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

by Harmon Cooper

  They reached a set of stone steps, and as he had done earlier at the library, Domen gestured toward it with his palm facing up. “I will leave you to your studies then,” the youth said. “Thanks again for helping me with the herd. I thought I was going to be out there all night trying to find those kayno.”

  “Thank you,” Arik said, offering Domen a bow.

  “Please visit again if you’re ever around the outer rim.” The young herder turned away and headed back toward the entrance of the academy.

  “Well, what are you waiting for?” Meosa asked Arik as his eyes scanned the grand wooden door that signaled the true entrance to the Double Sword Academy of Combat Arts, the wood clearly imported from another part of the Crimson Realm or beyond. “It was your idea to come all the way down here. Let’s find this old master of yours.”

  Arik placed his hand on a door handle made of iron and soon, he was in a chamber that felt at least ten degrees cooler than it was outside, just a bit of light filtering in from the top creating parallelogram-shaped patterns in the ground, Arik noticing that the further he walked down the corridor, the more the light twisted into patterns that looked like diamonds.

  It felt a little stuffy inside, but it was clean, and the only other thing in the space aside from the lighting were dozens of blood-red Crimsonian banners set on poles and arranged one after another, all angled in a way that naturally pushed someone forward, and a placard noting that this was where the War Priest, Coro Pache, had studied.

  Arik came to a woman peacefully seated on a circular pillow at the end of the hallway. She stood and cleared her throat before greeting him, her features disguised by her square hat. “May I help you?”

  “Yes,” Arik said, his mind going blank. He could see her eyes through the slit in the front of her square hat, her mascara curling in both directions, enough of it on her face that it reminded him of the eyes of a tanuki. There was something utterly mysterious about it.

  “Off to a wonderful start…” Meosa said.

  “Ahem, I am here to see Combat Master Nankai.”

  The woman hesitated. “Combat Master Nankai?”

  “Yes.”

  “Very well. Please wait here.”

  The woman hurried into a door covered by a swath of fabric on the left, her sandaled feet clacking against the smooth pavement.

  “Why do I have the feeling that you just complicated things?” Meosa asked once she was gone.

  “How would I have complicated things? I simply asked to see my former teacher. I didn’t say who I was.”

  “And her behavior doesn’t strike you as odd? It doesn’t strike you as odd that she didn’t ask who you were? Perhaps you are right. But I am a little paranoid. Maybe she’s just bad at her job.”

  “Maybe…”

  Arik waited, expecting the woman to step out with Combat Master Nankai, Arik remembering his instructor’s hardened features, the scar across the side of his face, his shaved head. He had never told Arik about the square hats they wore in Mogra, and he wondered now if that was why his Master Nankai always shaved his head, that it came out of habit, making it easier to wear the hat. Arik could see with his long hair how it could get tangled in the frame that kept it on a person’s head. He had also noticed that Domen’s hair had been cut short.

  Arik sensed movement behind him, the sound of fabric being swept aside. He turned just as two men quickly entered the space, neither of them with the square hats on, both in crimson red robes with a pair of blades sheathed at their waists.

  They drew their weapons in a fluid manner, and before Arik could react, a voice behind him spoke: “Remove your waterskin, your bag, and place your sword and its sheath on the ground.”

  Arik swiveled back to the front to see the receptionist again along with an older man, his dark hair cut short, an eyepatch over his left eye. “Do so now, and we will spare your life.”

  Arik boldly lowered his hand onto the grip of his sword. “I’ve come too far to stop now.”

  ****

  Arik threw his shoulder forward, toward the eye-patched man who had told him to lay his weapon down. His target flashed aside, Arik stumbling past and losing his square hat and the bag that had been strung over one shoulder.

  “This is going to end so poorly,” Meosa groaned. “Don’t you know blades when you see them, my boy? These are trained double swordsmen. Are you suicidal? Bah… I’m going to have to find a new body to use as a host!”

