Rain hammered the glazed vermilion roof of the inner sanctum like a volley of iron crossbolts.
From the shadowed terrace on the second story, a solitary figure emerged into the gray daylight.
He moved without haste, his stitched silk slippers stepping silently onto the wet carved marble. The wind caught his heavy robes. Royal purple brocade adorned with five-clawed golden dragons, a garment bestowed fifty years ago by the Ministry of War for heroic guard post service along the northern frontier.
This was Grandmaster Yu, Patriarch of the Dragon-Tiger Pavilion.
He was eighty-three winters old.
His face was a withered mask of parchment and liver spots, his cheekbones jutting like dried bone beneath paper-thin skin. A long, thin silver beard fell to his waist. His snowy hair was bound tight with an ancient hairpin carved from white river jade.
Yet there was nothing frail about his dark shape.
Beneath his royal robes, his ribs didn’t taper like that of an elderly mortal. His chest was unnaturally swollen, bulging outward like an iron smelting cooking pot grafted onto the frame of an ancient ascetic.
