"Do you really think Noren is lying to us?" Chang-li asked as they went. He was sure now this was the right direction. Lux intensity was increasing again as they wandered deeper into the swirling storm that represented the ruin of a pyramid.

  Now, the mist all around had begun to take on color, tinged with the different shades of luxes as they passed through a region dense with red, then one full of orange before passing through a band of blue. With each, Chang-li felt the strangeness increasing.

  "I don't know what it would benefit him to lie," Joshi said, "but we know he is not who he seems to be." Joshi glanced at the back of Li Jiya's head. She had strode out a little ways in front of the other two, flaring her own lux senses, claiming she ought to be able to sense enemies sooner than they would, thanks to her newly reached Peak of Spiritual Refinement.

  "I know he's not all he seems," Li Jiya said. "I just didn't know what any of your schemes are."

  "You'll forgive us if we don't want to entrust you with all our secrets," Joshi said.

  "Right now, I just want to find the prism’s shade and convince him to declare me the victor. What more could your master want? If he lied to help motivate you then I approve." Li Jiya stopped as they reached a patch of lux, dense with violet.

  Once more, the fog gave way to shapes out of memory. This vision, the grounds of what Chang-li assumed must be a sect's private headquarters. A suggestion of high mountain peaks loomed overhead, but when he tried to look the fog of lux shifted. They were in an enormous courtyard with a four-story terraced building rising up ahead of them and smaller structures off to either side.

  An enormous tree grew in the courtyard, easily 50 feet around with long curved branches that drooped low. Small green flowers shone from its branches, the brightest color in this whole memory, with white globes at their center.

  A memory ghost wandered up and held his hands out to the tree. The branches rustled, and a fruit fell into his palm. He raised it to his lips and then vanished. A pair of ghosts walked past the place where he had been without seeming to notice. Across the courtyard, four ranks of students faced off and bowed to each other, then began performing the steps of a martial art form, each wielding a four-foot-long stave in their hands. This vision was less orderly than the others, and Chang-li didn't know why. He sought the prism, saw him nowhere.

  "We're wasting time," Li Jiya snapped. "If he's not here, we need to go."

  Chang-li felt the lux. It was situating around one form, one of the students in the array of disciples. He strode forward. The other students vanished, leaving the one on his own.

  He was a young man, younger than Chang-li, barely more than a boy. He stepped confidently through each stage of his form, raising his staff presumably in time with his vanished friends. He had shining dark hair. As he finished his form and turned, his eyes met Chang-li's, and he smiled with a look that was familiar. This then was Nai Hong, but long before he was a prism.

  "You found me again," the young Nai Hong said cheerfully. "Good, good. I hoped you would find me here. You are still lacking. What better place for you to learn than in my own school? I came here as a boy to learn to cultivate. They strove to raise up strong cultivators worthy of serving the emperor. Every month we ate from the bolus tree, a burden which increased the density in our cores and forced us to progress or die, and many died," he mused. "That is not why the emperor ended them. He learned they were teaching their students to split lumos. Do you know why it is forbidden to split lumos?" He spoke to Chang-li directly, ignoring Joshi and Li Jiya.

  Chang-li shook his head. "I thought it was a secret only the emperor knew, that he taught prisms on their elevation."

  Nai Hong laughed. "And when I was a prism, I would have told you just that. But now that I am dead, I find the bonds he laid on me no longer hold. I have chosen to keep some of them myself. I will not speak to you of how to crack lumos. But I assure you others know the secret. And yet the emperor is wise to limit the knowledge."

  "It's because he fears rivals," Joshi guessed.

  For the first time, the prism seemed to take note of him. He looked at Joshi, his expression softening into a smile. "Yes, you would think that. You are incorrect. The emperor does not fear rivals, neither inside nor outside his realm. No, he fears disruption and chaos. That is what Eri is trying to use in her favor, I suppose. Destroy this tower, and it will sow doubt among the emperor's subjects about his ability to truly rule."

  "So, this really will destroy the tower?" Chang-li asked.

  The prism nodded. "Yes, Eri has been clever to kill two birds with one stone. I hope my daughter is keeping her from fleeing. No doubt she intends to be gone from here before the tower can destroy itself. Even she would have difficulty surviving that. I think she would live, but I don't know that her precious school could survive. No doubt she considers the loss of some of her students as acceptable, which is why she's ordered them into this tower to stop you. But to lose her entire sect, that is beyond careless. Now, Eri, despite her seeming impulsiveness, is a clever woman. She has a deeper plan. I don't know what it is, and I suppose it's no longer any of my concern. But I didn't spend this many centuries helping preserve the empire just to let an upstart like that set off a new war. Since you are here, I suppose I'll give you the duty of helping stop her."

  The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

  "Then let us out," Li Jiya demanded. "Let us pass so we may summon the emperor."

  The prism sighed. "Unfortunately, now that I am the Tower Guardian, I no longer have the freedom to let you pass. Not until you have proven your worth. Eri's champion is here somewhere. She has reached the Peak of Spiritual Refinement, and she has a trick up her sleeve that Eri has taught her. Defeat her. Then I will acknowledge you are the victor.”

  "Where is she?" Chang-li asked. "How can we find her?"

