by Arthur Stone
But I was in no hurry to rejoice at my stroke of luck. And not only because the remaining eight hundred twenty-six units would still need to be acquired somehow—quite a tall order for someone in my condition.
The bigger concern was that, at present, my zero degree was only filled by sixty units out of a possible eight hundred eighty-eight. And I very clearly remembered that there had been sixty-two when first I laid eyes on it.
And when I had checked again after salvaging the sack of spices, there had been sixty-one. There could be no confusion on that front.
So what happened? Though one’s “base chi” could theoretically be reduced, that typically required tremendous effort on the part of an enemy or some other horrific hardships. And even then, it wasn’t guaranteed.
My situation was clearly different. I couldn’t blame upon any enemy the fact that my zero degree reservoir was leaking like a rusty galvanized bucket. And if the rate of leakage remained steady, it wouldn’t take more than several days to empty, dropping me back to square one. Moreover, if I allowed it to happen, I feared an irreversible return to my initial state. Meaning I would revert to being a hopeless wreck incapable of the smallest development, forced to rely on regularly recharging the amulet to keep drawing breath. To say that I wasn’t enamored with such a prospect would be a gross understatement.
How long until somebody noticed such a valuable item hanging on the neck of a homeless wretch? It might be invisible, but surely some possessed the ability to see through the ruse. There was no scenario under which I would retain possession of the amulet indefinitely.
So, priority number one for me was to keep myself from falling back to zero.
All I had to my name at the present was twenty-three small and four medium symbols of chi. The former yielded one unit each, the latter yielded a dozen. That meant an additional seventy-one units with which to fill the ring. If my math was correct, I was losing six-seven units per day, so this would delay the woeful prospect of nullification by over a week. Added to my existing reserves, I had roughly twenty days to work with.
But what would tomorrow bring? Today’s efforts had netted me six units in all, a solid return by all accounts. A common peasant would have to toil for a solid month to get anywhere near this number. Assuming I got lucky—which was more than a fair assumption—I couldn’t possibly rely on recreating such a feat with sufficient frequency. And that meant nullification was not only inevitable, it might arrive sooner rather than later.
What else could I do? My attempt at activating the Novice Healer mark had failed. The number of talents unlocked at any particular degree must conform to the number of attributes achieved at said degree. And I had zero of those. All I could do was unlock one point in Agility, having received a personal embodiment of this attribute from my fight with the kote. But unlocking it was half the battle—now I had to fill it to the max in a process similar to filling my general reservoir with chi. I had gotten one small essence of Agility from mother, which would add one point to the attribute’s progress bar of the several dozen it should require to fill in full.
As far as I knew, the lowest possible number of points to advance an attribute was ten. In other words, there was no point in unlocking Agility, as there was no way I could fill in the required number. And that wasn’t the only problem. Activating an attribute with a personal embodiment should start it off with one progress point from the get-go. But if my attributes leaked in the same way as my chi, I stood to lose that bonus almost as soon as I used it.
Which brought me to my second objective: find the starting embodiments of the other attributes, as well as further means of their development. I was aware of only one way of getting those: defeating opponents with advanced attributes of the same kind. I had gotten lucky with the kote when the Order deemed my rather insignificant contribution to the killing of one predator worthy of a reward. And those beasts were certainly agile, like living torpedoes, swift and lethal.
Objective number three: fill up my chi reservoir. Perhaps that would put an end to the leakage, neutralizing the Damoclean sword of nullification from constantly looming over me.
Maybe that should be the primary objective, but I was too sensible a person to hope to find so much chi within a short enough span. Again, the six units I had acquired today were fantastic luck. Based on all that I had heard from others, that kind of luck might only happen to a person once in his life.
Or not at all.
I would need over eight hundred units even before accounting for the constant leakage. That was a small fortune. Indeed, a fortune, as chi symbols were proper merchandise. One small symbol was enough to buy several days’ worth of plain food. That was my impression, at least—actual market values could be much different. Besides, prices varied from region to region, and our homestead and village with a handful of subjects, lost amid the northern boondocks, surely couldn’t represent the whole world.
Still, there was no way I could earn that much. Which meant my sole lifeline was the magic of the amulet. As soon as it lost its charge, my life was equally lost.
Similarly, once the chi reservoir emptied, my strength would likely suffer a sharp decline. I wasn’t particularly full of vigor even in my present state, incomparable though it was to my previous one. But if I allowed nullification to happen, I would kiss goodbye to all of my present capabilities, along with any chances of enhancing them. I might still be able to move or perform very basic functions, but I wouldn’t be able to recreate the sack of spices rescue mission. I would lack the strength to make the trek to the middle of the ford and back even without a load.
It wouldn’t take long for me to become a useless wreck, and then a corpse. Unless I came up with a solution before that happened.
