Mask of the Fallen: A Cultivation/Progression Fantasy Series: (War Priest Book One)

by Harmon Cooper

  You can do this, Arik thought as he hung there for a moment, his legs flailing in the wind.

  Ignoring the tingling sensation in his feet, Arik focused all the strength into his hands and fingertips, finally able to pull himself up onto the ledge.

  “What did I tell you?” Meosa asked as Arik turned around and rested on his back, sucking in deep breaths for a moment.

  By the time he opened his eyes again, he noticed that there were markings on the rock overhead, petroglyphs that he knew were common in the Jade Realm. Of the three realms, the Jade Realm was the only one that used a nonstandard script for their original language, also a feature of their green flag, Arik recognizing it from some of the texts he had pored through back at the Academy. Years ago, well before his time, there’d been Jadean exchange students at the Academy, and they had written notes in some of the margins. Arik had always been fascinated by the markings.

  Meosa’s watery form took shape over the disciple. “I didn’t lead you all the way up here to take a nap.”

  “Right.” Arik sat up and nearly threw himself backwards, which would have sent him straight over the ledge had he not caught himself in time.

  “You should have warned me!” he scolded Meosa, Arik’s nerves firing all at once.

  Seated before him, seemingly in a death meditation, was the skeleton of a dead hermit, his mouth stretched open, a few of his blackened teeth missing.

  “This old guy? Don’t worry, you’re not going to have to strip the robes from his cold dead bones or anything,” Meosa said, not at all bothered by the seated corpse. From what Arik could tell, the hermit had died long ago, but considering the aridness of the region, it could have been much sooner than that.

  Either way, he didn’t want to stick around very long.

  “There are a few other hermitages not far from here, I found them while you were sleeping, but I figured this one was easiest to get to. You can thank me later, and thank me again once we reach Omoto and you’re not parading around the city in bloody robes. Let’s see…” Meosa floated forward, and once Arik didn’t join him, he turned and motioned for the disciple to follow. “Are you coming, or are you hanging with the hermit corpse over here?”

  “I’m coming.”

  Stepping past the dead body had an effect that Arik should have seen coming, the weight of his foot on the ground causing the hermit to tilt forward, his bones collapsing in a way that echoed through the cavern.

  “Not at all creepy,” Meosa said with a shiver, “not at all creepy.”

  “The sooner we get out of here, the better.”

  “Agreed. Luckily…” Meosa turned into a space that acted as a room off the main entrance, motioning toward an open crate on the ground with clothing inside. “Ah, here we are. It may be a little musty, but it should do the trick. Change, and then let’s get the hell out of here. I never much liked hermits anyway.”

  “Why’s that?” Arik asked as he found the clothing that Meosa had scouted earlier. It was covered in dust—everything had a layer of white dust on it in the cavern and otherwise—but after he beat it out near the entrance of the cave, he found that it was clean enough, the fabric pretty much intact.

  As Arik changed out of his bloodied robes, Meosa started up a diatribe detailing his dislike for hermits, which centered around the fact that they thought they could just disappear from the world, which wasn’t true; everyone and everything had a role to play.

  “Including things like you?”

  “Things like me?” Water started to boil at the top of Meosa’s forehead. “I’m a kami, not a thing, and certainly not a yokai, and thankfully not a human.”

  “That’s not what I meant,” Arik said as he adjusted the musty robes, glad that the hermit was thin.

  They weren’t exactly the right size for him, but they would do, and at least the robes were dark. The olive green color would hopefully help Arik blend in once he reached the border town, and hopefully the smell would dissipate by then as well. He ran his hand through his long black hair, realizing he could really use a bath, his hair matted and tangled. A solution presented itself as he slipped his hand in the pocket of the robes and found a leather strip that would work as a hair tie.

