Crown of the Starry Sky: Book 11 of Painting the Mists

by Patrick Laplante

  “Point taken,” Cha Ming said. “So if I choose to join the division and accept this mission, you would… take care of this problem for me?”

  “I would dissuade them from taking aggressive actions against you while you can’t defend yourself,” Captain Xing said. “They could still use very indirect means that escape my detection, but beyond that, their hands would be tied. Unless you chose to forsake your protection and fight against them willingly, I would shield you until you are able to fight them—though I’d be assuming you have absurdly powerful trump cards. The moment I’m confident you could theoretically flee while preserving your life, my protection would end.”

  “You drive a hard bargain,” Cha Ming said.

  Captain Xing shrugged. “Karmic anomalies live hard lives. Who am I to deprive you of your free will?”

  “And you won’t force me to join?” Cha Ming asked.

  “The choice is yours,” Captain Xing said. “I’d like to see the fate of anyone trying to force you to do anything. I’m simply offering you an option.”

  Cha Ming sighed. “What mission would you like me to perform?”

  “I can’t tell you much, for fear of tainting your process,” Captain Xing said. “You’re a karmic anomaly, and you need the leeway to act. Here is your oral briefing: There are trade caravans that have gone missing in the area. The empire’s oracles have determined these events are connected to a threat to the empire. You are to locate that threat and eliminate it using all means necessary.”

  “That seems very oblique,” Cha Ming said.

  “It does, doesn’t it?” Captain Xing said. “There is a price to pay for spying on fate, young man, much less changing it. The more specific the information retrieved, the greater the risk to the oracle. The information is scant because recovering more could blind or kill them. Regardless, it should be sufficient. Your presence and commitment to involving yourself will attract trouble like blood attracts sharks in the water. Meanwhile, I will be here to supervise your execution.”

  “Of the mission or my person?” Cha Ming asked.

  “That depends on your choices and whether or not you’re the karmic anomaly responsible for the attack on the empire,” Captain Xing said. “What say you?”

  Cha Ming sighed. “Do I get a budget?”

  Captain Xing chuckled. “Of course. You can claim necessary, non-training, nonstandard expenses and issue missions through the Kingfisher Guard for the purposes of executing this mission. Just be reasonable.”

  “Rewards?” Cha Ming asked. He wasn’t about to work for free.

  “I guarantee that you’ll be satisfied,” Captain Xing said. “Every karmic anomaly is special, and their needs are diverse. No mission has a fixed reward—your rewards will be proportional to the severity of the problem resolved as determined by our oracles. In addition, you will have access to rewards others don’t have access to.”

  It wasn’t a difficult decision to make in the end. Two men were after his life, and he couldn’t handle them. He’d been offered protection and a potentially lucrative, if dangerous, mission. “Where do I sign?” he asked.

  Captain Xing took out an object. It was a black iron plate, engraved with deep crimson-gold characters. The object reminded Cha Ming of an object he’d once seen, an iron plate with golden characters that an emperor had bestowed on his subject. It was a hereditary item that could be used to forgive any crime, including something worthy of death.

  Cha Ming ran his fingers along the rough metal. This wasn’t a mortal object. He sensed no presence of a world projection inside it or the writing. It was like every word written on the plate was a law unto itself.

  “Would you like a pen or brush?” Captain Xing asked.

  “I have a brush, thank you,” Cha Ming said. He took out the Clear Sky Brush and used his soul and creation qi to make golden ink. He signed the iron contract with firm and precise strokes. The moment he finished signing, the characters glowed faint crimson like the others on the tablet, after which the plate faded and shrank, then shot into his spiritual sea.

  Chapter 6: Xia Clan

  It was midmorning by the time Cha Ming left the Kingfisher Guard Station. The people were the same, and the furnishings the same, but his reception was not. The moment the guardsmen saw his crimson pin, their behavior changed. They stood taller and deferred to him despite his weak strength.

  Cha Ming started his day off with a loaded jianbing—a kind of crepe filled with a few toppings. The shop catered to both cultivators and demigods, so they understood his meaning when he said he wanted his fully loaded. The food helped fill and repair his exhausted body, including the Dao scars left by Lord Dripping Blade’s attacks. He wasn’t fully recovered, but according to Captain Xing, he didn’t have time to wait.

  The streets weren’t as busy as they could be, as rush hour had already passed, but public ships weren’t exactly fast. He summoned a small four-passenger ship and plotted a route to his destination in the outer portion of the city. He might not be rich, but he was a middle-rune-carving cultivator. A portable ship capable of decent speeds was a necessity in this city.

  First things first, Cha Ming thought. Analyze the situation. Lord Dripping Blade had tried to kill him, but he had survived. Now, neither he nor Lord Burning Lake were an immediate problem. He would need to consider them, but as far as priorities went, they weren’t big ones. In exchange, he was stuck on a mission with the Kingfisher Guard and couldn’t accept any other missions. Oh, and he had an iron tablet with crimson-gold writing bound to his soul.

  “Teacher, did you discover anything?” he asked Sun Wukong. The red-bearded man appeared beside him in the passenger seat. He was incorporeal and only visible to Cha Ming.

  “The grumpy old lady and I took a look. There doesn’t seem to be any tampering,” Sun Wukong said. “It’s a law-stitching artifact, thankfully. If it was a rune-gathering artifact, we’d have a hard time.”

  Cha Ming frowned. “Shouldn’t it be the opposite?”

