by Will Wight
Panic shook Lindon even more than the Empty Palm shook Keth. His Empty Palm had been perfect…but if Keth didn’t lose his footing, it wouldn’t matter. Lindon would have to take a blow from an Iron Striker who knew that he’d been tricked. If Wei Mon Keth caved in Lindon’s rib cage with a fist, he would face no more than a fine.
“What have you—” Keth began, but Lindon followed up with a second attack driven by all the raw-nerved terrified desperation in his soul. This one wasn’t guided by any technique or sacred art; it was nothing more than an ordinary punch to the gut. Every observer in the crowd would know how useless it was. He would have a better chance punching an iron plate than an Iron practitioner.
Pain echoed up Lindon’s knuckles and reached his shoulder as though he really had punched a metal plate, but Keth’s breath whooshed out of his lungs. He clutched his stomach and took two steps backward, his legs shaking as he tried to stop himself from going to his knees.
Except for Kelsa and Lindon, every single other person present drew in a sharp gasp. It sounded like a ghost passing over the crowd.
Before anyone could speak, Lindon bowed to his still-staggering opponent.
“This one thanks you for your instruction,” he rushed out. “You are the victor.”
Then he scurried back to his family.
He didn’t need to win, after all. He only needed to save face. And while he may have been able to endure an attack from an Iron sacred artist who adhered to the honorable rules of a duel, he would never survive a blow from an enraged Iron with blood in his heart.
“Stand where you are, Unsouled!” Keth roared, and the shout was driven with all the force of his madra and fury. He straightened, which meant he’d recovered his spirit from the disruption of the Empty Palm. During Lindon’s tests with Kelsa, it only took her four or five breaths to recover, so it wasn’t surprising that someone at the Iron stage would be even faster.
Power gathered around Keth’s fist until it was visible, warping the air in a haze that reminded Lindon of the attack Teris had used to fell the ancestral tree. “I owe you a strike.”
His imagination provided him with an image of his body cracking in half as easily as that tree had, his bones snapping like dry branches. He was relying on someone to intervene on his behalf. His life was in the hands of the crowd, and for a long second, they were all silent. Even his father, Jaran, stared at him in confusion, still too shocked by the events of the duel to do anything to help.
To Lindon’s relief, the First Elder stepped between him and the Mon family head, his long eyebrows and wispy beard flowing in the morning wind. “Wei Shi Lindon has surrendered. The duel is over, and you are the victor. Congratulations.”
Lindon let out a heavy breath, and the sudden rush of relief stole his strength. He half-expected to collapse onto the stone at that instant.
Even the First Elder’s harshest critic could not have found a trace of mockery in his words, but Keth turned to him in a fury. “He cheated! He violated the terms of the duel by striking twice, in a deliberate attempt to humiliate me!”
“For which he deserved to lose,” the elder reminded him. “As he admitted his loss.”
Keth drew up in absolute rage, swelling to seemingly twice his size. “He conspired to ruin my dignity as an Iron!”
Jaran’s laughter was high and scornful as he hobbled his way forward, leaning on his cane. He’d finally overcome his confusion to side with his son…or at least against an old rival. “Whatever trick a mouse uses, it cannot defeat a lion. If Lindon decided to charge you with a spear, what is that to you? His strength should never have been able to harm you, no matter how he cheated. A true warrior of the Iron stage would not be shaken by a child’s punch.”
Lindon winced and pushed back further into the crowd. He had more or less expected Keth’s reaction, but he hadn’t anticipated his father making everything worse.
His sister caught him by the shoulder as he tried to sneak by. “Well done,” she whispered. She moved in front of him, ready to defend him at need.
The madra around Keth’s fist condensed into spinning balls of purple-edged white fire. Foxfire was only an illusion of flame; it produced no actual heat, but if it touched flesh, it would burn with the agony of real fire.
“I see how the Shi family addresses members of the same clan,” Keth shouted, trying to drum up support from the audience. “With shame and dishonor! Grant me a contest against Shi Jaran, the one responsible for the Unsouled, or I will find my own satisfaction here.”
