Er Bao set his sharpening stone beside the fire.
Not dropped it. Set it down, slowly, as though an unexpected movement might frighten away what Xu Hao had just told him.
"Describe the brush again."
Xu Hao rubbed the ache behind his eyes. "A pale handle. Dark bristles. The kind a calligrapher might use."
"And the cards?"
"White. Blank. Stacked together. I couldn't count them."
"Did you see anything else?"
"A great deal of darkness. I can offer a more detailed description if you'd like."
Da Bao had been leaning forward, eager to hear what magnificent power their little brother had awakened. He looked less eager now. Er Bao, meanwhile, had forgotten the sword resting across his knees.
"Were you asleep?" he asked.
"No. At least, I don't think so." Xu Hao thought back to the sudden loss of sound, the floor he couldn't see, the objects that remained beyond his reach no matter how he approached them. "It felt different from a dream. I knew I was sitting on the rock, but I couldn't feel it anymore."
Er Bao glanced at his brother.
Da Bao stopped smiling.
"What?" Xu Hao asked. "Have I described a common illness? I'd much prefer that to a mysterious power I can't touch."
"Father told us stories," Da Bao said.
"About brushes?"
"About Card Drawers."
Er Bao nodded once. "We'd better tell him."
* * *
Er Bao smoothed the dirt between them and drew a rectangle with a burnt stick.
"Our father travelled when he was young. He met cultivators from places we'd never heard of and heard stories that never reached our home. Most were probably exaggerated."
Da Bao snorted. "He said the one about the mountain-sized turtle was true."
"He said he'd seen its shell from a distance."
"That's nearly the same thing."
"It really isn't," Xu Hao said.
Er Bao gave him the briefest smile, then touched the rectangle.
"One story concerned people who could place an ability inside a card. Father called them Card Drawers."
Xu Hao leaned closer. "What sort of ability?"
Er Bao sketched a small flame. "Say someone was born with fire and learned to produce a fireball. A Card Drawer might be able to record that technique."
"Record it as a picture?"
"As a card. And, according to the story, give the ability to somebody else."
Xu Hao looked up.
"Somebody who already knows how to use fire?"
"Not necessarily."
"A person without any fire element at all?"
"That's what Father heard."
It took Xu Hao a moment to appreciate the difference. He'd seen men move the earth under their feet. Er Bao had explained that such power came from something innate, something a person was born with and then learned to control.
But a Card Drawer could give it away.
"If that story is true," Xu Hao said, "then having an innate element wouldn't be the only way to obtain an ability."
"No."
"Could the recipient learn to improve it?"
"We don't know."
"Could the same technique be put on two cards?"
"We don't know that either."
"What happens when a card is used? Does it disappear? Does the ability return to the person who drew it?"
Er Bao put down the stick.
"Little brother."
"Yes?"
"Father told a story. He didn't leave us an instruction manual."
Xu Hao sat back. "A pity. That's exactly what I need."
He was accustomed to incomplete evidence. He'd built a career on it. But there was something especially cruel about being told that the first extraordinary power he might possess came with neither instructions nor a reliable account of what it could do.
Da Bao was studying the rectangle. "If you can draw one of my techniques, you could give it to Er Bao."
"Your brother already controls earth," Xu Hao pointed out.
"Then I could give him a better one."
Er Bao raised an eyebrow. "You could begin by controlling the ones you already have."
"I control them perfectly."
"You broke a bowl today."
"The bowl was in the wrong place."
Xu Hao smiled despite his headache. Then he looked at the empty rectangle again.
They were joking about giving away powers. If even part of the story was true, people would do much worse than break bowls to possess such a gift.
* * *
"Who else knows about Card Drawers?" he asked.
Er Bao's expression settled. "Enough people that I wouldn't speak of one in a town."
"Because they're rare?"
"Because they're useful."
Da Bao poked at the fire. "Father knew a story about one who lived in a palace. A whole wing for himself. Servants, cooks, fine clothes."
"Sounds comfortable," Xu Hao said.
"That's what I thought." Da Bao glanced at Er Bao. "Father asked me whether the man could walk out through the gates whenever he wished."
"Could he?"
"No one agreed on that part," Er Bao replied. "Some said he was honoured. Others said he was guarded."
Xu Hao watched a coal collapse into the ash. On Earth, he'd studied enough court histories to know that a generous patron could become a jailer without ever changing his vocabulary. A scholar might be 'invited' to serve at court and discover, years later, that nobody had intended to invite him home again.
"And if he refused to make a card?"
Er Bao said nothing.
"Some Card Drawers vanished," Da Bao added. "Father never knew whether they escaped or somebody took them."
"Or whether the stories were true at all," Er Bao said.
He spoke firmly, and Xu Hao was grateful for it. Stories became dangerous when people repeated guesses until they sounded like facts.
Yet Er Bao had gone pale when he first heard about the brush.
"You believe I'm one," Xu Hao said.
"I believe you saw something that matches the stories."
"That's not quite the same."
"No. It isn't."
Xu Hao looked down at his hands. The marks on his wrists had faded from red to brown. Nine days ago these men had considered selling him in town, and now they were explaining why someone with his power might spend the rest of his life behind locked gates.
He wondered if Er Bao remembered the conversation too.
