The Dao of Magic: Book IV

by Andries Louws

“Teach probably stole them.”

  Looking up from his empty plate, the maned man wipes the disappointed and complex expression from his face before staring at Bord. “Teach?”

  “Yeah,” Bord nods.

  “Who teaches what?”

  “Yeah he does,” Bord smiles while licking his lips. “These guys are pretty good, but they’ve got nothing on Teach.”

  “Can’t you teach them then?”

  “Why?”

  Both men stare at each other, both of them wondering why the other talks nonsense.

  “Nevermind that. What do I call you?”

  “Bord.”

  “No, I’m not.”

  The staring contest continues, and Bord truly wonders if the man opposite him has mental problems. He also wonders why the beastkin seems to be getting wet. “What’re you called?”

  “Keeneff Ha-” Teeth snapping shut suddenly, the man opposite Bord is now visibly distressed.

  “Cool,” hazards Bord. “Want to eat some more?”

  The beastkin visibly gathers himself before looking around. “I… I could eat?”

  Smiling beatifically, Bord pulls another large beast out of his spatial ring. The still wriggling scaled octopus tries to escape weakly, not yet fully realising that it is missing its head. The awkward conversation between the two is paused until the cooks get cooking again. Bord has to help out quite a bit this time, as the scales are too hard to cut by any normal kitchen utensils. He also helps in hauling a large amount of rubbery meat into the kitchen.

  Bord fails to notice that his guest is frozen in place, not able to move a single millimetre. Bord has been ignoring the bloke, as he has been acting all kinds of strange in his opinion, even for one of the hairy ones.

  So far, all the beastkin in the city he is stationed in have either attacked him on sight without much effect, or done what he asked of them without comment. Not a single one has actually tried to have a conversation with him, so Bord doesn’t have much reference material to compare with. He doesn’t consider Angeta to be a standard for anything, which is probably rather wise of him. Neither has he interacted much with the other beastkin that trickled into Tree in the later weeks.

  Bord also misses the struggle displayed on his fellow diner’s face. “Do you know of the Fang?”

  Bord swallows. “I know I should integrate, but I don’t follow that nonsense, okay?” He actually feels guilty for this one, to be honest. But Bord isn’t about to follow someone’s orders just because their teeth are larger, no matter what Angeta and Ferah have tried to teach him about the beastkin culture. Bord knows underhanded power plays when he sees them, and has done very well in ignoring them all, if he might say so himself.

  “What happened on the Hour of the Dragon?”

  Getting slightly fed up because of all these annoying questions, Bord glares at Keeneff. “A couple of dumbasses tried to seize power. This stupid dramatic play happened, and here I am.”

  Nodding grimly, Keeneff continues eating. Bord does the same, but instead of sporting an expression like a thinking thunderstorm, he chows down happily. To be honest, the fat kid has completely lost the plot. This dude came into his private restaurant, sat at his table uninvited and started spouting nonsense. Bord just wants to eat in peace, and internally groans as he sees the hairy guy start talking again.

  “Do you know where all the orange stripes are?”

  Here Bord smiles widely. “Kitties! They are the best. So soft and cute, I love the way they rumble and yowl, their ears flat. I love them.” And he continues eating.

  “You… think that’s…”

  “So soft. And they always want to cuddle.” A darker expression flickers across his face. “Although they are terrible at cooking. Too spicy. Very soft though.” Lost in thought, Bord keeps stuffing his face with grilled, sautéed, fried, chopped, and boiled octopus. He masterfully avoids all the green stuff, leaving the qi-less veggies on his plate. He does eat the pickles though, those he likes enough despite their low energy contents.

  His guest tries to start a few more conversations, but Bord has had enough of socialising with strangers for now. The rest of the octopus is cleaned up with speed as Bord stuffs his face with an impossible amount of meat. Only when a deeply bowing waiter notifies him that the animal is gone does he stop. “Thanks again guys! Very good. Are you sure that you don’t want money or something?”

