Kaelen dragged his cloth slippers down the gravel path toward the Third Herb Shed, counting his steps to keep his pulse slow.
Dusk hung over the weed-choked yard as a cold evening wind blew through the mountain pines. Behind his eyes, the grey stone tablet hovered with quiet silver light.
[The Fallow Slate] [Current Abstinence: 23 Hours, 40 Minutes] [Current State: True Fallow State] [Current Multiplier: 24x (Stage 1: Mortal Tally)] [Next Milestone: 24 Hours (25x Ready)]
Twenty minutes remained until the next milestone.
Lingering beyond the mossy brick wall until the ore wagons cleared the estate, Kaelen had caught every word Garrick whispered to the two Night-Soil scavengers beneath the gatehouse eaves. A midnight well-poisoning was painfully unoriginal, even for his second brother.
Normal cultivators would sit on the stone curb with a bare blade. They would wait in the dark, circulating Qi to stay warm, eager for a fight.
Kaelen had no such intention.
If I sit in the damp cold with my sword drawn, my circulation will kick in, Kaelen thought. The slate registers combat intent like grease on silk. Resetting twenty-four hours of sleep to zero over two low-grade thugs would cost me forty silver in future pill yields. It makes no financial sense.
Fighting was expensive. Sleeping was profitable.
He pushed open the creaking cedar door of the shed.
Inside, Barnaby Holt stirred chicory roots in an iron kettle. The empty sleeve of his missing left arm was pinned neatly to his hip. Mina sat on an upturned wicker basket, sorting brittle snake-grass roots into bundles.
“You’re back late, brother,” Mina said. “Second Brother’s servants were snooping near the drying racks. Did you run into trouble?”
“Walking is exhausting,” Kaelen said, dropping onto a stool. “My knee tendons feel like wet noodles. Barnaby, do we still have those rusted bear traps in the root cellar?”
Barnaby stopped stirring. His thick gray brows drew together.
“Bear traps?” the old man barked. “The roof leaks, Garrick skims our copper, and you want to hunt beasts in the dark?”
“The well path is overrun with pests,” Kaelen said smoothly. “Big, clumsy two-legged ones. They like to prowl around midnight with iron flasks. Bring me the traps and the jar of ground pepper-ash.”
Barnaby’s hand tightened on the wooden ladle. He understood at once.
“Garrick?” Barnaby growled.
“He likes to poison water,” Kaelen said, waving a hand. “It saves him the trouble of honest conversation.”
Mina’s face turned pale. “Kaelen, if they come with weapons, we should alert the inner court guards.”
“Father is counting iron ingots,” Kaelen replied gently. “The guards take orders from Madam Evelyn. We only need thirty feet of twine and a little grease.”
Barnaby ducked into the dark back alcove and emerged with three heavy iron jaw traps, a spool of dark line, and a cracked jar of pepper-ash.
Kaelen took the twine. He refused to channel Qi, keeping his meridians dormant. He set the bear traps along the well path beneath wet leaves, tying tripwires to two clay pots of stinging powder on the cedar trellis. Then he smeared rancid mutton tallow across the flagstones.
“If someone snags the wire,” Kaelen explained, “the pot tilts. Gravity does the work, and my meridians don’t lift a finger.”
“You fight like an unwashed ditch bandit,” Barnaby said.
“Ditch bandits live longer than noble heroes,” Kaelen replied.
By the time he finished, a chime rang softly in his mind.
[Current Abstinence: 24 Hours, 00 Minutes] [Current State: True Fallow State] [Current Multiplier: 25x (Stage 1: Mortal Tally)]
Kaelen climbed into his hemp hammock, pulled a rough blanket to his chin, and closed his eyes.
“You’re going to bed?” Barnaby hissed. “They’re coming to poison our well, and you’re going to sleep?”
“Worrying gives a man gray hair,” Kaelen muttered.
Within three breaths, his heartbeat dropped. The slate pulsed softly, acknowledging his surrender to pure, unbothered rest.
At midnight, two bulky figures slipped through the rotted timber fence behind the drying shed. They wore greasy leather tunics, their faces wrapped in oily rags. The taller man carried an iron crowbar. The shorter thug held an iron flask sealed with lead.
“Easy work,” the lead thug whispered. “The old dog sleeps like a dead mule. The boy is a cripple. We dump the slag and collect ten silver before dawn.”
They crept forward. The lead thug stepped onto the flagstones near the well curb.
His boot caught the taut black twine.
Snap.
Above their heads, two clay jugs tipped forward, dumping four pounds of stinging pepper-ash straight down into the cold air.
The cloud hit both men across their faces. The lead thug sucked a huge breath of ghost-pepper into his lungs.
“My eyes!” he shrieked, clutching his throat. “My eyes are burning!”
