by Rick Scott
The Duke lifted his chin towards the giant eel in the sky. “A great Bakunawa. You must have done something to offend the heavens greatly indeed to have summoned such a thing here.”
“What?” Kenji looked to the creature. “I summoned that?”
“A primordial guardian of the sacred order of the heavens. It will seek now to restore the balance that has been shifted due to your sin. Whatever it was.”
Sin? Kenji thought back to the last image in his mind: Amikazu and the sellblades frozen in time along with the demon. Did he truly cause this?
“How will it seek balance?”
“By testing you,” the Duke said. “With minions at first and then even itself should you so last. It will judge whether you belong in the place you are now, or whether you belong in the greater heavens or the depths of hell.”
Kenji’s heart raced. What have I done?
The Duke huffed out a laugh. “Fear not, little brother. I offended the heavens a great many times during my ascension. Enough to slay even a Bakunawa itself once.”
Kenji looked again to the great celestial being swimming through the sky. Had the Bloody Duke truly killed such a thing? No correction… had he killed such a thing…in the past?
“Whatever you have done to cause this, see to it you are strong enough to withstand the ire you will reap from the heavens. I would very much dislike it if you were to damage what is mine. I invested much in that body and I want it back.”
Again that word. Invest.
“I sense we are very close now in the mortal realm.” The Duke gave him a leering grin. “I’ll be coming to collect it very soon.”
Kenji scowled. “You’ll take nothing from me. My life is my own to live.”
“We’ll see about that…little brother.”
The Duke spun with his blade, but this time Kenji raised his arm to block.
A clash of metal and sparks rung out as the sword met the thick armor covering his forearm. Kenji hadn’t even realized he had been wearing it here.
Wherever here truly was.
The Duke’s eyes widened with a smile. “Ah…I see you are making yourself right at home. I imagine you’ll be summoning blades next.” He then stared at where Kenji’s doma would be. “Although you still haven’t managed to progress as yet, it seems. Pity.”
Kenji then recalled what he’d just done to commit that sin. The violent pain he’d felt in his doma was different to what he’d felt before, like something breaking. By the heavens… had he shattered the stone just as Mei Ling had warned?
The Duke then snapped his fingers and the world began to dissolve.
“Time to go, little brother…” the Duke said, turning his back. “I’ll be seeing you very soon.”
* * *
Kenji came to with a start, blood and something sharp in his mouth.
He spat out whatever it was and a small sliver of blue sapphire landed in a puddle of blood at his side.
Fates alive…he had cracked it further. But to what end?
“Kenji!” Shinoto said, shaking him. “Thank the heavens. I thought you had died!”
Kenji struggled to get his bearings. He was on the ground, still in the forest. Beside him knelt Olja and Chet Fai. “How long was I gone?”
“Just a few seconds,” Chet Fai said and glanced over his shoulder at something behind him. “What in heavens did you do?”
He stood shakily, his stomach feeling as if it’d been torn out and then stuffed back inside the wrong way round. Kenji stared at his handiwork with terrified awe. Looming before him was a perfectly still image of General Amikazu, the three sellblades, and the demon in the midst of righting itself on the forest floor. It triggered memories of when his father had done the same, the world freezing as if captured in a portrait painted in the colors of true life. Trees bent in the great wind he had created and stayed fixed. A flock of birds trying to flee hung preserved in the pristine clarity of a windless blue sky.
“What power is this?” Olja said, a furrow of concern or perhaps shock on her brow.
A forbidden one apparently, he was about to say. “I just tried something… I guess it worked.”
“How long will this last?” Shinoto said.
Kenji didn’t know for certain, but he knew the principles from his father’s notes.
“The varying degrees of the ropes can be thought of like a doma. Its years in length, like stored Qi. It can be expended minutely or all at once and in many forms. Likewise, a second’s worth of black rope is able to affect more material and to a greater degree than a second’s worth of off white. If time is held as the constant, as opposed to the object it affects, then the power of the effect itself becomes the variable.” –Xian Lu Han.
