The Imperial Palace stood atop a mighty mountain, surrounded by misty forests and wreathed in clouds. From the vibrant City of the Gate far below, an observer could see only the outermost walls and parapets of the immense Palace complex. Within, the layers and structures were arranged as rings within rings, like a dragon’s eye.

  Far from the eyes of the citizens lay the private chambers, practice grounds, and courtyards of the royal family, the Core Disciples of the Sect of the Imperial Household. These were lavishly serviced by hordes of personnel, from mortal handmaids to the finest cultivators in the realm. But there were depths there, within and beneath, which even the palatial servants could never hope to see.

  The little prince Huang Jin wandered these inner places. Memories guided him; these hallowed halls featured prominently in many rituals of the royal family. The walls were lined with statues and carvings, with tapestries and paintings, all detailing the exploits of his blood relations across the ages. Here, a mighty hero vanquishing some demonic beast, there, a wise ruler presiding over a vast army.

  Youthful enthusiasm had long since guttered out, and within an hour his headlong rush had devolved into a furtive tiptoe. He chastised himself for his earlier carelessness; this was a sacred rite he was performing. Several times, he shivered as eldritch energies assaulted him, probing his flesh and qi for the proper credentials. His birthright alone allowed him to walk unscathed.

  For three hours, he sojourned on.

  Decorations and artifacts became more sparse, and the hall narrowed as the Palace gave way entirely to natural stone. Yet even when he’d reached the very heart of the mountain, every visible surface bore artistic carvings.

  The Hall of Silent Bells rose before him, a cavernous opening lit softly by ember-dim lights in the ceiling. Bells hung down like raindrops suspended in the air, thousands of them, of all shapes and sizes. They were silver and gold, gold as rich and warm as Huang Jin’s own Clan-inherited hair, and each dangled at the end of a thin red cord.

  If anyone, royal blood or no, made any but a specific noise in this room… Well, Huang Jin hadn’t seen it happen during that long-ago ritual, but he’d been told it was very painful. A petitioner here had to walk slowly, with infinite care and a low and submissive posture.

  Before, he had an older relative to guide him. Now, he had the enhanced senses and refined physical control of a cultivator. Despite this, and despite being small even for a nine-year-old, he had to bend and contort himself at many points in the crossing.

  Even after passing through the gauntlet unscathed, no door awaited him on the other side of the chamber. Rather, a single colossal jade bell hung down as a final obstacle. Not round like the others, this immense cup-and-clapper construction could only be wrung by a braided pull-cord stationed by its side.

  The prince performed the proper ritual gesture as best he could remember it, then grabbed the cord with both hands and pulled with all his might. He only managed to lift himself up the rope, legs dangling in the air while the ringer failed to give a single inch. He was drastically too light to wring this bell.

  Once he’d lowered himself back to the ground, he re-examined the problem. Okay, he couldn’t pull it down by weight. Could anybody? How much did that jade bell even weigh? There had to be another solution.

  This room tested and conditioned cultivators, not mortals. Huang Jin closed his eyes and built up the ‘tree of gold and jade’ image again. He centered himself in the moment; more than centered, he anchored himself. He pictured gilded roots burrowing into the ground, becoming immovable.

  After steeling himself for a moment, he again grasped the pull cord. It would move, and he would not. With his intent galvanized, he pulled.

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  Inch by inch, he drew the weight to himself, and when he could feel the bell above shift. When it would budge no more, he released it. A resounding ‘BONG’ shook the entire room, setting the forest of smaller bells jingling in chorus. Huang Jin couldn’t help taking a look back at them; for the briefest of moments, all the world became a rolling symphony.

  The eruption of sound faded, restoring the room to its pristine silence. When the prince turned back to the jade bell, he found that a panel had opened in the blank wall behind it. He had performed the ritual correctly. Then, he took his prize: the right to stand before the Gate of the Wood Sovereign.

