David

David looked into the sky, past the gap in the canopy of bamboo leaves. The bamboo was a vibrant green in the moonlight. Li had been gone for nearly fifteen minutes. David held his flute in one hand and fed the rope of white silk into the forest over the groove between his thumb and his forefinger in the other.

It made steady progress, winding past and around a washed out stalk, an off-white rather than green.

"This world is stranger than I thought," said Alice. "Dangerous and wonderful. And strange."

"Ever think you might have picked the wrong song for your guqin recital?" It was a joke, but it wasn't too funny. The bamboo leaves danced in the wind, but what Li had referred to as an array on the Iron Path kept him from feeling it on his face.

Alice scoffed. "Daoist Chow plays the music she wants to play."

Addressing herself in the third person sounded even more ridiculous in English. They smiled at one another. Her eyes were brighter than he remembered - nearly amber in color. Alice was right. The world was strange.

"A hundred thousand years from now, much of the land on earth could be underwater," said Alice. "If, and it's not likely, English survives, it'll be completely unrecognizable - and spoken by a different species of human being."

David frowned.

"If, and it's not likely, Chinese survives, the characters will have warped into entirely different shapes and have completely different sounds."

David nodded. It was a reasonable assumption.

"And what would the earth look like in a million years?" Alice hummed, rocking from side to side. "Will they call Washington the President Who Defended the Shores?"

She grinned. "Would the interstate that runs along the west side of Brooklyn still exist? They've been repairing different sections of it for as long as we've been alive - as long as our parents have been alive, even. Will people still be trying to repair it?"

David leaned over and tapped the slate road with his flute.

"At first I was sure that there was something about immortality that creates stagnation, something that sets the world in stone," said Alice. "In iron, even." Alice ran her fingers over the silk slithering deeper into the forest. "Uncle Jiang said many important things to us," she said. "But the one thing that I think about the most is how annoyed he was while we sailed away on that little boat. I'll have you know I'm not even twenty thousand years old!"

David nodded. "Twenty thousand years ago civilization didn’t exist on earth. But twenty thousand years ago was when two disciples of the fifty eighth and last generation of the Falling Leaves fought. They’d never liked one another, and their little arguments finally became an all-out brawl in the courtyard."

"Not last," said Alice, proud and insistent.

He pictured the scene. The pillar was whole. Xiangyue was young and surly. A girl who looked like Li egged him on as Xiangyue threw hands at a boy who looked like Wen. It was a dirty fight - little Wen was better trained, but little Yue, who had fought for the bread in his hands as a child, beat the tar out of the other boy.

"And their sect master - old, weary and wise, who loved them both but loved Uncle Jiang more, took them aside. She started with these words - the beanstalks are burned to boil the beans."

Alice shivered and David felt it too - there was something sinister afoot.

"It's likely that very little in the world is completely new - and someone might come up with the same ideas and end up with similar places again in the future," said David.

“If the same people stay in power because they become immortal and there’s no change in the geology of the world…” Alice trailed off, clearly not believing it either. “I wonder to what extent a cultivator can change the face of the earth.”

David considered the question, and the cultivators they’d run into. “We never figured out what people like Li’s master or the tea guy are capable of. Uncle Jiang needed to borrow a guqin from Meihua, and he said it was because-”

“Because if he played on his own, it would level the city.” Alice frowned.

“We can ask Li when she comes back. She’s pretty much figured out everything there is to know about us,” said David.

Alice rolled Li’s sect token around in her fingers. “If she comes back.”

They both stared at the rope, which was mostly gone.

“Is it required to do something crazy to establish your foundations?”

David shrugged. “We’re two for two so far on foundation establishment requiring something crazy.”

Alice sighed. “I don’t even really notice anything different, but I also haven’t cultivated. Ugh, it sounds so stupid to say that. What does that even mean? Are we meant to draw in the qi of the natural world to attune ourselves with the universe?”

“Also,” she continued, with a sneer, “how is it that people are so bad at this?”

The sound of silkworms rose in the night, hungry and clear. David listened to the Song as well, and felt that secondary rhythm grow in volume. It was out of sync with that pulse he’d come to realize would always be there.

The minutes stretched on.

“Whoah!” David shouted, grabbing onto the rope as the last of it nearly slipped out of his grasp. “That’s the end of it,” he said. The silkworms quieted.

The rope tightened, lifting off the ground. Li was pulling. David held firm.

“I guess she didn’t find what she was looking for,” said Alice. But as she spoke, the rope went slack.

“She’s coming back then,” said David. He started pulling on the rope, which offered little resistance as Li retraced her steps.

