Chapter 17 When Taking Becomes a Habit

Town Chief Dasti's face showed surprise and a trace of wanting to laugh. He could tell that Amon was picking a quarrel with Xiaogu, and he could not help secretly marveling at the boy's nerve. Amon did have grounds: Xiaogu had nearly chopped one of his fingers off last time, and Amon had never once offended the reverend priest. But wanting to was one thing—the boy had actually gone and done it!

Amon claimed he had found fully formed ore cores, needing no mining, in a stream cut by a mountain flood. Such a thing was not impossible, only very rare. If a townsman truly did pick up one or two ore cores like that, he would quietly take them home and never register them; the godstones inside would of course be his to keep. As long as he said nothing, who would ever know?

By doing this, Amon was plainly out to make Xiaogu pay his taxes for him. And who had made the reverend priest promise a thing like that, all for the sake of an apology?

Xiaogu's face was a thundercloud, but in front of everyone he could hardly say anything. He could only ask, "Amon, you truly are a lucky and honest child. Might I have a look at the godstones you extracted?"

He assumed Amon had picked up one or two ore cores at most. But when Amon drew a piece of sheepskin from his bosom and opened it, everyone around let out a cry of shock. Lord Xiaogu's vision went black, and he fainted dead away on the spot; if a servant beside him had not caught him quickly, the back of his skull would have cracked against the stone steps!

There on the grimy sheepskin lay not only twenty colorless, transparent standard godstones, but among them a single special godstone shining with a deep blue luster, as though strange, mysterious ripples of water were swaying inside it.

The onlookers were too astonished to speak. At a moment like this, the town chief kept his head best; he was the first to recover, and after a gasp for breath he asked, "Amon, th-these—did you really find these?"

Amon nodded without a flicker of expression. "Yes. Some year's mountain flood must have split open a vein, and a whole pile of ore cores lay exposed in the dry streambed. I was lucky enough to come across them."

Dasti swallowed, felt his lips go a little dry, glanced around, and lowered his voice. "Actually, you could have... doing this... to yourself..."

He only ever said half of each sentence, but his meaning could not have been plainer. Amon could have quietly kept it all and told no one. Doing this was forcing Lord Xiaogu to pay the tax, and it did Amon no good at all—because Lord Xiaogu would certainly have his revenge. How could a miner's son afford to offend Lord Xiaogu's power and standing?

Then someone nearby said, "Lord Xiaogu has fainted. What do we do?"

Amon answered as well. "Lord Town Chief, I want to pay my taxes. You wouldn't make me break the law in front of everyone, would you?"

Town Chief Dasti sighed and said helplessly, "Wake Lord Xiaogu up. We all know it—the Amon family's taxes for this year are all paid by him on their behalf!"

Only the town chief here knew why Xiaogu had fainted. If there had been only twenty godstones, Xiaogu would pay the tax on eighteen of them, and painful as a knife carving flesh, that would not have been enough to make him lose face like this. The crux of it was that blue godstone. The miners of this town had no idea of its worth: reckoned for tax, it was the equal of two hundred standard godstones.

In other words, Xiaogu would have to pay the tax on a full one hundred ninety-eight godstones for Amon. A single godstone was worth twenty zhu of gold coin, so Xiaogu would owe nearly four thousand zhu of gold! A sum like that could buy a luxurious country estate in the city-state of Xuya, along with herds of slaves, cattle and sheep.

Xiaogu was rubbed on the chest until he came to. Supported by two servants, he barely managed to stand, and asked in a trembling voice, "Amon, do you really mean to pay the tax?" His eyes looked as though blood might drip from them. If looks could kill, Amon would already have been hacked limb from limb.

Amon met that gaze without the slightest flinch, looking into Xiaogu's eyes almost tauntingly, and answered in a calm, clear voice, "That's right. Or does the lord scribe in charge of registering taxes want to make me dodge my taxes in front of everyone?"

Pushed to this point, the tax had to be paid whether he would or no. Xiaogu avoided Amon's eyes and said to Dasti, in a pleading look and a pitiful tone, "Lord Town Chief, I will accept this tax. Register it as twenty-one godstones."

The meaning of those words seemed to be understood by Dasti alone. It was wordplay: a blue godstone was a godstone too, so registering it that way seemed no error at all. But this touched on a secret between Xiaogu and Dasti, and on the finest money-making method these two noble lords of the town possessed. In the past, whenever a miner dug out a special godstone, the two of them had been beside themselves with joy.

The townsfolk had no idea how valuable special godstones were, because the moment one was dug out it was taken away, and it could never appear on the market as currency the way standard godstones did. People knew only that the things were rare—perhaps one in several hundred godstones—and that if one was found, the town chief would happily award the craftsman an extra godstone as a bonus.

What remained after that was the private arrangement between town chief and scribe. One special godstone was worth two hundred standard godstones. By statute they could keep twenty for themselves, while the miner who dug it out received a single godstone as reward, and the other nineteen were quietly split between Dasti and Xiaogu.

And that was not even the most profitable case: if, with the town chief's tacit consent, they played that same game of words and the scribe registered it merely as a godstone, not a special godstone, then the two of them could divide the equivalent of one hundred ninety-eight godstones!