  The variegated cooks – in terms of furriness – and waiters all shake their heads furiously, waving him goodbye with enthusiasm. Bord saunters out the door, making sure to stand still for a bit in order to admire the intricate gold decorations and pillared arches everywhere. Deciding that he doesn’t want to be disturbed, the fat boy makes his way through the streets, walking across the widely varied paving materials to ease his digestive system. Smiling vacantly at the feeling of qi being pumped through his system, Bord makes his way to the outskirts of the city.

  He passes through the tall building district, craning his neck to look at the many thin spires that pierce the sky. He makes sure to avoid the trash district. He doesn’t like the smell. Once outside the city, he pats his bulging stomach and looks inside his ring. In a rare stroke of genius, he had decided to gather enough points to buy one of the fancy time freezing rings. It had taken him a rather short amount of time before he managed to acquire the piece of jewellery, and it has been his most treasured possession since.

  Only a few hundred beasts are left in the stasis storage device, and if there is one thing that makes Bord anxious, it’s the possibility that he will run out of food. Also, the fact that eating the beasties is the best way for him to cultivate at the moment isn’t lost on the boy, but he considers that a lesser factor in the grand scheme of things.

  Bord wants to run very fast, so he does. Not a second later, he is speeding across the grasslands, bounding across rivers and meadows. The occasional incautious animal is quickly grabbed and bagged, their necks broken or hearts crushed before they realize that they are under attack.

  The city is excellent, and all, and Bord really appreciates the wide variety of cuisine that all the different types of beastkin have got going, but being out and about is also great now and then.

  Jumping over a rocky ridge, he is suddenly blasted in the face by a boiling gout of liquid. His nose is immediately overwhelmed by the pungent stink of rotting eggs. Gagging, yet somehow managing to keep his food inside his stomach, Bord starts to whale on his attacker. The animal in question – a bushy-tailed and striped quadruped with large plates of thick turtle-like shell on its back – is thoroughly tenderised.

  Leaving the corpse to the scavengers, the ultimate insult in Bord’s book, the boy proceeds to wash in a river for a few hours. It takes him an amazing amount of scrubbing, but he manages to clean himself from the pungent smell after getting thoroughly sick and tired of it. He then spends the rest of the day hunting down any and all animals and mutants similar to that one.

  He returns to the beastkin capital when the sun is setting, satisfied and tired. His ring is a few per cent fuller, all the most powerful wildlife for leagues around safely tucked away. He makes his way through the streets and across the bridges, sauntering towards the central island. Once there, he sees that Keeneff guy hanging around again. The annoying fellow has been stalking the main palace for the last few weeks, and Bord now knows that nothing good can come of meeting him again.

  So Bord walks by, refusing to be seen by him. Once inside the tall walls of the most central and highest building in the entire city, he is hugged by soft bodies. Appearing in dark flashes, the lean orange and white beastkin covered in black stripes start rubbing him as usual. The fact that they use knives is lost on Bord. Instead, he smiles, rubs a few under the chin, and makes his way to the softest bed in the entire building.

  The massive four-poster bed is a welcoming sight, and he moves through the furiously massaging cadre of soft bodies towards the luxurious spread of food. All kinds of eye-watering vapours waft from the
dishes, and Bord tastes them all. Some make his tongue burn pleasantly while others numb his face. One causes his spine to tingle pleasantly, and the group of darkly clad assassins sighs with disappointment as Bord licks his fingers clean.

  Bord then looks at the far wall and frowns slightly. That was the spot where that foul-smelling toad of a beastkin decided to get himself killed. Bord still feels guilty about that, to be honest. Shaking away his regrets, he cleans the rest of his plate and changes into his nightwear, as his current clothing failed to survive the massages he keeps receiving.