Wait, let me rephrase that. Coming up with a solution wasn’t the problem—actually implementing it was.
Even with the nice boost to the amulet and my newly discovered reservoir of chi, I was anything but a capable individual, whereas all the methods aimed at quickly raising one’s inner parameters were incredibly demanding and requiring of exceptional prowess on numerous fronts.
I couldn’t begin to imagine how I was going to get out of this, only that I would have to. My only other option was death, but that was no option at all.
It wasn’t long ago that I dreamed of death. Of getting even with a few people, and then of bidding farewell to my wretched existence. But no more. For the first time in years, the glimmer of hope afforded by my new abilities, deplorable as they were, filled me with a thirst for life. And that, in turn, gave hope that somehow things would work themselves out.
That a time would soon come to shed my skin of a cripple, a sponger stuck to the teat of a woman I had loathed yet had been forced to call mother.
A time when I would finally take care of myself.
Chapter 12
Blackriver Trading Station
Degrees of Enlightenment: 0 (60/888)
Attributes: none
Skills: none
States: none
The Wild Wood, also known as the Dark Wood, was commonly used in the north to scare young children. But grownups were likewise rarely enthused at the mention of lands on the left bank of Redriver. Everyone knew that the territories stretching beyond the river were filled with monsters that were the stuff of nightmares, terrible creatures in whom structures of the Order had been intertwined with Chaos’ tentacles in the most grotesque of ways. These lands were no place for humans, but alas, human greed was stronger than any horror, and these parts were plentiful with treasure. Of course, a serious force would be required for even a chance of snatching a morsel of the local riches, and the operation would still be fraught with great risk.
It was the convoy’s second day moving through the Wild Wood, and the only danger it encountered had been yesterday’s trouble at the crossing. Moreover, from a geographical standpoint, the attack had taken place at the border. I had braced myself for worsening conditions as we kept moving north, b
ut so far those fears were proving unfounded.
I hadn’t seen so much as a hare. The only signs indicating that the forest wasn’t fully extinct were tracks of paws and hooves along the edges of puddles lining the road. The sky showed more signs of life: mostly smaller birds but also the occasional crow and magpie, and even some doves. A few times the flapping of wings nearby portended something more serious, and last night Atami had shot down a pretty large bird. Krol had called it by some fanciful name while I registered it in my head as a wood grouse due to its striking resemblance to the latter.
Pines and spruces dominated the landscape, interspersed with some cedars and other leafy trees that resembled oaks, chestnuts and even birches. At least that was what they looked like to my amateur eye. Strips of thick shrubbery often lined the road on either side, but no arrows had flown from there in our direction.
Only once did we encounter signs of danger. This stretch of the road lay uphill, the elevated terrain being poorer in vegetation, with numerous wide meadows dotted with scatterings of rock and large boulders. Several heaps of flame blackened logs stood on the largest meadow, ringed by a crumbling stockade. Whatever structures had stood here several years ago had been so thoroughly devastated by fire that you could no longer ascertain their purpose.
A string of equally fresh graves lined the shoulder of the road, each punctuated with a hastily fashioned stake sporting a cleft to which a round piece of bark was attached. The local equivalent of a cross.
It looked more like a rushed funeral than a cemetery. Visual evidence suggested that the graves were now occupied by the residents of this place, and they likely hadn’t died of natural causes.
The convoy kept the same pace through this stretch, with no apparent interest displayed by anyone. It would seem that the caravanners were well familiar with the road and the attractions. Since they have most likely seen these ruins countless times, the macabre site no longer instilled in them any sense of unease.
* * *
Twilight was falling when Rycer suddenly hung down from the wagon and extended his hand.
“Come on up here, boy.”
Wondering what could be the cause for such a magnanimous offer, I grabbed onto his coarse hand, then tried to catch the side of the wagon, which was moving at walking speed. Before I could fail many times over, the soldier yanked me easily off the road.
Not a moment passed before I was sitting on a bed of hay, and he was offering me a piece of bread overlaid with a chunk of yellow lard.
“Here, have a bite. Eating on the go ain’t the same thing.”
You couldn’t argue with the assertion, though I was quite bemused by Rycer’s unprecedented generosity. Until now, he hadn’t treated me with any such kindness or nobility. Hell, he hadn’t seemed to care about me at all. I had gotten food only twice so far: last night and this morning. Both times my meal amounted to crude porridge from the common pot. Thankfully, the cooks followed the traditional recipe that made it thick enough to cut with a knife. Lacking a plate or utensils, I could hold the lump in the palm of my hand, finishing my modest ration in the span of two minutes. For the first time in my second life, I had an appetite. And a beastly one at that. Nowhere near satisfied by the meager handouts, I was thinking about food nonstop. And so I would drink liters upon liters of water, tricking my body into feeling just a tad less ravenous.
