One more story.

[camwyn]

Then I gotta gobed.



Note: This takes place some years before either of the other stories. Fair warning.

***

>

He had the stub of a candle in one hand and a few sticks from his supply of quality incense in the other; it was a lucky thing, then, that the door to the tiny shrine at the far end of the alchemist's property swung open at the nudge of a boot. Not for the first time, he wondered why he hadn't thought to add shelves to the outside. Just little ones, nothing that'd alter the look of the place or ruin the flow. It'd be so much easier, and a lot less sacrilegious than last time, when the rains had swollen the door stuck and he'd had to hold the incense in his teeth while he tried to work the stupid door open-

Open. Yes. That was the important thing. And it was open now.

Silently grateful for the ample distance between the workshop and the shrine that made it impossible for his wife to see him, he edged through the open door and let it swing shut behind him. The small table next to the door was only too happy to become the temporary resting place of the incense as he fumbled through the pouch at his belt. Where had he – oh, yes, there they were. The shrine's inner walls were unfinished, rough enough for striking the red-tipped matches his wife had made for him. It still took him a few tries to coax one to flare into life long enough to light the candle. The damned thing burnt to his fingertips in mere seconds. Oh, well, no matter, the candle was lit.

It was barely enough to dispel the thickest of the shadows, but he knew this place well. He'd been here a thousand times before – more – how many, he didn't know. Since he was a boy, and his father had given up on him becoming a Seeker. It hadn't been anyone's property then in the Gods only knew how long. One of the oldest places of the worship of Heaven in these islands, his father had said; he must've been meant to find it.

Even that dim a memory was enough to make him snort as he felt his way through the darkness and located the goddess' statue. Callused, acid-stained fingers brushed the ashes of the last offering out of the tiny basin before her. He didn't even need the candle for this. It was just a place to hold the fire while he found the mirrors (bronze work, old as the Seaside quarter of Omei Town) and gave them a quick rub-down on the sleeves of his tunic. One went here, one went there, and the third went in the niche three-quarters of the way to the ceiling. Then came bracing the false ceiling with one hand, undoing its catches, and setting it to one side. The incense sticks? Into the smooth-edged grooves worn into the basin by a thousand years of use or more. A horsetail brush backed with the hide of some rough-skinned fish cleared the pebbles and detritus from the floor in front of the altar. All right, then, that ought to do it.

He turned in the semidarkness, head brushing the place where the false ceiling had been. It was hardly two strides from altar to door – whoever had built this place had lived in a day when men came in smaller sizes. At least it made the candle's job easier. Even a weak flame smaller than the tip of his little finger was enough for the first bronze mirror to catch as he slid it behind the goddess' statue. Then again, it was never little for long. As he watched, the faint gold-orange flame drew itself upwards, growing thinner and taller and pulsing slowly into a brilliant blue-white –

that bounced off the first mirror, which flung it to the second –

which was just curved enough to toss the light up to the third –

from which it leapt into the network of cunningly concealed crystals and shattered into a thousand pieces, dazzling about the shrine's interior like the Great Sky River in the rainy season –

and radiated slender shafts of thrice-reflected light down into a brilliant circle, centered on the form of the goddess.

She was perhaps as long as his forearm, carved of white jade. Her upper half was that of a woman, hair drawn up into a bun. The face was a kindly one and the jacket simple, wide in the sleeve after the fashion of ages past; they hardly seemed to belong to the same being as the rest of her. The ancient artist had begun to carve a dragon, but given in to some unfathomable urge, only suggesting the lung form in the curls and roils of cometary fire that spilled out behind and beneath. He'd come to his senses long enough to place five bright-hued cabochons of lesser stones into the band that bound her hair back. It was enough to know her, no matter what part of the empire you came from. There had been no statue of her brother-husband in the shrine, but that hardly mattered. This place was undeniably hers.

Drawing a deep breath, he struck a second match on the front of the altar, and with a hand that hardly trembled at all, he lit the sticks of incense. Then he shook the match out and knelt in the cleared space n the floor, pressing his forehead to the floor for the space of ten heartbeats. When he lifted his head again, the incense's smoke was twining its way through the beams of reflected light. One day, he thought, he would have to come in here with one of the gaoliang lamps and see if the air touched its fire the same way. Now, though – now there was no space for such thoughts. They belonged to the lab, and the house, and his wife, and the outside world. This was something else altogether.

He bowed his head again and tossed his braid over his shoulder before he clasped his hands together.

