Chương 118: 19-21
Chapter 19: The Offer
Booker noticed the other apprentices shooting him angry looks as they assembled at the front of the room. Gargoyle even slammed into him, pretending not to notice where he was going and clipping Booker with a sudden hard push from the shoulder that sent him stumbling forward.
"Sorry." Gargoyle mouthed without a single iota of sincerity.
"It's my fault, I forgot to look where you were going." Booker replied with equal sarcasm.
Fuck me. Greenmoon knew.
I guess my act was flawed, or he had some other source of insight, but he saw right through me. I thought I was a fox and I was just a chicken clucking my beak…
As for the rest…
Abandoning the plan and revealing myself…
What else could I do? Unless he's genuinely a genius at bluffs, he already knew I was faking.
I couldn't let the opportunity for the herb to slip by…
But goddamn.
It feels suspiciously like I've been outfoxed.
Rubbing his shoulder, Booker stepped into line with rest of the apprentices, standing with his hands clasped in front of him.
"So…" Greenmoon smiled a thin, triumphant smile. His blue eyes swept over them with a lazy air of satisfaction, like a grinning cat. "Why don't you each step forward and explain your performance? Tell me why you deserve the Sevenflame Paintbrush Flower."
Sprout was the first to step forward. He dipped his head and said, "Today, you've seen nothing but excellence from me. I'm satisfied– I'm proud– of my performance in this trial. If that is enough, I leave to your judgment."
Little Greenmoon was next. He bowed lower. "Unlike some, I didn't make one mistake. You could even say I prospered despite sabotage…"
Stepping back into line, he shot a glare and lifted his chin towards Booker.
Fuck and I intentionally did everything I could to piss them off. Well…
I'm already in the shit, so let's not try to backpedal now. I still have one winning card…
I'm a goddamn amazing alchemist.
It was his turn. He stepped forward, bowed briefly, and then said, "I apologize for wasting your time and mine. Let's not waste anymore." His eyes lifted, and he met Greenmoon's calm blue gaze with fiery intensity. "I am the best alchemist of the four."
"You shit!" Little Greenmoon snapped, while Sprout just looked away, sighing through his teeth. But Gargoyle was smirking, and as their eyes briefly met, Booker felt a cold premonition shiver down his spine.
Why is he smiling?
As Booker sank back into line, Gargoyle flashed a smile and stepped past him, bowing down onto one knee. "Master…"
Greenmoon lifted an eyebrow.
"I have the humility to know I'm not the best alchemist here. But I surely have my virtues, otherwise you'd never have tolerated me. I am your eyes and hands – and I've seen something you might care to know about."
For once, Greenmoon seemed off-guard, calculating a moment before saying – "Well? Out with it."
"Master!" He rose to his feet suddenly, and turned to point straight towards Booker. "That bastard is using Lucid Flower Dreamer Pills! He's memorized the books, but it's all fake. The moment he stops using those pills… He'll be nobody!"
Booker nearly froze –
He must have found out about Rain's past with Zheng Bai!
Goddamn, goddamn, goddamn. I never saw this coming back on me.
– but setting his jaw into a scowl, he stepped forward.
"These are ridiculous accusations. I'm not taking any medicines to give me this talent– he's just jealous, and he can't back up his lies with a single shred of proof." He said confidently, but inwardly, the final coda of the sentence was a simple, I hope.
If he had evidence of Rain's past – Booker would be failed out of the apprenticeship for sure. That alone wouldn't be so bad, except that none of the other alchemists would be willing to take him either, not until he somehow cleared his name, and even then…
Accusations of falsified talent are deadly serious in the Sect. Talent is all these disciples have to offer – faking it is a death sentence for a career once you're found out.
But Gargoyle's smirk only drew deeper into the edges of his mouth, and he said…
"Check his pockets."
Instantly, like they had planned this, Little Greenmoon shot forward and grabbed Booker's arm from behind. Booker could barely let out a shout of protest as Little Greenmoon's hand dug into his pocket.
And pulled out a vial of Lucid Flower Dreamer Pills.
What.
What??
The bump– he wasn't just shoving me, he must have dropped those in my pockets.
FUCK!
"Those aren't mine! He planted those!" Booker protested, but even to his ears, it sounded weak. His head was spinning from the pressure – he snarled openly as he glared at Gargoyle, who was truly loving this, smirking from ear to ear.
"Oh?" Little Greenmoon said. "Did you think nobody here knew your secret? Did you think you could cheat forever and not get caught? Do you really think anyone, much less a man like our Instructor Greenmoon, is going to hear your little lies now?"
"Oh fuck you. Like he hasn't noticed you're a sack of scheming shit." Booker spat back, but his mind was still spinning.
I didn't see this coming– I was so focused on escaping Greenmoon, I forgot that his apprentices don't want me here any more than I do.
And most of all, I didn't realize they'd be this ruthless in cutting me out.
This didn't start when I offended them – these are the exact pills Rain took.
They must have researched me ahead of time and set this trap.
I have to get control of this situation again.
He spun towards Greenmoon, who was calmly stroking his beard, eyes flickering from one player in the drama to another, almost looking entranced – trying to read the complicated situation unfolding in front of his eyes.
"Test me." Booker said, urgently. "Those aren't mine. I'm being set up."
Greenmoon's eyes locked onto him, and the man held his gaze for a long moment before saying, simply, and without any hint of emotion – "Very well. Such accusations do demand proof."
Raising his hands, he clapped them together and his apprentices immediately stood up tall, straightening their back and silencing their mouths as they were called to attention.
"We will ready the Trial of the Dancing Flame." Greenmoon said simply. "And it will settle all of this. The test is quite reliable – it will detect whether any such pill has been used in the last year, simply from the residue in your sweat."
The last year…
Damn, they have me. The pills might be fake but the accusation is just real enough to land me in deep, deep shit.
They probably knew this test was coming, and that I couldn't pass. No way would they have angled to put me in this situation without knowing that.
But there's one last way out…
I can cheat too.
The Trial of the Dancing Flame was a simple alchemical experiment. It involved feeding a fire with certain herbs to make it more reactive, able to change colors when exposed to alchemical residues within sweat and blood. The subject would wave their hand through the fire and the flame would react to the presence of alchemical powers within their body. It was best at detecting residues that were left behind by pills of a certain nature, particularly heavily toxic ones…
If the flame changed colors – if his sweat contained the residue of Rain's misfortune – he would be revealed.
But there's a lot of ways to change a flame's color. For instance…
A strong enough pill could override the Lucid Flower Dreamer Pills presence in his sweat. It wouldn't be pretty – such pills tended to be highly toxic – but he could hide one poison with another. A pill active within his system would be much stronger than the residue of ones he'd taken ages ago.
The flame can change colors – just as long as it doesn't change to purple, the color for Lucid Flower Pills, I'm safe.
The enemy put me in a trap – but I can still see the daylight on the other side.
Greenmoon flicked his hand. "Apprentices! You have work to do. You–" He pointed at Booker. "Stay where I can see you. No foolishness will be tolerated. You–" He gestured to Gargoyle. "Go fetch and grind some golden bantam gizzard, sky-azure root, and librarian moth dust. You two–" Sprout and Little Greenmoon fell under his gaze. "Get me a burner, a small crucible, a stirring stick and three vials of cinnabar."
Instantly, his underling went rushing in all directions to fulfill his commands. Powders, vials, and reagents were fetched off the well-stocked shelves, and Little Greenmoon set up a rune-powered burner under a crucible's heavy iron cauldron, beginning to boil the reddish stones of cinnabar-mercury within.
Booker stood with his hands clenched, watching everything like a hawk. He had a berserking pill in his bag – he had created one in his first experiments with alchemy – but he needed a moment of distraction to reach for it and put it into his mouth.
