Chapter 182 - 183: The Fine Print

Chapter 182: Chapter 183: The Fine Print

"The weakest should remain," said Long Tian.

He said it casually, the way a man mentions the weather. He was standing at the foot of the pillars with his arms folded, his sealed aura a faint grey smudge around his shoulders, and he did not look at Daniel at all.

"Of course you’d say that," said Daniel.

"It is logical. The summit is dangerous. The lantern may be guarded." Long Tian shrugged. "Whoever is least able to defend himself ought to stay behind."

"And you think that’s me."

"I think a stage-three napper is a stage-three napper."

"Then I propose," said Daniel pleasantly, "that the one who’s been slapped twice in two days stays behind. For his own protection."

Long Tian’s jaw tightened. "That is a ridiculous standard."

"It’s very specific."

"It is *petty*."

"It’s both."

Yun Xi sat down on a flat rock and opened her bag of dumplings.

"While you two argue," she said, "the sun is going down."

She was right. The sky over the summit had gone the deep gold of a late afternoon, and the lantern in the hollow behind the pillars burned with a small, steady flame. Somewhere far below, other teams were climbing. Daniel could not hear them yet. He could feel them.

He looked at the plaque again.

THE LANTERN MAY BE CARRIED BY TWO. THE THIRD MUST REMAIN AT THE GATE. WHO SHALL STAY?

He read it slowly, one word at a time, the way he read a contract with a sleeping lawyer.

"Huh," said Daniel.

"What?" said Long Tian.

"Nothing."

"You said ’huh.’"

"I say a lot of things."

"You are *smiling*."

"It’s my default expression."

Daniel crouched in front of the plaque. He ran one finger along the letters. Then he stood up, walked to the pillars, and called, to nobody in particular:

"Hello? Gate?"

"YES?" said a voice from the stone. It was dry and patient and faintly sleepy.

"I have a few clarifying questions about the terms."

A long pause.

"THE GATE HAS NEVER BEEN ASKED THAT BEFORE."

"I know. I’m very thorough." Daniel cleared his throat. "’The lantern may be carried by two.’ Does that mean two people carry it at the same time?"

"YES."

"And ’the third must remain at the gate.’ Does that mean the third can never leave the gate?"

"THE THIRD MUST REMAIN AT THE GATE," said the voice, a little stiffly.

"For how long?"

Silence.

"For how long, exactly?" Daniel pressed. "The plaque doesn’t say ’forever.’ It doesn’t say ’until the end of the test.’ It says the third must remain at the gate. When the lantern is *taken*, does the requirement end?"

The wind had stopped completely.

Behind him, Long Tian had gone very still. Yun Xi’s hand had stopped halfway to her mouth with a dumpling in it.

"...THE REQUIREMENT," said the voice at last, slowly, as though the gate were reading its own text for the first time in six hundred years, "APPLIES UNTIL THE LANTERN IS LIFTED FROM ITS PEDESTAL."

"So once it’s lifted, the third is free."

"THE GATE... HAS NOT BEEN ASKED."

"I’m asking."

A very long pause.

"...THE GATE DOES NOT CARE," said the voice, with the faint, unmistakable sound of a very old machine finding a loophole it had been unable to see.

Daniel turned around with a grin.

"One of us holds the pillar," he said. "The other two lift the lantern. As soon as it’s off the pedestal, the third is released, and we all carry it down together."

"That is a technicality," said Long Tian.

"Technicalities are my favorite kind of law."

"The chain is only ten meters long."

"I paced it." Daniel pointed. "The pedestal is nine and a half. They always leave exactly enough."

Long Tian opened his mouth, shut it, and stared at the lantern, at the chain, at the smug, tired face of the boy who had humiliated him in front of an entire guild. For one second, something flickered across his face that might have been anger.

Then he sighed.

"I will hold the pillar," he said.

"You volunteered."

"I am the *strongest*. If something attacks, I should be at the gate."

"That’s very noble."

"It is not noble. It is *practical*."

"Of course it is."

He put his palm on the stone. The chain dragged taut across the summit, a black line humming in the golden air. Daniel and Yun Xi walked to the pedestal together, side by side, nine and a half meters away.

They stopped in front of the lantern.

"Ready?" said Daniel.

"Mm," said Yun Xi.

