The mountains slept under a thin skin of starlight.
High ridges cut black shapes into the sky. Pines stood in dark rows along the slopes, their needles whispering as the wind moved past. In the gullies, old snow held on where the sun had not reached for weeks.
On one of the higher shoulders of the range, a tower rose from the rock.
It was narrow and plain. The stones were rough cut, set for strength rather than beauty. A single strip of lamplight showed under a shutter near the top, the only sign of life in all that dark.
Inside, on the highest floor, an old man sat at a table and read.
Scrolls lay open in front of him, their corners held down with smooth river stones. The lamplight picked out cramped characters and fine lines on thin paper. A pot of ink and a brush sat close at hand.
The night was far along.
His spine ached from the hours spent bent over the table. His eyes had the gritty feeling that came with too many lines of text and not enough sleep. He rolled his shoulders once, quietly, and reached for the brush to add one more note.
The air in the room shifted.
It was a small thing. The lamp flame leaned towards the far wall as if something had breathed on it, then straightened again. The hairs on his forearms rose under his sleeves. The quiet felt tighter, as if someone had stepped into the room that he could not see.
He stopped, hand still over the paper, and lifted his head.
On a low shelf against the wall stood a wooden frame. It was a simple four-legged and a round top, polished smooth by years of use. Resting on that top, held in place by a ring of dark metal, lay a single stone no bigger than a man's thumb.
Most nights, it might as well have been dead glass.
Tonight, it glowed.
A deep blue light swelled in its centre, filling the gem, then faded back, then swelled again. With each slow pulse, the air seemed to lean inwards and press softly on his ears.
The old man pushed back his chair and stood.
His knees complained. He ignored them.
He crossed to the shelf with careful steps and stopped in front of the stand. The blue light washed across his hands, his worn robe, the lines of his face. Up close, the stone looked like a small piece of night sky that had been trapped and made solid.
He watched it for a long breath.
"It has been twenty-one years," he said quietly.
The stone pulsed on, steady and indifferent.
Thin threads of blue began to appear in the air above it.
They were faint at first, hard to see unless a person knew to look. Little lines of light, like mist that had chosen a direction and refused to drift. They leaned towards one wall of the tower, all at the same angle, all pointing away into the dark.
The old man's hand tightened on the back of his chair.
Then he turned towards the stairs.
"Disciple!" His voice rang harder than he intended. "Top floor. Now!"
Answering steps came from below, quick and light. A young man in a grey robe appeared in the doorway a moment later, breathing hard, hair sticking a little to his brow with sweat.
"Elder, you called"
He broke off when he saw the stand.
The blue light coloured his face. His eyes widened.
"The stone," he said.
"Yes," the old man replied. "Go and wake the elders. All of them. Tell them to come at once."
The disciple did not ask questions.
"Yes, Elder."
He bowed quickly and vanished back down the stairs.
The tower fell quiet again, except for the soft sound of the lamp and the slow pulse of the stone.
The old man looked back at the threads of light above it.
They were clearer now. A handful of narrow lines, all leaning the same way, all pointing outward. Beyond the tower wall lay the eastern shoulder of the range, then broken hills, then, further out, the wilds.
"What have you heard this time?" he asked the stone.
It glowed on, saying nothing.
He turned to the table and pulled a map closer, smoothing the creases with both hands. The inked lines of the local peaks and valleys stared up at him. With the tip of his brush, he drew a single faint stroke in the direction the light leaned.
Boots on stone pulled his attention back to the stairs.
The elders arrived in ones and twos. Some wrapped their robes tighter against the cold. Some still had sleep in the corners of their eyes. Others had clearly not gone to bed at all. The small room filled with the quiet hiss of cloth and the sound of short, controlled breaths.
Every gaze went to the stand.
"It is awake," someone said under their breath.
"So, the records were not just stories," another murmured.
The blue light rolled over their faces, deepening the lines of age and worry. In that colour, the thinness of their belts and the plain weave of their robes showed more clearly than any speech could have.
Elder Shan, tall and straight-backed despite his grey hair, moved to stand near the old man. Elder Lin, slight and sharp-eyed, took place on the other side. Elder Bo, broad-shouldered and slow to speak, stayed a little back, arms folded.
No one spoke loudly. The room felt as if a shout would bounce off the stone and fall straight to the floor.
The old man set one finger on the map.
"It started less than an hour ago," he said. "The light has been steady. The lines above it leans that way."
He pointed towards the wall.
"Southeast," Elder Shan said.
