Gaining A Tie

Before he went into closed-door training, Mak Ji-mong held the rite of sworn brotherhood with Scholar Cheon. Scholar Cheon said there was no need of it, but Mak Ji-mong pressed the point so hard that a modest one was arranged after all. An altar was set out, word was given to heaven, and the two of them were proclaimed brothers. After that there was nobody in the highest councils of the Dark Heaven Sect who did not know that Scholar Cheon had become Mak Ji-mong’s sworn brother.

Since coming into the Dark Heaven Sect, Scholar Cheon had shown his party no more than a glimpse of his face, so busy with one thing and another that he had not so much as given them a proper greeting.

Namgung Cheol-ung had a mountain of worries.

“I am afraid the Murim Alliance may pick some needless fault with the Master for having sworn brotherhood with an heir of the unorthodox sects.”

Namgung Hwa-jun and Namgung Pyo agreed. They took slights enough already for being of the collateral branch, and sworn brotherhood with an heir of the unorthodox sects could never do a man any good in the orthodox murim, whose banner was the rooting out of the demonic and heterodox ways.

“It is as well the Master is a scholar. Had he been a martial artist he would have been branded one of the demonic and heterodox ways.”

“Even so, he is a scholar attached to the Murim Alliance. There will be repercussions.”

“Eh? My young lady Yeo-seol. Where are you going?”

Yeo-seol had come out to see Cheong Yo and Song-ran, and Namgung Cheol-ung went along with her as escort. These three held Scholar Cheon for their Master, so they called Yeo-seol the young lady and treated her with respect.

She had come outside in the first place out of vexation that her Brother was back in the Dark Heaven Sect and she could not get so much as a proper word with him. On top of that, the news that he was holding a rite of sworn brotherhood with a hellion like Mak Ji-mong was more than she could credit.

Brother has far too much pity in him. If a person goes as soft as that, how does he mean to live in this rough world?

Yeo-seol knew a little of the ways of the world by now, and she was worried for her Brother.

I have to protect him. Brother is too good and too gentle, and that puts him in danger.

Deep in the thought, Yeo-seol muttered without meaning to.

“Goodness must be good only to the point that it can protect itself. Mm? What’s this.”

Something had come out of her mouth that was not her own thought, and it left her flustered.

“Is something the matter?”

With Namgung Cheol-ung’s attention on her now, she turned the talk aside.

“Sirs, I am going to the woods and back.”

With these three alone Yeo-seol used polite speech, by way of respect for men who guarded her and her Brother with all their hearts and who gave her Brother the name of Master.

“Why there?”

Yeo-seol pointed to the woods running along beside the village’s official road.

“I have business to see to.”

“Ah, yes. We shall wait here. Do not go far.”

Yeo-seol set off toward the woods.

Is my memory coming back? Words I never thought are coming out of my mouth.

All at once a frightening thought took her. Her own memories returning, or else the shadow’s, might wipe out the happy ones she had now.

“There’s somebody over there.”

A passerby had caught sight of her and said it, so Yeo-seol moved a little further in. The village had drawn more and more people of late and had turned into something like a bustling street; she could feel someone about in every direction, and there was nothing for it but to go deeper into the woods.

From a distance, three men watched her go in among the trees. They looked at one another and nodded.

“This may be the last of it. The scholar has come back, so there will be no more chances to catch her alone. Now is the chance.”

The three hired killers had come into the Three-Without County, watched how things stood, and concluded that assassinating Scholar Cheon directly was impossible. Nor could they simply withdraw and leave it at that. So they settled on taking the person closest to him hostage and killing him by that means, and the person who appeared closest was his cousin, Cheon Yeo-seol.

Yeo-seol went looking for a level spot, found one, and stepped in to see to her business. Just then a faint killing intent reached her, and her face drew tight. Instinct told her it was the energy of someone meaning to kill her, so she stopped in the middle of undoing her waistband and drew the dagger she kept inside her robe.

“I’m in a hurry, so come out quick.”

At that, three hired killers in masks dropped down out of the trees. No sound of their landing carried, which marked them as men of real attainment. Yeo-seol looked at the masked martial artists, none of whom she knew, and was not frightened in the least.

“She does not even scream. Our little lady must fancy her chances in a fight?”

A scream would make trouble, so he opened with a goading stratagem.

“I’m not going to scream, so don’t waste your strength of mind on talk like that.”

“My, my. You talk like some old hand of the murim.”

“I’ve been in closed-door training all this while. I was curious how far I’d got. And it’s nice that there happen to be test subjects here to check it on.”

