Unseen Cultivator

As time passed, the composition of the ruling council of Mother's Gift underwent shifts. Sisters entered and departed closed door cultivation, trading out their place to another as they did so. The precise patterns varied, based upon long-term ongoing projects, bottlenecks in advancement, and personal inclination. Ideally, each of the fifteen would alternate on a roughly even basis, but reality landed somewhat askew of that ideal.

Some variations were largely positive. Ever since achieving the seventh layer one thousand years earlier, Iay had largely forgone closed door sessions. She was, they all knew, in no hurry to attempt ascension while the war still raged out in the Ruined Wastes. All viewed this act of generosity with silent respect and deep gratitude.

In her place Phantom Flare, the only male member of their immortal company, was allowed to remain in confined pursuit of the dao more or less continually. That suited his personality and was widely agreed upon as an ideal situation by the fourteen women. The man's singular devotion to the dao, overriding all other concerns, was rather narrow, but it served well in regard to minimizing potential conflict. It made for an excellent excuse to avoid discussions related to gender composition in leadership.

The prospect of another man, one more outspoken, joining the immortal ranks left many of the sisters uncomfortable. None voiced such concerns, not over something that ought to be trivial, but more worried about what they would do when the inevitable finally occurred. None of the fourteen looked forward to that future with relish. Many suspected that those silent opinions served to hold back the men in the Celestial Origin Sect, but solutions to a problem never given voice were a rare breed indeed.

Orday had chosen twelve female disciples and raised them as sisters. Men had not been a part of her teaching. In the old world such selectivity had been unremarkable, barely worthy of comment.

Itinay considered it a testament to her mother's incomparable genius and insight that the methods of the Celestial Origin Sect worked as well for men as they did. Or, perhaps, it was simply that within the infinity of the dao such things as gender were rendered insignificant. She had never considered the philosophical question worthy of examination. Numbers were far more accommodating than such messy facets of life.

Regardless, Iay remained present while Phantom Flare stayed absent. Others cycled in and out. Of those who had fought against the most recent horde, half were now behind closed doors. Ajuday, Animray, Aorkay, and Artemay had replaced Akiray, Eculay, Onimray, and Uzay. Though Itinay counted the eccentric and hooded Artemay among her strongest allies, the new balance did not favor her. It left Neay and Ohlay, warm presences in contrast to her ominous chill, as the loudest voices.

In such circumstances she had not expected to be called to an unscheduled council meeting. There was no demon threat at present. The scouts reported the hills almost completely empty, decades at least before any aggregation of consequence might form. Expansion of the sect had involved some discussion among the sisters regarding construction and disbursement options, but this was well in hand and Neay, as mistress of the Farming Pavilion – by far the largest of the twelve – was inclined to conduct such matters through her own stewardship unless one of her sisters objected.

Itinay would be the last to do so. She had little interest in managing the egos of spirit tempering and soul forging realm cultivators. The same could not be said of Ohlay, but the golden-haired immortal worked well with the vine-clad farmer. Any difficulties they faced would be settled through private discussion; the council never became involved unless a third party intervened.

Yet it had been Neay who put out the call for this meeting, a very strange circumstance indeed.

As she had the furthest to travel, Itinay was the last to arrive, though only by a modest amount. The little room adjacent to the elder hall remained as it always did. Her sisters sat in quiet meditation, waiting patiently until all had assembled. When she took her seat on the small cushion and completed the circle, cycling qi relaxed, and impressions were made clear to all.

No fear, not this day. That much made it clear this meeting was no matter of demons or some other unexpected threat to all of Mother's Gift. A significant reassurance, such sensations, but this knowledge left Itinay confused rather than comforted. Neay was not a sensationalist. Grounded, earthy, and concerned with growth, she tended toward the practical and the well-established. This was responsible for her tendency to grandstand, but it also made her dependable.

The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

The way she felt now, a combination of disturbed and embarrassed, it offered several possibilities, but none of them were pleasant ones. Watching her sister carefully, Itinay wondered how this might unfold. The suspense, artificial though it might be, was invigorating.

Neay began speaking almost immediately after they had all sat down. "I am sorry to summon you, sisters, but a regrettable situation has developed," she glanced over to Ohlay, very briefly. A simple move, but it combined with the shared ripples of their qi to reveal that both knew the true circumstances. The pale green sister had simply chosen to speak first. "Three days ago there was a murder in Starwall City. The victim, Dai Shui, was a young woman in service to the sect library."

