by Ino Lee
The demon held its ground in a fighting stance.
“You look off, Weapons Master.”
“Gaiman,” Wong seethed.
Wong was familiar with the demon, having fought with it in a skirmish in the Jengzhi forest when Tanjin first fell. He remembered the sight of it clinging to a tree, holding a spear. It had been jumping from tree post to tree post in the dark of the night, assassinating rangers with startling efficiency. While it was hard to keep track of the endless varieties of unan masks, the white-haired ones always stuck out as being generally tougher and more controlled than other unan, their masks having been made from the hair and bones of experienced old warriors, both human and ninja. Other masks had unique characteristics too: theater masks were generally elusive, cunning, and maniacal; animal masks were representative of the creatures they mimicked; and god masks were the fiercest of them all.
Gaiman held out one arm, arched the other, and laid the spear over the top of its fist as if it were aiming. It was a practiced stance that hinted at the demon’s skill. Wong wondered if it had acquired that stance from the warrior from which it was born.
When he pulled within reach, the unan broke from its position and whipped the spear’s end with a single arm, stinging the air. Wong deflected it overhead with his flint stick and tried to move in close, but the demon just backed away. It struck again and again, its long reach keeping them apart. Wong blocked some of the blows with his steel, some he dodged. He cringed every time the spear clanged against his striker, since it was one of a kind, and though it was made of metal, there were delicate mechanisms inside.
He finally got in close and thrust his striker against the unan’s tar-like skin. Squeezing a clutch, flint scraped and created a spark, burning flesh. The demon reeled and flung wildly with its blade to back him away, rubbing its burn to make sure the spark did not catch.
The unan angrily countered with repeated snake strikes, recoiling its arm and thrusting out at different angles. Wong back-pedaled quickly and had trouble keeping up. The demon’s length was too much to overcome. He spun away from a slice that scratched his back and drew blood, then flung a bundle of tea leaves in the air to distract it. Particles of green sprinkled the air.
He needed a new weapon. He ran for a window and jumped inside, hoping to find something useful.
The unan followed, diving headfirst, rolling into a ball, then bouncing up again in a single, effortless motion. It eagerly held its spear out in front but was forced to duck, avoiding a meat cleaver that whiffed past its head and lodged into a wall. A flying vegetable knife came next, and the demon had to lurch in the opposite direction to avoid being struck. Judging by the variety of knives being thrown, they were in a large kitchen.
When there were no more knives, Wong picked up a frying pan. He cracked aside a thrust of spear and then another. It wasn’t an ideal tool to fight with, but blocking was more forgiving than with his small striker. He turned and ran, pulling down a shelf of pantry items. The demon sidestepped the falling obstacles and pursued. Wong turned the corner into another room, flung his pan at the unan’s head, then grabbed a bottle and leapt out a side window.
The demon was too fast. It fluidly matched his steps and lunged outside the window, thrusting and pinning Wong against the neighboring building.
“Aha,” it yelled in a gruff voice. “Just what I’ve always wanted—Wong on a stick!”
Wong’s head was down. He dropped his bottle of baiju and clutched at the spear that had punctured his shoulder, squeezing tight. Searing pain shot from the wound and he clutched harder, fighting to keep his agony in check. When he looked up, his mouth was puffed out to the fullest.
He lifted the striker between their faces and spit. A bright red plume burst forth, showering the unan with flame and singeing the beautiful white hairs on its gruesome head. The demon let go of its spear and stepped back, frantically flailing at the flames on its body. Wong picked up his half-spilled bottle and sucked down another mouthful of liquid. The unan took to the ground and rolled, jumping away before Wong had another chance to spritz it with the deadly combination of fire and high-proof alcohol. It ran down the street and disappeared behind a building.
