Ki'el had not re-al-ly got-ten her hopes up, and yet was still some-what dis-ap-point-ed by the form of the Less-er House it-self. It was a sin-gle large build-ing, per-haps five sto-ries tall. It was too well-built to be called ram-shackle, but too poor-ly main-tained to be called in good con-di-tion; the out-side was some form of paint-ed plas-ter or stone, with only oc-ca-sion-al bits of wood stick-ing through, and al-though it ex-ud-ed a sense of strength, it was ob-vi-ous that the out-side, at least, was main-tained by peo-ple who had no con-cept of build-ing things prop-er-ly. The plas-ter that cov-ered it was high-ly un-even, and the paint, which at least was all the same col-or, had ob-vi-ous dif-fer-ences in thick-ness all across the sur-face.

  Ki'el stud-ied it, not hav-ing ex-pect-ed a tall build-ing to be con-cealed be-hind the trees, but Mai Han Du sim-ply kept speak-ing. "Al-though the Sect goes through some trou-ble every few years to en-sure the build-ing is safe, most of the main-te-nance, as well as all of the cook-ing and clean-ing, is done by mem-bers of the house it-self. Out-er Dis-ci-ples have not been per-mit-ted to help, even when they wish to. Mem-bers of the Less-er House are free to at-tempt to re-pair, main-tain, im-prove, and even ex-pand the house, as they wish, though that must be in their free time."

  "There are many peo-ple in the House, too many for you to have pri-vate rooms. We gen-er-al-ly in-sist that for the first month, at min-i-mum, a group like yours can have a room to your-selves, though af-ter that, any-one that re-mains," he glanced at Mian, "will need to make arrange-ments with the oth-er res-i-dents. Peo-ple share both large and small rooms, here, but you three will most like-ly be giv-en a sin-gle small room to share."

  As they ap-proached, the first per-son that they saw from the Less-er House was a tall and thin woman in a red dress. In spite of Du's as-sur-ances that the peo-ple here all worked, Ki'el though the woman had a con-temp-tu-ous face, and she was lean-ing against the door-frame with a wide pa-per fan. Ki'el frowned at her, if only for a mo-ment, and Ki'el thought the woman's eyes im-me-di-ate-ly snapped to her face, and a scowl crossed her fea-tures.

  "Ah, is Se-nior Broth-er Du here to dis-ap-point yet an-oth-er batch of can-di-dates?" The woman fanned her-self with her im-ple-ment, slouch-ing fur-ther. "Un-for-tu-nate-ly our en-tire Less-er House is at ca-pac-i-ty. There are no rooms for new in-com-ing ser-vants, un-for-tu-nate-ly."

  "Young sis-ter Lan Wu," Du greet-ed her, half turn-ing so that he could face both her and the oth-er three. "I be-lieve you were asked to in-form an el-der if there would not be space for new ad-her-ents. And I do be-lieve the last I heard was that two peo-ple left the Less-er House, some nine months ago."

  "Is that all they told you?" Ki'el frowned, feel-ing some-thing bris-tle in-side of her qi as the woman spoke. "When the Boju Broth-ers left, they de-stroyed sev-er-al of the rooms on their way out. We have all been very busy with our own re-pairs, and many spaces are still not liv-able."

  "The sect's ju-nior broth-ers did come to re-pair that dam-age, did they not?"

  Lan Wu's lips curled into a sneer. "They deemed the task be-neath them, and said that the Sect's stan-dards were met. But you may ex-am-ine it if you wish, Se-nior Broth-er Du."

  Ki'el frowned, but pushed slight-ly on her Right-eous Cy-cle, flood-ing her own qi with pu-ri-fied aether. As she thought, it pushed back some-thing from the woman, some kind of mi-nor spir-i-tu-al ef-fect that was laid into her voice. It seemed strange to Ki'el--many things did, but she did not ex-pect that even in the Less-er House, there would be peo-ple us-ing some form of ex-ter-nal qi to in-flu-ence oth-ers.

