Luo Yanhua wrote a treatise on the werewolves, then another on Marchand, and a third on the gunpowder weapons that Perry had introduced to the Great Arc. From all these, she gained power, though the last of those subjects was kept in a secret language, and shared only with those she thought she could trust. The first application of firearms on the Great Arc, at least to her knowledge, had been a very mixed bag, resulting in injuries and misfires, but the advanced version of the weapon, which was housed on Perry’s shoulder and seemed to work via the same mechanisms of alchemy and iron, had been enough to kill her former colleague.
A gun could be made easily enough by a first sphere blacksmith, since in essence it was only a metal tube. The materials could be sourced readily. If the knowledge became widespread, the first spheres would have a way of fighting against the second spheres, though Luo Yanhua thought that a well-prepared second sphere would be able to dodge or deflect the flying metal, and a third sphere would only be hit if they were caught off-guard, as the king had been. It was a finicky, unsubtle attack, but it was more than the first spheres had ever had before. Most likely the knowledge would stay a curiosity, or be stamped out wherever it appeared.
Luo Yanhua didn’t spend much longer with Moon Gate. She was a traveling researcher, a woman of many sects, learning from them and teaching in turn, bringing outside influences in to change their ways of thinking. Men and women like her played important roles in the relatively insular sect system, like bees spreading pollen across many miles.
She spent a month within her crater on the moon, breathing no air, eating no food, only meditating and occasionally placing chips of ice into her mouth, more for the ritual and sensation than because she had any real need. The soft white fur of the largest moon was a serene place, divorced from the goings on of the Great Arc, gentle and peaceful, and she often went for walks among the windless meadows of moon-hair. It was an occasion to reflect and decide on what the next part of her life would be.
The stories of the other worlds had made the Great Arc feel small.
Early on, she had framed everything in terms of technique and treated the corporations like sects and the governments like kingdoms, but it was clear that these were poor approximations. Life was similar all around the Great Arc, even if there were differences in climate and culture. Luo Yanhua was set to wondering what the boundaries of the many worlds were, and wished that she had asked more questions, even if there was a risk of learning something that couldn’t be unlearned. Neither Perry nor Maya had held technique sacred, and Perry had become, objectively, a monster, proving himself as such on at least two occasions. He had killed a woman whose only crime was trying to see what all the yelling was about, and that was unforgivable. She wondered whether he thought about that, and whether it would plague him.
Her own mistakes took up a place of prominence within her mind, and she wasn’t sure that her dealings with Perry wouldn’t come to join them.
When the month had passed, and the moons had gone from full to new to full, Luo Yanhua gathered herself up, clad in moon-fiber robes, and returned to the Green Snake Valley. She spent only a night at Crystal Lake Temple, not even bothering to unpack her scrolls, books, and jade slips, then made for the Cicada Temple.
It was possible for temples to collapse, and this often happened in the wake of a key figure transitioning to a higher sphere or dying. The loss of Sun Quying was a brutal one for Worm Gate, especially as others had died as well, but the temple still had its people, and there was continuity, of a sort. The first spheres were no longer in his iron grip, and the place was still finding itself. Just as a kingdom had a celestial decree, a sect had one too, and this time it had selected one of the grandmaster’s daughters, a slip of a girl with an affection for dragonflies who had bested her brothers, uncles, nephews, and the rest of the extended family in order to be the one to chart the future.
Luo Yanhua learned their stances and moves, and did her best to bring the teachings of other temples into their repertoire, especially where there was overlap between them. She helped to develop a new strike that pulled on the form of the cicada, their cyclical emergence linked to the waxing and waning of the moon. She also cultivated silkworms, and integrated their silk into her robe of lunar filaments, strengthening them immensely.
Meeting Perry and Marchand had changed her opinion about armor and what it could be. Common wisdom was that it was a tool of cowards, protection layered on top of more protection at the expense of technique and mobility. What was a scholar if they didn’t challenge the conventional wisdom? Luo Yanhua sought out books on the subjects, tracts written by members of sects that did employ armor, memoirs of second sphere blacksmiths and investigations in metallurgy. She published more papers on these subjects, summaries of her findings. These were worth decidedly less than novel findings which advanced the understanding of these things, but were still useful in that they synthesized and summarized.
Worm Gate proved to be an inadequate home in the long run. The grandmaster had died, but the culture he had built remained, and his progeny were power hungry but incurious, not amenable to collaboration or scholarly tethers.
