So this was their version of a library!

It was cozy here; a single shaft of sunlight lit a cylinder down the middle, pouring sunlight on a cackling hearth heaped high with coal. A short, stick-thin, bald old man with a crown of feathers sat tending the hearth with a poker. His bushy brows shot up at the sight of them; his pupils were milky white. He frowned at the sight of them. It seemed to take him a second to see them. Then he broke into a big wrinkly smile.

“Is that Livy? What a rare pleasure.”

“Well met, Uncle Tyrus,” she said.

“Yes, yes. What brings—” He caught sight of Ruyi. He blinked.

“You,” he whispered. Then he stood. “You’re Ruyi Yang.”

“You know who I am?” said Ruyi. It was maybe the third time it’d happened today, and each was a fresh joy for Ruyi.

“Oh, yes. I’m a Lorekeper,” said the old man. “It’s my duty to know every scroll here as dearly as one of my children. A great many feature your name and likeness. I’ve read your work. I don’t pretend to understanding—in matters of Alchemy I am an idiot, I fear—but your writing… passionate, incisive, bold. Very good.”

“Uh,” said Ruyi, feeling her face heat up. They were so in-your-face here with both their insults and their compliments! She didn’t know how to take it. But she liked it.

“My name is Tyrus Remus Vespertilio, and this is my home. The First Hut, where we keep our Tribe’s most sacred texts. How might I help you?”

“We’re here on a tour, uncle,” said Livia. “We won’t be long.”

Tyrus grunted. “A tour, and you won’t be long, you say? What exactly do you propose to do here?” He looked faintly offended. He swept one stick-arm across the room, and Ruyi saw the walls weren’t really walls. They were like the inside of a beehive, thousands of little cubbies, and in them were scroll after scroll after scroll. So that was why it smelled faintly like a butchery in here! The scrolls must be made of animal hides. Ruyi had seen some back home, but only in museums…

“Do you propose,” Tyrus continued, “To take a look at this pretty fire, and at the knobs of these scrolls, and at this unsightly face of mine, and be on your merry way? Then you’ll have gotten no tour at all! No—the character of this place is in the text, silly Livia. There are worlds buried in these scrolls. Beautiful, intricate worlds. Do not take them lightly.”

“Right,” said Livia. “I appreciate your enthusiasm, as always, Uncle, but we really ought to get going—”

“I have time,” Ruyi said eagerly. “Can you show me?”

“With pleasure!” said Tyrus. He marched with purpose to one end of the tent, froze halfway there, turned, looking guilty. “Ah… I’ve misled you. I must apologize. The contents of this hut are confidential. I’m barred from displaying them to guests.” He cringed, like it was physically painful to say. “I’ve never cared for the rule, but this one’s—” He nodded at Livia—“Mother may flay me if I offer you the room’s true marvels. They’re secrets, I’m told.”

He spat the word like it was dirty. “No knowledge ought to be secret. Secrecy… it is a dishonest, dishonorable thing. But I like my skin on my body. Alas.”

“Aww…” said Ruyi.

“You’d have to be a tribesman to view the tomes,” said Livia. Then, at how crestfallen Ruyi looked—“But… perhaps we can make a minor exception. Perhaps a sampling for our guest will do—the first volume of Cold Cycling?”

Tyrus sighed. “Of the great mountain range, you shall see but one small hill. Blegh! So be it.”

He shuffled off to pry some scrolls loose. He returned with three clutched under an arm, bound in twine and wax. He thrust them at her. “Have at them! If you have questions, do ask.”

She twisted the string off the first and started to read, fingers tingling on the rough leather. It was written in red ink—not blood, she hoped.

Stolen story; please report.

It was split up in several phases. The first described how cultivation worked: there was Essence in the ground, and demons could suck it up into themselves and make it their own. Ruyi had gathered that much on her own. If she spread out her senses, really listened, the ground felt alive in a way it never did over the mountains. She felt essence there the way you might feel humidity in the air after a hot summer storm—so much you couldn’t help but step in it, move through it. It was even thicker here than in her cave.

She hadn’t had time to sit down, and breathe, and pay attention ever since she’d awoken. Once she did she felt slightly unbalanced, though nothing moved; she felt like she stood on a listing ship on a restless sea. It took an effort to come back to herself.

“It says here…” she squinted. “I’ve got to start from the Crassian channel then ‘thread’ it through the ‘Gamma Node’.

“That’s right. That’s how the method starts,” said Livia gently. “Why don’t you try it out?”

