Sky Pride

"It's less of a choice than it looks. I'm not going to be fit to fight for weeks." Tian smiled awkwardly. "Although, I do have some medicine you could use. It's water qi aligned, and I think it would work well in healing any damage you took to your meridians."

Liren gave him a cool look. "Let's talk about that later. For now, we focus on getting up to the Convent outside of Deep Valley City. We can get better healing there, and maybe even hire some Sisters to escort us further on towards West Town. We can also get more information on whatever this heretic scheme is, if there is more information."

"Makes sense. How far is it to Deep Valley City?"

"A week by road, but we are crossing overland to the Green River here at Golden Fields Town. Once we reach the river, the route is a bit longer but we travel faster."

Tian grunted. Not a short distance, but not a long one either. At least, not if they were healthy. "How are you doing, Sister?"

"Better than you but not good. That poison was nasty, whatever it was."

Tian nodded. "Mmm. My physique handled it, but not as fast as I would have expected. It had time to do real damage. I'm honestly a bit shocked."

"Tyrant's Breath." Censor Henshen smiled, the expression looking more painful than crying. "It's a poison called Tyrant's Breath. Quite an ancient one, though as you might imagine, not one that is in common use."

"How do you know about a poison that works on cultivators?" Hong asked.

"Because it doesn't just work on cultivators. Immortal Hong must not have noticed, but look out into the street. Listen to the gongs. White ribbons are covering Golden Fields Town today, and will be for days to come."

Tian could hear it, now that he was listening for it. Banging gongs and the wailing of mourners. The mourners would be professionals in a city. In a town like this, they were probably family.

"How many died?"

"Ten so far, with a bare few still struggling. And the only reason anyone in the Tea House made it out alive is that Daoist Li evacuated us all out the back. Two of the cooks stayed a little longer to put out the fires, and got caught in the spreading gas. They didn't make it. We thought there would be a fire. Buildings get knocked down when cultivators struggle, a lamp spills, or coals catch on silk."

Censor Henshen carefully picked up his tea cup and drank slowly. "Once I heard the symptoms and learned the two of you were affected, I knew what it was. This matter has already been reported to the local prefect. Unless I much miss my guess, the local sects or even the Monastery will be deployed to crush the Five Poisons Cult. You don't need to do it yourself, though someone will surely want to know why they were after you."

"I'd like to know that too. We've been active on the Agate, but only for a few months. Less than half a year, really. Most of the people with a real name or legend have been doing it for decades. Clearing a few bandits and stopping some spiritual animals does not even approach the threshold." Hong rapped the table.

Tian nodded, slouching back in his chair and letting his eyes close. His eyes ached. Just closing his eyes and letting the tiny muscles relax felt so good he nearly groaned.

"Why is it called Tyrant Breath?" He asked.

"Because it was developed under the reign of, and used by, Empress Zhu. The only Empress to hold the crown in her own right, and generally held up as the reason there hasn't been a second. Thirty of my predecessors were sealed in an underground chamber and were drowned as all the chamberpots in the palace were poured into it over the course of several weeks. On the basis that golden fish should swim in golden water, and should keep their opinions about her to themselves. Fair to say the Censorate keeps her memory alive. The final method she employed to suppress opposition, after twenty years of iron fisted rule, was a poison gas created by a mysterious daoist alchemist. Highly effective in removing some well defended noble estates without having to mobilize the whole military."

"Oh, I remember her. She was in my history books, though they didn't say anything about poison gas." Tian didn't open his eyes.

"Some of those noble families, one in particular, had cultivator ancestors. Zhu was always paranoid, and by that point there was nobody who would dare question her orders. We had a new emperor ten minutes after she tried gassing the Imperial Temple of the Ancient Crane Monastery. Nine of which were spent pulling the future emperor out of the chest he was hiding in and crowning him. A nicely symbolic number, it was agreed. Building the new imperial palace took close to a decade, due to needing to refill the hole where the old one had been. The new emperor's first official act was to destroy all stockpiles of the poison, all records of how to manufacture it and kill anyone with the knowledge of how to produce any part of it."

"Regrettably, by that time, the formula had leaked, though it remains a death sentence to be caught using it." Hong concluded, resting her chin on her fist.

"Exactly, Immortal Hong."

"How did she become empress anyway?" Hong asked.