  "You already have what you need," the prism said. "The same trick that led you to me will take you to her. Look for the discordant notes. Eri has always been a sower of discord, and her students practice those techniques. Remember that, and you'll have a chance of defeating her." The vision began to fade.

  "Hold on," Joshi said, striding forward. "Give us more than that. You want us to find her and defeat her. You want this tower stabilized."

  "I do," Nai Hong said casually, as though he really didn't care. "That's why I'm wasting so much time with you in these personal interviews. I hope you've been paying attention. There's a great deal here that you may learn, things I can't strictly tell you. Things that may aid you, if you claim them."

  Chang-li didn't care right now about secret techniques or learning. He wanted to get past the Guardian. He began weaving a net of blue and green on the infinite loom, a confusion technique based on blindfold, like what Noren had urged him to use on the ground pigs during training. The prism looked at him and smiled.

  "A valiant attempt. It won't work on me, and it won't work on Mai Wen either. You need to be smarter than that, Cultivator Wu. I saw hints when I was training you that there's more to you than meets the eye. But be careful with your cleverness. Clever cultivators tend to end up dead. Remember, the emperor's rules exist to protect the empire and to protect him, to stop cultivators from ascending too quickly. Part of his reason for doing so is very good. Advance too quickly, and you'll learn why."

  Chang-li loosed his net, but the prism was gone, and so too was the vision. Li Jiya stared in disgust. "I could see why Prism Eri killed him. He's an annoying man, isn't he?"

  "You heard him," Joshi said. "Find Mai Wen and defeat her."

  Li Jiya turned on Chang-li. "Are you going to be able to do that? If I had her here on her knees, could you put your sword through her heart?"

  "Yes," Chang-li promised. "Yes, if that's what it takes."

  "You need to think about that," Li Jiya told him, "because she's probably a dupe. I doubt Eri told her what's going on. She may well be deceived and think that she's doing the right thing here, but it doesn't matter. We can't afford those luxuries anymore. We have to find her and stop her. Time is running out. We don't know how much more we have."

  Chang-li reached out to the lux, feeling it flow through him as he cycled, listening to it. The tones were becoming more and more discordant. The lux circled around a point. No, a person. Mai Wen’s will was shaping their flows, carving out a bubble around herself. A sick conviction was growing in Chang-li. “We can’t beat her. She’s stronger than any of us, stronger than all of us.”

  “I refuse to believe that.” Li Jiya snarled. “I have not given up my family, my sect, my cultivation to be stopped by anyone. We’ve gone up against her in contests before now —”

  “And she’s been holding back,” Chang-li said with certainty as he listened to the song of the lux. “Or maybe Prism Eri taught her a new trick, but the feel I’m getting here… she’s got to be nearing the next stage of cultivation. You’ve only just reached the Peak of Spiritual Refinement, Joshi and I are farther behind than you are.”

  “He’s right,” Joshi said. “Mai Wen’s will is stronger even than yours, Li Jiya. We can’t go head to head. We need a plan.”

  “Don’t pit your will against hers,” Li Jiya said. “That’s the essence of cultivation. Overwhelm your enemy with your strength, or fool her with your wiles.”

  Treachery. Something that appeared to be other than it was. Chang-li missed a step as he thought. That appealed to him. He’d gotten a long way by lying, then making the lie real.

  “Her will makes it hard to land a blow on her,” Joshi said. “If I were able to touch her, I think I could break through her will and hurt her. She doesn’t like head-to-head fights, we’ve seen that.”

  “Illusions,” Chang-li mused. “I think… maybe… yes. If she doesn’t know what my attack is, she can’t block it.” He turned to Joshi. “The tether technique we’ve been practicing, would that work for what you’re suggesting?”

  “Yes, if I had the technique mastered. I don’t,” Joshi said flatly.”I need weeks more training. I can see the shape of it, but I can’t actually do it. Trying to learn a new technique in middle of a fight…”

  Chang-li reached under his robes to pull out the temporal training chamber crystal. It dangled from its chain, swinging back and forth, filled with a pale purple light. "Do you just need time to practice?” He held it out to Joshi. "It's mostly refilled. It should work. Take it. Take the time you need."

  Joshi stared. "You would give me this?"

  "Right now I need you able to go up against Mai Wen a lot more than I need some future training time," Chang-li said.

  Joshi reached out with trembling hands. He laid a hand on the crystal and vanished.

  Li Jiya was staring at Chang-li. She shook her head quietly. "I can’t believe you have a training chamber. And you give its power so freely. If every sect was populated by cultivators who thought of the advancement of others ahead of their own, this world would be a very different place," she said quietly. "I just hope Joshi makes good use of the time.”

  Chang-li stared at the space where his friend had been. What if Joshi couldn't learn the technique? He couldn't worry about that now. Instead, he pulled in more lux and began working on a practice weave of Mirage Blade, thinking over the hint Noren had given him. Any advantage in this next fight might mean the difference between life and death. If Mai Wen couldn’t see his attack coming, she couldn’t block it.

  Li-Jiya pointed at the crystal in Chang-li’s hand. "We can’t wait for him, you know. We have to keep moving."

  Chang-li nodded. "I know, but before we get there I have something I want to try."