Claddings of Light : Book 12 of Painting the Mists

by Patrick Laplante

  Cha Ming closed his eyes and tried again. He prayed to the heavens that he could reach at least one of them. His prayers went unanswered. Of course he couldn’t contact them. Of course it wasn’t so simple. “Chief Administrator Luo, I was hoping to speak to you about something,” Cha Ming said.

  “I am at your disposal,” Chief Administrator Luo said. “I’m not sure if you’ll be retaining your lordly title over this prefecture or the Dripping Blade Prefecture, but I urge you to make a decision in the next three days.”

  “There is a time limit?” Cha Ming asked.

  “Prefecture lords are required to stay in their territories,” Chief Administrator Luo explained.

  “Then Prefecture Lord Dripping Blade…” Cha Ming said uncertainly.

  “Used up about three centuries of annual leave,” Chief Administrator Luo said dryly. “This, and other rules, I will explain.” He began to guide Cha Ming around the building, and Cha Ming, not wanting to arouse any suspicion, followed. Captain Xing followed as well, likely fully aware—mostly—of what Cha Ming was intending.

  “And this is the last part of your introductory tour,” Chief Administrator Luo said as they arrived in a large blue-stone room. A stone arch large enough to accommodate a rather large demon sat there. There were guards here as well, and administrators arranging shipments and transfers.

  “Using this room, it is possible to teleport people and items between the different prefectures in the kingdom. The cost depends on the range, of course. It is not the most efficient method of travel, as it is extremely expensive, but many rich merchants and nobles use it. It is free to use for the prefecture lord, of course, and you do get priority usage. Assuming you have accumulated the time to visit other prefectures or you are on official business.”

  “I see,” Cha Ming said. “Is it within my authority to clear the current transfer schedule? These are turbulent times, and I would like for all travel in and out to be approved only by myself.”

  Chief Administrator Luo hesitated. “That will lose the prefecture a lot of revenue, and we would need to pay certain penalties. We have a budget to keep.”

  “We’ll make up for it, I’m sure,” Cha Ming said. Then, seeing the man was unwilling, he added another detail. “Only for twenty-four hours. Until I get my bearings.” The man sighed in relief.

  “If that’s all, I will take care of it as soon as we end this conversation,” Chief Administrator Luo said. “Will that be everything for today?”

  “Yes. Thank you such much for your hospitality,” Cha Ming said.

  “Thank you for accompanying me on this tour,” Chief Administrator Luo said. “We will speak of your other duties once you have rested.” He then walked off to the counter, and after some brief arguing, the room was cleared, leaving behind only a skeleton crew to man the gate.

  “Well done,” Captain Xing said. “They won’t realize you’re gone until a few minutes after you’ve left. The question is, where are you going?”

  Cha Ming grinned. “Guess.” Then he sent a message to Huxian, and a gate opened in the room. “Everyone, no one is allowed in or out, not a word of this, or I execute you on the spot!”

  The frightened guards moved to shut the door, and a heavy glare forced the administrator in the room to put down her communication device.

  “Oof, what a long day,” Huxian said as he walked through the portal room. Xiao Bai and Mi Fei followed after him. “There. Surprise!”

  “I had no doubt that you could pull it off,” Cha Ming said. “I’ll be happy to hear the story later. Well, can you do it?” Huxian zipped over to the teleportation arch and began to inspect it with Xiao Bai. He’d naturally filled her in on the plan.

  “Hard to do, but doable,” Huxian said. “I’m going need you to do some painting.”

  “Of course I need to paint,” Cha Ming muttered, feeling at the ache in his damaged soul. The next hour passed by excruciatingly slowly. He painted runes he didn’t understand at Huxian’s direction, channeling Huxian’s insights and demonic qi into them to substitute for his own. It gave him a convenient excuse to not make conversation with Mi Fei, who was clearly distracted. She’d been through a lot in the past few months, and he couldn’t imagine what she felt like. Likely anything he said would be the wrong thing to say.