“Closed-door training? How long did you do, to be so sure of yourself?”

“Ten days or so?”

“What?”

The hired killers sniggered at the absurdity of it. Looking at this little lady who dignified ten days’ practice with the name “closed-door training,” they felt oddly sorry for her. She had learned some martial arts, but it had the feel of a thing learned for show.

“Little one, closed-door training means a year of training or more. Ten days’ worth is not what a person calls closed-door training.”

Another masked killer spoke.

“We are only going to take you along, and if you follow quietly we will not hit you.”

Yeo-seol tossed the dagger up and caught it, tossed it and caught it again, and gave them a bright smile. She did it as though she were tossing an apple and catching it, and the hired killers found the sight charming. They had played the same game themselves once, when they first took their lessons as killers.

Still tossing the dagger up and catching it, Yeo-seol asked.

“Anyone with an aged mother living?”

One of the masked men quietly put up a hand.

“Me.”

“Is that so? Anyone with a wife and children?”

Nobody answered.

“Nobody? Then, anyone who bathes once a day?”

“Are you out of your mind? Who washes once a day?”

“Not that either?”

“And why do you ask that, my little young lady?”

Yeo-seol smiled sweetly.

“I was looking for a reason to let you live. The two besides you will have to die. You have an aged mother to look after.”

“For pity’s sake. We humor her a moment and now we are a joke to her.”

“Enough. Drag it out too long and somebody will come.”

One of them stepped in fast to seal Yeo-seol’s points.

— Pshuk!

Yeo-seol’s dagger went precisely into the hired killer’s chest and out again. The man who had meant to seal her points clutched at his chest and pitched forward, making the purring noise a cat makes as it falls asleep.

For all that his chest had been run through, not a drop of blood came out. The flesh over it had frozen white.

“I don’t like blood spattering about, so I tend to freeze them like this.”

She muttered it like someone who had killed beyond counting, then pointed at the other two and crooked the dagger at them. The cold of it brought gooseflesh up along the spines of the two remaining killers.

Now that I notice it, it is not only the feel of her — the air around us has actually gone cold. What in the world is this sorcery?

One of the killers spoke.

“She is a master. Do not drop your guard.”

This time the two of them moved at once, closing from left and right in a joint attack that took no more than an instant.

Yeo-seol threw the dagger.

— Whack!

The dagger buried itself in one killer’s chest. The last of them spat out his fury and swung his sword.

Yeo-seol put out her palm toward him as he rushed in. Something white and long grew out of her palm; the water vapor around her had gathered there and become an icicle.

— Whirip!

Closing on him with a flutter on the Ice Palace’s Snow-Wind Footwork, Yeo-seol struck the killer in the chest.

— Krunch!

The long icicle buried itself in his chest, and Yeo-seol took her hand away. The killer’s mouth trembled.

“My aged mother, she is alive, you said you would let me live.”

Yeo-seol grinned.

“Now that I think about it, if an unfilial son goes on living, his aged mother only has a harder time of it. Better that you die.”

“Damn it…”

A feeling of his whole body freezing over took him, and the killer’s consciousness went out.

— Whump!

Yeo-seol went round behind the place where they had fallen and saw to her business. When she had finished, she called out.

“Sirs. Come and look at this.”

Yeo-seol was calling the Namgung Clan’s warriors.

When the Namgung Clan’s warriors had gone away with the bodies, one person appeared at the place a while afterward.

A veil stirred. Song-ran looked hard in the direction Yeo-seol had gone.

I have long known perfectly well that Yeo-seol was learning martial arts, but I had no idea it was to that degree.

That Yeo-seol’s martial standing was enough to kill three hired killers in the blink of an eye was astonishing enough; more astonishing still was how composed she had stayed after killing all three.

Is that not the manner of some old master who has killed men by the tens and the hundreds?

She herself could not have stayed so composed after killing a single man.

Song-ran had been keeping watch on the three hired killers, caught that they had laid a plan to carry Yeo-seol off, and followed them. She had meant to step out when the killers first fell upon Yeo-seol, but the girl dealt with them so easily that the moment to intervene was gone before she could take it.

And then she had seen something shocking. The Ice Palace’s martial learning, unfolded as naturally as breathing.

Growing an icicle out of the palm and striking with it was the Ice Palace’s Ice Needle Palm. No one but a master out of the Ice Palace could unfold it.

Yeo-seol has some connection with the Ice Palace. But those three questions — could that be chance?

Song-ran knew the history of the murim well, and knowing it, she could not help but wonder.