"Snips…" He whispered under his breath. As if sensing that he was needed, the little mantis poked its head out of his bag. "Sneak down my robes and stick low to the ground…. When I say go, you fly out and knock some bottles down from those shelves, yeah? Then get out of here. I only need the distraction."
The little mantis had always seemed to have an uncanny ability to understand him, and now it waved a claw and sank back into his bag.
Right– I just have to hope the berserking pill acts fast enough to go through my system and into my sweat.
He felt eyes prickling into his back, the other apprentices gloating as they watched him stand, still as a statue, his fists clenched. To them he looked like he was sweating under the pressure of being caught – and they weren't wrong.
But I'll have the last laugh you bastards.
As the cinnabar stones melted down into a flowing silver-red elixir, Gargoyle returned bearing three jars.
Greenmoon raised an eyebrow.
"Sir?" Gargoyle asked, recognizing the expression as dangerous.
"Hu Bao." Greenmoon said calmly. "Are you such a total idiot that you don't recognize the ingredients for the Dancing Flame trial? We need only the golden bantam gizzard and the librarian moth dust. So why have you prepared me sky-azure root."
"I–" Gargoyle froze, his mouth moving but his better sense keeping any sound coming out. It was obvious by the scrunched, shocked expression that he knew Greenmoon had asked for the sky-azure root – Booker had heard him just a second ago – but now he was caught in his own trap.
Defend himself, and imply his master made a mistake? Or accept the blame for something he'd made no error in.
As his mouth scrunched shut, he made a decision and bowed his head. "Sorry, sir. I must have misheard."
"Quite." Taking the tray from him coldly, Greenmoon waved a dismissal, setting down the bowls of ingredient by the flame. With a pinch of librarian moth dust and a knife of the pasted gizzard, he added to the brewing elixir of red, causing the brew to slowly change colors to a golden-bronze. Taking the fire from the burner onto a small stick, he waved it over the fuming concoction. The vapors above the crucible caught fire with a pressurized whumph of flame, billowing up and then settling down to a small, shivering tongue of golden fire.
But…
I wasn't hearing things, and neither was Gargoyle.
He asked for sky-azure root and Booker could only think of only one reason why. One scenario in which it wasn't a mistake.
He's giving me a path out.
Sky-azure root, ground to a fine powder and cast into a flame– would change that flame's color to a brilliant blue!
And there it was, sitting right next to the fire, a bowlful of the stuff. Salvation, if he could only manage to sneak a pinch into his hand before putting it into the flame.
Is he fucking with me? Is this a trap?
Does he think I'm going to fall for that?
Booker grit his teeth. Greenmoon was impossible to read – he'd already been outplayed once. Even if this trick was a genuine attempt to offer Booker an escape route, by following that route, he'd be dancing to Greenmoon's song.
But the berserking pill… It's only a maybe. Maybe it'll be strong enough to override all the residue in Rain's sweat, and maybe it won't. Maybe it could do that, but it won't work its way through my system and into my sweat fast enough.
The crucible was molten now, the flame ready.
Greenmoon gestured for Booker to step forward.
It was time to choose.
Who is Greenmoon?
It was the only question that mattered. A dangerous, manipulative, unpredictable power was offering Booker a helping hand. And he only had the time it took him to walk to the table – five steps – to take the deal or try for his own escape.
Wait.
Wait.
There's one thing I'm forgetting – most alchemistsdon't know that sky-azure root will affect the flame. Most barely know what sky-azure root is.
He didn't just choose it at random – he chose an obscure and little-known ingredient to challenge me.
This…
This is a test.
That's who Greenmoon is. He's not testing to see ifI'll cheat, he's testing to see if I'm smart enough to cheat.
"Go." He whispered under his breath.
Snips flew out from the hem of his robes, shooting across the floor in a purple-pink blur of humming wings. As he picked up speed and took to the air, he left a swash of aftertrail carved through the air. All along the shelves, bottles and jars toppled, powders spilled, reagents crashed down.
Little Greenmoon lunged, trying to catch a jar of golden pills as it tumbled off the shelves.
Sprout and Beanpole ducked as Snips went flying over them, cutting off Beanpole's topknot as the gawky apprenticed wailed with surprise, unsure what was even happening.
Gargoyle lunged, trying to catch Snips – but the mantis was too fast, buzzing out a high window.
In that moment everyone but Greenmoon and Booker was surprised. Greenmoon smiled faintly, and obligingly looked away.
Booker seized a pinch of the sky-azure and cast it into the flame.
"You fuck!" Gargoyle screamed, turning. He was obviously the smart one of the bunch, despite his appearance. He had instantly realized that this was some trick of Booker's.
But it was too late.
When he turned his eyes widened.
Booker stood with his hand in the flame, and the flame was bright blue.
"No…" Gargoyle said, the words tumbling out of his mouth with barely enough force to be heard. His eyes were bugging out of his skull.
But the others all saw the same thing – a blue flame.
"Blue?" Little Greenmoon asked, confused.
"A common reaction. It means our Rain has been meddling with body strengthening pills – not surprising, that a cripple would want to pursue the last route to power left to him." Greenmoon answered, clicking his tongue. "And all this fuss for nothing, well…"
His gaze fell on Gargoyle. The boy gulped audibly.
"You clearly planted those pills. How else would you just know that they were in his pocket? For that matter, you–" His glare snapped to Little Greenmoon, who dropped into a desperate kowtow without a hint of shame. "Knew exactly what pocket to check."
"I… I confess…" Little Greenmoon gasped out. "Please it was his idea…"
Gargoyle didn't say a word. He just glared at Booker.
"All of you are dismissed." Greenmoon said coldly. "Except for Rain."
One by one, they filed past, their faces dark with defeat.
As the door swung shut, Booker looked Greenmoon in the eye. The instructor simply began to clap. His gloved hands came together three times, and a viciously amused smile lit up his face, his solemn expression slowly transforming into the face of a grinning devil. "Well played…" He hissed.
Booker couldn't help himself. He snorted with laughter, and said, "Thank you for making it interesting."
So this is Greenmoon's true face. The joy he feels when he sees a scam come together… the amusement at other's suffering… he's a born manipulator.
And we think a lot alike.
"Think nothing of it." Greenmoon flicked a hand dismissively. "My poor apprentice overstepped himself trying to set you up. Lucid Flower Dreamer pills can do many things – I don't doubt you've meddled with them. But they can't replace talent. Talent lives in the mind last, after the heart, and the hands. Even if you lost your memory for obscure ingredients, you would still be a prize…"
But of course, you didn't stop the test.
Booker shook his head. "You don't need to worry about that. I dabbled to pass my exams but everything you saw today was my own."
"Indeed?" Greenmoon stroked his beard. "Most impressive."
"How did you see through me?" Booker asked directly. Now that the game was over, he finally felt he could speak honestly. Greenmoon had defeated his first deception, and joined him in the second. There was respect in his voice.
"Ha. Your master…" Greenmoon paused and corrected, "Your old master, was once a rival of mine. My, we butted heads so many times, and burned so many bridges… I would have thought he'd never again approach me in good faith. But to my surprise, he came to me and praised you in the strongest terms. Your master gave the game away before it started, child. He described you as a natural prodigy. So when you bumbled a simple assignment…"
"Alas, my reputation preceded me." Booker finished, grimacing.
"And you've lived up to it... You are talented, yes, and unruly, disobedient, and overconfident. Your old master said it was exactly so, and I never doubted him." Greenmoon said. "But he also told me of your wish to become a cultivator, and you repeated that wish to me. Surely you understand I am the best route to that goal… So why the resistance to becoming my apprentice?"
"Truthfully? I've seen how you treat them."
