Hao’s body stood still, joining the rest of the people in the circle. Only his eyes were able to move, while even blinking was an impossibility.

  The chamber was beautiful, if you could ignore all the horrors in it. Its walls and ceiling blended smoothly into a dish. Shaped like an upside-down bowl without a ridge or crack, the aggressive weather of the world outside is unable to affect the core of the mountain.

  In the center of the ceiling, a hole shone a down light from above. The passing of the day changed what came down. Occasionally, a small trickle of rain, chased down by bright flashes of summer lightning.

  The rain and lightning fell on and around the tree. Up close now, Hao could see the tree’s details more clearly, even through the haze of his drying eyes. In a sense, it was more terrifying and sad. Facing the center of the room, it was all he had to do. Stare at the tree, or sink into the Space of the Spirit-Holding bag, and forget the world around him exists.

  The tree itself was gray, its purple hue more clear. Its bark mottled, where the trunk was the largest, a yellow time-stained rib cage and a face stuck in joy just above it. The face seemed carved into the bark. While the rib cage, bone, looked like your hand could get stuck in it.

  The Immortal, Hao thought. The story of the Peach-Taker trying to force its way into his head. It seemed to him the story had some validity. The tree was in front of him, he was inside the mountain that grew around it, and the human trapped in her core smiled out, his eyes closed, but he was facing towards Hao. A surreal thought, that such Godlike beings had far surpassed the Drifting Stream Elders he knew existed. Hard to believe, yet—The carving of the face is a perfect resemblance to the man who died in the story that haunted his head.

  That was when Hao let out a long, slow breath. It was hard to ignore the rest of the room when he breathed back in.

  The scent ran through his nose, expanding in his sinuses, filling his mouth.

  Hao’s unblinking eyes flicked about, his body straining, the urge to pinch his nostrils shut making his muscles cry. Trying to move only brought him pain—if just his finger twitched, it meant his soul—what he presumed was his soul was whipped. The thing floating in the air seemed to be waiting for it.

  Piles of bones framed the corners of his eyes, rising above his neck level from the fall behind him and around the tree. Human bones are each one. A town’s worth of people, if not more.

  Dust gathered on bone pillars and scattered again when the pillars were shaken. Shaken only by a body, each time it was a new person who was extinguished in front of him before they were thrown down to the lowest pile. It was beyond his eyesight, but the scent of decay told him where it was in the chamber.

  It happened a few times now. Death. The people standing in the circle discarded whenever the ghost or whatever the cursed thing was, no longer had any purpose for them—A person on his left, another on his right, collapsing into limp piles. Another person in the circle, whoever was close to them, was controlled and made to throw away a former enemy, a Sect member, or a friend.

  Hao considered himself lucky; he didn’t have to throw away another person’s drain of life by the hazy reflection floating in the sunlight.

  On the other hand, he wondered if he was unlucky; the rest of them seemed unconscious, largely dead, non-existent as individuals any longer. At least their limbs and bodies were not their own anymore, their eyes were closed in a way. Hao’s were wide open, and something was trying to worm its way inside him between people falling.

  He tried not to think about any of it. Not to notice it. To just stare forward at the tree, acting like it held the elegance of a scene from a painting, with just a few things out of place. The leafless, long-dead, gray-barked tree with a face trapped in joy stared back at him.

  “Fate must be on my side after all this time. Finally, it brought me such a gift.”

  Hao stared intently, counting and recounting every detail. Trying to invalidate the story of the Immortal and the tree. Each detail made it harder. But each thing brought fantasy and nightmare more to reality.

  At the tree’s base, a broken shell of sorts, a broken gray disc-like object—a large seed and its shell that had broken into pieces. A gray cloth, either a cloak or a robe, sat thrown down in the same spot, just a step away from the seed. The cloak shook with each word spoken by the voice that broke through the air and spoke over the voices, repeating the story.

  “Yes! Must be. And the face of the Vessel, it is not bad, it will have some use, suitable, truly suitable.”

  “Hmmm, Hmmm… I should wash him. He is covered in the filth of mortal pursuits. Odd thing…”

  Hao could only listen; the voice cracked the air with a chill like the flashes of lightning, yet each word echoed in his head. He wished he could twitch, react, or make a face. Instead, his feet moved forward without his consent. The burn scar on the sole of his foot seemed to throb with a dreadful anticipation.

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  Hao moved closer to the tree. Lightning flashed, but the two voices repeated the story, going silent, quieter with each step of his approach until only the sounds of the earth remained. He got within arm’s reach, face to face with the joyous smile imprinted on the bark. Branches overhead dripped water down on him.

  “While waiting…” The voice cut the momentary silence of the earth. In his words, a desire burned like putrid lust.

