Kisiko’s funeral was a grand affair, befitting his station as a cultivator of the profound soul.

The body had been cleaned and robed in the finest silken clothes. His hair had been trimmed by the attendants, his nails carefully trimmed, and what remained of his beard had been combed, braided and trimmed.

A wake was kept over his body at all times, with one of the six profound cultivators of Yatamo leading it. As was traditional, at these wakes many attended, and fine beers and wines were shared about. The foods of the village that he had been born in were provided — simple fare, bread, olives, and soft pressed cheeses.

They all told each other tales of Kisiko’s life,

Those of his family who lived in Yatamo — great-great-great nieces and nephews, many generations removed from the long dead brothers, sisters and cousins who had lived in the years that Kisiko began his life in — attended and served the clan chiefs and profound cultivators who sat cross legged about the funeral platform. And they too told their stories, speaking at this time freely and as equals amongst the great of the island.

Tale of his death was spread far by those of his household, day by day great cultivators came from around the world to pay their respects to a dead friend.

Twelve profound souls from the lands of the west which had never known the emperor’s rule. Three from the far south, from lands where summer was winter, and winter was summer. An ancient cultivator of such advanced age that it was only the gradually declining power of his magic which kept him alive, and whose original land no one knew. A man who lived amongst the glaciers and ice monsters far to the north.

And all these great sat about the wake, and they shared their stories of Kisiko.

On the fifth day, brought along at great speed by one of the profound cultivators of Parelei, the wife of Kisiko’s old age. She had only achieved her golden core, and her hair was already touched by gray, and her face was wrinkled, even though she was younger than Sesako. She sat near the body, and took his hand and wept, but she was not overpowered by her grief in the way that Sesako had imagined she would have been.

With her were the two sons of Kisiko’s old age. Both wore the deep purple sash of a complete cultivator of Parelei and both young, vibrant and with powerful futures ahead of them.

On a mountain facing where Kisiko’s body was held, there was a great tent thrown up by the emperor, and in its center a fine statue, twelve feet tall, had been built of Kisiko. That statue showed him as he had been as a young man, wearing the robes of a member of the imperial household, and with a smile in his eyes.

And openly in the eyes of all the men of Yatamo who cared to look, the emperor and his chief cultivators kept their own wake about that statue. And though even Sesako’s many times reinforced ears could hear nothing of what they spoke over the distance of three miles, he had no doubt that they shared tales amongst each other of Kisiko, his courage, his kindness, his nobility, and even his loyalty.

Sesako knew that amongst that group were the two living children from Kisiko’s marriage with the emperor’s daughter, and their many descendants.

There was always guilt in Sesako’s heart when he took his turn about the funeral platform, for he had no friendly tales to tell of Kisiko, except that last, bravest and greatest one. And that was a tale he could not speak with any happiness, for his own part was ignominious: Kisiko had won them the opportunity for victory with his own death, and he had failed Kisiko, the Great Ones, and everyone else.

Sesako seethed inside to hear how many of them spoke of the kindness of the emperor in allowing his old friend and son to be sent from the world in proper state. Rather than a kindness, what the emperor truly did by allowing the funeral rites to be performed in this formal way, was that he was bragging to the whole world about his kindness, and about his unstoppable power.

All of these great cultivators who came to visit from other lands were welcome to visit the imperial camp, they were welcome to look upon the destruction that the emperor had made of Kyit, the great city of Yatamo, they were welcome to hear the emperor speak of his long, long fondness for Kisiko, and above all they were welcome to study from a great distance the clouds of red tinted steam exhaled from the throat of his great volcano, and to observe how the island floated, despite the blatant impossibility of the thing.

A simple message: Behold! Behold! Those seas which have protected you for a thousand years from my might! Those seas that have left you free to squabble amongst yourselves in endless warfare as you seek to control your own destiny? — they have been defeated! I now can conquer you as well! Go back to the land of your home! Go back and tell all who you know of what you have seen, and that if you do not make terms with me, I shall come for you with great violence to force my own terms upon you.

And Sesako hated that the Other, during his turns in the control of their body, sat in the wake with these foreign cultivators.

And he, of course, the miserable striver that he was, used this opportunity to tell the tales of the four times he had spoken to Kisiko. He told tales about his belief that everyone ought to help others with no regard to what nation they were from. He described his vision — a vision that began to beguile even the great of Diet Vinh, Frenc, Montol, Acrif and others. A world where everyone had the power of a celestial. A world where death and defeat were banished.

The notion of a world where everyone had an equality in voice and strength was deeply disturbing, confusing and… perhaps grotesquely appealing.

The other was not unchallenged, but he was annoying, in the way that he smiled, showed respect, shrugged, and agreed when another said something which seemed to him a compelling point. But he always continued to insist upon two points: Something needed to be done. And it was important to do the best we could with what we had available.

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The day of the burying opened with a thunderstorm that broke against the mountain. Rivulets and creeks drained down the mountainside. Lightning struck the peak repeatedly, and great thunder roared. The storm showed power beyond that which even the greatest cultivators of the world could manage.

But even that might change — The other talked about improvement. He asked a simple question: Why hasn’t our research progressed faster and further?

Every cultivator, and every sect pursued their research separately and in secret. What if instead they spread knowledge more freely? What if they helped each other? — look how great the success of Yatamo was, a land of merely one and a half million people. A small nation by the great standards of the world, but because they had built their entire system of education upon having the prodigies help those who were the least capable, and upon having those who had opened a new dantian help those who had yet to do so, they had thrived far beyond what could have been expected of them.