  They fiddled with the arch, shooing away any administrators and technicians in the room who questioned what they were doing. Apparently, threatening to kill someone wasn’t good enough. You had to threaten to fire them instead. Death threats weren’t all that uncommon, but the job market wasn’t looking good of late.

  Finally, after much tinkering, something clicked, and the runes on the stone archway began to rearrange themselves. The portal frame shifted, locking in a new set of coordinates. They hadn’t destroyed the archway so much as added a new type of location. One that didn’t correspond to normal teleportation gates.

  “Activate it,” Cha Ming commanded.

  “But, sir, procedures—” the gate administrator said.

  He eyed her, raising an eyebrow.

  “Yes, sir,” she said, and opened up the control panel and proceeded directly to activation. “Just to confirm, will we have sufficient energy stores? The results could be catastrophic.”

  “We’re not teleporting far,” Cha Ming assured. “Less than ten thousand kilometers.”

  She let out a sigh of relief and pressed her finger on a rune. The entire archway began to glow with pale black light extracted directly from the burning lake, which he now knew served as a massive energy reservoir for the entire prefecture. It functioned much like the aquifer beneath the Tree of Life in Stargazer City. Conquering the demon lands, now that he thought about it, would allow the formation of another major city.

  The gateway hummed as energy poured into it. It sputtered violently as it rushed through imperfections in Cha Ming’s runes and opened to coordinates it hadn’t been originally designed for. Then, after a large burst of energy, the liquid surface of the transfer portal settled into a smooth image of what was on the other side. There, they saw fighting. Humans and demons. They were not teleporting to other prefectures, or even the capital. None of these places were safe.

  “So I was right,” Captain Xing said. “You’re going to the Star-Eye Clan. Have they restored the Tree of Life’s functions already?”

  “We’ll find out soon enough,” Cha Ming said. “From what Chief Administrator Luo told me, the prefecture’s leadership will become contested in three days after my departure. I hope this won’t affect the transfer of assets?”

  “This happens more often than you might think, Clear Sky,” Captain Xing said. “Though this is definitely one of the more dramatic exits I’ve heard of. Don’t worry, the funds will be transferred. Your only problem will be finding a bank—demon territories don’t often have them.”

  “Then that’s it,” Cha Ming said. “We’ll be going now.”

  “Just remember your oath and your binding,” Captain Xing said. “My master, Emperor Qin, would be most disappointed if a wild card like you was removed from play.”

  “Even after all the trouble I’ve caused him?” Cha Ming asked.

  “Trouble?” Captain Xing asked. “As far as I’m concerned, you’ve done him a great service. The karmic anomaly, Cao Wenluan, will be somewhat slowed by your actions. You’re removing another very troubling karmic anomaly from play, snatching her right out of his hands.”

  “So it was Cao Wenluan all along,” Cha Ming said. “The mission was just a prelude. A fuse to set off this chain of events early.”

  “It’s not difficult to predict the future when everyone is heading in the same direction, Clear Sky,” Captain Xing said. “Till we meet again.” He bowed dramatically, and despite the spatial lock in the room, he vanished. Was he really just a captain, a mid-level-rune-gathering cultivator, or was he something greater, like a law-stitching expert? That was a question for later, Cha Ming decided.

  “You look nervous,” Cha Ming said,
walking up to Huxian. “Are you not confident in the stability of the portal?”

  “It’s not that,” Huxian said. “I’m just hoping there’s enough energy for the transfer.”

  “It’s just the four of us,” Cha Ming said. Then he frowned. “Tell me it’s just the four of us.”

  “Well, I might have made some promises,” Huxian said. He stepped aside and pulled open a door he’d been covertly summoning this entire time. Shneraz walked through it, powerful and proud. Then the rest of his clan followed, including children and the elderly. Hundreds of them.

  If that weren’t enough, tens of other portals opened, filling the room with tens of thousands of demons. They were forced to funnel them into the greater portal, lest they be overwhelmed by their numbers. Most of the demons weren’t fighters, but all of them were armed. Every single full-grown demon was an initiate. They rushed to the other side of the portal and joined the fray.

