Chang-li rose early, the last stars hanging in the sky as to the east the light began to gather. Most of the encampment was asleep, but Noren and Joshi waited for him.

"Now," Noren said, as he led them toward the Morning Mist central building, "I have a great many answers that I owe you, but we also have a lot of work to do. So, let's try to do them both at the same time."

"How long is this going to take us?" Chang-li asked, his mind still half back with the sleeping Min.

"As long as it needs," Noren said.

"I have spent too many hours on training already," Joshi said. "I've reached the Peak of Spiritual Refinement. I am ready to return to my people as soon as I find enough worth taking back to them."

"And you will," Noren assured him. "Also, keep in mind that time spent training, while it may seem long, often turns out to be shorter than you thought."

Chang-li wrinkled his forehead at that one, but they were approaching the entrance to the great tower now.

"We've searched this place, top to bottom," Joshi said. "There's nothing here. Nothing."

"Is that so?" Noren said as he stepped into the first floor training room. They followed him in, the familiar muffled feeling falling into place around Chang-li as the door shut behind him.

Nore turned to face Chang-li and Joshi, and Chang-li felt the change in him. The Grandmaster felt hard and cold. He had lux gathered around him and was cycling it in a complicated pattern. Chang-li couldn't follow. There was a great deal involved in it.

Noren raised his hands over his head and began a weave. Chang-li focused on the lux he wove, listening closely. He could hear the different notes of lux as they wove together, and his blood went cold. "Is that violet?" he demanded.

"You are going to have to get used to breaking a few rules if you want to advance, Disciple Chang-li," Noren said.

"But wasn't using violet lux the reason why Morning Mist was destroyed in the first place?"

Noren gave a mirthless smile. "That was the excuse the Emperor gave. Since every major sect uses violet lux, no one protested too much. They all knew his eye could fall on them next. And it was much safer to allow the few survivors to believe that was the cause. But no," Noren said. "The Emperor does not destroy a sect for so humble a sin. Lower-ranked cultivators he might execute, and higher-level cultivators, if they're violating it too flagrantly, he will find ways to show his displeasure, but destroy an entire sect? Nonsense. He destroyed Morning Mist because he learned they had a treasure that could mean their undoing."

"And how do you know that?" Joshi demanded, looking suspiciously at Noren.

"Because," Noren said, with a deep sigh, "I brought it here in the first place."

Chang-li went stiff and cold at that. Could it be — was Noren saying —

There was a visible ball of light in the grandmaster's hands now. The colors shifting and moving like a rainbow caught in a web. He thrust it out directly toward the back wall, and the ball hurled forward.

Before Chang-li could protest, it impacted the back wall. He expected the wards there to absorb it, but instead the wall shuddered, and a moment later, an outline appeared and formed a circular opening tall enough to walk through, filled with light. It most certainly did not lead outside.

Noren gestured. "After you."

"This is the vault?" Joshi demanded.

Noren nodded. "It is. The rest of what we'd like to speak about, I'm going to hold off until we are inside, and the wards restored. You can't be too careful."

Torn between fear that Noren had some treachery in mind and his hunger to know what lay before him, Chang-li took a hesitant step forward. Then, his nerve almost breaking, he rushed ahead through the opening. Joshi swore in Darwur and followed as Chang-li stepped through. A moment later, Noren joined them.

There was a snap, and Chang-li felt a pop in his ears as the opening behind them disappeared.

They stood in a space pulsing with light. The floor he stood on picked up the hues of the light all around and shifted between red, green, purple, blue.

An enormous white bridge, iridescent and shining with colors reflected from the sky above them, lay ahead, arching out across a vast chasm filled with glowing golden clouds.

Looking up, Chang-li saw gray, but mixed with different shades as lux beamed in and out. "What is this place?" he asked, as Noren strode off across the bridge. It stretched out seemingly for hundreds of feet, the end vanishing into a pearlescent mist.

"You'll see," Noren said. "Come," and they followed.

