As he and his entourage were quitting the Central Meadows and going upon the slopes of the foothills that would eventually turn into the range known as the Mountains of the Gods, he thought to himself, "It's been a long time since I have gone this way." The highway bended only vaguely as it entered Spring Pass. After the pass curved north and widened into Spring Valley he went by the White-Mountain Shrine, in which resided the White-Mountain-Lady, said to be the tutelary deity of the all the central districts and the source of the Central Meadows' flawlessness. Since it was a Crown Shrine, it was overseen by an Imperial Princess, who at that time happened to be his older sister, Fair-Rain. He sacrificed at the main god-hall and then went into the sanctuary to undergo purification and have his journey blessed by the priestess. After receiving the blessing and distributing talismans to prominent members of his staff, he conversed with her over fruits and vegetables grown in the shrine's expansive garden, and told her of the misery that awaited him and his followers in the untamed lands of the far west. And she was not unmoved by his circumstances, sensing at the same time that, somehow, the Imperial ancestors had placed a sacred burden on his shoulders, and she said thus: "For the past year I have been training a god-maiden to succeed the current priestess of the Third Avenue Mausoleum. She comes from a accomplished family and her spirit-cultivation is simply extraordinary, and I don't think her talent is in any way insufficient to that office, but when I think of future of our Realm I wonder if the ancestors would not be better served if she were to accompany you to the frontier, and be of use to you when you consecrate the field where you intend to lay anew the roots of the Realm." And Fair-Gale was happy to accept the offer, promising to repay her kindness one day. The god-maiden, named Orange-Blossom, went with him along with ten god-handmaids, fifty gold bullions, a chest of ritual implements and a divine treasure jade cup.
The journey to the Western Sea Frontier took the greater part of three months, and it was already autumn by the time they passed by the boundary stone of ... Province, which had been, before the incorporation of the Frontier, the most distant Province in the Realm. At that time the western mountain range where he had by chance visited the old shrine of Dark-Flight was barely a mist-screened apparition on the horizon behind him. "And I thought that was far," He once remarked to the Camellia lady. The land was a vast plain that varied in elevation here and there and was covered in clusters of thin brush that would at times form around small patches of woodland. There were villages, but not nearly as many as in the inner Provinces, and these were invariably of limited size, but almost everywhere could be seen cultivated fields and reed-fenced pastures, isolated like islands in the brush, and the little homesteads built next to them. The maps he had obtained from the Academy before leaving the City were incomplete and ten years out of date. He said to an assembly of his officers: "Without knowing the layout and the classification of the land, how can we choose a spot for the new provincial capital? Who will survey the land and fill in the holes on these maps for me?" A couple dozen warriors were up to the task, these he dispatched from his encampment situated between a village called Heavy-Arrow and a nameless river. Each party was fitted out with a few hundred soldiers and fifteen scholars, whom he charged with producing, in addition to the maps, detailed records of each district, its landmarks, settlements and the approximate number of households living in each.
At around the same time, he began consulting with the civil officials on issues of planning and administration. One man, who was in his fifties, approached Fair-Gale and said: "This is not my first tour of duty to the far west, for I was part of a fifty-man expedition undertaken in the twentieth year of the previous Emperor, and another in the third year of the present. The land now incorporated under the name of the Western Sea Frontier is vast and sparsely populated, and it can take days to get from one town to the next. The rule of the Imperial Law is completely absent. Justice is instead administered by whatever clan happens to have established itself in a given district at that moment, which means feuding is all too common, and unlawful killings and seizures are as everyday of occurrences as eating and taking a bath. On top of that, criminal families blight the country and commit robbery and murder with impunity. On each of my previous expeditions, a couple men died at the hands of bandits, and even I did not escape unscathed, getting shot in the leg by an arrow. Despite that, the better part of the people who live here are of good stock, are rugged and industrious, and revere the Emperor. This place is naturally the home of many kinds of barbarians, too, but most of these have already been subjugated. Anyway, in comparing what I saw here in the past with what I see here now, I dare say that this land is halfway opened up, and is only in need of a proper government to implement a common law, carry out public construction projects, and put an end to dishonorable activities. To do that, you will need to establish a number of ministries, appoint officials to administer the districts, townships and villages, and put together councils to work with the local clansmen to promote harmony and stamp out evil, on top of enforcing contracts, certifying documents, and executing deeds and titles." Since the man seemed to know a lot about both the country and the art of statecraft, Fair-Gale welcomed him into his inner circle and entrusted him with several tasks. He had an adult son with him, who had also just been freed from prison, as well as a young, unmarried daughter. The son had a truly brilliant mind. He had fully memorized the Law, could quote extensively from the six dynastic histories and even the first three Imperial Anthologies. He was a practitioner of poetry himself, and could whip up a quatrain or a quintain for almost any occasion, even a most obscure one like the appearance on a cloudy day in winter of sleety drizzle that can only be seen against a cluster of tree branches. He appointed him as Annalist.