  “And in regards to your question, yes, kami, especially gifted and talented ones like me, have a role to play. Of course we do. Why would we not? Why am I even answering that question, disciple? Although, I will say this: I don’t believe there are many of me left. Yokai? Sure. Too many, same with humans. But kami? Potentially not…” Meosa, who had been just tangible, began to sink into himself and disappear.

  “Are you still there?” Arik asked as he pulled his hair into a topknot.

  “I am always here, my boy, just feeling melancholic to some degree.”

  Arik approached the entrance of the cave. “Do you have a better way to get down?” he asked as he peered over the ledge.

  “You don’t feel like jumping? I’m kidding, you would die. Or, you would have landed and been forced to spend another day healing yourself. Did you hear what I said just a moment ago?”

  “That you were sad?” Arik asked, looking back at him. “Melancholic, I believe it was.”

  “Normally, when someone says something like that, the person they’re saying it to offers some sort of sympathetic reply! You acted as if I had reported back to you that it was a sunny day.”

  “I didn’t know what to say to that.”

  “Typical of a disciple, able to mend wounds but with little regard to invisible injuries, psychological wounds. Alas, it is useless for me to try to explain how to have empathy if you don’t already have it by now.” Meosa cleared his throat, his form becoming visible again. “As to getting down from here, do you trust me?”

  Arik turned to the water spirit. “I think?”

  “There’s a lot less water in the air here, but there should be enough in the air and on the ground below, especially if I can borrow a little Revivaura…” Meosa seemed to bite his lip. “Before we try anything, do you trust me?”

  “You already asked me that.”

  “And I’m asking again.”

  “You want me to say yes, don’t you?”

  “You’re catching on, disciple. So, do you?”

  Arik looked from the dead hermit to the floating water spirit.

  As he did so, Arik came to a realization that he would continue to arrive at over the next week, as even stranger scenarios were presented to him, situations he could never have ever imagined before he met the Jadean master illusionist who would change his life in ways he couldn’t fathom, before he risked it all for what he knew was the right thing to do even if it cost him in the end.

  One thing was certain, be it in the uncertain future or in that very moment as he looked down to the rocks below—Arik truly had nothing left to lose.

  “Yes, I trust you,” he told Meosa. “What do you want me to do?”

  ****

  The feeling of floating was unlike anything Arik Dacre had experienced before, his feet tingling inside his boots, Arik naturally with his arms out wide as if that would help balance him to some degree.

  He had utilized chi in its Revivaura form enough times to not be surprised by what a layperson would deem magic, but floating from the cliffside cave to the rock-hard ground below had Arik feeling as if it were the first time he had witnessed this kind of miracle, one that only magic could explain.

  “You’re not as heavy as you look,” Meosa said as Arik touched down, his feet on solid ground. It was only then that he realized he’d been holding his breath the entire way down. “Not bad, huh?”

  “That was… amazing!” Arik said, a fluttering sensation moving through him as he found his footing once again. He looked back up at the cave, not able to see it from his current vantage point. Amazing…

  “And I can do more than that,” Meosa told him as his form took shape, the kami admiring his handiwork. “There is hardly any water around here so… Actually, yes, I’m glad I didn
’t drop you. Not going to lie there, but it didn’t happen, I didn’t need a boost, and I don’t have to wait for you to heal yourself from paralysis. Lucky me.”

  Arik gave him a funny look, but by this point, Meosa had already turned south.

  “I know a shortcut or three; we should be in Omoto by late afternoon if you keep up. Try to keep up, will you?”

  “Right,” Arik said, his feeling of elation instantly settling.

  While he had just taken part in something extraordinary, mention of the border city reminded Arik that he was going there with a mission to rescue Jinmo, and as many of the other slaves as he could, even if he didn’t quite have a plan. Not only that, he would get to the bottom of why the mysterious shinobi men and women had attacked the Academy of Healing Arts, why the warlord known as Nobunaga had ordered the massacre.

  And you’re going to need to find a weapon, he reminded himself.

