Chang-li and Joshi found Master Noren in a back corner of the garden. He was upside down, resting his whole weight on the flat of his left palm, with his legs folded above his torso in a meditation posture. With his right hand, he wove an intricate pattern of at least four luxes.

His eyes were shut. Chang-li felt the breaths of lux all around as Noren's pattern altered the air. Noren let go of the weave and began cycling. Chang-li instinctively did the same and realized the lux levels in this area were perfectly balanced between spiritual and physical luxes. Noren's technique had altered the balance.

"Grandmaster," Joshi said, "we would have your advice."

"Would you?" Noren asked without opening his eyes. "Go ahead."

It was a little disconcerting speaking to him like this, but Chang-li plunged on. "Joshi and I have been talking about the next stage of our advancement."

"Yes," Noren said. He sounded bored, as though he had not been instructing Chang-li on this very topic a few hours ago.

Joshi spoke, interrupting Chang-li. "Can you weave so that we are not overheard?"

Noren righted himself, bringing his folded legs down to the ground and folding his hands in his lap in one subtle, smooth motion. He twitched his fingers, and the air around shifted subtly. "That will not hold out the gaze of a prism, but anyone less will be bewildered. Certainly, the Brotherhood gardeners that Eldest Brother Jiang has set to watch us here will not notice anything amiss," he said calmly.

Chang-li glanced around. He saw no sign of the gardeners, though he had passed a few on the way in, and he didn't doubt Noren.

"What is it?"

Chang-li cleared his throat. "Grandmaster Noren, you have been cagey with us about your origin."

"As you have been about yours. I thought we had an understanding that in this sect, the past is best left to itself," Noren said.

"Yes, but you know our capabilities," Joshi said. "We don't know you. We are trusting, taking rather a lot on faith."

"That is true," Noren agreed.

"What stage is your cultivation?" Joshi demanded.

Chang-li expected Noren to be upset or to deflect. Instead, he removed a cultivator's license from inside his robes and held it out. It was orange with a black border, which meant he had once been married to a spouse of orange ranking but was now widowed. Chang-li took it and opened it. The first page proclaimed that Noren was grandmaster of the Morning Mist sect. The second through tenth had various commendations. The last page in the whole book showed he had achieved the rank of Lux Embodiment. Chang-li put the book down.

"Well, this is a lovely forgery," he said. "Was there anything in it that's true?"

Noren considered. "That commendation for single-handedly defeating a Lux Embodiment-level tower beast that had escaped and menaced a town. I did do that. Not when the license says I did, of course, or where, but I've earned that one, in my opinion. As for the rest," he shrugged, "a patchwork of lies, right down to my name."

"Then why are you here?" Joshi demanded. The two stood over the master. Chang-li felt vaguely uncomfortable, but he didn't want to sit either. It would be better if Noren stood and was on equal terms with them both, but he didn't seem inclined to move.

Noren cocked his head to one side. "Do you know, I am briefly tempted to tell you the truth. Not that you would believe me, I think. Shall we just say your interests and mine lie together for a time? But come, you were here to seek my advice, which means you must recognize that I have some worth giving."

"Have you ever heard of the Heart of Ice?" Joshi asked.

Chang-li froze in surprise at his friend's sudden question, and he almost missed Noren's reaction. Noren's eyes went wide. Then, so quickly, Chang-li might have missed it had he not been watching him closely, they narrowed to slits as he considered Joshi. "I have, and I know that it is not the myth that many of my colleagues believe it to be, which I suppose you know as well."

Chang-li glanced at Joshi. His friend had never spoken about this. Questions bubbled up in his mind, but Chang-li held his tongue.

"I do," Joshi confirmed. "My father has been convinced for the past 15 years that the Heart is re-emerging. That is why he went to the trouble of having me trained at Harupa."

"So, you were to lead the Darwur into the Heart of Ice?" Noren snorted. "I suppose you would have taught a bunch of illiterate, bad-tempered, unwashed obstinate horse warriors to become cultivators inside the greatest death trap the empire has ever heard of."

Chang-li couldn't hold himself back any longer.. "What's the Heart of Ice?"

"It's a legendary cultivation tower," Noren said. "It lies somewhere beyond the great desert of the west, protected by fierce storms, terrifying creatures, and of course, terrifying Darwur barbarians. More than that, the tower itself is buried deep in a glacier, in the side of the tallest mountain range in the world."

"The Mother of Sky," Joshi said, and he sounded so reverent Chang-li had to take a quick glance at him. He'd never heard his friend sound quite like that before. "She birthed the sky ten thousand years ago, and then when he fathered Man and Horse and Hawk, she gave each of them gifts. But man turned his back on her and on Sky and sought to tame Horse and Hawk. The Heart of Ice is a reminder of that folly."

