It had been an incredibly frustrating pair of weeks for Inquisitor Pak Yoonji.

First, having to haul her prisoner back from the far reaches of the Empire to stand trial here in the capital. Not that he had resisted her. On the contrary, he had practically delighted in doing everything she ordered, when she ordered, and not a single bit more.

She had kept him bound in a restraining collar to prevent him from cycling lux. Though twice she had caught him in meditation hovering a couple feet off the ground, afterwards he had insisted the collar prevented him from flying, just as it should have. She had been forced to use a flying cloud she had stowed away since reaching the Lux Dominator rank and travel all the weary miles back to the capital on that.

The cloud was easier and faster than walking, that was for certain, but it was incredibly slow compared to personal flight. They covered fifty or so miles in a day, a distance she could have traveled in a quarter of the time under her own flight power, and she had to control the cloud, cycling her luxes and directing it. If she got distracted, it invariably started to drift in circles.

The prisoner was happy to sit in the middle of the cloud under a parasol he had produced from his own soulspace, sipping constantly from a tea service from the same place. He frequently refilled his cup but she never even saw him refill his teapot. She suspected at first he was using a lux pattern, but after inspecting the restraints on him, could find no signs of tampering. Then she realized the teapot was a lux artifact.

Yoonji had boggled at that. The amount of skill and craftsmanship required to make the teapot that constantly produced perfectly brewed green tea, just a hint of rose-hip and orange to it, astonished even her. And she was one of the most powerful cultivators in the Empire, aside from the Prisms.

Then, of course, the damned war had already started to hamper her movements. Everywhere they went, she heard rumors and reports of the conflict between Prisms. Rumor said two more had joined Eri. Secretly, Yoonji hoped that was the case. With one Prism already dead, there'd be openings for those who showed themselves to be dutiful servants of the emperor. But it made her travel inconvenient. Twice she'd been forced to hunt down a reported enemy force traveling across the land.

Once, it had been nothing but some peasants taking advantage of the chaos and confusion to sneak from their previous homes to a town they thought would be more favorable to them. She'd executed a couple of the more rebellious and sent them back to their proper village, then followed and had the local magistrate crucified for failing to perform his duties properly.

The second report had turned out to be a sect allied with the rebel Prism Eri. Yoonji rounded them up, questioned the leaders, executed everyone over the Peak of Mental Refinement, and turned the rest over to regional officials.

Every night, her prisoner watched as Yoonji made camp and produced rations. He never complained about sleeping in a small tent and eating cold meat and hard cheese. Yoonji grew tired of it after a few days and began a habit of camping near villages where she could supply herself from the local inns by flashing her inquisitor's badge and taking whatever palatable food they had on hand.

Oddly enough, the prisoner was talkative and fascinating. He kept up a steady stream of accounts and recollections, none of which starred him. He'd say, "That reminds me of a story an acquaintance of mine told, of a time as he was reaching the Peak of Spiritual Refinement," and off he'd go on a fascinating discourse.

The problem was, Yoonji realized after a few of the stories, he was telling tales of outside lands, the way they did things, the things he'd seen there. As an imperial official, she probably shouldn't even listen. Such tales were to be stomped down, not listened to.

But they did cut through the boredom of the journey.

When at last they arrived at the great Imperial City, even his loquaciousness had dried up. He sat on their cloud as Yoonji steered toward the enormous city with a stunned expression.

After a while, he muttered, "I'd forgotten how grand it seems."

That Yoonji could agree with. She visited the capital only rarely. Her duties didn't often bring her here. It had been several years. Her memory had dimmed of just how magnificent it truly was.

Taishin City, capital of the Divine Empire of Heaven, sat in the middle of a wide, flat plain. Two rivers flowed into the plain. The Green River flowed from north, with a tall bluff on the western shore. The Aimita came in from the east and merged with the Green. There, at the juncture of the rivers, stood the city.

The Lower Quarters were on the east banks of the Green River, divided into two by the Aimita. There the Empire conducted its business. Armies of bureaucrats lived inside the low white wall surrounding the city. Every day, thousands upon thousands of wagons, messengers, and beasts of burden entered the city, laden with food and reports from all over.

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There were scribes and officials dedicated to every conceivable aspect of life in the Empire here. Yoonji had little to do with them, but even in passing, she knew of some of the larger departments.

For instance, in the northern part of the city, the Great Bureau of Agriculture employed ten thousand workers, with over five hundred just overseeing rice planting and harvesting. Messengers streamed in every day, carrying reports detailing the rice yield of each province, each sector within a province, each city within a sector. They monitored the health of the crop, the varieties of rice being grown, weather conditions, anything that could affect the harvest.

