by A F Kay
As Ruwen drew within fifteen feet, the Elder Viper stopped its stream of snakes. It hissed, opened its “mouth” wide, and coughed. A wall of vipers, like a net of snakes, flew at him.
Many of the vipers struck the bamboo trunks, and Ruwen turned sideways behind a trunk. He quickly stomped on all the snakes that had hit his tree and fallen. A viper landed on his neck, biting him before he could pull it off. He moved from trunk to trunk until he’d closed within five feet of the glade and the large snake.
The Elder Viper had stopped launching snakes, and Ruwen studied it as he moved closer. Without a sound or movement, the Elder Viper shot a stream of liquid at him. He moved to the side, but the liquid struck the surrounding trunks filling the air with a spray that covered his skin and clothes.
Ruwen’s skin tingled where the mist touched, and his eyes watered. He blinked quickly, hoping the tears would wash what must be venom from his eyes. As his skin numbed, he also lost his vision, and he stopped advancing. He pulled his shirt over his nose and mouth, unsure what consequences breathing the venom might have.
The loss of vision depressed Ruwen, but he hadn’t expected an easy trial. He smothered the panic before it got a foothold in his thoughts and focused on his hearing and touch.
The venom had numbed his skin, which greatly decreased his ability to sense vibrations or changes in air pressure. Losing both would significantly impact his ability to fight. Thankfully, the red sorrow fruit counteracted enough of the venom’s potency, that he could still walk on his numb feet.
A viper bit him on his right calf and another on the left thigh. The noise from all the surrounding snakes made hearing individual attacks difficult. He flinched as another viper bit him in the stomach. He ripped the three snakes from his body. The venom, even with the red sorrow fruit, had deadened his senses enough that detecting the snakes’ attacks seemed impossible.
Retreating now might be possible, but Ruwen felt like he could only win this portion of the trial with aggressiveness. A viper bit into his left bicep and he pulverized its head with his right hand. Almost immediately another viper attacked, biting the back of his right hand. He ripped the snake off and smashed it into a bamboo trunk. In the last few seconds, he’d lost twenty-five minutes because of damage.
But the last attack had given Ruwen an idea. Just like when he’d spoken to Pine earlier, and again just now, the vipers attacked any sound they heard. The numbing venom made it difficult to tell where the snakes were, so he just needed to gather them into a location he could control.
Ruwen ate one of the three remaining red sorrow fruits, and then whistled his favorite song from a bard named Bad Alchemy. Then, as if practicing his punching, he struck the area in front of his face as quickly as possible.
The strikes met the mass of snakes attracted to the noise. A couple got through, one bit his cheek, and another his ear. Warm fluid spattered Ruwen’s face and hands, and he hoped it wasn’t more venom. Wherever the fluid struck, his skin tingled as the numbness disappeared, and it slowly spread outward across his body.
Ruwen’s vision returned and his strikes became more accurate. He winced at the snake blood covering his body, and realized it provided an antidote to the venom. Once again, he strode toward the Elder Viper.
The Elder Viper had used over half its snakes in attacks against Ruwen, and it made the hissing call again to gather more. But no new snakes arrived because Ruwen’s whistling acted like a siren’s call. Even the snakes on the ground would leap upward toward the sound instead of biting his legs.
As Ruwen approached the Elder Viper, it moved back into the glade. He slowed his punching as the number of snakes dramatically decreased. Three more snakes had gotten through, but his total minutes remained over one hundred.
Ruwen entered the glade, the ankle high grass providing excellent cover for the snakes. He focused on his bare feet, alert for any vibration. The Elder Viper stood ten feet from him. As he watched, the seven-foot portion he could see collapsed to the ground, and Ruwen stopped whistling.
The Elder Viper’s large black body didn’t appear in the mass of snakes, and Ruwen thought about moving toward the stone temple in the middle of the glade. The grass gave the snakes an advantage, and he wanted to take that away from them. But his aggressiveness had worked, and he didn’t want to abandon that success.
So instead, Ruwen moved toward the mass of snakes. He used powerful sweeps to kill the vipers on the ground and quick crescent kicks on anything that jumped at him. When the snakes became more dense, he resorted to stomping on them.
