang had always responded with enough embarrassment to never be free of the accusation. "Anyway, I haven't seen you much at all since the auction. Where have you been?"

Liang shrugged. "In the greenhouses. Cultivating."

Alice sighed and checked her nails. “I was advised,” she started, then stopped. “Are you free right now?”

“Does it look like I’m doing anything important?”

Alice shook her head. “I just wanted to make sure, because I have some questions and I wasn’t sure who to ask. I was advised to seek the help of a more experienced disciple.”

“What makes you think I can help?”

Alice supposed the Weis had guessed right, and the woman had been scammed at the auction. She was much less friendly than usual, and there was a cold, angry caution in her eyes that hadn’t been there even when she’d exchanged blows with Chan Changshou.

“We can help each other,” said Alice, who’d already made up her mind.

“Oh?”

“You were looking for scriptures involving poisons at the auction, weren’t you?”

Liang nodded slowly.

“I believe I might be able to help you with that.”

Liang looked skeptical. “You? You’re an outer disciple and you don’t appear to be a poison cultivator. What could you possibly know of-?”

Had she forgotten that Alice had remembered the lines to the scripture that she’d quoted on poison? Alice scowled and leaned forwards. “Are you familiar with my Principle?”

“Your Principle?” Liang looked amused.

Alice let the sound of the silkworms rise quietly within her. They reached upwards, hungry, searching.

Liang snapped back as if she’d been struck. Alice suddenly realized that she’d not actually shown the Silkworms in her presence before.

“I can read stories that haven’t necessarily been told to me, if I’m prompted,” said Alice. That wasn’t quite true - at least as far as she was aware. She also wasn’t sure if the silkworms could only acquire knowledge that was present in the qi she came into contact with, if it had to be within the memory of the qi’s source.

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“You’ve discovered Principle despite not having formed a core,” said Daoist Liang. There was a sharp interest in her eyes now. “I’ve never heard of that happening.”

“It’s part of why I was admitted into the sect,” said Alice. “But it’s caused some problems for me, and I didn’t want to bother the Peak Masters about it. Not more than I already have.”

“Who did you speak to about it?”

“Master Feng,” said Alice. “He examined me and he couldn’t figure out what was wrong.”

“Typical,” said Liang, grinning.

“Aren’t you one of his handpicked students?” Alice asked, frowning. Last she’d checked, Liang had been quite proud of that. “Was he unable to help you after the auction?”

Twin slivers of annoyance and chagrin passed her face. “Something to that effect.” Liang coughed lightly. “I can try to help you, with whatever problems you have,” she decided. Then she looked around. “It’s a bit crowded here. We can go back to the greenhouses.”

Alice nodded and then stood. Liang stood as well.

“We’re friends, aren’t we?” asked Liang. “I’m sorry I’ve been so rude, there’s been a lot on my mind.”

The change in tone, the excitement in her eyes - they seemed so alien after how standoffish Liang had been.

The Silkworms hissed and spat, whispering of nothing in particular. It was often the case that they represented the far extremes of how Alice felt, and over time, she’d learned to clamp down on the emotions they suggested.

So what if this felt a bit more transactional than Alice thought it should? Daoist Liang had been quite kind to her even before this moment, when she learned that Alice could potentially give her insights into her cultivation.

Liang and Alice exited the atrium through the silent corridor lit with Yin Fire Lamps and walked out into the morning sun. Alice gave a cursory wave to the inner disciple guarding the door - someone she didn’t recognize. He didn’t even look up from the scroll he’d unfurled on his lap.

As they turned up the path and began to ascend Earth Peak, Liang spoke. “So what problems have you been having? It is cultivation related, is it not?”

Alice nodded. “I’ve been trying to form my core and-”

Liang shook her head. “Start at the beginning. Especially this early on, and in such extraordinary circumstances, the more I know about your past, the better.”

Alice paused.

“The beginning? I suppose.” Alice wove the meticulously collected fabrications together into something she hoped was coherent and took a deep breath.

“I was born to a family that had no reliable records of cultivation in its history,” she started. “My father practiced medicine, my mother did not work. I miss them dearly.”

Liang nodded.

“I was educated to the best of my family’s means from a young age - in literature, in music, in whatever martial arts mortals had access to. Early on, I began to see signs of awakening, though I had no idea what they were and told no one of it.”

Alice began to lie.

“I’m from the same village as Daoist Ji, from the Southern Continent. It was a peaceful life. There was absolutely nothing to worry about, until the whispers started. They spoke of the disappearance of the Healing Hands Scripture, of the tragedy at Falcon Peak in the True Sutra Sect, of a cultivator who’d fashioned herself as the Princess of Damnation. And they spoke of how our relatives, the Yi people, had a shattered kingdom and a missing prince. The stories grew more frequent, more frantic and strangers began to appear in our village. Some of them were cultivators.”

The silkworms whispered and hissed and squirmed and bit and swallowed.

“Most of them were running away - they were headed north, to the coast. They spoke of rituals, of unspeakable sights, of mourning in quiet, haunted voices. But their spirit returned when they spoke of the clear and calm Ming Sea, the riches and prowess of the Middle Continent, and their dreams and plans.”

