Master of Devils

by Dave Gross

  Perhaps I should have spent more effort thanking the gods for sparing my life. It was no small miracle that I had survived the first weeks of training. As the least among the new brothers, it fell to me to rise an hour earlier than the other disciples. Each morning, rather than the gentle murmur of a servant bearing a fragrant tisane to ease me out of slumber, a sharp blow to the sole of my foot jolted me awake. When I did not immediately arise, a barrage of kicks traveled up my leg until I leaped up to stand before Master Wu.

  “How dare you assault me in such a manner?” I demanded upon the first such waking.

  He lifted one bushy black eyebrow at my umbrage.

  “In Cheliax, I should have you thrashed for such—”

  Before I could complete my threat, Wu blasted the air from my lungs with a punch to my sternum. My lips moved, but I could produce no sound. My silent complaint only intensified Wu’s castigation until at last I bowed before him. He placed his foot upon my head to remind me of our relative positions, so unnatural to my custom. I seethed at the affront, but never again did I fail to rise at the first strike upon my soles.

  Beyond the humiliation of menial labor, kitchen duty deprived me of an hour’s exercise each morning and again before the evening meal. Thus it followed that I fell further and further behind the skills of my fellow “novices,” although the term was a gross misnomer. None of the new brothers of Dragon Temple could truly be called a neophyte. Even to present oneself at the famous center of martial and spiritual study, one required previous distinction somewhere among the Successor States of Lung Wa. Kwan, for instance, had come from the Condor Fist Society in Lingshen to the north, while Karfai was celebrated as the most recent Hero of the Green Marsh in the south of Quain. Even Mon Choi had defeated a celebrated local champion who dared all comers to wrestle him in the square of his little village in Po Li, to the east.

  No matter their origin, all of the disciples were now dedicated to serve the masters of Dragon Temple. Nationalism and familial loyalty dissolved upon passing through each of the four gates. By the time one entered the inner courtyards, only devotion to Dragon Temple remained.

  I could have informed my fellow disciples of my service in the wars of colonial secession, or of my youthful triumph on the cliffs of Lepidstadt, or of my fatal duel on the roof of the Grand Opera with the thief known only as the Blue Gloaming. Yet no one asked for my pedigree, and I found no subtle moment in which to mention my achievements.

  That I had been defeated not by peasants but by local heroes soothed the sting of my failure, or would have done so if not for the daily reminder of my kitchen labor on their behalf. Worse was the frequent use of the hated appellation “Younger Brother,” which was both insulting and chronologically preposterous. None of my “brothers” had more than one-quarter of my years.

  I had begun to feel old.

  More than that, I felt perpetually exhausted. Even before joining the morning lessons, my limbs were limp after a frantic hour gathering eggs, fetching water, soaking rice, and chopping roots and preserved vegetables for the steam baskets. I was not unaccustomed to cooking in the field on those occasions when adversity deprived me of a servant, but it was another matter entirely to prepare meals in quantity and while striving to avoid the attention of Lo Gau, the dread master of Dragon Temple kitchen.

  The man was once a master of instruction, but the gradual onset of cataract blindness had relegated him to the lesser role. Nevertheless, his sight—or rather, I surmised, his power of deduction—was keen enough to discern my slightest error in form. He demanded that I employ the proper grip on every tool from spoon to chopsticks to the various knives, each of which required a different technique.

  Worse than Lo Gau’s exacting standards for precision was that the slightest delay invoked his wrath. What his rebukes lacked in Master Wu’s accuracy, they more than compensated for in proximity to knives and heavy kettles. Lo Gau went so far as to harry me with darts aimed generally at my feet as I returned with the firewood, costing me precious time as I gathered the wood I had spilled. More and more often, I avoided serious injury or death only by taking shelter behind a chopping block or dodging a ladle of hot oil. Too frequently, I suffered the impact or the scalding.