"She was recruited at fourteen from a minor civil servant household and selected as a junior ranking imperial concubine. She bore the emperor no sons, but still managed to earn a degree of favor so she was not dismissed and confined to the Cold Palace. There were three legitimate heirs. The First Prince was maneuvered by the Second Prince into, perhaps, arguably, forming a conspiracy to depose his father and take the throne. The Second Prince revealed the plot to the Emperor and had the First Prince, and his mother, exiled to the border where they died. The Second Prince hung on for a few more years, but the Emperor concluded that the situation with the former First Prince might not have been what he thought at the time, and filled with regret, exiled the Second Prince and his mother to the border. Where they died."

Censor Henshen paused for a moment, clearly picking his words carefully. In a high voice, he continued. "The Third Prince was very… filial. His mother had died years before, so he clung to his father. Very doting. Sat with his father every day during the Emperor's long illness before his passing. All day, every day, even missing meals."

"Who was managing the country?" Tian asked.

"The Emperor, of course! Abily assisted by his ministers, and when he could be pulled away from the sickbed, the Third Prince. Who was filial, but not…"

"Actually good at, or interested in, managing a country?" Tian asked.

"I would never characterize a former emperor that way." The Censor's voice went wooden. "I would note, however, that he relied heavily on the advice of his surrogate mother-figure, Concubine Zhu. So heavily that it was understood he simply passed her the memorials for her to review, then stamped whatever she decided. He took the throne upon his father's passing, ruled actively for four years, then suffered a stroke."

"Ah. She stepped in again?" Hong asked.

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"She didn't have far to step. She had married him by that point."

"Didn't you say she was a kind of surrogate mother to him?" Tian asked.

"Indeed. Practically raised him, in fact." The Censor nodded.

The table went silent for a moment while everyone digested that.

"Anyhow, she functionally ran the country in his name for a decade, then in her own name for another. Her policies were… adequate for keeping the country going, but relied on naked force rather than virtue or reason to maintain authority. Concubines do not become Empresses, and the Empress does not leave the back palace. Particularly when other deserving people stood ready to sit upon the Dragon Throne. It couldn't last, and didn't. Eventually she eliminated the wrong family and suffered the consequences."

"Surprised we didn't have a whole new dynasty." Tian half grinned.

Censor Henshen hesitated. "We sort of did, actually. The name is the same but the current emperors are descended from an adopted son of a collateral house within the greater imperial family. Empress Zhu believed, correctly, that the greatest threat to her rule came from the other members of her family. Her preemptive self defense was remarkably thorough. She probably could have lasted longer if she hadn't gassed the Temple. I understand that similar poison gas formulas are known to cultivators, so they have strict views on it."

Tian opened his mouth for a moment, then slapped his forehead. "IDIOT! I am such an idiot! I have a damn ring full of antidotes, and I didn't think to use one!"

"Don't beat yourself up too much, Brother. I didn't either. How in the Hell did we forget?"

Silence descended on the table. Hong rubbed her face hard. Then spoke again. "I know how."

"How?"

"Time."

"Time?" Tian's eyes opened wide and he stared at Liren.

"Time. It's been… about a year and a half since the battle at Depot Four. And before that, it had been, what, a few months since we were in the field? Really in the field, I mean. It's been almost two years since we were fighting heretics out on the red sands. We stopped expecting every damned attack to have poison in it, and trusted our cultivation to handle whatever poison was thrown our way. At least I know I trusted mine to handle it, and yours…" She let her voice trail off.

"Yeah. That sounds exactly right. What a fine pair we are." Tian's laugh was hollow, but to his surprise, not bitter.

"Forgive me, Immortals, but… no. I apologize." Censor Henshen cut himself off.

"Ask, please." Tian half smiled.

"Little Treasure and I were talking earlier, and hearing what you just said… how old are you? I know certain immortals practice age regression techniques, so it's impossible to tell-"

"I've never met 'em if they do." Hong muttered.

"But sometimes you seem like ancients and sometimes like… heroic youths." He concluded. Tian forced himself to look at the Censor. He wasn't good at estimating ages, but the man looked fully grown up. Not young anymore, but not old either.

"We should be almost sixteen, right Sis?"

"How can you remember the months when keeping track of medicine, but not for keeping track of time?" Liren groused. It was an old argument. "Yes, we are just shy of sixteen. One more week."

Little Treasure dropped his chopsticks with a clatter. "Sixteen? The Immortals are sixteen?" His voice was higher than usual.