"Yes, well, indigenous legends aside, it is a remarkable place," Noren said. "Inadvisable for anyone to attempt without a full sect at their back and cultivators at Lux Endowment or higher to support them. I don't know what your father was thinking. There was very little chance that even a Harupa-trained warrior could have guided your people."

"Perhaps," Joshi said, sounding unruffled. "But having trained with Harupa, I see the value of a good foundation. I am not gifted in teaching," he said.

"You could do better if you tried," Chang-li countered.

"But I know two men who are," Joshi continued. "What if I could take you to my brothers and persuade them to give us access to the tower? They will know when it opens long before any outside sect does."

"Hmm," Noren mused. He put a hand under his chin. It looked as though he was thinking hard. "You say that, but I'm beginning to wonder at the timing of Eri's actions. Her attempt here was not just capricious, no matter what she might want us to have thought. This is part of a well-timed plan. She's risking starting a war. There's a good reason for it. And control of one of the legendary towers of heaven might be it."

Chang-li felt so overwhelmed by the direction of the conversation, it was hard to decided what to ask. "Wait, one of the legendary towers? There's more than one? What are they? How could one be so important she would defy the emperor?"

Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

"For one," Noren said, "it is said that the emperor himself climbed to the top of each of them before he was granted the insight to achieve his own current rank. Prisms seek permission to enter even just one. Usually, if they complete the climb on a legendary tower, they then ascend to the heavens at once. Fortunes are made and lost inside those towers, sects raised and destroyed. Cultivators reach new tiers or are brought low."

"Then I want in on that," Chang-li said at once.

Joshi raised a hand. "And I will take us there. But first, we should reach the Peak of Spiritual Enlightenment, if we can."

"Yes," Noren said, seeming to shake himself as he came back to reality. "That is what I thought you were going to ask me about. Are you looking for suggestions there? I could..."

"No," Chang-li interrupted. He cleared his throat and recalled their reason for seeking Noren. He glanced at Joshi, who nodded for him to continue. "That is, we have a plan. We are going to seek out the original home of the sect and learn from whatever remains there."

Noren jolted to his feet. His expression flashed with conflicting emotions too fast for Chang-li to make sense of them. "You what?"

"The sect of Morning Mists existed long ago. It's not something that the Eldest Brother made up, or Min or even me," Chang-li said. "We found a trove of documents that they left behind." He was going to leave the ghost scribe Wulan out of this conversation if he could. "In amongst those, we found a map showing the sect headquarters. The sect itself has been destroyed, but..."

"Yes, of course," Noren said, staring at him. "Of course, that makes complete sense. I thought..." He shook himself. "Where?"

"I've been comparing the map to various landmarks," Chang-li said.

Noren held out a hand. "I was fairly well-traveled in my day. Shall we see if we can make sense of it together?"

Chang-li felt abashed. Somehow, Noren must have expected him to have it on him. He shook his head. "Ah, it's with the sect records."

Noren's face showed astonishment. "You left something like that where anyone could find it?"

"Well, no one will," Chang-li protested. "Eldest Brother Jiang had his seal placed on the room. No Brotherhood member will enter without permission, and no member of the sect either."

"Oh, you naive fool of a scribe." Noren shook his head. "Come," he said impatiently and strode off.

They hurried along the garden to the sect house, where Noren stormed into the records room and looked around. Chang-li retrieved the scroll, which held the map, and his larger scroll where he'd been working to project that map onto a modern one. He unrolled them both and showed, "I think it's in the Darshen Mountains," he said. "This here on the map corresponds nicely with the Broadhead Peak. Then this river would be the Tauninar. The scale's wrong, obviously. This one's more pictographic," he indicated the Morning Mist map.

"You're forgetting that they likely wanted this map to be able to deceive a casual onlooker," Noren said. "Have you accounted for that?"

"If you're making a map, why have it lie?" Chang-li asked.

Both Joshi and Noren stared at him. "It's a map of secrets," Joshi said flatly. "Of course, it's not all going to be revealed at once."

Noren bent over the map. "Have you noticed this?" he asked, pointing at the compass in the right corner.

"Yes, I took the direction into account." The compass pointed with west up, not north.

"I meant the rings."

Chang-li bent in closer and studied the compass. It had a pair of interlocking arrows, the red one pointing upward with the ancient character for West barely visible on it, the other blue superimposed on a set of six rings. Chang-li frowned. "What's that mean?"

"It's an ancient convention," Noren said. "When you see six rings like that, you can assume that they may reference the six colors ordinary cultivators are allowed to manipulate and that it's important. You see how they are different widths?"

Chang-li peered. Noren was right. The innermost band was twice as wide as the outermost, with each of the six varying a little bit. "Yes," he said slowly.

"Now look at the map as a whole," Noren urged.

