by E. M. Hardy
Martin felt a familiar twinge of hunger when he looked at the broken blade. A thought came up, one that told him he could copy the blood-binding techniques of the samurai. If he wanted to, he could pool the blood of his enemies and feed them into his blades, spears, javelins—even his walkers. He could drain the blood of his victims first. Hang them on trees, bleed them like game and collect their blood in large bowls. He could then move on to inhaling their souls once they expired. His Faceless would be unstoppable. They would march all over this world unhindered, take all the blood and souls they could, simply do whatever—
Martin snapped back to reality as a doll smacked the leg of one of his walkers with a stubby arm. Then a dozen smacks, a hundred more as the dolls each found a walker to smack around. A few eyeballs lowered themselves to the ground, gently butting the head of the closest walker. The cow-boxes were not so gentle; they slammed their headless bodies into walkers, causing them to tumble to the ground.
Martin regained full control of himself once more, surprised by the slip in consciousness. He only wanted to test the capabilities of his walkers after feeding on so many souls. He didn’t even realize that he was losing control, falling back to euphoria.
The other constructs under his control emitted satisfaction, passing on a feeling of relief, as they went back to their original tasks. The people all over the continent simply watched, flummoxed, at the strange exchange between the clay things around them. All this happened across the land, from the streets in the Imperial capital to Emir Ma’an’s throne room, from the postal office in the Emirate of Far’eh to the sentries sent to help safeguard the Emirate of Ulcuku’s highway. Those who knew Martin dismissed this incident as one of Martin’s eccentricities, of him being weird again. Those who had yet to know him eyed the strange clay things with suspicion before turning away and going about their business. People just shrugged their shoulders, knowing nothing about the fate that could have befallen them—might still befall them.
He needed to do something about this and fast, before he lost control again.
It was then that he noticed the armies of the Maharaja acting strangely, donning their armor and falling into battle formations. And were those blood-bound weapons they were holding? Wait, why were the samurai and ashigaru with them glowing with the same power as the gurkhas?
What was going on down there?
***
“Hey there, Venkati, Ishida. And I see you’ve also brought General Qiu Ja. Good to see that you’ve been taking good care of her. Um, is there any reason you and your people look like you’re going to storm my fortress any minute now?”
Martin’s walker stood awkwardly, wilting somewhat under the intense scrutiny of both Maharaja Venkati and Daimyo Ishida. Only General Qiu Ja looked at his walker with some measure of comfort, though it was clearly apparent that she was just as confused as he was about the sudden hostility.
“What happened?”
The Maharaja’s harsh, sudden question caught Martin by surprise. He straightened up his walker, not sure how to react. He decided to buy himself some time. “What do you mean?”
Venkati glowered at Martin. Correction, he literally glowed with contempt as he studied the walker from head to toe, his tattoos flaring to life. Martin flinched from the disdain, suddenly recalling the way that the jinn treated him after his… episode.
The Maharaja suddenly softened his expression. He still studied the walker with great interest, but he dropped the anger and suspicion, trading them for concern and compassion. “Your aura, it tells me that you are dangerous. The small stains I saw have grown into a complete taint that covers everything about you. There was one point where your aura was nothing more than hunger and malice. Now, however, I can see that you are back with us… albeit struggling with this taint of yours.”
Martin startled at the Maharaja’s spot-on assessment. Now it was his turn to carefully study the man from head to toe, wondering what exactly the man saw in him. The young Daimyo, Ishida, glared at his walker with just as much intensity, as if he could see what the Maharaja was seeing as well. Wait, was he seeing exactly what Venkati saw?
The Maharaja uncrossed his arms, came closer to the walker, and examined it with one hand on his chin. “Yes, I see that you are fighting against this taint, but you are losing the battle.”
Qiu Ja furrowed her brows, looking on with concern. She stared at Venkati, then Martin’s walker, then back to Venkati after a while. She narrowed her eyes as she studied him. “Are you reneging on your agreement, Venkati? Is this an elaborate prelude to attack the Empire while it is weakened by betrayal? Am I once again a hostage to be dishonored even further before my Empress?”
Venkati recoiled at Qiu Ja’s accusations, his mouth agape. “What? No! What made you think that!?”
His vehemence startled Qiu Ja, who breathed a sigh of relief afterward. The relief didn’t last long, however, as she turned around to gesture at the army formed up behind them. “No? Then why are your people poised to do just that?”
Venkati goggled at Qiu Ja, disappointment written all over his face. There was a current of tension between the two that Martin sensed but couldn’t quite define. There was something different about Qiu Ja’s accusations, like she was somehow hurt on a more personal level. Martin observed the interplay, wondering if something happened here that he wasn’t entirely aware of.
Just the same, Martin decided to step in and see if he could get answers of his own.
“Maharaja Venkati, you mentioned something about a taint. I… I believe that I need help with it. And maybe Ishida can help as well.” Venkati, however, turned back toward Martin’s walker, thankful for the distraction. The younger Daimyo, however, started at the mention of his name.