A prestigious position, among the servants. It offered independence from the demands of an individual cultivator's household, the opportunity to work with limited supervision, and the intellectual authority that came from storing, sorting, and studying scholarly publications. For a young woman to hold such a post, when most of the librarians were wizened and aged, meant the girl must have been talented. Probably in engraving, Itinay guessed. Skilled hands were always needed to produce high quality blocks for the reprinting of key manuals.

"She was slain while returning to her residence in the city," Neay continued, somber out of respect for the dead. Mortal lives might be short, but that did not make them unworthy. "Death was effected through a single stab to the chest from behind," the narration paused, with a scowl added before Neay continued to the reveal that mattered. "By chance, Qin Xuegang, a sect member in the body refining realm of the carpentry pavilion, happened by only moments later. This occurrence prevented any defacement of the remains."

No one said aloud what all the sisters knew. Dai Shui had been the young cultivator's lover, and he had been in rather aggressive pursuit of her person. Itinay recalled the recent initiate, as she did all members of the sect. He was a papermaker, a rather cliche case to end up sleeping with a librarian, but such things happened just often enough to remain amusing. Regrettable that it had ended sadly, affairs begun in shared interest tended to endure longer than most.

"Qin Xuegang was not responsible. He is a member of the mace hall and carries no blade,," Neay confirmed. "The strike was made by one skilled in the use of daggers, and made using a blade far sharper than any crafted by mortal hands, a blade that contained embedded qi. The blow caused the flesh around the wound to burn away even as it was severed."

Silence filled the little room. Sour expressions dominated the faces of the eight gathered immortals. The greasy, embarrassed feelings percolating out from Neay and Ohlay made perfect sense now. All were familiar with such events. For those who had sat in this council for so long a truly new circumstance was unlikely. Tragic repetition was all too common.

They had designed the sect to prevent such bitter abuses, to provide happy lives with modest duties that imposed no demands onerous enough to breed resentment. The stipends allotted to even the weakest cultivators were generous, enough to supply many luxuries and pleasures. Envy, jealousy, these things were minimized, and the supply of attractive young servants – all well-compensated – was kept abundant in an effort to avoid fostering any competition.

It worked, mostly, but no system was perfect, certainly not one intended to control rebellious youth. One cultivator killing the mortal lover of another out of rejection, rivalry, or some other base desire was irregular, but only on short timescales. Even those with long lives required periodic reminders of the consequences.

Yet Neay's grim expression, her unsettled qi, these signs indicated a deeper discomfort than a cultivator who had decided to indulge in murder and earned several decades repairing the Starwall every waking hour. "As is always done," the grand elder continued, grim and serious. "An archives search was conducted to determine the possibility of similar crimes." Such methods were useful in tracking thefts, rapes, and certain other offenses. Itinary knew they rarely meant much regarding murder. Few people possessed such hatred as to kill multiple times.

"Seven additional incidents were found," Neay concluded flatly.

Every eye in the room turned to stare. The silence was absolute, but the storm of qi raging beneath it could have sunk ships.

"Seven young women, all mortals in service to the sect, slain in Starwall City in the past decade," the explanation strained even Neay's forcible imposed calm. "The bodies were all severely burned, preventing investigators from discerning that a qi-empowered weapon was used to conduct the killings. I have no doubt that all eight murders were perpetuated by the same man."

It would be a man, of course, Itinay knew. It always was, seemingly, when it came to compulsive killers of women. The immortal wondered why, but thankfully such twisted figures were sufficiently rare as to preclude any need for detailed study. She did not doubt Neay was correct. None of the assembled sisters did.

"Then we question the whole sect, today," Artemay, ever quick to shift to action, injected her preferred solution with a characteristic lack of hesitancy. "Everyone in the body refining realm, vitality annealing too, just to sure."

Neay nodded. It was a time-consuming and exhausting move to make, but its efficacy made it necessary. The killer would not be able to hide from their questions. It was one advantage of the nature of qi.

A single thought, one small sliver of variation in this case from others across the centuries, induced Itinay to suggest a small additional action. "I believe the archives should be searched in order to identify the killer's weapon, and if it is missing."

Immortals did not gasp in shock, but the disgust that followed as the eight considered this possibility, and its implications, was palpable. A cultivator turned serial killer was monstrous enough. A mortal afflicted with such madness putting hands on an artifact they should never possess was far, far worse.

"Let us work quickly, sisters," Neay broke apart the panic with a call to action, one met with universal agreement.