"I'm almost sixteen. Brother Tian is almost probably sixteen. He just decided that his birthday was a week before mine to ensure that he was the 'older' brother." Liren left no doubt about her opinion on the matter.

"And time has proven the wisdom of that decision." Tian would brook no mutiny on this point.

"Sixteen. It sounds like you fought a war. You fight like you fought a war." Censor Henshen murmured.

"We did." Hong's voice turned clipped. "We have fought side by side on the battlefield since we were thirteen, sharing life and death, honor and disgrace on the Red Sands. We didn't want to go to war, but war came to us. That's the thing about a long life, Censor. You have to fight for it. Because even if you are sitting quietly on a mountain top, someone is going to kill you for daring to be above them."

Tian nodded, wondering how to explain it to the bewildered mortals. "All the fighting we have been doing? Heretics. What happened at Bluestone City? Heretics. People without compassion, frugality or humility, who decided their lives would be better if yours became worse." He caught Little Treasures' eyes, and tried to put it simply.

Little Treasure stared back at him, his eyes huge. He looked so fragile. Tian felt a sudden need for Little Treasure to understand. It was important that he understand.

"We call people like that Heretics, because they forsake the virtues Orthodox Daoism teaches us are necessary. I have been killing them since I was… Maybe eleven. And I know that, in my tiny way, I have made the world a better place."

He took another look at Treasure, and wiggled his hand a bit. "I'd give it a couple of years before you got started, though. Six seems a bit young."

Censor Henshen had changed from pale to nearly sheet white. "Im. Immortal Tian do you really mean to suggest that a child of less than ten-"

"Certainly. He will be at least Level Three. More than capable of serious violence." Tian nodded.

"It's not a question of capability, Immortal. It's a question of sending literal children into violence deliberately. Sometimes, violence cannot be avoided, it is true. Every person should prepare themselves for it. Every person should oppose chaos and disorder by all lawful means. But children shouldn't be the subject of violence. Adults should not drive children to violence. It is one of the most stark betrayals of filial virtue imaginable. Every civilized person agrees on this point, if on no others!"

Censor Henshen was probably a good dad. Or, at the very least, he probably tried to be. He hadn't said how old he was, when his parents arranged for him to be castrated. Perhaps he had been a child. Tian nodded gently.

"I agree. I especially agreed when I was sick and starving and people threw rocks at me. I just wanted to talk to someone. Anyone. To know other people. And they threw rocks at me. But the brothers at the Temple welcomed me with open arms. They gave me everything. They gave me the world. When Elder Rui said that we had to go fight heretics in the desert, I didn't want to go, but I went. And even on the nights I wake up screaming, I don't regret it. I hate the stupidity that made us have to go, but I don't regret fighting for my brothers one bit. I've seen what heretics do, Censor. I've seen what they have made of this kingdom and its people. I've seen the kingdom aiding them. Ably served by the Civil Service, making sure everything operated smoothly. So damn your petty piety, Censor! Rebuke the sons of bitches buying salt and selling lives!"

Tian slammed his chair back and stormed away from the table. He hadn't been that angry a moment ago. He was sure he hadn't. Black fury was on him now.

He walked out onto the dusty street and saw the white ribbons flying. He saw the mourners in their mourning clothes, carefully tearing their sleeves and wailing. He saw the blood stained dirt, still visible even where the road had been washed with water. He could smell a lingering bitterness on the air, a remnant of the Tyrant's Breath.

Was it fair for the town to suffer the fighting of immortals? No, not at all. During their arguments up on Windblown Manor, Brother Wang would bang the table and declare that such a thing would be impossible in a well designed system. Then Sister Su would say "What a shame no one has managed to design a system well in the last ten thousand years."

What can the weak do but to beg the powerful? To petition the Emperor, to humble themselves before God, to press their heads into the dirt and pray for deliverance? What can they do but pray that some shred of these mighty beings still remembers compassion, frugality and humility?

After a year of studying and traveling around and seeing the world from above and below, Tian came to the conclusion that the enemy was the word 'But.' "I would help, but," was the battle cry of every comfortable lump crushing invisible people under the weight of their apathy.

Tian knew he wasn't well. But that was alright with him. He was getting better. He could stand this pain. He might not have scars on his skin like his big brothers, but he knew they recognized that look in his eyes and saw themselves. He could be proud of his scars.

He didn't say "But." He went. He fought. He was still fighting. Little Treasure would fight too. And if Censor Henshen felt that kids shouldn't be the subject of violence, then why the hell did he help make a world where they were?