  Hao knew what the tone of voice meant. He wished the sight was beyond his eyes, but it lingered in the corner of his vision. The grotesque image taught him just one extent in which evil existed.

  It repeated itself a few times. “While waiting…”

  First to Hao’s right, then to his left, behind him. Going around him in a cycle.

  When the voice stopped, the muffled screams of pain crept from the throat of the victim. The sound filled the chamber. The voice was as hollow as the eyes of a person.

  Hao fought, forcing his head to lift, his skin turning red and veins bulging just from craning his neck. All to get the scene out of his sight. He had no luck. Perhaps the only change was that his chin was jutted slightly more forward.

  The magic he had seen since stepping onto land had been wondrous, even when it was being used to try to take his life.

  This has nothing pleasant to it, no beauty, no purpose in Hao’s eyes.

  The person who croaked out jolted. A single wave passed through them like a jolt of static, the entire body. The scream turned to a silent sigh, and relaxation took the person, and they began to shrivel. Their smooth skin gathered wrinkles. The physical form of the person deflated, no longer recognizable as a human.

  Hao was reminded of the Drinking-Stone he had inside the Spirit-Holding bag. It did something similar, stealing moisture and blood, yet this, this was something much worse. The short, violent process had taken something far more. The very person was no longer there, just something resembling a human in form, even the closest of kin would think of him as nothing more than a heavy cloth.

  Hao tried, but was unable to close his eyes to the sight. The rainwater dripping from the branches provided what little moisture his eyes had seen in a while.

  “I can’t overindulge.” The spoke, seeming to question itself, became more tangible for a moment, a hazy finger dancing up and down like a puppet-master pulling his strings.

  The person now desiccated resembled the bark of the tree peeled from the trunk. They stood for a moment teetering before falling back, not needing anyone to throw them to a bone pile. That poor soul disappeared from Hao’s sight. Vanishing below the edge of the rise, where the people stood, and the tree slouched. A sound like leather hitting the ground told of their fate.

  “I will still need more, won’t I?”

  “I don’t know… I should check. He was pulling at us again anyway, we have to keep him weakened until he can take the vessel.”

  The voice burst into sudden laughter that shook Hao’s ears. The laugh was coming from just behind him.

  “Everything in the world has a spirit. Some take a little more to get through, but once I find the soul…”

  A hand touched Hao’s shoulder. Pressing down, the ephemeral hand passed his skin, massaged his flesh, and brushed his bones. The World Energy trapped within his body cycled madly, like a liquid stream of bees rushing to defend its hive. Pain—Pain like a serrated arrow heated until its head was red-hot shot through every fiber the hand passed. The pain lingered and stayed even after the hand recoiled.

  Hao was left with bloodshot eyes. His pupils shook as he stared into the smiling face carved into the tree.

  *

  Time passed as though this were routine. The only moisture Hao’s eyes got in what seemed like days was the occasional drizzle of rain, which failed to clean him.

  As before, Hao didn’t know how much time had passed since he entered this mountain and trial, now alone, in a manner of speaking, no one else around him was human, not anymore, at least. He had seen multiple, what he presumed was noon, but everything had gone hazy a while ago.

  A few more people became empty bags before falling, or being thrown down into the pit of gathering bones.

  That hand that was pressing into his body was reaching deeper each time it touched him. Now, the pains came with mockery, questions that made him seem like a fish on the line. Most of the words were kind, though their kindness was not meant for him, but for the words of the person who spoke them—Self encouragement, self-praise. And Hao was just a vessel of Fate’s plans for the one who spoke.

  “It cannot be so weak? It’s hard to crack.”

  “Yes, he must be! There are restrictions upon this place!”

  “But his soul, it’s nearly tangible. There is no way he is just a boy in body tempering.”

  “They call it Reclamation here, have I forgotten already? That last one just mentioned it…”

  “Shush, I’m thinking this through. Rebirth, no, no, no. A legacy, hmm? No! Ah—Ah—A Treasure! There must be a treasure!” A laugh shook the cave, the entire mountain shivering.

  “Smart, aren’t I? I need to go in and search for it. If we find it in his memories, I will have that treasure for myself.”

  “A soul treasure. Fate! Fate is kind!”

  For the next few hours, Hao wished for nothing more than to be able to scream.

  Hao felt like a mouse had been trapped within his bones. With desperation seeking air, it was eating him to escape, chewing on his marrow. A buzzing filled his ears, and flies buzzed around his head.

  Powerless, am I? Am I powerless? Still? Still? The Islanders, the Temple of Water, The Sect, me?

  Hao forced his mouth open, yet the ability to scream was lost to him, no matter how far he managed to move his jaw. He wanted to reach up to scratch his neck. To claw, claw, claw, to get rid of the itching, that vile itching. All he could do was stare. Stare at what he thought was a face imprinted on a tree from his blurry eyes.