  On those days when I arrived after Master Wu began leading the brothers in the Thirty-Six Forms, he invariably selected me as the example on which to present the day’s lesson. Several times his demonstration rendered me insensible, after which I awoke to his peculiar version of healing, which was as agonizing as it was effective. The only happy side effect was that I soon became the foremost student in the art of the battle scream, or so my elder brothers joked.

  I hoped to find respite in the meditation hall, where we assembled to contemplate the enormous scroll that contained Irori’s sacred scriptures, Unbinding the Fetters. While Venerable Master Li sat in placid meditation before the scroll, exemplar to us all, Scrupulous Master Wu patrolled the ranks of students seeking flaws in posture and thought. He most often found the latter in me, for I found it impossible to meditate upon the wisdom of the god of self-perfection when my body had been rendered so utterly imperfect.

  Only once did I commit the error of demanding to know how Master Wu could perceive that my thoughts had wandered from the prescribed subjects. At a nod of consent from the sagacious Master Li, Wu’s succinct reply rendered me unable to complete the rest of the day’s exercises. I resumed my meditations in the infirmary.

  It was there that I first plotted escape. Yet several obstacles prevented me from immediately leaving Dragon Temple.

  The most imminent problem was the knowledge that the tigers Mon Choi and I had narrowly escaped were not the only predators claiming the region as their territory. After weeks of labor and injuries in Dragon Temple, I was much less capable of outrunning the beasts.

  Even more dreadful was the warning Master Wu had given us the day after our arrival. He promised to track down any novice who dared forswear his vow to the temple masters. After so much indelible instruction at his hands, I knew I would prefer to face one of the tigers.

  For a time, I justified my reticence to leave by satisfying my curiosity about the temple grounds. Unfortunately, I soon exhausted the grounds of the only area we new students were permitted to explore, the so-called Cherry Court. In that district lay our dormitory, the meditation hall, a privy, the kitchen, a refectory, a scriptorium, four practice yards of different configurations, and an armory. The latter building housed rattan armor and shields as well as wooden versions of the Sacred Weapons of Irori.

  To the north lay vegetable and herb gardens irrigated by a stream passing through a grate in the Plum Court wall. So early in the year, few of the plants were ready for harvest, but it was among my endless obligations to nurture the seedlings. Tending the garden provided solace, if also a painful reminder of how long it had been since I last enjoyed my hothouse in Greensteeples. No one intruded upon my solitude except Master Li, who occasionally inspected the garden, murmuring as he strolled its lanes.

  From over the Plum Court wall I heard the voices of our elder brothers drilling with the weapons and techniques we would learn only after the second trial. I was not the only new disciple who was curious about them, but those who lifted their heads above the walls for a better look soon regretted their disobedience. Master Wu had a knack for being everywhere at once, and no infraction was too small to escape his wrath.

  During our exercises on the pillars resembling a cluster of dock pilings, I could barely glimpse the interior of a garden nestled between the walls of the Cherry and Peach Courts. Except for the daily ministrations of an ancient gardener who also tended the koi pond, it appeared abandoned. I imagined it would become a lovely retreat in the full blush of spring.

  It also appeared to be the most advantageous avenue for an escape.

  The wall dividing the Cherry Court from the garden was five yards
high and bereft of spikes, shards of glass, or other obvious deterrents to climbing. Its sheer faces offered no hand- or footholds, but someone reaching the top should have no difficulty dropping safely to the other side. Its height was greater than even Kwan’s prodigious leaps could attain.

  Yet the cherry trees stood enticingly near to the wall.

  Musing on this data, I shuffled out of the kitchen long after nightfall, my body, mind, and spirit equally defeated by the day’s exertions and dishonors. I imagined I heard faerie music in the distance, calling me out of this harsh refuge and back to my originally intended path to Lanming and the Royal Court of Quain. Above the Cherry Court wall I glimpsed the first peach buds of spring illuminated by paper lanterns suspended in the tree branches. In the warm hues of the light I saw the promise of freedom.