  “Ready?” Cha Ming asked Mi Fei.

  “Yes,” she said, looking away. “I never want to see this place again.” She then walked up to the portal and stepped through it hand in hand with Xiao Bai without any hesitation.

  “Remind me to kill Cao Wenluan when I next see him,” Cha Ming said to Huxian.

  “I think you’ll have to line up for a crack at him,” Huxian said.

  “Administrator, please close the gate behind us when we’re through,” Cha Ming said.

  “When can we expect you back?” the administrator asked.

  “Never,” Cha Ming said, tossing her the communication orb that came with his position. “Give this to Chief Administrator Luo when I’m done and tell him that when my three days are up, he’ll have to find a new prefecture lord.” Then he and Huxian stepped through the portal and into Stargazer City.

  Chapter 39: The Way

  In Stargazer City, a siege was underway. Human troops were attacking the patchwork city, reducing buildings to rubble as they cleared key areas around the Tree of Life. Demons fled, bringing their weaker members and their children into the tree for shelter. As for the tree itself, it was impossible for a single cultivator to damage it.

  To that end, the human army set up large artifices and formations. They channeled raw power through them using hundreds of trained cultivators in tandem. And in the skies, elders fought rune-gathering cultivators and demigods. They stayed away from the battlefield, lest their attacks harm the basic forces of either side.

  Meanwhile, another battle took place deep within the Tree of Life. Several elders from many different demon clans sat cross-legged in a circle. They poured out their demonic essence and invested the ground beneath them with the power of the five elements. That energy, in turn, was poured into a vine matrix that fed into the core of the massive Tree of Life.

  There were three small groups and two large ones. Wood, fire, and metal only had token representation. This was due to the presence of three powerful fruits that glowed with a fierce energy that even twenty elders couldn’t match. It was the two remaining elements, water and earth, where most of their efforts were concentrated. Dozens of elders—whether Badger Clan or Serpent Clan or even Shark Clan—tried their best to make up for the deficiency.

  The inkborn were mostly focused on the water element. Starlight, radiance, and iridescence were already present. Using the power of their mutated bloodline, they were substituted for the ink of the Inkwell Clan. It was the essence of the Runebound Clan that was difficult to encompass, though Clever Dusk, Silver Fish, and Graceful Twilight tried their best to do so. Their efforts weren’t showing much progress.

  “We’re losing,” Clever Dusk said. She was drained of energy, and some of her black hair was beginning to fade to white.

  “We can only keep trying,” Silver Fish replied, trying once again to force his energy into the perfect shape. Out of the three of them, he and Graceful Twilight were the most adaptable, but neither of them had achieved an acceptable result.

  “You need to go,” Clever Dusk said to Silver Fish. “Buy us time.”

  “Are you saying you can finish this without me?” Silver Fish asked.

  “No,” Clever Dusk said. “But there are some variables that have yet to come into play. Go. Stall for time. Clear Sky has won. He’ll be here shortly.”

  “He’s all the way in the Burning Lake Prefecture,” Silver Fish said.

  “He’ll be here,” Clever Dusk said. “I have faith in the fox.”

  Great. They were relying on that wild card. The tricky one that had gone off on vacation.

  “How much time do you need?” Silver Fish asked.

  “As much as you can give us,” Clever Dusk said.

  Silver Fish sighed and wished she could stop speaking in riddles. He stopped pouring energy into the matrix and stood up, stretching muscles and ligaments he hadn’t used in a whole day. He was drained, but he didn’t have time to rest. He ran through the winding passageways that led onto the branches of the Tree of Life, whose leaves and branches were glowing much brighter than normal. Stars that seemed out of reach now stood just outside of touching distance. Concentrated starlight pooled there, waiting to be used.

  He didn’t immediately jump into the battlefield. There were ten different battlefronts, and each one of them was being overwhelmed. Even those defended by the Five Directions and the relatively fresh elders of the Iridescent Clan weren’t doing much better. There, he thought, spotting his target. Cao Wenluan was routing a group of stone monkeys. Silver Fish broke into a run and jumped, gliding through the air like a bird in flight. His surroundings rushed by, and in mere seconds, he closed the five-kilometer gap between him and the hateful enemy commander.