  Arik ignored Meosa as he withdrew his blade, hoping that now he had a little distance between himself and his aggressors, that he could put them into a funnel of sorts, allowing him to take them one at a time.

  The crackle of lightning—or at least he thought he saw lightning—took the disciple off guard, one of the double-bladed men vanishing, as if he had stepped out of thin air. Another spark; Arik was once again unable to interpret what had happened as the other man did the same, gone in a flash. This left just one opponent, who happened to be the eye-patched warrior Arik had just tried to take down.

  “You have made a grave mistake,” the man told him, who now stood in front of the square-hatted receptionist, still calm, his blades not yet drawn.

  Arik sensed movement behind him.

  He spun, his sword meeting not one, but two other blades, both wielded by one of the armed warriors who had disappeared just moments ago. As soon as Arik repelled the first attack, the second warrior burst forward, moving quickly enough to strike Arik’s blade out of his hand and also bringing a great streak of blood across the opposite side of Arik’s wrist, cutting to the bone.

  “I’m going to have to intervene…” Meosa said, true fear in his voice.

  “I’ve… got… this!” Arik leaped forward and grabbed one of the swordsman’s legs.

  He would have received two blades through his back had it not been for how quickly he called upon his wound transfer ability, Arik gripping his hands around his opponent’s exposed ankle as he tried to pull him to the ground. It was his last resort, the type of move he would have never tried had it not been for how desperate he was in that moment.

  Arik ignored the gaping wound on his arm, one that had already started to heal as he gritted his teeth, his opponent completely shocked by the pain that had suddenly appeared within him.

  “You really have forced my hand here, haven’t you?” Meosa said as Arik felt the water spirit start to grow in size, seconds away from revealing himself.

  “Enough.”

  The voice cut through everything, Arik looking back to the eye-patched man. Realizing that he wasn’t going to win this way, Arik let go of his opponent’s leg, the double-bladed swordsman shifting to the side he got to his feet.

  “I warned you,” the leader of the three said, the man with a scar that trailed from the right side of his forehead, under his eye patch, down over his nose, all the way to the other side of his cheek. “You appear to have chosen death.”

  “I simply asked to see Combat Master Nankai,” Arik said. “I’ve traveled… I have traveled a very long way to see him. He was my old…” He stopped before he could finish the sentence, not wanting to give up too much information. But something about the man standing before him told Arik that he was reasonable, that he would hear him out. “He was my teacher.”

  “Combat Master Nankai? You fight with one sword, and poorly at that. Why should I believe that Nankai was your teacher?”

  “He taught me everything I know…”

  “I find that hard to believe. What you have just demonstrated proves without a shadow of a doubt that you have no formal combat education.”

  “Master Nankai told me to be unpredictable,” Arik said, recalling one of his teacher’s more memorable lines. “If the enemy thinks mountain, present a sea.”

  What Arik would classify as a smirk traced across the man’s scarred face, encouraging him to continue.

  “And of the three initiatives, I chose to initiate before my opponent did, which in this case is the three of you. Th
at is the Attacking Initiative. The other two are the Waiting Initiative, and the Body-Body Initiative. Waiting Initiative describes attacking after your opponent does, and the Body-Body Initiative calls for you to attack your opponent as they attack you, which I have attempted to do here…” Arik lowered his head to some degree, feeling as if he had somehow sucked all the oxygen out of the room through his explanation, a feeling made worse by Meosa’s quiet snickering.

  “So you know the basics,” the man finally told him. “Very basics, I should say. Put your weapons away.”

  The pair of swordsmen standing around Arik sheathed their blades, no indication in the looks on their faces as to if they approved or disapproved of the man’s instruction. The only difference between the two of them was the warrior that Arik had transferred some of his wound to, the blade, as Meosa had called him, hunched over to some degree.

  “What is your name?” the eyepatched leader of the three asked.