“Ambush!” the second thug yelled. He panicked and stepped backward. His heel hit the greased flagstones, sending him sliding headfirst into a ditch of itching-powder weeds and wild brambles.
The lead thug stumbled sideways, swinging his iron crowbar blindly. His left foot came down directly on the bed of wet leaves.
CLANG.
The heavy jaws of the rusted bear trap snapped shut, biting deep into his ankle bone.
The trapped thug wailed in agony. In the ditch, his companion dropped the iron flask, which rolled harmlessly into the mud.
The shed door flew open. Barnaby Holt charged onto the porch in his nightshirt, wielding his heavy ash-wood ladle like a war hammer.
“Thieving dogs!” Barnaby roared. “Creeping into an old man’s yard at midnight! Eat my ladle!”
Barnaby cracked the ladle across the trapped thug’s head. Shrieking and clawing at his blistering neck, the second thug scrambled out of the itching-powder weeds, vaulted the broken fence, and fled into the dark woods.
The trapped thug pried the rusty springs open with trembling fingers, dragged his bleeding leg free, and limped away into the night, sobbing loudly.
In his hammock, Kaelen did not open his eyes. He pulled the blanket tighter over his ears and let out a gentle snore.
Good swing from Old Barnaby, he thought lazily. His wrist action was solid. Now let me sleep. Disturbing my liver meridian before dawn ruins the skin tone.
The morning sun rose bright and crisp over Vance Manor.
By the time Kaelen rolled out of his hammock and stretched his arms, the stone tablet was glowing with silver runes.
[The Fallow Slate] [Current Abstinence: 32 Hours, 15 Minutes] [Current State: True Fallow State] [Current Multiplier: 33x (Stage 1: Mortal Tally)]
Thirty-two hours. Thirty-three times the baseline.
His meridians were completely relaxed, unburdened by the stress of circulating Qi. He walked out into the courtyard, where the morning air smelled of cold water and pine sap. Barnaby had already retrieved the sealed flask of forge slag from the mud and dumped lime over the greased stones.
Kaelen dipped a wooden ladle into the well and drank sweet, clear water.
“You knew they were coming,” Barnaby said, leaning on a broom.
“I have a delicate stomach,” Kaelen said, wiping his chin. “Dirty well water gives a man dysentery.”
“Garrick won’t stop,” Barnaby muttered. “When he realizes his poison never touched our water, he’ll find another way.”
“Let him try,” Kaelen said mildly. “Next time I’ll grease the roof tiles. Now, I need supplies.”
Barnaby frowned. “We have no money for your laziness.”
“I have my own money,” Kaelen replied, tapping his coin pouch. “I need smokeless spirit-charcoal. Pine wood leaves too much soot when boiling medicine. And more importantly, my reading material has run out.”
“Reading material?” Barnaby choked on his spit. “You want more romance pamphlets while Garrick plots our funeral?”
“A tranquil mind produces superior medicine,” Kaelen said serenely. “Reading about the bandit king stabilizes my heart fire.”
Leaving the old man grumbling on the porch, Kaelen slipped into his travel slippers and set out down the carriage road toward Ashford Town.
Ashford Town was a bustling trade settlement at the base of the mountains. Caravans from the western plains rested here before making the steep climb through the Vance iron passes. Cobblestone streets were crowded with horse carts, ironmongers, and spice sellers.
Kaelen took his time. He stopped by an herbalist stall to inspect dried licorice. He chewed on a stick of candied hawthorn berries. Then he strolled through the market square with the slow pace of an elderly gentleman.
At the coal yard near the southern ditch, he purchased two twenty-pound hemp sacks of smokeless spirit-charcoal for one silver tael. The merchant agreed to deliver the sacks to the Vance outer quarter by afternoon cart.
His business finished, Kaelen headed toward the north side of the square. Tucked between an apothecary and a blacksmith shop stood a modest wooden stall shaded by a blue awning. Racks of paper booklets lined the shelves.
An elderly scholar with wire-rimmed reading glasses sat behind the counter, trimming an oil lamp with a brass needle.
“Welcome, young master,” the scholar said. “Looking for imperial civil service primers?”
“No,” Kaelen said. “Do you have the second book of The Bandit King’s Secret Bride?”
The old bookseller smiled with faint amusement.
“Ah,” the scholar murmured. “Most young men from noble estates only look for sword techniques.”
“Sword manuals give me a headache,” Kaelen said honestly. “Too many diagrams. People shouting about honor. It is very loud.”
The bookseller reached under the counter, pulling out a freshly stitched booklet with a pale blue paper cover. On the front, an ink illustration depicted a masked man leaping from a balcony while a maiden held a silk handkerchief to her breast.
“The second installment,” the scholar chuckled. “Just arrived yesterday from the capital.”
