The Broken Reversal Stone

The blackened rafters snapped and fell with a sound like a scream. There was no feeling at all in his left hand, the price for forcing open his poison meridians and taking the sect's entire backlash into his own body. In the drifting ash, the ledger bearing the names of his fellow disciples was consumed by fire and vanished. Instead of the smoke of the sect's annihilation, what struck his nose was the cold smell of incense. He opened his eyes to a familiar ceiling, the Settlement Hall. Every breath that entered his lungs was cold and sharp and clear. Yeonho reflexively clenched and opened his left hand. The feeling lagged a beat behind, but his fingers moved. On the altar stood Sobin, nineteen years old. Her slender wrist was bound to a thick reversal stone. The Settlement Overseer elder was chanting, moving the reversal pooled in his disciple's meridians into the stone. Sobin's face had gone pale with pain. Memory from his last life struck Yeonho's mind like lightning. Once that stone filled, the force would burst her fragile blood vessels. Yeonho rose to his feet. He let the tension out of his knees, turned his heels slightly outward, and lowered his center of gravity. He held his breath, fixed his diaphragm, and felt his joints draw taut. He pushed through the crowd toward the altar. He dropped his shoulder to slip past the Transmission Elder, who tried to block his path. The Settlement Overseer elder glared at him.

"Senior Disciple, this is a settlement ceremony in progress. Do you understand what it means to interrupt this rite?"

Instead of answering, Yeonho looked at the black cord binding Sobin's wrist. Energy poured from the fingertips of the Settlement Overseer elder, flowing through Sobin's meridians and into the stone. Yeonho drew the training sword at his waist. Force rose from his feet, ran up through his waist, and reached the tip of the blade in his right hand. The blade touched the smooth surface of the reversal stone. He held his breath, aimed for a point where the grain trembled faintly, and drove the sword in. He felt the stone's central axis collapse through his fingertips. The reversal his body had to absorb surged backward up his left arm. His shoulder joint screamed, the feeling in his left hand went numb again, and he lost his grip on the hilt. The reversal stone shattered and scattered across the floor. The restraint clamped on Sobin's wrist snapped open and fell. Sobin staggered and sank to the ground. The Settlement Overseer elder's face flushed red then purple. He pointed a finger at Yeonho.

"You wretch, defying the sect code outright, have you lost your mind. This is the order our ancestors established. Do you have any idea how grave the crime of damaging it is?"

Yeonho hid his left hand behind his back and looked down at the stone dust scattered across the floor. The numbness in his fingers had grown so bad the feeling itself was faint. But Sobin was alive in front of him. The girl drew ragged breaths and tucked her hand deep into her sleeve.

"An Sobin, are you all right."

At Yeonho's question, Sobin lifted her head to look at him. Tears had gathered at the corners of her eyes, but her lips stayed pressed shut. She tried to rise and swayed.

"The Settlement Overseer elder only did as the sect code required. Senior Disciple, I should have told you sooner. It's only that I've been waiting my turn since yesterday and it wore me down a little."

Yeonho went to her and gripped her shoulder.

"Say that again. You were already unwell before the settlement ceremony began?"

The Transmission Elder stepped forward and seized Yeonho's shoulder roughly.

"A man calling himself Senior Disciple, letting private feeling wreck the sect's foundations. Go to the Disciplinary Scribe's office at once and prepare for punishment and expulsion. That left hand of yours has already taken the reversal and is ruined. You no longer even qualify as a martial artist."

Yeonho did not shake off the elder's hand. He stood there, straight-backed. The pain in his left hand climbed all the way to his heart, but his expression did not change. He steadied his trembling voice and spoke calmly.

"Settlement Overseer, bring the reversal ledger. I need to compare the amount of reversal remaining in Sobin's meridians against the reversal figures of every elder gathered at the altar today. In accordance with the sect code's principle that the right to teach and the responsibility for it must be held by the same hands, I will review today's settlement ceremony records again."

The Settlement Overseer elder burst out in a hollow laugh.

"Records? What could you possibly know, invoking the ledger. That is a secret arrangement between the merchant guild and our sect. A greenhorn like you has no right to view it."

Yeonho drew an old letter from inside his robe and shook it in front of the elder's eyes. He had remembered the discrepancies in the ledger he had glimpsed over the elder's shoulder in his last life, back when he managed the sect in the sect leader's place. His memory was hazy, but one thing remained vivid: the way the elder's eyes flicked up and to the right every time he tried to hide the ledger.

"Is this a simple matter of breaking a stone, or a lineage trade backed by the lives of disciples. Three days. Give me temporary audit rights over every ledger in the Settlement Hall for three days. Otherwise, the contents of this letter will reach outside merchant guilds."

The Settlement Overseer elder's expression froze instantly. He glanced around. The enforcement disciples inside the Settlement Hall began to murmur. Sobin spoke up in a small voice.

"Senior Disciple, the ledger already had a figure recorded beside my name. The elders had decided what to transfer before I ever entered the ceremony."

Flustered, the Settlement Overseer elder snapped at Sobin.