Ruyi stared at her.

“Um. What’s a channel? And a node? Are they meant to be like meridians and acupoints?”

They stared back.

“You’ve reached Demon Queen, and you don’t know the basics of how your body functions?” said Tyrus, incredulous. “How have you cultivated ‘till now?”

“I just… reach for the lights in the ground and yank them in,” said Ruyi. She realized how stupid she sounded saying it. “I mean,” she amended quickly. “It’s a little more complex than that, I’m just, um, simplifying a little, you know…”

It was not in fact more complex than that. She just felt embarrassed by how they were staring at her.

“You are a remarkable creature,” said Tyrus at last. “Well. This here, near the elbow, is where the ‘Gamma Node’ is…”

He taught her with grandfatherly patience how essence was meant to move through her body, the gates it could enter and leave, the channels under the skin she’d always vaguely felt, but never knew had names. Apparently she could absorb essence much better if she poured it in through one of these ‘Nodes.’ She had to try it out—she sat down, closed her eyes, and set to meditating.

After a few breaths—“Oh,” she breathed, eyes wide. “Oh…”

She grabbed Livia by the shoulders, eyes shining. “Can we stay here? Please?”

“Whatever you like,” said Livia.

Ruyi dashed through the first scroll. She learned about cold cycling, then ‘cold infusion,’ which made assimilating the essence much easier; she got through the second, which went through the theory, backed by dozens of densely labeled humanform anatomical charts. At some point around the third scroll she’d utterly lost herself in reading; she lay on her front, rolling the scroll out on the floor in a messy pile, while Tyrus and Livia chatted off to the side.

“Shall I return in half an hour?” said Livia.

“Mhm!” said Ruyi.

When Livia came back Ruyi was still reading. Reading, and cycling, and reading, again and again. She swore she made more progress in that hour than she had in a month in her cave. She could feel herself getting that tingling feeling all over—it happened a lot when she read Alchemy tomes, especially when she was young and desperately thirsty for knowledge. She felt young and silly asking Tyrus all her questions, but that didn’t stop her. He seemed pleased to answer, which was a first—Gao would’ve told her to figure it out herself. She’d always had to figure it out herself.

She ended up reading until the sunlight filtering through the roof weakened to a feeble orange. The hearth, and a few oil lamps Tyrus lit, gave her light to read. She’d been talking to him for hours, so long it was like she was having a chat with a kindly Master of the Guild, and not a demon.

“You seem so human,” she told him. It made him laugh—this hacking, wheezing laugh.

“Is that an insult?” he said.

“Oh—no, I didn’t—”

“I jest, girl.” He gave her a dry smile. “What makes you say so?”

“I mean…” She gestured at him. “I don’t know. You’re…” She was having trouble putting it into words. It was a feeling she got, maybe?

“…Not a frothing, blood-crazed berserker?” he finished. “That is what humans think of us, no?”

“I guess,” she said.

“Is that what you think of us?”

Ruyi wasn’t sure what she thought.

“If so you are entirely correct!” he said. “Don’t be fooled. I am a frothing blood-crazed berserker. At times. At other times, I prefer the worlds of the mind. But the same can be said of humans, no? I’ve read enough of history. Perhaps there is less bloodlust, but our neighbors over the mountains are capable of equal viciousness. And they have not the excuse of passion!”

“I guess so…” said Ruyi.

It was late evening by the time she got through all the scrolls Livia had allowed her. When Livia came back, she’d brought Ruyi a slab of bloody meat on a stick, since Ruyi had apparently missed dinner. Ruyi thanked her, slurped it down, and then begged to see some of their Martial Techniques. “Please?”

Livia only laughed. “Perhaps another time. My Mother won’t allow it.”

“But you can allow it, can’t you?”

“That depends,” said Livia. “Only tribesmen can see our Martial texts. Are you my guest, or are you my sister-in-arms?”

Ruyi thought about the question their whole walk back. The night sky here was a somber purple bowl shot through with white stars. She swore she saw more stars here than she did back at home, or what used to be her home.

She bid Livia good night. Livia promised she’d be here tomorrow—she said Drusila, her Mother, wanted to meet Ruyi. Ruyi watched her go, a figure fading into the dark, rounding a bed in the tents, vanishing. Livia was so good to her. Everyone she met was, really… they were all so nice…it felt wrong. She’d had to work so hard to get people to like her before, but here they were giving her kindness. She hadn’t even had to earn it.

Still, she went to sleep feeling warm.