  Mai Han Du glanced back at the oth-er three, and nod-ded. "Come along."

  As Du turned and stepped for-ward, Xoi Xam leaned in to whis-per to Ki'el. "What did you do?"

  Ki'el turned and met Xam's eyes, and though she still strug-gled to do it, pro-ject-ed a thought at the oth-er woman. [Do not trust woman's voice.]

  Xam frowned, but Ki'el trust-ed the woman had heard her and turned to the build-ing. Lan Wu seemed con-tent to sim-ply step aside and let Sect Broth-er Du through the door-way in-stead of fol-low-ing, so Ki'el moved up to and then past her, try-ing to mea-sure the woman with her eyes as she did.

  The woman met her eyes, and Ki'el thought that those eyes were sharp, dis-pleased. Ugly.

  If Ki'el had been ap-pre-hen-sive see-ing the state of the build-ing from the out-side, in-side it was worse. The best com-pli-ment she could pay was that the build-ing was kept clean. Al-though the wood plank floors were un-even, they were swept free of dirt; al-though the walls were not straight and had cuts, holes, and burns across them, they had been washed. Al-though the ceil-ing's sur-face was poor-ly fin-ished with some kind of plas-ter or soft rock, they had no cob-webs and no dis-col-oration as from smoke or heat. The door-ways that they passed by were not straight and had no doors hung in their frames; Ki'el no-ticed a kitchen on the left that showed signs of be-ing lived in, and what might have once been a com-mu-nal room on the right that was filled with beds.

  Once they passed the im-me-di-ate en-trance, the hall-ways branched to the right and left, while above, a steep cir-cu-lar stair went up, cen-tered in a very nar-row cir-cu-lar hole that cut through all five floors of the build-ing. The stair, at least, was iron or some sim-i-lar met-al, and al-though the steps were nar-row and looked in-se-cure, the cen-tral pil-lar that sup-port-ed them seemed com-plete-ly sol-id. Sect Broth-er Du, as well, seemed to show no sign of con-cern; the man im-me-di-ate-ly be-gan climb-ing the steps with such con-fi-dence that Ki'el at first thought the stairs must be more sol-id than they looked.

  But when Ki'el first stepped on the low-est step of the stairs, she felt it be-gin to slide out of its hole, and when she lept back out of sur-prise, the mo-tion only ac-cel-er-at-ed the small flat iron peg out of its po-si-tion, and it fell to the floor with a clat-ter.

  Ki'el felt her face im-me-di-ate-ly go flush with shame, more so when Sect Broth-er Du looked down at her, but the man didn't look sur-prised or shocked at all. "Be at ease, Young Sis-ter. The pegs are in-deed loose, which helps with your mind-ful-ness. Put the step back in its place and then fol-low." But he did not stand around to wait for her, and sim-ply con-tin-ued up the steps.

  Ki'el leaned down and grabbed the step, push-ing it back into its hole, feel-ing a ris-ing pan-ic. As she straight-ened, though, she felt a com-fort-ing hand on her shoul-der, and found Mian there, a se-ri-ous look on his face. "Calm down," he whis-pered, qui-et-ly. "Don't pan-ic. Re-mem-ber to breathe."

  Ki'el was breath-ing, of course, but not in-ten-tion-al-ly. She stepped back and fo-cused on breath-ing with pur-pose, let-ting the act of breath-ing calm her down. It was one of the few pieces of ad-vice Mian had been able to of-fer; the man had not said where and when he'd learned it, and only said that he picked up a few pieces of ad-vice be-fore he be-came a cook, at the small inn where he met Ta-lai Lui and Shi-va Alas-si, the woman whose body her mas-ter Sobon would lat-er in-hab-it. Mian had in-deed known a few things about us-ing a sword cor-rect-ly, though from the looks Sobon gave him, her mas-ter would have much pre-ferred to cor-rect them both, if only she had time.

  Sobon nev-er seemed to have time, for them or for much else.

