by Bruce Sentar
He nodded. Two dao of many, and people were counting on him. The rumor that he was the Black Knight had already started to spread around the small group. It put a sudden weight on his shoulders. The looks of expectation only added another twenty pounds each time he caught a spirit staring.
Even if he was gaining dao at a pace that far outstripped what Sasha and Cherry were used to, it didn’t matter. It still might not be enough. And the idea of coming up short was haunting Dar.
He had convinced all the people with them that he could protect them, build something for them. He could do that so much better with more dao, especially with a greater variety of dao than he was getting from all the trolls.
He’d need to venture out and figure out how to hunt more devils, pick back up where Lilith had left off and maybe become what the Black Knight was before.
Realizing he was losing himself in the daydream, Dar focused back down into the book and the dao character for combustion, working to push himself, only taking breaks when he started to get so dizzy it made it hard to walk.
***
“Dar. I think we need to stop.” Sasha sounded urgent beside him.
Blinking away the dao character, Dar looked up, his vision slowly shifting into focus and away from the dao character that was slowly and painfully carving itself into his head.
Looking around, Dar realized the sun was only minutes away from dipping below the tree line and plunging the group into darkness. He had been staring at the book for a long time.
Everyone looked tired, but the mothers who had started carrying their child seemed extra exhausted.
“You’re right,” he said, raising his voice so that it projected out across the group. “Everyone, we need to stop and set up for the night.”
There were echoes of his words and more than a few sighs of relief. Wagons circled up and people, demons and spirits turned to him for guidance.
Scratching the back of his head, Dar wasn’t entirely sure what they were supposed to do first or how to organize them. Looking around the group, there were maybe a hundred and fifty people total, half with dao and half without.
“Does anyone have a dao that would be useful in setting up some temporary shelters?” he asked.
One demon, whose throat swelled like a frog when he spoke, raised a webbed hand. “I have mud dao. But there’s no mud here to use to get started. Just dry dirt.”
Dar grinned and looked for Mika, only for her to already be stepping forward the second he locked eyes with her.
“Everyone, stand back.” Dar led by example and moved away.
Mika got to work immediately, sending waves of water all over the ground. The demon who had stepped forward with his mud dao grinned, already working with what he was given and shifting the wetted layer away for Mika to reach deeper with her own waves.
“Between the two of you, can you dig out a shallow bowl and raise a small wall around the carts?”
“Sure.” The demon and Mika made short work of his instructions, taking only about ten minutes to pull mud out, making a shallow shelter and build it up around the wagons, but the demon seemed unsure, continuing to focus on the walls.
“Sir, Black Knight, if I release the mud, it is all going to slosh back down.”
Realizing why the demon was acting odd, Dar smiled, stepping forward. “Hold it for as long as you can.”
Walking to the low mud wall, Dar reached out his hand, readying for the chaos that would likely come from what he was about to do. But these were now his people, and there was no hiding.
He touched the wall of dirt and pumped heat into it. The whole wall started steaming as the water quickly evaporated, and the mud hardened into something that would stay for the night.
It wasn’t a fortification, and it certainly wasn’t stable enough to do something like build a home out of, but it was a start. It was showing all of those that had come with him how much better things could be if they worked together.
Dar pulled his hand back, feeling a moment of weakness from being drained of mana, but he stood straight to the hundred or so people that watched with awe.
“I thought I was seeing things earlier,” the frog demon said and was joined by a chorus of murmurs.
“No, you didn’t see things. I’m human, or at least, I was. But I’m not a wizard. I stepped on my own dao path and have become an immortal.”
The whole camp was quiet as they absorbed that.
“Now, we need to set up a watch.” Dar looked to a nearby demon. She resembled an owl, and while Dar didn’t want to assume anything, he had a feeling she might be great at a night watch. “Are you good to stay up through the night and keep watch?”
“Who, me?” she asked, her already large eyes growing wider.
Dar nodded and looked back to the humans that had come with them. “Bart, you okay to stay up too? I think it would be good to have a few people on watch if anyone else has energy for it.”
“Sure, of course, Wi—Lord Darius,” Bart said, stumbling for what to call Dar.
Blending the two groups on tasks seemed like a great way to break the barriers he was already seeing form. He had noticed that the two groups had marched relatively separately and now were huddled together as they set up camp.
The craftsmen and their families had set up in closely clumped family packs, while the demons and spirits all seemed to spread out evenly save for a few groups that had the only males. Cherry had been right about having few male spirits. His group had eight males in total, and all but one was a demon, the same frog demon that had done the work with the mud.