Chang-li cycled his lux, bringing fresh lux in from outside. It was even denser than he thought he'd ever felt, and there was a beat to it, like the lux itself was already being cycled. He let it flow through him and sensed the lux flowing from up ahead, pumped out from down below. The bridge was leading into the heart of the chamber. "Do you know what's going on?" he asked Joshi.

Joshi answered with awe in his voice, "I think we are inside the lux well."

"Very good," Noren called, "you are exactly correct."

"How can we be inside a lux well?" Chang-li asked, boggled. "How big is it?"

"I would have hoped by now you would have stopped asking foolish questions like that," Noren said. "Come. We were speaking of more interesting matters, weren't we?"

Chang-li caught up to his supposed master. "Tell me, who you really are then?"

"As I said before, I was born here. My name as a boy was Kang."

Chang-li staggered back as realization hit him. "Kang. You're Cultivator Kang, the one in Wulan's journal?" He should have seen this; there had been so many signs that Noren had connections to Morning Mist. The man had as much as said he was using a false name long before. How had he not put the clues together? "I thought Kang must have died with Wulan."

The supposed Noren shook his head. "Unfortunately, I was not there when Wulan was attacked. I made a mistake, and it cost him his life. I regret that. I continued through that tower and then on my own journey. That was a long time ago."

"But how? Why?" Chang-li shook his head, as a million thoughts raced about. But it was Joshi who spoke next, "It seems a bit of a coincidence that the last remaining member of Morning Mist should return and present himself as her Grandmaster."

"No coincidence at all," Noren said cheerfully, "or rather, all of the coincidences are bound to the same cause. The reappearance of the primal tower, the Heart of Ice."

Joshi swore under his breath.

Chang-li knew an opening when he heard one. Still, he asked the expected question. "What's a primal tower?"

"An excellent question," Noren said. "One that would take too long to explain. Suffice it to say, there are thirteen primal towers in this world. The Emperor's own tower is one, but concealed and tamed to make it appear to be an ordinary tower. Eleven lie far from our borders and are fought over by cultivators who make Prisms look like children. And one… one lies in the heart of the desert wastes that Joshi's people call home."

Up ahead, something began to form out of the mist: a platform of stone with enormous jagged purple crystals on its bottom, holding it up. It appeared to float in midair. The bridge led straight to it.

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On the platform stood tall golden trees with silver leaves, shaking and reflecting. The lux swirled around them so densely Chang-li could see it. The trees were producing the lux. He saw their roots winding down through the crystals at the bottom of the platform and disappearing into the mist below, and realized the trees were drawing the lux up from the bottom.

"I've been watching for the emergence of this particular primal tower; it's the only one the emperor will care about," Noren said as they reached the platform. He leapt lightly into the lowest branch of one tree and sat there, cross-legged, and pointed to the tree opposite, on which a golden fruit hung. "Fetch that. I will talk while you attempt it," he said.

Chang-li looked at the fruit. It was about six feet overhead, dangling from a branch. A little too high, perhaps, to leap. He instead drew his sword and swung while reinforcing the blade with orange, trying to lengthen it.

The blade passed right through the branch without touching it. Astonished, he turned back. Joshi was looking at the tree with a thoughtful expression on his face.

Noren cleared his throat. "In the vault of Morning Mist is an item. I can't tell you what it is or what it does, but this is what the emperor killed Morning Mist for."

Chang-li stared with his mouth open. Joshi crossed his arms, standing with feet apart. "And you say you found this think yourself? That the Emperor knows of it, that he killed Morning Mist — but left the... whatever it is?"

"I'll get to that," Noren said. "Let me ask you a question, as is tradition for masters to do of their students. You are both advanced enough in cultivation to understand the strength you have over an ordinary human. Why, then, do cultivators here in the empire permit scribes and officials without any cultivation of their own to say where and when they may gather lux?"

Chang-li blinked. He'd… never questioned that before. It was how the world worked. "Uh, I suppose that…" He hesitated. "I've seen enough sects and cultivators now to know it's not because they want to follow the rules. It's fear of the emperor, isn't it?"