The First Elder raised a hand. “Keth, Jaran, I have seen enough. Return to your families. This duel has concluded, and the Mon family is victorious.”
A few laughs from the surrounding gallery. No one present believed that the Mon family had won, least of all Mon Keth. By afternoon, there would be a new Mon family myth: the Unsouled who had struck down an Iron.
Lindon couldn’t deny his pride at the thought.
When the First Elder turned his head, thinking the matter settled, Keth flowed forward. He must have used some movement technique, because one step brought him before Jaran, his fist cocked back to deliver a blow that shone purple with foxfire. Lindon’s father raised his hands to defend, but even Lindon could tell he’d been caught off guard. His cane fell to the ground as he lifted both hands, his scarred face tightening into a grimace.
The scene flickered.
Jaran and the First Elder had switched places, and now Mon’s flame-wreathed fist was crashing down on the elder, not the head of the Shi family. Jaran’s hands were still raised to defend himself from nothing. For an instant, Lindon’s mind refused to accept what he was seeing. Had the First Elder switched places with his father in that breath?
In a move that seemed slow and clear—but must have taken half a second at most—the elder held up two fingers. He placed them to the side of Keth’s wrist, gently guiding the strike down and to the side. Foxfire swished through the air as illusory purple-white fireballs struck the stone, dealing absolutely no damage whatsoever.
Jaran lowered his hands, stunned.
The First Elder continued his movement, moving his two fingers to Mon Keth’s shoulder and pushing down. He didn’t appear to exert any effort, but the much bigger man collapsed to his knees, his hands behind his back. The elder flicked his sleeve, and intricate stone manacles appeared around his wrists.
Keth shouted, trying to force his way to his feet, but the First Elder had already placed a hand on the man’s hair. A ripple of force disturbed the air as it passed through Mon Keth’s body, flattening his clothes and sending a pulse of dirt blasting out.
His knees slammed back into the ground, and he resisted no further.
“Wei Mon Keth will be in isolation training for the next month,” the First Elder mentioned. “No doubt he wishes to meditate and learn from today’s events. During this time, the Mon family will be responsible for him. You are all dismissed.”
Lindon froze, replaying the scene in his mind.
The First Elder was a Forger on the Path of the White Fox. He couldn’t switch bodies, he could only Forge deceptions: copies of reality made of dreams and light with no real substance. White Fox illusions had no structure and could not resist the weakest attack; they relied entirely on crafting a perfect appearance. Forgers had to craft their pictures detail by detail. Even the First Elder could never have created an illusion so layered, so complex, as the scene Lindon had just witnessed.
Could he?
Suddenly Lindon found himself unable to tear his gaze away from the First Elder, the man who had directed the entire scene and maintained absolute control the entire time. Even now, as he instructed the Mon family to carry Keth away, he looked no more concerned than a man ordering his breakfast.
This was what a real sacred artist looked like. This was the sort of power Lindon wanted.
The power he would gain on his Path.
Chapter 6
Jaran slammed his clay mug down on the table, sending orus wine sloshing
over his wrist. “That was stupid. A warrior fights with his mind first. With strategy! You don’t risk your life on a fool’s plan that will leave you even weaker than you already are! When I was younger, I would never have…”
Lindon’s father went on, talking about the glorious days when he’d been one of the most promising sacred artists in the entire clan. They were alone in Lindon’s house, with no one to listen in, so Lindon nodded along and kept the mug filled. He already knew he’d been foolish.
He should have told his father and mother first. He was only blessed that they had been too confused to intervene, or they could have ruined everything in trying to save him.
How fortunate that they had left him alone.
“…don’t know what you were thinking,” Jaran continued, raising the mug to his lips. “So stupid.” With one hand, he roughly reached out and grabbed his son around the shoulders, pulling him into a one-armed hug. Lindon almost knocked over the bottle of wine.