But the situation now was different: the more valuable the blue godstone, the more tax Xiaogu would have to pay for Amon. Xiaogu was hinting to Town Chief Dasti that, just as they had done before, he should not register it as a Deep Blue Water Heart. He was even signaling with his eyes, hoping to cover up the Deep Blue Water Heart's value and trick it out of Amon's hands with the reward for an ordinary godstone. That way they would not merely lose nothing—they would make a fortune.

Town Chief Dasti hesitated as well. He cleared his throat and was just about to speak, when unexpectedly Amon said loudly, "Your Reverence the priest, my apologies—but don't forget, I can read too! Please register it truthfully: twenty standard godstones and one blue godstone. I can read that much."

The words struck like an invisible miner's sledgehammer. Xiaogu's body gave a sudden shudder, then he slumped limply against the servant's shoulder, not daring to look at Amon, looking only at Dasti. Dasti's face turned ugly too, and he said to Amon in a heavy voice, "The matter of the tax will be handled by us lords; in any case, you won't be paying it. And also—this Deep Blue—this blue godstone of yours, could you hand it to me? The town will give you a special reward."

Amon countered, "If the tax has already been paid in full, then all these godstones can stay in my hands, can't they? Isn't that so?"

Dasti's throat felt a little dry. He pondered, then said, "If a special godstone is handed over, you will receive an extra reward. You lose nothing by it..."

Before he finished speaking, Amon felt a hand settle on his shoulder, and heard the Old Madman's voice, unhurried: "Lord Town Chief, I often see a certain sort of thing. A man takes possession of what should never have been his, and in time it becomes a habit, and he forgets that those things were never his. And if one day he fails to get what does not belong to him, he actually feels the rightful owner has no business having it. Tell me—what sort of person would you call that?"

Amon watched Xiaogu's pitiful face as he begged the town chief, and for some reason a nameless fury came surging up in his heart, so hard to hold down that he nearly shook with it: he wanted to step forward two paces and smash that face with one punch. The Old Madman had chosen exactly this moment to appear. His hand rested on Amon's shoulder, and an invisible force held him where he stood.

Town Chief Dasti said nothing more, but the Old Madman went on and on: "That is a devil! Desire is not necessarily a sin; it can urge men to create, to pursue more of what is beautiful. ...But let me tell you a story.

There was once a man who stole one gold coin from me every day, and no one ever called him to account. Then one time I kindly told him that this was not a good thing to do, and his heart filled with nothing but hatred and curses.

He demanded that I encourage and praise him for carrying on with it, and that if I did not, the wrongdoing would be mine—while he had quite forgotten how much he had already gotten from me. ...Tell me, whose wrongdoing is that?"

Town Chief Dasti, pinned under the Old Madman's stare, broke out in cold sweat and involuntarily stepped back. Turning his head to Xiaogu, he said, "Scribe, Amon's request is perfectly normal and lawful. Since he can read, let him watch you register it. Write twenty standard godstones and one blue godstone, and the tax will be paid by you on his behalf."

The moment the words left his mouth, Lord Xiaogu's eyes rolled up white, his body went stiff, he opened his mouth and spat out a mouthful of blood, and then collapsed into his servant's arms. The servants carried him off into the temple in a fluster for emergency treatment. Most of the crowd still had no idea what had happened; it seemed Lord Xiaogu was ill—gravely ill.

The Old Madman watched coldly as Xiaogu was carried into the temple, then said to Dasti, "The scribe is unwell and cannot keep at his work. Lord Town Chief, register it yourself."

Dasti wiped the sweat from his temple and nodded. "All right, I'll register it. Now take this boy away, quickly!"

Amon had been in the grip of an emotion he could not suppress, filled with violent impulse, and yet at the sight of Xiaogu spitting blood and fainting—hurt worse, it seemed, than if he had struck him with his own fist—he calmed for no reason he could name, and suddenly felt that this noble priest was nothing but a lowly, pitiable worm. Then the Old Madman's hand on his shoulder pressed a little, and Amon turned half around without meaning to and went off with him.

"Child, Xiaogu deserved it, but you are the one enduring torment. Do you understand now—this desire that is one body with two faces? Learn how to face it, just as you must learn how to use power. ...What you did today was dangerous. You were not calm enough. If you do not learn how to face this trial, then in the future I will not be seeing your achievements—I'm afraid I will soon be seeing your corpse."

They were at the Old Madman's house. The Old Madman drank as he spoke, but he did not pour Amon a cup.

Amon asked, "You mean Xiaogu will take revenge on me?"

The Old Madman laughed. "Of course—you knew the consequences perfectly well! He would like nothing better than to kill you... Do you even know what the Deep Blue Water Heart is worth?"

Amon: "No. You never told me either. I imagine it's worth a lot?"

The Old Madman: "The people of Duke Town have a different notion of money from the world outside. One Deep Blue Water Heart is worth two hundred godstones—the equivalent of four thousand zhu of gold—and you can't buy one just because you want to. A sum like that could set off a bloody quarrel anywhere, and here it sits in the hands of a child like you. For the moment you are safe in Duke Town, at least so long as I am here. But what about when you are alone?"

