David

Shishi pulled David and Wen from the silent gallery into a wall of sound.

The Hall of Portraits had opened out into an elevated section of the dancefloor to the right of the stage. The only people in this section were disciples robed in red and blue sitting at round tables carved from powder white marble. Most of the tables featured disciples from only one of the two sects that ruled Huzhou, but it seemed that the enmity between the two sects had been grossly exaggerated.

"Welcome to the Hall of Voices," said Shishi, grinning at him as the double doors slid shut behind them. "Look up at the stage, Daoist Ji. This is the true face of Song Mountain, a site as holy to us as the Skyforge is to yours."

A girl with a mane of ink-black hair was perched at the center of a platform that rose ten feet above the crowd in front of her. Her eyes were closed. She clutched at a rounded bar of dark green jade that rose from the floor to just beneath her throat. David could hear the sound of Liu Na's Song - plucked strings - as it passed from her lips into the jade. Her voice rang from the stage, clear as water. Her eyes were tightly shut in concentration.

Twenty paces behind her sat a band of musicians perched on simple wooden chairs, armed with an assortment of instruments. David recognized the two disciples who had been with Liu Na when Daoist Bo had introduced her to him in front of Three Worships Hall, but while they were all cultivators, not all of the musicians wore the reds of Song Mountain.

David narrowed his eyes at an older woman who was hitting a wooden block with a mallet. He wasn't sure if she'd caught his attention because she looked familiar or because her lack of musicianship was especially egregious. Like the others, her Song flowed downwards into the stage - but while none of Liu Na's accompaniment was perfect, no one else directly clashed with the singer.

"What do you think of the lighting?" asked Shishi, as proud as if she'd built the concert hall herself.

Above their heads, cylinders of black glass hung from red silk ropes. The glass looked to be of the same material that made up the buildings and walls of Bei'an. There were at least a dozen of them, each humming and buzzing with the Song, burning Yang qi and expelling a pale yellow light. The spotlights were all pointed, of course, at Liu Na.

David only took in how large the stage was when he realized how far it continued out behind Liu Na's accompaniment over the lake. By his estimate, it stretched the length of half a city block. Halfway down the stage were bonfires that burned in the color of pale moonlight and hissed with a different fuel than the spot light.

It was a cool trick - the saturation of the Yang qi spotlights naturally drew the eye away from the band to Liu Na, and the Yin qi bonfires lit her silhouette with an ethereal glow. David was reasonably certain that the bonfires couldn't be seen by any of the concertgoers on the dancefloor - the stage was too high up.

"I've never seen anything like it," said Wen, his eyes darting from the spotlights to Liu Na, to the musicians, and back.

"It's nice," said David.

"Nothing like this up in Tianbei Valley, is there?"

He imagined that the lighting would have been more impressive to someone native to the realm. The dance floor itself seemed very poorly lit. He glanced across it.

It was only then when he realized exactly how large the room was. Even if he didn't include the stage which stretched the length of a city block behind Liu Na, the Hall of Voices could easily fit a football field, maybe two, with room to spare - and it was packed to capacity.

David's eyes turned back to Liu Na - she'd started another song, one that the crowd clearly loved.

"We were always meant for this," she crooned.

"Meant for this," the crowd echoed back at her.

David wasn't convinced that Liu Na would win any awards for songwriting, but he wasn't the target audience. Most of the disciples were singing along and having a good time, to say nothing of the mundane concertgoers who were completely enraptured.

More than just height kept the audience from swarming the stage. A channel of running water wrapped around its base like moat, separating it from the other half of the Hall of Voices - the floor, where concertgoers danced on wide planks of oak to add a percussion line to her performance, creating an instrument that David had never encountered before. It was close in sound to a bass drum, but closer in spirit to the moment when a singer stretched a microphone outward and let the crowd finish a verse.

To his surprise, the sea of people stomping on wood wasn't absolutely deafening, even though David had heard the rumbling of the crowd on the lakeshore when the stadium had been the size of his thumb on the horizon, before he'd heard the performance itself and the plume of qi that erupted over the lake.

"No matter the city you were born in, no matter how traveled you happen to be, I can guarantee that you've never seen this many people in one place before," Shishi promised.

Perhaps that was even true. David's mother had taken him to Times Square on a New Year's Eve when he'd been just old enough to remember, but even that didn't quite compare to this.

"What do you think?" asked Shishi, who was starting to look a little annoyed that he wasn't more impressed. "So many people gathered here to see the talent of Song Mountain with their own eyes."

