Blueprint for Immortality: a Crafting Xianxia

Booker stayed in the shallow forest for a good few minutes, repositioning himself slowly with a better view of the main door and settling down to wait, recover, and watch the light of the infirmary window. Moments ticked by and he saw the nurses leaving, bustling out the door in a gossiping bunch with Chen Jie laughing among them. When they were gone the courtyard was eerily silent. The hospital had been placed at a distance from the rest of the Sect, a silent swathe of green surrounding it.

That green zone held countless shadows, and as Booker watched, two men appeared out of those shadows. Their faces were indistinct. Booker squinted, but it was more than distance. They had some kind of daoist magic subtly melding the details of their faces into a blur. At a casual glance, somebody might not even realize it was there. So long as they kept moving nobody would recognize they were out on clandestine business.

Sure beats dressing up like a Japanese stagehand…

The two entered the hospital. Booker slid back to his original position, watching the open window. Shadows moved in front of the light and soon someone was leaning their head out, looking across the green for him. Booker sank lower into his hiding spot.

Another figure joined the first at the window and they spoke briefly, before turning back. One of them slammed a fist into the bedside table, cracking it in half, but there was nothing else for them to do…

But in case they decide to hope I haven’t gone far, and search the whole courtyard… I should make myself scarce.

It was a moment later when Snips came buzzing down to land next to him.

“Did you get a good look? They had something covering their face, but do you think you could recognize them?”

Snips nodded his head.

“Good boy.” Watching the two leave the hospital, Booker began to move around to the opposite side of the building, exiting the courtyard by the far gate. It was the wrong side of the Sect – but he’d navigate his way back around by a route that gave him more cover from a crowd.

I’ve definitely kicked the hornet’s nest. In a way, I’m lucky they took the time to do this covertly. If they’d rushed me a day or two ago, I might not have been able to walk out under my own power.

As for Chen Jie, what is there to say? I truly owe him one.

He made his way through dark hallways, appreciating the quiet of the Sect at night. The timber of the walls creaked with the settling cold.

His room, he hoped, wouldn’t be under guard yet. Since they expected him to die in a hospital bed tonight, there was no reason to be waiting for him now. Still, he was extremely cautious in approaching.

And to his surprise there was in fact someone standing watch. Not a cultivator or a novice, but a cripple who was sweeping pointlessly at the already-spotless floors.

They looked up and met his eye as he walked forward. “Nice night, eh? Quiet. A good enough night to see a ghost, seeing as I heard you were half-dead.”

“Tong Chen, you hold a broom like it’s going to burn you.” Booker greeted his acquaintance.

“Ah, but it’s a good enough disguise against those who don’t even look twice at a man with a broom.” He chuckled happily. “I’m glad to see you’re not as bad off as the rumors said.”

“Has anyone shown an interest in my lodgings while you were here?”

“Nobody’s been by lately, but I’ve had some friends linger about. Two days ago some fellow students came and pried up your floorboards oddly enough…”

“Did they find anything?” Booker asked.

“Nah, friend, nah. See, I got in there as soon as I heard what you did and how you landed yourself in a hospital bed. Figured your place would get turned over sooner or later. Might as well be my prize, no? Figured I’d decide whether I was returning it or not after you decided whether you were going to live or not.”

Booker gave Tong Chen a cold, measuring look, and waited for him to explain what exactly had happened to a lifetime’s worth of silver.

“Don’t worry friend.” Tong Chen shrugged. “For one thing, I wasn’t the first to get here. That brat Wei Qi got in before me and cleaned things up. And me, the way I see things, the real prize isn’t your wealth but those weapons you used to beat Zheng Bai… I can’t buy those for any amount of silver you’ve got lying around, can I now?”

Wei Qi…

I’ve made some valuable friends this past month. But Wei Qi is always a surprise. He goes above and beyond, and I frankly didn’t do that well by him in the beginning…

Everyone else, I know exactly what I owe. Wei Qi, I might actually owe some of the truth.

Booker nodded. Tong Chen was being extremely reasonable. He had positioned himself to either do a favor for Booker or vanish with the money if Booker never returned. It wasn’t exactly that his impression of Tong Chen was that of a good person – but he was thinking ahead, and he was ambitious, and both of those were facts that made a person easy to predict and easy to ally with.

