That night Amon came to the Cold Spring once more, but not to bathe as he usually did. In the past he had always sat in the water at the edge of the spring, soaking his body and washing his face and hair clean; this time, however, the Old Madman wanted him to dive down into the depths of the Cold Spring and find the spring's eye, where there was a very particular thing. He was to bring it out and carry it back.
As for what that thing was, the Old Madman had not said.
The Cold Spring was piercingly cold. Under the moonlight a layer of mist clung to the water's surface, so that it looked as if the water were steaming; in fact it was fine droplets condensing in the frigid air just above the surface. In that biting water an ordinary man's teeth would begin chattering within a few breaths, past all bearing, and even Amon needed courage to dive deep.
Amon drew a deep breath and slipped noiselessly under the water, trying hard not to think about the piercing chill, focusing his mind to feel the faint currents along the bottom with his body as he searched for the spring's eye. The middle of the Cold Spring was not especially deep—about the height of two grown men—but that was enough to put Amon completely under.
In the depths of the spring the chill came at him as though without end, the heat draining from his body fast. Amon fought to keep himself from shivering and convulsing, but every pore was contracting and trembling, and every tiny fiber of every muscle was vibrating rapidly and faintly.
Concentrating in such conditions was very hard, but Amon managed it. He sensed the slow flow deep within the seemingly still water and followed that flow back to its source. The Cold Spring welled up gurgling from the cracks among a pile of pebbles at the bottom, and amid that all-embracing piercing chill Amon suddenly felt a deeper cold still.
That faint difference was hard to make out, since everything around him was already freezing. Amon's hand touched a stone, very much like an ore core; when he focused his mind to examine it closely, his body suddenly gave an uncontrollable shudder and he nearly choked on water. The chill he had paid no attention to now seemed to have been awakened all at once, drilling frantically into his body.
It was not that the spring water had grown colder; rather, Amon seemed to have made contact with the source of that chill, awakening and magnifying the sensation, and for a moment it was almost more than he could bear. He wanted only to get out of there at once, and he even feared he would freeze stiff in the spring.
But Amon did not leave. A warm current rose inside him and spread through his limbs and frame. That reaction usually came only after he had left the Cold Spring and sat down to rest; for it to come now, in the water, meant he had been in long enough to be nearing some limit—his body had resorted to instinctive self-protection, and had awakened a kind of power as well.
Amon gripped the ore-core-sized pebble, and when he pulled, it would not come up. The stone, which looked like any loose rock lying on the bottom, seemed pinned there by some mysterious force, stuck fast.
Holding his breath, Amon gathered all his concentration. In that instant both the chill and the warm current inside him seemed to answer his control; his whole body shook violently, his chest felt unbearably tight, and his right hand exerted astonishing strength. Then the feeling gave way all at once and the pebble came up in his grip. Amon's body shot up out of the water and dropped back with a splash, the stone still clenched tight in his fist.
He crawled back onto the bank, but paid the pebble no attention; he simply sat there with his eyes closed, apparently motionless, though he felt his blood racing, and every pore trembling in a way no eye could detect. The water on his body turned to vapor and steamed away, but the chill inside him took a long while to disperse.
He had been in the water only a short time, yet he felt terribly tired. He stood up and worked his limbs through a series of movements like some strange gymnastics, and only when he had calmed down did he examine the pebble carefully. It looked very much like an ore core, but Amon had seen plenty of ore cores of every kind, and he sensed something different about this one. Though it was much like a natural pebble, it seemed to carry traces of artificial manufacture—very skillfully done, but there nonetheless.
When he had sensed it in the spring, it had been so bitterly cold; now, held in his hand, it was only normally cool for a stone, with hardly any anomaly to be felt. At that thought Amon suddenly realized something else was off. He set the stone down and went back into the Cold Spring. The water was still icy, but just as Amon had guessed, the piercing chill was gradually fading away.
By now Amon had already done what the Old Madman had asked of him, but he did not stop; he dove into the Cold Spring again. This time it was much easier than before. Soon he surfaced with another pebble in one hand and tossed it onto the bank, then took another breath and went down again, throwing out twenty pebbles in a row before he finally climbed back onto the shore.
This time he was thoroughly frozen, his skin tinged purple, gasping for breath and shaking like a sieve. Then, for no reason he could name, the moonlight seemed to grow brighter; a warmth wrapped around him and slowly seeped into his body. He looked up and saw a godstone floating quietly overhead, giving off a soft radiance; he turned, and saw that the Old Madman had at some point come to stand behind him.
