26. Echoes

The little bird sat on my finger. It was one of six which remained when I returned, and it wasn’t so little anymore. The size of a grape fruit, the growing bird was the largest of its siblings, but not by very much.

And it was one of the ones that I had initially labeled a dud.

I smiled. So much for me knowing everything.

“Sing me a song, songbird,” I said.

Instead, Jumper bit my nose and jumped off my finger and onto my shoulder, then it bit my earlobe. I simply smiled and allowed the little bird her antics, but the third time she tried to bite me I swatted her away.

She flew off and landed near the box where it and its siblings had hatched. I stepped over to it and looked at the peach pit which still lay within.

I touched it and felt within that pit the spark of a life so rich and profound that it was difficult to describe. I’d have to plant this seed somewhere particularly puissant in order to make certain it reached its full potential. Even now, I sensed a low level intellect from the plant, questing out.

“Grow?” It asked. “Time to grow?”

“Not yet, little one,” I whispered to it, patting it gently and washing it with Qi. “When it is time for you to grow, I will tell you,” I promised.

I stepped out of my room, and was immediately confronted by one of the ‘guests’ from the coalition which had been sent to investigate the storm I’d created for my cultivation.

Farun, I think his name was.

“Young Lord,” he said in the language of the north, although his accent was atrocious. “This one inquires to health. Wishes good health to Young Lord. Wishes to extend invitation to Old Lord.”

I blinked, trying to piece together his meaning. Then it came to me.

These people didn’t actually believe that I could create an array on the scale of the one which I had just disassembled after it had completed its purpose. They thought someone had made it for me.

“The Old Lord is not accepting invitations at this time. He thanks you for your hospitality, however,” I told him.

“So sad. Then extend invitation to Young Lord? We have many pretty girls at Fiery Tiger Sect!” he said, nudging me with an elbow.

I shrugged.

“We have many pretty boys too,” he said at my unfeigned disinterest.

“Why does everyone immediately make that jump when I don’t spring at the—never mind. No thank you Farun,” I said.

“Much to discuss though. Peach Blossom Dream for everyone, very generous. Elders wish to know secrets that are not for everyone.”

“Talk to Hien Ro,” I said dismissively. “If you want something from Old Lord, talk to Hien Ro and barter for it. If Old Lord wants something from the sects, then I will come to you and barter for it. Make sense?”

“Yes! Yes understand!” Farun said. “Sorry for disturbing Young Lord. Will go see Hien Ro now.”

And so he left me to my peace, and I stepped outside to watch the last of the thunderclouds disappear from around my mountain.

Jumper appeared and flew up onto my shoulder.

I swatted her away when he pecked my earlobe.

~~~~~~

Despite my dismissal of the sects, there were a few matters which required my attention. Specifically I had to clear up the little misunderstanding they’d made about the female version of the Peach Blossom Dream, which required instructing the translators personally. It didn’t take me too long, as the differences were fairly obvious once they were pointed out, revolving around the obvious physical differences between males and females.

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Any cultivation technique which did not account for the presence or absence of a womb in its practitioner was not a fully developed technique.

Still, I spent some time going over their notes. While I could not understand what they had written in their various languages, I could readily spot the versions which mish-mashed the two versions together based on the diagrams included in the cultivation manuals, which allowed me to remove them from circulation before they reached any of the students who might have been confused by them.

While they were technically bothering me within the time frame which they were supposed to leave me alone, I was feeling magnanimous after my success on the mountaintop.

Within a few days of the pronouncement, Hien Ro came to me with a nervous expression.

“What is it?” I asked as he approached me during a moment of meditation.

“They want to buy it all,” he said.

“What all?”

“My notes. Everything you’ve taught me that I’ve recorded. But they want a female version as well. They’re rather insistent on it, but it’s not something that I can give them. I mean, I guess I can try to remember the lessons you’ve been giving Yara, but—”

“A poorly remembered lesson intended for someone else is sometimes worse than an incomplete one intended for you,” I said, shaking my head. I sighed, thinking the situation through for several moments.

“The truth is, that there is something I want from them as well,” I admitted.

“Oh, what is that?”

“Experience,” I said. “It is the reason why we came south in the first place, to test our mettle against other cultivators and the challenges of the Ker’tath jungle, but I wasn’t counting on gathering quite as much attention as we have. We’re not ready to cause outrage among this many sects at once, and while they believe we have a powerful backer, the truth is that it’s just us, and one of their golden path seniors could crush us.”

“Okay. So what do we do? We could probably get away if we run,” Hien Ro said.

I shook my head. I saw something here, an opportunity that my mind was grasping the edges of. I turned to my friend and smiled. “Would you call together a gathering of the elders of the assembled sects?”

“Of course,” He agreed, and he set out to begin to do just that.

I returned to meditation, leaving the minutiae to my trusted friend.

~~~~~~

Di Ram sat alone in the tent next to the river, the scent of freshwater and sewage drifting in to annoy him. He sighed as he went over the notes and the figures that his retainers and scouts had given him. While most of his force was limited to the speed a mortal could walk in a day, slowly his refugees were heading south. In a year, they might reach the edges of Ker’tath, and once there they could found a city and begin their new way of life.

His gambit seemed to have worked at least. After passing an invisible line, the undead attacks had simply stopped. Unfortunately that line also demarked the beginning of the vast wastes, and it would take the mortals months to reach the other side.

The mortals were still dying, but not to undead attacks. Rather, they were succumbing to hunger, thirst, and dysentery. The rate at which they were dying had more or less leveled off, but every night was lit by a pyre.

Still, that was to be somewhat expected in a camp hundreds of thousands strong. He was assured by the mortals who knew anything about logistics that the death rate was really rather low considering the circumstance, going so far as to thank him for his leadership and wisdom.

His wisdom.

His eyebrow twitched.

He’d done nothing but look stern at his followers and repeat their words back to them. Even the man who had praised his leadership knew this, yet he continued to sing Di Ram’s praises.

He understood. The illusion of leadership was, in this case, what the masses needed. While Di Ram’s lieutenants were doing the actual work, having the orders come from Di Ram gave them an air of legitimacy and gravity which none of the mortals would have achieved on their own. At the same time, Di Ram had occasionally weeded his garden of advisors as reports of graft and corruption had reached him.

Or, occasionally, based on an instinct which had proven prescient.

He sighed, recalling one instance which he wished he could forget. He did not like ordering executions, but in that one case it was more than justified, and--

“What’s this?” he asked, the missive in his hand pulling his attention away from the recent past and fully into the moment. He reread the document from the beginning.

Some sort of weather phenomena in the south had generated a vast amount of interest among the local sects. While the effects were said to mostly be a curiosity for those investigating, Di Ram did not like the timing of this coincidence.

With a scribbled note, he sent Pi Phon off at all speed to investigate the matter.

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