Senior Master Yue’mu and her sole disciple sat across from each other on two ends of the large chamber which she used as her study. It was circular, two hundred paces in diameter under a white domed roof which glowed softly from the light emerging bright from the shaft at its peak.
At one end was a raised dais which housed the low-lying desk at which the Master sat cross-legged. From this dais radiated rows of black shelves filled with scrolls and alembics and floating orbs. The shelves stopped short at the other end, where the floor of grey, featureless stone sloped up into a bare area where Xian’ling sat in meditation – chin turned subtly upwards, her ankles resting on the opposite thighs.
She was dreadfully bored. Yue’mu had had her sitting here since they came back from chasing the swordsman. Through her cracked eyelids, the rows of shelves were starting to become wavy, when… Wait. Was that a snake slithering through the upper…? No, it was just another scroll.
That’s it. She’d had it. She’d really had it this time.
Xian’ling opened her left eye just a smidgen further – enough to see Yue’mu was deeply engrossed in her work. She decided to chance it. Summoning a current of energy from her tailbone, she sent it up her spine, slipping between the vertebrae of her middle back and out through her skin and robes, where it mingled with the air and swirled around her head, stirring the strands of hairs around her ears which had escaped the hold of the pin which held her long tresses in place. She been in a hurry when she tied it up, so at first she used the current of energy to feel it out.
‘Oh, pig-tripe!’ she thought to herself. ‘It looks like a lop-sided snail’s shell!’
She pouted for some time, and the current swished around her head like a miniature tornado.
‘What’s tha- …oh!’
She discovered that the air was sounding two distinct notes in either ear. Wheee went the left. Whooo went the right. Wheee-whooo-wheee-whooo-wheeeee—
The corner of a scroll fluttered on Yue’mu’s desk. She quirked an eyebrow and shot a glance across the room.
Xian’ling sat bolt upright, a flush just beginning to spread across her cheeks. A stony calm descended upon her features as she sent her energy straight down into the floor, returning them to their usual shade of powdered rose. Unfortunately, she sent it too far down the other way, giving her cheeks an unnaturally pearly pallour.
Yue’mu rolled her eyes and returned to her work. A minute passed. And then another. And then an hour. Xian’ling finally let out the breath she had been holding tight in shock. And as she did so, a thin stream of enchanted air emerged from within the folds of her hair – almost exactly like a snail poking its head out of its shell.
She circulated the air around her head very, very slow…ly. Then a little faster. Then a little, little bit faster until – was she just imagining it? No. It was fait, but it was there. Four distinct notes! Whee…. whii… whoo… whuu… Whee…whii…whuu…wh–
“Xian’ling.”
She yelped aloud and tried to jump up, forgetting that her legs were locked in full lotus. As she toppled over backwards, the current of air escaped her control, sending the pin clattering against the wall and her hair cascading down in front of her.
She stayed like that for a long, long minute – back of her head one inch above the floor, face totally obscured under her hair. Eventually, even she couldn’t hold on to the pretence that she had adopted such a preposterous posture on purpose. So she flicked herself up, flung her hair back, and looked Yue’mu in the eye with a ludicrously serious expression.
“Yes, Master?”
Yue’mu stared at her disciple with a completely unamused expression. “What could I possibly say to this silly girl to get her to settle down?” she asked herself. Another minute passed without any good ideas popping up. So Yue’mu broke their eye contact and went straight back to the pile of paper on her desk.
“Maaaasstteeeeeeer….!”
Yue’mu looked up.
“What?”
“Don’t look awaaaaaaaay…”
She looked back down.
“Nooooooo!!!”
The faint sound of a brush sliding across paper resumed, echoing dimly between the rows of shelves and the dome above.
“Maasstteerrr I’m boooooored. I’m bored I’m bored I’m booooored! I’ve been sitting here forever!”
“It has barely been six hours.”
“It feels like six months!”
“I thought you said it had been forever.”
“Masteeeer!!!”
