by Dante King
Kang River, I thought. Good. That’s a lead.
“One of you will lead us to the Kang River,” I explained, looking over the crowd. “Someone who knows the way. I trust this will not be a great difficulty, considering I am your new Governor?”
The villagers looked nervously at each other. There was something they wanted to say, but didn’t dare.
“Well?” I grunted, becoming the officious tyrant these people expected, if only for a moment. “Out with it!”
“There have been strange sightings in that area,” a woman said, holding her hat in her hands. “People who range or hunt around that section of the woods have gone missing.”
“There are rumors a great beast lurks in a cave near the Kang River,” someone else added. “I’m surprised Jhon risked traveling there to catch a few salmon!”
The fisherman blushed. “It’s only a rumor! There’s no beast!”
He’s wrong, I thought. There is a beast. The worst kind—the human kind.
Seth was clearly behind those attacks. And Hazel had run off to confront him. Alone.
“Someone needs to take us,” I said, lifting my voice. “It’s a matter of grave importance! You will be safe, I assure you! You’ll be in the presence of cultivators every step of the way.”
Still, there were no takers among the villagers. That is, until a little voice piped up behind me.
“I’ll go with you.”
I turned—and saw Kim, the bartender and the elder’s daughter, standing in the middle of the street. She’d seen the commotion around the cart from a window and come to see what all the hubbub was about.
“Daughter?” The elder’s face went white. “You cannot risk it!”
Kim sighed and rolled her eyes. “I’ll be fine, Dad,” she said, elbowing her father. I wondered how much she’d told him about the previous night—and how close she’d come to bagging the new Governor. She must have said something, because the man’s face instantly changed. “Eric saved our entire town from the Rust Beetles. I’m sure whatever beast is out there will be no problem for him and his cultivators.”
The elder still didn’t look like he liked it, but he wasn’t going to argue. “Very well,” he said with a deep sigh. “My daughter will accompany you to the Kang River, Governor Hyde. My hope is that this partnership will deepen the bonds of friendship between our two families.
That’s politician for ‘I hope you knock my daughter up’, I thought. The elder was practically rubbing his hands already, thinking of his heirs who’d have political clout and a better-than-average chance at learning cultivation. It upset me a bit how eager he seemed to have his daughter bred by a stranger from a foreign land, but I supposed there were many things I still didn’t understand about this world.
“That would be most agreeable,” I said, hoping I sounded like a politician myself as I gave Kim’s dad some side-eye. I didn’t like the way the man treated his daughter, but if it got her onto the road with us, I was all for it. As long as she knew the way to the Kang River, of course.
The new cart didn’t just look nicer than the old one—it had superior steering as well. A brand new set of oxen pulled Lyra’s new beer wagon, though the ones she’d lost would of course be missed. The back shook less as we pulled out of Jinshu, and the pace as we moved out of town and into the forest was swifter than I remembered from our journey here.
For a time, all was quiet in the cart. We rolled down the path, passing peaceful old-growth trees and dappled shrubs, no one feeling the need or the desire to talk overmuch. I had plenty to think about.
Lyra sat up front, guiding the oxen, with Kim sitting in the passenger seat guiding her. Despite her youthful appearance, the elder’s daughter knew these woods as well as any hunter. She guided Lyra unfailingly down the correct paths, even at times when I myself couldn’t tell much difference between one winding trail and another. Anna, Regina and I rode in the back, with no beer barrels to block our line of sight this time around. I made a mental note to send a wagon back to Jinshu later with as much of Lyra’s ale as it could carry, to make up for the lost shipment we’d accompanied here.
Telling Lyra about that broke the seal on our conversations. As Regina leaned over the side of the cart, watching the trees roll by, she suddenly piped up. “So how’s it work?”
Huh? “How’s what work?”
Regina turned around, no shame in her gaze. “Dual Cultivation. You just have sex with somebody and they gain the ability to do magic?”