Each of them put one hand on the iron handle.

"On three."

"I will not count."

"I’ll count. One, two..."

They lifted.

---

The lantern came off the pedestal with a soft chime.

Light poured out of it, pale gold, and for a moment the whole summit was a bell, ringing without sound. Long Tian staggered as the invisible weight on his shoulders lifted. The chain went slack. Over the pillars, the plaque faded, and in its place a single line of fresh gold script appeared on the stone.

LAWFUL.

"Ha!" said Daniel.

"It *accepted* it," said Long Tian, stunned.

"Gate?" said Daniel.

"YES?"

"Was that cheating?"

"THE GATE DOES NOT CARE."

"Thank you!"

"DO NOT CALL AGAIN," said the gate, and went silent. Daniel was fairly sure it sounded relieved.

---

They came down the mountain at a run.

It was almost dark by the time they reached the Whispering Fog, and the lantern in Daniel’s hand lit their path like a small, bright moon. Yun Xi walked on his left, Long Tian on his right, the chain looped between them in easy slack. Nobody had to be dragged. Somewhere along the way, they had found a rhythm.

"Left," said Long Tian, without thinking.

"Right," said Daniel.

They both heard it. They both said nothing.

Heng Bao’s ambush came at the foot of the ravine.

It was a good ambush. It had to be, Daniel thought afterward, because Heng Bao had spent the afternoon plotting nothing else. A rope net dropped from a tree. A cluster of heavy boulders rolled down the slope. A dozen men in iron-grey and gold jumped out of the brush, yelling.

"Now!" screamed Heng Bao.

Daniel did not run. He simply held up the chain.

"Gentlemen," he said. "Yun Xi. Long Tian."

"What?" said Long Tian.

"Spin."

"What do you mean, *spin*?"

"Just spin! On three!"

"I do not *take orders*..."

"One, two..."

Yun Xi was already moving. She stepped off the path, lithe and silent, and the chain went whipping around Daniel’s waist. He grabbed it. Long Tian, who had never in his life been told to spin, found himself spinning, a grim golden-haired figure with a face of pure outrage, as the chain cracked out in a long, curved arc.

It caught the first three men across the ankles.

It caught the next four behind the knees. A boulder bounced harmlessly off the iron links. A net fell in a heap on the ground, and the men who were meant to be waiting for them lay in a groaning tangle, bound in loops of black chain like fish in a very fashionable net.

Heng Bao stood alone in the middle of the ravine, axe raised, mouth open.

"Hello again," said Daniel.

Heng Bao dropped the axe.

"I... I’ll..."

"Do you remember what I said? About the iron door?"

"I..."

"This one," said Daniel, and Long Tian, who had crossed the gap in two quick steps, drove a plain, ungilded, handicapped kick into Heng Bao’s backside, "is for being *loud*."

Heng Bao went down the ravine on his stomach.

Long Tian stood there, breathing hard, one foot still raised. His hair was in his eyes. His face was flushed.

"I did not intend to do that," he said.

"It was lovely."

"It was *impulsive*."

"It was *wonderful*." Daniel was laughing so hard he had to lean on Yun Xi. "Did you see his face?"

"I saw the back of his head."

"It was a good back of the head!"

On Daniel’s other side, a very quiet, very odd noise had started. It took him a moment to realize it was Yun Xi, standing with one hand over her mouth, her shoulders trembling.

She was laughing.

It was a small, silent, helpless laugh, and it went on for a long time. When she finally took her hand away, her cheeks were pink and her eyes were shining.

"I am sorry," she said. "He rolled."

"He did."

"Like a *barrel*."

"He did!"

Long Tian looked at the two of them, flushed and giggling in the dark, a stranger on either side of a chain. Slowly, unmistakably, something that had been clenched in his shoulders for years let go a little.

"He did roll," said Long Tian, and for the first time Daniel had ever heard it, he laughed too.

It was brief. It was rough. It was the laugh of a man who had not used the muscle in a very long time.

[Affection Level: Long Tian: Hostile (Wavering)]

Daniel noticed the note and said nothing. He was not about to ruin it.

---

They reached the North Gate at moonrise.

A crowd had gathered. A great many torches burned along the arch, and a long table had been set up beneath them. Behind it sat Elder Jian, with Examiner Qin at his elbow and a very small, very worried clerk holding a stopwatch.

