The Sword Fairy

The Sword, she stared at her city and began to speak.

On the western edge of the Middle Continent was Black Dragon Strait and a hundred li to its east was Tianbei, mountain and valley. The highest peak of Tianbei Mountain was Sword Peak, known for its sturdy pine towers and sturdier cultivators.

At the pinnacle of Sword Peak stood its tallest tower - not built of pine, but of stone-once-mud, like the bell towers below in the valley. The tower had been known by many names, but in this dynasty it was the Tower of Mirrors.

The Tower of Mirrors had one room, at its apex - a room with neither windows nor doors and, in truth, less walls than most. Its ceiling was a pointed dome, held up by seven thin walls of tempered steel, each the width of a man. These walls, these mirrors, reflected light and blocked off the four cardinal directions and three more - the northeast, the northwest and the southwest.

Gaps of open air many times wider sat between them, exposing the room to the wintry mountain air high above the sea. On most days, only the tops of clouds could be seen from the Tower of Mirrors, but today, the skies were clear and bright.

The Sword, she stared at her city through the gap to the southeast and spoke.

She began to recite the two hundred and fifty eight names or epithets of the long-gone men and women who came together to form an unbroken chain. This chain was the Line of the Bells.

"Raiser Xu," she started, softly at first. "Water Bearer, the Viper from Qiaoxin, Han Zilong."

The floor of the room in the Tower of Mirrors was not whole. At its center, consuming most of the space within, was a precisely cut hole - not a circle, an octagon. It took up most of the room and fell through the length of the mountain - over ten thousand steps from the top of the tower to the base of Sword Peak. The hole opened up into the chamber known as the Sword Platform.

The Sword, she paced delicately along the edge of the octagon. There wasn't even space to stand with her feet together and she swayed in the wind. With each step, another name emerged from her lips.

"The Forgotten Prince, Weeping Wisteria, Shao Tianhe, Old Hammer Cha." She'd traversed the octagon once now - eight steps, eight names. The bells across Tianbei began to ring in unison.

It didn't rain or snow often in Tianbei, but when it did, the water drove into the room with no regard for that pointed dome and dove into the octagon and rained onto the Sword Platform below. The water would find secret cracks and crevices and flow deep into the caverns and crypts below Sword Peak and reemerge as springs - hot and cold, in the valley.

The Sword, she stared into the sky, insisting on the names of her predecessors. After many such names, the Sky responded.

Castaway, dive skybound beneath the shore. Iron hearts and loyal blood, the link will open all doors.

Every generation heard the same song from the sky, from the seas, from the Linking Stones. She'd heard the words the first time when her own master, the previous Sect Master, had taken her to the Tower of Mirrors to ring the bells for the first time and she'd heard it since.

The Sword, she heard the sound of thunder but she continued to speak, faster and faster, because she feared neither Heaven nor Earth. She continued to pace, faster and faster. The bells rang, louder and louder.

She noted that none of the disciples of the Ascending Sky that she could see on the path still wore white. It had been a week since her master had died, and they were no longer mourning. This displeased her.

"Northern Tiger, the Widow of the Valley."

The Sword, she finished with her own name, to the sound of the final peals echoing through the city.

Guan Meiyan

Fairy Guan practiced a smile, because Sect Master Su was undoubtedly downstairs and it was a difficult task to smile when he was around.

She closed her eyes and dove into the hole in the floor and fell through the air like a stone. It was a long, long drop and she could have gone faster if she'd willed it, but there was something about the sensation of falling that reminded her of important things.

The sounds of the auction floated up to meet her. Delighted shouts of old friends from many cities greeting one another for the first time in years, constant chatter of disciples greeting one another for the first time in days. Banging and crashing from products being moved too quickly and angry curses from the owners of products being moved too carelessly.

As she approached the amphitheatre known as the Sword Platform, Fairy Guan arranged her lips into a wider smile and opened her eyes. There was a time in her life when she could be the coquettish, pouting disciple of the Widow who never wanted to be here - wherever here was. Now, she was the last in the Line of the Bells, the face of the Ascending Sky.

Her entrance would have to match the Sect's host status. Fairy Guan slowed into a lazy float. Though her cultivation had long surpassed the sect's Dao Mother - Granny Meng, she had never been able to replicate that painful gait through the air, so ordinary and extraordinary, so mortal and immortal, that it inspired fear even amongst cultivators of higher realms.

Fairy Guan drifted in and smiled back at the men and women of the Middle Continent who waved at her. As she descended into the alcove behind the Sword Platform, where her fellow Peak Masters were already seated, she examined the crowd for beauty, for uniqueness - and made sure to catch the eye of those who she favored.

Only her fellow Peak Masters, because Sect Master Su was late - as per usual.

"An old horse always knows the way," said Elder Ling, as she came to a stop to his right.

"What do you mean by that?" Fairy Guan replied, feigning innocence. She took her seat. There were four little chairs carved from the mountain in this little alcove - one for the Sect Master and one for each of the Peak Masters. The halls of Earth and Sky Peak were elegant and extravagant, but the decor of Sword Peak had always been stone and steel.