"Shut your mouth, girl. Who are you to break your silence and interfere in an elder's business."

Yeonho stepped forward and placed himself between the two elders. He fixed the Settlement Overseer elder with a cold stare.

"What just came out of that child's mouth is now on record. Elder, will you hand over the ledger, or would you rather watch this entire Settlement Hall turn upside down. As of today I have broken the forbidden law and shattered the stone. I don't care whether I'm expelled or punished. But I will confirm, here, today, the record of every disciple's meridians that have been exploited, Sobin included."

Yeonho picked up the old sect code tablet lying on the floor and threw it at the elder's feet. The Settlement Overseer elder clenched his fist. Yeonho did not let the moment pass and pressed the elder's gaze down with his own. A sect's hierarchy was decided not by fear but by the distribution of responsibility. The Settlement Overseer elder forced his mouth open.

"Fine. Three days. You will examine the ledgers for three days, and if there is no corruption of the kind you claim, I will have your head and cast you out of this sect on the spot."

Yeonho nodded. He turned to look at Sobin.

"Sobin, go to the infirmary. Tell the physician to record precisely the amount of reversal you received during the settlement ceremony. And write down, in order, everything that happened here today, leaving nothing out."

Sobin answered only with a nod. Yeonho left the Settlement Hall behind and headed for the Disciplinary Scribe's office. Waiting there were the many unjust clauses of the sect code that he himself had written in with his own hand, in his last life. As Yeonho walked the corridor, murmurs already rose from the hall where the elders had gathered. Yeonho opened the door to the Disciplinary Scribe's office. On the desk lay the ledger the Settlement Overseer elder had been looking at only moments before. Yeonho opened it. On the page where the ink had not yet dried, the names of the disciples who had taken part in today's ceremony were listed densely alongside the figures of reversal each was to receive. Yeonho took up a brush, struck through his own name at the very top, and wrote Sobin's name beside it. Beneath that he wrote a line questioning where the responsibility lay. Outside the door, enforcement disciples waited for him. When Yeonho opened it, the waiting disciples drew their swords.

"Senior Disciple, your authority as Disciplinary Scribe ends here. Hand over the ledger at once and go to the Settlement Hall. The elders are waiting."

Yeonho looked over the disciples with drawn swords, one by one.

"I am not going there to return the ledger. The elders will come here themselves and explain why this ledger looks the way it does. If you call yourselves enforcement disciples, read the sect code before you come to me."

Yeonho walked past them into the center of the courtyard. Other disciples who had been preparing for the settlement ceremony were gathered there.

"From today, the sect code of the Hoeryu Sect changes. The reversal generated in the settlement ceremony is no longer the disciples' burden to carry. It will fall on the elders who manage and oversee it, and I am changing the structure so they bear it themselves. Anyone opposed, draw your sword against me right here."

The courtyard fell instantly silent. The Settlement Overseer elder walked out into the courtyard with heavy steps. The Transmission Elder followed at his back like a shadow.

"You truly want to die, don't you, boy. Fine. If that's what you want, I'll show you the weight of the sect code right here today. Transmission Elder, subdue him."

The Transmission Elder drew his sword and charged at Yeonho. Yeonho leaned his upper body back, letting the blade's arc slide past him. The Transmission Elder's sword grazed his collar. Yeonho moved straight into a counterattack. He gripped his sword with his right hand and aimed for the Transmission Elder's wrist. His blade touched the elder's forearm. But the pain in his left hand caught at his heel. The Transmission Elder swung again. Yeonho stepped back and steadied his breath. He dropped his sword, rolled his body, and drove himself into the elder's chest. Yeonho's shoulder struck the Transmission Elder square in the solar plexus. The elder staggered back, gasping for breath. Yeonho did not pick up the fallen sword. He simply stood still. The Settlement Overseer elder stared at the Transmission Elder in shock. The Transmission Elder's face was twisted with pain. Yeonho steadied his breathing and spoke to the elder.

"Elder, this is the sect code. Strength alone is not justice. My martial art, true to the name of the Hoeryu Sect, only returns the force that flows. The reversal I took on today is a debt the elders owe back to the disciples. I will return in three days with the ledger."

Yeonho left the courtyard without looking back. The disciples stepped aside along the path he walked. Yeonho returned to the Disciplinary Scribe's office and locked the door. The pain in his left hand had reached its peak. He slumped over the desk and pressed his forehead to the cold surface. He could not move a single finger, but his heart felt light. Sobin was alive. And the sect's ledger was in his hands. Yeonho closed his eyes. Tomorrow there would be more to confirm. Before he fell asleep, rain began to fall outside the window. The sound of it struck the roof of the Settlement Hall. Yeonho looked quietly down at his left hand. There was no feeling in it, but its shape was still plainly there. This life, he told himself, would never end this way. He pulled the ledger on the desk toward him. The smell of ink stung his nose. He took up the brush and began writing down tomorrow's plans. Sobin's treatment log, the elders' liability for restitution, and the many obstacles still to come. Yeonho recorded them all, one by one.