That time his father had used the technique, the white rope had lasted less than a minute. Here he’d used a red thirty-year rope, but he had frozen far more than just two people in time. He’d frozen far, far more than that.
“Not long, I think,” he said. “A few minutes perhaps?”
Olja fumed. “That’s more than enough time to kill them all.”
The Xjian woman rose to her feet and flew towards Amikazu with a powerful punch.
Her gauntlets slammed into something unseen before it even reached him and an outline briefly flashed, giving form to the boundary of what was frozen in time and what was not. It was like viewing something trapped in thick glass or ice.
“It’s the shape of a cone,” Shinoto said, marveling at it. “Centered from where you casted it. I wonder how far back it goes.”
“Who cares!” Olja said as she struck it again and again, lighting it up each time. The sound rang out like thunder and on her third hit, the world abruptly shifted forward a moment with the sound of cracking ice.
Kenji balked. “We need to go…”
They dashed away from the reality now frozen in time. His heart raced with both anxiety and exertion. He’d broken more than just his doma, it seemed. He’d broken the laws of heaven itself! Kenji believed every word the Bloody Duke had said now. He had only wanted to stop Amikazu, but by using the rope, he had frozen a portion of the entire world instead.
Thoughts of his sin brought a sheen of sweat to his brow. What would being tested by that monster mean? What minions would it send and how? He found himself struggling not only from his anxiety but also the pain in his stomach that increased with each step. He got only a few more paces before Olja had to carry him the rest of the way to the docks.
As they were about to board the sloop, Chet Fai suddenly stopped. “Wait a moment. You shouldn’t leave on that boat.”
Shinoto stared oddly at her brother. “What do you mean?”
“You have perhaps only moments left. It might still not be enough to fully get away. Which way are you going?”
“South to Kurogane,” Kenji said.
“Take one of the smaller boats here,” he said. “I’ll take the sloop north upriver to lead them away.”
Shinoto’s eyes widened. “What? Chet Fai, you can’t do that! You need to come with us now. Everything’s changed. It’s far too dangerous for you to stay here!”
“Nothing’s changed, sister,” he said. “You were right. We both need to choose our own path. You have chosen yours and now, I need to settle on mine.”
“But you can’t lead them away. They’ll kill you!”
Chet Fai chuckled. “Don’t take me for a martyr, sister. I’ll anchor far enough upriver for them to spot it and then steal back to Amatsu. But for it to work, you all need to be gone downriver and out of sight. Hurry now.”
Olja nodded with a quick bow. “I thank you for this, Chet Fai.”
The boy returned the bow and then reached into his robes and produced the three Han tomes. With another deep bow he offered them to Kenji. “You’ve proven today that you’re a far greater artisan than I could ever dream to be. These should remain with you, Kenji.”
Kenji received them, unsure if he was looking at the same Chet Fai or not.
> “Thank you,” he said with a bow, before looking back to the boy. “And what will you do now, Chet Fai?”
He shrugged. “I’ve seen far too much today to decide. I’ve seen the foundations of everything I gave value torn asunder. Men I thought of as powerful and honorable, laying waste to innocents. And those I thought strong enough to stand against them, fall like prey.” He shook his head. “Perhaps the path of the mystic arts is not for me at all.”
Kenji nodded, not knowing what else to say.
Chet Fai then smiled at Shinoto. “But at least I’m certain that my sister will be in good hands now with the two of you. May the mercy of the fates be with you.”
Chet Fai extended his hand to Kenji and he clasped it firmly in a shake. “And with you, Chet Fai.”
Shinoto shed tears as she embraced her brother for what could perhaps be the last time. “I’ll send word when we reach Kurogane.”
“I will remain here until I receive it then,” he said and then set to preparing the sloop for launch. “Go now, quickly…before that spell breaks.”