"Your proclivities will be the death of our sect," he replied solemnly, a contrast to how his glassy brown eyes twinkled with merriment.

"It is uncommon for one so close to ascension to wish for death," she said, threatening him with her eyes rather than her smile.

He laughed - a booming sound. Ling was older than her by a few centuries and Feng, who sat to Ling's left, was younger by the same. Once upon a time, Feng always took the seat to Ling's right - they were old friends and Feng always demanded the man's only ear. After the Western Invasions, their relationship had cooled into something more cordial and the two men rarely spoke.

"Mei mei," Ling muttered - a diminutive on her name, but also 'younger sister'. At least he still wore his mourning robes.

Fairy Guan wouldn't allow it. "Don't call me that," she snapped, even though she didn't mean it - she never had. "Only Hong calls me that."

"How much longer will you let a dead man impede your progress?" asked Feng lightly, fiddling with the end of his mustache like the villain in a Dongjing drama, and then with his little black hat, shaped like a pill box.

"Until he comes back to me," said Fairy Guan, as she had many times. She looked upwards, but there was no sky in sight, just a ceiling of dark stone.

"Suppose he'd lived, would he have loved as many as you have?"

Feng Shui had always tacitly considered himself the equal of Ling Wangyi, and treated the other Peak Master's personal relationships as his own.

"Shui," Ling rasped, angry - so she wouldn't have to be.

None of them spoke for a moment. This was an old dance - one that Fairy Guan was tired of.

For his faults, Feng seemed to realize that he'd overstepped his bounds, so he quickly pointed at the doorway, at the disciples who had arrived. "What do you think of them?"

"Disciple Ji is a beautiful boy - a strong jaw, a strong sense of wonder. The girl will miss him, if she ever lets him pass her by."

Feng folded his arms. That was not what he'd meant.

"He asks questions the other disciples hate," said Fairy Guan. "Both of you will enjoy teaching him."

"They're suspicious," said Ling. His scowl was evident.

"Why's that?" Feng let his arms drop to his side.

"The company they keep," said Ling, who was staring at the man in yellow robes who was gesticulating wildly at Disciple Chow. He'd never liked the Clear Skies.

“It is, indeed, strange company,” said Fairy Guan with a frown.

"A Zhu Princess, a Dongjing native and two Southerners walk into an auction. Stop me if you've heard this one before," said Feng, who always found himself funny.

“I hadn’t realized you were watching the commotion outside,” said Ling.

“Oh, but it was such a delicious drama,” said Feng, tittering. “On one side of the stage, Zhu Luoli - the Fifth Daughter of our esteemed Emperor. On the other, her youngest sister, protected by the disciples of our most esteemed Sect. A confrontation that could have turned to violence at the drop of a needle.”

Ling shook his head, exasperated.

“For outer disciples, they’re quite well connected,” Feng said. “A princess, a core disciple of another Great Sect, and one of my most promising students - Liang. If they weren’t so young, I would have assumed some conspiracy was afoot.”

“I’m not sure that I don’t believe some conspiracy is afoot,” said Ling, glaring at nothing in particular.

“Which one is Liang?” asked Fairy Guan.

“The poison cultivator,” said Feng, who looked rather proud. “She’s learned a lot from me over this last century. She’ll be presenting some of her wares today - from the greenhouses.”

“The girl who wears flowers in her hair, who blushes and sighs whenever I smile at her?” Fairy Guan asked, examining her nails.

“You will undoubtedly deviate my cultivation if you continue to furtively corrupt my precious students,” said Feng, who looked genuinely annoyed.

“You’re the one who always skulks about like a wronged cat, asking all the outer disciples to take part in your harmless experiments,” she returned.

“Speaking of skulking,” Ling continued, as a man took a seat beside Fairy Guan. “Good evening, Sect Master.”

“Your disrespect for our august Sect Master Su is noted,” Feng said, without breathing through his nose. He flashed a smile across his fellow peak masters.

Sect Master Su was the youngest amongst them, by thousands of years, and Feng had always resented that. He never failed to take all opportunities to mock him.

Su Buxuen didn’t respond to him - he was above that, as usual. “Good evening,” he said mildly. The man was often mild. “Is the auction starting soon? I’m in a hurry.” The man was also often in a hurry.

“You’ve come just in time to watch Junior Brother Shui rip off all of our outer and inner disciples with a few fistfuls of silver,” said Ling.

It was indeed time. Standing at the center of the sword platform was Pavilion Master Xi. The lamps on the benches in the amphitheatre had been dimmed, leaving only a single globe of Yin Fire illuminating him on the stage.

Xi did not often leave the Pavilion - he was an unremarkable man, forever staving off his Earthly Tribulation in search of Principle. He was, however, a fantastic salesman.

“Welcome to our humble home, fellow Daoists!” Xi boomed in that wheezy, annoying voice that didn’t match his pristine face. Fairy Guan wondered if he’d made a living selling second hand rafts on Sky River before he was a cultivator.

The auction had begun.