“No!” Alice shouted, stopping him. “We don’t know if she’s actually coming back right now.”

David frowned.

“What if she untied it?”

He pinched the bridge of his nose. “Surely she wouldn’t have-”

“She would,” said Alice, tossing the sect token. Up and down. Up and down. Her face was grim. “She’s waited half a century for this.”

David's gaze followed the line of white silk into the forest, past the vibrant green stalks. Something was wrong.

The silk twitched slightly in his hand.

Alice noticed the movement. “She’s back, I think. Or the wind’s picking up.”

David shook his head, bringing a finger over his lips. He stared at the bamboo, trying to figure out what was bothering him. He traced over every thought he’d had about the bamboo forest. He thought of the canopy of leaves above him, of the way the silk had moved as Daoist Li pulled, of the moonlight hitting the stalks and painting them in a green close to blue.

“The forest moved.”

The washed out, off-white stalk that had marked where the rope had previously disappeared into the bamboo trees was nowhere to be seen.

“What? What do you mean moved?”

Now that he’d noticed it, it was obvious. “That’s not the same bamboo.”

Alice examined the sect token. Her fingers were wrapped around it so tightly they’d gone pale.

“I’m starting to think we’re really bad luck to be around,” said David. The silk twitched again. The bamboo leaves beckoned gently. Only cultivators used this road, but Li didn't know why. An array had been set on it, with formations etched into every single tile along the way. It kept the sounds of the forest out, and dampened qi.

But it hadn’t done so perfectly - when David had reached for the specific timbre of Li’s Song, which slowed over the course of a minute and then sped up to catch missing beats, he could grasp it. The road could not stop you if you reached past it.

David’s sense of unease deepened. Li had prayed for iron.

“I need iron,” he said, at the trees.

Alice turned to him in alarm. There weren’t many things he could think of which would have been scarier to hear, had he meant it sincerely.

“I’m trying something,” said David. “I need iron,” he repeated, trying to sound desperate. Nothing.

From the thin line her lips made, it was clear that Alice didn’t like this. She understood what he was doing - and what it could imply if his suspicions panned out.

David considered how it would feel if he’d been Daoist Li - stuck in one place for years, and then given a single glimmer of hope. He thought of the expression on Elder Shu’s face when she’d realized David had killed her grandson. He even thought of his mother, begging for retribution in their little apartment on New Year’s day.

The black sky masks the court of Spring, fragrance drifts from pure earth, the jade rope wheel is severed, the iron phoenix starts to soar.

“I need iron,” David prayed, as if iron could solve all the woes that weren’t his own.

Iron, the bamboo whispered.

“I don’t think the wisdom of her sect elders was what Li heard.”

Alice nodded, resigned. “It did seem like too much of a coincidence that it’d be within walking distance of us. What to do, what to do?”

She looked up the road to Bei’an. “I suppose the doctor will know.”

“We can’t be sure that she isn’t on her way back,” said David, who was still holding the rope. “There’s a decent chance that she finds the rope while walking around, even if she’s lost. If she’s even lost. We’re not certain that she let go to begin with.”

Alice’s hands shook. She didn’t believe that either.

“Every second we stand here, she might be in more danger,” Alice muttered. “But if we just leave, that might be how she gets into danger to begin with.”

“I’m going to step off the road,” said David.

Alice nodded.

David put one foot onto the soil beside the slate tiles protected by the formation. Nothing happened. Li had done the same - there hadn’t been anything dangerous immediately off the side of the road.

When he stepped off the road fully, he heard the Song.

Castaway, dive - caverns deep, bind the skies beneath the shores. Iron blood and loyal hearts, let the link open the-

Li emerged behind a clump of bamboo with bright eyes and a wide smile. “Path Friend!” she shouted, waving a little knife with too much excitement to look threatening. “Daoist Li Qingshui, the inheriting disciple of the Iron Scripture, greets you on this fine day!”

The rope was still tied around her wrist, but it had been sloppily sheared. Had she tested her knife on it?

They stepped back onto the Iron Road. Alice pressed Li’s sect token into her free hand.

Li looked at her seriously. “Your eyes are red. Do you know what an allergy is? Master says the human body often overreacts to things that aren’t actually dangerous - sometimes in a deadly way. This can happen both because of things like pollen and animal hair, as well as foreign qi.”

“I don’t have any allergies,” said Alice.

“After the rope went slack, we thought you might have run into a bit of trouble,” said David. They had begun walking again at a brisk clip.

“This dagger was just out of reach,” said Daoist Li, who was still incredibly pleased. She waved it around a few more times before she slipped it into her pouch. “In reaching it, I was able to form my foundations. You two were right - you can barely notice it, for all the talk of pillars and quality. It’s just a part of who you are, and how you see the world.”