"A stunning display," said David, who was determined to be as polite as possible. "A ringing endorsement for Liu Na's new album."

"Not everyone's here for Liu Na," Shishi said, sounding slightly miffed.

She was right, of course. It might have been Liu Na's concert, but there were many people who were staring unabashedly at, David assumed, their favorite singer.

The cultivator's section ran ten tables wide and deep - a hundred all told between the marble doors sliding shut behind them and the stage. The tables closest to the stage hosted more than ten disciples apiece - jammed together shoulder to shoulder and united in enthusiasm. The tables closest to the doors were still mostly occupied - but with cultivators ranging from those who were theatrically bored to those who were actively annoyed they were there.

But those staring at them wouldn't see it that way. From the moment David had stepped into this realm, one constant was the difference between those who cultivated and those who hadn't, or couldn't. The contrast had never been nearly as sharp as it was in this room, where the notoriously beautiful daughters of Song Mountain and the idealized sons of Tang Mountain were presented just out of reach of their admirers.

On one side, a faceless mass in the dark that smelled of sweat and cheap booze, bodies packed together, paying to generate qi in service to a distant fantasy. A promise of a short, difficult life. David thought of the auction in the Sword Platform, but not of Alice's saber, but rather that Awakening Pill purchased by Feiyan's sister for ten spirit stones.

Fist-sized bronze lamps squatted on the center of each table in the shape of open cauldrons, pot bellied and three-legged, alight with oils scented in cedarwood and jasmine. The flames danced naked atop the cauldrons - some tables glowed in sunset orange, softening the cold, ethereal beauty of the seated disciples. Other lamps cast scenes from centuries of comradery between companions on the Path in a heroic gold.

And they were here to celebrate one of their number - Liu Na, bathed in moonlight, loved by the sun. A rude girl with good lighting.

His thoughts were interrupted by the old woman tapping out her part at least twenty beats per minute faster than the song.

Liu Na's eyes stayed close, and not a shred of irritation showed on her face. But surely everyone in red robes knew - they were all musicians.

David looked up and down the tables. Sure enough, more than a few of Wen's sect sisters had their eyes on the old woman.

"Most of the outer disciples from both sects are here," said Shishi, when she noticed David looking up and down the tables.

"Is it considered rude if you don't show up or something?" David asked, eyeing the disinterested disciples in the back of the room.

Shishi shook her head. "Not at all. But if there's a drink you can name, it'll be made for you - within reason, of course. But it's not uncommon for an event like this to have selections that improve your cultivation."

She glared suddenly. "I know what you Northerners are like. Don't take advantage just because you're a guest. The waiters won't stop you, but I might."

"Shishi!" Wen protested.

One such waiter stood five paces from the three of them - they hadn't moved since stepping out of the Hall of Portraits. He threw a nervous glance at one of Shishi, Wen and David every few seconds.

David heavily disliked that ghost of animalistic fear in the man's eyes. He took a step towards the waiter. "Don't worry about us for now," he said, giving the man a smile. "When we're ready we'll call you over, we will. You must be very busy."

"Thank you for your kindness, Honored Daoist," the man muttered. His eyes didn't leave the ground.

There was, David assumed, a member of wait staff for nearly each disciple present. They wore well-pressed black robes and little jewelry, sensible ponytails and well-trimmed beards. They scurried from table to table, taking orders from the disciples by rote memory. They delivered ceramic cups full of tea and poured liquor from comically large jugs balanced expertly on their shoulders. The wait staff were polite and eager to please, or at least very skilled at pretending.

"Why are we still standing here at the doorway?" Wen finally asked.

"Shut up," said Shishi. "I'm still considering how we're going to go about this."

Wen shared David's confusion. "You mean walk up to a waiter and ask him to take us to the table that was reserved? We've been here for nearly two songs now."

"You're such an idiot," Shishi groaned. "How could we possibly-"

She stopped.

"Actually, you're completely correct, Wen Cheng."

"About what?"

Shishi leaned up towards David. "Be glad you're here with me, and not with Bo Yun."

"Why's that?" David asked, allowing Shishi to lead him towards the stage.

Shishi grinned. "She would have insisted on introducing you to every person of note here. By the time you sat down, the concert would have ended. We," she said, dragging them along, "are just going to sit down." She started walking quicker. "I ignore everyone I don't like at the Sect anyway. Theoretically, most of the disciples here should call me Sect Aunt." She jabbed Wen with her elbow, "Especially you. Who's going to walk up to their Sect Aunt to flirt with an honored guest from an allied sect?"