Noren nodded. "He's got the system well set up by now. He controls who may enter a tower and gather lux, which is required to advance. He keeps us all in chains; our advancement recorded by scribes, our movements limited by officials, our secret plans reported by the spies he slips into our beds. Any who step too far out of line will be hunted down by a loyal sect. And the Prisms, his loyal henchmen, are there if a sect bands together to oppose him."

Joshi turned and spat. "And for those who are too strong and powerful, he funnels them off to war with outsider groups like mine. My father noticed, how we had killed off men who were surprised to fall to our spears. Keep a cultivator from lux too long and he's no stronger than an ordinary man."

Chang-li folded his arms. "That is all very well, but what does it have to do with vaults and secret items?"

Noren made a 'get on with it' gesture to Chang-li. "You are correct. I will tell you after you get the fruit."

Gritting his teeth, Chang-li turned back. Abandoning his pride, he filled his body with lux and leapt for the branch. His hands wrapped around it for an instant. Then there was nothing. He fell back to the ground, hard, bruising his rear.

He stared up at that branch. It had been there in his hand for a second; that it wasn't an illusion. He looked at Joshi. "Are you going to help?"

Joshi shook his head. "As it happens, I have heard this trick before, and I think it is a lesson for you, not me."

"Well done, Joshi," Noren said. "It is well for you not to interfere with your fellow disciple when your master is trying to teach something."

"Have you not just said you are not our master?" Joshi asked. "Supposedly, Grandmaster Noren is in charge of Morning Mist, and you claim to be Cultivator Kang."

Noren waved a hand. "I prefer to keep this new name. I abandoned Kang long ago. It no longer seems to fit, and none of the names I took up on my wanderings truly suit me. I am attached to Noren because that is what my disciples call me." He beamed at them before continuing as Chang-li got to his feet again. "Yes, I sought you out when I received word that someone had claimed the document trove in Fai-Lan City. I left it there long ago, and by the time I went back, it was worthless to me, so I merely took some precautions to make sure if it was ever disturbed, I learned about it. I was traveling back to learn the truth when I somewhat fortuitously ran into the previous Grandmaster Noren."

Noren looked thoughtful.

"Now that may perhaps have been a coincidence. However, that particular tavern is where the sectless cultivators on this side of the empire tend to congregate and swap rumors, which was why I was there. It's hardly surprising Noren would have been there as well. After that, everything was easy. I came to Vardin City and I admit I made a few wrong assumptions: my belief was that the Brotherhood had uncovered the name of Morning Mist and was using it as a cover to start their own sect. That is the sort of thing that happens on occasion. It was not until I spoke with Wulan that I realized the truth,"

Chang-li gaped at him. "Wulan didn't tell me he'd spoken to you."

"Ah." Noren looked slightly embarrassed. He rubbed his face, still sitting in the tree. Its leaves shuddered slightly as he shrugged. "Well, I took care that he would not remember. I didn't want him giving away my identity too soon. But the time for subterfuge is over. Prism Eri has made the first move."

Chang-li was weaving together a noose of orange lux. He hurled it at the tree branch. It tightened down around it, and he pulled. For an instant, the fruit dipped toward him. He stretched his fingers upward. They brushed the fruit, and then the knot came loose, and he fell backward onto his rear once more. Noren let out a laugh.

"Are you suggesting we support Eri in this war?" Joshi asked, looking grim.

"Absolutely not," Noren said. "I'm suggesting we do our very best not to get involved, but that when that primal tower emerges, you, Joshi, are going to want to be there. It's the one opportunity your people have to train enough cultivators to hold back the empire, especially if there's a war going on. And you, Chang-li, can you really tell me you don't want to learn what it is like to break down the fundamental truth of the universe into components you can use to manipulate reality itself?"

Chang-li did want that. He stared at the golden fruit on the bough, his mouth watering, thinking about it. There was a trick here. He turned back to Noren. "Will you give me a hint about this puzzle?"

Noren clapped his hands. "I will answer three questions. I will not tell you how to fetch this fruit."

Chang-li puzzled. What could he ask that would help him retrieve this fruit? "What does this fruit do?"