At intervals throughout the season, grains of rice and sample plants would be plucked, preserved, and brought to the capital to be examined. Strains that might do poorly were monitored, promising strains recorded for future use, and any sign of overt lux contamination of the food supply noted well before harvest time. It was a pattern that repeated with every crop, and all livestock that grew across the Empire.

The Department of Health monitored the well-being of the Empire's citizens, watching for disease outbreaks or indications of systematic ill health that might need to be corrected. Various bureaus the textiles oversaw the production of linen cloth, flax cloth, silk cloth, mixed, dyed and undyed; oversaw which shades could be permitted for use by which classes of people; and issued licenses and certifications to weavers, spinners, and tailors across the Empire.

South of the Aimita, the bureaucrats oversaw social life. What songs were popular, and whether any of them suggested discontent and rebellion; which poets were popular this year; should more volumes of edifying literature be published; were the provinces producing adequate numbers of underscribes to run the cities and licensed scribes to come and aid the army of officials that ran the Empire.

And all that was concerned merely with ordinary people's lives. There were departments and buildings full of those who oversaw the army and cultivators. Though the army relied heavily on conscripts and professional soldiers, who were well-trained but not cultivators, a goodly portion of its forces were, of course, skilled at the use of lux. They had to be, since in a pinch the army might be called to help put down an unruly sect.

Mostly though, sects were governed by the Office of Cultivation, who was in charge of overseeing licenses, permissions to enter towers, and everything else to do with cultivators' lives.

There, they kept records of every man or woman who attempted to begin the climb and at intervals recorded their status. The official marriage records were kept there, detailing which of the thousands upon thousands of descendants of the Emperor had married which cultivator.

And there, the Inquisitors' Palace rose up, the largest and most impressive building in all the Lower City. That was where Yoonji was taking her prisoner. He would be held over for trial there. Since he had declared himself, or his disciple, guilty of Grand Treason, the case would be heard by a panel involving one or more Prisms.

Looming over everything else were the Imperial Grounds, a Forbidden City, mysterious and grand. The bluff on the western banks of the Green River ran for miles and was 500 feet tall, topped by the towering walls of the City itself. Any attempt to gain access without permission was met by swift and inevitable death. Yoonji had been up there only a handful of times, including when she had been raised to the position she now held.

The City was bordered on the other sides by a mile-deep chasm, carved unknown hundreds of years ago by the will of one man, if you could call him that. Only a system of dikes kept the great river from pouring into the chasm. Together, bluff, chasm and walls cut the Forbidden City off from the outside world. The Emperor had made the place to be the home of his brides, his children, and his personal servants.

His gardens stretched out for miles, exquisite, carrying examples of every plant known to the Empire. Small palaces dotted the vast tableland, housing all of the occupants.

The Emperor himself had a golden palace. She had never so much as laid eyes on it, but the stories were vivid enough she could almost imagine it, a golden dome flanked by spires topped with enormous diamonds, in which he kept rooms that were to be cleaned only by his most trusted servants, where he would summon his brides if he wished.

And of course, the Imperial Cultivation Tower. Yoonji had been there several times. Though it was off-limits to most the denizens of the capital, it still made life here possible. Every week, imperial lux technicians presented themselves at the sole entrance to the Imperial Gardens and received literal tons of lux crystals, which they distributed throughout the city to enable the expansive and comfortable lives the imperial bureaucrats demanded, and to provide lux for those cultivators called to serve here.

To Yoonji's eyes, this city was the greatest example of the Emperor's power. He, and he alone, caused it to be. Without his Empire, there was no need for all of these people to bustle about pretending like the work they did on papers mattered more than the labor of peasants in the fields. Here, ordinary men and women signed licenses for cultivators who could wipe them out of existence with the snap of fingers. The capital was a stark reminder that power takes what it wants, regardless of anyone's feelings.

Now, as Yoonji urged her flying cloud toward one of the gates to the Inner Quarter, her prisoner sat up, his parasol disappeared, his tea set put away.

"So much wealth here," he observed. "No wonder Eri got greedy. The Emperor knows how to display himself ostentatiously, doesn't he?"

"I suggest you reserve your speech for your defense."

"Yes, well..." The prisoner laced his hands behind his head and leaned back, staring up at the Imperial Grounds. "I suppose I probably got a day or two before I need to present my defense. Do you think they'll let me have a bath?" He wrinkled his nose. "You should take one too, Inquisitor. Not to be rude. In fact, I had almost come to enjoy your stench during the last few weeks together. But I will appreciate sleeping in a proper bed tonight."

She stared at him in astonishment. "You'll sleep in a cell, on a stone floor, if you're lucky. And a bath, your water bucket will serve as your toilet. Do you not realize the sort of trouble you're in here?"

"Oh, I realize," he said quietly. "The question is... do you realize what sort of trouble you are in?"

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