Yue’mu sighed and put her brush down again.
“Look. You’re just excited from having left the precincts of the School. You need to put that from your mind and get back to-”
“But that was the first time I had been out of the sect in thirteen years, four fortnights, and…” she scrunched her face up to help her think. “700-something minutes!”
Yue’mu quirked an eyebrow at the offbeat sum.
“And that was almost as brief as this time! And it’s so interesting out there! That little stream running through the Sect becomes such a big, wide river! And it twists and turns and twists and turns like, like…” she scrunched her face again. “Like a scroll that looks like a snake when you look at it funny.”
No sooner had Yue’mu’s eyebrow settled down than the other one shot up in turn. “Why not just say ‘a snake’?” she wondered.
“And there are these sweet little farmer folk following these tiny big little ox-cows dragging these things across the fields for some reason, and these fat little gerbil-mice running scared from the thin swooping bird-ospreys with the reticulate tarsi – which is strange because they usually only eat fish, so….”
“Xian’ling.”
“And, and, and Master! The air out there is so different! It’s so fresh, and–”
“This Sect stands at the meeting place of four geostrophic currents. It is fed by a confluence of the five elements, and holds more of the energy of heaven and earth than the rest of the island combined. It is the optimal location for cultivation. How could the outside compare?”
“But that’s exactly it! It’s so nice to get a break sometime. It’s nice to have it… lighter. Thinner. Like…” she was just starting to squint at one eye when the right phrase came to her unexpectedly. “Like wine! It’s so bitter and gives you a headache, which is why, when you water it down, it…”
She realised her mistake and bit her lip to try and yank the words back in.
“Wine? Xian’ling, when did you have wine?”
“Well…”
“Speak up. Hold on. Why are you crying?”
“Well, well… firstly, because you’re mad at me. And second, well, that’s exactly it. It was the last time I left the School! I saw this old couple who lived near the shore, and the man was having trouble carrying his pack back home, so I helped him and they gave me dinner and so I want to go back outsiiiiiiiiiide.”
Yue’mu wiped her hands with a cloth, sighed, and rested her forehead on three steepled fingers. How could a cultivator be so inordinately talented and yet so unbelievably unruly? Xian’ling could withstand hungers and tortures of the flesh without complaint that would make even the other Senior Masters pale – and yet, when the mood was upon her, she couldn’t even make it through a day’s seated meditation without yipping about like a fox cub.
“Oh yeah!” Xian’ling’s upbeat voice interrupted Yue’mu’s musings. “What happened to the blue man who stole the thing from you?”
She looked up to see Xian’ling staring at her, head cocked and face abeam with curiosity. Other than the tears which still snaked their way down her cheeks and plopped onto her marble dais, there was no trace of the distress which had been there a moment earlier.
“I’ve tracked him back to his hideout and have him under surveillance. He’s-”
“What did he steal, anyway?”
“Don’t interrupt me when I’m speaking.”
“Alright, Master. So what did he steal?”
“An experiment.”
“What sort of experiment?”
“My avenues of research are not–”
“Do you know how he got in? Or why he stole it?”
“Do. Not. In. Te. RUPT! Me.”
The gust of force sent out when Yue’mu slammed her palm on the table rattled the shelves and sent Xian’ling’s unbound hair fanning out behind her.
“I’m sorry, Master.”
Yue’mu used the opportunity of her disciple’s genuine abashment to finally get back to her work. When she looked up, not even an hour later, Xian’ling cut such a pathetically despondent figure that she decided to take pity.
“I don’t know why he stole it. But I will find out. And no one in the Sect is any the wiser as to his means of entry.”
She stopped when she noticed Xian’ling positively bouncing from side to side.
“What has gotten into you now?”
“Well! Do you know – I’ve just had an idea about that!”
Xian’ling was bobbing up and down now.
“Does it involve you leaving the Sect to investigate?”
She came to a sudden standstill, like a spinning coin finally landing on one side.
“…how did you know?”