"Whatever you say, Sect Aunt," Wen said.

As if she'd planned it, one of the disciples sitting at the first table they passed waved at them. "Senior Sister Shi, what an unexpected surprise," she chirped. "Is this gentleman your guest?"

The girl was pretty, as was the norm in Song Mountain. Her Song was scattered - aimless, even - and a touch frenetic. An outer disciple of the sect, in some realm of qi condensation, David decided. The other cultivators at her table seemed to be of a similar point in their pursuit of cultivation.

Shishi pointedly turned her nose upwards and let out an exaggerated harrumph.

"Senior Sister Shi?" the girl tried again.

"Come on now, if no one sits down at Master Bo's table, it'll be a scandal," said Shishi, tugging at David's sleeve.

Wen and David shared a look between them, and then a glance at the back of Shishi's head. David waved at the disciple Shishi ignored with a half-hearted shrug. The girl nodded at him and gave him a polite, placid smile, but the slight shake in her hands told a different story.

Wen mirrored David's wave, trying an encouraging smile in place of the shrug. The girl returned the most vitriolic sneer she could in Wen's direction.

"Do they really dislike you that much here?" David muttered, as softly as he could. None of the disciples around them reacted, though Shishi's shoulders stiffened.

Wen shook his head. "They're just more comfortable with showing it to me," he said, matching David's volume. "It's a hard thing to see unless you're paying attention."

The other disciples, all sitting at the table with the girl who had tried to get Shishi's attention, were speaking softly with light smiles. She was too, but her hands still shook and the wetness in the corner of her eyes told a different story.

"Usually when people are unreasonable, it's because they feel like they've been treated in an unreasonable way."

David nodded.

Shishi led them by the sleeves through the crowd like a bulldozer. Wen gave everyone who Shishi ignored an enthusiastic wave and his best impression of Daoist Bo's winning smile. David thought of the way Wen reached for his sword within seconds of speaking to Alice. He thought of the confusion in Wen's eyes when Alice insisted on seeing his wound close before pursuing the saber. And finally, his willingness, in the height of torrential anger towards Daoist Bo, to stop and think.

In some ways, Wen was still quick to anger - but while David's cultivation had progressed faster, he wasn't sure he'd grown as much.

As they sat down at the table reserved for Daoist Bo - Liu Na's master, who was absent for her album release, even if she had a very valid reason - at the very front of the Hall of Voices, David took another look at the old woman now that they were closer to the stage. She really did look like that carriage driver.

Liu Na looked down at the table, and then her eyes scanned the room frantically. Her body tensed - but she showed no other sign that something was wrong. She continued her song without a hitch, hitting every note in a tricky sounding run - a display of masterful pitch control and her inconceivable vocal range.

The old woman openly stared at their table, and then whipped her head around the room, likely searching for Daoist Bo as well. When she realized Bo wasn't there, she dropped the little mallet in surprise.

Liu Na didn't even flinch.

David thought of how he'd described Liu Na to her own master within seconds of speaking to her. Dismissive and rude for rushing off to her own concert that she was late for?

He turned around, searching for the table in the back - not for the girl Shishi had ignored, but her sect sisters.

Shishi tugged at his sleeve. "Enjoy the performance," she said. "This table is the most visible. We can talk to one another, but don't make a scene."

David nodded.

"If you're bored, I can tell you a story," she said.

"Sure," said David, staring up at the stage with the best enthusiastic smile he could muster. There were many eyes on him - from the mortal concertgoers, from the disciples of Song and Tang Mountain, and even from the musicians.

"When I was a mortal girl, my family owned a farm. One day I was sitting in my front yard, watching the chicken coop - we were quite poor, we only had three at time, you see, so it wasn't too much work. My favorite chicken liked to save up his rice in his beak, and then spit it out and eat it slowly later. The one I didn't have strong feelings about would eat as quickly as he could during mealtime, so he’d get more than the other two. My least favorite, of course, was the crafty one. He liked to escape from the coop and peck his way into the rice sacks. And he'd drag it back to the coop and all three of them would demolish a week's worth of rice."

As she told the story, Shishi's expression didn't change - she bobbed her head to the music.

"It happened more than once?"