"Southeast," the old man agreed.
They watched the faint threads in silence.
"That time, the world changed in more than one place," he said. There was a rough edge in his voice now. "We heard about a torn sky to the north. A valley that no longer matched the old maps. A river that chose a new bed overnight. And the things that fell… fragments of metal and stone no one could name, all ending up in other people's hands."
He glanced at the glowing stone.
"While we were still arguing, the big sects moved first. They sent their elders and their experts. They dug out whatever the heavens dropped and divided it between themselves. We got the rumours afterwards. A twisted shard. A few thin new veins in the rock. That was all."
The light washed over the room again.
"Our sect sits at the edge of the map," he went on. "We have hundreds of disciples, not thousands. Our fields are small. Our mines are half empty."
His hand tightened on the back of the chair.
"If we keep missing chances like that," he said, "there will come a year when we have nothing left to defend up here."
"And this stone glowed then," an elder said quietly.
"Yes," the old man replied. "It glowed then, too. The same as now."
He closed his hand slowly into a fist and opened it again, as if he were loosening more than his fingers.
"This time, there are no travellers at the door, no caravans telling stories of lights on the horizon," he said. "As far as we know, the great sects on the continent have not felt a thing. For once, we are the ones the heavens chose to nudge."
He tapped the map with a knuckle.
"For once, we are closer."
"So, we ignore it?" Elder Lin asked.
There was something hungry under her words.
The old man snorted.
"We sit on our mountain, watch the sky ring, and stay poor?" he said. "Then in ten years, some grand sect will be flying their banners over a place that should have been ours to see first. They will have the new mines, the herbs, the strange artifacts. We will have excuses."
He straightened as much as his back would allow.
"I am tired of excuses," he said. "At the very least, we go and look."
He rested both hands on the back of the chair.
"We are not a great sect," he went on. "We cannot lock the borders and order the world to wait. We cannot send a hundred people and still hold this mountain. But we can send some. Enough to see with their own eyes. Enough to grab something if it can be carried."
He let his gaze move from face to face.
"Three elders," he said at last. "No more. And twenty disciples between you. If you come back empty-handed, we have lost time and a few spirit stones. If you come back with the right thing, we buy the sect another lifetime."
The room was very still.
"Choose from those who stay calm in a fight and who know when to keep quiet," he added. "If they find a herb field, a fresh vein, a tool that should not exist, I do not care if they are pretty. I care that they can bring it home."
Elder Shan inclined his head.
"I will go," he said.
Elder Lin's eyes were still on the thin lines above the stone. There was a sharp light in them now, half fear, half calculation.
"If there is something out there," she said, "I will not sit here and let someone else's junior write the story while ours copy it."
Elder Bo rolled one shoulder in a small shrug.
"If the two of you are going chasing fortunes," he said, "I will not stay behind counting spirit stones. I will go."
The old man nodded once.
"Good," he said. "You three, then. Pick your twenty. Pack light. No banners. No colours that can be seen from a valley away. You are going on an expedition, not to parade."
Elder Shan frowned slightly.
"What about travel?" he asked. "On foot, it will take us weeks to clear the outer range and reach the wilds. By then, whatever fell will be buried or taken by others. The disciples cannot keep that pace without breaking."
The old man did not hesitate.
"Then we do not go on foot," he said. "That distance is too far to waste on boots and blisters. We take the spirit boat. That is what it is for."
He turned towards the stairs.
"Come," he said. "We will have it ready before the stone goes dark."
The path to the dock cut along the mountain's side, half tunnel and half ledge.
Lamps set into niches made small islands of light in the dark. Between them, the air felt colder. A person walking there could sense the drop on one side even when the rock still rose close on both shoulders.
The dock itself was a long stone platform carved into the cliff, open on one side to the empty air. There were no walls at its edge. Beyond it, the world fell away into cloud. Somewhere far below, the faint glimmer of a river caught stray starlight.
Chains hung from iron rings in the ceiling. Thick and dark, they ran down to a curved hull that floated just off the platform, its weight held by the hooks.
The spirit boat.
The hull was long and narrow, almost the length of three wagons end to end, but slimmer. It had been hewn from pale wood that had darkened with age. Time and careful hands had smoothed every edge. Lines of small characters ran along its sides, filled with dark metal that broke the lamplight into thin, shifting strokes.
Most days, it hung here asleep, another old tool waiting for a reason to be used.
Now the dock was busy.