“Me? What do you need me for?” Ishida made a face in suspicion. “And why do you think we can help you in the first place?”
“Because you’re the only two people who can see what’s wrong with me,” Martin replied hotly, annoyed by Ishida’s indignant tone. He then slumped the shoulders of his walker, suddenly feeling very tired and lonely. “And you are the only ones willing to help at the moment.”
Venkati examined the walker from top to bottom, nodding his head in disappointment. “Perhaps. We might be able to help, but you will need to tell us everything.”
And so he did, to the growing horror of all three people listening to him. Martin never knew the young Daimyo could turn so green.
***
“Cross your legs. No, not like that. I said not like that! Watch me closely. Yes. Yes, like that!”
Martin groaned out loud as he settled his walker into place. “You do realize that I don’t have a body? Err, I mean to say that this body is made of clay, not flesh and bone, and that these positions might not work the way you think they will?”
Venkati swatted the walker’s head in annoyance. “And do you realize that you’re being a whiny little ass? Now shut up and try before you even start complaining.”
Martin glanced over at Ishida, who looked like he might throw up any minute now. Qiu Ja too looked like she might follow suit, glancing nervously at Venkati as he continued to manhandle the walker. “Um, Venkati? Could you, I don’t know, be a little bit gentler with someone who can rip your soul out and eat it for lunch?”
Venkati snorted in contempt as he kept fixing the walker’s posture. “My people can slide a sword into my stomach, end my life if they want to. Or at least they can try. Doesn’t change the fact that I need to correct their mistakes if needed. And right now,” he grunted as he squeezed the walker’s legs tighter together, “I am trying to see if my solutions can help correct Martin’s mistakes.”
“By teaching him how to meditate?” Qiu Ja replied dryly, obviously skeptical about the whole process.
“Exactly,” Venkati replied. “You Imperials are familiar with chi, yes? You see it as a free-flowing energy all around you, and most simply manipulate those energies to affect the envir
onment around you. We take another approach to this energy, which we call prana. Instead of simply manipulating it, we collect it within ourselves. We channel prana into our bodies, strengthening our bodies and spirits through meditating upon patterns—mandala. These in turn enlighten us about our place in the universe while simultaneously purifying the energies we absorb.” Venkati pointed at Martin’s walker with his chin. “If Martin learns how to meditate, how to cycle prana within himself, he could perhaps find the peace he needs to deal with these violent urges of his.”
Martin wanted to groan out loud. The last time he experimented with meditation, it involved mumbling a lot of mumbo-jumbo over and over. The last guru he sought for help was more interested in selling herbal remedies, shiny trinkets, and subscriptions to his crowdfunding platform. The man didn’t help a bit when it came to silencing the voices that hounded him ever since he was a child.
Though to be fair, that guru wasn’t a rippling mountain of muscle that was covered with glowing tattoos filled with power. Martin himself was no longer a scrawny little boy either. He was… something else entirely.
Maybe Venkati was right, and that meditation could help him understand his place in the universe. Or at the very least, it would help him better control the homicidal thoughts urging him to butcher everyone he met.
“Alright. What do I do next?” asked Martin, eager to start.
Venkati was just about to say something when he suddenly closed his mouth. He caught himself, frowning as he realized something very wrong. “Wait a minute. Do you even breathe?”
Qiu Ja groaned out loud, slapping her face with her hand. “Please don’t tell me you forgot you were talking to a clay man.”
Venkati blinked, then pinched the bridge of his nose with two fingers. Ishida stared at Qiu Ja, then to Venkati, then to Martin’s walker. The walker slumped its shoulders in disappointment. “I… don’t actually need to breathe. Or more accurately, my walkers don’t need to breathe.”
“That is troublesome,” Ishida remarked, as he shifted from his lotus position. “If I understand prana correctly, breathing is a core component of meditating. The mandala,” he said, pointing to the tattoo on his bare chest, “helps focus prana, helps me store and generate it from within. But I still need to focus on my breathing to gather prana within my body.”
Venkati thought for a moment, tapping his chin as he studied the walker. “Well, breathing isn’t the actual goal in meditation. It is all about focusing yourself, of letting go of the external and reaching deep into the internal. Breathing is one way to do that, to disconnect yourself from the external. Do you have something within yourself that will help you focus, Martin? Something that defines your life, or at least your existence in this world?”
Martin thought it over for a few moments before finding an answer of his own. “Yeah. Yeah, I think I do.”
All three people around him stared at the walker. He stared back. “Well?” asked Qiu Ja, surprising Martin with her curiosity. “What’s this thing that defines you?”
Martin hesitated. Venkati was the Maharaja of his people, and revealing this bit of information could put himself in even more danger than he was already exposed to. He may have convinced Ishida to turn against the Shogun, but he was still a Daimyo of his clan which meant loyalty to his people. And Qiu Ja? She was a general loyal to Empress Zi Li—someone who Martin knew would turn on him if she ever gained a big-enough advantage. They may all tolerate him right now, but who knows what would happen in the long run.