Wong thought to go after it, but his injuries stopped him. Other demons appeared as the main body of combatants moved in. Gaiman would be too injured to cause more harm even if it figured out a way to survive the flames, so saving his energy for other healthy unan seemed the better choice. He removed the spear from his shoulder, poured some alcohol on his wound, and moved across the landscape with his bottle, targeting unan here and there and spitting fire like a dragon. His purpose was not to set them fully ablaze, but to distract or put them on the run.
When reinforcements arrived with torches and flaming arrows, the tide began to shift and the demons dispersed in multiple directions at once, slinking down alleyways and rooftops alike. Tae and Yinshi also appeared. The guardian foo dog mauled an unan from behind. Tae eventually thrust her sword through its mask as it lay on the ground in a mangled heap.
Wong sensed for the mark and turned his attention back in Kai’s direction—the Shaolin Temple.
6
TENGFEI WATCHED THE hand of the long black arm tighten around the railing. With a squeeze, it hauled itself onto the terrace, a demon of the unan variety, wearing the mask of the fierce red fire god and wielding an ornate curved dagger. Though the monk originally feared another manifested lo-shur had arrived, this was not much better.
“Shenren,” he said with contempt.
Numerous other masks and outstretched arms appeared next to Shenren. Grandmaster Tienkow rushed around the other end of the pool.
“Keep them away!”
A myriad of black bodies and colorful masks stormed into the Infinity Chamber. The temple guards rushed to pin them back, but the masked demons were too elusive. Activity fanned out around the turbulent pool.
The un-human face of an old man burst to the forefront and launched itself across the pool at Jaguan. It tried to stab him with a trident, but the monk general saw it coming and grabbed a blunt end. The unan’s momentum took it into the sacred water, scalding its skin. Like the lo-shur, the unan were susceptible to the pool’s energy, and despite its weakened state, the light chi energy in the pool was still greater than the dark. The demon struggled and splashed and then surprised Jaguan by doing the unexpected—it leaned back in the water and laughed. Its body decomposed to black tar that mixed in with the water, its mask floating on top. Jaguan looked perplexed. Next to him splashed another figure. It was an unan that had its arm cut off by a Shaolin warrior. Similar to the previous unan, it shriveled and died. Jaguan understood. They were sacrificing themselves to distract him from removing the dark shard while further polluting and weakening the pool. With all the activity around him, he knew it would be impossible to accomplish his task.
He looked up and saw an unan reaching for the Staff of Shaolin on the ground beside the pool, left there upon entering the water. He stood tall. The time had come to join the fight. Readjusting the trident he’d managed to hold onto after the unan disintegrated, he powered a throw across the water. Fortunately, the monk general was both tall and muscular, giving the trident enough height and force to pierce the thieving unan square in the chest and knock it back. Jaguan waded back out of the pool to retrieve the staff, but the unan returned with the same trident pulled out of its chest, now using it as a weapon. It struck eagerly.
“Thanks for the trident!” the unan said, a bronze ogre with fangs.
The trident struck harder than expected. Jaguan noted that some of this was due to the heft of the weapon, but also noticed that the ogre’s body was thicker than the average unan, giving it greater physical strength. Jaguan knocked aside one hack and then another before a prong of the trident became entangled with his staff. He shifted their weapons right, then spun left with a quick counter-clockwise motion that dis
lodged the demon’s grip. The trident flew across the chamber and into a wall when a glowing ember unexpectedly protruded from the unan’s chest. It screamed. Jaguan cracked the demon square on the mask to silence it, its body liquefying around the gemstone of Tengfei’s staff, which had impaled it from the other end.
The number of fighters thickened as more demons climbed over the railings and warriors entered from the stairs. Clangs of metal and flashes of light could be seen and heard in every corner of the room. Never before had the Infinity Chamber seen such chaos.
The red mask of Shenren slinked through the combatants and slashed at the backs of white robes. It was cunning and powerful, taking down guards when they did not see it coming, and thrashing them even when they did. A monk’s staff was thrust in its face, but was redirected with a swipe of its hand. The staff’s chi ember came back again and again, but the unan parried and grabbed the weapon on the final strike to pull the monk forward before thrusting its leg out with a snap, pummeling him.
