Blue flashed, covering everything, and time ran backwards.
The Jade elders who rushed up on the stage now reversed themselves, returning to their seats. The sky overhead cleared up. The pillars crumbled upward, rebuilding themselves from rubble until the illusions of Elder Whisper danced on them once again. Only those she had already repaired were excepted: the Patriarch, his body rebuilt, stood on the side until she pointed to him. As though carried by invisible strings, he drifted up and onto the stage, assuming a pose with his hands in the air. She’d already cleaned up the severed heads, for which Lindon was grateful. If she had returned him to life, surely she had resurrected his mother as well.
Soon, the world was as he’d left it. Before reality had gone mad, and ancient Golds descended from the sky followed by celestial messengers. She had undone everything. Given them a fresh start.
He bowed again, with no other way to express his gratitude. If he lived for a thousand years, he would never be able to repay such a debt. “This one thanks you a hundred times for the guidance, honored immortal. Will this one ever have the chance to return some small measure of your kindness?”
Around him, the day still crawled in reverse as Suriel’s hands danced in accordance with some sacred art. She still spoke to him while regarding her handiwork. “I will give you a token so that I may find you easily, wherever and whoever you are. When the time comes, I will return for you. If you’re lucky, you might be able to ascend to a higher world.”
“Do you mean the heavens?” Lindon asked. “With you?”
Suriel turned to face him, green hair falling to frame her pale face, and finally the world was still again. This time, everything was as it had been only a handful of hours before: the Patriarch of the Wei clan stood in the arena, disapproval on his face. The crowd shouted in the stands. Wei Jin Amon crouched with his spear, ready to do battle. Even the sun had reversed its course, shining golden in the late afternoon. Among it all, the celestial messenger stood out, her purple eyes growing brighter.
“My organization has a name for this world, Wei Shi Lindon. We call it ‘Cradle.’ It’s where we keep the infants.”
She reached out and dropped something into his hand: a glass bead, slightly bigger than his thumbnail, with one blue candle-flame trapped inside. The flame burned evenly as he turned it in his hands.
“This is my token. You cannot use it to contact me, but I can sense it across worlds and beyond time.”
“Apologies, honored immortal, but...what if it breaks?” It was glass, after all.
She favored him with a little laugh. “It can’t break, and it cannot be lost, as it is tied to you with strings of fate. Move forward, stay alive, and I will come retrieve you when you’ve grown.” Behind her, a gateway opened on a layered field of solid blue, as though it opened underneath the surface of a shining sea. “Go with the Way, Lindon.”
In a flash, she vanished.
Sound returned in a rush, and even the crowd’s hushed whispers—they had softened themselves out of respect for the Patriarch—sounded like thunder in his ears.
Wei Jin Sairus lowered his arms, which had been raised to settle the audience. “Young Lindon, there is no dishonor if you remove yourself from the stage. Rather, we would respect your wisdom in deferring to your betters.”
Only recently, Lindon had wondered if he was trapped in a dream.
Now the same sensation returned in full force, as everything his senses told him suggested he had never left. His mother paced the arena, her eyes locked on him. His father glowered from the stands, angered that the Patriarch had put his son in such a position. Kelsa sat next to him, anger plain in the way she perched on the edge of her seat.
Between his fingers, he rolled a warm marble. He looked down to see a ball of glass surrounding a single blue candle-flame.
If this was a dream, it was one sent by the heavens.
He turned from the Patriarch and bowed to the representatives of the four Schools.
Chapter 12
Information requested: the four holy peaks.
Beginning report…
Sacred Valley is a paradise nestled within a mountain range. It is protected by weather and terrain, by the inhospitable nature of the surrounding regions, by ancient legend, and by a few significant individuals with vested interest in keeping the valley unexplored. Most of the world has forgotten Sacred Valley, overlooking it as nowhere of interest.
But it has a long history, and that history has left its mark.
The four mountains bracketing Sacred Valley are known to the locals as the “holy peaks,” locations of myth and mystery. The four largest schools in the region have each claimed a peak as their home, and the secrets found within have given these organizations strong roots.
To the north, Yoma Mountain is carpeted in purple orus trees for most of the year. The Fallen Leaf School processes the fruits of these trees into products to be sold, as well as secret elixirs to strengthen their own students. They also possess the largest and most obvious entrance into the labyrinth that forms the foundation of the entire Sacred Valley, an entrance they call the Nethergate. The door stands thirty meters high, and is carved with the image of a Dreadgod. Every ten years, it opens, and the Fallen Leaf elders are able to retrieve some treasures from the shallowest levels of the labyrinth within.
To the west, Mount Venture shows off its distinct mineral composition with rust-red cliffs. It is the shortest of the four peaks, and most of the mining in Sacred Valley takes place here. This is the home of the Kazan clan and the territory of the Golden Sword School, and the profits of the mine are split between them. Goldsteel and halfsilver are the primary output of these mines, though a further report can be requested on especially rare or trivially mundane materials.
To the south, the mountain called Greatfather is broken, its peak shattered into a shape resembling the mouth of a bottle. Water pools up there, cascading down the cliffs in a stream known as the Dragon River. Fueled by the water aura at the top of the mountain, storms wrack these slopes year-round, and the Holy Wind School maintains shelters for unlucky travelers caught outside. Favored Holy Wind elders can bathe in the pool known as Greatfather’s Tears, regenerating their vitality of body and spirit.
To the east, Mount Samara rises as the tallest of the four holy peaks. It is blanketed in snow, and crowned in a ring of pale white light that circles the summit. The halo appears at sundown and disappears at sunrise, so that no one in Sacred Valley has ever experienced a dark night. Samara’s halo is a construction of light aura bound into form by an expert centuries past, and it is the reason why so many sacred artists in the valley practice light-aspect arts. The Heaven’s Glory School has claimed this peak, using the power of Samara’s ring to gather light aura even on a moonless night.
Suggested topic: origin of the holy peaks. Continue?
Denied, report complete.
Without the lungs of an Iron, Lindon couldn’t make his voice heard in every corner of the arena, but he shouted as loud as he could. “Honored representative of the Heaven's Glory School! This one regrets that his display has caused you shame, and he begs one more chance to prove himself.”
In the box above, the boy in white-and-gold stepped forward. His expression was cold and forbidding, as though he wished to have Lindon executed before he said another word. “Why should I give you such a chance?”
“Wei Jin Amon is to become a disciple of your school, is that not so?” Amon, startled, looked from Lindon to the Heaven's Glory agent. “If this one manages to force him out of the ring, or cause him to admit defeat, then this one has surely demonstrated his own value. This one requests a place in your school, under those conditions.”