The grass in a ten-foot area had become matted down and soaked in blood. Ruwen pulled ten vipers from his legs, ripping them in half and throwing the pieces into the glade. He had increased his total minutes to one hundred eighty-eight.
Ruwen turned in a slow circle, not able to see any snakes. The temple sat a hundred feet from him, and even the snakes there had disappeared. He wondered where the Elder Viper had gone. Had it returned to the forest to collect more vipers?
A faint vibration tickled the bottom of Ruwen’s feet, and he immediately dove to the left. A moment later, the large black Elder Viper exploded from the ground. Ruwen didn’t bother with a kick, knowing his were still too slow against something as agile as the Elder Viper.
As Ruwen moved toward the large snake, the energy from all his strikes soaked his muscles, ready to power even more strikes, as the Viper Steps built on each other.
This close, Ruwen could see the black eyes of the large snake. The Elder Viper used a third of its length to stand, bringing those dead eyes even with Ruwen’s. Remembering what had happened with Thorn, Ruwen shifted his gaze to focus on the snake’s nose, just in case the Elder Viper had the same hypnotizing power with its eyes.
Not waiting for the Elder Viper to attack first, Ruwen struck at the area just below the snake’s head. The viper bowed its body, avoiding his punch. Not wasting the momentum of the missed punch, Ruwen stepped closer, twisting his body, and bringing his elbow around.
Again, the Elder Viper dodged his blow, but this time Ruwen recognized how. The snake’s movements were identical to how the body moved through the Viper Steps, like an opponent without arms.
Ruwen attacked with this in mind, aiming a kick where the Elder Viper’s body arced off the ground. As the snake dodged the kick, Ruwen punched where he knew the head would be, and felt the satisfying crunch of his fist striking scales.
As the Elder Viper fell to the ground, it used the momentum to lift its tail and stab Ruwen in the side. Jerking its tail violently out, Ruwen staggered to the left holding his side. The vicious strike had cost him twenty-five minutes, bringing him down to one hundred sixty-three.
Ruwen cursed himself for not realizing the tail could be a weapon. The Elder Viper spit venom again, but he reacted in time and dodged the stream. Unlike a human opponent, the Elder Viper only had one vulnerable area, its head. The rest of its body was just one large muscle.
The wound on Ruwen’s side burned, and three seconds later, a wave of pain pulsed through his body and his minute counter dropped by ten. The Elder Viper had poisoned him, and it caused ten damage every three seconds. At that rate, he’d be out of minutes in just over forty-five seconds.
Ruwen immediately thought of the venom that had splashed on his eyes and body. Viper blood had cured that. He jumped away from the Elder Viper to give himself some space and kneeled as another wave of pain made his skin prickle. Only one hundred forty-three minutes remained.
The blood on the ground had dried. Ruwen grabbed a wad of the bloody grass and stuck it in the wound, but he didn’t feel any different, and a moment later, he felt the flash of pain and his counter dropped another ten minutes.
Ruwen stood, impressed with the Elder Viper’s strategy. By killing all the small snakes, Ruwen had removed his easy access to the antidote. He could run back into the bamboo, but it was likely the Elder Viper had forced all the snakes away. In fact, that would explain why the temple no longer
had any snakes on it.
Another pulse of pain, and Ruwen dropped to one hundred twenty-two minutes. That left only one source for the blood he needed, the Elder Viper.
And the Elder Viper knew it. It had already burrowed itself halfway into the ground. Ruwen leaped forward, grabbed the large snake’s tail, and wrapped it around his arm. Pain from the venom made him stagger.
The Elder Viper pulled Ruwen downward, smashing him into the ground. The snake waved the end of its tail around, trying to slash Ruwen with its sharp edges. A wave of pain made him convulse, but he kept his grip. One hundred two minutes left.
Ruwen’s right arm was pinned against the ground as the Elder Viper tried to escape. The sharp tail gave him an idea, and he grabbed its base with his left hand. Again, the venom shook his body, bringing him under a hundred minutes.
Twisting the tail around, Ruwen sawed at the Elder Viper’s scales. The sharp tail scratched the snake’s scales, giving him hope, and he put all his strength into breaking through and getting the viper’s blood.