“But it’s the best kind of stupid,” Jaran said, staring into his mug. “Only an idiot accepts a battle he’s sure to lose, but bravery and idiocy share a border. The son of a cripple might be a cripple, but the son of tigers won’t be a dog.”
Jaran coughed out a laugh, raising his wine as though for a toast. “They’ll soon see what a couple of cripples can do, son! A three-legged tiger’s still got a bite!” He downed the rest of his wine.
A golden rush filled Lindon from his core to his fingertips, like a pulse of fresh madra. His father approved of him. He hadn’t heard open praise from his father since he’d learned to walk. Certainly not since he’d first received his Unsouled badge.
Before Lindon could think of an appropriate response, Jaran upended his cup on the table, leaving it upside-down. That was even more of a shock; there was still half a bottle left. But his father leaned forward on the table, his expression turning as grave as his scarred lips would allow.
“You and your sister did well with the plan today, but I can’t be left out again. What do you intend for the Festival?”
Lindon had been more concerned about surviving the week with his honor intact, but he had given the upcoming Seven-Year Festival some thought. “The children at my stage will have better foundation techniques, but the Empty Palm gives me an edge in combat. I should be able to take first.”
“Empty Palm…” Jaran muttered. “Is that what you call it? Disrupts the enemy’s spirit with an injection into the core?”
He should have known his parents would see through it immediately. “Yes, Father.”
“You’re lucky. If you had cultivated any aspects at all, it wouldn’t have worked so well.”
Lindon rubbed his temple, memories of dream-like visions swimming in his head. “Kelsa put me on the ground with the same technique every time. I couldn’t trust my own eyes.”
“Of course she did. She’s a Copper, and you’re Unsouled. You can’t defend against her any more than an ant can stop a boot. If she had tried the same thing you did on Wei Mon Keth today, he wouldn’t have even noticed.”
That violated everything Lindon knew about the sacred arts, but his father wouldn’t be mistaken about something like this. “Surely when Mon Keth left himself undefended, Kelsa’s Empty Palm would have done far more damage than mine.”
Jaran’s fists tightened on the table. “Son, if that’s what you think, you came close to a harsh lesson today. A weapon held in ignorance only wounds its bearer.”
Lindon sat up straighter, a chill running down his spine. He thought he’d prepared for the morning’s duel as well as he could, but if he’d made a mistake…he really could have died.
“If it worked as you imagine, why doesn’t every sacred artist in the Wei clan use this Empty Palm? We could disable any opponent with one strike!”
“Because it’s difficult to strike the core,” Lindon said, knowing he was playing the fool. “The enemy would be on guard against it. I know it only worked against Mon Keth because he didn’t defend himself, and who would do that in battle?”
“You're missing the most fundamental reason. It's because your madra is pure.” He raised his hand, palm-up, where a hazy purple-white impression danced on his palm. His own power. “Our White Fox is formed from aura of light and dreams, and it will act according to its nature. Even unformed, you see.”
Lindon peered closer. As the energy danced in his father's palm, it gathered in the shape of a running rabbit, of a flag snapping in the breeze, of his mother's face. He thought he heard sounds, impossibly distant: the cry of a wolf, the panting of a man running for his life, the steady drip of water. The White Fox, unrestrained, tricked the senses by its very nature.
Jaran closed his fist, and the images vanished. “Untrained madra, that of a child or an Unsouled, is still pure. It has no form, and so it affects only the spirit...but it does so more naturally than anything else. There's very little defense against it. A strike from me would not have affected Mon Keth's core; if anything, it would have confused him for a moment before his own spirit rejected my influence. But yours influences the core directly.”
Lindon remembered a line from the Heart of Twin Stars manual, a note he hadn't given much thought: “How he cancels out the aspects of his madra, I have not yet deduced, but the result is undeniable.” The developer of the Empty Palm had come up with a way to purify himself in spite of his previous training.