  He plunged into the melee anchor first, barely giving a second’s warning to his allies. Everyone broke away, fleeing. All save Cao Wenluan. At Lord Patient Stone’s command, however, they coalesced their domains into a sort of environmental prison, forming a cage of rocks and stone that distorted the surrounding space, stopping him from teleporting away.

  There was a massive explosion of energy and ink as Silver Fish broke into the prison of stone. He expected to break Cao Wenluan’s bones, but he struck solid metal.

  So much for a surprise attack, Silver Fish thought. He channeled the power of the plane, but Cao Wenluan countered him by channeling the power of his army, of the prefecture, of the sects and the clans. Even now, even though Cha Ming had won his duels, his grip over the prefecture had somehow solidified. It gave him frightening strength that allowed him to match even Silver Fish, a Dao Lord among Dao Lords.

  “I was wondering if you’d show your cowardly face,” Cao Wenluan said, grinning. He was bleeding from the corner of his mouth. The earth broke beneath both their feet as they pushed at each other with qi and will. The battle resumed around them, and Silver Fish supported them with reinforcements in the form of troops of ink. Cao Wenluan strengthened his own army with his very presence, giving every man and woman under his command a second wind.

  They fought back and forth, neither side gaining nor losing ground, but that was what Silver Fish was aiming for. He wasn’t trying to win; he was trying to hold the line. Cao Wenluan must have noticed this, for he broke off and tried to disrupt the Star-Eye Clan’s chaotic battle formation. Silver Fish followed close behind him, matching Cao Wenluan’s teleportation hops by diving through the inky waters that made up the Inkwell Plane.

  They clashed, anchor and saber, soul-bound weapon versus demon weapon. Silver Fish’s half-formed demon armor absorbed damage, while Cao Wenluan’s own armor protected his vitals, allowing the rest of his body to regenerate with the vitality of a Dao God. They traded blows, and whenever Silver Fish’s anchor found purchase, Cao Wenluan didn’t go down for very long.

  Silver Fish’s arrival had bought them time, but there was only so much he alone could accomplish. They gave up more and more ground, leaving behind civilians that were cut off and captured by the enemy army. Even if they managed to defend the Tree of Life, they would lose everything that
was important to them. Initiates were different than Daoists and demigods. They were the champions of nature. Its protectors. They had duty and obligation. And with every inch of land they lost, they grew weaker.

  With every demon that died, the burden on Silver Fish’s heart grew heavier. His duty was to save demon lives. Such was the weight of initiation. Such was the mantle of a champion.

  “You’re getting stronger the more we fight,” Cao Wenluan observed as they clashed again. “I thought you’d be losing strength. Isn’t that how demonic energy works?”

  “I’m losing strength, yes,” Silver Fish growled. “But you’re pissing me off, and I’m stronger when I’m angry.” Indeed, every blow he struck contained not only his rage, but the rage of those around him. Every story of ink he summoned contained their hatred, their wrath, and their pain. His armor warped as he fought, adjusting its sleek protective shape and forming spike mail that would punish anyone who struck him.

  He could never forgive this man. Even if they found a way out of this, even if they could escape, he would never let this go. It was his solemn duty to chase this man down to the edge of the world and drown him in the deepest oceans. You and I can’t coexist, Silver Fish thought. If there’s a mission for vengeance, I accept it. He heard a soft ping, and a quest registered in his mind.

  Space-time Quest Accepted: Wrath of the Conquered. Defeat Cao Wenluan and thwart his plans to completely subvert the plane. Reward: Variable. The sooner the better. Reward for acceptance: Demonic ability, Beacon of Pain.

  It struck him full force, all the pain and suffering of those around him. What had previously been a shallow link solidified, allowing him to feel the demons in his vicinity ten times over. All the agony and the anguish. The loss. The hurt. It warped him, tainting the stories in his mind.