Surely the true blessing of the Great Ones upon these people was that they aided each other. This explained everything.

Or so said the other.

Sesako felt a sort of horror mixed with his pride.

These profound cultivators who were the great of other nations were thoughtful and considering — what if they listened?

There was an inbuilt sense of the superiority of the Yatamo in Sesako.

They were the favored land, the blessed land, the mountainous land of the dragons.

And what if over the next century, before he had even properly left his youth, this advantage would erode?

The Great Ones were to be murdered (and everyone agreed that was a terrible shame, but one about which they would do nothing, even though these cultivators who had come to pay their respect to the dead Kisiko could have helped to protect the cause for which he threw his life away).

And in that the land would lose their blessing. And if what the other suggested was true: Yatamo was great chiefly because of its unusual way of educating children — what if those educational practices spread, and everywhere the majority of the peasants developed their foundations?

How would his people be special?

They would no longer have any destiny of importance.

And it would have been stolen from them because some knowledge that they had not even known was important had been stolen and shared amongst everyone.

The other had an answer for that.

Knowledge could be freely and infinitely shared. The knowledge of how to kill and fight was destructive, it was not useful when that knowledge spread. But the knowledge of how to build, of how to educate, how to heal and trade, and of mechanical invention, anything that made the world better — it was good when that spread.

Yes, the inventor would lose their relative specialness, and they might no longer be able to gain as much wealth as they had before, but the world as a whole would be better off.

After the great thunderstorm, the sun came out, as the sun was wont to do after summer thunderstorms, and the air smelled clean and wet, and the great procession set off.

Those who had loved Kisiko most dearly lifted his body, and together they flew towards the high mountaintop thirty miles distant which had been chosen for his final resting place. A barrow had been dug over the last seven days, filled with mementos of Kisiko and enchanted by two cultivators of the six, and all of Kisiko’s descendants, so that it could never be entered by any who had a wish to do harm to the body or the remains — or at least not by anyone who was not of substantial power himself, or who did not wait several centuries for the power in the enchantments to fade.

Behind those who carried the corpse was a long line, led by Sesako, for it was agreed that as a celestial he was of highest rank. Sesako wished he had been at the bottom of the line, for he was unworthy to share in Kisiko’s honors.

Then behind Sesako twenty cultivators of profound rank followed. The other five of Yatamo, and fifteen great cultivators who had gathered to celebrate and mourn the death of a friend. And behind that more than a thousand purified cores, each one of whom could claim some personal and special connection with Kisiko — for he had been generous in his friendship, and kind in his affections.

And further behind that was much of the army of Yatamo gathered for the battle which would resume twenty-four hours after Kisiko’s body had been placed away.

They flew forward at a slow and stately pace that was not much more than twenty-five miles an hour.

As they traveled, on a path parallel to them the emperor’s party formed. A smaller number, only a few hundred cultivators, led by the emperor himself.

For an hour they flew through the sunny clear skies, filled with the fresh scent of rain. They reached the top of the tall mountain and laid Kisiko on the ground.

The emperor and his party hovered at respectful distance a mile and a half away, just outside of the effective range with which a purified core could use an enchanted crossbow as a weapon.

They were above the great snow line, and even though it was in the middle of summer, the ground was white and cold with snow at this great height.

Sesako himself accepted the great mourning horn, and he carefully infused a great flow of crimson power into the ancient horn which had been used to mourn the honored dead of Yatamo for more than two thousand years.

The keening, rich throbbing echoing sound burst out.

And Sesako blew again into the horn, and once more the sound burst for, rich, mellow and weeping.

He blew again, put his whole soul, his grief into the horn, his grief for himself, for his loss of his control of his own body and fate, his grief for Kisiko, and how he had misjudged him, and his grief for the defeats they had already suffered, and the defeats that he expected to suffer in the next months.

All that he was and that he felt was poured into that great blowing horn.

And then, when he paused, another sound from a great distance responded.

A similar horn-like sound that turned into a vibrant roar, which started small avalanches all amongst the stones of the high mountainsides.

The seven surviving dragons of Yatamo rose up, and led by the great matriarch, Sesako’s friend, they each flew over the barrow and the body, calling mournfully as they went over. Each circled the mountain top twice. The wingspan that was nearly a thousand feet from tip to tip shaded them all from the summer sun, intense in the thin air.

Upon seeing them come, Sesako’s stomach clenched. It was possible that the emperor had weapons with him that could injure the dragons from this short range of just a mile. Great enchanted hurlers that could launch powerful stones in an instant.

But the emperor only looked at the dragons with a solemn expression.

After that the seven flew away again, turning towards the north and their great aeries.

Following this, the two living children of Kisiko in the emperor’s retinue flew to the barrow, with their nieces, nephews and children around them. They settled around the body of the great man, kissed him, and kissed their half-brothers who had come from Parelei.

And then carrying a little platform with Kisiko’s body on their shoulders, marched him into the barrow.

The group of blood relations and children, one of Kisiko’s sons was white and hoary with great age, and another gray and wrinkled with much age, but less than his brother, remained within the barrow, performing final private rites for twenty minutes.

They left, tears on their faces, but a mix of smiles at the memories of their great father.

A great stone was then laid in front of the barrow’s entrance, and it was fixed forever in its place by the combined efforts of the profound cultivators present, each pressing a bit of their special power into it.

A moment of silence.

And then the great crowds returned in the direction they came from.

The next day the war would begin again.