They are exactly the questions of the Three-Question Martial Empress, a hundred years ago.

A hundred years before, a Martial Empress had been born in the Ice Palace, and she was famous for asking three things without fail whenever she went out killing.

An aged mother living? A wife and children? A bath once a day?

Anyone who met those three conditions she spared, and so Mae Yu-yeon, the Martial Empress, came to be called the Three-Question Martial Empress.

Yeo-seol might ask about an aged mother or a wife and children by way of a game. But asking whether a man bathed every day was a question that could only come from someone who knew of the Three-Question Martial Empress.

She has some connection with the Ice Palace, with the Three-Question Martial Empress.

Song-ran had her questions, but no appetite for chasing the answers. Scholar Cheon had shown no wish to involve himself any further in the matter of the Three Immortal-Shard Heavens either. He had given no sign of anything but the will to live as a scholar.

But will that go as he means it to? The moment a man learns martial arts and ties of grudge and gratitude form between him and the people of the murim, that man takes on a martial artist’s fate. Like a shadow that follows him all his life.

Song-ran looked up at the sky with a bleak light in her eyes, and then moved on.

The Guard Command of Jiangxi Province sent soldiers to the Dark Heaven Sect.¹ They came to escort Heo Yu-on, the Grand General’s son, and Jo Mu-saeng, the Grand Academician’s grandson. The Guard Command had men of its own who were military officers and masters both, and they turned out very nearly to a man, from first-rate masters up to officers who looked to be peak masters.

Out of particular regard for Mak Yeo-heun, sect leader of the Dark Heaven Sect, they also sent the Vice Commander, the second man of the Guard Command, to convey their thanks.

“Brother Cheon. Come and visit the Grand General’s Residence next time. I shall make my return to you then. You are the benefactor who saved my life, and I have nothing on me now to give you.”

Jo Mu-saeng, Heo Yu-on and Cheon Tae-san had talked together the whole way to the Dark Heaven Sect, and by the end of it they were fond enough of one another to treat each other as friends.

“It was hardly what you could call help. Think nothing of it.”

At Cheon Tae-san’s words Jo Mu-saeng shook his head.

“What talk is that? A man does not live owing his life to another.”

“Hahaha. Very well. If ever I have occasion to go, I shall call at the Grand General’s Residence.”

Heo Yu-on brought the Assistant Commander over and introduced Cheon Tae-san to him.

“He is the benefactor who saved my life. Should Brother Cheon ask your help, I would have you hear him as you would hear me. And I would have you be sure to pass it on to the Commander as well.”

Jiangxi was a region where the unorthodox sects held sway, and Heo Yu-on had been worried that Cheon Tae-san might suffer for it. The introduction was his way of showing the man some consideration.

“Understood. I shall see to it.”

Mak Yeo-heun, wanting at this juncture to get on good terms with Jiangxi’s military, detailed warriors of the Dark Heaven Sect as a separate escort of their own. With the Demonic Cult having made its attack, he was not easy in his own mind either.

Heo In and Jo Im made their farewells to Cheon Tae-san as well and climbed up into the carriage. Watching them go, Cheon Tae-san thought that the Demonic Cult had made a great mistake.

Had they killed them it might be another matter, but they lived, so pressure will certainly come down on the Demonic Cult.

The Grand General’s Residence and the Grand Academician would hardly sit still.

Yu Seong, who had been watching them go at his side, came up to Cheon Tae-san.

“Elder brother, ought not you and I to hold a rite of sworn brotherhood as well?”

Knowing that Cheon Tae-san had held the rite of sworn brotherhood with Mak Ji-mong, Yu Seong gave him an envious look.

Cheon Tae-san was about to scold him and then thought better of it.

Here is perhaps the strongest man under heaven about to be publicly acknowledged as my younger brother — I would be a fool to refuse it.

People did not yet know what Yu Seong had in him and took him for no more than the Young Sect Leader of the Thunder Dragon Sect. To his own eye, though, the makings were there of a man who would go past the unorthodox sects and become the first master under heaven.

Yu Seong did have ambition in him, though of course, in the murim, ability and ambition alone do not make a man the leader.

“All right. Why not.”

“Then our sect is far off, so let us hold the rite here at the Dark Heaven Sect.”

“Let’s do that. Whatever Yu Seong wants, he can have.”

And so, all at once, Cheon Tae-san had Mak Ji-mong, son of the highest leader of the unorthodox organizations, for an elder brother, and Yu Seong, who would one day be the first master under heaven, for a younger brother.