  Bord lays down on the bed, happily falling asleep as the assassin caste tries their very best to murder the killer of the Tooth, the Fang, their Flight-appointed ruler. They spend yet another night fruitlessly trying to pierce Bord’s thick layers of blubber.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  Eating 2

  Looking down on the mess he has made, Keeneff feels pretty good. Her black fur is a total mess, but that’s just what happens when you get down and dirty with a dragon. The tongue lolling from her mouth is also a mark that he takes pride in. Gently draping the curtain he nicked prior to their activities across the snoring woman, Keeneff sneaks out of the library.

  Going over the new information in his mind, the dragon in beastkin form smiles viciously when he connects a few dots. That one bird from over a month ago had given him some information despite the fact he had returned her precious guard mutant Groxnar dead. She had been teary-eyed when he had presented her the desiccated husk of the monster, but had still answered quite a few questions.

  That new data had led him on a new trail, one he is following even now. Rumours of two humans infiltrating the city, a dark-haired wench and a pale youth, had made a rather large ruckus a short time before the Hour of the Dragon. Keeneff had immediately felt that those two humans had a lot to do with the events that led up to the Tooth’s demise, and he had been hunting for them ever since.

  He had crawled through the twitchy sector, ignoring all the wide-eyed stares coming from the diminutive caste as he followed rumours of the black and the metal one appearing there. He’d asked around at the mercantile red furs, showing more teeth than usual to combat their ever-present greed. He even went as far as to talk with the various soldier groups, entering without carrying a weapon to display his superiority and lack of fear.

  It had all gotten him nowhere. Even now, he has been searching the few libraries present in the capital. He even managed to get some reading done before this lovely girl had strutted by, just begging him to be conquered. Keeneff had listened to his draconic instincts, but the moment of clarity that always comes with such activities had made a single face flash into his mind.

  The fat face of the punching bag had done away with any desires for more, so he had given the poor girl the rest she deserved. The fact that she had kept up with him for over an hour is a testament to her amazing physical constitution. Making a note in his mind to come back later, a first for the self-styled private eye, the dragon knows what he must do.

  After the fat human interfered with the fight underground, he had avoided the boy. He hadn’t done so consciously, but his pride had prevented him from going near someone whom his instinct told him was more powerful than himself. Flight rules are simple, you either follow or submit. Cooperating with someone is not something that is done. There is always a leader and a follower, and the very reason Keeneff is now in the position of a Watcher and Guardian is the fact that he does not like to follow. At all. His draconic form still has the scars to prove this.

  But all his other avenues of progression and sources of information are empty and dried up. He had avoided the fat boy for the past few days, foregoing his daily attempts at beating him into submission. Looking at the sun, the boy might still be at the plaza.

  Keeneff’s eyes accidentally brush across the sky-bound crystal glittering up high. Alien constructs attempt to enter his mind once again, but he manages to beat them out of his head before they take hold. Other people have told him of the slow trickle of data and knowledge that can be keened from the floating sparkler, but Keeneff will be found dead before letting some unknown thing control even a part of his mind.

  He keeps his eyes down, determined not to let his current feeling of warm satisfaction slip. At least, not because of some random rock suspended in the sky, as its mind-raping him tends to put him in a foul mood, Keeneff makes his way to the central plaza. He arrives shortly, just in time to see the silent crowd stare at the capital’s most affluent restaurant. Even the Fang himself would have been turned away had the little guy come in without a reservation, if he was still alive, that is.

  His good mood soured by the reminder of his failure, and more importantly, the interruption of his planned fifty-year nap, he walks through the still beastkin. Soft whispers start up as people recognize him, but a single glare is enough to silence them again. Following the small trail of blood into the majestically decorated building, Keeneff makes sure that he projects self-confidence itself.

  The people working there, all of them affluent nobles, important scions, and influencers themselves, don’t even bat an eye at what would have been a near capital offence on other days. The usually extremely snooty and arrogant waiting staff is quaking in their boots. Keeneff can clearly remember his first time trying to enter this place. He knows that the collective stares and passive aggressive politeness couldn’t have hurt him, but it sure felt like it should have incinerated him on the spot. Their glares of indignation at him breaking some obscure protocol or unspoken rule would have wiped him from existence if the opinions of the working personnel had anything to do with it.