To his surprise, Greenmoon barked out a laugh. "Oh I see…" He purred with great amusement. "You've made a fundamental error."
He held up a finger, and said simply. "I treat those dolts like trash because they are trash. Talented, at best, but nothing truly special. I could replace them in a heartbeat, and they know that. The truth is, Rain, an Instructor is a difficult position. An Instructor is judged by the quality of students they produce – and thus hostage to the whims of fate. A single good student can ensure many years of comfort for me, IF they are a true prodigy. Am I cruel? Yes. I demand excellence, because excellence is demanded from me. The cruelty comes from above – and if I shelter a student overmuch, all I do is prepare them to fail when they leave the nest."
As he spoke he paced around the room, casually waving his hand. A wind billowed forth from his sleeve and gathered up the precious dusts, herbs, and pills scattered across the floor, lifting them back onto the shelves.
It wasn't just the casual gesture it looked like. The degree of control, of precision, was a show of absolute power in cultivation.
"So you see… The rules themselves are the cruelty in this Sect, for they only care about your performance, not your excuses. But if you are truly talented, if you are the prodigy your master claims… Then the same Sect that presents a cruel face will rush to nourish you, to drive you towards your potential. If you are a true prodigy… the rules need not apply to you as they do to the chaff…"
With each word Booker felt his resolve wavering.
Greenmoon was a manipulator, but he was speaking sense. The whole Sect relied on bringing up one generation of talent after another. The cruelty that cripples and untalented apprentices faced had another face – the generosity and comfort it gave to true talents.
And Booker was a true talent, thanks to the book. So far he'd skated by underlooked, but his strength was coming to the forefront. Already he was known as the strongest among the cripples….
What was he going to do?
Refuse the Sect when it asked him to step forward and be rewarded?
Refuse because the generosity showed to him was one side of the same coin that oppressed and brutalized the cripples?
He wanted to.
Booker had a soul that was full of fiery notions about justice and rightness. He had a hero complex, and he knew it, a part of him that would never be happy unless he was suffering for his own sense of righteousness. A part that wanted to spit in Greenmoon's face and die laughing at the outraged expression he made.
But this was the real world.
So far, he could only say he'd made things more complicated for himself by chasing high-minded ideals. It was hard to point to a single definite moment when he'd made the world better for anyone. In short…
I'm a fool and I know I'm a fool. Greenmoon will still be cruel to his underlings if I walk away… nothing will change for them because I turn him down… But if I stay, if I play his game, I'll be in a better position than ever before. I'll have the Sevenflame Paintbrush Flower and a powerful patron…
If he wanted to force my hand – if he was lying, and just wanted to acquire me – it would be simple. He truly wants my cooperation to go this far…
Greenmoon's hand settled on his shoulder. "You truly enjoy alchemy, don't you." The old man said.
Booker was so surprised by the question he simply said, "Yes."
"Of course you do. I saw the look of concentration on your face when you were trying to spoil the work – and I saw how different your face was, how clear of worry and concern, when you were doing things the right way." He sighed. "I do too. I truly enjoy myself when I'm alone, working hard, sweat making the knife's grip smooth in my hand. So does your former master. Perhaps in this Sect, we are the only three. The others… Your fellow apprentices… work in a constant state of worry, fearing their performance will ruin them or hoping it will launch them to new heights. They care only for how they will be judged and nothing for the work itself… That's why me and your master were such fiery rivals once. Both wanted, not just to win, but to own alchemy for ourselves. To be the one who loved the art and was born to its mastery…"
"Who won?" Booker asked. He felt the trap closing around him, but the lure was so sweet…
And in truth…
Even if he took everything with a grain of salt, or even a heavy pinch, there was still reality lurking beneath. Greenmoon wasn't a monster – he was just a cultivator.
This was what he'd wanted.
This was what he'd told his master.
And his master had gone straight to Greenmoon.
That has to be worth something.
"In truth? Victory will be decided by the next generation." Greenmoon smiled and stepped away, turning his back on Booker. "I give you until tomorrow to decide."
Chapter 20: A Falling Knife
Booker left Greenmoon's alchemy lab with his head buzzing like a nest of hornets, different ideas conflicting and clashing until all he could do was scrunch his eyes shut and try to shake them off, clearing his mind to see forward; First I'll finish my own studies into refinement methods. Greenmoon can't adopt me as a new apprentice until my old master agrees, and Master Ping is off on a visit to the countryside for the next week…
That means I've been blessed with free time. Best to make use of it.
He was on his way to the library when he caught a strange look from a crippled servant sweeping the courtyards. She glanced at him, and her eyes were oddly intense as she made careful eye contact, then nodded in the direction behind him before quickly turning back to her work.
As he turned around, his eyes swept once over the scene, not lingering for long enough that anyone could tell he was trying to catch something in particular. There was nobody here in the square – but around the edges, where the rooftops were supported by wooden pillars, he saw a shadow sink back behind one of the beams.
Gargoyle. Or one of the other apprentices.
I suppose I can only blame my determination to leave a bad impression, but…
He walked away, down the corridors, resisting the urge to glance behind as he passed groups of chattering disciples and counted himself lucky they were there. In a straightforward environment, it wasn't just that he couldn't hope to fight a cultivator, but they could outrun him too, meaning his only hope of escape was to complicate the situation.
Lure them into revealing themselves while I'm on friendly ground, then try to evade long enough that someone shuts the fight down…
I need to get to the library.
Booker was under no illusions that anybody would step in just to save a cripple from a beating – but if he could get to the library, there was a good chance the librarians would shut down any disruption. The books there were worth a good deal more than his hide.
If I can give them the slip now, I can ask Xan to deal with them later…
Or better yet, pay off another disciple, so I don't have to lean on my friends too much. I don't want them thinking I only keep them around to make use of them.
Lowering his head, he turned left towards the library –
And saw an empty corridor.
Shit.
With the corner of the intersecting hallways between him and his shadow, Booker began to run full tilt, rushing for the safety of the library at the end. Running was a desperate move, but the blind start he was getting would at least let him open up some distance.
He glanced back halfway down the hall.
Gargoyle had turned the corner and broken into a run of his own, full tilt, body diagonal to the ground as his arms swung and his feet hammered into the ground. And he was gaining fast. His eyes were pitch black, and that same darkness had extended through varicose veins stretching across his face.
Oh fuck. That's a berserking pill.
He really means to kill me.
He snapped his head around, looking towards the library doors. They were too far ahead of him – there was no chance of safety there.
Time to improvise.
He turned a hard right, skidding on the balls of his feet and scrambling not to fall as he changed directions. The moment he was out of sight, he spun around, drawing a grenade loaded with blinding powder from his bag. A single wisp of flame from furnace lit the fuse.
Gargoyle came running around the corner–
And his eyes went wide as Booker flung the grenade at his face.
He swatted it out of the air, letting out a sound somewhere between a scream and a howl of rage. It went off in his hand, blowing fingers into bloody chunks and spraying blinding powder in all directions, so that even Booker felt the air turn suddenly acidic as he lifted a hand to block his face and ran on, leaving Gargoyle to scream incoherently.
He dodged past doors that were swinging open, faces that were staring out searching for the explosive noise that had overtaken the usually-quiet Sect. He had no time to stop and no hope they'd stop Gargoyle for him. Instead, Booker sped down the steps of the Sect's gate, turning back to see Gargoyle gaining on him with murder in his one good remaining eye.
Booker shot down the steps, vaulted over a wagon parked at the entrance, and down into the busy streets beyond, shoving and elbowing people aside as they shouted outrage. A moment later Gargoyle hit them, and his sheer bulk and rage-fueled cultivation sent them tumbling like ragdolls as he bowled the crowd aside, cutting like a knife through the bulk of the masses.