  Ki'el's mea-sured use of breath helped calm her a lit-tle, and she rec-og-nized that she had in-deed pan-icked, and her at-tempts to make her-self not seem a fool would only prove that she knew lit-tle. By the time she had calmed, Mian had pro-ceed-ed slow-ly up the stairs, his steps mak-ing the stairs squeak and shift, but none of the stairs came loose, and Xam was start-ing to move up af-ter her, the woman's steps much qui-eter and more sta-ble.

  Ki'el watched, but aside from the fact that she could tell that Xam was us-ing her qi in-ter-nal-ly, she had lit-tle un-der-stand-ing of what the woman did. But then... Xoi Xam was old-er and more ex-pe-ri-enced than Ki'el, hav-ing gained her qi in mil-i-tary ser-vice. How ex-act-ly she could do that, and still re-main not much stronger than Ki'el... she did not know, and put out of her mind.

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  When she fi-nal-ly steeled her-self to stand on the steps, she felt it shift again, but only mo-men-tar-i-ly, and Ki'el bared her teeth at the stair-case, of-fend-ed by its in-ad-e-qua-cy. While she had no doubt that it had re-mained in such a sor-ry state be-cause some-one de-mand-ed it, she could imag-ine Sobon's dis-gust at the con-cept, and could plain-ly en-vi-sion her fix-ing the steps with a wave of her hand. In-deed, with the pow-er she had gained re-cent-ly, Sobon could prob-a-bly have fixed the whole build-ing in mo-ments, if she wished.

  Buoyed by her thoughts of her mas-ter, Ki'el found the courage to con-tin-ue up the steep stairs, al-though she felt some part of her-self re-ject-ing the whole ex-is-tence of the stair-case with every step. As those above her con-tin-ued to mount, prov-ing that their tar-get was not the sec-ond or third floor, Ki'el con-sid-ered that part of her spir-it, fi-nal-ly set-tling on some-thing Sobon had told her.

  She said I seemed to be fo-cused in my skin, Ki'el ra-tio-nal-ized. Some part of my spir-it al-ways wants to de-fend me, to keep evil things out. And this stair-case of-fends me. It wish-es to tell me I am wrong in how I walk up stairs. It was hard not to per-son-i-fy the stair-case as some-thing evil, some-thing that would de-light in watch-ing her fail, though Ki'el knew it was not true. And some-how, be-tween those two thoughts... Ki'el thought that their rough edges were sim-i-lar, as though the one and the oth-er may be re-lat-ed, just as Sobon had said.

  That thought did not pro-vide an an-swer, but it did help her feel more at peace with the ir-ri-ta-tion that she held for the stairs. As she con-tin-ued to move, con-tin-ued to feel the steps slip slight-ly when she shift-ed her weight, she ac-cept-ed that her in-tense ha-tred for the stairs was a part of her strug-gling to pro-tect her, and fo-cused again on her breath-ing, try-ing to re-main aware of more than just the stairs.

  It was a good thing, too, be-cause short-ly af-ter-wards, Xam stopped sud-den-ly and even moved back a step on the stairs, al-most tak-ing Ki'el by sur-prise. For cer-tain, if she had been as fo-cused on her steps at the end as she was at the be-gin-ning, she might have made some kind of mis-take, but as it was, she sim-ply caught her move-ment and stopped, wait-ing.

  A minute lat-er, every-one pro-ceed-ed up again, and Ki'el found her-self on the fourth floor, to find that it was a ter-ri-ble mess. The plas-ter cov-er on the walls had all been torn to pieces, most-ly by what looked like blade strikes, but there were places where some-thing worse had clear-ly hap-pened, though what ex-act-ly, Ki'el could not tell. What was cer-tain was that at lesat three rooms on this lev-el opened up into each oth-er, and the hall-way, and the floor above, and the floor be-low, with many ex-posed beams of wood that must have been sup-port-ing the walls or floor bare and ex-posed. Only the hall-way floors had been ful-ly re-paired, al-though Ki'el no-ticed that even the ru-ined rooms had at least been swept, even if no fur-ther at-tempts to clean them had been made.