  Not now, though… Every single person in the establishment is keeping their attention focussed on the fat human sitting at the central table. Keeneff freezes in his tracks as the fat kid looks him in the eye, cheeks wobbling menacingly. He then smiles, and Keeneff’s world freezes. What he feared would happen, happens immediately. The dragon has to fight with all his might to not fall to his knees, showing his subordination to this immensely powerful individual.

  Then a waiter distracts the boy with a drink. Keeneff could have kissed the slender beastkin right there and then, so thankful is he for the interruption. The dragon regains part of his bearing as he walks towards the table. His legs stop shaking, and he manages to unclench his fists as he sits down. “I’ll joi-” the words stick in his throat, his nature not allowing him to be this impudent with someone he knows is more powerful than himself. “Mind if I join you?”

  Those words took centuries of his lifespan, he is pretty sure. The dismissive wave of a fat arm allows him to take a seat, and Keeneff takes the long minutes the boy spends staring at the furiously working cooks to study the human. Small sunken eyes stare out at the world from a round face. Instead of accumulating fat around his waist in large rolls, the blonde youth seems to be depositing fat evenly around his body. A chubby roundness makes him look harmless, but Keeneff is sensitive enough to know that he is anything but.

  Clad in simple clothes, the boy seems to exude a magnetic air, something more than just an accumulation of power creating a palpable gravitas. Keeneff manages to look away in time when the boy’s concentration on the kitchen is broken. “Where did you go?”

  The truth nearly slips out at that short question, yet Keeneff manages to keep his answer short and to the point. “Out.”

  It’s not enough, though. The boy’s piercing stares peers into his soul. He knows. The dragon is sure. He knows. What the human knows, he isn’t sure, but the human knows. In the end, it’s inevitable that the dragon breaks. “I was investigating some leads.”

  Still not enough. The stare continues, and those piercing blue eyes demand more, must receive more. The least Keeneff can do is to try to get some information in return. “Have you heard of the mysterious disappearances?”

  “What?”

  Seeing the boy distracted, Keeneff sees his chance. Maybe he needs to give up some more position in this so
cial duel in order to get ahead? “The large mutants and beasts that just end up disappearing?”

  What follows is the most confusing and maddening conversation Keeneff has ever had. The fact that his draconic instincts scream at him to obey the kid isn’t helping. So when he is offered a single plate of food, he is forced to take a bite. The taste explosion combined with the near overpowering amount of qi inside the meat shuts him up for half an hour.

  Keeneff spends this time sweating like mad, trying to pump the foreign qi from the food he’s eating through his system at top speed. He is further scared shitless when he realises what level the animal they are eating must have been at to have this much power in its meat. Keeneff had managed to compress his qi into liquid a few weeks ago, but filling up his heart has been going rather slow. The dragon is only eating a fraction of what the fat kid is stowing away, yet his core is filling up faster than at any time before.

  The conversation continues when the boy starts talking about teaching how to steal stuff and insulting Keeneff by calling him boring. The dragon manages to bite his full array of titles short when his name is asked before he is asked if he wants to eat more.

  This pulls Keeneff from the mad eating spree he has been on. It takes him a relatively long time to wake up from the faux food coma he finds himself in. The warmth radiating from his stomach is lulling him to sleep, but he realises that he is hungry still. “I… I could eat?”

  With a single wave of a chubby hand, a tentacled monster appears. The aura remaining on the twitching corpse is enough to take Keeneff’s breath away. The qi running through his system goes wild, and blood wells up in his mouth. It takes the dragon all he has to prevent from coughing up blood and falling unconscious. Adding insult to injury, the cooks, waiters, and other restaurant personnel all manage to withstand the immense pressure wafting from the still dying octopus with only a slight paling of their faces.

  Keeneff struggles immensely for long minutes, each second of immense internal pain and agony another test he is not prepared for. By some miracle, he prevents any of this from showing on his face, keeping stock still as he watches the boy carve the scaled tentacles.