  Arik had begun his study of the healing art of Revivaura at the age of five, yet he had also studied sword combat under a visiting lecturer who, ironically, had hailed from the Crimson Realm.

  Combat Master Nankai, the Crimsonian lecturer, had only been at the Academy for about two years, but he had kept himself quite accessible during that time, with wide-open office hours and morning training sessions that all could attend. Inspired by graduation ceremonies in which the disciples traditionally held a tournament with wooden weapons, Arik had attended every session he could unless he was called away to different parts of the Onyx Realm. In the end, Master Nankai was so celebrated at the Academy that they had a ceremony for him before he departed.

  The thought of the guest combat instructor produced another question at the back of Arik’s mind: What does Combat Master Nankai think about the Crimson Realm’s attack? Could he have had part in planning it?

  Arik refused to believe this. Master Nankai would have never agreed to anything like that, especially as his tenure at the school had been through an academic exchange program, one meant to foster understanding between the two normally incongruous realms. Maybe this was another angle he could look into once he reached the border city, finding his old instructor if possible.

  Either way, Arik was going to eventually need a real weapon, not one made of hardened cryptomeria wood as he had trained with back at the Academy.

  Meosa’s form all but disappeared as they continued their journey, the aqueous kami verbally instructing Arik to follow certain trails, some of which seemed treacherous at first, like the narrow ledge he was forced to skirt along over a fifteen-foot drop, or a pathway that seemed at first glance to circle back around the direction that they had come. But Meosa turned out to be right in the end. And while Arik didn’t fully trust him—it was really in his best interest not to trust anyone—he continued to relax his guard around the water spirit.

  “You’ve been quiet the last couple of hours…” Meosa said at one point as they came to a stream, Arik immediately dropping to drink from it, the water cool and tasting of stone.

  Rather than reply, Arik bent forward and washed his face. “I’ve been thinking,” he said as he finished up.

  “About what you plan to do once you arrive in Omoto?”

  Arik nodded.

  “You have no money, you have no connections, you have no weapons, and you have no idea where you are. Does that sound about right?”

  “Yes.”

  Meosa moved forward toward the stream, and as he did water began gushing around his body, his form becoming increasingly tangible. Bubbles popped all around him and muscles appeared, Meosa’s waist slimming, his legs still a spiral as if he were a genie still attached to his lamp.

  “Is that your real form?” Arik asked him.

  A few of the watery muscles began to deflate. “Not exactly, but it looks good, doesn’t it?”

  Arik didn’t know what to say.

  “Let’s just move on,” the water spirit told him, his form starting to droop, droplets of water drumming against the surface of the stream. “We aren’t far now.”

  Arik walked along the banks of the stream, careful not to step on any of the mossy rocks.

  “If you couldn’t figure it out based on our arid surroundings, let me be the first to tell you, disciple: water is a scarce resource in this part of the world, and much of the lower half of the Jade Realm and most of the Crimson Realm. If you find water, you will likely find pockets of civilization, yokai or human, but mostly human. Never forget that.”

  Movement near the surface of the water caught his eye, small fish, Arik realizing then how hungry he was. He licked his lips, and they moved on. Hopefully, he’d be able to find something to eat in the city.

  Because of the slope of the land, and how some of the mountain seemed to press right up to the stream, it was hard to gauge how far they were from Omoto, nor could Arik spot any of the telltale signs of civilization that would normally exist around a tributary as it slowly became a river. There were no fishermen, nor were there any waterside huts, nothing to indicate that humanity was nearby, as Meosa had suggested.

  This changed once they reached the waterfall, Arik gasping as he spotted civilization in the distance, the pocket of humanity like an oozing wound on a landscape painted in stone and peppered with plants, civilization slowly festering outward before dying off again, a desert beyond.

  “See?” Meosa said as he took shape next to the healer, the roar of the waterfall forcing him to speak louder. “I told you we weren’t far. We just needed to take a couple of shortcuts.”