After a brief two years, Luo Yanhua left, this time setting out for one of the sects whose work she’d taken an interest in, a guild of armorers and weaponsmiths who poured their energy into their workings. Their blades were fabled, but it was the armor she was most interested in, and she quickly proved herself to them, bringing insights from the world of insects, their chitinous structures and microscopic joints, as well as some ideas about how armor might better work around its limitations. She drew sketches of Marchand and learned the arts of metalworking, eventually developing a lunar forge that worked in the moonlight. She made a tight-fitting material inspired by Maya’s suit, with fibers of silkworm and moon-hair, and bits of black woven in, stretched charcoal that Perry had termed ‘carbon’. It was matte gray and unattractive, but it moved like silk and made punches land against her with half their usual force.
After seven years with Armored Belly Gate, she was ready to move on.
“You move too quickly,” said Grandmaster Bi Yinghua. “You gain a depth of understanding as deep as a puddle. I would elevate you to inner disciple, if I thought that you would accept. You could stay.”
“I have found much value in the combination of disciplines, techniques, and practices,” said Luo Yanhua. “It suits a scholar well, better than other tethers.”
“You tethered too tightly,” said Grandmaster Bi Yinghua, shaking her head. “A tether can be a dangerous thing, propelling us down unwise paths.”
“This is true,” said Luo Yanhua. She sipped her thistle tea, a traditional drink served often at the low, squat temple beside the sea. “But while you may disagree, I feel as though I might be approaching the edge of the precipice of the third sphere. More and more, every sect I spend time with is elevated in the process — unless you disagree?”
“No,” said Grandmaster Bi Yinghua, shaking her head. “We are happy to have you, and have grown fat off the knowledge you’ve shared. I only hate to have you leave, but that is the nature of the traveler, I suppose. But where will you go next?”
Luo Yanhua looked out the window, at the sea that lay beyond the temple. She had an affection for the seas. Her first field of study had been water, which was something she brought to Moon Gate, weaving the moon with the tides. It was true that her understanding of most things remained shallow, but the shallows were where the most fish swam.
“A book recently came into my possession,” said Luo Yanhua.
“From the third sphere?” asked Grandmaster Bi Yinghua.
“Yes,” said Luo Yanhua.
They were nearly equals, which was an oddity, given that Luo Yanhua was an outer disciple. The grandmaster had an easy way about her though, and accepted that Luo Yanhua was her own person, a powerful second sphere with a different perspective. It was always hard to say when or whether someone would reach the third sphere — there was an epiphany that came with it, a method of pushing the soul outside oneself. Perry had done an incomplete version of it, and from everything Luo Yanhua had read on the matter, had likely locked himself off from the third sphere forever. She didn’t think that was likely to matter. Thresholders didn’t seem like they had long lifespans. He had probably died not long after leaving the Great Arc, in her estimation.
“Your thoughts are scattered today,” said Grandmaster Bi Yinghua.
“My apologies,” said Luo Yanhua. “I’m thinking of the past. There’s more of it every year.” She turned back to the grandmaster and composed herself. “The book was an account of travelers between the worlds, an incident that happened two hundred years ago, a thousand miles away from here. The author yet lives.”
“A thousand miles is a long way to travel, even if you can reach the moon,” said Grandmaster Bi Yinghua.
“No,” said Luo Yanhua. “I think I have a refinement of the technique. It won’t take more than another month. Winter will be best for it, when the snow has fallen and the land takes on the soft, quiet, pure character of the moon.”
“Such distances,” said Grandmaster Bi Yinghua. She shook her head. “It’s difficult to imagine.”
Yet for Luo Yanhua, it seemed like hardly any distance at all, at least when compared to the breadth of the many worlds. A thousand miles away there would be many different techniques, but they would still be techniques as she had known them. She was certain that the third sphere was within her reach, but it wouldn’t be so different from the second sphere, a matter of the spirit being outside the body rather than within it.
There were other worlds, with powers beyond her imagination, and not just powers, but cultures, societies, and peoples.
She didn’t think that she should have gone through the portal, but the many worlds were out there, and there had to be some way to find them. As the years had passed, she had felt a hunger for them growing deep in her guts. Perhaps it was the tether pushing her toward the new and uncharted, or something else, but it had come to dominate her thoughts.
In the deep winter, after fresh snowfall, Luo Yanhua performed her new technique. It was a funny thing, trying something and not knowing whether it would work or not, or whether it had been done before. Lunar transport always returned a person to where they had been before, or somewhere close by, but her technique would send her far away, angled across the Great Arc. She didn’t know whether she was following in the footsteps of hundreds of others, or if this was folly.