Chapter 43 – Negotiations
Amikazu stumbled as if tripping, the world suddenly shifting before him. One moment the boy and the Xjian woman were fleeing ahead of him, suddenly attacked by the demon, but now they were all gone. A horrid screech came from beside him, and he looked in time to see the skull-demon skittering about in a circle, its massive body shaking the ground. The beast looked as if confused.
As confused as he now was.
The three sellblades came to a stop beside him.
“What in the hells?” the Badger said, staring at the demon as it shifted in form, becoming something more akin to a bear.
The monstrous creature seemed to lose track of what it was doing, paused and then quickly ventured back into the forest again. Amikazu’s doma pulsed with the influence of the stone about his neck and his insides filled with heat.
“What just happened?” the Badger said. “Where did they go?”
Amikazu recalled the boy standing briefly and unleashing some kind of spell towards them. “An illusion perhaps…witch!”
The slender woman stepped forward, waving her hand with Dark Qi. “There was a great disturbance here. This is no illusion. I’ve experienced it once before. Within the last village.”
“Experienced what?” Amikazu said.
“A child prodigy, much like the ones we were just chasing, bound me with a rope and somehow trapped me in time.”
Heavens be damned…had they discovered a technique to use the Han arts in such a way? “How long did it trap you?”
“Not long,” the witch said. “Barely a minute, I think.”
They couldn’t have gone far…
Amikazu grimaced as he felt the plan slipping out of his control. “Find them! Find them now!”
Amikazu labored along the pathway the boy was headed, wishing he could take to the air with Qinggong. But his doma was still racked by the effects of the stone and whatever the boy had done to him earlier. His body ached and felt as weak as a 1st Dan. He arrived at the dock at the edge of the river and cursed as he glanced up and down its shores. Hope then filled him as he spotted a small sloop making its way upstream, its sail pushing against the flow of the river.
“There!” he shouted. He looked to the junks affixed to the dock. With the state of his doma, he’d have to resort to using something as base as that now. But he had no other choice. “Come, after them!”
“Just a moment,” the Badger said, blocking his path towards the boats. “We’ve cut off far more than we bargained for with this contract, Purple Leaf. It’s time we discussed a new price.”
Imbecile. “You talk of money? I am soon to become emperor! Get me to that boat out there and I’ll not only pay your greedy jowls, but I’ll bestow you with power and land as well.”
“And what will we do when we reach it?” the Dao wielder said. “That boy just froze us in time!”
Amikazu grimaced, but that alone wasn’t going to deter him. “We have the advantage of foreknowledge now. I doubt that he would be able to accomplish something like that more than once.”
“There’s more,” the Badger said. “That Xjian woman who is with them…she’s no normal warrior. She’s the reason the price needs to go up.”
“What do you mean?”
“She wasn’t bluffing when she spoke about who she was just now,” the man said and then he grimaced. “I believe she is the Iron Queen.”
Amikazu’s skin prickled at the mention of the name. “How do you know?”
“She used the Thunder Fist technique along with Iron Body Mastery,” the Badger said.
Amikazu scoffed. “That’s not a particularly rare combination.”
“No, but her mastery of both was. The Iron Queen’s style is said to make use of body ascension over pure Qi mastery. They say she is a much higher Dan than her Qi lets on because of it…Some say she’s even as high as 30th Dan.”
Fates be damned. The woman did indeed seem more powerful than when he had first seen her in that cage, but 30th Dan? He normally wouldn’t give such an idea much credence at all, but now knowing this, and having confirmed for himself that the woman was indeed a sellblade, the puzzle pieces began to fall into place.
By the nine hells…Amikazu grimaced as the realization hit him. So she was the one…
He’d bartered for the Iron Queen’s services when he’d first approached the Iron Company, the supposed top-ranked sellblade in their guild. But now it seemed she’d not only declined his offer, but had used the information to sabotage everything right from the start…
But to what end?