Booker dodged another corner, counting on Gargoyle to be cautious of another ambush. He sped into an alley, vaulted a wall, and dashed through a backyard full of henhouses, feathers flying and squawks filling the air as chickens scattered underfoot.
Gargoyle crashed straight through the first fence as Booker was vaulting up over the second fence on the far side of the yard.
Not going to work. He's too strong for obstacles to matter…
Gritting his teeth, Booker made a split-second decision. Instead of continuing over the fence, he got his foot on top and pushed off, leaping onto the roof of the house. Soft, matted thatch fibers began to sag and collapse the moment his weight pressed down upon them, but his momentum allowed him to run across the collapsing roof and fling himself onto the next house – one with a tile roof, by the grace of the gods.
Tiles slid and skidded under him, sending him tumbling towards the edge of the rooftop, but he jammed his foot into a gutter and brought himself to a halt.
Behind him, Gargoyle was climbing onto the first building, laboriously pulling his weight up. The straw had collapsed, but in doing so it had revealed timber beams below. Balancing on one, Gargoyle began to walk forward.
Booker flung a roofing tile at his head. The disciple swatted it out of the air, the tile shattering into red dust and fragments of clay against his hand. Booker threw another, not really expecting him to lose his balance now, but hoping to slow him down enough for Booker to catch his breath.
This time, Gargoyle reached too far when he swung, and unbalanced. One foot slipped off the beam and his weight was suddenly in freefall, only a sudden grab for the rafter catching him and leaving him clinging to the beam by his one good hand. The timber groaned under his weight.
I hope the whole house falls on you.
Booker turned and ran, diving off the tile rooftop into the alleys below, splashing through cold puddles and knee-deep mist as he wove at random through blind corners and narrowing alleyways.
He could hear Gargoyle scream and heard the crashing of footsteps.
But it was over. It was already over.
Finding a crossing where two alleys ran together, Booker had stomped his foot down in the mud puddle leading one direction, leaving a big obvious footprint, then doubled back. He slipped into a dark corner where one house stuck out enough to create a small wall to hide behind. Pushing himself flat, he forced himself to breathe slowly despite the aching lack of oxygen in his lungs, trying not give himself away by sound…
One moment passed by, then another. Gargoyle lurched into view at the end of the alley and Booker pressed himself deeper into cover – the disciple was gripping his ruined hand, and huge quantities of blood were dripping out onto the ground behind him. His breath was a ragged, sawing noise as he lurched about in confusion, staring down a cross-section where Booker could have gone any damn way.
He saw the footprint and snorted, taking off towards the river.
Booker slid out of cover and followed, creeping along behind. The clock was ticking and his time to strike was approaching…
Because the berserking pill was wearing off.
Every pill that brought short-term strength had side effects. Most of them – especially the ones made of cheap ingredients – could be nearly lethal when they first wore off, reducing the user to a state where they could barely stand.
The pill was a sign of what Gargoyle had been planning. You didn't take a pill like that to beat up a cripple. You took one to build up a head of fury and blind anger, so you could drive yourself into a frenzy and do the unthinkable.
He'd been preparing to kill.
Booker's hand closed around the familiar, finger-grooved handle of his knife, drawing the reassuring weight into his hand. He wasn't a killer, but…
This bastard's gone too far. I can't let him have as many tries to kill me as he wants.
I have to stop him.
His heart was beating hard, the cold intent of what he was planning making his blood race so hard his veins felt solid. His hand was clenching until the knuckles turned white around the knife's polished grip.
Ahead, Gargoyle had realized there was no hope of finding him now. Not realizing how close Booker really was, he slowed, bending to lean heavily against the walls. At the end of the alley, at the bottom of a narrow stairway, the river was lapping at its concrete bounds.
Booker froze at the sudden sound as Gargoyle puked, letting out a stream of splattering yellow bile and sinking even as his hand gripped at the bricks of the wall.
He's got to be near helpless now.
With a final scowl, gritting his teeth for what needed to be done, Booker walked forward, measuring his steps by the heartbeat as he advanced on Gargoyle's turned back.
As he came within arm's reach, Gargoyle turned and looked up, catching Booker's eyes in his own – his pupils were ragged, tendrils of black extending across the brown and white of his eyes.
Booker lunged forward, pushed him back against the wall, and drove his knife into the dantian.
Gargoyle let out a small, disbelieving gasp as the knife slid in. Then he choked, blood bubbling over his bottom lip in frothy pink bubbles as his mouth hung open. A moment later, that blood was splattered across Booker's face by a cough.
Booker's face in that moment was horrific. His lips were drawn back, teeth bared like an animal. He ripped the blade free and stepped back quickly, dodging back from Gargoyle's hand as the brute tried to clutch him, not to hurt him but just to stand.
Gargoyle toppled forward onto the floor of the alley. A red mass washed out of his mouth as he puked again, blood and bile in equal measure.
"It won't kill you." Booker said, although his voice was shaking. He tried to remind himself of what would have happened if Gargoyle had gotten his hands around Booker's throat. How little mercy would have been shown to him. "A gut wound takes hours to bleed someone out."
"But…" Booker reached up and wiped the blood-spittle from his face. "You won't cultivate again."
A blow to the dantian was the living death of a cultivator. He had made Gargoyle helpless – he had made him a cripple.
The boy looked up, pushing himself off the ground as blood wept from his gut. It had gotten all over his legs and hands in a matter of seconds, plastering his robes down under heavy, wet red. His eyes were full of horror, disbelief, hatred.
Then his teeth came together, red as sunset, and he screamed as rage burnt the rest away.
He lunged for Booker – and Booker brought up the knife.
Without even meaning to, he pierced up through the soft bottom of Gargoyle's jaw, behind the chin, up through his tongue, up into his skull.
And the boy's weight fell against him in a dead slump, dragging blood across his robes.
For a minute…
Maybe two…
Booker stood there, heart beating fast, the forceful pulse pounding through his blood making his veins feel cold and unmoving. Did he mean to do that? Was it an accident? Did it matter? He could no longer recall what, if anything, he thought in the moment he struck.
Then pragmatism took over. Grabbing the corpse by the scruff of the robes, Booker dragged it down to the river and flung it into the water. After a moment more, looking at the bloodstained knife in his hand, he threw that away as well.
Well, now I'm a cultivator. Like it or not.
— — —
Booker was only vaguely aware of the walk that took him to his rented apartment in the city. The streets were bustling as ever, and he'd concealed his bloodstained robes underneath the rag cloak he'd been planning to use in his appearance as the masked doctor. By the time he made his way to the safety of the apartment, he had numbed to the risk of being caught, dripping in blood and guilty of killing another disciple. The further he walked, the less he felt, as if his conscience was still standing frozen in that alley behind him.
Guilt had faded quickly. Too quickly. Now a kind of second-hand fear, that it had been too easy, was mingling with the fear of discovery.
In truth, it was Gargoyle's own fault he was dead. But the Sect had a policy of punishing the survivor when their disciples came to blows and one was murdered. Self-defense or not, he should have been able to end things with a crippling at the worst.
As he made his way inside, Snips buzzed down onto his shoulder, But Booker could only greet the enthusiastic little bug with a numb hand reaching up to scratch the top of Snips' head. Froggy was outside, basking in the cooling embers of yesterday's fire.
"Alright…"
Booker sat down heavily, kneeling in the grass of the yard behind the apartment. His breathing was shaky for a moment, but he forced it into a slow, consistent rhythm.
"I still need to help Wild Swan. I can't just… stop everything…"
But he hadn't succeeded in getting a book on pottery from the library and copying its contents into his head. He was no more advanced in his knowledge of clay than he'd been yesterday, when his jar had failed to hold up under the kiln's heat.