For now… So long as everyone’s moving up, they’ll be happy to let you lead…

It’s when things slow down and your value dims that they hang you out to dry.

“I need to vanish.” Booker said bluntly. “My enemies came for me tonight, and I’m not in a position to fight them until I’ve recovered. But when I come back… I intend to come back with the power to cultivate, and without having forgotten my roots. It’s not impossible that others could follow the same method I use. As for the gauntlets, they’ve vanished, but I can give you the designs when I return.”

In the worst case here, I’m arming a dangerous criminal…

But if he turns around and starts terrorizing people, I could simply strike him down when I’m a cultivator.

“Now.” Tong Chen insisted. “You maybe don’t understand the full position. The Sect is removing black powder from distribution and even dumping supplies in the river. You really riled them up!”

“I’m sure you’ve managed to find some.” Booker predicted.

“Not as much as you’d hope. But enough.” The man grinned. “You said you lost your set…”

‘Taken by the officials.”

Tong Chen nodded. “Then give me the designs now, and I’ll make you new ones. I’m too good to be stuck down here, friend. That’s the long and short of it. I’ve been put in a position – you know it well – where any ambition I show will be laughed at. But I remember who I was when I came here. I remember the will to shake the world. If there’s a path back to that… then whether its cultivation or black powder, any weapon I can get ahold of, I’ll take up.”

Damn… He does have me there. Another set would let me arm someone I do trust, too… Or keep them for myself and see what they can do on top of cultivation….

“We haven’t forgotten how to fight.” Booker opened the door into his apartment. “With this I expect to be able to call on you when I need.” Stepping inside he bent over the desk to write out the designs, waited a moment for the ink to dry, and held out the paper.

He’s slippery, but I’ve dangled the supreme benefit over his head: becoming a cultivator. Even if I assume he came into this wanting to hustle me for the gauntlet design… He’ll have to keep me around until he knows what I’ve got planned…

“Me and mine, we’ll be there when you need us.” Tong Chen agreed, grasping Booker’s wrist with his hand before taking the designs. “The money, we moved it to your laboratory. That kid – Wei Qi – is keeping watch.”

Parting ways with his new ally, Booker headed out to retrieve his wealth. He had to move slowly through the empty halls, not wanting to exhaust what little strength he had.

Thankfully, there were few people about, and with a bowed head he could make his way past them looking like any other servant of the Sect.

Some parts of the Sect were never quiet. The alchemy halls in particular had an overnight crew that worked to keep the Sect flush with medicines and pills. There were simply too few furnaces and too many hungry mouths to work only during the day. The heat of the burning furnaces filled the halls, brushing the frost from his hair. The winter was only getting colder. Seasons here were longer, and winter particularly so.

He pushed open the door to his personal workshop, the reward Greenmoon had lavished upon him for bringing in a new refinement technique. Eventually, it would probably be passed on to someone else unless he could prove he was lucrative enough to keep in pocket, but Greenmoon had better things to do just now than to chase down loose expenses.

Wei Qi was sitting in a chair in the corner, his arms wrapped around the leather alchemist’s case Booker had filled with ingots of silver.

Not seeing a reason to wake him just yet, Booker stepped past the snoring boy and selected a few vials of ingredients off the shelves. He needed to refresh his supplies. There were pills for body refinement, pills for fighting, pills for working through the night…

My power is somehow even hungrier than a normal cultivator’s path.

Shaking a little out of each glass vial into his own segmented box of ingredients, he reached for the knife on his belt to cut a strand of silk free from a small bundle. He was surprised – brutally reminded of his missing thumb – as he drew it free and it simply dropped out of his ruined hand, stabbing into the floor and nearly removing one of his toes.

“Shit.” He cursed aloud.

Wei Qi startled awake, his shoulders jerking up as his eyes blinked and he let out a low, confused groan. As he focused in, Booker gave him a way. “It’s only me.”

“Huh? Elder brother?” For a moment Wei Qi looked like he didn’t believe it.

Booker grinned. “Let me guess. I’m in better health than you’d heard?”

“Yes!” He blurted out. “Elder brother, the way I heard things, you were on death’s door! I tried to get in but they said even speaking might tip you over the edge into the underworld!”

“They may have been exaggerating.”

“Haaaa… I’m just glad you came out alright. I mean, I saw the duel, but.. I only heard why after. Zheng Bai, the hospital…” Wei Qi shook his head. “I’m glad that bitch is dead. She could have killed countless poor souls with that poison of hers and the enforcers wouldn’t have even blinked.”