When the kicked up snow settled, she looked at the Great Arc and saw that it had changed. She was looking at unfamiliar lakes and seas, the continents she’d known from a distance, seen every day, gone and replaced by others. She looked carefully and thought she could make out the Kingdom of Seven Valleys from a great distance, with all its winding rivers and verdant lands.
The place she’d wound up was much different, a constellation of arid plateaus with deep canyons running beneath them. The air was dry, and the weather was warm. The perfect circle of snow she’d brought with her melted quickly.
It took two days to arrive at the temple. The language was slightly different here, which was no matter for someone of the second sphere.
The temple was part of a sect devoted to the sands, and after Luo Yanhua explained herself, she was given a good room and made an outer disciple. They were more wary than other places she’d been, slower to talk and to trust, and even less prone to sharing techniques. She spoke with them as much as they would stand though, and eventually they warmed to her, particularly when she took part in their training sessions and mastered their stances and strikes. She had found that her enthusiasm for the martial arts went a long way in gaining a temple’s trust, which she’d had to do a number of times.
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She waited three months before broaching the subject of thresholders with the grandmaster, the man who’d authored the book that brought her there. He was aged, and would die before making it to the third sphere, but he had bones of granite and a marbled mind. He spoke slowly and with much hesitation.
“They came as first spheres and left as third,” said Grandmaster Wei Jinbao. “You have read what I’ve written.”
“Some questions remain,” said Luo Yanhua. “Many don’t put everything they know into a book.”
“What do you wish to know?” asked Grandmaster Wei Jinbao. “Their techniques?”
“I would not ask such a thing,” said Luo Yanhua, shaking her head. “I wish to know about how they came, how they left, and what they had to say about the nature of the worlds they had been to. I want to know their character.”
The grandmaster looked at her for a long time. “You know of others like them.”
“Yes,” said Luo Yanhua. “Years ago I met three of them.”
The grandmaster rubbed his knees. He was old, and would never escape a slow death by senescence. “They were both here, as students, at the same time. They spoke the local language as first spheres, and seemed to hate each other with every fiber of their being. Yet they were, somehow, good students, driven to succeed, dedicated to the craft, if only because they seemed so focused on killing each other.”
“They knew each other before coming here?” asked Luo Yanhua.
“It’s my belief that they did not,” said the grandmaster. “I wasn’t privy to their discussions — I was a disciple of minor skill at that time — but I believe they had their discussions and disagreements after coming here.” He looked around the room. “No, it’s difficult to remember it, but it wasn’t here. The temple has been rebuilt since that time. Because of that time.”
“They advanced to the second sphere, then the third,” said Luo Yanhua.
“Yes,” nodded the grandmaster. “It took them only two years, an impossible pace. When they first started training they were worthless. I recall making fun of them, the neophytes from another land, one so pale he was bone white and the other the dark brown of dried blood. But they breezed past me. The pace was unlike anything I had seen before or since. Of course, they had unearned power from other places.” He looked at Luo Yanhua, who had allowed her face to move a fraction. “Forgive me, you’ve read what I’ve written, and it was written long ago, when my memory was better.”
“They fought each other once they reached third sphere?” asked Luo Yanhua.
“No,” said Grandmaster Wei Jinbao, shaking his head. “They fought each other when it had been two years, to the day, from when they had both come to live at the temple. In that time, they had many fights, but had never come to blows. Their discussions were esoteric, concerning subjects that we knew little about, and these would go long into the night if allowed. There was no precipitating event. We speculated afterward that they had simply agreed to abide by a truce for a period of two years. They were both principled men, not that it helped us.”
“You don’t describe the destruction,” said Luo Yanhua.
“I understood little of it,” said Grandmaster Wei Jinbao. “The temple was destroyed, utterly, ripped apart with powers beyond the realm of the third sphere, or possibly even the fourth.” He coughed into his hand. “Others have come here, often, seeking their secrets. If that’s why you’ve come, I cannot tell you much.”
“Did you see the portals when they left?” asked Luo Yanhua.
The grandmaster stared at her for a moment, blinking. “You did see their like,” he said.
“I did,” nodded Luo Yanhua. “I spoke with them extensively. I can share what answers I have. It isn’t a question of technique, though the knowledge is … tricky. Difficult to deal with.”
“I will remain ignorant,” said the grandmaster. “But it drives you? Warps you?”