"I have two more days…"
And with his master gone, and Greenmoon waiting to officially make him an apprentice, he had no reason to return to the Sect to sleep. He could simply practice the refinement technique, sleep on the ground, and practice again. The idea of burying himself in work felt almost therapeutic at that moment.
But he needed somewhere to start.
Focusing on the book inside his mind, Booker remembered he'd earned a 1-Hour Practice Token, which had manifested as a green silk bookmark.
It was time to cash it in.
As he focused on the bookmark, and thoughts of pottery, the pages began to flip. Faster and faster they rushed past, until they formed a golden blur that began to spread into Booker's vision, clouding his view of the world with golden sparks.
He blinked, and when he opened his eyes…
He was somewhere else.
— — —
Booker stood in the shadow of a distant mountain with a bucket of clay in his hands, watching an old man dig at the riverside for more rich, red-colored clay. He was in an unfamiliar body, one a few years younger than Rain but almost as physically imposing.
Still… He looked like a child compared to the old man digging in the river. That old man might have been withered, almost skeletal, his skin drawn tight like a wrinkled yellow canvas over his bones, but the underlying structure of his skeleton and frame was enormous, easily eight feet tall when he straightened up from hunching over the riverbed. His head was bald and liver-spotted but an immense tablet of curly gray beard hung from his chin.
Booker realized he knew this old creature. Or rather, the body he was in knew, and he was slowly gaining the memories of his host – the man's name was Master Long.
Is dropping into other people's bodies going to become a habit?
Master Long rose from the river, hands dripping with chunks of red-gray clay, and dropped a massive handscoop of mud into the bucket Booker was holding. For a moment their eyes met and Booker had to resist the urge to step back abruptly.
The man's martial intent was beyond bone-chilling. It was a force of pure winter, and it passed through him like a wall of cold making his muscles tighten so hard in his shoulders that his bones ached.
Master Long's terrifying aura was famous in the small village nearby. It was so ferocious that Booker's host had spent seven days in front of Master Long's cottage, trying to acclimate himself to the horrifying weight of its presence, before he could dare ask to be made an apprentice potter.
Master Long had actually run out of patience first – kicking the door open and shouting, "Do you want to learn something or are you just going to sit in my yard like a clod of dirt?"
Booker's host was named Lin Han, but from that day his master had always called him Clod.
"Alright." Master Long said. "Today, you finally learn how to handle the potter's wheel."
Booker could think of no more appropriate response than to bow his head gratefully, but Master Long just snorted. "Don't expect to make anything worth spitting in, on your first try. We'll be lucky if you can make a ball."
Together, they made their way up the hillside, to the master's cottage and the small barn by the side where the pottery wheel was kept. Booker sat down in the stool beside the wheel, placing his foot on the heavy stone disk below. The weight and proportions of the machine was such that once a few pushes from his foot got the lower wheel to spin, the higher wheel where the clay was placed would spin much more rapidly, and the momentum stored in the stone wheel's mass would keep the speed steady.
"What would you like to make?" The master asked him, hefting the clay onto the wheel and sprinkling water across it. He spun the wheel once, and formed the clay easily into a round dome with a simple movement of his hands.
"A jar." Booker said.
"Alright. The first lesson is this." Taking a long wooden cane from the wall, Master Long struck the ground, a solid cracking sound. "When you hear the stick, push the wheel with your foot. Keep a steady pace and you'll have no trouble."
At the fall of the cane, Booker pushed at the wheel and set it spinning. As Master Long kept a steady beat he kept kicking the lower wheel until the upper wheel was spinning fast, the block of clay on its pedestal rotating like a wet blur of red.
"Alright! Now, press your thumb into the middle. Slowly pinch out, squeezing the walls thinner and thinner…"
Once again, Booker followed instructions, pressing his thumb down into the sopping wet clay and feeling the rapid spinning of the wheel bend it around his hand, the clay pushing outwards from his grip, moving to wherever his hands were not. The rotation of the wheel meant that, as long as his movements were slow and steady, the shaping would be uniform across the whole of the vessel.
"Now, take the outside and push your fingers down into the bottom, try to cup the clay upwards, guiding the walls higher and taller…"
Booker tried. But this time, the work was too delicate for his untrained hands. As he tried to scoop the clay upwards it distorted, toppling inwards. The wheel spun on as his work folded into nothing. But all Booker could do was let out a laugh – he truly enjoyed the feeling of the water-smoothed clay warping under his hands, the gentle pressure that bent the spinning surface to his touch.
"What's funny about a broken pot, hmm?" The master asked. All the while the beat of his cane against the floor had never stopped.
Booker shook his hand. "Sorry sir."
"Try again. Pinch from the top to make the walls thin, lift from the bottom to round it."
Again, Booker tried, and gain the clay spun away from him. But he had a particular kind of focus, one that enabled him to soak up his own mistakes and learn from the easily, trying again. The third attempt was no different, but every moment he spent solely focused on the task at hand was another moment he didn't have to think of Gargoyle's face as the boy died. The sheer weight of what he was trying not to think of lent him an almost supernaturally narrow field of focus.
"You're treating it like a dead thing. Feel the life inside the clay."
Booker paused, and cleared his mind, picking the clay from underneath his fingernails. He knew what the old master meant. There was a sense of… of life to the clay, and the more he worked it under his hands, the more strongly he felt it wanted to be a certain way. A vision was forming inside his head, a shape the clay wanted to take.
On the fourth try, his walls held, and the round bottomed pot truly began to form under his hands, like a work of magic. Soon he was able to create the shape he'd envisioned, narrow at the bottom and wider just below the top, then narrowing again to form a small entrance. It wasn't much of a pot – only enough to hold a handful – but he felt a sense of triumph.
"Is that what you wanted?" The master asked.
"Yes." Booker sighed out, grinning to himself. The act had come easily, he was maybe talented at this, and he'd never realized how enjoyable it was. It was almost enough to push the looming thoughts from his mind.
"Seems an awfully small thing to come all this way for." The master grunted.
Booker looked up sharply, and met those piercing gray eyes, cloudy with cataracts but still fierce as a timber wolf's gaze.
"Yes, you're not fooling me. I know a karmic incarnation when I see one."
"Apologies for borrowing your apprentice." Booker said quickly. "But I actually don't know what a karmic incarnation is. I just…"
"Arrived here?" Master Long raised an eyebrow, taking out a clay pipe. Lin Han knew the pipe well. Like all of Master Long's pipes, it was made in the morning, fired in the noontime, and ready to smoke by evening. It wa sa work of art, shaped like a boar's head with a snorting nose that vented smoke, curling tusks, and individual brushstrokes of fur etched into the red clay. As the old man lit his pipe and puffed out a ring of smoke, he said…
"A karmic incarnation is a return to a past life. You, Clod, are my apprentice, although you've long since died and forgotten everything that happened between us. You return now to act out a day in your own life and reclaim old knowledge. As far as cultivating tricks go, karmic incarnation is a supreme power only mastered by the great sages – or lucky bastards."
"I suppose I can only count myself lucky." Booker admitted. "So… This isn't someone else's body? This is…" He looked down at his clay-stained fingers. No wonder it felt so natural. "Me."
"That's right." Master Long agreed. "Far easier than casting yourself into someone else's body, which is a whole 'nother kind of miracle, and a half-heretical one at that."
Booker suppressed as wince – did the old man know that too? He was lucky he'd landed in the humble mountain Sect and not under the gaze of someone this sharp, or else he would've been revealed as a reincarnator before he could have even gotten his feet under him.
"Master Long, I…" Booker paused. "Do I have the right to call you that?"
"Mmm, well… Let's say you've earned the right with one lifetime of apprenticeship. If you need my advice or my counsel, let's hear it."
"I killed someone." Booker admitted. It felt so alien, hearing those words in his own voice. 'Clod' and 'Booker' truly did resemble each other.