He knew it would take time, but he was ready to get the distinct groups comfortable with each other as quickly as he could. Night watch was often boring, and he had a feeling maybe some connections could form as they got to know each other.
As soon as the watch was set up, everybody else quickly settled in, ready for a rest after the crazy day they’d had. Dar realized many of them hadn’t planned to leave their home when they’d woken up in the morning. They likely had a lot to process and work through.
Dar needed some reflection, and wanted to check on Cherry, so after giving Sasha a quick kiss, he settled down to meditate.
Calming his breathing, Dar worked to relax, which seemed oddly difficult despite how tired his body felt. Cycling his mana helped, and he continued to focus on the flow of the mana, working to reconnect with the world behind his navel.
***
As soon as he arrived in his inner world, Dar called out, “Cherry?” He turned on the spot, working to spot her, but his heart ached when there was no reply.
The space wasn’t large enough for her to hide, or for her to have missed his call, but he wandered it anyway, wondering if he’d find her unconscious.
He started with the little pond, but the water was calm, and he found nothing to indicate she’d been near. He managed to find her tree, and he could almost feel Cherry’s pain as he looked at it.
The fire had blackened the branches, and the once beautiful petals littered the floor in a morbid visage of the beautiful tree it had once been. Only a few branches of Cherry’s tree looked alive.
“Cherry,” Dar called, standing next to the tree, hoping she was just hiding inside of it, but there was no response.
He sank down onto his knees next to the charred tree, giving into the ache in his chest at the thought that he had killed her. He had taken her one true possession into himself and destroyed her in the process.
Sinking his head into his hands, Dar startled as he heard leaves rustling behind him. Pivoting quickly, Dar watched as his beautiful dryad creeped out of the little dao tree.
“DAR!” she yelled, throwing herself into him and knocking him onto his back on the ground.
Relief swelled within him, and he choked on the feelings welling up inside of him. The quick shift in emotions was a lot to process. But Cherry was content as could be, rubbing her face into his chest and seeming to want as much contact as she could get
.
“Cherry, you have no idea how worried I was. Are you okay?” Dar pushed her back, taking her in and looking for any injuries.
Cherry looked up at him with big eyes full of adoration that he’d only ever seen when she looked at her tree.
“How were you inside the little dao tree?” he asked.
Her grin only stretched wider as she looked up at him. “When I entered this world, I was distraught. My tree is going to die, Dar, I can’t save it. The arrow and the fire burnt the core of the tree, and the upper half is going to starve of water. I tried to help it—I really did. But it’s lost.” Her eyes wandered over to her burnt tree, sadness blossoming across her face as she watched it.
Looking up at him with eyes filled with pain, Cherry seemed to be pleading with Dar to understand whatever it was she was about to say next. “But then I saw this beauty, and I know it’s yours, but I thought maybe it could be ours.” She turned back to the dao tree and circled it, looking between it and Dar with awe.
“You bound yourself to the dao tree?” he asked tentatively.
She nodded fervently, a bit of uncertainty entering her eyes. “Yes, it is so beautiful. It is a tree, but also so much more.”
Dar would have to take her word for it. Certainly, it was a miraculous tree, but he felt she meant more than that.
The way Cherry was staring at him suddenly made him feel like he was missing something. “I think you are going to have to explain that one a bit more to me. What do you see in it?”
“Dar, it’s a tree, but it is also part of you… you are part of it.” She gave him a moment to digest that.
“So, if you are bound to the tree, then are you also bound… to me?”
Cherry smiled a bit bashfully, but soon couldn’t contain herself, squealing and jumping into his arms. “You are my tree now!”
“I’m what?” Dar stood there stunned, staring down at his beautiful spirit as she seemed euphoric with the change. Grabbing his face, she pulled him down to her lips and devoured them with a hunger that went beyond lust.
“You are my tree; I’m bound to you through this little guy. Do you get it now, Dar?” Cherry was all smiles.
Blinking, Dar spoke slowly, realizing the gravity of the situation. “I’m your tree.” Now the way she was looking at him made sense. “Is that okay? Are you okay with it?”
“It’s fantastic. I’m not bound to something so unwieldy to move, and I’m bound to something that can love me back! This never happens. I’m the luckiest spirit there is.”
Her excitement was infectious, and Dar couldn’t help but smile back. “Why don’t we take some of the cherries from your old tree and plant them here? I feel I should at least honor the tree.”
Cherry nodded excitedly at that. “That’s a really good idea. I’d like that. But before that, you have new fruit!” She bounced over to the dao tree and shifted the leaves to point out two enlarged fruits.