Then Martin remembered why he was put here in the first place, why he was spirited away from his life on Earth and brought to Copsis. These peoples may betray him, but if he succumbed to euphoria and found himself unable to come back? Then he would become nothing more than the very thing he was fighting against.
“My core,” Martin sighed with his walker, more a human gesture than an actual need to exhale air. “My core defines my existence. It allows me to extend myself over the thousands of walkers, giving each a fragment of my mind. It is what defines the other constructs, minds inextricably tied to my will but still capable of possessing their own thoughts.”
Venkati swayed his head in a nod, taking in Martin’s words and pondering about what Martin could do about his condition. Ishida and Qiu Ja, however, stared slack-jawed at the walker. “Wait,” Ishida remarked with a raised palm. “You said that you have thousands of walkers out there, each possessing a fragment of your mind. What do you mean by that?”
Martin shrugged with his walker. “Not entirely sure how it works, but it’s like my mind is split into thousands upon thousands of interconnected pieces. I am every walker, and every walker is me. There is no ‘we’ in here. It’s just me, split thousands of times. You talk to one walker, you talk to me. It’s like a really complicated tangle of roads, and all roads lead to my core.”
Venkati listened intently, twirling the tips of his moustache. Ishida and Qiu Ja tried to listen, but they were too flabbergasted by Martin’s explanation to give an intelligent reply.
“Yeah, I’m just as confused as you are on how it all works,” Martin said. “But that’s the best explanation I can give. Sorry if I’m vague about it.”
Venkati tutted, wagging a finger. “No. No, you may be on to something. If breathing won’t work, then perhaps… perhaps concentrating on a mandala will help you center this core of yours.”
The Maharaja called for one of his servants to fetch some scrolls. The servant hurried back, carrying a bundle of the rolled parchments. Venkati unfurled a few, set aside most of the ones he looked through, and exclaimed out loud when he found what he was apparently looking for.
“Here,” Venkati remarked. “This is a simple mandala, one designed to help children center themselves. It is meant to aid in meditation, or the breathing required in meditation, but it might serve you well here. I want you to try following the pattern, focus on how it always brings your eyes to the center even if your eyes wander to the different points.”
Martin would have grimaced if he could, but he simply couldn’t refuse Venkati’s enthusiastic answer. He looked at the image, staring deeply at it. It looked a lot like a cartoon version of the sun, circular with spikes pointing outward from the edges. The disk itself, however, was absolutely filled with intricate lines snaking this way and that. Waves and petals of all shapes and sizes filled the interior of the circle, points and curves snaking all over the place. Following one line, one shape, would always bring your attention back to the center of the disk.
It was a very pretty picture, but it was just that: a pretty picture. Martin kept staring at the image for a few more minutes before finally shaking his head in surrender. “Nothing. I don’t see how—”
Venkati moved to cuff the walker on the head, then sighed as he restrained himself. “It’s not something that produces instant results. Don’t go in with an objective in mind. Set aside your expectations for the moment and simply lose yourself in the pattern. Halt your thoughts about anything else, about finding meaning or an explanation for the pattern. Use the lines to help you lose yourself. Focus your everything in the pattern, not just this one fragment of your mind occupying the walker in front of me. Focus on the pattern with all your being, all the extensions of your core, and bring them upon this pattern.”
Martin hesitated for a few moments, nodded once, and went back to the pattern. He captured the pattern, focused with the collective attention of every single walker across the face of the continent. The walkers guarding the highways in the Bashri, the ones manning post offices in the emirates, those fresh from the manufacturing vats in the Leizhu Swamp Pyramid, those helping the dolls excavate the Desert Ruins, the walkers marching with Shen Feng’s army, the walkers running to form up with Shen Feng’s army—every single walker stopped what it was doing to focus on the swirling pattern before him.
His focus narrowed as he followed the pattern, more than twenty-six thousand minds melding into one gigantic essence of
thought. Twenty-six thousand minds traced the pattern—those residing in existing bodies and those waiting to inhabit freshly-recreated ones. They followed the waves and the petals back into themselves, over and over. The walkers ceased everything, dropped everything, to focus on the mandala. Conversations halted, hands stilled, feet froze on the ground. Dolls ceased building roads and playing with the children. Cow-boxes slowed and stopped, still carrying their heavy loads. Eyeballs stayed put, their all-seeing eyes looking at nothing else except a pattern of lines that kept flowing back into itself. Martin regressed into his center thousands upon thousands of times into one complete spiral of focus. In that instant, Martin truly saw himself for the first time—what he had become, what he was turning into.
And he despaired.
Violent, anguished screams filled Martin’s center as a roiling mass of power contained within his core. He recognized akinji riders and nameless bandits who attempted to waylay travelers in the desert highways. A few hundred Imperial soldiers from Shen Feng’s attempt to storm his pyramid, along with a single martial artist. Her brilliantly shining soul fed his own core with her screams of pain and misery, joining the myriad of souls screaming alongside her. The vast majority of the souls locked within the torments of his core, however, were those of the recently-slain Taiyo. Their screams almost drowned out the screams of the others, their sheer numbers painting his core red.