"Suppose I could make a card," he said. "Suppose somebody wanted it badly enough to threaten you. Or Da Bao. What would stop me from handing over everything I had?"
Da Bao opened his mouth. Er Bao spoke first.
"Nothing."
Xu Hao looked up.
"If they have a knife at your throat, you should do what keeps you alive," Er Bao said. "Our father taught us that pride is easier to replace than a life."
"And if they threaten you instead?"
"Then we'd have to find a way out of it."
"That sounds less reassuring."
"It's the truth."
Da Bao folded his arms. "They would need to catch us first."
Er Bao didn't contradict him, but his eyes moved towards the darkness beyond their shelter.
Xu Hao had almost forgotten that the brothers had enemies of their own. He had no right to forget it. Their family was gone, and the two men beside him were still hiding from the people responsible.
Another valuable secret was the last thing their camp needed.
* * *
"There is one difficulty," Er Bao said after a while.
"Only one?"
"Father believed Card Drawers usually had another innate element. They trained that element first, then used their cards to record techniques."
Xu Hao waited.
"You haven't sensed an element yet."
"I've been very thorough about not sensing one."
"It may simply be too early."
"Or the stories are wrong."
"Or they describe a different kind of Card Drawer."
Xu Hao considered that. He'd entered the hall once, and for all his excitement there was still very little to report. A floating brush. A deck he couldn't touch. A headache that refused to leave.
If this was a gift, the person who gave it to him had neglected several practical matters.
"Could we ask somebody who knows more?" he said.
"Not without explaining why we're asking," Er Bao replied.
"What if we asked about old stories? Nothing specific."
"People who trade in rare knowledge are very good at guessing why a stranger wants it."
Da Bao leaned forward. "We could go to Hibiscus Town and listen in the markets. Nobody needs to know anything about Xu Hao."
Xu Hao looked at him hopefully.
Er Bao shook his head.
"We should delay the trip."
Da Bao's face fell. "Again?"
"Look at him."
Both brothers did. Xu Hao suddenly regretted sitting between them.
"He barely knows the roads," Er Bao continued. "He can't defend himself against an ordinary beast. He's just discovered something that might attract people much stronger than we are."
"We're Blazing Sun cultivators," Xu Hao said.
"And the world has cultivators who could defeat both of us," Er Bao answered. "You know that."
"I know. I just wish you wouldn't remind me at every opportunity."
He thought of Hibiscus Town: a name on an invisible road, the nearest place that might contain books, maps, or someone who knew how a man could travel between worlds. Each delay put his parents farther away in ways he could not measure.
But he also remembered the palace Card Drawer, who might have owned everything except the right to leave.
"How long?" he asked.
"A few weeks. We can hunt. We have meat. We'll make the salt last."
Da Bao looked sorrowfully at the clay jar.
Xu Hao was less worried about the salt. "And during those weeks?"
"Train. Learn the language. Try to understand what you saw, but don't force it until you're exhausted."
"That's three things."
"Then you'll have plenty to do."
Da Bao brightened. "We can run farther in the mornings."
Xu Hao closed his eyes. "I knew you would find a way to enjoy this."
* * *
They agreed on something else before sleeping: no mention of the brush or cards to anyone outside their camp.
Da Bao was entirely in favour. "If anybody asks, little brother's a scholar."
"He is a scholar," Er Bao reminded him.
"Exactly. And an uncommonly small one."
Xu Hao gave him a tired look. "Your evidence for my profession is overwhelming."
He tried to laugh, but his thoughts kept returning to what they hadn't said. Keeping a secret was easy while no one knew to ask. It became much harder when somebody offered a reward, or threatened the person who held it.
"What if someone tries to make you tell them?" he asked.
Er Bao looked towards the fire. Da Bao straightened, all the humour leaving his face.
"On Father's name," Da Bao said, pressing a fist against his chest. "They won't hear it from me."
Er Bao reached over and rested one broad hand on Xu Hao's shoulder.
"We know what it's like to be hunted," he said. "We won't let you face that alone."
For a moment Xu Hao could think of nothing to say. They'd once discussed selling him. Now they were promising to protect a secret that might cost them their lives. He believed they meant it; that was what frightened him.
"Please don't die proving it," he said quietly.
Da Bao tried to look offended. "We aren't that easy to kill."
Er Bao's hand remained on Xu Hao's shoulder. "Then don't make us test it."
Xu Hao nodded. He would be careful. Whatever lay waiting in that dark hall, he would learn what it could do before asking anyone else to risk their lives for it.
Da Bao clapped his hands suddenly.
"Well! If we're staying here longer, we should start tomorrow's training earlier."
Xu Hao stared at him. "We have just discussed the possibility of imprisonment, kidnapping and murder."
"Which is why you need strong legs."
"Brother Er Bao, tell him that's ridiculous."
Er Bao considered it. "We could put a basket of stones at the bottom of the hill. Carrying them up would help."
Xu Hao looked between them.
"So this," he said, "is the price of your protection."
Da Bao grinned. "A very reasonable price."
Later, after the brothers had settled by the fire, Xu Hao closed his eyes and tried to picture the dark hall without entering it. The brush remained as clear in his memory as the moment he'd seen it. So did the blank cards.
He had spent the evening asking what a Card Drawer could give other people.
He still had no idea what the cards might take from him.