Mount Lao rose up out of the mist-shrouded valleys of the Guangxi province of China like single massive tooth, capped with white snows and sharp rocks. On its northern face, clinging to a spur of rock, sat a humble monastery in grey brick, its walls and buildings topped with red slate.

The monastery was not ostentatious, but in the way of places where humans have lived for a long time it had become marvelous over the centuries. The front garden, where Lu Chen sat now, was the most perfect and harmonious arrangement of earth, wood, and water in all of China. No less than sixteen monks, with their yellow habits and shaved heads, shared the space with him, but even with long years of training his awareness of them kept fading away. He did not hear their voices - only the fall of the water. He did not see their yellow robes - only the trees, reaching for the sky. He did not feel their presence - only peace.

Perhaps I am getting old , he thought, with a wry grin. My senses are not what they used to be.

Lu Chen stood, one hand brushing his long, snowy-white beard out from where he uncrossed his legs. He turned and bowed as an acolyte came nervously around the corner.

"O illustrious Pillar of Heaven, th-"

"Please, child. 'Grandfather' will do fine." The acolyte was new to the monastery, his head not yet shaved. He couldn't be more than sixteen years old. Was I ever that young?

"Grandfather. I'm sorry to disturb your meditation, but you wanted to be told when the girl arrived and... she's arrived. Here. She's here." The boy gulped.

"Thank you. Please take me to her."

The girl, it transpired, had come in through the west gate on the back of a donkey, wrapped in a blue sarong with a yellow fringe. She wore her long, lustrous black hair in tight braids, bound with gold bands, peeking out from beneath her hood. A red dot on her forehead marked her caste, in the tradition of the people of the western subcontinent. Even knowing it was a disguise, Lu Chen had to look twice to be sure this was the right girl. It had been so long, after all.

"Dariya," he said, coming forward and bowing. "We are honored to host you here at Mount Lao. You will not remember me, but -"

"You are Lu Chen," she said, matching his bow perfectly. "You were a friend of my mother's. You have not changed at all in the eight years since last we met, Grandfather."

"You were very young then, child." He straightened, and allowed his bushy eyebrows to arch in surprise. She has grown into quite the woman!

"I remember everything," she said, and that was the end of it.

The girl looked with interest around the courtyard, appraising the fu dog statues that guarded the temple stair, the gates of good fortune that marked her entry into the sacred space of the monastery. A crowd was gathering, monks and acolytes watching the girl with interest - perhaps too much interest, given the fact that her stay at the monastery was supposed to be a secret.

"You will want to rest, eat, and wash the dust of the trail away, I am sure." Lu Chen gestured, leading her towards the dormitories. "Tonight, we will tell stories around the fire. Will you join us?"