I was the only one in the cart who took the question seriously. The girls surrounding me broke out into laughter, some of it knowing and most of it ribald. Lyra and Kim shared a girlish look, while Anna did her level best to try and actually answer the question.
“There’s more to it than that,” my girlfriend explained, “but yes. Eric and I didn’t even realize what we were doing the first time we practiced Dual Cultivation. You should have seen his face the first time I turned into a scythe next to him. He was so confused!”
“You didn’t see the look on my face,” I shot back. “You were a scythe.”
“Yeah, but I can imagine it,” Anna said smugly, giving me a pinch on the cheek. “And it was awesome.”
Regina shook her head ruefully. At first, I thought her reaction was because of the jokey way Anna and I talked about the sacred ritual of Dual Cultivation. The next time she spoke, I realized my guess was wrong.
“If I were a cultivator, the very last thing I’d want to do is run away from this group,” Regina said, sounding like Hazel had turned down a million dollars. “A gift like that… it’s literally life changing. And not just the magic, either. I’ve haven’t met many people like you and Eric, Anna. What you did for me when I was captured by the Vipers and sold to the Silent Auction… well, let’s just say there’s not too many people who’d stick their necks out for a total stranger like that.”
“That’s what cultivators are for,” I said firmly. “Helping the weak. At least, that’s what they’re supposed to be for.”
“See, that’s what I mean,” Regina said with a smile. “You and your group believe that. Even after seeing what the Hollow Frog Guild does to this province, the awful things they either look the other way toward or have a hand in, and you still think cultivators can be something better.”
“They can be something better. And they will be.” I leaned back, watching the forest pass us by as we wound our way into the hills. “They’re getting better all the time. We’ve already put a much nicer guy into position as Governor—meaning me—and pretty soon, the Hollow Frog Guild and their nefarious activities will be a thing of the past.”
Regina nodded thoughtfully. “Still—I just can’t believe Hazel. How selfish can you be?”
“It’s a thing of honor,” Lyra said from the front seat. She’d been listening in on our whole conversation, though she’d been too polite to let us know until now. “A cultivator thing. Scratch one of them about it, and they’ll all tell you it’s part of the Eternal Dao.”
That answer appeared to satisfy Regina, but it didn’t satisfy me. “The Peak Supreme God is going to wipe us all off the map unless I move further down the path of the Eternal Dao soon,” I told Lyra, my voice halfway between a bitter joke and an honest request for advice. “Do you think Hazel chasing after this cultivator helps or hurts us there, Lyra?”
The redhead didn’t have an answer for that. She stared down the road, guiding the oxen in the way Kim had suggested. “Probably hurts,” she finally admitted.
“Right. Which means if Hazel wants to keep us all alive, she’s got to get with the program. Soon.”
The sound of running water soon reached our ears. Kim had Lyra steer the cart slightly off the path, and we emerged from the treeline to see a mighty river, flowing in the full flush of its power. A stone bridge stretched from one bank to the other, and from this distance I could see several notches in it designed for people to sit and cast lines. This must have been where our fisherman was when
he saw Hazel running by.
“She’d be heading that way, right?” I asked, pointing into the woods with a finger. The direction we’d come didn’t seem to be the way Hazel would be going, as that would only lead her back to Jinshu. At the same time, these woods were massive—she could have run off anywhere, and we’d never be able to find her.
The sound of the cart’s wheels changed as we moved from dirt to cobblestone. This bridge looked practically new compared to some of the architecture we’d seen on our trip to Jinshu, and I idly wondered who’d authorized its construction. Had the Hollow Frog Guild actually done something good for a change, or was this a side effect of Jinshu’s elders controlling so much metal and stone? My guess would have been the latter.
I can find those things out if I want, I realized, leaning over the side of the cart to look down at the rushing water. After all, I’m the Governor now. These people are under my protection—which also makes them obligated to serve me.