“Curse the fates,” Amikazu muttered. A 30th Dan. But it mattered not. He was soon to be far more powerful than that.
Yes, Amikazu… focus on the prize. So close…
“Even if she is the Iron Queen,” Amikazu said, “the woman looked to be upon her last legs to me and the sooner we get to her to finish the job, the less chance she has to recover.”
“So we have an agreement then?” the Badger asked.
“You heard what I said, didn’t you?”
The witch grinned with a leering smile. “Become emperor? Do you mean to assassinate him then?”
Perhaps he shouldn’t have said as much, but he was too close to care now.
Yes, Amikazu… too close…hurry!
“You’ll have what I promised,” he said. “Just get me to the boat and that boy, and then we’ll talk about your reward.”
* * *
Kenji struggled to breathe as he lay in the bow of the rowboat. Since departing the dock, Olja had rowed nonstop. Her massive arms made the oars fly through the water faster than any Qi-stone powered box could and combined with the flow of the river, the small boat was sailing along with great speed. Shinoto perched herself on the stern, manning the rudder, constantly looking back for Amikazu and his men.
After nearly half an hour however, there seemed to be no sign of them and Olja, now tired, set the oars to the side. “I think we may be safe. Heavens bless your brother, Shinoto. He bought us a lot of time.”
The Xjian woman collapsed within the boat breathing heavily. She was large enough to nearly take up the full room of it herself, but thankfully with Shinoto’s small frame they made do.
“Yes, he did,” Shinoto said. “I pray he’ll be all right.”
Kenji hoped so as well. The throbbing within his doma was beginning to subside now and as he opened his mouth to speak he found there was only a hint of pain.
“Do you think they’ll go back to the village?” he asked, looking to Olja.
The big woman shook her head. “Now that they’ve seen you? I doubt it. They’ll soon figure out that the sloop is a decoy and head the opposite way. Which means we can’t take this head start for granted. We should assume they’re only a step behind us now.”
That filled Kenji with dread and relief both. “At least that means the village will be safe, I guess.”
Along with Chet Fai and Mei Ling.
Shinoto turned to Olja and gave the Xjian woman a deep bow. “I thank you, warrior, for your skill and sacrifice in combat. You fought as well as your title boasts.”
Olja smiled. “So has this old sellblade finally earned your trust, little one?”
“That and more.” Shinoto returned the smile. “We truly couldn’t have gotten away without you.”
Olja laughed and then slapped Kenji painfully on the shoulder. “I’d say that honor belongs to this one. How in the hells did you do that?”
Kenji winced from the hit, his wounds still sore. He almost didn’t want to talk about what he’d done. But he supposed it was something he needed to acknowledge openly now. “I don’t know. I just improvised using my father’s knowledge of the Han rope techniques. But I think I will pay a heavy price for doing so now.”
“What?” Shinoto said, alarmed. She then traversed the boat to kneel down next to him. “Is it your doma, Kenji? Are you all right?”
He truly wasn’t talking about his doma, but rather what the Bloody Duke had told him in that dark spirit realm instead. But now that she had mentioned it, he was perhaps more at risk of dying from what he’d done to his doma, than from whatever monster or demon that giant eel might spawn from the sky.
Kenji reached into his robes and produced the sliver of sapphire jewel he had spat out. “I broke more of it.”
Shinoto’s throat flexed in a swallow. “Kenji…”
“What is that?” Olja said, peering at the shard of gem stone in his hand.
“It’s what’s sealing my doma,” he said. “Or part of it. It’s cracked now. Doctor Mei Ling, the woman back in Amatsu, said it’s now ripped my doma. Dense Qi is leaking into my body and I think it’s gotten worse.”
“A ripped doma?” Olja raised a brow. “I’ve never heard of such.”
“She said it will kill me eventually. In a matter of weeks or even days.”
Olja’s eyes widened.
Kenji then gazed at the sliver of gem stone. “And judging from this, I imagine it will be closer to days now.”