Chang-li was floating. He couldn't seem to open his eyes. There was a regular whooshing pulse in his ears, blotting out all other sound. It was strange and yet somehow familiar at the same time. After a while, he realized he was hearing his blood circulate in his body.

  That was good, because he couldn't feel his body. He tried to wiggle his fingers or move his foot, but nothing responded. He drew his awareness inward and, at last, found something he could seize onto.

  His core pulsed inside him, throbbing. He could feel it growing to an enormous size, then shrinking down, not with a regular heartbeat, but randomly. Every time it grew to its full extent, it sent a pulse through him that washed over him and disappeared somewhere. It screamed in discordant notes, like the jangling of harp strings after a musician had carelessly dropped the instrument to the floor. The jangling crash went on and on and on.

  "Chang-li, boy, can you hear me?"

  The words weren't in his ears, but in his head, pressing against him, coming from outside. They felt familiar somehow.

  "I'm going to try to help you, but you've got to follow me. We have a lot of work to do here, boy."

  There was a note of worry in that voice, which felt strange to Chang-li, though he couldn't quite tell why.

  Then a cool, steady sensation passed through him. His core briefly settled. It still pulsed, but not as wildly. Now it throbbed in a regular rhythm. Beyond it, he could feel something else tugging at his core. The Lens. Now that his core wasn't so out of control, he could sense it. It hung there inside him, accepting the pulses from his core and shaping them. That was interesting. It felt as full as his core did, and he reached out toward it.

  "No, not that way, boy." The voice was sharper now, urgent. "I need you outside yourself."

  Chang-li blinked. Suddenly, his eyes were filled with light, green, then red, then orange and yellow, flickering and pulsing wildly. He realized after another moment they were changing in time with the pulses of his core.

  He sat up, astonished to find his body answering him again, and looked down at himself. He was wearing his old scribe's robes. His hands, as he looked at them, were missing the sword calluses and changes from cultivation. In fact, as he looked at his hands, then reached up and touched his face, he felt younger, like a boy instead of the man he had become. His core felt normal, too normal.

  He looked around and at once realized where he was, though he didn't know how he knew.

  "The temporal training crystal,” he said aloud.

  "That's right." From behind him strolled Noren.

  Chang-li eyed him suspiciously. "So, what do you want from me this time?" he said roughly. The guardian of the training chamber wasn't going to catch him unawares, even if it was wearing Noren's face instead of his own this time.

  Noren raised an eyebrow. "A fine way to greet your master."

  "You're not my master," Chang-li said. "You're yet another powerful being with inscrutable motives who wants something from me, and I'm tired of letting them have their way today."

  He stood up, crossed his arms over his chest, and realized he was at least half a head shorter than he should be compared to Noren. He stepped over to the wall of the chamber, which was now flickering much more slowly, and peered at his reflection. He really did look about twelve years old.

  "Why am I seeing myself this way?" he demanded. "I thought the temporal chamber reflected back my own view of myself?"

  "It does. But I have coopted that feature to remove your consciousness from your body. In a sense, now you are the refelction" the supposed Noren said calmly.

  “If I am the reflection then…” Chang-li trailed off as Noren pointed down. He looked. At their feet lay Chang-li, not young and fresh, but older, haggard, unconcious and, worst of all, dissolving. Motes of lux were drifting away from his form and Chang-li could faintly see through himself. He gaped.

  "In that last fight,” Noren explained. “You ended up ingesting a great deal of Lumos, which the Lens attempted to have you process. Since you are at the Lux Endowment stage and not Lux Dominion, that went as could be expected. Your body is dissolving. I brought you here to stabilize it and give you a chance."

  “How can I believe you? This is impossible. It has to be a trick of the chamber." He wanted that to be true more than anything he’d wanted in his life.

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  "That's a good question." Noren stroked his chin. "Any answer I could give you that would allow you to believe me could just as easily be taken from your own mind by the spirit here in this temple training chamber." Noren said gravely. "We don’t have a lot of time here. Oh, yes. While we are in here, Chang-li, your wife and friends are under attack by the Inquisitor, who is thoroughly convinced that Morning Mist are at least as big a lot of traitors as Prism Eri and a much safer target for her."

  Noren stroked his chin. "I suspect she may be colluding with the Prism, in fact, but have no evidence yet to back me up. Oh, and Eri and General Li have entered the tower and are presumably locked in a struggle to the death to claim it. That result should be quite interesting. I give it one-in-three odds that they shatter this tower, which will, of course, utterly devastate the region. So I suggest we hurry up."

  Chang-li was confused. “Time doesn't pass while I’m inside, does it?”

  "You know better than that," Noren scolded. "Every time you or your friend Joshi have used it, it's taken at least a handful of minutes between entry and exit. We’re running out of time.”

