A chill, icy thing, welling up from the hidden depths of his heart, slowly spread through Han Li's whole body, and shook him awake out of his swoon.
The instant he awoke, Han Li felt his head beset by a heaviness past all enduring, and a dull ache throbbing within it; every part of his body was soft and without strength, as one who has but newly risen from a grave sickness. He strove to open his eyes, but his lids were so heavy that he could not move them a whit.
In his dazed confusion, Han Li called to mind all that had come to pass before he had slipped into that swoon.
He gave a sudden start, and a shiver ran through him; his wits at once cleared somewhat, and he hastened to inspect his own condition.
"Oh!" It seemed his body had not been seized from him. Though he could not yet open his eyes, the strange discomfort that crept over every limb told him, beyond all doubt, that his whole body was back in his own keeping once more.
"Could it be that Doctor Mo's working of the art has failed?"
Smitten by this joy beyond all his hopes, Han Li thought of the one explanation that would serve.
Holding back the elation in his breast, Han Li schooled himself to patience until some of his strength had returned, and only then, with great effort, did he prise a narrow slit open between his eyelids, and make out the world about him.
The selfsame moment he opened his eyes, there met them a face — hair all white, withered and haggard and lean, aged beyond all measure — none other than the face of Doctor Mo in his old age, yet it seemed some ten years older still than before, the face of a broken old crone beyond all further age.
At this very moment, his two eyes were wide open, and he stared upon Han Li with a look of utter terror.
Han Li gave a start, and every muscle of his body tensed at once; the feeling of his weakness was cast to the winds, and the first thought that rose in his breast was to strike first — to take the enemy while the taking was good.
Warned by the lesson of the time before, Han Li would say by no means let himself be taken at a disadvantage again.
But presently Han Li marked a strangeness: the other's bearing was stiff and still, he moved not at all, and there came from him no sound of drawing breath. It was as though he had been dead for a long while already.
Han Li knit his brows, yet would not suffer himself to grow careless within; he did not lay by his guard. He fixed his gaze, all his mind upon it, on the other's face, seeking to draw out some flaw from it.
For a full half a quarter of an hour he watched closely, and at last he was bound to own that the other had no likeness to a living man.
After some hesitation, he still drew near with the utmost wariness, reached out, and took the other's wrist in his hand; his other hand he set beneath the other's nostrils, and tested for a while — but there was no stir at all.
Only then did Han Li's heart settle wholly at ease, and it grew light within him beyond all telling; the great stone that had so long pressed down upon the inmost recesses of his heart was at last cast away.
Even now, Han Li could scarce believe it — that his great foe, that one so old and crafty, so venomous in his wiles, Doctor Mo, should have died thus, without sound or stir, so unknowably, so easily.
He reached up and felt at his own brow. The talisman men called the "Spirit-Pinning Talisman" had vanished without trace; he knew not whither it had gone, and it was nowhere to be seen about him either, which gave Han Li some wonder. It was not till later, when he had himself learned the way of talisman arts, that he recalled the thing and understood it — that yellow talisman must have spent all the power it held, and crumbled into ash, and this was why he could find it in no place.
His spirit eased, Han Li turned his gaze from the corpse of Doctor Mo to range over all the rest, seeking some clue to how the man had met his end.
The lamps and candles about were still burning, which told him he had not lain senseless overlong; and the several green jades not far off had grown grey and dull, as though their quality had fallen by several degrees at a stroke, so that they were now all but unnoticeable.
His gaze turning, there fell within his sight, in a corner of the stone chamber, a thing that crouched and hid, striving with all its might to keep beyond Han Li's line of sight.
This thing was no stranger to Han Li. It was the very enemy that had fought him to the last in his dream, and slipped from his grasp — that ball of green light shorn of a full third of its bulk.
At this moment it was making for the corner as fast as ever it could, seeming greatly afraid of Han Li, and seeking only to cover itself.
Han Li was at first somewhat surprised; but then, lost in thought, he propped his chin on one hand, and bowed his head a while in silence.
After a space he rose to his feet and walked toward the ball of light.
Only when he was but half a zhang from it did he halt, and then spoke, slowly:
"I think we should make each other's acquaintance. You must be Yu Zitong, must you not?"
The green orb trembled somewhat, and the light upon it flickered unsteadily. When it heard Han Li name it, it dimmed a good long while, then shone bright again.
"You have guessed it," came a voice from the ball of light, seeming at last resigned to its fate. "You are a worthy disciple of Mo Juren, indeed; just as troublesome as he, and no easier to handle." By the accent, it was the same young man.
It sought no excuse, but straightway owned the truth of Han Li's guess.
"Then should not this lord give me some account," said Han Li, "and tell me the whole matter from the beginning?" Finding that this man was verily one of the very culprits who had plotted against him, Han Li yet showed not the least sign of anger, still taking his ease, slow and deliberate.
But Yu Zitong, seeing how the other was neither hot nor cold, knew not why but a chill crept into his heart, and a sense that some great calamity was upon him.
In the spirit-sense battle not long before, he had but now tasted the ferocity of this baleful star; a part of his primordial spirit had been swallowed up alive, and he had lost the greater half of his magical power. Of what remained, he could only work a few small illusions, without the least power to harm. Facing his true person now, with no strength to guard himself, his fear was past all telling.
"What is it you wish to know?" he asked.
He knew well that this man, who had but newly escaped death by a hair, must be in a most unstable humour, and of great peril. Look not at how calm the other seemed without; within his breast, it might be, he was nursing up a bellyful of rage, as a volcano hides its fire before the bursting forth.
Now that he was discovered, the best course was to cooperate, and not provoke the other's patience with his speech; he had no wish to be delivered, all unknowing, to destruction by the other's impulse.
"First, tell me who you truly are," said Han Li, his face like a mask, showing not a trace of feeling. "Then set out the whole story of how you came to know Doctor Mo, and the plan you had between you, from beginning to end, in full order. I have time enough now, and can listen to your telling of it at leisure."