“I see you and Tong Chen made up while I was gone.” Booker noted, kneeling down to get the knife. “That surprises me.”

“Not just Tong Chen, I’ve had plenty of guests who want to meet you on good terms. Elder Brother Rain, this is a bigger matter than you might have realized, being holed up in the hospital. The whole Sect’s been gossiping about it! Some say you’re not really a cripple, you’ve just hidden your cultivation, but I’ve told the whole story to the doubters as truthfully as I could. Even among the disciples, people want to know about you – they’ve been coming to the laboratory to ask about your condition since then, since the hospital’s been shutting them out…” Wei Qi shook his head. “I think some of them expect you to be elevated to disciple soon.”

And why wouldn’t they? If you haven’t realized the Sect exists to keep some people weak, not just to raise others to strength… It makes perfect sense to think I’d join the disciples now I’ve proven I can keep up.

“And what has our beloved Instructor been up to?” Booker asked. He didn’t especially suspect Greenmoon of having any part to play in sending the assassins, but all the same, he hadn’t seen the man since the trial. There was no way the stonewalling of a few nurses would have kept Greenmoon out, not if he’d actually cared to see Booker.

Wei Qi frowned. “Hmm, the best I can say is he might be fighting his own battles just now. The other Instructors seem to think that, if anyone can use this refinement technique, their students should be allowed to learn it.”

Makes sense. Greenmoon has a very secure position, even among the other Instructors, because he’s the only one of them who truly understands alchemy. But if this new technique can be practiced by just anyone, why wouldn’t they try to steal it away?

“Well, send him my regards. And stick close to him for now. I don’t want to alarm you, but two cultivators came for me while I was in the hospital, and they would have made all the rumors true if they could. They might come for you next to see where I’ve gone.”

“You’re going? Where?” Wei Qi paused, and then blurted out… “Elder brother Rain, it seems like you’re always on some mysterious business of your own. I’ve truly never seen someone do so much while being seen so little. But you can trust me, I won’t share your secrets.”

“I know I can.” Booker agreed. “A while ago I bought an apartment out in the city, in the Claybarrow District. A little apartment with a blue roof.”

For a moment Wei Qi looked like he was going to mention his curfew binding him to Sect grounds, but then he stifled that complaint.

It will only give Thunderhymn, Frostwind, and Stoneblood ammunition against me, but it’s hard to prove where someone isn’t. There are plenty of caves in the Sect’s upper forest I could theoretically have secluded myself in to cultivate.

If I make up some excuse on my return and secure Greenmoon’s cooperation, I should slide by. All he has to say is he hid me away when I was nearly killed. Surely, I can secure that much from him…

And surely it’s safer to leave now than stay where assassins can find me.

“I’ll be away until I have enough strength to defend myself. While I’m gone, keep yourself safe. The only people you should tell about this meeting are Fen and Xan, my friends. I trust them both, so consider them elder brothers go to them with any difficulties you encounter.”

Wei Qi nodded. He held out the silver-stuffed briefcase, and asked… “What are you going to do with it?”

“I’m going to fix myself.” Booker said. “And then we’ll see about becoming a disciple.”

Stepping out into the alchemy hall, Booker watched for a moment as apprentices, junior alchemists, and old masters worked at a furious pace, grinding and pressing and powdering ingredients. In a calmer life, I could have spent weeks here, slowly polishing my skills. There’s always something comforting about the smell of medicine.

He made his way through a door and down a flight of stairs, into an undercellar. The room was large, but only a small portion of it was accessible, the rest blocked off by a solid wall with a locked door and a counter guarded by a perforated metal screen. This was the dispensary of the Sect, where the raw ingredients of medicine were bought and pills returned for a profit in the Sect’s systems of merit – one of the ways alchemists could guarantee they would live a comfortable life was to simply take out ingredients up to their limit, then return as many successful pills as possible, harvesting the margin in any of the Sect’s many rewards.

Sitting slumped forward snoring behind the counter was Autumn Leaf. An old – no, a very old – friend of Master Ping’s who had long since lived his glory days, as skinny now as an apple core.

Booker coughed. “Apologies, uncle Autumn Leaf. I hate to wake you.”