"Huh, an interesting choice, and almost one that might help you," Noren said. "As to what it does, I'm afraid the answer is different for everyone who tastes it. Rest assured, though, with my guidance, it will aid you in your progression." He smirked.

Chang-li considered leaping up and punching the Grandmaster in the face. If he moved fast enough, the man might not expect it. His cocksure attitude was growing more annoying by the moment, especially as he revealed just how much he hadn't previously told them.

"You used us," he accused. "You sent us here to get the door open. Why didn't you come?"

Noren sighed. "Because it would never have opened for me. My father had me cast out after I learned what exactly I had found. I told him we should turn it over to the emperor before we were destroyed. He wanted to use the artifact for himself. We'd put it in the vault by then. I'm almost certain it's still here, though this could be a fool's errand. But he made very clear to the guardian that I was no longer to be considered a Master of Morning Mist. By the way," he added, "we need to go and speak to the guardian again. Now that the two of you have been accepted, you should be able to have me reinstated, which would be convenient. But never mind. Have you a second question to ask?"

Chang-li had been pacing back and forth under the tree. There were 13 trees on the platform, a number he thought might have some significance. This was the only fruit on any of them. None of the others bore as much as a bud or a blossom.

"I don't understand how we can be inside a lux well. What is a lux well? How does it create lux without a tower?"

Noren frowned. "Interesting question. Not exactly relevant, but I'll answer it. Towers break lux down from Lumos. They tap into the deepest realities of the cosmos in order to acquire that Lumos. Then they break it down and spread it out to the world."

"Everyone knows that," Joshi said.

Noren ignored him. "Condensing points like that station we stopped at along the way collect natural lux until it's built up to a density that makes it worth a cultivator's time. Lux wells on the other hand, are something else entirely. They tap into a deeper level of existence and bring the Lumos up from there. The Lumos in that case isn't broken into lux the way a tower does it," but he frowned. "Think of it perhaps as a fermentation. The lux bubbles off the top, and the well can supply it. These trees," he added, "even though you didn't ask, are called dreaming willows. Their job is to bring the lux up from the bottom of the well and then to the outside."

He pointed upward where the branches rose above, for as far as Chang-li could see. "The various conduits and such we have built around the well that drain the lux to the devices and obelisks around the sanctum are all lux constructs, but dreaming willows are grown by great care. Only the most talented can manage them. Your lovely fiancé, Hiroko, would be a natural touch with them, given her blue lux affinity," he told Joshi. "It's a pity you ran her off. We could have made use of her. On the other hand, we don't need her reporting back to her grandfather what it is we're up to just yet, so that may have been a wise choice. Are you any nearer to your next question?"

In answer, Chang-li stalked over to the chunk of the tree. The bark was smooth with small striations along it, turning the gold to a paler shade wherever they showed through. He wrapped his arms around the tree tightly and started to shimmy a bit.

"Interesting approach," Norah applauded. "Let's see. What's next? Ah yes. Once I have adequately trained you, I shall introduce you to the guardian of the vault. You'll have to prove your worth to him and retrieve the artifact. Then we can plan our trip to the primal tower."

Chang-li inched himself upward a few more inches before his, the bark of the tree, suddenly turned slick under his hands. He slid back down and once more hit his rear. He stood up, rubbing it. It was just bringing something to mind. He hadn't had his behind ache like this since his days in school where his masters would paddle him for not paying enough attention.

Then at last, an inspiration occurred to him. "What is this fruit called?"

A smile bloomed on Noren's face. "Well now. This is the Fruit of Diligent Tutelage."

And now, Chang-li understood the trick needed. He dropped to his knees and bent forward, pressing his forehead against his hands as he bowed to Noren. "Teacher," he said, "will you share this wisdom with me?"

He heard Noren slide down from the tree, felt the thump as he hit the ground. Noren reached down a hand and raised Chang-li up. "Come," he said.

He walked to the tree and snapped his fingers. Strands of lux wove themselves together. The tendrils reached up, closed around the fruit in a net, plucked it, and brought it down to Chang-li's outstretched hands.

"Now, my disciple, we are ready to begin."

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