Chang-li looked. He wasn't seeing it. He picked up the scroll and studied it. Something was escaping his attention. Then he had an idea. He projected a thin tendril of green lux at the scroll, just as he sometimes had to feed lux into Wulan's pen case. The scroll sucked in the lux, and a set of six concentric rings appeared on it. Each of these was the same width, with the innermost ring right around the notation for the Morning Mist sect headquarters.

He turned to Noren. "Okay, but I don't understand what this means."

"It's a cipher of sorts," Noren said. "The map has been altered in scale. If you apply the ratios shown on the compass rose to each of these rings, you'll get a true map."

Chang-li looked at it in awe. Could Noren be right? "I'm going to need better light," he managed.

Noren laughed and clapped him on the shoulder. "You will have the time you need. For now, though, let us discuss your plans. I think you are correct. You need to go outside of yourselves for studying who you are to become. A journey may be just the thing. You'll need an expedition outfitted. Don't worry, I will make sure that eldest brother Jiang thinks this is all his idea. He won't know the details."

Noren grew more serious, striking his beard thoughtfully. "I'll have a few pieces of advice for you before you go. There are traps and pitfalls that are easy for cultivators of your level to fall into. You'll want to be aware of them. We haven't much time now, and I can see you want to get to the map."

Chang-li knew a dismissal when he heard one, but there was more he needed to know. They were setting off into the unknown, without a guide. "Just one thing more," he said. "I want to understand this path I'm walking. After Spiritual Refinement, I know that Lux Endowment comes next, but what does that actually mean?"

Noren chuckled. "Good. You are at last beginning to think like a cultivator. It is always wise to consider your next step before you have committed to this one. Ensure that your foundation is strong. Remember, though, Spiritual Refinement is a huge stumbling block for many cultivators. Fewer than 10% of those who reach Bodily Refinement actually make it to Spiritual Refinement."

Chang-li nodded. "I'd heard that."

"The stage beyond Spiritual Refinement is Lux Endowment. It requires you to have a greater understanding and awareness of lux. You will begin to be able to distinguish shades within shades." He pulled out a strand of green lux, making it visible between his hands and holding it up. "I can see 64 different shades of green within this color," he said. "Each of them is best suited to a specific sort of weave or task. At Lux Endowment, you will be able to see, hear, and taste each different shade, as well as subtly alter shades within a color. You cannot ever, of course, convert green lux to blue, but you can convert red-tinged green to yellow-tinged or vice versa. This is required for most of the four and more color weaves. You'll need multiple shades of green to hold them together, which you will actively shape and alter."

"Like shaping the notes by plucking strings," Joshi mused. Chang-li's mind was a whirl of new possibilities. He longed to ask detailed questions — but that was far off, and he needed to focus.

"Many cultivators strive for years to master Lux Endowment. Even fewer make it to the next step. More fall to their doom than succeed in reaching it because the core truth of Lux Embodiment is to remake your body using nothing but lux."

"The — Someone I met said as much," Joshi said.

Chang-li didn't miss the brief pause in the middle of his sentence. He'd almost said something he didn't want Noren to know. He'd have to ask Joshi later. "But how?"

"It is both more and less than what you think it is." Noren held up a hand, wriggling his fingers. "As you can see, I have a body which is still fleshy to touch. It has merely been infused and remade with lux."

"Didn't we already do that at Bodily Refinement?" Chang-li asked.

Noren shook his head. "No. At the Peak of Bodily Refinement, you were shaping your body to properly make use of lux so that it was no longer toxic to you and you could hold more of it without dying."

He waited until Joshi and Chang-li had both made understanding noises before continuing.

"Lux Embodiment truly does mean to remake yourself with lux. There are certain benefits. A longer lifespan, immunity to most natural illnesses, that sort of thing. But it is, of course, very dangerous. If you make a mistake at the critical moment, you will be dissolved into pure lux. Even if you succeed, your body will be as much lux as flesh. A skilled opponent can use that against you, ripping the lux from your body and leaving you..." He hesitated. "Well, it's not a pretty sight. It's one reason you must have a will hard as diamond before attempting that step."

Chang-li shuddered at the images that leapt to his mind.

"Lux Dominion," Noren let the green lux between his hands fade away, "well, you can take a hint from the name. A Lux Dominion cultivator exerts his will not over the world, the way a Spiritual Refinement cultivator does, or other people, but over lux itself. Since lumos is derived from and flows through all of creation, it gives a new level of control or dominion. After that, your path will become more and more individualized."

Chang-li considered the self-proclaimed Grandmaster. "You're not Lux Embodiment tier, are you?" He was certain that Noren must have reached Lux Dominion, to speak of it so casually.

Noren reared back, indignant. "What sort of scribe are you, to question the authenticity of my paperwork? I think this is enough for now. I will have a word with the eldest brother while you figure out where it is you're actually going."

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