"Did they deserve it?" Master Long asked.
"Yes. But that's not why it bothers it me… It has nothing to do with them at all." Booker frowned. "It's just… I'd been struggling with my morals, deciding which way to turn, holding myself accountable for my actions."
"And all that went out the window, didn't it? Just as soon as your life was in danger, you fought like a beast." Master Long chuckled, shaking his head. "So it always is. An animal will chew its own leg off to escape a trap. But a man is more cunning, and will take someone else's leg instead. A man who is backed into a corner discovers in that moment how precious life is… But many times, he's too late, and his fate is already sealed by the time he realizes how desperate he is to survive. Be lucky you didn't realize your love of life too late to preserve yourself, and be glad your hands acted as they did."
"Is… Is that all? We're just animals?"
"Animals who can shape the future. Animals who can make choices that lead away from violence and towards prosperity. We're only animals for maybe ten or twenty seconds in our whole lives, if that, the few seconds where we're pushed to the brink. If you let that define you, then yes. But remember this. The state of the world is conflict, conflict ever-lasting. It's no shame for your heart to be the same. Forever full of questions, forever doubting itself, trying to find its way through the maze of the world towards something good. It's when you stop worrying, when you feel certain of yourself and surrounded by a righteousness nothing can pierce, that you'll be in trouble. A heart without debate within itself is a dead and hollow thing." The master drank deeply from the stem of his pipe, the tobacco flaring in the bowl as smoke drooled from the boar's nostrils.
Booker sighed and looked up.
For a moment he gazed at the mountainside, the rising pillar of red earth dotted with forests and icy glaciers. Slowly something began to itch at the back of his mind, and he bent his head slightly, trying to see what subconsciously he'd already realized.
The image slowly clicked together.
The whole of the mountain was a single, enormous golem, a man made entirely from red clay.
He looked back down, new respect in his eyes. "Thank you. One more thing, if you don't mind…"
His hour was up. The vision was beginning to fade.
"What am I like, in this life? Do I do good?"
Master Long just snorted, venting smoke from his nostrils like the clay boar. "Ha. You're the same fool in every life, I reckon. But you have a better heart than most."
Everything went white, like an empty page.
Chapter 21: Valley Tiger
When Booker returned to the 'real' world, his present-day life, not a single blade of grass had moved in the hour he'd been away. It made sense to him, anyway – if the vision was a return to something that happened in the past it wouldn't take any time in the here and now.
The only difference was that a strange mist seemed to have gathered around his body, fleeing away the first time he exhaled.
Straightening up, Booker went to wash himself in the well, splashing water over his bloodstained hands and wringing out his clothes. It was messy work. The first time he touched the faintly-sticky sheen of red on his robes, he almost gagged, revulsion and anger and shame boiling up all at once.
Gritting his teeth he forced them down. It wouldn't do anyone – not him, not Wild Swan, not even Gargoyle himself – any good to get squeamish now.
The time for that was before you stuck a knife in him. He thought bitterly, and then sighed, pushing away the bitterness too.
His outer robes were beyond saving, so he stripped out of them.
He rinsed water in his mouth and spat…
Gargoyle… Hu Bao… Might have had a family. For all I know, they were relying on him. I should find out at the very least and try to make sure they don't end up destitute.
Wiping his face with a wet rag, he sighed.
As for the body– Well, throwing it in the river was nearly pointless. It's probably been found by now. I was witnessed running from him right before it happened…
I should expect a visit from the enforcers, and plan on surviving a whipping.
Planning was good. It made him feel normal, in control…
An animal reacts. A person plans. If a person becomes an animal, they've already failed.
I have to go back to being a person.
Leaving his apartment, Booker went to the potter who'd made his oven, a man who lived just down the street. He paid twenty liang to buy the man's wheel. It was a steep price, but Booker was in a hurry and didn't want to wait a week. The two of them together rolled the heavy stone pushwheel down the street, and assembled it in his backyard.
"You seem quite taken with clay-work." The potter said, lightning a pipe as he sat down heavily, sweat dripping from his face.
Booker nodded. "I'm finding I enjoy it."
"Well, if you ever need any advice…" The man grinned, and Booker passed him an extra silver for the work of getting the wheel here.
"I'll be sure to come to you." He agreed.
As soon as the man had left, Booker slapped a piece of clay onto the wheel. Closing his eyes, he tried to remember the rhythm of the cane striking the ground, and pushed with his feet to set the wheel spinning. It was almost hypnotic how the red material flowed away from his hands, moving out from wherever he pushed in. With his eyes lidded low and his mind swept clean, it was easy to sense how the 'life' inside the clay wanted to be shaped.
Soon, he had shaped his first little pot. Then a second and a third, all washed in the special glaze solution he'd made the previous day. By the time a few hours had passed, he'd ruined three attempts and succeeded at eight, filling his kiln to the brim with clayware ready to be fired. Froggy croaked sleepily as Booker loaded fresh firewood into his bed, and Booker said, "Alright, light 'em up."
The fire flared as Froggy let out a booming warcry, the sack on his throat inflating before golden fire vented from the open craters on is back. The firewood was instantly alight, the tinder curling into ash as the flame licked up the dried oak timber.
Booker sighed in satisfaction. He felt sure at least a few of the pots would survive, if not all of them.
By the end of the night he'd be ready to try his first refinement.
— — —
Booker made his way to the renegade hospital where he'd worked before. Volunteering there wasn't any good for his relations with the Sect, but at this point, Booker needed to keep himself busy and he needed to feel like he was helping.
The hospital was nothing more than an old house that had been converted to serve the needs of the sick; the waiting room was a foyer, awkwardly stuffed with dozens of people sitting in chairs and on the floor, trying to keep as far away from the diseased and possibly-infectious among them as they could. Booker caught the doctor's eye as the man stepped out of his operating chamber, blood splashed across his tidy white apron.
"Hmm, I didn't expect to see you again." The doctor said, pushing his spectacles up his nose with the back of his hand to avoid getting bloodstained fingerprints on the lenses.
"I didn't expect to see you either." Booker admitted. "But… I've got a debt to pay, I suppose."
"Ahhh, absolution. Well I'm not a priest but I have patients in need, bedpans that have to be changed, work that needs to be done. If you want punishment…" He gestured to the… everything here, really.
Booker looked up for a moment, a thought penetrating through his own personal haze of reflection. What did he do? If this place is a punishment, what crime did the doctor commit?
But what he said was, "I'll get started."
"Oh, and those three friends of yours? They've left messages here for you."
"Multiple messages?" Booker paused. He hadn't given the trio an address to reach him at because he didn't want them traced back to him if they opened their mouths. His plan was to reach out when it was convenient – but they apparently had other concerns.
"Yes, they seemed quite convinced it was urgent."
Booker shook his head, "It's not really. I'll… deal with that after."
Then he rolled up his sleeves, and got down to work.
The hospital really was in need – there was barely any medicine left, and endless patients who couldn't seek the Sect's healing or refused to do so on principle. The latter, Booker waved away unless it was truly desperate. There was too little to go around for him to be wasting time on saving people's pride. His attention was on the ones who, for whatever reason, would be refused by the Sect; heretics and outlaws mostly, but people nonetheless. He bandaged a stab wound for a rough-cut man who Booker suspected had been the sole survivor of the fight, treated a nasty chemical burn that must have come from renegade alchemy, and helped the doctor perform blood-soaked surgery on a man who'd been badly wounded when a ship's keel fell out of its cradle in the shipyard, crushing the veins in his leg and leaving the trapped blood to curdle into poison.