  “I am Arik Dacre. And as I stated, I’m here to see Combat Master Nankai or…” Arik really hoped that mentioning another teacher wouldn’t get him into more trouble somehow, but thus far, being able to actually converse with the leader of the men seemed to be helping, so he went for it. “Or Combat Master Altai Masamune. I would like to meet with either of them, if possible.”

  The grin that already took shape on the scarred man’s face grew in size to some degree. “Combat Master Altai Masamune, huh?”

  “Yes…”

  “You are looking at him, and I can say with certainty that we have never met before.”

  “Old one-eye is him? This just keeps getting wilder and wilder,” Meosa commented quickly. “Glad I didn’t reveal myself back there. And hey, next time three men pull up on you each with a pair of swords, how about trying to reason with them first before attempting to strong-arm your way into a deadly confrontation? Attacking Initiative is something you’re clearly not capable of pulling off sufficiently. Need I remind you that as much time as you’ve spent studying Revivaura, they’ve spent studying Thunderaura? You saw their movement, you felt the lightning, right? Don’t respond. Remember not to give me away!”

  Arik was too focused on the combat master in front of him to show any sign that he had heard Meosa. He noticed in that instant that the man’s crimson robes were slightly different than the other two, crisper, and while the situation presented to him was incredibly tense, he seemed entirely relaxed, completely in control. He held himself differently.

  “You’re really Master Altai Masamune?” Arik finally asked.

  The man nodded. “Please, call me Master Altai. Master Masamune doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue, does it? Before we go any further, I believe you and I need to have a private discussion. Gather your things, and follow me.”

  ****

  No words were exchanged as Arik followed Master Altai and the two men who had accompanied him. He was back in a square hat with his bag on one shoulder, waterskin over the other, and his sword tucked into his belt, Arik hardly able to recall a time where he felt as out of place as he felt at that moment.

  In his brief review of their combat grounds, Arik saw that space was mostly dedicated to an area where people could participate in tournaments, an eerie silence to the place, all the stands currently empty, a great awning protecting the potential spectators from the desert sun. There seemed to be more training grounds beyond the outer walls of the Academy, Arik spotting entrances that spiraled into the ground to what he assumed were basement dwellings and other spaces used when it was especially hot.

  They entered another door, the hallway similar to the entrance in the fact that it was lined in the red banners of the Crimson Realm. The only difference here was the ceiling beams, which appeared to be made of petrified wood. Passing under an arch, they came to a space with four offices in it, all facing one another, with doors as well as fabric coverings.

  “You may go,” Master Altai told his two attendants as he produced a key from his robes. He swept the red fabric covering to the side and opened the door.

  Running along the walls of the combat master’s office were painted canvases outlining sword postures and battle strategies, bookshelves filled with everything from war memoirs to leather-bound scrolls, Arik’s eyes falling onto a tattered Onyxian flag, the dark grays calling to him, reminding him of what Master Kojiro had said, that Master Altai was from the Onyx Realm like Arik.

  There was no desk, but there were plenty of red cushions on the ground, Master Altai taking the largest one at the head of the room. He motioned for Arik to sit before him. “You can place your things there, against the wall. Take off your square hat as well. You don’t need to wear it while you are on school grounds unless you are a member of the support staff.”

  Arik did as instructed, but kept his waterskin close by. “In case I get thirsty,” he said as he sat down on the cushion, his sandaled feet crossing beneath him. “I’m not used to this climate.”

  “What you did out there was incredibly foolish,” Master Altai said, his tone growing stern as he examined Arik’s arm, where the wound was half healed. Arik had been so distracted by the battle, and then the walk to Master Altai’s office that he had forgotten about the wound, which was still bloody. “Heal it.”

  “D-do what?” Arik asked.

  “You are halfway there, disciple, finish the job. I don’t need you dripping blood all over my office.”

  “He has you now, my boy,” Meosa said. “I’m standing by, if need be.”