The old man’s head jolted up, and then he slowly eased himself back into his seat, bones creaking with the same sound the Sect’s wooden foundations made under the wind and cold. “Mmm. Is that… Young Ping’s apprentice? Or no. You’re with Greenmoon now. Hmmm…”

His rheumatic eyes still had a sharp focus, and Booker felt himself under scrutiny.

“Things are a little more complicated than rumor might make them appear…” Booker suggested.

“And you– oh!– you’re the one who killed a cultivator, aren’t you?” That seemed to interest him, and Booker was glad to get away from the topic of Master Ping. Not only had things there not ended as he would have wished, but since then, Booker had been obliged to pretend he’d stolen secrets from his old master on the way out the door.

If only to conceal where I really got them…

“I actually used the bombs Master Autumn gifted to me to do it.” He said, bowing his head.

“Ha. Knew you’d get up to trouble if I gave you the chance, absolutely.” A snickering chuckle from the old man, and he leaned closer. “But it wasn’t just bombs, was it? A few days ago, little Thunderhymn called me up to examine the strangest set of weapons…”

“Ah, that’s where those got to.” Well damn. I have a sneaking suspicion Thunderhymn won’t willingly give me them back, no matter how much of a fuss is raised. He seems like the kind to make things disappear. “I hope you appreciated them.”

“Hmm.” Autumn Leaf hesitated, which surprised Booker, considering how openly the man seemed relish a little mayhem. “They’re clever and flexible, I’ll give you that. Two shots each is enough for one fighter to take on an opponent of greater strength, so long as they have skill to match. But the beauty of black powder is that it doesn’t ask for skill or speed – I would say your weapons played to your own strengths, not to the simplicity of killing.”

Booker tilted his head and considered that for a moment. Truthfully, the Master Page had delivered exactly what he wanted. But the old man posed a challenge to whether he’d wanted the right things…

“What would you suggest? I might need to make a replacement, and there’s no reason not to improve on the design.”

“Well, there’s the difficulty…” Autumn Leaf sighed. “After that scamp Thunderhymn got himself worked up over those gauntlets of yours, he convinced himself they were a threat to the Sect. He’s ordered all the black powder in the Sect reserves thrown into the river.”

“So I’ve heard.” Except that it was Thunderhymn alone. If he’d really go that far – then he sees exactly what I did, for what it was. As long as a cripple or a novice can defeat a cultivator, the hierarchy of the Sect is in play. No, he definitely acted with foresight to guard his position and cut others off from following…

But the sheer slime of a man who’d see a cripple defending themselves, and try to rob them of that strength. The cruelty of the ‘natural order’ where the weak suffer in exchange for the protection of the strong, who live lavish lifestyles – it loses even the slightest justification when you steal their power to defend themselves on their own.

I didn’t mean any of this…

I don’t want to start a fight with Thunderhymn, because I simply can’t win it…

But it still angers me to think of how low he’d go.

“My, that seems to have pissed you off. I don’t suppose you actually were planning the revolt of the crippled that Thunderhymn fears?” Autumn Leaf observed with a dry, raspy chuckle. “Careful about wearing such notions on your sleeve.”

“I’m sorry. And no, I truly mean no revolution against the Sect…”

“Just to better it?” Autumn Leaf challenged. “Well, that’s the funny thing. When you tell a man used to the exercise of power that the nature of power could be better spent, better divided… When you suggest the weak are denied their share… Doesn’t that open the door to the question of whether his rule is also unfairly apportioned?”

“By that logic, the weak should be annihilated at once, before they erode the foundations of the deserving by wanting a better life.” Booker suggested.

“Hehe, yes, or maybe marked so they can’t hope to rise, and denied weapons…” Autumn Leaf looked at Booker for a moment before adding. “You know, he didn’t think to mention what should be done with the ingredients for black powder, besides making me note and report anyone who buys them together.”

“Ahh, that’s good to know.” Booker smiled. He was finding that, the more honest he was about his disputes with the Sect, the more he unearthed those who shared his distaste. It was obviously not a winning move to bring the dispute out into the open and declare himself fully, but…

It’s worth signaling to those who agree that they have an ally, and could become an ally in turn. Trying to please everyone means pleasing no one. Every enemy is an opportunity to open yourself to allies.