Disciples moved along the platform, carrying bundles, ropes, and small chests. Those chosen to go stood in a tight group near the middle, packs at their feet, glancing at the hanging hull when they thought no one was watching.
The three elders stepped onto the platform.
Conversations dropped to a murmur without anyone needing to call for silence.
The old man from the tower walked with them, a little slower, but steady. He went to a metal plate set into the hull near the centre. It was cut in the shape of a hand, the edges worn smooth.
He placed his palm over it and stood there for a breath.
Then he reached into his sleeve and drew out a small cloth bag. The sound from inside was soft and clear as he loosened the tie.
He tipped several smooth stones into his hand. In the dock's lamplight, they looked unremarkable - small, pale, faintly cloudy in the centre.
He slid them one by one into a narrow slot beside the plate.
They disappeared without a sound.
For a heartbeat, nothing changed.
Then the characters along the sides of the hull began to glow, a dull light at first, then stronger. The boat shivered against the chains, a small, eager movement, like a resting beast feeling a hand on its back.
A low hum crept into the air. It was not loud. It lived somewhere between hearing and feeling, at the edge of the ribs and in the teeth.
Some of the younger disciples shifted their feet, trying not to show the way it made them want to swallow.
"That will do," the old man said.
He stepped back and nodded to Elder Shan.
"The rest is yours."
Elder Shan stepped lightly up onto the boat. Elder Lin followed, then Elder Bo, the hull dipping and settling under their weight. The twenty chosen disciples crossed after them, boots thudding on the wood.
The deck was simple: a flat surface with low rails along the sides, a slightly raised place at the front and back, and a circular plate set into the middle of the floor, carved with the same kind of lines as the hull.
Elder Lin took her place at the front. Elder Bo went to the rear. Elder Shan moved to stand over the circular plate.
On the stone platform, the old man looked at them for a moment without speaking.
The hum from the boat filled the quiet.
"Remember," he said at last, "you are going to see it first. To grab something if it can be grabbed. Not to die proving you were brave."
A few lips twitched at that.
"If it is too much," he went on, "mark it and come back. If it is small, bring it. If it is nothing you can carry, you bring stories, not guesses."
He lifted one hand.
"Let them go."
Disciples on the dock moved to the chains, working the heavy hooks free one after another. Each time they did, the boat bore a little more of its own weight. The hum deepened.
When the last hook came loose, the hull sagged for the space of a breath.
Then it rose.
Only the height of a hand at first, then a little more, until there was clear space between its underside and the stone. The air beneath it felt denser, as if something invisible had thickened there.
"Steady," Elder Bo called from the rear.
Elder Shan set his hand on the circular plate.
The lines carved there lit up under his palm.
He turned his hand a fraction.
The bow of the spirit boat swung slowly towards the open air and the dark line of distant peaks. The dock edge fell away beside them. Chains hung slack from the ceiling, empty now.
"Forward," Elder Shan said.
The hum shifted. The boat slid.
It left the platform with no jolt, gliding out into space. For a heartbeat, it seemed as if it must fall. Instead, it held then drifted further, then began to gather speed.
The cliff face slipped past, a wall of rock close enough to touch. Then even that was gone, and there was only open dark below and open dark ahead.
Cold air rushed over the deck.
Robes snapped and whipped around legs. Hair tugged free of its ties. Some of the disciples gripped the rails tightly. Others leaned out just enough to see the drop, hearts pounding.
Far below, the world was a patchwork of shadow and small points of light. A village lantern here. The faint silver of a river there. A distant glow that might be another sect or town.
Elder Lin narrowed her eyes, picking out the line of the land ahead.
"Hold for that gap between the second and third peaks," she called. "Beyond that is the wild country."
Elder Shan nodded.
"I see it," he said.
He fed a little more strength into the plate.
The boat answered at once, its speed building without any sense of strain. The hum settled into a deeper note.
On the dock, the old man watched until the shape of the spirit boat shrank into a small, dark cut against the stars. Only when it had faded into the distance did he turn away.
The dock felt larger and emptier with the chains hanging slack.
He walked back along the tunnel towards the heart of the sect.
Up in the tower, the stone pulsed a few more times, each glow weaker than the last. The thin threads above it thinned and vanished. The air in the room loosened. Soon it would look again like nothing more than a dull blue gem on an old stand.
Outside, the mountains settled back into their usual silence.
Far to the southeast, beyond the ridges and the broken hills and the first skin of the wilderness, an echo moved through layers of the world no eye could see.
The stone had heard it.
The boat was on its way.