  Against all likelihood, I had gained a few pounds over the past month, yet I estimated I was still light enough to scale a tree and leap onto the high outer wall on the southern border of the garden. Entering the garden itself was child’s play. Although the gate was locked, the interior wall was no more than eight feet tall. I barely had to jump to lift myself up to the top, where I crouched and listened for any sound of approaching feet.

  I froze as still as a gargoyle. The music I thought I heard emanated not from my imagination but from within the garden walls.

  From closer vantage, the refuge was even more alluring than I had realized. Inside the outer ring of trees and walls, a gravel path wound through six or seven grassy hillocks. On each knoll stood a lighted peach tree attended by an ornamental shrub, a flower bed, a stone statue or bench, or some combination thereof. Near the center lay the black face of the koi pond.

  Beside the pool knelt the princess. The lacquered scabbard lay on the grass nearby, the pool’s reflected moonlight glimmering over its gold chasing. She had abandoned her masculine garb for an elegant robe of imperial yellow, the specific shade claimed by royal families among the Successor States. For anyone else to wear the color was punishable by torture and death.

  Upon her knees the princess held a guqin, a distant cousin to the lyre. I had in the past desired to study Tian music, which differs so dramatically in tone and structure from the classical Taldan forms, but the loveliness of both the music and the player quite banished my academic thoughts.

  She plucked the strings with gentle fingers, singly and in chords strange to my Chelish ear, yet the song itself was not unfamiliar. It was one of many I had enjoyed in the company of my old acquaintance, Song Chu-yu. I searched my memory library for the title, but the subtle contour of the princess’s chin distracted my attention. The lute’s music entranced me, drawing my gaze inexorably to her face. Her jet eyes—

  A dissonant note dispelled my reverie, but the discord originated not from the guqin but from my reflexive refusal to be lulled into torpor. I feared I had been about to succumb not to the woman’s natural charms but to some magical effect of her instrument. Without a riffle scroll at hand—indeed, without even a spellbook from which I could create one—I had no means of testing my suspicion.

  Had I seen any indication of guile upon the placid countenance of the princess, I would have assumed the worst and hated her for daring to enslave my mind. In the absence of even such slight evidence, I was left jolted by my own susceptibility to both enchantment and cynicism.

  It is a point of pride that I have constantly developed my intellectual acumen throughout my considerable lifetime. Constant exercise of my rational faculties, coupled with the mental fortitude bestowed by my half-elven heritage, normally makes me nigh invulnerable to charms. And yet only months earlier I had succumbed to an enchantment with revolting consequences.

  Could it be that I was slipping into an early dotage?

  I shook my head to clear my mind. Simultaneously, the princess began to sing, and two revelations blossomed in my mind.

  First, I now remembered the name of the song as “The Laughing Carp,” which, despite its lighthearted name, was in fact sacred to the worshipers of Sarenrae.

  Second, I comprehended with an almost spiritual disappointment the singular flaw in the princess’s otherwise peerless beauty. No courtly means of describing the defect came to mind, and instead I recalled one of Radovan’s colloquialisms.

  The princess could not carry a tune in a bucket.

  There is an elemental difference between Eastern and Western music, and yet I felt assured that I could recognize a talented Tian singer as readily as I could evaluate a Chelish soprano. The voice of the princess was utterly without charm or skill. It was in fact the dissonance of her voice that shook me from the enchantment, natural or magical. If there was an arcane power affecting my mind, it came from the guqin, not the princess herself.

  A vague movement in the shadows of the outer wall attracted my attention. Half-hidden by the gloom, Jade Tiger stalked the perimeter, one hand on the hilt of his sword, the other clutching his folded fan to his chest. By his erect posture and the constant turning of his head, I knew he safeguarded the princess against any intrusion into the garden while leaving her a modicum of privacy by the pond. The eunuch continued his circuit, vanishing once more into the shadows between the trees.