On the night of the Harvest Festival, the people from nearby villages came to Fair-Gale's camp, where he and a large portion of his staff were still staying, and feasted them to show their good will. With the full moon beaming overhead and filling the cloudless night with an ethereal glow, they laid out feasting-mats and ate and drank until the sun came up. Fair-Gale was seated next to Iron-Hill and the Diamond Priest on his left, and the Camellia and Stellera ladies on his right, and across from him sat ..., [son] and his daughter. That was the first time he had ever seen the daughter, since, as he heard from her father and brother, she was shy and somewhat averse to the sun, so that even when she did go outside she always wore a wide-brimmed hat from which a gauze veil dangled, making it all the more unlikely that he should recognize her. The whiteness of her skin attested to this aversion, but when Fair-Gale saw how brightly it now glowed under the moon, he rather thought it was better that way. Her features bore a striking resemblance to another girl he thought of often, though he hadn't seen her in well over half a decade now, what with her wide eyes and slender nose. The simple yellow gown she was wearing, which she had paired with an embroidered coat dyed a slightly more vivid shade of yellow and a trailing green underskirt, reminded him of chrysanthemums, and even her fragrance seemed to harbor hints of that courtly flower, but that may have just been because he had autumn on his mind. When Fair-Gale tried to ask her about this and that, it invariably seemed as though one- or two-word responses were all she was capable of, and in an almost inaudible tone, and just by looking in her direction her face would without fail flush a bright red, but whether that was because she was embarrassed or the result of the drink it was difficult to tell. Her coy demeanor piqued his curiosity, but whether it also elicited his attraction, he was unsure. And the chiefs of the nearby villages who had feasted him were also seated across from him, with them he conversed upon the customs and temperament of the people of that region, learning which provinces they had migrated from, and when, what manners of industry they were engaged in, even such trifles as the features of their local speech. At the end of the banquet he rewarded them handsomely.
In the weeks that followed, reports from the scouting parties arrived one after another. Most of these told of smooth passage and were replete with every detail regarding the terrain of the region to which that party had been dispatched, but many others reported encounters with unruly bands, both in the settled lands and in the wilderness. That the warriors who were meeting with resistance might be better supplied and reinforced, Fair-Gale commanded the dismantling of the encampment and the movement of the greater part of the staff deeper into the heart of the new territory. He had a wide bridge constructed over the river to make it more happily crossed. Beyond the river the roads became thinner and less orderly, and at any rate they had not been designed for the conveyance of such a large body of men and horses as was now marching atop them.
After a few short days on the road, he received a report that a huge company of bandits and other violent malcontents had formed in the north-central plains of the Frontier, opposed to the planting of a new ruler's court in the land they had up till now freely put to the use of their disreputable enterprises and fought over for the status of despot, and resolved to dedicate every ounce of their warmaking capabilities to expelling the newcomers. Fair-Gale said: "Who will vanquish the bandits?" Presenting himself before Fair-Gale, the Diamond Priest said: "I will go." And Fair-Gale gave him the left half of tiger-shaped tally made of antler along with a banner bearing his personal insignia. The Priest and his army parted from the main host that evening, making good time, for by the time the sun set they appeared to be no more than ants crawling over the horizon.
In the tenth month, he pitched camp again, this time on the gravel-coated south bank of river flowing southwesterly with numerous islands in its midst, called the Silver River. The air was dry, the grass had thinned, and to the north was a shelf of balding green mountains. As had been revealed by the advance scouts and gleaned from the old maps, the river ran from the balding green mountains all the way to place where the land began to give way by degrees to the ocean. Where the river ended could hardly be called the ocean yet, for the water there was crowded with so many islands, many of considerable size, though their sizes and density decreased the further out one went, and the ocean was not far from there. A great deal of fishing villages had sprung up on banks of the river, and several moderate towns were in their midst, making it the biggest artery Fair-Gale had encountered in the Frontier up till then. It was a sparsely peopled land, yet one could always see at least one or two boats at any given time on the river. And it was a wide river. Its channel was deep, but its shoals, while rocky in some places, could be waded in with incredible ease.
As one followed the river closer to the mountains, the land got rocky and precipitous, but in spite of that, apparently a fair number of families had made their houses up there where they pursued mining and hunting. Due to the river's wideness, few bridges had been constructed, but in the higher grounds where the river was naturally thinner, there was one, and beyond it three more that connected ridges of the hills that were too dangerous to reach otherwise. The scouts who had probed that district, however, noted that one of the villages located just past the bridge, which was said to be responsible for its construction, charged a fee for every person and piece of cargo that passed, and since it was the only such bridge for miles around it had amassed a considerable sum from this activity. When Iron-Hill heard this, he said: "While building a bridge is a meritorious deed that deserves to be compensated, according to the Law all bridges are public property. It is illegal to charge a fee to passers-by." Wise-One volunteered to go and arrest the chief of the village, taking with him sixty men on horseback. When they reached the bridgehead, the tollman demanded the fee, but Wise-One only told him that what his village was doing was now illegal, and that the village chief must show himself immediately. The tollman relayed this information, and the chief came with a band of several dozen shabbily-dressed and thickly-bearded warriors of his own. And they fought on the road between the first and second bridges, but Wise-One gained the upper hand straight away and subdued the chief when he leapt from his horse and tackled him. Bound in rope, he was brought before Fair-Gale, who said to him: "They say your town constructed a few bridges. Make no mistake, that is a good deed, but according to Imperial Law, all thoroughfares in the Realm, including bridges, are public property that exist for the benefit of all people, and it is therefore illegal to charge a fee for persons and freight that cross. If you will kindly desist, I will pay your village fifteen gold bullions as compensation for the trouble of your enterprise." To which the chief said contemptuously: "And who are you?" He replied: "I am Fair-Gale, son of the Emperor and Knight of the Western Sea District." And the chief: "If before there had been Princes here to hand out gold to subjects who are employed in public works, we would have no need to charge fees, but I have lived here all my life, and in that time I have not seen a constable let alone a Prince, so can you blame me?" Fair-Gale had him untied and given the gold, and he went back to his village.
