Dawn Star was asleep but Wu could not.
There had been many sleepless nights since they'd left the palace. Much of it had to do with memory; memories of what she'd done, what she hadn't done, what she'd said and not said.
Tonight her sleeplessness was not born of memories but of what-might-have-beens. What might have been if he'd lived? Would they had come back here? Would he have been content as a teacher in Two Rivers? Would they never have returned to this place but wandered the Empire instead?
What might have beens and maybes pricked at the corner of her eyes. She would not cry. Not here.
Wu felt cold rain and grumbled at Dawn Star to close the window. But there was no reply and she realized through the fog of her memory that this was not how it felt to wake up in a bed, that she shouldn't remember hurting so much.
Something was far away, something was lost, and nothing felt right to her.
Wu sat up suddenly. The way Master Li had hit her... She grimaced. Something had died inside her. She'd felt it dying, something very important.
Then she opened her eyes and truly saw.
The blackness spread out before her. A rain fell that was neither cold nor wet. She looked at her hand, looked through it, and saw the ground below.
It took everything she had not to sink back into the mud and will herself into non-existence. She had killed monsters and men, defied the order of the very Empire itself, in order to save her Master and for what? She had only met Death and condemned herself to a semi-existence on a battlefield in limbo.
A chittering pulled at the edge of her hearing, then a tide of moans punctuated by short terrified screams. Despair was a thing that she could touch if she just reached out for it.
She stood up. She would not succumb to mud or not-rain or despair. She would not become like those lost souls hovering around the edge of life, siphoning purpose and will from those that still breathed.
She pushed away hair from her eyes, a strange sensation as both her fingers and her hair had little weight to them. It was a gesture of the living, but it did not matter. She had the will of the living as well.
If she was dead, then she would find Zu.
She had a feeling that he would be angry if she did find him, angry that she had allowed herself to be killed after all he had done to warn her away from danger, after the sacrifice he had made to make certain that she would live, but that did not matter.
Now they had forever and that was all she needed to make him forgive her.
She did not know where to go, so her first step was towards a light in the distance, but when she saw a shadow to her left and went to investigate, she found that she could not go in that direction. Her will and purpose, the things she clung to so desperately, were not her own. She was pulled towards the light, just as the voice of the Water Dragon filled her mind.
Follow the pillar of light.
She had no choice.
No choices! No choices, she thought, as she was forced to dispatch the mad spirits that surrounded her. She had never had any choices. First she had been manipulated like a shadow puppet by one Master and now her strings were pulled by another one.
Wu was pulled up the steps. At the top hovered the blue-scaled woman who had haunted her visions since the cave under her school in Two Rivers. Her clawed hands were clasped in prayer and she floated to and fro like a buoy on the river, but she saw no peace in her presence. She named her tormentor.
"Water Dragon, what do you want from me now?" she demanded. "I am dead. Is that not enough?"
If a goddess could look surprised, this one did, but only for the briefest of moments.
We do not have much time. The transfer of power between your Master and the old Emperor is almost complete. When it is done, I will be helpless again.
She closed her eyes. There should be tears, but the simplest things did not exist when one was a spirit. "I still don't understand why Master Li would betray me."
He wanted the power of the Empire and his plan took twenty years to reach fruition. It was a prize too grand to let go of and to waste on his brother's madness.
Or me, Wu thought.
For you to fulfill your destiny, I must send you to Dirge now, while Sun Li struggles to maintain control of his new power. The Water Dragon faded for a moment and she moaned, as if in pain. Quickly.
She widened her stance and shook her head. "No. I can't do this alone. Bring me the spirit that was Sagacious Zu. Then I will do all that you ask."
You cannot do this; we do not have the time. Wu detected a hint of desperation.
"I am the only one here," Wu retorted. "And I have the rest of eternity."
Wu expected anger, a gesture of impatience, but the goddess only sighed and it sounded like water running over rocks. I tell you now, Spirit Monk, even if I could find him, I could not bring him to you nor take you to him. What little power I have leaks from me like blood. The only way you will ever see this spirit again is if you set that which is wrong right again. Only until the Wheel of Life is turning properly, only then will you be able to find the one you seek.
Wu wanted to scream at the unfairness of it all and felt the madness of death creeping at the edge of her vision. Instead she ground her teeth together and said, "What must I do?"
Go through the portal. You will find help on the other side and I will guide you as well. The Water Dragon gestured at the door before her. Go and cleanse that which is unclean. Only then will I have enough power to save you, for you are the only hope Heaven and Empire has now.
The phantom wind pulled at her sash and her hair; it blew the ghost of snow around the ruins of her ancestral home.
Strange that the first time she saw her birthplace, it was with spirit eyes, the first time that she walked its' paved stones, it was with steps that made no sound.
As she followed Abbot Song, the eternal fight raged around her. She walked through monks and soldiers. They took no notice of her.
Abbot Song told her the story of the fall of Dirge, how her too cunning teacher had preyed on the faults of impressionable monks and then betrayed the betrayers. Their blood had defiled the water, weakened the Dragon and allowed the entrance of the invaders.
Now they stood before her; ghosts like her, but they could see and touch her. And this one, Monk Xian, was intent on destroying her. The remains of the woman's soul fought like a mad dog, all fire, and had the power of madness driving her. But Wu had ice and there was so much ice here.