The origins of the bridge didn’t concern me nearly as much as the location of Hazel, however. The cart rolled over the Kang River, heading downward into the woods. I knew from studying maps in the Jinshu Inn that eventually this road led to another town whose name I couldn’t remember—but that it would be days of traveling before we came to the other side of the forest. Meaning neither Hazel or Seth could have gone terribly far.
Suddenly Lyra sat up in her seat. “Hey,” the redhead said, pointing a little ways off the beaten path. “What’s that over there? Up in that tree?”
It took me several seconds of scanning the horizon to see what she meant. A piece of fabric fluttered in a nearby tree branch, caught in a tangle of thorns. The wind must have carried it upward, as it rested high up enough that an ordinary person would have had to climb to reach it. For a cultivator, however, it was a simple matter of dislodging it with a Wood spell and letting the thing flutter to the ground. I selected Anna for the task and waited.
By the time the scrap of fabric reached Anna’s hands, I knew what we were looking at. “That’s a piece of Hazel’s outfit,” I said, standing up in the back of the cart.
The faces of my companions were grave. “Something must have attacked her,” Lyra said, her cheeks paling to the color of ash. “All the way out here, there’s only one thing it could be: Seth.”
“The monster,” Kim agreed, hopping out of the cart. “Eric, cultivators have enhanced senses, right?”
I stared at the woman, confused by the sudden topic switch. “Yes,” I said. “The first step of using your Core is opening your senses to the world around you. It’s a real trip the first time it happens.”
“Makes a lot of things more fun,” Anna said with a wicked smirk. “Why?”
Kim glanced back at us. “Open your senses now,” she suggested with a shrug. “See if maybe you can detect any clues the rest of us wouldn’t be able to notice?”
The idea was so obvious I couldn’t believe I hadn’t thought of it before. “Hang on,” I said, climbing into the front seat of the cart. The seat Kim had just vacated was mildly warm, and I tried not to think of the soft, round rear that had been sitting there only moments ago. “I’m going to do just that. Give me a minute…”
I sat cross-legged on the passenger seat and closed my eyes. Calming down my pounding heart took some effort—seeing Hazel’s torn clothing thrust everything into an even sharper light, made it clear that wherever she was, she was in considerable danger. Relax, I commanded myself, reaching inside and touching my Core. You’re no good to Hazel panicking. You will see her again.
Memories of the previous night flashed through my mind, hot and primal. I shrugged them off with an effort of will, opening my senses to the world around me. My vision swam, the trees and forest floor taking on a strange fish-eye effect as sensory data threatened to overwhelm me.
It was one thing to open one's senses in some sterile dojo or in the middle of a city. But in the midst of a forest, a cultivator was surrounded by thousands of plants, animals, insects. Though the Rust Beetles were nowhere to be found now that we’d cleansed the region, the normal variety was still endemic. I felt them skittering around in the leaves beneath our feet, could taste the sunlight on the dappled leaves of the oak standing a few feet away from me.
No good, I thought. I’m getting overwhelmed. I need to expand the search, not deepen it.
As they often did in times of stress, the thought of video games flickered in the back of my mind. There was an expression often associated with open-world games like Skyrim: “wide as an ocean, deep as a puddle.” It meant that you could go almost anywhere in those kinds of games and do anything, but the level of depth in any activity you undertook was almost certain to be virtually nil.
That was the philosophy I sought at that moment. I needed to feel everything, sense the whole forest at once, without being overwhelmed by the hundreds of thousands of things jockeying for my attention at once. Could I do it?
Mastering the flow was like trying to run a marathon while playing chess against a grandmaster. Sweat poured down my forehead as my senses expanded, reaching further and further through the forest. Back in my body, I became dimly aware of the fact that the world around me had gone quiet. Everyone had stopped talking; they’d gathered to watch me, concerned and awestruck by the depths of my ability.
My focus sharpened yet again, and I became aware of a faint sound coming from a great distance away. Shouts in a feminine voice, the clash of metal—combat.