  “I…”

  “You could have given yourself away, you know that, right?” Master Altai scolded him. “If word gets out that there is a healer here…” He lowered his chin, his eyes fraught with worry. “We don’t need something like that, not now.”

  “So…. you know?”

  And it was the next statement that Master Altai said which would play over and over again in Arik’s memory for a considerable amount of time, something he would one day write down. “I know more than I am letting on, and more than you could possibly imagine. Now, heal yourself, disciple.”

  Arik looked down at the wound on his arm. A watery substance circulated around his body, the skin stitching itself up. In the end, the only indication that he had been injured was a smattering of dried blood.

  “Where is Combat Master Nankai?” he asked, feeling even more uncertain as he returned his gaze to the combat master seated before him.

  “We’ll get to that in a moment. Now, what happened? Tell me why you are here. And before you do that, what is the extent of your training?”

  “I just graduated from the Divine Branch of Wound Transfer. That was what the graduation ceremony was for.”

  “The graduation ceremony?”

  Arik detailed the attack on his school by the masked men that he now came to understand were shinobi, and how he’d heard from the slavers that the shinobi had been sent by Nobunaga, the warlord that led the Crimson Realm. Once again, he skipped the part about encountering Meosa and killing Konwa, but he did explain how he had reached Omoto and what he had done there at the infirmary. “It was Master Kojiro who told me about you. He said you were from the Onyx Realm.”

  “The tanuki?”

  “Is there another Master Kojiro?” Meosa asked in a snide way, his voice barely audible.

  Sometimes, Arik wished he could elbow the water spirit.

  “Yes, the tanuki.”

  “I haven’t seen Kojiro in ages,” Master Altai said fondly. “And yes, he is correct. I am from the Onyx Realm. My father was Crimsonian and my mother was Onyxian, and I was born there. I came here as a child to train to be a blade, as is tradition for the firstborn of certain classes. So it would be better to say that I am both, Onyxian and Crimsonian. Have you heard anything about Merit Koshi Ashmore and the Righteous?”

  “Merit Koshi?” Arik asked. The ruler of the Onyx Realm was a man named Merit Ashmore, and Merit Koshi was his oldest son. But he rarely thought of them, and he certainly hadn’t heard anything abou
t their actions aside from a brief mention from Indra. Arik shook his head, having absolutely no idea what Merit Koshi had to do with any of this, nor what the Righteous were in the first place.

  “Never mind that I asked. I suppose since you’ve given me such a succinct explanation, I owe you something similar. Combat Master Nankai…” He dipped his head, unable to hide the shame on his eyepatched face. “There are things I’m going to say that do not leave this room. Do you understand, disciple?”

  “I do. But before we get started, I have another question for you, one that no one has been able to adequately answer.”

  “Oh?”

  “The School of Illusion was disbanded, yet it was shinobi who attacked the academy,” Arik said. “Does the School of Illusion still exist?”

  Master Altai sighed deeply. “For many years now, I’ve had this hope that I would never live long enough to see that the shinobi had come out of hiding.”

  “So there really are shinobi?” Arik asked, remembering the kitsune-masked woman he encountered in the desert.

  “You are the one that saw them, not I. Based on what you have described, yes, I would say that they are, at the very least, amateur illusionists. You asked about the School of Illusion’s existence, and like most people, I’ve heard rumors that it had completely disbanded, but I also know enough about the School of Illusion to know that they are the type of people who would promote this message.”

  Arik nodded. That part completely made sense—perhaps they just led people to believe they had been disbanded.

  “The School of Illusion has its own ranking system, and I believe the term shinobi applies to one of these ranks. The common term for anyone that has studied that particular interpretation of chi is ‘illusionist,’ but most people use the term ‘shinobi’ regardless. I do not know much about the ranking system, nor what distinguishes a shinobi versus a low-level illusionist. I should also say that I don’t know much about the aspect of chi they use, either. Most people don’t.”