The next morning, Fair-Gale awoke to reports that a crowd of local people had gathered at the front of the camp. He went himself to hear what they had to tell him, someone said: "A man named ... has killed the chief of ... Village. Went there in the dead of night with his gang and ransacked the place." Someone else said: "The chief had it coming, though. For years his thugs have lorded it over this neck of the woods. Charging a fee to cross his bridge, that's not even half the story. No, he's killed many men in his days and robbed countless others. They say he's stolen people's daughters too. Men hated him enough already, so when you gave him the gold, that was the last straw, don't you think? Now what did you go and do that for? We've all suffered because of him, and here you come handing him gold for what he's done. I hated that chief too, only ... got to him before I did. You're gonna catch ..., but if you're gonna cut his head off, you'd better cut mine off too!" And he was joined by the others, shouting: "Mine too. Mine too." As they were getting rowdier, Iron-Hill placed warriors around them and intimidated them, and they fell quiet. Meanwhile, a band of horsemen arrived at the camp with the captured killer and his henchmen. When he killed the chief, he had taken the fifteen bullions, and these were promptly returned to Fair-Gale. Seeing what had become of the gold, he was angry. As the crowd watched from behind the fence of warriors and their extended blades, he asked the killer: "Do you have anything to say for yourself?" And the killer said: "He killed my own son over a few cows. For years I swallowed my grudge, thinking what good's another corpse, but this time I thought that corpse would be more useful if I could lift some gold off of it to placate my son's spirit with. After all if the Emperor's officials are going around rewarding all the local criminals, then I had better get my share. If anyone deserves those fifteen bullions, it's me!" Fair-Gale said: "What a fowl thing to say! The gold was to compensate the men whose toil contributed to the public weal. It might make you feel better, but what good does it do for the spirit of your dead son? You are guilty of murder. If you had just killed the man, and not stolen the money, I would have spared you." And the man was executed. After watching this take place, the crowd went silent, ceased even to whisper, and quickly broke up. Later, the family of the killer came to collect his body. Seeing this, Fair-Gale asked his men: "Has the family of the chief collected his body?" The reply was: "He is from a clan whose main household is a few valleys over. They probably don't even know he's dead yet." Fair-Gale went to the village and collected the chief's body, which had been laid out in the courtyard of his house, and after asking the way, went to the main household to deliver it to the family himself. As they gathered around the body, their eyes filled with tears, and the chief's father said: "We knew the trouble he stirred up would come back around one day. We're just glad he wasn't dumped in the woods to become bear food." Fair-Gale said thus: "I really hate myself for it, but it's my fault this man is dead." He paid all the funerary costs.
When he returned to the encampment that night, followed by Iron-Hill and the twenty or so men who had accompanied him, he felt melancholy, and after dismissing the men drove his horse to the top of a hillock overlooking the river to take in the view. Directly above him was a crescent moon shaded gray by haze, but when he looked down at the river, where the heads of the ripples managed to capture the moonlight despite its faintness, he was surprised to see what appeared to be a second moon floated right upon the hither edge. Curved and white just like the real moon, he took it to be its reflection, until he looked harder, and he saw that it was not the moon's reflection. Unmistakably it was the figure of a young woman who had gone to bathe herself, illuminated, along with the fallen leaves in no hurry to float past her, by a lantern that had been hung from the tree branch just above her black head. And when he looked even harder, he made out her face in profile, and he recognized her immediately as the daughter of the ... family. Presently another girl, whom he presumed to be her maid, came out of the darkness and began to help her clean herself, while around them the leaves floated into and back out of the light. Finding this unusually charming, Fair-Gale smiled, and he then declaimed in a low voice:
The crescent moon's reflection floats
Upon the river in the night,
Or is my eye deceived?
Perhaps not moon but maiden soaks
There, with the fallen leaves
She did not show any indication of having heard him, but he was confident that she had indeed heard him loud and clear and, satisfied with himself, turned his horse around and retired for the night.
As the season changed to winter, the scouts, as well as the military men who had been dispatched to quell the haughty clans, began to return to the main encampment on the banks of the Silver River, which by that time had been developed into a temporary court, complete with dirt roads, felt buildings, walls made of spiked posts and watch towers.