No matter how they prodded the old man, he wouldn’t say anything more on the subject of the doorways.

“Better to be safe than sorry,” he said. “Integrity of the space time continuum and all that.”

It was like he was speaking nonsense, and Willow half-wanted to believe he’d just had a passing moment of delirium, but she couldn’t shake the look he’d got in his eyes. That look of profound horror and sorrow. Whatever he thought was coming was terrible beyond measure, even more-so than what had already happened to him.

They told him about their purpose, about why they’d come to this distant country. He smiled.

“Well if that bastard Sun Geon could do it, I bet I could take a crack at it,” Jeremy said. “I don’t know if its the same where you come from, but here people have vital meridians through which their qi flows. If you strike them in the right places in the right sequence, you can disrupt that flow—or destroy it entirely. Sun Geon probably attempted the same technique on the door, to his success.”

“And do you know this technique as well,” Willow asked, not able to keep herself from leaning forward. This man might be the answer to their prayers.

“No,” Jeremy said. “That sort of thing was the hallmark of the Driving Rain sect. Strikes here and there and you couldn’t fight back. There are legends of a more powerful technique, but that’s probably not true.”

Ten thousand drops of rain—Sun Geon’s final technique. Willow tightened her lips at the memory and Jeremy tilted his head.

“So what do we do, just go to the Driving Rain sect and ask to be instructed,” Leopold asked.

“Oh no, they’d capture you immediately. First off, you don’t look like us, which is a big problem for you, even outside of any magic hoo-ha. Second, you speak English, which is a big no-no in the Heavenly Empire. Nobody’s spoken English here since the interlopers were deposed.”

“Well I don’t really see any other way besides…” and Leopold looked at Jeremy’s spreading grin with horror.

“You can’t be serious.”

“I heard their sect master just got shunted to a horror dimension,” Jeremy said, teeth flashing. “What’s even better: pride will have kept them from taking any precautions during his leave. They wouldn’t want any other sects to suspect their master is gone. That they’re weak. But we know that, don’t we?”

“Willow,” Leopold asked, but she was thinking hard. Thinking about the dark doorway back home, about how Sun Geon struck it in just the right places and got it to close all on his own. If she could do that or bring Jeremy back and let him do it, then the problem would be over. City-states attacking her seemed like such a smaller issue than the terrible unknown of the doorway.

“It’s the fastest way to ensure the door is closed,” Willow said, and turned to Leopold. “And they attacked us first.”

Leopold put his face in his hands.

🜛

That’s how they found themselves standing at the foot of that great clouded peak. The night had been hard-passed in the cave without another bed and Willow had woken to aches and pains she’d never had before, but she’d worked those off on the short hike to the mountain.

The foothills transformed into sheer precipitous cliffs almost instantly, as if the mountain itself had been thrust up by some great blow from beneath. Seeing it, she felt the first pang of true homesickness for her own dulled mountains. Just this task, and then they could return.

“So we have to climb all the way up there,” Leopold said. “That’s great.”

“There’s a hidden stair,” Jeremy pointed toward the left at a conglomeration of sharp boulders. “That’s where the new initiates start their climb. If they can survive the trek to the top through the driving, freezing rain, then they will be examined for admission. If they fail that exam… well… its back to the bottom. Most don’t make it all the way back down.

“How cruel,” Willow said.

“That’s life here. Right of rule has been determined by sheer power for millennia now. Before it was political power and connections that served as kingmakers, but now its physical and spiritual power. In an age where a single man could slay ten thousand mortals, could it be any different?”

“Sun Geon was mortal,” Willow said and began walking toward the sharpened boulders. Leopold walked after her, pulling his cloak around himself as if to ward off the promised rain.

“He certainly was,” Jeremy said, and followed at the rear.

🜛

The climb wasn’t so bad at first, just physically tiring. Step after step with no handrail; Willow couldn’t imagine going back down without support. Luckily Leopold thought to cast an anchor spell at the base of the stairs that she could direct a small portal to. That would shortcut the entire process once they reached the top.

If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

That strange country spread out below them as they rose higher up the mountain. Other peaks rose proud into the sky in single spires and small ranges. Between them: flat plains and rolling hills. Small villages dotted the landscape, marked by thin trails of cooking fires which rose into the air and sometimes blew their way. It had been such a long time since Willow had a real meal, and she pined for Margaret’s cooking.

The first dark clouds rolled in at twilight, but with magelight there was no excuse to stop climbing until fatigue overtook them and they were forced to sleep. Rain descended like a hammerblow from the heavens and lightning flashed among the rocks, but they kept ascending. Leopold cast portable fire to keep them warm, but there was no way to keep the rain off entirely. Not until they camped and Willow could erect a temporary barrier.