He worked tirelessly, moving fast to keep ahead of his own thoughts, changing the beds for the hospital's immobilized patients and rolling them over to prevent bed-sores from forming. That was another aspect of the renegade hospital. The Sect might offer emergency medicine, but it had no interest in treating long-term illnesses or simple old age, and directly sent those cases to the hospital to fill a bed until they died. Taking care of them was the most thankless work of all, and they had to be handled delicately, with their paper-thin skin and stick-like bones.
I could just keep doing this… Leave the Sect and work here…
I could survive that way, at least, using the book to make better medicines and earn a little money to keep things running.
The thought came to Booker as he heated a cauldron of chicken broth to feed to the invalids. And no matter how long he paused and thought it over, the more it seemed like the right thing to do. He had his ambitions, sure, but they'd already nearly killed him, and led him to a position where killing became nearly inevitable.
On the other hand the hospital asked nothing from him but a willingness to work and get his hands dirty.
But...
I can't just go back to drifting through life.
I remember...
I remember what it was like to be Rain, and have a dream.
Those memories and ambitions are part of me now.
As he meditated on the question, stirring the soup pot over the fire, there was a commotion from the foyer. The sound of the door crashing open echoed into the upstairs kitchen, and Booker headed down to see what the racket was.
To his surprise, the source was two of the three troublemakers he'd teamed up with to scam Wild Swan. Daoist Inchworm and Daoist Egg rushed up to him the moment they saw him, bowing their heads and grabbing for his hands as they sank to their knees.
"Brother Rain! The authorities have seized Brother Roaring Lion! He's going to be-- the guard said-- the guard said someone was killed!"
Booker froze.
"The guards have Brother Roaring Lion?"
Brother Egg shook his head vigorously. "Just one guard! He said we have to fetch you or Roaring Lion is a dead man!"
Booker frowned. "How did they connect us? You were supposed to keep quiet about our arrangement."
"Ah... we... we maybe talked a little bit about our fortunes..." Brother Inchworm admitted.
"Goddamn it. And you expect me to solve your mistakes?" Booker sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. And damn me, I will. I'll do it because nobody else is going to save him, and I have too much on my conscience already.
"Alright." Booker said. "Who is this guard?"
"Valley Tiger."
Oh. Booker realized. Of course. They've sent Rain's uncle after me.
"GET OUT HERE!" The voice of Rain's uncle echoed through the building, and Booker felt an aura expand across the hospital, a tremendous weight pushing down on every living soul. It wasn't as powerful as the aura Master Long had exuded – it lacked the bone-chilling force – but it was ferocious and bloodthirsty, bringing a cold restriction to his muscles like frozen needles were stabbing into his flesh. "YOU WORTHLESS SHIT!"
"Ahhh…" Brother Inchworm quivered, falling to the ground. All around him, the hospital's patients were clutching their heads and cringing into the fetal position. Brother Egg's face was pressed flat to the wooden floorboards. "He followed us here!"
Booker felt the urge to collapse, felt his legs begin to shake, felt fear spike through his heart like he was staring into the eyes of a feral tiger hungry for a meal.
But…
He focused on his breathing, and reversed the technique Fen had taught him. He'd never tried this before, but restraining his aura had become a second nature. Now, he pushed it outwards, letting it flare from the center of his breathing. Warmth spread back through his limbs, and he took a step forward. Then another, fighting the dead, numb weight of his own legs and moving unsteadily.
As he stepped out the door, his uncle was waiting for him.
Valley Tiger was an enormous man, broad in the shoulders and thickly muscular, with a constant sheen of sweat to his bulbous muscles. His hair was bound back into a loose bun, and his beard was a shaggy line of black across his squared jaw. His face was so square it could have been used as a jailhouse brick. He wore the gold and blue robes of a guard captain, tied with a belt of golden coins.
"Good. You can still walk– what are you doing in a heretical place like this, you idiot? Do you not even care about the Sect anymore– have you finally given up on embarrassing us in the Sect?" His teeth were gritted. His left hand had a fistful of Brother Roaring Lion's hair, and the man hung limply from his clenched fist.
"I assume you're here about Hu Bao." Booker responded coldly. Rain's memories of his uncle…
The man had seen fit to take Rain under his wing, teaching him the cultivation arts, after Rain's father had died. But he was a poor instructor, and vicious with anything he saw as weakness. He'd more or less made Rain's life hell until he'd decided the boy wasn't worth bothering with – and ever since then, he'd tried to bully and pressure Rain out of the amulet, his birthright and last token of his father.
There was one key to interacting with him – never back down. Once he saw weakness, the argument was lost.
"Motherfucker, do you think? Everyone saw you running from that boy, and then his body washes up on the banks? What happened – who killed him!?" The look of disgust in the man's eyes was palpable, like he was looking at a worm writhing.
"I did." Booker said, lifting a hand. "I killed him."
"Ridiculous." Tiger didn't even consider it. He just snorted and yanked Roaring Lion up, making the man's neck twist and extend. "Do you want me to execute this idiot? Who are you protecting – give them up now!"
"On what grounds would you execute him?" Booker demanded.
"He's a thief, a liar, and involved with a murder now. I have plenty of reason to just wring his neck in front of you!"
"Let him go." Booker replied, not even acknowledging the weak excuse. "And we can talk."
"Tell me who did the killing, and you can save his life." Tiger said slowly. Roaring Lion was trying to meet his eyes, but Booker kept his gaze locked on Valley Tiger.
"I did." Booker repeated.
"You couldn't–"
"I could and I did!" Booker slammed his open palm onto his chest. "What do you want to know? The sound he made – where I threw the knife, or my bloody clothes?"
"How?" Tiger asked. He was, for once, calm. Booker had survived the storm, although it could still flare up at any moment.
"He took a berserking pill and came after me. Probably he couldn't have worked up the courage to kill without the medicine. When it wore off, I tried to cripple him, but he ended up dead."
Tiger tilted his head, and ran a hand through his beard. It wasn't a story that left anyone with glory, and it was easy to believe. He snorted again.
Slowly, his aura receded. The feeling of pressure faded and collapsed.
"Fine. If you're so keen on being arrested, let's take you to the Sect and see what they say about this whole affair…" He spat out bitterly. "But one thing first – the amulet. Give it to me. It's time that you surrender these dreams of cultivation and face the facts. You're nothing but an embarrassment to this family!"
"Let him go." Booker said slowly. "That was the deal."
Valley Tiger snarled, and threw the unfortunate scam artist to the ground. As Roaring Tiger struggled onto all fours, Valley Tiger drew his sword. It made a horrible rasping sound as it slipped free from the sheathe and swung down – a solid line of silver-edged metal posed at the man's throat, threatening to decapitate him in a single strike.
"Tell me." Tiger insisted.
"A deal is a deal." Booker replied.
"I'll give you to the count–"
"No. You get nothing. If you can't hold to your word, why would I bother wasting mine?" Booker cut him off sharply. In his chest, his heart was pulsing so hard his veins felt rigid and unyielding throughout his body. But…
I can't back down. This isn't about the laws of man. This is about the laws of the jungle – whoever backs down first, loses everything.
For a moment they held each other's gaze. Then Valley Tiger sighed, and kicked Roaring Lion out of his way, lifting his sword to aim at Booker's throat. "Then your head can roll too. I'm sick and tired of your arrogance, cripple."
Roaring Lion struggled to his feet and ran. Neither of them spared him a glance.
He won't kill me. He won't kill me. He won't kill me.Booker knew on some level it was true – Valley Tiger wasn't an animal, he just acted like one to get his way. But with the tip of the blade level to the nape of his neck, not moving or shaking even by the slightest measure, and Valley Tiger's ferocious eyes staring him down, he felt as though he was going to be extinguished by the next turn of the wind. "I am your brother's son."
"My brother would weep to see you–"
Booker felt something shake inside him. It was Rain – the remnant of Rain's soul – weeping in shame. Those words would have destroyed him utterly, broken his foundations.