  Mai Han Du stood among it, glanc-ing around, be-fore turn-ing back to them.

  "It is a grim sight," he ad-mit-ted, "but it is not un-liv-able. The sect ex-pects the Less-er House to do re-pairs of this lev-el; even with-out qi, as long as the ma-te-ri-als are pro-vid-ed, it should be pos-si-ble. Es-pe-cial-ly for new ad-her-ents, it does not seem un-rea-son-able to ex-pect you to fix small things like this."

  "Small things? I do not wish to sound en-ti-tled, Sect Broth-er Du, but this does seem a bit much." Xam's voice sound-ed fierce-ly ir-ri-tat-ed, though Ki'el sim-ply looked numbly at the walls and floors. In truth... the ru-ined rooms brought back mem-o-ries of her own vil-lage, which she had found ru-ined and loot-ed by pi-rates, when she fi-nal-ly made it back af-ter be-ing lost in a storm. In time, Ki'el had forced her-self to take pieces from sev-er-al ru-ined hous-es in or-der to fix one; be-fore that, she had spent many months hid-ing from rain-storms by crawl-ing into the one cor-ner of her house that was still most-ly cov-ered.

  Here, at least, the roof of the build-ing it-self was in-tact. She could imag-ine oth-ers be-ing quite up-set with the state of the room, but she her-self had lived in much worse.

  "It seems nei-ther of your com-pan-ions shares your dis-dain," not-ed Du, and Ki'el turned her head to fo-cus on Mian. The man had a grim set to his face, but it was a de-ter-mined one, and he turned his head to her, eyes mea-sur-ing her for only a mo-ment be-fore he nod-ded. Ki'el nod-ded back.

  Xoi Xam took a mo-ment to school her own breath, but nod-ded. "My apolo-gies, Sect Broth-er. Does the sect at least have in-struc-tion on this kind of main-te-nance for us, or are we ex-pect-ed to find oth-ers among the Less-er House who al-ready have that ex-per-tise?"

  "An ed-u-cat-ed ques-tion." Du's face bright-ened, enough that the man no longer looked like he was sur-round-ed by a half-ru-ined build-ing. "As long as you are per-form-ing sect busi-ness--and the Less-er House be-longs to the sect, and so its main-te-nance is sect busi-ness--you may ask any-one in the sect for ad-vice, even mas-ters, al-though not all will have the same pa-tience for small mat-ters. Re-gret-tably we do not have any-one who spe-cial-izes in this kind of con-struc-tion and main-te-nance, with-out the use of qi, though there may be many peo-ple who could com-ment on the ma-te-ri-als. The wall-plas-ter, for ex-am-ple," he not-ed, ges-tur-ing around, "is a com-mon ma-te-r-i-al used by a great many, but I have had sev-er-al fas-ci-nat-ing dis-cus-sions with Broth-er Kemu, who stud-ies both the mu-ndane chem-istry and the spir-i-tu-al alche-my of such ma-te-ri-als, and the dis-cus-sions of each are very dif-fer-ent. I can say that he has of-ten been asked to help with such mat-ters."

  "Sim-i-lar-ly, the floors," he ges-tured down. "We have many spe-cial-ists in the mun-dane and spir-i-tu-al prop-er-ties of wood. Here I will sug-gest Sis-ter Muzi, only be-cause I be-lieve most of the oth-ers are busy on as-sign-ment. It is not triv-ial to pre-pare wood such that it can be used for many years with-out trou-ble, and those who at-tempt to make the fastest and sim-plest re-pairs most of-ten are dis-ap-point-ed months or years lat-er."