“It’s difficult to say,” said Luo Yanhua. “I have lived with the knowledge for some time.”
“There was a portal,” said the grandmaster. “I was one of only a few to see it. With their battle concluded, when they had laid waste to the temple and the lands around us, had carved furrows into the land and changed the shape of rivers, one left on two feet, then the other, moving on his elbows, leaving a streak of blood.”
“They didn’t kill each other?” asked Luo Yanhua.
“No,” said the grandmaster. “When news of the battle spread, a few higher sphere men and women came by asking. They wanted any corpse that might have been left behind, for study, or artifacts of the fight. Both had weapons, but they took them through. And then nothing remained.”
Luo Yanhua frowned. She wasn’t entirely sure what she had hoped to learn. “In those conversations, did you learn of this happening before, across the Great Arc?”
The grandmaster nodded slowly. “There are those who chase such occurrences, who know of them. They are, largely, among the higher spheres. Have you met a sixth sphere?”
“No,” said Luo Yanhua.
“It is terrifying,” said the grandmaster. He gave a rueful chuckle. “My mind was taken apart, scraped of anything useful, then put back together again. I think, sometimes, writing that book was the worst thing I might ever possibly have done for my peace and security.” His face fell slightly. “I laugh now, but at the time, it was awful. I have since passed from notice.”
“I’m sorry you went through that,” said Luo Yanhua with a sympathetic nod.
“Did you come here to learn with us?” asked the grandmaster. “To share your perspective? Or was this conversation your only goal?”
“I have come here for this conversation,” said Luo Yanhua. “But not only for that. I will stay here, listen, learn, and contribute when I can. I’m a scholar, and I do believe I would find something to appreciate no matter where I went in this wide world.”
The words felt hollow though.
She spent five years there, learning the ways of the plateaus. She achieved proficiency, developed relationships, engaged in the petty drama that infested any temple of any size, and dreamed of the many worlds.
For Luo Yanhua, her transition to the third sphere came from her armor. She had worked on it for many years by that point, and it clung to her like a second skin, breathing its own breath, gripping her tightly, impenetrable to the blades of the first sphere and to many attacks of the second. She had been meditating in the high mountain overlooking the plateaus with the dry air, feeling the pulse of her heartbeat along her second skin. The border between self and suit became mingled, then disappeared, and Luo Yanhua transcended her mortal form.
Three days later, she received a visitor.
He was of a higher sphere, though it was difficult to tell which. His clothes shimmered and shifted, as though he were wearing a hundred hundred robes, each so thin they could be seen through but collectively opaque. His face was kind, but she had the impression that it might have been a facade. As third sphere, she could push her aura out, and when she tried that with him, it was a wave in a small pond lapping up against hard stone.
“Luo Yanhua,” he said, with no introduction. “You’ve been searching out the thresholders.”
“No,” said Luo Yanhua. “Only their stories.”
“Do you know why I’ve come to you?” he asked, crossing his legs. They were in the common room of the temple, with no one else around.
“I can’t imagine,” said Luo Yanhua. “It’s no coincidence that you’re here shortly after I reached the third sphere though.”
“No,” he said, smiling. “I am Zhou Xuantie, the Wanderer. I have rounded the Great Arc a thousand times, and know most of its secrets. You were at the small-scale battle in Green Snake Valley, years ago, between the former king of the Grouse Kingdom and the grandmaster of Worm Gate.”
“And you didn’t find out until now?” asked Luo Yanhua.
Zhou Xuantie shook his head. “I watched as it happened, as I believe a few others of my sphere did.” He didn’t mention which sphere it was. “I have contacted you now because I believe you are now uniquely suited to take advantage of certain … peculiarities of the spheres.”
“Which are?” asked Luo Yanhua.
“Bah,” said Zhou Xuantie. “I cannot tell you of the higher spheres.” He rose from his seat and walked over to the window, hands folded behind him. “I can only say that in the third sphere, there is a certain technique which will keep you confined to the Great Arc. It is discovered, inevitably, by those of the third sphere, and I have found no record of a single person of fourth sphere or higher of any who have not taken advantage of it. Indeed, it might be foundational to the higher spheres. I simply do not know. But I am hoping that you will help me find out.”
“You … wish me to avoid a technique which is so fundamental and easily won that everyone pursues it at third sphere?” asked Luo Yanhua.
“Yes,” said Zhou Xuantie. He turned to look at her with keen eyes. “Because at fifth sphere, there is a technique which is possible only for those who have not performed the irreversible technique when they were third sphere.” Luo Yanhua frowned at him, and he turned around to grin at her. “I can tell what you’re thinking, you know.”