  A single shaft of pure white light illuminated this final chamber, as though the moon peeked in through some unseen aperture high above. It had to be artificial, this deep within the mountain, but it cast the room in a vague white luster contrasted with impenetrable shadow. Before Huang Jin rose the Gate; and in front of the Gate sat a giant figure of human shape, but monstrous size.

  The giant leaned with its back against the vast door, a spear as long as a cedar tree laid on its lap. Even if the prince had not known about the guardian, the way the light glinted off of its exposed arms would betray its nature as a thing carved from stone. It wore heavy robes and a hood which concealed its face… but he could feel its gaze as a physical force.

  He sat on the ground before the stone monk, knees touching the smooth rock of the floor and hands folded in respect. Bowing his head, he took on the role of a supplicant, waiting for the enormous work of artifice to speak. After fifteen minutes of stillness, and much uncomfortable squirming, he finally felt the guardian respond to his presence. Light awoke in its eyes like blue flame, banishing the gloom imposed by the false moonlight. Power coursed through the air, buffeting the child like waves on the ocean.

  A voice as cold and rigid as stone emerged from the giant. “WHAT IS YOUR PURPOSE,” it stated- and indeed it sounded more like a statement than a question.

  But there was nothing Huang Jin could do but answer. “I am Yulong Huang Jin, first son of Yulong Yongyou Zhe, the Great Dragon Emperor.” He tried to keep his voice smooth and calm, to keep that bell-like quality which his tutors praised so much. However, it came out a bit squeaky. “I have come to request a moment of the Great Ancestor’s time. If-it-wouldn’t-be-too-much-of-an-imposition-I-mean…” That last sentence came out as a single long, quiet word tapering into silence. The menacing immovability of the stone monk daunted him too much.

  An interminable moment passed, in which the little prince, now feeling very childlike indeed, wondered if he had erred.

  But at last, the voice of stone rumbled through the air again. “WHEN NEXT THE MOON WAXES FULL, RETURN AND RECEIVE WISDOM FROM THE FATHER OF THY FATHERS.” Then the blue flames extinguished themselves, leaving Huang Jin once more alone in the pale gloom.

  Even if the golem could no longer see him, he bowed. Then, he rose to his feet and bowed again before edging out of the chamber with as much dignity as he could muster. He wanted to jump into the air and cheer as a surge of triumph lifted him as soon as he’d left the room; he wanted to, but now he was in the Hall of Silent Bells again. Jumping could bring catastrophe, and so he held off until he’d safely made it to the carved hallway leading back up to the palace.

  Then, he really did leap into the air, clapping his hands and just missing the ceiling. He’d done it; an audience with the Great Ancestor! The moon had waxed only the previous night, meaning he’d been given about twenty-seven days to prepare.

  The walk to the inner sanctum had taken three hours, but even with his enhanced body the experience had drained him. He paced himself on the way back, providing himself with plenty of time to think.

  “Elder Fu says, ‘wisdom is the most precious gift the wise have to give,’” said the prince to the reliefs on the wall, finger on his chin. Anything would work as a sounding board. “He might only allow me one question. I might ask, ‘can you fix me?’ and he might say, ‘no,’ and then I’m done for. I need to think of a good question.” The figure reaching up to the sky on a tapestry appeared to agree.

  He needed something concrete, which would leave other possibilities open. “Well, my studies have been canceled and I haven’t been barred from the Archives.” Weary as he was, that thought brought a smile to his face. That was something; he’d have time to go through the vast library at his own pace, for once.

  “Surely, I can find something in four weeks. Surely…”

  But the day had been rough. Sleep had to come first. After a long trek, the prince returned to the Palace. The meal attendant checked him over when he got back to his own bedchamber. Nobody else knew or cared about his absence, as far as he could tell; cultivators could spend hours or days meditating in far-off places, after all.

  Tired as he was, sleep did not come easy. The rest of his life hinged on how he spent the next twenty-seven days.

  And the Halls of History awaited him.