Rycer hadn’t skimped on bread or lard. This was far better than the wooden gruel that obviously did not include ingredients like butter or meat. Here was my chance to finally satiate my hunger.
Studying me with his surviving eye, Rycer shook his head.
“You need a healer. The way you’re chowing down, there must be some kind of tape worm working your insides.”
“Thank you...” I muttered belatedly.
“Kashik has your money,” Rycer said.
I tensed up, but didn’t stop chewing.
The soldier continued.
“It was Atami who noticed you, lying in the grass, about fifty paces from the road. He and I carried you to the caravan. The grass under your body was badly crumpled—you must have been lying there a while, maybe even several days. You were lucky that no critters gnawed on your face. Kashik came over then and took your coin. You thought it was me and Krol, but we had nothing to do with it. Kashik said that dead men need no coin where they’re going.”
“But I didn’t die,” I tore away from the food for the first time in the conversation to voice the obvious truth.
Rycer nodded. “Indeed, you didn’t. I don’t know what sickness you had, but there’s not a trace of it now. Though you’re still weak, and most definitely odd. Your hands don’t look like peasant hands, and you don’t act like a common plowman. I can’t make heads or tails of you, boy. But you can forget about getting your coin from Kashik. He ain’t the sharing kind. Once he gets his paws on something, it’s gone forever. Now, you helped me, and I ain’t the kind of bastard to forget it. I don’t have money to give you, but I can share some of my grub. Enough to hold you over before we part ways. I can help with some advice, too, so remember everything I say, cause I won’t repeat myself. The fort is a wretched place. Remember the ruins in the meadow?”
“Yeah.”
“That was an outpost of it. To this day, no one knows what happened to it. It simply burned down, along with everything on the meadow. It hadn’t rained for a long time and the land dried up badly. We were lucky to have avoided a forest fire. No clear tracks were left, and some of the bodies looked awful, missing limbs and even a head here and there. No fire could have done that.”
“What, then, if not fire?” I asked.
“All we know is that it was someone, not something. These are the kinds of things that happen here, so my first advice to you is to keep close to the fort. It has lasted a whole decade, which is a damn long time for the Wild Wood. And with a little luck, it might last another one. The local beasts know to stay away, taught to fear by experience. And fear can be a better defense than even high walls. So make use of that.” Rycer paused for a moment, thinking. “My second piece of advice is going to be harder to pull off. Hold on to your freedom. You’re nobody to Kashik. We picked you up in a field, but that bloodsucker will try to make some coin off of you. Don’t let that happen. You ain’t in debt to no one, and a free man can’t just be sold into servitude. Still, he’s going to try and pull something, bloody cheat that he is. It’s a good thing you’re such a wretch to look at. Ain’t nobody going to offer any serious coin for you, so he might not bother over a pittance. So, I say your chances are decent. Finally, my third piece of advice, and the most important one. Find somebody powerful and win his interest. Show him you’re useful for something. Don’t let go of your freedom, but stay close to him. Do whatever you can to avail yourself of his protection. You’re too weak to survive in that rotten place on your own.”
“What about going back south with another caravan?” I thought to ask.
“It’s a long way. Long enough for Kashik to come up with a dozen ways to get his hooks into you. Even a couple of coins don’t grow on trees. Besides, life down south ain’t no picnic, believe you me. For someone like you, at least. Being a weakling sucks, wherever you are. You’re welcome to try, sure, but if I were you, I’d stay put. The Wild Wood is full of peril, but in some ways it’s fairer than other places. Life here is simpler than down south. That’s all I’ve got to say on the matter. The rest is up to you. Think long and hard what you’re going to do. In these parts, being stupid is even worse for your prospects than being weak.”
* * *
The caravan arrived at Blackriver just before sundown. The name could apply to the fort just as much as to the river it had been named after.
The landscape differed considerably from the nearly flat plain of the right bank. The last several hours saw the convoy traverse one series of hills after another. It was treacherous terrain, with clefts in the rock hidden amidst heaps of debris, and streams feeding into the river with
precipitous falls high enough to spell death for a pure omega of the tenth degree of enlightenment.
You couldn’t guess the river’s proximity until the very end, despite the forest growing sparser, almost nonexistent on wide clearings. Blackriver opened before us suddenly, as if filling a moat, its right bank a sheer cliff one hundred feet high. And the cliff wasn’t even vertical, but worse—slanting forward, overhanging the dark waters.
As wide across as Redriver, it split up in two identical arms that hugged a rocky island. The section of it that was downstream was about the same height as the right bank, the two sides visible from here just as sheer. Up ahead, however, the terrain was relatively flat and spanned roughly two-three acres.
The lower part of the island was three times larger in territory, but almost completely lacking in flat sections of land. Nothing but fissures and ledges, like a broken staircase leading down to the water. The geographical jumble ended with a pebbly blanket that lined the shore, spanning some two hundred yards.