  “Time for what?”

  “Time for you to progress or disintegrate into random motes of lux.” Noren raised an eyebrow. “Your choice.”

  And at last, Chang-li was convinced. He pressed his hands together and bowed. "Master Noren, forgive me for not believing you at first, but... it's been a long couple of days.”

  Noren waved it away. "What was it you said? Powerful, mysterious entities who have plans for you that you don’t understand? Yes, that does describe me fairly well. Now, I only got the short version from your wife. We were rather worried about you dissolving away before I could do anything about it. Why don’t you tell me in exact detail everything that has happened since last we met? But as quickly as possible, of course. Even here, time passes."

  Chang-li frowned. "Is that really our best use of time?" Noren made it sound like he might dissolve to nothing any moment now.

  Noren wasn’t meeting his eyes but instead was looking so intently down at his body. "I am studying your channels while we talk. It will take me a few minutes." Noren said. "You have already started the process of breaking your body down into lux. You will either complete and then reverse the process, rebuilding it from lux into a form that is both stronger and more in tune with the cosmic mysteries, or you will die. You are not actually yet prepared for that attempt. We will begin when I have finished maping your channels. While we wait please, tell me everything you can."

  Chang-li cleared his throat. "Well, after we entered the tower—“

  Noren cut him off. "It took you several weeks to reach this tower. What happened along the way?"

  Chang-li blinked, casting his mind back. He began with the story of his journey from Morning Mist out to the edges of Empire and their encounter with the monks of Harupa.

  The false Chang-li prowled around the edges of the chamber. When he heard the story of the treachery of the monks of Harupa, he growled and turned. "Such neglect for the laws of hospitality. You should have killed all of them and taken their lux and techniques."

  Chang-li blinked. "We were mostly concerned with getting out of there. Besides, they weren't worth the time."

  "Agreed," Noren said cheerfully. "Those monks are ridiculously hidebound. They are excellent tutors for teaching children the first few steps of cultivation, but their techniques and training would be a hindrance to you. Rest assured, though, that if you had given them more of a chance, they likely would have killed you in an attempt to take the Lens from you. It is, as you have seen, an incredibly valuable treasure."

  Chang-li was diverted. "I've started to get a sense of what it's for. Is it," he licked his lips and chose his words carefully, "is this how Lux Dominators learn to split Lumos?"

  Noren stared at him. He clapped his hands. “Very clever lad! Let us say, rather, it is a way that Lux Dominators learn to split Lumos, and in my opinion, one of the weaker ways. Any, let's call them prisms for the sake of it, though the use of that term inside the Empire is at odds with how the outside world uses them, any prism who relies on a Lens to split Lumos has an inherent weakness."

  Chang-li nodded, thinking of how he had defeated Zhao Zen. "Destroy the Lens, and you not only remove their ability to use Lumos, you cause a backlash that explodes their core."

  "Precisely," Noren said, pointing at him. "You may be very sure Prism Eri does not use a Lens to split Lumos. Go on and finish the story."

  Chang-li recounted their progress through the tower. Noren nodded, asking questions here and there. Once or twice, the shadow copy of Chang-li threw out a comment, which they mostly ignored. Noren smiled as Chang-li spoke of helping Min reach the Peak of Mental Refinement and the time they'd spent training together. "You have a gift for teaching," he said softly. "It's rare to find in one so young."

  Chang-li could feel himself burning bright red. "She's my wife. I want to help her," he said stiffly.

  "That would also explain all of the others you have helped along the way," Noren added with an eye roll. "Go on."

  Chang-li finished his story. They dwelt at some length on mastering his Intent. Noren nodded. "Fascinating."

  Chang-li was surprised. "Was I right?" he asked. "Is that my Intent?"

  "Well, it must be," Noren said reasonably, "or it wouldn't have worked for you. I think it is a wonderful way to describe yourself, and perhaps not one I would have thought of, but that is why the strongest Intents are always those we discover for ourselves and not those that are foisted upon us by outsiders."

  He stood up and brushed off his robes. "I now understand the foundation you have laid, and I am hopeful we will be successful in our attempt."

  Chang-li suddenly felt very, very nervous. He held up a hand.

  "Hold on. Just what is it we have to do? I know you said that I need to remake my body, you mean reach the Lux Embodiment stage?"

  Noren shrugged. "The remaking of your body is the prerequisite for being recognized as what we call a Lux Embodiment cultivator," he said. "Just as the ability to distinguish between different subshades of lux is required for Lux Endowment.”

  Chang-li was nervous and yet also excited. The idea that he might remake his body with lux had always seemed like a far distant dream. Now Noren said he must do it or die. He cleared his throat. "Alright. How do I start?”