Amon lowered his head. "It seems you knew what I was going to do, and you didn't stop me."

The Old Madman shook his head. "Advice is useless. I could have stopped you, but I cannot face the rising desire in your place. After this business you ought to understand how to master it—to face it clearly, even to enjoy it, but never to let it steer your thoughts, your words and your deeds. ...Besides, I was glad enough to see you take Xiaogu down a peg. He deserved it. Only you must look after yourself."

Amon nodded. "I think I understand now."

The Old Madman stood up. "Good, then. You are ready to learn the most basic first-rank divine art. There are many kinds of divine arts—elemental divine arts, spiritual divine arts, blessing divine arts, spatial divine arts, the divine art of messages, and so on. It is very hard for a mage to master every kind; as a rule each has his own specialty. I don't know what yours will be. Since you have the Deep Blue Water Heart, we will start with the water elemental divine arts."

In Amon's mind, divine arts had always been deep and mysterious beyond reach, and yet the Old Madman told him that the standard for a first-rank divine artist was very simple: a sheet of ice!

Summon the water held in the surroundings, condense it into ice, and quietly spread a layer of ice over some patch of ground nearby—that was success. Amon did not realize that this already amounted to three water elemental divine arts. All three were first-rank, but the skill of combining them was far from simple, especially to complete them all at once and without a sound.

The Old Madman did not tell him how hard this really was for a mage who had just begun. He said only that it was the simplest of beginnings.

Condensing water into ice came easily; following the Old Madman's method, Amon managed it on his first try. Summoning the water element in the surroundings so that countless tiny ice crystals spread slowly across the ground took real effort, but a few days later he managed that too. The Old Madman smiled and said to him, "You may practice it over and over, but when you cultivate on your own, do not use the Deep Blue Water Heart anymore."

When Amon did not use the Deep Blue Water Heart as the medium for casting, he found the very same divine art more than ten times harder. By rights the Old Madman ought to have given him a staff, but the old man seemed to have forgotten, whether by design or not, and expected Amon to cast with nothing but his own strength as a divine artist.

Amon could not do it. In truth, plenty of low-rank divine artists could not do it either, third-rank ones included—at the very least you needed a staff set with an ordinary godstone! But Amon already knew quite clearly how it should be done; he had mastered the technique, having succeeded many times through the Deep Blue Water Heart. So he never doubted that his method was wrong—only that his power had not caught up. No doubts, no despair. Just practice!

Only then did the Old Madman explain to Amon what made the Deep Blue Water Heart special and how it ought to be used. It not only helped awaken power; it could enormously assist the casting of water elemental divine arts. If he had had Amon cast such a divine art with his own strength from the start, the boy could never have succeeded; borrowing the Deep Blue Water Heart was a shortcut.

But a shortcut comes with a principle: it may be used on only two occasions. First, to grasp a divine art more surely, to understand its methods and techniques in the most thorough way possible. Second, when locked in a struggle of life and death with another, where no strength can be held back. But once a divine art has been grasped, ordinary training should as far as possible do without it—otherwise you breed dependence and self-satisfaction, and that does your own strength no good.

The Old Madman said it, and Amon did it. Without the Deep Blue Water Heart he still could not manage, but he was in no hurry. He also kept a trick to himself: every so often he would secretly try once more with the Deep Blue Water Heart, to see how much his strength had actually grown. The results satisfied him—the ice formed faster and faster, and spread wider and wider.

Of course the Old Madman knew that for Amon to condense water and spread ice solely with his own strength, completing it silently and all at once, was far too difficult. Had the boy managed it easily, he would have been shocked instead—there is a limit to every genius! Beyond that the Old Madman taught him nothing else. He did not even teach him combat arts.

Then one day Amon spent a whole afternoon secretly laying a layer of ice, all but impossible to notice, on the Old Madman's doorstep. He wanted to watch the old man take a tumble, and be hiding nearby to catch him. But when the Old Madman came home, the layer of ice had vanished for no reason at all, and Amon, behind the door, slipped and went sprawling flat on his back.

That was when the Old Madman said to him, "Child, you are a first-rank mage now. In so short a time—an extraordinary achievement for anyone else—but for you, I only hope there will be time enough. ...Because disaster will soon be upon us, and when it comes you must be able to protect yourself, and learn how to protect yourself."

Amon asked, full of curiosity, "What disaster?"

The Old Madman would not say more. He only asked in return, "Do you still go to the Cold Spring every night to practice divine arts?"

Amon nodded. "Yes. I'm used to it."

That Cold Spring was no longer piercingly cold now; it was only a cool pool of water. But Amon was used to calling it the Cold Spring, and used to going there every day to bathe and practice his divine arts. The place was well hidden, its surroundings peaceful, and Amon felt a kind of familiarity and warmth about it.

The Old Madman said nothing more. He only nodded and said, "All right. Then keep going."

Amon did not know why the Old Madman said disaster was about to fall, but that very night, Amon truly did run into a disastrous event.