"Child, you'll do yourself an injury that way. I never told you to pull out the whole magic formation—only to find the one at the center, the Deep Blue Water Heart, and use your power to bring it out." As the Old Madman spoke, the godstone hovering in midair grew brighter, its soft white light seeming to thicken into mist, and Amon's body gradually recovered; at the same time a pressure descended on him that left him unable to speak.
"But you've done better than I imagined. Setting you to bring out the Deep Blue Water Heart was chiefly a test of two things. First, whether your body could withstand the Cold Spring's assault and still use power without interference. Second, whether your spirit and will were strong enough to notice the subtle changes in that environment. Only then is there any chance of awakening the power of one body with two faces."
As he spoke, the Old Madman waved the short staff in his hand, and the twenty pebbles on the ground crumbled soundlessly, as though ore cores were being split open with a sledgehammer, revealing the twenty godstones inside. As for the first pebble Amon had brought up, its surface rippled like water, then sloughed away like a flowing stream into sand, and at its center appeared a deep blue godstone.
The Old Madman went on: "Thirty years ago I used one Deep Blue Water Heart and twenty godstones to lay out a magic formation here and made this Cold Spring, and now its purpose is fulfilled. Those pebbles were no natural ore cores; the disguise was my own work. That you found the Deep Blue Water Heart does not surprise me, but that you found every one of the disguised pebbles truly delights me."
That said, the godstone in midair dropped and was caught by the Old Madman, and before them there was only the tranquil moonlight reflected on the water. Amon had already risen to his feet; he reached out, picked up the blue godstone, and asked, "It's called the Deep Blue Water Heart?"
The Old Madman nodded. "Yes. Godstones of each different color have their own names. Blue ones are called the Deep Blue Water Heart by divine artists."
A child raised in Duke Town naturally knew that besides the colorless, transparent standard godstone there were four special kinds—red, blue, black and white—but this was the first time Amon had heard the name Deep Blue Water Heart. These four special godstones were not as unspeakably rare as the Tears of the Gods, but they were very scarce all the same; even in a place like Duke Town no more than a few came out of the ground in a year, and with poor luck a man might go years without seeing one.
Last time Amon had mined the Tears of the Gods, but Fayol had taken it away before he could look at it closely; today was the first chance he had ever had to study a special godstone other than the standard kind. He was turning it over in his hands when he realized that the Old Madman had already turned and walked off.
"Where are you going?" Amon called after him.
"Home to sleep, of course! I was afraid something might happen to you in the Cold Spring, so I came to take a look and be ready to pull you out at any moment. Since you're fine, I can get a good night's sleep." The Old Madman answered without turning his head.
"These godstones—aren't you taking them with you?" Amon called again.
"I threw them down here thirty years ago and never meant to take them back. What you brought out is yours; keep them, they'll be of use... Tomorrow night, same time, same place, I will perform the ceremony to awaken your power. Don't forget." The voice receded as he spoke, and the Old Madman had vanished into the Black Fire Thicket.
After the Old Madman left, Amon sat by the spring studying the Deep Blue Water Heart. When he concentrated and tried to examine it closely, he kept feeling a mysterious force pulsing between the godstone and the spring water, and something inside his body stirred restlessly, like the breath of some craving, and before he knew it his mind had wandered again.
The next night, the "ceremony to awaken the power" that the Old Madman performed for Amon turned out to be a kind of prayer. But unlike the ceremonies divine artists held, this grand mage had Amon pray to no particular god. He only taught him how to make his spirit more focused, so that everything outside hovered between seen and unseen, and thus he could clearly sense his own body and the subtle shifts within his heart, refining his spirit in introspection and communicating with the source power that stands for all things.
This was of course far harder than a divine artist's devout prayer to the gods. The Old Madman also told Amon that there was no harm, in fact, in praying to the gods as well, and explained with a laugh: "I heard your talk with Aristotle the other day about the origin of divinity. If you could understand what he said, then you can understand me too... Awakening power requires sufficient preparation, or the ceremony will not succeed—and you have been prepared more than sufficiently for a long time now."
The ceremony was like opening a door and touching an unknown world. The Old Madman had Amon set the Deep Blue Water Heart before him and try to gather his spiritual power with the Deep Blue Water Heart as the medium, and sense how he might communicate with that unknown world. Amon truly felt a coolness, there and yet not there, spreading all around him with no definite shape.
When he experienced that coolness, it seemed able to turn into a spreading chill—the feeling he had known best in the Cold Spring for so long—and then he felt the spring water beside him resonating and pulsing with it in a strange rhythm. This rhythm was neither breathing nor heartbeat, but a natural cadence impossible to put into words.