  Arik looked down at the water below, a sheer hundred-foot drop, feeling as if he were standing near the parapet of one of the towers back at the Academy of Healing Arts, a tingling in his stomach.

  “You can float me down, right?” he asked Meosa.

  “I can, but I won’t. You need to climb down.”

  Arik gave him an incredulous look. “Climb down?”

  “Just because I’m here doesn’t mean that I’m here to help you,” Meosa told him. “Actually, I should rephrase that because I am here to help you to some degree, but sometimes the help that you need is encouraging you to get stronger.”

  “In that case…” Arik shrugged. “I guess I’ll see you down there.”

  “That’s the spirit, my boy!”

  Showing a hint of cunning that would soon play a very important part of Arik’s journey, the disciple decided not to scale down the rock next to the falls. He took the long way around the waterfall instead, through the thicket that had formed on the slopes of either side of the water.

  Pressing through the foliage, Arik continued toward the sound of the rushing water, ignoring some of the thornier bushes and careful of the slicker stones. He was nearing the exit of the thicket when his boot grazed the top of a shiny wet rock.

  Arik fell, and as he hit the ground, something shot out at him.

  He winced in pain as he looked down to see a foot-long snake covered in green and yellow stripes sinking its teeth into the arm he’d used to stop his fall.

  The effects of the poison were instant, Arik’s breaths shortening, the venom making him instantly drowsy. He managed to reach his other hand around and grab the snake’s body, just below its head, Arik gritting his teeth as he began transferring his wound.

  It wasn’t long before the snake let up, the serpent falling to the side, limp.

  Arik placed the hand that he had used to wrap around the snake’s body on his wound. Even though his legs still felt wobbly, he pulled himself up and kicked the snake away, Arik healing his arm as he continued through the brush, now hunched over.

  It was another few minutes before he finally tore out of the bramble, breathing heavily, the effects of the venom still racing through him.

  He dropped to the ground and crawled toward the base of the waterfall, where he sat along the shoreline, legs crossed under him as he looked up at the sky, eyes clenched shut, the pain dissipating as Revivaura moved through him. The puncture wound had healed, but the venom was still in the
system, enough of it that he couldn’t shake a sense of drowsiness that was interspersed with nausea.

  Meosa, who floated before Arik, seemed to shrink forward to some degree, as if he were starting to second-guess the challenge he had given the healer.

  “I’ll… I’ll be fine,” Arik told Meosa before he could ask. “It may take me a few minutes, maybe longer…” He looked up at the water spirit, Arik’s eyebrows narrowing to some degree as he recalled some of the trials he had gone through back at the Academy. “I’ve dealt with stronger poisons than this.”

  ****

  Signs of the bustling border city of Omoto became instantly apparent. Arik passed scores of men fishing along the riverbank and merchants in conical hats traveling along the road that led to the city, the path marked by small, circular rocks. The air seemed a bit different here, a hint of smoke to it interspersed with dust whipped up by beasts of burden known as wooly kayno, which was a yokai that resembled a wildebeest but stouter, and with yellow and brindle coats shaved thin.

  While there was ample forest around them, it existed in a terrain bordering on a high plateau desert, the source of water the only thing keeping the foliage alive, much of the larger plants thinning out less than two miles away from the riverbanks, and especially as they reached the canyons on the opposite side of the border. It was unlike the north and its constant foliage, colder temperatures, and its sheer abundance of water. There was a harsh dryness to everything here, one that seemed to accentuate the heat in its own way, and one that Arik could already tell the people were weary of.

  Arik spotted a familiar-looking face, one that caused him to stop dead in his tracks, his breath catching in his throat.

  He immediately turned toward the river in an attempt to hide his face.

  It… it can’t be, he thought, his reflection suddenly blurred on the surface of the water, something agitated about it.

  “What is it?” Meosa asked, the water spirit now in his vapor form, not visible to the fishermen on the other side of the riverbank.