Looking up, it spotted Grandmaster Tienkow across the way as he burned a streak across an unan’s torso with the Phoenix Staff. The old man had been a thorn in their side for decades and would make for good prey.
The fire god slashed its way across the field and found Tienkow’s eyes, which were alight with power. It dove toward the grandmaster and rolled, lurching forward with its dagger arm extended; it was a move that covered great distances in an instant, a move that had taken down many enemies—a move that never failed. Yet somehow this old scraggly man followed its every movement and swept with his staff, blocking, then thrusting the chi end into its collar. The demon screamed and rolled quickly away.
Rising to its feet, Shenren roared from the pain and the thrill of the challenge. It tossed its splendid knife playfully from hand to hand as Tienkow advanced in a fury. White light sizzled against the mist. The demon stepped back and watched, avoiding the burning stone, and when the moment was right, caught the staff and wrapped its leg around the shaft, kicking out and flicking it away. The Phoenix Staff clattered on the hard marble floor, sending off a high-pitched beat that sounded of music.
When Shenren looked down, Tienkow’s hand had thrust through the center of its chest, clinging to chi flame that created a hole and destabilized its body. The demon thought the old man’s face was fierce and frightening as its knees buckled and its body liquified.
Tienkow’s eyes dimmed. His menacing demeanor grew feeble again. He looked at his torso and pulled out the fancy knife that had been jammed through his ribs, wondering how much longer it would be until the end. His knees, too, buckled.
“Nooo!” Jaguan yelled.
He saw the grandmaster slump to the ground, the man who had been like a father to him for most of his life, his Shaolin master, mentor, teacher, and friend. Tremendous emotion welled up and he used his many years of training to channel the energy out from his core, through his arms and to the Shaolin Staff where it was magnified, creating a violent pulse of energy that knocked all the unan in the room off their feet.
The Shaolin warriors were relieved by the shock and quickly took advantage by cracking masks. More warriors swept through the doorways, enough to fill the room and overwhelm the masked demons.
Many unan jumped in the pool in a final kamikaze attempt, while others tried to escape by scaling back down the side of the temple. Movement funneled out of the room as warriors intercepted the fleeing demons on the terraces and ground below.
Before long, the Infinity Chamber was quiet again.
The Infinity Pool settled and its turbulent waters grew serene. No longer pristine and luminous, it glowed with a dull haze, appearing cloudy and brackish in places where decomposed bits of unan particles floated. In a few areas, small patches of dark energy were still trapped, slowly shrinking as they were neutralized by the positive chi around it. Several masks floated on top. There was no trace left of the dark chi shard, its form completely dissolved as its energy was released.
Jaguan hunched by the fallen grandmaster.
“Grandmaster, how do you fare? Your wounds, are they fatal?”
Tienkow held his wound, sprawled out on the floor.
“I fear they are,” he said in a pained voice.
“Infinity water! Now!” Jaguan barked at no one in particular. He lowered his staff toward the wound and concentrated. The Shaolin Staff glowed with power.
A monk stepped toward the pool, but stopped when he saw the floating masks, unsure of its purity.
Tengfei responded quickly. “Get some vials below. Quick.”
The monk dashed off.
Jaguan looked up. “Tengfei, find Kai.”
Tienkow spoke in fragments. “I’m afraid your staff . . . will do no good. Unan blade. Poisoned with their flesh. The wound is . . . too deep.”
Jaguan kept his light up. “Fight, master. You are strong. Hold out just a bit longer.”
Tienkow’s eyes closed. His voice was barely audible.
“Jaguan. Grandmaster falls to Master Gao . . . but you are the heart and soul of the temple. Do not be afraid . . . trust your instinct. Do not do as I . . .”
“But, Master, you have done well. You could not foresee this.”
“Do better.”
“Rest Grandmaster.”
“Tell Wong . . . glad I went first.”