Kaelen flipped through the first few pages. The dialogue was melodramatic, the descriptions were florid, and the villain had just challenged the bandit king to a duel over a stolen jade hairpin. It was glorious.
“One silver tael,” the scholar said.
Kaelen laid a crisp silver coin on the wooden counter. That brought his total spending for the morning to two silver taels, leaving him with fifty-two silver taels and thirty-two copper bits in his purse.
He noticed a shelf behind the desk stacked with dozens of identical copies.
“This author seems very productive,” Kaelen remarked. “Who writes them?”
“Nobody knows,” the bookseller whispered. “The anonymous author only signs the title block as ‘The Idle Hermit,’ and the printer says the full tale is planned as a twelve-part romance serial.”
“I’m always ready for bookshop gossip,” Kaelen said.
“The Imperial Censorate has three observation towers along the provincial highway,” the old man said, lowering his voice. “Their formation arrays scan every single cultivation scripture and martial scroll in the province for forbidden runes or rebellious mantras. If an elder writes an unorthodox breathing chart, the Censorate seizes the whole cart.”
“Sounds tedious,” Kaelen noted.
“Indeed,” the scholar chuckled. “Yet those Censorate arrays completely ignore this twelve-part mortal romance serial. A hundred copies pass beneath the scanning towers every week without a single rune flaring, because to those haughty grandmasters, a story about a bandit kidnapping a bride is just kitchen trash.”
Kaelen looked down at the rough blue booklet in his hands.
The safest place in the entire empire is beneath the cover of cheap mortal garbage, Kaelen thought. If an ancient immortal wanted to hide a forbidden technique, printing it inside the middle pages of a trashy romance would guarantee that not a single righteous elder would ever find it. Cultivators are too proud to read about crying women and stolen hairpins.
He tucked the booklet deep into the inside pocket of his robe.
“A wise author,” Kaelen said. “Thank you for the book, old gentleman.”
“Come back next month for the third part,” the scholar called out with a wave. “The bandit king is going to infiltrate the prime minister’s summer villa disguised as a dancing girl.”
“I will be counting the days,” Kaelen replied dryly.
He stepped out from under the awning back onto the cobblestones. Just ahead, near the central fountain, a large crowd had gathered around the public town notice board. People were murmuring in excited, hushed voices.
Kaelen slowed his pace, curious about the commotion.
Standing on an upturned wooden crate in front of the board were three men in fine robes of midnight-black silk. Embroidered across their left breasts was the silhouette of a three-eyed black crow perched atop a balance scale.
Runners from the Black-Crow Ghost Market.
The lead runner held a wooden bucket of sticky starch paste. With two quick strokes of a horsehair brush, he slathered the center of the wooden notice board with paste. His companion unfurled a massive sheet of thick, crimson paper bordered in gold leaf, smoothing it flat against the wet wood.
At the very top, written in bold, sweeping brushstrokes, were four massive black characters:
REWARD FOR AUDIENCE
The crowd surged forward, craning their necks to read the text.
“Three hundred silver taels?” an iron merchant near the front gasped, his voice cracking with shock. “Did I read that right? Three hundred taels of pure silver?”
“Read the rest of it, fool!” a mercenary captain shouted. “Who is offering that kind of money?”
The lead runner in black silk turned toward the gathering crowd, his cold eyes sweeping across the sea of faces.
“Listen well, citizens of Ashford!” the runner announced in a clear, resonant voice. “By order of Chief Appraiser Deacon Vane of the Black-Crow Ghost Market! A standing bounty of three hundred silver taels is hereby offered to any individual who can arrange a single private tea meeting with the esteemed grandmaster, Master Ash!”
The square erupted into frantic murmurs.
“Master Ash? Who in the heavens is Master Ash?”
“Is he a pill master from the capital?”
“Three hundred silver just to sit down and drink tea with him? Heavens above, that’s enough to buy a two-story tavern and three iron mines!”
Kaelen stood at the outer edge of the gathering, his hands tucked warmly inside his frayed sleeves.
His fingers lightly touched the rough blue cover of The Bandit King’s Secret Bride resting in his pocket.
Deacon Vane had tested the sample pill, and the greedy old weasel was officially hooked. As Kaelen strolled up the mountain road back toward the Third Herb Shed, a soft chime echoed behind his brow.
[Current Abstinence: 36 Hours, 00 Minutes] [Current State: True Fallow State] [Current Multiplier: 37x (Stage 1: Mortal Tally)]
Three hundred silver just to pour me a cup of tea, Kaelen thought, patting the new booklet in his robe. Keep pasting your posters, Deacon. Every hour you wait is another multiplier on my slate, and by the time I’m done reading about this bandit king, your Ghost Market won’t know what hit it.