The girl's smile lit up the whole courtyard. "Yes, please."

~~~~~

LU Chen cleared his throat and quite fell across the courtyard.

"Tonight I will talk of the days before our recorded history."

Thousands of years ago the Spirit Realm ruled here on Earth. Da Wang Long, greatest of the Dragon Kings, ruled an empire that stretched from sea to sea and in that realm all was peace and harmony. The spirits walked and lived alongside mortal men and women, and from their union arose all the Gods with which we are now familiar.

But it did not last, nor, some say, could it, for spirits can be as jealous and as petty as men. The spirits came first and the world was theirs in the elder days, but under the reign of Da Wang Long the spirits were teachers and guides to mankind, nurturing that spark of the Divine that lurks within the breast of every man. As time went on, the mortal races flourished and prospered, spreading across all the corners of the Earth. Thanks to the tutelage of the spirits, men looked to the heavens and to the horizon and dreamed of what could be and what lay beyond and what was yet to come.

You’re getting it wrong grandfather.

Wrong?

The story! You’re painting us a paradise. It’s not a story, it’s a dream. There’s no struggle. There’s no lesson. My mother-

Ah. Yes. Well, listen, then. For, in time, the spirits grew jealous of both men and gods. Feng Huang Hou, the Phoenix Empress, grew jealous of her husband’s love for mortal men, and many in the Celestial Court whispered in her ear. Mortal quarrels broke into open war, a war about which many stories are told, and gods and spirits took sides against one another in the mortal conflict.

Better.

Feng Huang Hou and her supporters needed no further proof that mankind was poisoning the Spirit Realm, for what else could cause spirits to fight spirits? Within a mortal generation, the battle lines had been drawn and the War in Heaven was raging.

You missed a part .

Did I? I confess; I was not alive at the time.

You missed the part about the mortal girl, humble as a blade of grass and more beautiful than a flower. She captured the emperor Da Wang Long’s heart, for even the mighty are subject to the whims of love.

Who’s telling this story, child?

I am, now. Listen, grandfather, and you might learn a thing or two.

Da Wang Long was noble and wise, but powerful and terrible, and while he ruled all the world he found himself now subject to his heart. His desire for the mortal girl consumed him, night and day, and he warred with himself.

And what of Feng Huang Hou? She did not fail to notice her husband’s distraction, and one day while walking in the royal gardens, a humble mortal girl passed by with an armful of lilies. One look at Da Wang Long’s face was all the empress needed to understand what had happened, for she had been his wife for centuries and knew his every mood.

“Wife for centuries;” I like that, Dariya. Tell me, are you making this up on the spot or is this one of your mother’s stories?

Keep listening and try to guess.

Now Feng Huang Hou was a prideful woman - spirit, rather, I should say, for she wore a woman’s form only when it suited her. Her husband’s fancy had wandered before in their long lives, but never to a mortal girl, and the insult could not be forgotten. Just as Da Wang Long was consumed by his desire, Feng Huang Hou became co nsumed by her jealousy and spite.

She made the girl her handmaiden then, and dressed her in rags, and assigned to her all the most unpleasant tasks that came to mind. She kept the girl close and paraded her before Da Wang Long whenever he came to visit the phoenix empress in her chambers, which was more and more often. But no matter what humiliation she subjected the girl to, Da Wang Long’s devotion never wavered.

She took the form of a beautiful woman one day, dressed in crimson silk embroidered with gold thread. She crowned herself with gold and placed jewels on her wrists, fingers, and lips. When Da Wang Long came calling, she presented herself and the girl, dressed in peasant’s garb, her hands and face blackened with ash and soot.

“ Which of us is more lovely, my husband?” she asked. “Your immortal queen or this mortal girl?”

“Oh wife, though you are grand and as lovely as a flame, it is my little flower-child whom I admire,” he said.

How did you know that?

I listened. I learned! “For she has within her a good soul and a warm spirit, and on her face is written kindness and love.”

No, no, no! You’re jumping ahead! Twice more Feng Huang Hou must offer her husband the choice, each time dressing herself more marvelous than the last, until she offers her husband the girl a final time - her nose cut off, and her eyes pecked out by the phoenix-beak -

Ah. And then the cleverly-disguised speech about the Divine Spark?

Yes. And then. And that is why the war began.

True enough, or it might be. For indeed, not all spirits saw the Divine Spark that we know slumbers in the breast of every mortal man, just as now not all men acknowledge its existence.

But about that time we know little. Why did the war start? What heroes lived and died on both sides? We have many stories with many names – Ragnarok, Kali Yuga, the Deluge, and many others. What we do know is that when the war was over, the Spirit Realm had lost the Mandate of Heaven and withdrew from the Earth. Humanity was left to fend for itself.

A great dark age followed. Where the courts of Da Wang Long had held sway was devastation and ruination. What were once cities became ruins. Great empires became wandering nomads, or were wiped out entirely. Memory of the Spirit Realm and the lessons taught us faded, surviving only in stories.

Only in stories?

In time, mortal men and women began once more to look to the heavens and to the horizon, but without the guidance of the Spirit Realm their eyes looked as often with greed and wickedness as with hope and benevolence. New nations and empires rose, some forged by men of wisdom and others by men of violence. Their names are known now: the Middle Kingdom of Emperor Qin, called China, my own home. The warring states of Nippon. The River Kingdoms of Egypt. The great empire of Persia. The city-states of Greece. India. Carthage-by-the-Sea. Imperial Rome.

We enter now the realm of recorded history, when the written record of kings and clerks replaces the stories of our grandfathers. We can say with certainty how many Greeks died at the Battle of Marathon and when construction began on the Great Wall. But our written record has holes. There are things within it that cannot be explained.

Why did mighty Persia fail to defeat tiny Athens? What force keeps the island of Nippon safe from larger nations? How did Alexander conquer more than any man before or since? How has China survived so many perils and threats and conquests and yet remained China?

The answers lie in the stories of our grandfathers. In the teachings and the blood of the spirits there is power, and with that power even one man may do much, whether history records him or no.

Like Sun Wukong, the Monkey King! Or the forty thieves, or mighty Gilgamesh…

Yes, they and many others. You may even have heard rumors of legendary figures in our own time: the Dragon of Mount Lao, the Blue Shrike, the Undying King…the Exiled Princess. The blood of the spirits runs in mankind to this day, and with it the potential for greatness in all things. Those who have recognized their destiny have powers beyond those that seem possible. Some have become kings and generals, while others devoted servants of higher causes.

Now all around us these men and women labor and battle, to control the destiny not only of themselves but of all mankind. The great nations and empires of the world slumber in ignorance of the war that rages in the shadows between those who would rule them or serve them. The Order of the Celestial Dawn labors to teach the truth of our divine heritage to all men, and to bring about the Enlightenment of all and restore the Mandate of Heaven. The Covenant of Twilight seeks to rule by any means necessary, to govern the weak with an iron hand and enforce order at any cost.

Right now, as we speak, ordinary people live ordinary lives. Farmers work their fields. Craftsmen ply their trades. Rulers make their laws. Only a tiny fraction of them know the larger story. Around them, a war rages. We fight our war in secret that ordinary people might know peace. We fight to protect them and die unknown and unlamented. The destiny of all people - a new dawn of wisdom, or an unending twilight reign - will be decided in the shadows, by our ShadoWar.