  Ki'el frowned at that, and moved over to the near-est wood-en pil-lar, lean-ing in to ex-am-ine it more close-ly. The wood had clear-ly been cut clean-ly and then at least rough-ly smoothed, but not fin-ished, per-haps be-cause this pil-lar was meant to re-main in-side of the wall. She did not know what it would take to fin-ish walls, or floors, but she had seen more than enough vari-a-tion in the woods used to build the huts in her vil-lage, and those woods that had been ex-posed only af-ter the vil-lage had been at-tacked had rot-ted much faster in the weath-er than those meant to be out-doors. By the time she had not-ed those dif-fer-ences, how-ev-er, there was no one left to ask how the woods were pre-pared, or why.

  Her eyes ranged around af-ter that, not-ing that where the beams of wood joined, ei-ther ad-vanced qi tech-niques had been used to merge them, or some-thing like rope, cloth, or leather sur-round-ed the joint, or bits of met-al or wood were forced through one and into an-oth-er in or-der to pin them to-geth-er. The only thing Ki'el felt sure of was that there were far few-er qi joins, and only on the larg-er pieces of wood. The oth-er tech-niques... she wasn't sure which was bet-ter, or would be pre-ferred, or why.

  So she sim-ply asked, ges-tur-ing at the joints, and Du glanced at them, nod-ding.

  "Each of these joins looks to have been in-fused with at least a lit-tle qi," he said, "and so I imag-ine that they were used as prac-tice by mem-bers of the Less-er House. Al-though it is ear-ly for peo-ple to at-tempt to cre-ate even a rudi-men-ta-ry qi na-ture be-fore breach-ing the Gold-en Wall, many peo-ple, es-pe-cial-ly those from de-vel-oped clans, al-ready have some un-der-stand-ing, and will use it to in-fuse their qi with in-tent. Things like this..." he ges-tured to them, "these are the re-sult of peo-ple prac-tic-ing in pri-vate. Most fre-quent-ly, I be-lieve, the ones who al-ready have a grasp of their fu-ture are not long for these halls, while the ones who lan-guish still to this day do not un-der-stand even mi-nor uses of qi like these."

  Ki'el stud-ied the joints and the walls and floors. She no-ticed some very small qi fluc-tu-a-tion as Broth-er Du spoke, but did not no-tice quite when or about what, and had to let the thought go quick-ly. In-stead, she looked at the floor and the walls, notic-ing that some of the bro-ken pieces had been clean-ly cut, while oth-ers had not. "There will be tools as well?"

  "Of course, as with all sect busi-ness," Broth-er Du said again, pa-tient-ly. "You will be re-quired to main-tain and re-pair the tools as well, of course."

  Ki'el nod-ded, feel-ing more com-fort-able, and glanced to Mian and Xam. The lat-ter looked out of her el-e-ment, but Mian at least showed no signs of flag-ging willpow-er. So Ki'el just looked to Broth-er Du and nod-ded.

  "Very good. Now... I will speak with a few oth-ers in the sect to en-sure that the tools and ma-te-ri-als are pro-vid-ed to you, but you will also need to speak with Sis-ter Futi, who is in charge of tasks for the Less-er House. You should ex-pect much of your time to be tak-en with these tasks, and you will need to bal-ance your own cul-ti-va-tion, rest, and pri-vate tasks in the time that re-mains." Du ges-tured back to-wards the stairs. "Come. I will in-tro-duce you."

  Ki'el was last down the stairs, as she was last up them, and turned to look back at the ru-ined rooms. The at-mos-phere of the house gave her an un-pleas-ant feel-ing, es-pe-cial-ly now that Du was leav-ing, and Ki'el felt cer-tain that there would be ad-di-tion-al un-pleas-ant-ness as soon as the three of them were alone. There was no rea-son for her to speak of it, not for now; she was sure that Broth-er Du would make any-thing that hap-pened sound rea-son-able, and the oth-ers most like-ly also un-der-stood that their time here would be un-pleas-ant.

  If the worst trou-ble Ki'el had here was a room with ru-ined walls and floors, she would feel lucky, and Ki'el did not trust in her own luck.