As dawn approached, the road emerged past the line of bamboo trees and onto what appeared to be acres and acres of browns and grey mud that went as far as the eye could see. Dead ahead, a city of dark spires and improbable shapes rose from the mud.

Li had become a tour guide again. “Stay on the road here. It’s not dangerous - the bedrock is very high up, but it’s slippery and cold. And slimy,” she said, with a shudder.

“Have you fallen in before?” David asked, sure she had.

“No!” Li denied, far too quickly. “But there’s a lot of herbs that grow here naturally, and outer disciples are often sent to collect them. There’s rewards from the peak masters and hall elders for collecting things that help with the meridian tribulations - like cold yin kudzu or freshwater yang fire sea sponges.”

“Freshwater yang fire sea sponges?” Alice asked, folding her arms.

Li nodded. “The herb is used to ease the Tribulation of Flood. Breaking the dam is incredibly dangerous even if you’ve got incredible control over your qi, but none of our disciples have ever died from it. Compare that to other sects where most of their disciples die. Master knows what he’s doing. Despite the ridiculous name, it's a local herb that poses no danger to the newly awakened, and Master gives out incredibly expensive medication in exchange.”

David and Alice wore incredibly confused expressions.

“Breaking the dam is how my sect refers to opening the fei meridian,” said Daoist Li. “It results in the immediate destabilization of your core, forcing your qi through every open meridian and out of every aperture you can access. The Sea of the Self rises through the lakes and rivers of your body and floods the world. The Tribulation of Flood.”

“But why is that dangerous?” asked David, who didn’t believe that would be too different from the way he sank into the Song.

Li shrugged. “I don’t know? People are bad at cultivating?”

In some ways, Li was just like Alice.

They had gotten closer to the city now, but the road hadn’t widened. At some point, the array that insulated it from the sound and encroaching qi of the outside world had faded away. David heard the cry of gulls and the unmistakable sound of the tide on the shore, smelled the salt in the wind.

Unlike Dongjing, which was neatly packed and built vertically, Bei’an sprawled over the horizon, an inky black stone set under a bright blue sky. Dongjing had been quiet and full of grudges and secrets. Bei’an was loud.

“My city connects the Western continent with the rest of the world,” said Li, as though she were responsible for that.

Alice raised her eyebrows. “Not through the Iron Road, surely?”

“This is just the oldest of the three roads from Bei’an. It’s more important for strategic purposes than economic ones. Every time the Dragon Throne changes hands, the Iron Road is held by the revolutionaries. Every time rebels fail to topple the imperial seat, it’s because they’ve failed to capture it. Since the Zhu Emperor who Taught the People founded the current dynasty ten generations ago, many events have conspired to make the Iron Road less relevant.”

“The Zhu Emperor who Taught the People?” Alice asked with a skeptical smile playing on her lips.

Li sneered. “The only First Emperor of a dynasty to fail his ascension, and previously the inheriting disciple of the Paper Flowers in Xijing. I guess he did teach the people - not to join the Paper Flowers, that is. Anyway, the most useful thing that the house of Zhu has done is to build the road to Bei’an from the south.”

She pointed to their left, at a chain of mountains that stretched past the bamboo forest behind them. “You can’t see it now, but right behind those mountains is the Western Sea. Every day, thousands of merchants carry the dark iron of Anvil Mountain and the salt and spices from the Western continent to Xijing. It goes from Xijing, a thousand li south and east to Minghai, and then north and east to Jiangxi or due east to Huzhou.”

David made careful note of these names and places - it wouldn’t do for them to have no knowledge of the large cities which dotted the continent. “What’s that road called?”

Li grimaced. “The Great Highway of Fortune Built By the August Imperial Line.”

Alice smirked.

“We didn’t name it,” protested Li, whose cheeks had colored.

“Where does the third road go from Bei’an?” asked Alice, before Li could make the excuses on her tongue.

Li sneered. “Northeast to Tianbei Valley, the home of the Ascending Sky. The edge of the civilized world, if you can call them civilized. That’s the best sect in all of the Middle Continent,” she said, with as much exaggerated sarcasm as she could.

“Why’s that?” asked David.

“Luck,” said Daoist Li. “They’ve had some of the most promising cultivators in this generation. Master doesn’t respect them though. He says that if their current crop were actually any good, they would have been able to ‘climb the tree’, whatever that means. Every time I ask him, he gets irritated.”

Before long, walls of dark stone three stories tall blotted out the sky. They had reached Bei’an.