Meanwhile the Old Madman saw the Deep Blue Water Heart give off a hazy watery light that cloaked Amon, and could not help sighing. "If this ceremony were performed with the Tears of the Gods, awakening the power would be far easier. The Deep Blue Water Heart will do well enough; and even without the help of any external thing you would still succeed—but this way is better, for you will master specific divine arts more easily."
Amon did not hear the Old Madman's words. He was absorbed in this wondrous new world. Was this the power the gods bestowed? Or the power of nature's source? Perhaps it was the power that had lain hidden in his own body? What he sensed was not only the strange pulsing outside him; his body also felt an indescribable lightness and ease, and he thought he had never been so strong.
For no reason he could name, he felt immensely powerful, as though he could master or overcome everything, and when his spirit turned inward in focus, he truly sensed that power of one body with two faces.
And desire always comes with power; the greater the power, the more the desires, as a rule. A starving man may think only of a square meal, while an emperor may dream of conquering the whole continent and possessing endless wealth and authority.
In the seeming quiet, all manner of cravings and wishes rose quietly as well, and he could not tell whether they came from the body or the mind. During the focused prayer ceremony he might still hold them in check, but in his ordinary words and deeds Amon soon felt this torment.
The ceremony was only a beginning. The Old Madman told him that he must master it by degrees, until he had complete control of this sensing, before he could truly learn divine arts and combat arts—and that would probably take some time yet. Over the following days Amon came to the spring every night to pray with focus, but for most of the daylight hours he was still a miner of the town, and looked no different from before.
He often thought of Aikou-Maria, of what had happened that night, of her body and her lips, of the feel of his hand slipped inside her collar and laid on her breast—and his thoughts had undergone a subtle change as well. He would sink into a fantasy: that he had gained invincible power, that he could defeat Gabriel, drive off Rod-Dick and even that personal guard of his, leaving only him and Aikou-Maria, and then...
He did possess a power such as he had never had, but with the power came subtle changes in his state of mind; cravings and wishes swelled and were magnified, and flew off wing-spread beyond all bounds.
Each night, when he steadied his spirit to look inward on body and mind and sense the world outside, he would recognize all this clearly again, as though enduring a torment. One voice seemed to say, "You have power—go and take everything you want!" Another seemed to say, "How ridiculous—you're so weak all you can do is be laughed at!" And Amon's own soul seemed to stand apart from both voices, watching coldly, and yet to be pulled along by them against his will.
When Aikou-Maria had gone through all this, Gabriel told her that she need only examine it calmly with a pure heart and not be swayed by it. The Old Madman said no such thing to Amon; he only told him that this was a trial, and it was up to him how he faced it.
Besides the turmoil that beset his soul, Amon's body showed strange reactions too. He had the illusion that he grew stronger every day; his stride as he walked was so powerful and steady, every bone and every muscle gave a faint creak, as though brimming with inexhaustible vigor, and he even had the impulse to clench his fist and hit someone.
The son of a drunkard, mocked by plenty of people in this town since he was small—Amon now had, for no reason he could name, a desire to pick out anyone who rubbed him the wrong way and beat them. It was as if a fierce, quarrelsome beast lay in wait inside his body. Amon did not go brawling in the town, but he did do something that left the whole town staring, dumbstruck and envious beyond measure.
The upshot of the affair: the temple priest and scribe, Scribe Xiaogu, collapsed in public and spat blood.
The cause was those godstones he had brought out of the Cold Spring. Amon had been carrying them on his person, carefully, all along. That day, passing the Temple of the Goddess Muyun, he saw Xiaogu with his servants at the gate, registering the taxes the townsfolk paid, and the town chief standing to one side. From some impulse he could not place, Amon turned with a cold smile and strode over, saying loudly, "Town Chief, I've come to pay my taxes!"
Before Town Chief Dasti could answer, Xiaogu asked, uneasy and a little curious, "Amon, what tax are you paying? Your family hasn't drawn any ore cores from the mine these past days, has it?"
Drawing godstones out of ore cores was only the crucial final step; the ore cores themselves were mined at the pit north of the village, on the edge of the towering ranges of the Xuya Plateau.
No one man's strength could clear rock, cut stone and dig out ore cores—that was the collective labor of the town's miners, under supervision, and the ore cores won were handed out to each household according to how much work it had put in.
Here at Scribe Xiaogu's desk there was no recent record of Amon's family drawing ore cores, and he had in fact been glad of that.
Amon answered, "Respected priest and scribe, my lord, I happened to find a batch of ore cores washed down by a mountain flood in a stream in the Black Fire Thicket—as though the gods had granted them to me, needing no chiseling of the mountains by human hands. I carried them home and opened them up, and took out a batch of godstones. By the statutes of this town, these too must have their taxes paid."