"Team Seven," said Qin, as the three of them stumbled out of the dark.

"We have the lantern," said Daniel, holding it up.

Silence.

"All three members?"

"All three."

"Intact?"

"Mostly."

Qin looked at the lantern, at the three of them, at the chain still looped around their wrists. He looked at Elder Jian, who had a very strange expression, half dread and half delight.

"How long did they take?" Elder Jian asked the clerk.

The clerk consulted his stopwatch with trembling fingers.

"Eleven... eleven hours. Forty minutes. And... and nineteen seconds."

"What’s the previous record?"

"Fourteen hours, sir. Held by..." The clerk stopped. His eyes had gone very wide. "Held by the founder."

A soft sound rolled through the crowd.

"I see," said Elder Jian. He did not look at Daniel. "Examiner Qin. Please record Team Seven as first."

"Yes, Elder."

"And please note that the third question at the gate has been entered into the guild’s official record."

"What third question?"

"The one about the fine print." Elder Jian’s mouth twitched. "I think it is time we rewrote the plaque."

Clerk Wu, who had been standing in the shadows at the edge of the torchlight, was making a thin, strangled noise. His stopwatch had slipped from his fingers.

Daniel turned to him and gave him a small, friendly wave.

Clerk Wu fainted.

---

The other teams came in over the next hour.

Lyra’s team arrived third. She walked in with a fresh gunpowder smear on her cheek, a book under her arm, a very small kid tied to her back like a papoose, and a terrified boy named Ming trailing behind. She saw Daniel across the torches, set her jaw, and lifted two fingers in a small, crisp salute.

*I’m fine,* the salute said.

He saluted back.

Su Wan’s team came in fifth. Paul’s came in seventh, with Paul walking in front, hair immaculate, as though he had never done anything difficult in his life. Brick Head’s came in eleventh, with Brick Head weeping happily on a small boy’s shoulder and the small boy clutching his sleeve like a lifeline.

By midnight, the twenty teams had been counted. Forty-three participants had been eliminated. Fifty-seven remained.

Elder Jian rose.

"Participants of Heaven’s Domain," he said. His voice rolled across the torchlight, deep and slow. "The fourth test is concluded. You have marched through the fog. You have been chained to rivals. You have climbed a mountain with the people you were given." He looked slowly around the crowd. "I know that most of you did not enjoy it."

Soft laughter.

"But you remain. You are no longer applicants. By the charter of Heaven’s Domain, the fifty-seven who have cleared the fourth test are hereby admitted as Outer Members of the guild."

A sound went up from the crowd like the sound of the sea.

Daniel looked at Lyra. Lyra looked at Daniel. Her eyes were very bright.

*We did it,* she mouthed.

*Not yet,* he mouthed back.

"The fifth and final test," said Elder Jian, "is a test of combat. The Grand Bracket. One against one, without limit of method, to submission or incapacity." He paused. "The champion will be admitted directly as an Inner Member of the guild, with all the privileges that rank entails. All others who clear the bracket remain Outer."

"Inner," Paul whispered. "He said *Inner*."

"Direct," said Su Wan, very quietly. "No one has skipped to Inner in sixty years."

"The bracket," said Examiner Qin, stepping forward with a scroll, "has been drawn by lot. It will be posted at the arena at dawn. I will now read the first match."

He unrolled it.

"Match one," said Qin, in his dry, level voice. "Lyra of the Prick Family. Versus..."

He paused, and glanced at the paper.

"Long Tian Zhao."

There was a silence.

Lyra, across the torchlight, slowly lowered the book from under her arm. She looked at Long Tian. Long Tian looked at her.

Daniel looked at both of them. Then he turned very slowly to Su Wan, who was standing beside him with her hand over her mouth.

"Oh," said Daniel, softly. "He’s going to lose."

Across the torches, Lyra cracked her knuckles, one by one.

*Crack. Crack. Crack.*

"I would like to file a complaint," said Long Tian, faintly.

"On what grounds?" said Qin.

"She is..." He swallowed. "She is looking at me."

"The lot has spoken," said Qin.

And from the third row of the crowd, a small girl in grey, who had slipped quietly into the torchlight at some point, called out in a clear, bright voice:

"She is *very* good at it."