Another surge of pain from the venom, followed almost immediately by an almost unbearable pain in his back as the Elder Viper sank its fangs deep into Ruwen’s body.
Without Last Breath to buffer the pain, Ruwen almost let go of the tail. The vicious bite had taken twenty minutes and, coupled with the venom, brought him to just sixty-two-minutes left.
Ruwen hissed like a snake himself, and slammed the tip of the tail into the Elder Viper’s body. It penetrated the scales and Ruwen ripped it across the snake’s body, creating a large wound.
Pain exploded through Ruwen’s body as he pushed himself to his knees and pressed the bleeding snake against the wound on his side. The pain in his back increased as the Elder Viper twisted, but the pulsing pain that had come every three seconds had stopped. The blood had worked.
And Ruwen realized the Elder Viper, in its frantic attempt to stop him, had bitten too deeply, and remained stuck in Ruwen’s back. Reaching down, he grabbed the body of the Elder Viper where it exited the ground, and with a tight grip still on the tail pulled upward with all his strength, yanking the snake from the soft ground. He walked to the temple as the Elder Viper thrashed, but he had a good hold on the snake’s tail, and its stuck head gave it no leverage.
Ruwen stopped at the closest pillar. His left palm read fifty-two minutes. Turning his back to the pillar, he slammed himself against it. The building shook, and he paused to make sure it wouldn’t collapse. When it didn’t, he smashed the Elder Viper against the pillar again. Over and over he repeated this until minutes later, the snake went limp. Fifty minutes appeared on his palm, which now read one hundred even.
Unwrapping the Elder Viper’s body from his arm, Ruwen threw it over a crossbeam. Turning around, he pulled down on the tail, which pulled upward on the viper’s head. With a wet sucking sound, the Elder Viper’s fangs finally pulled loose from his back.
Ruwen knew that the smell of some animals deterred others, and he really didn’t want to fight another snake. Using the Elder Viper’s tail, he cut the body open and let the blood cover him, hoping that would keep the other snakes away. The hardest part for him to protect had been the back of his neck, and he reasoned it would only take a minute to make a quick helmet.
Using the tail, he cut the Elder Viper’s head off, leaving two feet of body attached. It took him another minute to scrape the muscle away and stuff the skull full of grass. Then he pulled the Elder Viper’s head over his like a helmet, the fangs protecting the sides of his face. He used the snake’s tail to cut it free of the viper, giving Ruwen an excellent blade.
The entire process had taken five minutes, but the armor and weapon made him feel better. He sprinted to where Pine had died and retrieved the four red sorrow fruit, bringing his count to six.
Ruwen thought about talking to the five meditating people in the temple, but decided against it. Even if they’d seen Pine’s grandson, too much time had passed for it to remain accurate information. Not only that, but if Pine was part of an escort mission and a piece of the Founder’s test, when Pine died, the grandson probably disappeared as well.
Ruwen knew he shouldn’t be helping people. He needed to stay focused on making it to the summit so he could test to become a master. Hopefully, one or more Founders would be there to meet him and welcome him to the path of a Grandmaster.
Surely both Founders would be there at the summit, waiting to fight over Ruwen, or maybe offer him both Grandmaster paths like they had for Sift. Ruwen just needed to get there.
Ruwen left the glade and moved uphill. His palm read ninety-three minutes, and there was no time to waste.
Chapter 32
Ruwen moved quickly through the bamboo. The Elder Viper’s blood, or maybe its head, proved to be a potent deterrent, and he had to go out of his way to kill any nearby snakes. Each one provided a valuable minute. He moved as fast as he could, keeping his eyes open for fruit.
Half an hour from the Journeyman’s Glade, the fog began. As Ruwen climbed the mountain it grew thicker, until he could only see ten feet in front of him. Pine had warned him about this Bewildering Mist and other dangers. He didn’t feel bewildered, though, and kept his steady pace upward.
A figure appeared out of the mist, a woman hanging between two bamboo trunks and wrapped in vines like a victim of some sort of bamboo spider. Her white hair barely reached her shoulders, and her eyes were closed, likely in meditation to stop her clock. Pine had also warned against snares. Ruwen stopped and studied the area. Then he ate one of his six remaining red sorrow fruits and looked again.