  The sight of the princess had arrested my breathing, on which I had spent the past weeks focusing. Her beauty had also dulled the other senses Master Li had encouraged me to hone, for my usually keen hearing had detected nothing before another figure appeared beside me on the wall.

  “What are you doing?” Kwan hissed in my ear.

  Before I could reply, he spied the princess and quite forgot me.

  “What is it?” gasped Mon Choi. While he landed beside me with the grace of a cat, I had detected his unmistakable aroma an instant earlier. The masters permitted us to bathe and wash our brown-and-tan robes in the stream running through the temple grounds once each week. While I supplemented this ration with a furtive toilet while fetching water each morning, my fellows seemed impervious to the miasma that threatened to suffocate me as bath day approached.

  It was a marvel, I thought, that the princess had not smelled us already.

  A rustling in the nearest boughs was our only warning of attack.

  Kwan pushed me hard in the chest. I struck Mon Choi as I fell backward, and we both crashed to the hard earth inside the Cherry Court. An instant later, Kwan landed in a neat tripod, poised on the balls of his feet and three fingers of one hand. Between the knuckles of his other hand he held three long, slender darts. He gripped a fourth in his mouth. A stream of blood trickled over his lip and down his chin.

  He dropped the darts. “Hurry. We must not be found outside the dormitory.”

  It was already too late.

  The first strike sent Mon Choi tumbling across the courtyard. I turned just in time to receive a foot in the chest. The powerful blow flung me against the garden wall in a puff of masonry dust. I shook my head to clear my vision and saw Kwan kowtowing to Master Wu.

  “The responsibility is mine, Master,” he said. “I misled my brothers.”

  “No,” cried Mon Choi, throwing himself down beside Kwan. “It is my fault. Punish me.”

  Master Wu scoffed at them. He paced back and forth and glared down at the offenders.

  How simple it would have been to let my brothers take the blame. No doubt I would also endure punishment, but the instigator of our infraction would certainly suffer the most. I had endured so much already. It seemed only prudent that I should accept any buffer, however unexpected, between my body and the wrath of Master Wu.

  And yet my silence would be a falsehood, and thus beneath the dignity of a count of Cheliax.

  “My brothers protect me, Master Wu.” I kowtowed beside them. “They sought only to prevent me from breaking curfew. I beg you to spare them.”

  I felt the leaden foot of Master Wu upon my neck, pressing down with such inexo
rable force that I sprawled helpless, unable to maintain even the groveling posture of a supplicant.

  “Master Wu, please,” said Mon Choi. “Be merciful. His mind is clouded with exhaustion from his extra duties.”

  I heard but could not see Wu’s bone-crunching response. In whatever manner he struck Mon Choi, it did not require him to remove his foot from my neck.

  “Master, you have lost your temper,” said Kwan.

  Such a direct challenge to a master of the temple was forbidden, and no one knew that better than Kwan. Wu stepped away from me, and only the power of gravity allowed my head to turn so that I could witness the beating that made all my previous castigations seem little more than a slap upon the wrist.

  Chapter Eight

  Drunken Boxer

  After pissing on me for weeks, the clouds finally gave up. The sun on my neck cheered me almost as much as Burning Cloud Devil’s absence, but the feeling lasted only until I saw my shadow on the road.

  So far I’d avoided catching my reflection when I drank from a stream or puddle. Even without Burning Cloud Devil’s magical “sealing” characters, my hands alone showed me how different I looked. The tiny nubs on my knuckles had grown into thorny spikes a couple inches long. I could feel those all over my body, on practically every joint and in ragged lines on my shins and forearms.

  The spikes weren’t the worst of it. I’d made the mistake of examining the whorls on my fingertips. Not only were they different, they weren’t even remotely human. Instead of the usual irregular ovals, I had perfect pentagons spiraling down into infinity. They looked like something by one of those pesh-smoking painters the boss used to patronize.