But what Booker felt was rage.
Rage at a world that had demanded something impossible from the first day of Rain, and judged him a failure, a cripple, for not living up to their damned expectations.
"And where have you been?" Booker lifted his eyes, his jaw setting. "Your brother's son is branded and shamed as a cripple, and where is your voice, where is your pride, if you didn't say a word then? You can shut up about family honor. You want the amulet? I have something I need to finish, and then I'll go with you to the Sect. It will only take a day – two at most. Then whatever justice I've earned, happens."
He let that hang in the air for a moment, and then, Valley Tiger said, "Go on then."
"I sold it."
Valley Tiger's eyes went wide and his face went white with rage. Now the sword did shake, violently, and with a scream Tiger hurled it past Booker's shoulder and into the wall of the hospital, where it stuck quivering in the wood of the door.
"You CRETIN!" He clutched at his face, seething through his fingers. The shade of red he'd turned was almost funny, but his aura was like a punch in the gut, pouring out in dizzying waves of power. "You sit there lecturing ME about family, and you SOLD our INHERITANCE!?"
"I-I'll get it back." Booker gasped out. There was an iron weight pushing him down to the ground, forcing his knees to buckle. His aura was guttering like a candle-flame in the wind.
"YOU'LL DO NO SUCH THING!" Valley Tiger screamed. Booker staggered back and sagged heavily under the sudden wall of pressure, just barely staying on his feet, glaring back defiantly as Valley Tiger lost all control. "YOU'VE DONE ENOUGH!"
But to Booker's surprise, another voice spoke out, calm and collected.
"Suppress your aura at once, Guard Captain Tiger. There are sick people here, ones who will die under the pressure if you keep going much longer. I don't have time for your screaming and ranting, so speak calmly, and tell me what is to be done about all of this."
The doctor had emerged from within the hospital. Sweat dripped from his face as he pushed his way through the field of killing intent. Still, behind the fogged lenses of his glasses, his blue eyes were sharp and stern.
Slowly, still covering his face as if he couldn't bear to look directly at Booker, Valley Tiger drew his aura back in. The waves of killing intent ceased.
"I ought to arrest you for harboring a fugitive." Valley Tiger spat out, but without the killing intent backing his words, they came off as nothing more than bitterness.
"There are many things I ought to have been arrested for, hmm? It would be a shame to bring me in on such a small one." The doctor said, his voice calm and small but carrying. "I believe the agreement was that the boy be allowed to finish something before he is arrested, I will take him into my custody; he will report to you in no more than two days."
Slowly, the atmosphere cooled. The doctor stood unbothered by the raging torrent of killing intent, as if he was a stone unmoving in a fast-flowing river, white water gathering and lashing around him but not moving him a single inch.
"I…" Valley Tiger looked away and sneered. It was a weak motion; even Booker could tell that introspection and shame was creeping into him, revealing his past screaming and threatening as childish. Now he would want to retreat, to get away from his own display of weakness. "I will let you have three days. After that, if you make me come and find you again, I'll cut your damn hands off."
You truly are Rain's blood – for better or for worse. Only you have the strength Rain could never muster for himself. The strength to demand the world treat you like a king.
"Come back inside…" The doctor said, as Valley Tiger turned away and stomped off into the busy streets. The people watching this show hastily turned their faces down and went back to their proper business. "We should talk."
Booker felt… so many things. His heart was a confused torrent of regret, rage, sorrow, confusion. Some of those feeling were his and some were Rain's. The boundary between them had grown thin, and Rain's dark self-hatred bled into Booker's guilt.
He allowed himself to be led back into the hospital, where people were sitting, shaking, clutching their faces. The doctor led him to a small back room with a single cot, a weathered writing desk, and a small stove. "Tea?" He asked.
"No." Booker replied.
"Mmm, must be bad then. Even the dead want tea." The doctor put a kettle on anyway.
"I killed someone, and everyone seems to ask, did they deserve it?" Booker sighed, sitting down on a small, uncomfortable wooden chair. "Does anyone?"
"It's hard to say. While the wheel of reincarnation turns, one could say death means nothing. On the other hand… Death is the end. The end of a life, the end of an attempt to put meaning together from the chaos of the world. If we are to ascribe any meaning to life, we must accept its terrible opposite, the meaning of death." The doctor seemed far away, and Booker closed his eyes.
"I served in the war, you know. The doctor for a legion of… some would call them killers, and they wouldn't have objected. No, they might have laughed. But I think they were something far sadder. They saw their work as the separation of one piece of meat from another, as a work of red flesh, bone, fat, viscera, all coming apart under their swords. They were butchers and they no longer had any sight of the humanity in their victims."
"I don't know. I don't think… I think in the moment I did it, I only saw him as an obstacle. Not a person." Booker admitted slowly.
"And perhaps, for a moment, that was all he was to you. That's the terror of perspective. People will matter only so much to your life – some will be nothing but footnotes. But every one of them has a full life beyond that. Killing is, in so many ways, reducing a person to an object. Turning what was a full human being with a life beyond what you could ever imagine into a stone cold corpse." The doctor reached out – his hands moved in a flash – and he clapped a fly into a black pulp on the inside of his palm. "But we do it anyway, and we're not always wrong for it. After all, sometimes a fucker just needs to die."
Booker snorted, and then shook his head, "No. No he didn't need to die. I just killed him, I think by accident, but…"
"But who cares." The doctor said calmly. "A human being is full of reasons. A corpse has none. Pretending your reasons matter, when all the reasons inside your victim are gone and will never be known, is almost selfish."
"Yeah." Booker clenched his hands together. "Yeah, looking at him dead, limp like that, it was just… There was so much of being a human being that had gone out of him. There was so much missing. It just…"
"It's a power nobody should have, but everyone does. Today, you found that out. You probably never imagined you could kill them – you thought that killing was something remote and distant that belonged to the cold-hearted and cruel." The doctor poured tea into a pair of chipped china cups. "But alas. Good intentions don't stop death. Nothing does. One can either live their life as far away from it as possible, or become numb to its reality."
"Which one is better?" Booker asked, taking the cup of tea and letting it warm his hands.
"I don't know. It was a good war – one of the few good wars – that those men fought in. They fought to defend their homes. They fought for their families. They fought for their lives. But in the end, they weren't left as men, and they didn't remember their homes or their families. I think in many ways they were already dead – and so I learned you can die from killing as easily as you can die from being killed." The doctor settled down, holding his own cup. "If there was a good reason to kill, I think we would have solved the problem of killing by now. Great minds and great hearts have come before you, child, and they have tried to their wits end. I don't think there is a solution. I think killing is wrong not for the ones it leaves dead, but for the ones who are alive. I think killing takes something from you and leaves a hole."
"So…"
Booker sighed, and looked down into the tea. Fragments of loose leaf drifted in the amber waters.
"Is that all? I keep going with a hole in me?"
"No, you also make sure you don't do it again. That's the most important part. The dead are dead, the living are alive. Whoever you left in a grave, they won't complain, but you owe it to yourself and the world to hold your hand back the next time you come to a crossroads. What's done is done – focus on what's next, because that's the only thing you can change." The doctor sat down on the bed, and put his hand on Booker's shoulder. "I'm sorry for what happened to you, and how you chose to respond. I like to think – I've seen how you try to treat people – that you would have done better, if you'd seen a way to do so in that moment."
"I would have… But I didn't…"
"And you can look back on that failure, or you can look ahead. Two people could have died, and you were the one to live. What are you going to do with the rest of your life, Rain?" The doctor smiled gently, as if he'd stood on this precipice himself and wanted only for Booker to see the path out.
"I'm going to help people."
"You do that." The doctor said. "You do that."
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