Yue’mu stood up and faced the wall with hands clasped at her back.
Xian’ling had been truly out of sorts since their return – far more distracted than her usual self. She sensed it wasn’t merely the excursion that had done it. Perhaps the root ran deeper? It might, she thought, be possible she had been overly strict in her approach. She always assumed this childish side to Xian’ling would smoothly give way to the icy calm of a seasoned cultivator, the way the Kun would shed its scales and shut its gills when it finally took to the skies, never to return to the seas which had sheltered it for its first few centuries. But if such impulsiveness still lingered after all these years, perhaps it was here to stay. If so, then the Way she herself cultivated, and had been passing on unaltered to Xian’ling, might be unsuitable. Difficulties could begin to arise, and soon – profound instabilities in her cultivation base could result. Yue’mu needed time to reflect upon this properly, but she simply had too much to attend to at the moment.
“Alright. I’ll allow you to go out and see what you can find.”
Xian’ling jumpe– Xian’ling forgot she was in full lotus again. This time, though, she fell forward, and was able to catch herself with her hands.
“Really, Master?!” she enthused in this inadvertent bow.
“Yes. However.”
In the half-breath between those two words, Xian’ling had finally unlocked her legs and raced halfway across the room, clearly on the way to throw herself at Yue’mu’s feet – and very probably knock over the pooled ink on the inkstone on her way.
“There will be a few conditions. You must return immediately when I summon you – whether that be in a week or in an hour.”
“Yes, Master.”
“Good. The thief appears to be hiding within the city of Tremallan. But you are not to enter it. Limit the remit of your investigation to the surrounding countryside.”
“Yes, Master!”
“Lastly, you are not to call attention to yourself among the mortals. Do not display any but the most pedestrian supernormal methods – nothing a wandering hedge witch wouldn’t be capable of. Do not let them see you flying.”
“Yes, Master. I understand, Master! Is that all, Master?”
Yue’mu turned back to her desk and picked up the inkstone.
“Yes, Xian’ling.”
“Thank you, Master!!!”
She flung herself at Yue’mu’s feet, bumping into the table on her way. Her teacher couldn’t help but grin, despite herself. But the smile soon turned into a pensive frown. Now that she noticed it, was becoming increasingly clear that she really would have to seriously reassess her approach.
“Go on. Off with you. Don’t forget–”
“I won’t, Master!”
The words echoed down the shaft of light at the top of the chamber as Xian’ling shot up to the surface.
A short while later, Fu’sieh descended gracefully down the same shaft, the hem of his long robes not even rustling with the air resistance. He walked up to his sister’s desk, who did not look up to greet him.
“I come directly from having made my report to the Founding Master. She did not evince substantive interest in the recent trespass.”
Yue’mu’s brush did not falter – but he noticed the next few strokes came out thicker than before. He was about to ask about the matter, but held back, the Master’s advice still fresh in his mind.
“The issue of raising one of the Junior Masters into our midst remains active. Rostnen presses the issue, and insists Wa’kyu or Elmsfrond would make–”
“Out of the question. They’re barely a day over three hundred, no matter their unique pedigree. And why would we hand Rostnen even more control over the School’s affairs? Let him stew. What else?”
“Nothing much of note. The School’s defen–” he happened to look around the room and noticed the platform across the room was empty.
“Where’s Xian’ling?”
“I let her out of the Sect.”
“Why?”
“To investigate the theft.”
She sensed a change in the cocoon of energy around her brother, and finally looked up to see him staring back at her, aghast.
“Don’t worry. I told her not to enter Tremallan.” And with no further ado, she turned her attention back to her work.
Fu’sieh stood there, poleaxed. His disbelief at his sister’s folly mingled with a degree of wonder at the varied and novel ways she found to misunderstand her only student. When he saw she really thought the issue settled, he raised his face up to the shaft of light in the ceiling.
“Master…” he mused to himself. “How exactly am I supposed to stop nannying her when she won’t stop doing things like this?”
David Leon 