One side of his lip twitched upwards and he managed a smile. His pupils showed through half-open lids.
“Come together . . . that is . . . greatest hope.”
He blinked slowly.
“I am proud of you.”
They closed a final time.
When Wong arrived, Jaguan was stuck in the same position next to Tienkow. His head hung low and Wong knew that the grandmaster—who had also been like a father to him—was dead.
He took a seat across from Jaguan. Still weaponless, he cradled the bottle of liquor in his hands. He glanced at Tienkow and knew that Jaguan would have an even more difficult time with their loss.
Jaguan glanced back at Wong and ignored his bottle, too distraught to comment.
“Sorry Jaguan,” Wong said. “This is a dark day. For both of us.”
A monk came over and placed a cloak over the dead grandmaster. Another moment of silence passed before they stepped away and Jaguan spoke again.
“He said he was glad to have gone before you.”
Saddened, Wong took a slug of his baiju and offered Jaguan some. Jaguan looked at him, seemingly irked, then relented and took a sip.
Wong looked back at Tienkow, his emotions hardening. This was not the time for emotions, he told himself. Shaolin was compromised and composure was needed, so he pushed all sadness from thought and his moment of grief passed. There would be more time for it later. He felt nothing and worried he was becoming a monster.
“We are in danger, Jaguan. If there was ever a time for monk cool-headedness, it would be now.”
Jaguan nodded. Wong was right and the admission snapped him out of his daze. His despair turned to anger and the need for action. Clarity returned. A thought startled him.
“Where’s Kai?”
“Safe. In the temple. He’s in the central chamber I hear.”
“There were unan all over the temple.”
“He was in the Commons. Tofu brought him back to the temple. He’s with Master Gao now.”
“The Commons?”
“That’s where I found him.”
Jaguan looked confused but was glad enough that Kai was safe.
“I am glad you found him once again, as always.” For the first time, he noticed Wong’s injury. “Are you hurt badly?”
“Spear wound, but the baiju helps. My ego hurts worse than my wounds right now. A White Hair almost got the best of me. Gaiman.”
“It does not look insignificant. Treat it.”
Master Gao entered
the Infinity Chamber with Tengfei.
“The temple heads must organize,” Jaguan said, waving Gao and Tengfei into their conversation. He turned to Wong. “I wish Li was here. Can you stay and counsel in his place, if you are well enough?”
Wong was partially surprised that Jaguan wanted him there. It was not often the monk asked for his counsel on matters of the temple. Perhaps the shared loss of their Shaolin master had changed things.
“I’ll help what I can.”
“How is Kai?” Jaguan asked Gao.
“He is at the temple’s heart, with many warriors as well as the guardian dogs, both Yinshi and Yangshi,” Gao said.
“Good, thank you, Master. Or perhaps I should address you as Grandmaster now.”
Gao nodded. “The burden and honor falls to me, but take your lead. You are Shoukoo. I will let you know my objections.”
“Good then.” Jaguan looked at Tengfei. “Marshall everyone behind the temple walls. Safety is the immediate need. After we are secure, tend to the wounded and dead. I will join you shortly.”
Tengfei bowed. “I shall see to it at once?”
“Please.”
He bowed again and was off.
“Grandmaster,” he said to Gao. “The Infinity Chamber must be restored.”
“Yes. I will gather the elders and see what damage is done. The water is tainted and its power has lessened. There is much work to do.”
Around them, monks were already moving busily about the room, removing dead bodies and fishing impurities out of the pool. They had already filled a jug with dark water and another with tar.
Jaguan paused and stammered. “I . . . I will see to Tienkow.”
“No,” Grandmaster Gao said. “Don’t burden yourself. Be with the warriors. They will take comfort in your presence. It is the duty of the elder monks and falls to the restoration of the chamber. We will destroy the masks and burn their corrupted remains as well.”
“If I might . . . Grandmaster,” Wong said, unaccustomed to calling him grandmaster. “Let me handle the unan remains.”