“Actually, could I ask you something? I need to leave a message for my old master, and I wondered if you could try to get it to him as soon as he returned. I’m afraid I’ll be indisposed.” He bowed his head respectfully, as befitted asking a favor.

“How important is this message?” Autumn Leaf asked.

“The sooner he receives it, the sooner he’ll know what’s really happened in his absence.” Booker explained. “It goes to the issue of me becoming Greenmoon’s apprentice.”

“Write it down, and I’ll have it delivered at the city gates.”

Smiling thankfully, Booker clumsily gripped a quill in his left hand and scratched down a brief message. There was really no explaining things thoroughly enough in a note that might be intercepted or read – and it was better to handle this in person.

“To Master Ping, who taught me well…

I have been forced into a strange position. You may hear things about me – and be asked questions about what I have done – that make no sense to you. I ask you please to endure and go along with what is said about me without correcting anyone’s misconceptions. I will explain everything in person, including things I should have said before it all reached this point.”

Straightening up, he folded the note and pushed it across. “Thank you, Master Autumn. I appreciate your help in this, and in giving me the tools I needed to defend myself. Out of curiosity, what would you recommend for a weapon based in black powder, if I was going to build a new one?”

“Ha, I believe Little Ping wanted you to make a set of poisoned needles for yourself, no? I would suggest something of an elder brother to that concept.” With a surprisingly dexterous flick of his arm, Autumn Leaf produced a bamboo tube from within his sleeve. The top was perforated by needles sealed into their holes by dots of black wax to keep the poisons underneath fresh.

“All you need is a simple iron tube loaded with long metal darts and meant to be detonated point blank. Small enough to hide up your sleeve. A weapon is a very uncivilized thing, but the threat of a weapon tends to make everyone remember their manners. Especially when there’s no way of telling who might be concealing one. In addition… There is a design used in the neighboring empire, the Hutan, where they mount a firework loaded with lead shrapnel onto the end of a spear. This sort of tube could be wielded that way too, on very short notice.” He explained.

Hmm, he’s right. The simplicity of the weapon makes it flexible. You can hide it, letting the possibility you have one protect you, or using it to take someone out before they even realize you’re a threat. And a spear is ideal for overcoming a cripple’s lack of a speed with a surplus of reach to act before the enemy. Better yet, spears are an ideal weapon for a group to take on a single opponent…

Cupping his chin in a palm, Booker said, “Master Autumn really knows a tremendous amount about these new weapons.”

“The old are fond of convincing themselves they already know all that they need. But to imbue that knowledge onto future generations, they must know where the future is going.” Autumn Leaf chuckled to himself. “Mark my words, these weapons will someday change the shape of the world. A great cultivator might not fear them, no, but for those with their feet still rooted in mortal mud… Well, these sorts of weapons are difficult to laugh at.”

“Well, I won’t distract from your business much longer. I’m grateful for the wisdom you’ve already shared. I just need to purchase a few things. Do we have…” Checking the list of ingredients for the Seven-Times Refined Charcoal Pill that promised to restore his cultivation, Booker recited, “Crystalline Silkworm Cocoon, Bleeding Yew Sap, Flesh-Eater Cochineal Pigment, Red-White Banded Ginseng, Serpent-Tear Salt, or Polar Ice Essence?”

He opened the briefcase on the counter, setting down a hoof-shaped silver ingot to prove he was serious. These were ingredients of extreme value. He’d chosen some of the most common ingredients that the Seven-Times Refined Charcoal Pill could be made with, narrowing the list to those that might be found in the region, but…

He wasn’t expecting to get all of them here. He’d already secured one from Greenmoon, and Fen had promised a lead to another. A third was waiting in the Lao-Hain camp…

Four. Give me four. If that much can go my way, I’ll count myself lucky.

“I’ll see… These aren’t ingredients I see called for often…” He pushed a book into the center of the counter, flipping it open as Booker leaned forward to read the upside-down text and tap his knuckle nervously against the counter’s edge, a gambler’s hope building in his chest.

Autumn Leaf’s skinny finger traveled down the pages, clicking his tongue occasionally as he sorted through a huge and dense ledger of tightly-interwoven text. “Ah, yes, hmmm… We have everything but the Polar Ice Essence and the Red-White Banded Ginseng. Those simply aren’t things we have available, or even hold in our records. There’s some small chance the Golden Moon can help you but here…”

“The other four are absolutely enough.” Booker hurriedly said, thanking whatever god had intervened for him this time. “What do I owe you for them?”