Their sleep that night was even worse than the last, and Willow awoke to Jeremy shaking her and Leopold. The first gray beams of morning made their way through the incessant drizzle and Willow groaned to herself in anticipation of the drenching they were going to get again.

“That thing you did yesterday,” Jeremy said to them. “When you spoke and something happened. What was that?”

“That’s our magic,” Willow said. “It’s how we manipulate the essence in our bodies to affect the world. I think you all manipulate essence too, but within your body almost exclusively.”

“We call it qi here, or at least they do,” Jeremy said. “Can you show me how?”

Willow was wary of showing a cultivator how to cast spells—imagining how devastating one could be if they could fight and cast at the same time—but Leopold nodded and she showed him the steps for a basic magelight. Jeremy followed along with the movements, copying her perfectly and repeating the words as she had.

In her second sight, Willow saw no movement at all in his internal essence. Which was strange, because it was constantly at the ready, suffusing his limbs like a rag soaked in oil.

“It’s not working,” Willow said. The barrier over their heads sheeted with dark rain and she wasn’t exactly eager to get back out into the maelstrom.

“I can’t feel anything either,” Jeremy said and quit the attempt. “I wonder if… maybe training this way for so long has locked it into my subconscious. Maybe someone younger, or a mortal, could learn it.”

“What’s a subconscious,” Leopold asked.

“That’ll take way too long to explain.”

“Where we come from almost everyone can cast a few simple utility spells, but the concentration of essence in the air is almost nothing compared to this place. It’s rising even as we ascend, which doesn’t make any sense to me. But it sounds like here very few people ever learn to manipulate essence.”

“I don’t know how to explain it. Nobody casts spells like that here. All the cultivators use qi, or essence, to empower their own bodies. Maybe it takes a lot more to do that.”

Leopold glanced at Willow and she caught his meaning—that’s what she’d been doing her entire life up until she’d been healed. And then in her fight with Sun Geon she’d gone back to it. Apparently she’d fought him cultivator-to-cultivator.

Which meant that every cultivator in this country would be capable of doing what she was. Their essential attributes must be through the roof like hers, and they never even knew it. If they ever got a foothold in her country the city-states wouldn’t stand a chance.

They broke camp and the pummeling rain shocked Willow. Sometime during the night the small storm had turned into a hurricane, and as they worked their way forward they had to cling to the rocks with every step or risk being swept off into the abyss.

For hours they climbed the cut stone staircase. Willow couldn’t imagine who could’ve carved so many stairs in the mountain, especially in conditions like this. Jeremy didn’t seem nearly as affected as she and Leopold were—maybe it was his cultivation. Whatever it was, they were running out of energy fast.

At first Willow thought the lessening wind was just an illusion, but as they continued climbing she definitely noticed that it was slackening off with every passing minute. Another hour and even the rain began to lighten. Sometime during midday she realized she could see her arms and legs again, and the stone on which she still so desperately clung.

Willow looked up and gasped. They were still in the clouds, but at such an altitude that a great carpet of roiling black and gray spread out on every side of them. Above was a sky of the brightest blue, the sun beating down as if there were no storm below at all.

She’d never considered it before, but apparently it didn’t rain or storm if you got high enough. In the carpeted sea she could see other mountaintops jutting out of the mist. Almost every one had structures carved into the pinnacles.

“W-what are those,” Willow said through chattering teeth. She turned and quickly worked with Leopold to increase the strength of the portable fires.

“Other sects, rival sects,” Jeremy said from ahead. “They’re always fighting with each other, but there hasn’t been a real sect war in a hundred years. They show off at tournaments now, boasting their talent with pride. As if learning to kill was the greatest accomplishment.”

“Why does it seem like you aren’t on board with that,” Willow asked. The fires were radiating nicely with an injection of her own essence, and she felt her body begin to thaw.

“Because those same cultivators killed my friends. They weren’t family, not really, but they were the only ones who knew what it was like to wake up in a strange world. Most of us didn’t cultivate, there wasn’t a need to. If enough of us did that, with our increased aptitude for cultivation, it didn’t matter. No one could stand against us and we could live in peace.

“Now, look at this country. Strong eats weak and nobody asks any questions. They just assume its always been that way, because for them it’s been generations. But I remember. I remember when things weren’t always this bad. When mortals didn’t have to run in fear of cultivators because their government remembered what justice was, and that it didn’t come at the end of a spear or fist. If I sound upset, you can rest assured: I am.”

Willow clamped her mouth shut and kept her questions to herself. They were almost at the top anyway. Carved gables and stone walls announced an incredible structure worked into and around the mountaintop. In the center of the outer wall, where the staircase finally ended, was a large wooden door.

Jeremy walked up and knocked.