" Great Lady Nuwa, Sky Mother, august and terrible Guardian of those who dare the eagle's flight, it is your follower Wong Feihung. I come humbly before you with a request for help." There, that seemed a safe enough start; he paused to listen for some sign, whether of disapproval or otherwise, and heard none. Emboldened, he went on.

"You know I do not bother the Gods very much. There is…" Not much space for powerful entities who can do virtually anything to run around and muck up my lab. "No particular need to trouble any of you for assistance, most of the time. My father speaks to you, and you speak to my father, and most of the time that is enough. But there are – there are times…"

He stopped, feeling the sentence drift into nothingness on the incense smoke. The words he had so carefully rehearsed suddenly felt like nothing at all, not even fit to grasp at. Sighing, he lifted his gaze to the statue's, and spoke again.

"I am not a religious man," he said firmly. "You know that. I have seen enough of the Gods through my father's library to know that you hardly need someone like me around, most of the time. But out of all of them, you, Great Lady, seem to have taken a liking to me. I only hope that I have repaid you for that liking, and that I will not upset you with my presumption now.

"You see, Great Lady, this past year has been better than Tinghui and I had ever dared to dream. My father has not spoken once of his fear of Heaven's displeasure, not since little Zhenhua's naming. The Bamboo Raven has given us fledglings, and Tinghui's confinement gave her many ideas to improve them. The Sky Steeds are at last as reliable as I had hoped they might be. My shoulder no longer aches from that time the Raven's engine stalled in mid-climb and spilled me to the ground before the crash…" He grinned in the darkness, lowering his gaze once more. "So it is not that I am not grateful. But I have one more favour to beg of you.

"You of all the Heavenly Pantheon should know I do not do this for myself. I believe, with all my heart, that the Sky Steeds are not only acceptable, but necessary. Wizards like my father serve the Empire and the Gods and they do it well, but in drawing close to Heaven they lose sight of Earth. They remember how to protect mankind. They do not remember how to protect men. My father's arts are bent with all their strength towards finding the Eighth Emperor and setting him on the Dragon Throne. Perhaps this will set things right as he says, I do not know. All I know is that the city merchants scarcely make it from one winter to the next without the wheezing sickness carrying off their children, and the sailors and soldiers come home from the Ainu wars with pains in limbs that they no longer have, and whole fields of grain are blighted by the rusty smuts just before the harvest. They look to men like my father and hope for a distant dream, and still the now leaves them wretched as they were in the times of Cao Cao!

"They will not listen to me. I have tried to prove my merits to them, you know I have. Great Lady, when I gave up the search for the Pill of Immortality, it was because I knew I was chasing a lie and a sham. In all the other things that alchemy can do I found what it was Heaven intended for man to know. There is a cure for every sickness and a solution to every problem, if only we are willing to look – but they are not willing to look, because they have seen magic and prophecy before them for so long that they no longer know anything else. Even though the Gods gave us wit and wisdom, it is not enough! For this I built the Sky Steeds, Great Lady. If they look to the skies and know that any man can fly, given the right tools, then they will know how much more might be done, and I can help them. . .

"Great Lady, tomorrow I am going down to the harbor at Changsha to look for a backer, someone who does not think I am only an alchemist, insane like all the rest. Tinghui says I must look for this person without her help if this is to work. I ask, August Guardian, that you help me. Send me someone whose mind is open. Send me a person of intelligence and resourcefulness, who understands opportunity when he sees it. Let my path cross that of someone who has the wisdom to listen to my words and not turn aside, someone who has enough money and resources to make the Sky Steeds known throughout the Empire. For the sake of my nation, Great Lady – for the sake of your people – and, yes, for the sake of my own honor and that of my family – send me a backer tomorrow.

"Thank you, August and Terrible Guardian. I will not trouble you further until I have returned from Changsha."

He looked to the sculpture and bent to the floor once more. For ten long, slow breaths he remained like that. Then he lifted his head, gazing upwards to the light-filled stones that were this place's stand-in for the vault of Heaven. Even at such a remove, the candle flame's dances glimmered, shifting subtly, endlessly with each moment. There was no change beyond that. Only the twinkling, and the faint, faint hiss of the burning candle, and the fall of incense ash before the jade Sky Mother.

He exhaled after a while, licked his fingertips, and pinched out the candle. Then he rose to his feet and bowed once more to the altar. With sure and certain steps, he went out from the world of gods and back to the world of men.