“Two thousand, seven hundred liang.” Autumn Leaf said, sighing and climbing slowly out of his comfortable seat. He left Booker alone up front while he disappeared into the rows of shelves, returning with four slender wooden boxes.

Booker smiled with pure excitement, counting out silver by the hundredweight. On top of his gambling winnings, some five thousand of those, he’d also identified herbs for the auction house under the condition he could take the prizes from among them to make pills and sell at auction. That had been another eleven hundred.

Take away the three thousand he’d bid, and after subtracting this two-thousand-seven-hundred, and there was about four hundred liang left to his name.

“These particular ingredients.” Autumn Leaf inquired. “All for Meridian Cleansing. You intend to make an attempt at breaking through your crippling?”

Booker didn’t love how fast his business was spreading about the Sect, but he saw no way to conceal it from the man selling him the cures. He nodded.

“Ahhh…” He sighed. “Little Ping won’t like that. I can’t blame him, but, that boy truly hates the whole path of cultivation and the brutes who walk it. I wish he was more often wrong about us.”

“If I can do anything to repay the kindness he showed me, I only want to show him that there’s no need to compromise between power and justice. Just conceding that the two can’t coexist…” Booker said sincerely. “Well for my own soul, I hope that isn’t true.”

Autumn Leaf gave him a slow look. “He had a brother, you know. My own student…The one I loved most, truthfully. Talented, brave, wise. But he didn’t pick his battles, oh no. He was a force for whatever justice he demanded of the world. In the end that got him sent away to war, and well…”

“Ah, is it really like that?” Booker grimaced. “I… can see how that would sour him against even the idea of cultivation.”

There was a sad nod. “I don’t doubt you can see why I’m telling you this. It was my own failing that left him with so many scars… Be careful of him, not because he’ll ever betray you, but because he won’t betray himself. It’s a dangerous thing, conviction.”

“Such people are worth cherishing.” Booker agreed.

As he left, Booker had to admit…

I was afraid I’d burned my bridges with the Sect by fighting openly against their pet crime lord, but even in these midnight hours, I’ve run into plenty of willing allies. It seems like I rocked the boat harder than anticipated, and now people either want me dead, or want me to stand for the Sect’s cripples, apprentices, and other left-behinds.

Chen Ji, Wei Qi, Autumn Leaf, even Tong Chen of all people…

When I was in that hospital bed recovering, everything I’d built could have easily collapsed if they didn’t hold it together.

I owe them, but I have to put my house in order first before I can stand for anyone else. I have to become a cultivator.

As for my enemies, Thunderhymn thinks my black powder gauntlets are a threat to the Sect’s order. If I had to guess, I’d say he’s the one behind trying to kill me tonight. Whoever it is, so long as they’re an Instructor, any strike against them will anger the rest, probably even the ones who stood by me in the Zheng Bai matter. That being the case there's no point in retaliating, and I should be defensive.

Becoming a cultivator calms the chief objection against me. If I’m a cultivator, I’m not the cripple who can kill cultivators. From there I can prove to them I’m willing to play ball, working on the foundation I made by giving Greenmoon the refinement technique.

Then I start making waves again.

By the midnight walks of the Sect, he found his way to a green courtyard and clambered up the smooth bark of a willow tree, holding the now significantly lighter briefcase in one hand. With a running vault, he jumped onto the Sect’s tile-topped wall, and slid down onto the street below. It proved to be slightly too ambitious for his wounded state: the maneuver ended with him hitting the cobbles and feeling his right leg give way abruptly, sending him rolling against the hard ground.

But as he stood up, scraping grit from new lacerations and bruises, he laughed.

Ahhh…

I’m not an indoors cultivator, am I? That hospital stay was murder. No, I definitely prefer being almost killed to having to sleep off the bruises after…

But I am a cultivator.

With five of the seven medicines in my hands, I’m only days away from that reality.

But there was one more person he wanted to talk to tonight, before he vanished from sight and returned ready to face any challenge.

He’d woken up with the talisman around his neck, and a vague memory–

When he’d stood over Zheng Bai’s corpse, illuminated by spotlights and the roar of the crowd, he had swayed, lost the last of his strength, and fallen.

Valley Tiger had brought him to the Sect, and sat over his bed for the first night when he might truly have died.