Only a moment ago, he had worried that his ignorance may have taken him too close to death, but now he couldn't deny a measure of excitement. Of all the sacred artists in the Wei clan, only he had yet to absorb any vital aura. That meant he had capabilities no one else did.
His father saw his thoughts, and held up a hand. “Unfortunately, pure madra has only two uses. It can activate scripts, just as anyone can, and it shakes the spirit. That's all. For anything else, you may as well have no power at all. It's also incredibly difficult to strengthen your spirit without harvesting aspects from the world, and it typically requires elixirs or natural treasures. Like the fruit you found.
“If you cultivate aspects that exist in heaven and earth, you can soak vital aura from the environment as you cycle. That's how I do it, that's how your mother does it, that's how everyone does it. To keep yourself pure, you'd have to give up the easiest and most reliable way of getting stronger. Worse, you'd sacrifice your most dependable means of self-defense. A fire artist could burn arrows out of the air mid-flight, and a sword artist could strike them out of the air. An artist of pure madra would be helpless to affect the flight of an arrow. He would die as helpless as a bird.”
Lindon nodded seriously along with Jaran's words, but his enthusiasm didn't dim. It wasn't as though he meant to cultivate pure madra forever; he would start on a Path as soon as he was allowed. But this was an advantage he had now, an advantage that had gone to waste. Even an Unsouled wasn't entirely useless after all.
Having firmly driven his point home, Jaran drummed his knuckles on the table. “Your sister knew all this, so you were safe this time. But carelessness is a short path to death in the sacred arts, remember that. It's why a good plan is so important. Which brings me back to the Festival.”
Lindon thought for a moment before speaking, choosing his words carefully. “I plan to use the Empty Palm on my opponents. At the Foundation stage, they should have no defense, and I'll take first place easily.”
Jaran leaned forward, rapping him on the top of the head. It hurt more than he'd expected. “You said that before, but I was hoping you'd think this time. Acting without thinking is bad, but it's worse to think like a coward.”
Jibes and backhanded insults from his father were far more familiar than compliments. “Excuse my foolishness, Father, but I don't see the error in my words.”
“After the first strike, you always follow up with a second.” He laughed suddenly. “Like Mon Keth this morning, right? First hit lands, in comes your second one. You landed a hit today with your plan, with your sister's help and heaven's own luc
k. People see you as the Unsouled who beat an Iron. That's an advantage to you, which means you've got to strike again now. What can you get out of this?”
Lindon's body thrummed with hunger. The same appetite that Elder Whisper had woken by speaking of a new Path rose up in him now, a yawning void that demanded to be filled. This was his chance to snatch another piece for himself, to climb another step closer to everything he ever wanted.
He'd forgotten about his father, his mind racing from option to option. Could he leverage this notoriety into a request for training materials? He could borrow the parasite ring from the Patriarch, with the excuse that he needed it to prepare for the Festival.
No, he would have to appeal to the Patriarch directly, who wouldn't be able to show him favoritism. Lindon had fought with another member of the Wei clan, and thus not brought any honor to the clan as a whole, so the Patriarch wouldn't be able to reward him.
Maybe he could go to the Eighth Elder in the archive, and request a few minutes with the Path manuals. Not to take one, just to study and learn. But given the Eighth Elder's personality, he wouldn't be swayed by anything Lindon had done.
So it came down to one question: who had enough power in the clan to give him a gift and the motivation to do so?
A figure appeared in his mind, and he abruptly stood up. He froze when he remembered his father; even though this was Lindon's home, Jaran was both father and guest. If Lindon left, it would be disrespectful.
Jaran saw his dilemma and laughed again, flipping his cup over. “Go, wherever you're going. That's not the face of a coward, so my work is done here. And I have your wine to keep me company.”
Grateful, Lindon bowed his way out.
***
Lindon used the morning’s duel as an excuse to enter the First Elder’s home, which was readily accepted by the elder’s niece. She congratulated him on the way in. As soon as he passed through the door, he understood why the First Elder of the Wei clan would live here. It was the perfect place to cultivate White Fox madra.