That suddenly reminded him. “Where are the corpses?”
“I already buried them, and they produced these.” She plucked the two fruits and handed them up to Dar with reverence. “They are from the trolls, I think. That would make three dao from them.”
Dar nodded slowly. “Three attributes of stone.” He didn’t hesitate this time, quickly devouring first the fruit of the hard dao, then the second, the dao of strength.
Both dao characters blazed to life in his mind, and he could fill them with mana, making his body even tougher and stronger than before. Wanting to form a greater dao, Dar focused inward, certain that he now had the pieces he needed to make the next character, but not quite sure how that would happen.
Heavy, hard and strength circled in his mind like a puzzle as they tried to fit together. Heat wandered in like a stray thought, but Dar pushed it to the side. He wanted a greater dao of stone. Something common… like granite. He was pretty sure he’d recognized it in the cliffs.
The idea of granite seemed to fit, so Dar focused on it, trying to find the right connections with the three lesser dao to form it.
“Dar, stop.” Cherry broke his concentration. “You can’t force it like that.” There was a heavy sigh.
His head hurt. “It’s like the dao characters?”
“Yes, but you’ve done the first part of lining them up, now you just need them to sync. But that has to happen naturally.” Cherry stroked his arm, seeming to want to soften the bad news, and Dar tried to control his frustration, not wanting to take it out on Cherry.
Looking around, Dar realized he had nothing else he needed to do in his inner world. Cherry had taken care of most of it. But he didn’t want to leave her alone. “Cherry, are you able to leave this place? Tell me I didn’t stick you here for eternity.”
The dryad blinked and scrunched her face, deep furrows forming in her brows.
Feeling a prick build in his abdomen, Dar realized there was something blocking her. Working to release it, Cherry was sucked back into the dao tree and out of his inner world.
Dar shook his head in amazement, giving his inner world one last look before he left too. His eyes lingered on the dark stone keep, anxious for the secrets it held. And he smiled at the little dao tree, beginning to form something larger as it sprouted from the stump of what must have been a massive tree.
So much had changed in the short two weeks since he had died. Now there was so much potential in him; he’d just have to work for it.
***
It took three more days of traveling before they reached the cliffs again.
Luckily, the trip had been uneventful, and the two groups had started to commingle thanks to the shared duties. Dar couldn’t help but be a little proud as they made their way along the cliffs. He brushed his hands against the stone in an effort to feel it, sending mana pulsing through the stone and back to himself.
Dar had listened to Cherry, not pushing for the dao to meld together, but he nonetheless checked on it frequently. With every passing day, they felt just a bit clearer.
“I think this looks like a good spot,” one of Bart’s men called.
Dar had to think about the name for a second before it came to him. Rick, he was pretty sure. The man was a stonemason, and Dar had to admit that if there was someone to identify a good place to build, it would be the guy who laid foundations.
“Yeah, what makes it good, Rick?” Dar asked.
The man looked proud for a second before he started talking, his large beard flapping along with his jaw. “You see how the cliffs slope here at the base, yet this area is a pitch higher than the surrounding land? There’s going to be solid stone maybe five feet down, and the pitch indicates the water is going to run off into the river, rather than pool here. It’ll be good for setting a foundation into the rock below.”
Dar could see the river from where they stood. It was only a few miles from the cliff face. The soil would probably grow deep enough for crops between the settlement and the water, providing some food. The cliff also provided shelter.
All in, Dar could see this as a great spot for them to lay down the foundation of their little town. Smiling Dar looked up, realizing that more than just Rick’s eyes were on him. The entire group was waiting for his decision on their new home.
“Well, I think you might just be right Rick. So what are we waiting for?” Dar grinned and slapped the cliff face beside him. “I welcome you all to Dao City.”
“City, milord?” Amber looked at him with wide eyes.
“One day, hopefully,” he answered her, giving her a huge smile.
Turning, he took Cherry and Sasha each under an arm, holding them close as they watched ground being broken on their new home.
Author’s Note
A new series, nerve wracking and exciting for me. Especially as I plan to go full time author here in May. This was a fun project for me to blend the fantasy style that we all grew up reading, with the cultivation novels that are emerging in the western writing communities.
As a big fan of both genres
myself, merging them has been a delight. In this series, I also hope to establish the greater universe that connects all of my books. It is a geeky dream of mine to make a universe for a number of stories.
I love to hear thoughts about the book and what you are eager for as the story progresses. Drop me a review, it goes a long way.
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P.S. I’m starting a Patreon as I work through LR3 as my next project.
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