“You can?” asked Luo Yanhua.
“There are changes to the aura that come with thought, subtle as the flap of a butterfly’s wings,” said Zhou Xuantie. “But it is quite distinct to someone like me.”
“Then there is no need for me to speak,” said Luo Yanhua.
“You know the power of rites, the same as I do,” said Zhou Xuantie. He sat back down and became serious, hands neatly folded. “You are thinking that there is little guarantee of you ever reaching the fifth sphere, as most do not. That chance becomes all the more tiny if you intentionally avoid a technique that everyone else readily takes.”
“Yes,” said Luo Yanhua. “That is quite a trick, to read an aura so cleanly.” She was feeling a fear she hadn’t felt in a long time. The only thing that protected her from him was his respect for the cosmic balance. That, and that he seemed to need something from her.
“You are also wondering what reward might be in store for you, if you go down this narrow path and make it to the end,” said Zhou Xuantie.
“I was also wondering what reward might be in store for you,” said Luo Yanhua.
“Of course,” said Zhou Xuantie. His eyes twinkled. “I thought mentioning your suspicion might be uncouth.” He turned to the window again, looking out at the southern stretch of the Great Arc. “I hope to travel between worlds.”
“You can’t do that?” asked Luo Yanhua. She had wondered, often.
“The technique, the one I wish for you to avoid, has locked me out,” said Zhou Xuantie. “I have tried many, many things, and all have failed.”
“You said you saw the portals appear,” said Luo Yanhua. “You had watched the battle.”
“It wasn’t the first time I’ve seen thresholders fighting on the Great Arc,” said Zhou Xuantie. “It wasn’t the first time I’ve seen those very same portals. But I have learned, through painful experience, that they will not permit one such as me.”
Luo Yanhua frowned. “You tried to go through?”
“And nearly lost my life,” said Zhou Xuantie with a rueful smile.
“How many times have you tried this before, with someone new to the third sphere?” asked Luo Yanhua.
“This would be the third time,” Zhou Xuantie admitted. “But I have hope for you.”
“Because I have seen the portals?” asked Luo Yanhua.
“There are many points in your favor,” said Zhou Xuantie. “You are a scholar, inclined to the pursuit of knowledge for its own sake rather than simply power. You have made it to the third sphere with a broad — some would say shallow — understanding of many things, rather than a deep focus on a single area of study. And you have the drive to see the many worlds that I believe my other collaborators lacked. But I do admit that it may simply be a game of numbers. Most who make it to third sphere will not make it to fourth, and most who make it to fourth will not make it to fifth.”
Luo Yanhua considered this. “And you will offer much to me, to help me along as you are able?”
“It wouldn’t be good for me to cross the spheres,” said Zhou Xuantie. “Certainly you wouldn’t be my pupil. But I have many contacts, and many resources, and would help you.”
“You hope that I will help you step into the many worlds,” said Luo Yanhua.
“I do,” said Zhou Xuantie. “I have seen much of the Great Arc. I wish to see less of it. I have heard many stories you simply would not believe — almost all from thresholders, or those who have spoken with them.”
“Almost?” asked Luo Yanhua.
“Almost,” nodded Zhou Xuantie. “But that is for another time.” He stood. “You need time to consider. I will give it to you, of course.” He gave her a cheeky wink, then vanished.
Luo Yanhua took three weeks. Most of that time was spent in meditation, away from the temple. She could have talked about it with the grandmaster of the temple, but they were of different spheres, and the separation was already making it known. To be an itinerant researcher was one thing, but to be a third sphere among seconds was something else. She had always thought that the grandmaster of Worm Gate was unseemly, and that feeling was only amplified now that she was third sphere herself.
She thought about Perry and the lengths he had gone to in order to keep the grandmaster from going through the portal. The Great Arc was a world of great power, power far above that of most. If she followed Zhou Xuantie’s plans, she would be opening a pathway for him. She didn’t know him in the slightest, but there would be time. The higher spheres had nothing but time, hundreds of years, perhaps thousands.
The only question was whether it would be for his sake or hers.
In the end, the many worlds beckoned. She would like to see Earth some day.
Zhou Xuantie appeared at the temple not long after her resolve had firmed. She didn’t know whether that was a coincidence or not, but thought it unlikely.
“Good,” he said, when she told him her decision. “It’s a long road ahead, but one I am certain will be fruitful.”