It took almost the full minute of increased perception to figure out the trap’s mechanism. Satisfied, Ruwen approached the woman and easily sliced through the vines with his Elder Viper tail. She landed hard on the ground and he winced.
Ruwen kneeled next to her. That she hadn’t woken up meant she must be deep in the third meditation. He didn’t like going that deep, as he preferred to always stay aware of his surroundings. Picking up her left palm, he read her remaining minutes: eleven.
Eleven minutes might be enough in the daylight to find some fruit, or some vipers, which were much rarer here in the mist. But it really wasn’t much time at night. Ruwen looked at his own counter: eighty-six minutes. Despite the thirty minutes of traveling, he’d only lost seven minutes thanks to the vipers who had become his prey.
Ruwen bit his lip and wondered again what constituted a test and what might be real. If they were tests, he didn’t understand their point. The Steps were not about right and wrong or morality or ethics. They were about perfection of movement, efficiency, and balance. Maybe if he’d trained in the traditional way, these situations would make sense.
Ruwen remembered Sift’s reaction to the bully Slib and his bodyguard Juva in the Spirit Realm. The pair had both been savagely torn apart, but Sift had shown little empathy for them. He had said you died like you lived, and these two had tried to kill them multiple times. To Sift, the Universe had given them what they deserved.
As Ruwen thought about this, he wondered if he might actually be hurting himself by helping people. The Steps measured your ability, each one taking you further along the path as you proved your mastery. Right and wrong didn’t exist in the Steps themselves, but surely how they were used mattered.
Ruwen gritted his teeth. Learning the Steps like he had left him unprepared for these scenarios. The others here had likely followed traditional learning paths, and what did their actions tell him? Pine, a Master, had attacked Ruwen without provocation. Three Adepts had told Ruwen to hand over an old man so they could harvest his minutes.
Aggressive, winner take all behavior, and suitable for a Viper. But that logic didn’t help him, since Bamboo behavior would center on non-interference and would only react if necessary. In truth, Ruwen probably wasn’t acting in the spirit of either path.
Ruwen’s counter ticked down to eighty-five. He didn’t like this train of thought. The Steps must be more than the
primal or basic natures of their namesakes. There had to be a hidden or higher meaning. He’d already wasted a minute kneeling here thinking, and worse, there was no way to know the truth. Like he’d done before, he went with what his gut told him.
Bending down, Ruwen placed his head near the woman’s neck, lifted her left hand, and repeatedly tapped his chest, transferring some of his minutes to her.
A strangled scream from the woman made him sit up. He realized his Elder Viper helmet had been directly over her face. Probably not how you’d want to exit your meditation. Her eyes were wide, and completely black. She had an alien beauty, and it took him a moment to realize why she looked familiar. The woman vaguely reminded him of the Plague Siren he’d killed in the Spirit Realm.
“Sorry,” Ruwen said. “I didn’t mean to scare you.”
She pushed herself away and stood. After a moment of studying Ruwen, she looked down at the vines on the ground and then at her left palm. She faced Ruwen again. “Why would you help me?”
A question Ruwen didn’t have a good answer for. He shrugged. “They make for better beginnings.”
Ruwen flashed back to his first meeting with Sift. Sift had almost killed him with a poisoned hisser, and that had turned out okay. Which just provided more evidence against being nice.
The woman looked down for a moment before locking eyes with Ruwen. “Thank you for seeing more than my Infernal side.”
That confirmed Ruwen’s Plague Siren observation. “Don’t judge a book by its cover and all that.” He smiled awkwardly. “The snares are easy to spot if you know the pattern. The bamboo is further apart and there are four clumps of dead leaves between them.”
She smiled, revealing two fangs. She brought her finger up, sliced it open on the fang’s tip, and stepped up to Ruwen. He remained relaxed, ready to fight if necessary, as she grabbed his right wrist. She turned it palm up and smeared a complicated rune on his wrist. “I am Echo, and my blood name is my oath to repay this debt. Touch my blood, say my name, and I will appear.”
