The Sacrifice Kingdom had a golden pagoda that used to shine — a tower that glowed with a holy light visible for a hundred li, because a sacred relic was enshrined at its top, a shard of the Buddha's own radiance that blessed the whole realm and brought its rains on time. And three years ago the light had gone out, because the relic had been stolen in the night, and the kingdom had done the thing kingdoms do: it had blamed the men nearest to hand.
The monks who tended the pagoda were arrested for the theft, tortured to confess to it, worked and beaten and dying in chains, because someone had to have taken the relic and the guardians were convenient, and no one in the court could imagine that the thief had come from the sky. , made to sweep the dark pagoda as a passing monk, wept over the broken men who had guarded it, and resolved, as he now resolves without being asked, to find the true thief and clear them.
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