~~~~~

After the story, the crowd dispersed. The younger ones walked or were carried to their beds, the older ones left to attend to chores or their evening meditation. Lu Chen still sat by the fire, resting his old bones in its warmth.

“Grandfather,” said the girl at his side. Her hair was thick and glossy and black, with golden bands binding the tight braids together.

“Yes, Dariya?”

“I’m no legend. I’m nothing special. I’m just a story-teller, like my mother.”

Lu Chen smiled down at the girl. She’d turn eighteen soon, and already had seen too much for a girl her age.

“But you mentioned the Exiled Princess, and…”

“Maybe I was talking about a different Exiled Princess, hmmm?” She made a face and he laughed. “You should think better of your mother. She was very brave and very clever.”

“But she died, grandfather. When the Covenant came with fire and blood, she couldn’t stop them.” Her eyes were pools of darkness, staring up at him. “I don’t want to be a storyteller…not just a storyteller.”

He was silent for a long time.

“You remind me of her, you know. Of Scherezade.” He turned to stare into the fire, one hand stroking a wisp of his white beard.

“Did you teach her, as you are teaching me?”

“I did…and somehow, I learned more from her than I thought possible.”

The girl held up a sword, graceful and curved, wrapped in a jeweled sheath.

“I know all her stories. I know them better than you. I could spend my life around a fire like this, telling everyone every story I know and never run out of words.” She drew the sword, and it gleamed in the firelight. For an instant it seemed to be red with blood, a trick of the flame. “But I want to learn to use my brother’s sword, and I want to take back my father’s crown.”

She stood then, and walked away. She was clad in the yellow habit of a monk of Mount Lao, but as she moved he could see the dancer’s silks like a ghost of memory.

“You made the story up, Dariya.”

“That’s why I’ll never run out of words, grandfather.”