"Of course," said Shishi. "My father beat me for leaving the coop unlocked, but I never went hungry for it - even if he did. He almost butchered all three of them, but I cried and cried until he didn't. A week later, the rice was gone again. When I get compliments, it's always for my singing voice, or for my beauty, or for my quick mind. But it's never for having excellent foresight and planning."

"Sect Aunt, you have wonderful foresight and planning," Wen chimed in.

"I will beat you with a chair if you ever call me aunt again," said Shishi, cheerfully. "Anyway, one hot summer day, a thieving chicken caught his wing on a splinter. A single drop of dark blood welled up. I sat outside the coop thinking serves him right - he's gotten away with it so many times. He deserves a bit of pain. And to my surprise, these little birds that I liked to cradle in my arms and feed rice to, a single grain at a time, that my father went hungry over, they started pecking at him - pecking at the wounded wing, at his eyes."

David heard snatches of conversation, from the disciples behind them - insipid little comments about how this was the first song that Daoist Shi had enjoyed, so maybe it wasn't going to be a terrible album after all.

"Thief must have been so confused. He got so many bags of grain for them. They were his friends. And they didn't stop. Noon turned to late afternoon, and they were still pecking at him, and by now, he wasn't fighting back. He wasn't really hurt, just tired of it. They were only little pecks, so I found it a little funny."

As Liu Na finished another song, David clapped enthusiastically.

"But then, as the sun began to set, right before my little eyes, Beaky and Overstuffed jumped on top of him and ripped at the little wounds under his feathers that I didn't see, and pulled him apart. Of course, I stood there in horror and watched as Beaky and Overstuffed dragged their half of Thief to their side of the coop. And then of course, after greedy little Beaky had stashed the bloody mess under a pile of hay, he waddled over to Overstuffed and tried to take his half. I sat and watched, crying my eyes out, of course."

"Gentlemen Daoists, Inspiring Fairy, anything to drink?"

"Three cups of Green Leng Century's Harvest, for me, my sect nephew and our honored guest from Tianbei Valley," said Shishi.

The waiter looked close to calm - if he hadn't been a cultivator, David wouldn't have heard the man hyperventilating, taking breath after breath after breath through his nostrils. "Wise Fairy, I hope you understand, I can only serve Green Leng to-"

"A disciple who has a place on the walls," said Shishi. "That's okay, I'm just trying to enjoy the show. Next time I come here, if I see you in the lobby, I'll show you my plaque so there's no confusion. Any brand of green tea will be fine."

The waiter disappeared so quickly David wondered if he'd awoken his qi.

"Now of course, Overstuffed, who'd always been lazy, just wanted to go to sleep, so he pushed the dead one over to Beaky and Beaky now had all of Thief, and Overstuffed pecked free lunch to death for no reason. But he decided he'd worry about that tomorrow, and he went to bed."

"Were you still watching at that point?" Wen asked.

"Actually, yes. My father got home from the fields, and he didn't beat me this time. He just said that I had to sit at the chicken coop until I learned my lesson. I didn't know what that meant, so I just sat there. Of course, I fell asleep in the middle of the night. When I woke up, I discovered that Overstuffed was also dead. After I had fallen asleep, Beaky had gotten into a little wound on his neck and pushed it open. And that was the end of him. Of course, I cried again. I told my father that I'd learned my lesson. Have either of you learned your lessons?"

Wen nodded.

"And you, Daoist Ji?"

"Maybe," said David.

"Let me ask a question then, and your answer will tell me if you have. Who would you rather be? Thief, Overstuffed or Beaky?"

David thought for a while.

"None of them. I'm not a chicken."

"Smart boy," said Shishi. "Never forget that."

When the waiter returned, Liu Na had just started her next song. Three cups of green tea sat on the table. David had, by coincidence, tasted this particular brew before - it was what Leng Qitai had poured for them when he'd moved in.

"What happened to the chickens in the end?" asked Wen.

"I took Thief's body and buried it. Then I made no protest when my father butchered Overstuffed, and he gave me the biggest drumstick I'd seen in the nine years of my life."

"And Beaky?"

"Every single day, I sat at the chicken coop and watched him, until he finally starved to death. Then I threw him into the river." Shishi smiled. "Of course, that was long before I'd even awoken. I'm no longer nine years old. That was barbaric. Shishi is a good girl now."

"Of course," said Wen.

Shishi's voice dropped to the barest whisper, throwing a side eye at the stage. "Are you listening to the song? I think this one is actually well composed. Far better than the others. Holding that note a bit longer there really changes the character of that verse there the second time around."