“There,” I said, the single word painfully loud to my enhanced senses. I let go of everything at once, and snapped back to myself with my finger pointing in a southwesterly direction through the forest. “About two miles that way. That’s where she is.”
“Holy shit,” Kim whispered, her face filled with awe. “That was incredible, Eric!”
Dimly, I realized the whole group stared at me with similar expressions. I must have put on one hell of a show while I wasn’t paying attention to my body, but that wasn’t the important thing here. “I heard her screaming,” I told the group. “She’s in trouble. We need to move!”
Move we did. Lyra whipped the oxen into shape, sending the cart through the forest so quickly we had to hold on for dear life. Anna and Regina held onto me, of course, the former using the opportunity to grope me shamelessly as Kim and Lyra led the cart toward our destination. What had been a downward trajectory now turned ‘V’ shaped as we headed up a hill, the trees thinning out around us as more and more of the blue sky could be seen.
It was a cave. The sound of screaming grew louder and louder as we approached it, echoing like it came from someone standing at the bottom of a well. I jumped out of the cart immediately, already motioning for Anna to transform. If Seth was inside that cave with Hazel, picking a fight with her was the last mistake he would ever make.
But as I raced toward the cave mouth, something bundled near the entrance made me freeze.
A figure lay before the entrance, curled up into a ball. A look of pained surprise lay on the corpse’s face, their crimson robes torn and shredded as if by a wild animal. Only I knew no animal had done this.
Hazel was just inside, but the sight stopped me. I knew this man.
It was Bao the Cultivator.
Chapter 14
“Oh no,” Anna said, grinding to a halt just behind me. Her demonic transformation froze halfway through, her horns and tail jutting like tiny stumps from her forehead and lower back. “Bao!?”
“Fuck me,” I grunted, leaning over the body. I dropped to my knees, unable to believe the sight of the cultivator before me. We’d just seen each other yesterday. “He must have come out here because of the rumors,” I said, shaking my head. “Of course he’d jump right into the next adventure. He heard about the monster in these woods and decided to make them safe for the people…”
Bao the Cultivator was dead. I couldn’t believe it.
He looked so peaceful laying there. Despite the awful condition of his robes, no sign of a s
truggle showed on his face. He looked vaguely surprised, but also as if he’d just laid down for a quick afternoon nap. I couldn’t tell the extent of his injuries from beneath the robes, but I knew from my travels there were ways to kill a cultivator without a lot of blood. Seth knowing a few of these wouldn’t have surprised me in the least—
Bao’s eyes flew open.
I was so startled I tumbled backward, falling on my ass in the dirt. Bao let out a groan and rose to a sitting position, clutching a wound in his side. Blood streamed into his robes, joining what I now saw was the dried blood already soaking through that part of his outfit.
“Bwaaah, Eric Hyde!” Despite the circumstances, Bao’s voice was full of his characteristic good humor. “Our illustrious paths cross once again, I see!”
“Bao,” I whispered, an absurd amount of relief filling me. “Shit, man, I thought you were dead!”
Bao grimaced as he tried to rise — the wound in his side was too great. “It takes more than an honorless dog to defeat the great Bao the Cultivator,” the man grumbled, laying back against the rocks. “There is a cultivator in this cave, Eric Hyde! The beast the people of Jinshu fear is actually a man! I can’t believe it!”
I could. “That’s why we’re here,” I said, glancing back at my companions. “A blonde-haired man with a bad attitude, right?”
Bao groaned in recognition. “I attempted to arrest him,” the cultivator said. “I was willing to avoid obliterating him in a duel in order to preserve the possibility of his redemption. Then he stabbed me in the side like a coward! If your warrior friend had not shown up, he would have finished the job—”
The mention of Hazel returned my attention to the noises coming from inside the cave. “You stay here,” I told Bao.
Bao let out a weary smile. “No worries, young man. I suspect I will be going nowhere for some time.”
“Don’t talk like that. We’ll have you back on your feet in a jiffy. Anna, come with me. Lyra, Regina—take care of Bao.”