Liang said nothing, but Alice could tell she was listening attentively. They had reached the fork in the road - to the right was where most of the dormitories that housed inner and outer disciples and to the left were the scattered buildings belonging to elders and core disciples. They turned left.

“Just a few weeks later, my mother woke me in the dead of night and told me that I needed to run. She apologized three times. She was sorry that she was crying. She was sorry that she would never see me again. And she was sorry that she had so little to leave me. My mother put a saber into my hands and told me to head north, to the coast. She said the Ming Sea would be calm and clear. She said that the Middle Continent was rich and powerful. And she said that I would need to make my own plans, follow my own dreams.”

Alice took a deep breath. The Silkworms whispered, desperate, scared, pursued, chewing, eating-

“And she told me that she was sure that I had become a cultivator.”

“I see,” said Liang.

“From the slope of the road, I caught sight of someone from my village - Brother Ji. Many mothers from my village had sent their children north on that night, but only we had the courage to turn and watch our village burn. And as the flames rose into the sky, I told myself that I would recover every story lost in that fire, every memory that rose into the High Heavens above and every promise that sank into the Yellow Springs below.”

“Principle,” Liang whispered.

The path was still and quiet. There were few Core Disciples in the Ascending Sky and fewer elders. It was almost a shock when they passed an old woman sitting on a bench in her garden.

It was Granny Meng. She’d broken up the fight between Chan Changshou and Daoist Liang on the Skybound Path before the auction had started. Her eyes did not open - she was blind, but from the way she turned in their direction and frowned, Alice could tell she’d noticed them.

Alice expected Daoist Liang to greet her, but Liang continued along at the same pace. Alice inclined her head at the old woman, but Granny Meng didn’t acknowledge her existence. Alice then remembered that she was blind, and allowed Liang to lead her along the path.

When they’d finally followed the winding path far enough that Granny Meng and her house were hidden behind a copse of trees, Alice spoke up. “Weren’t we just a bit impolite there?”

Liang chuckled lightly. “To the Dao Mother? She won’t answer if she didn’t speak to you first.”

“I see,” said Alice.

The trees around them grew more wild as the path began to slope upwards. The qi of the mountain grew thicker and the silkworms began to feast. Alice heard the snatches of conversation more clearly than she ever had - lines from the stories of the disciples of the Ascending Sky.

Your duty is to ring the bells, not to save- Tell me, where was this primordial yin harvested- The West will burn for this, but Tianbei might burn first- This is not your Fate to steal- What says the first line of the Skybound-

Liang had stopped moving - she was staring at Alice.

“I’m sorry,” said Alice. “I’ve been told that I’m hard to be around. I’m having difficulty controlling this. This isn’t even the biggest problem I’m having,” she admitted in a rush.

“It’s fine,” said Liang. “You won’t have to worry about that.”

The houses that the disciples of the Ascending Sky lived in faced Tianbei Valley. The greenhouses, however, were on the other side of the mountain. To the west, Alice could see the black glass spires of Bei’an and the calm grey waters of Three Blades Bay. To the north lay a great expanse of water and, in the distance, a bank of fog. Presumably, within or behind the fog lay the Northern Continent.

While the path they’d taken was relatively well maintained, the dense foliage of Earth Peak grew denser and warmer as they walked further along. Tianbei was far in the north, but the heat of the Yang Spirit Spring on Earth Peak had turned the slopes of the mountain into a rainforest.

The only signs of civilization were, in fact, those greenhouses - mostly rectangular in shape and built with tempered steel and sheets of volcanic glass so thin they were completely transparent. There were at least twenty such greenhouses in sight. When Alice peered into the canopy of vines and hardwood trees, errant steel corners that gleamed in the sunlight and shy panes of shaded glass promised many more greenhouses hidden behind the overgrown mountainside.

As they walked further along the path, it grew darker and darker as sunlight failed to pierce the layer of leaves. The ambient qi in the air only grew thicker still and the silkworms only grew louder and more frantic.

“We’re here,” said Liang, pointing to her left. The greenhouse looked no different than the rest - though in the shade, the glass was no longer transparent.

Daoist Liang approached the glass door to the greenhouse and pulled it open. There was a rush of air - Alice smelled the scent of apples and pollen. Just past the door, Alice could see a small, well-maintained plot of the little purple flowers that Liang liked to wear in her hair.

The silkworms screamed and hissed and chewed and swallowed and bit and bit and bit-

Alice stepped into the greenhouse and immediately realized why she’d felt so uneasy the whole time she’d been speaking to Daoist Liang.

Flowers of many kinds surrounded her, swaying in a nonexistent wind. Past the flowers were little flat steel tables, like the operating table in Peak Master Feng’s office.

On some of the tables sprawled sheets of thin, yellowed paper - made from bamboo. On some of the tables sprawled corked glass vials holding liquids of dangerous colors.

On one of the tables sprawled an unconscious Daoist Liang, eyes closed, skin pale.

Whoever had led Alice to this greenhouse closed the door behind her.