Abbot Song yelled out a benediction as his staff hit a ghost on the head. "Find peace now!" And the ghost dispersed. They were done and the fountain could be purified.
It seemed a fitting punishment that the traitors were bound here and that she defeated them; the daughter of one of their friends that they had offered up like a sacrificial animal to the Empire. Wu almost regretted it; defeating a spirit meant dispersion and dispersion meant peace – for even a short time. They did not deserve a moment of peace…
She shook her head, sending her dark thoughts away. No peace? And for what? For having the misfortune of being manipulated by someone smarter than herself? Then she too should be bound here if that was the punishment for that crime.
She fixed the seal into the fountain and the water flowed clear. Abbot Song was impatient to go, but she had questions. "How did the Emperor do that? Bind the souls here?"
The abbot's lip curled in distaste when she asked. "We bind wandering spirits who are confused and can't find their way to the Underworld. We bind them to ourselves, bring them to Dirge and then release them to go back to the Wheel. To bind a spirit to an object is cruel. They are compelled to stay when they desire to go to their rest."
"But what of a spirit in a body? Could that be done?" Wu wondered aloud.
"That is not a question to even be considered," the Abbot said shortly.
Which meant yes, she gathered. Binding a spirit was obviously not to be done except in the direst circumstances.
But it certainly opened interesting possibilities and she mused on them while she followed Abbot Song to the second fountain. Its seal was guarded by a demon who taunted them when they appeared.
After it appeared, Wu stretched for a moment before saying, "Trap?"
Abbot Song nodded. "Most definitely. But we need the seal nonetheless."
They followed the demon down the path to the cavern beneath the temple. It stank of blood and death.
"Stay here," she ordered. "It will attack you first. I can feel it."
Abbott Song looked surprised, but did as she asked. "I will make sure no one attacks you from behind then."
She bowed before entering alone. The cavern was filled with burning torches and melted wax. The incense smelled wrong and the demon was waiting for her. "Dirge belongs to the master I – "
She attacked, not waiting to hear what it served or why. "You remind me of the birthing in our village of an ill-omened cow. Its calf had two heads too. And they killed that one with as little thought as I will -"
Her attacks had landed hard, but it recovered enough to electrocute her. So this is what Storm Dragon feels like, she thought as her muscles twitched of their own accord. She rolled just before it stomped on her and picked herself up behind it.
She had a moment to make a decision and she hoped that her transformation forms would work when she was dead. When the shuffling abomination finally turned its mass towards her, it was hit in the face by a long sticky tongue. It did not take long for it to die, poisoned, on the cold floor of the cavern.
She exited the cave and showed Abbott Song the seal. "One more. But I think that we have more to worry about here than cleansing fountains."
He nodded. "Without the Water Dragon here, other … beings… are capable of taking hold."
She frowned. "Beings? So not gods or demons?"
"The opposite of gods and demons," he said quietly. "Beings that want nothingness. Beings that hate death and darkness as much as they hate life and light."
She stared off for a moment. "I see. Well, first things first. Let's put this seal back."
Abbot Song left her before she entered the temple, finally able to join the fight against the dead Imperial soldiers. She did not shout or rail against the Water Dragon's decision; she knew it was useless even though she now realized that she wanted to speak to the spirit more – to know more about her parents and their lives.
That, like many things, was not meant to be, she reflected as she took the stairs one at a time up to the Temple. She wandered through its broken doors and past the wreckage the invading army had left decades ago.
As soon as she entered the empty hall, the air filled with maniacal laughter. It reverberated off the stone walls and the icy floor. It sent an involuntary shiver up her spine because that voice behind the laugh was her own.
Before she could get to the fountain or find the seal, her way was blocked – by herself.
She looked at her doppelgangers, different only in stances and weapons. "At least give me the pleasure of your names. Because you are not Wu the Lotus Blossom."
They bowed simultaneously, mocking her with her own smile. "We are Despair, Sorrow and Rage."
Her panic rose for a moment, but she fell into the eye of the storm, letting her fear and panic whirl harmlessly around her.
"Oh," she said. "I'm surprised that your master sent you three, as I know you all quite well."
They attacked her together and Wu focused to dodge their strikes. Rage she had met as Two Rivers burned to the ground, but she defeated her there and she would defeat her now. Rage threw flames at her, but Wu dodged them easily, taking her down with a Thousand Cuts.
Despair she had met twice - once on the spirit fields and once in a dark room at the Arena. Their blades clanged against each other; Despair's Dragon Sword versus her Crimson Blades. It did not know the Crimson Blade style though and had no focus. She was dead in just one moment.
She had carried Sorrow with her since the pillars had come tumbling down in the tomb of the Emperor. But Sorrow knew her as well as and did not fall as easily as her sisters. She wielded ice as skillfully as Wu did and knew all her tricks. Wu felt herself running out of focus, so she dropped her blades and remembered her basics. Only now she knew the flaw and she fixed it, drawing her doppelganger in and destroying her with her bare hands.
She only hoped that she'd have the same opportunity with the man who had caused her Sorrow.
The laughter turned to a scream of rage, just as the Water Dragon appeared in the air above her. Hurry. The gate will close soon.
Wu looked over her shoulder and saw a portal in the air, all power and spirit. She ran and dove headfirst into it…