  “Naw,” Sun Wukong said. “Law-stitching artifacts are harder to read, sure, but way more difficult to tamper with.”

  “It has to do with their nature,” said the Clockwork Ancestor, appearing in one of the two rear seats on his tiny sailboat. “Law-stitching experts use universal laws. The deeper the laws they work with, the more consistent they must be and… I’m rambling again. Suffice to say, we’re sure.”

  That was a relief. One more weight off his shoulders. He’d studied the writing on the tablet before signing, of course, but he wanted to be sure that they hadn’t worked in any trickery. If it was the natural laws themselves that stopped them from sneaking anything in, that was reassuring.

  The same bond connecting him to the tablet also bound him to whoever reigned over the Crimson Lotus Empire. Coincidentally, that man was named Emperor Qin, though apparently, he wasn’t the original. As for his obligations within the agreement, they were fairly loose. He only needed to complete one mission every ten years within the realm of his competency. He would be rewarded fairly. Simple as that.

  His main concern wasn’t how often he had to complete missions but the other stipulations. He could not betray the empire, but what did that mean? In the end, he’d been correct in guessing that this meant the preservation of the empire itself, and not obeying direct commands of the emperor. This gave him much flexibility in his actions but presented other worries. How loose was this definition, assuming he had to work against the empire in the future?

  His second and very related concern was whether they could conscript him into some kind of war. The simple answer was that they could only do so once every ten years, Inkwell time, for a reasonable mission. They couldn’t otherwise compel his actions or restrain them. The most irritating part of the contract was his bond to it. It was strong and wouldn’t dissolve until he achieved the Law Stitching Realm. Then, and only then, would their relationship be revisited. He had almost rejected the contract based on that until Sun Wukong had assured
him it shouldn’t be too big a problem.

  “What happens if I find myself unable to accept missions once ten years are up?” Cha Ming had asked.

  “Seems it’s all about intent,” Sun Wukong answered. “If you’re trying to make yourself available, or you really have no choice besides being absent, nothing bad will happen. You’ll just accumulate debt to the empire that will trigger once you’re able to accept a mission. It’s all reasonable stuff, really. Now if you want unreasonable bonds, let me tell you of a time I had to escort a monk on a journey to the west.”

  “I’ll pass. For now.” He was actually interested in hearing the firsthand account. The Monkey King might exaggerate, but he was a hell of a storyteller.

  Now that he knew for certain the contract hadn’t been tampered with and didn’t contain other stipulations, he could focus on his other worries. He had his mission, and he needed to increase his strength. Captain Xing might be protecting him for the time being, but there was no sense in slacking off. He needed to master two more appropriate concepts aligned to wood and fire. They needed to be compatible with the Concepts of Inky Rain, Sacred Sand, and Radiant Masterpiece.

  Downtown’s tall buildings and superb architecture tapered off until most buildings were only four stories high. He exited the high-speed road and entered a relatively rundown area filled with low-tier residential buildings and loads of transport bays and warehouses.

  “You’d think the Xia Clan would pick somewhere better maintained,” Cha Ming said.

  The Monkey King shrugged. “Seems legit to me. Shipping companies take their work seriously.” He pulled up to one of the taller buildings in the area—it was ten stories tall and built like a veritable fortress. At the back, ships and land-roving vehicles parked and loaded or unloaded cargo on several levels. The Xia Clan was a family that focused on transportation, logistics, and facilitating said transportation with things like armed escorts. That made them the perfect place to start his investigation.

  “Greetings, fellow Daoist,” a receptionist said as he entered the main office. He was a low-level rune-carving cultivator that kept short hair. His robes screamed company uniform. “Do you have an appointment?”

  “The Kingfisher Guard called ahead to schedule a meeting with one of the Xia Clan’s representatives,” Cha Ming said. “Is he or she available?”

  “I was expecting you,” the man said. “Daoist Clear Sky, is it? Please follow me.”

  Cha Ming followed him to the lift, and it was during the slow elevator ride that he thought about his third pressing worry: Silver Fish. Dao Lord Black Fish as he now liked to be called. Cha Ming might personally be protected from Lord Dripping Blade and Lord Burning Lake, but his absent friend was not. Lord Dripping Blade had also made his intentions toward Silver Fish clear. He needed to keep up-to-date on his whereabouts. Perhaps he could be shielded by recruiting him for this mission? Unfortunately, Cha Ming had checked, and Silver Fish had lost his bronze rank and had never trialed for silver rank. Moreover, he had no idea how to find him.”

  “Please follow me,” the receptionist said when they arrived at the tenth floor. There were no offices on this floor, only conference rooms. It was furnished in the traditional Mendin style, which on Earth would be considered modern western. There were no walls. Only clear floor-to-ceiling windows hugged the entire perimeter of the building. They could naturally be darkened if one desired, like the conference room they were headed to at the end of the hallway.

  That leaves me with back-burner issues, Cha Ming thought. Resolving my relationship with Yu Wen and finding Sun Wukong a body. He had no idea how to do the latter, and the Monkey King himself hadn’t said much on the subject. He didn’t have to worry about it much, but he knew the time would come soon enough.

  As for the problem with Yu Wen, it did keep rearing its ugly head. At its core, it was an unsolvable problem. On the one hand, Cha Ming loved her. On the other hand, she was no longer her old self. Or so Xiao Bai had told them. Mi Fei’s memories were irrevocably sealed, and Mi Fei had lived around nineteen years on the Inkwell Plane from infancy to adulthood. Her experiences had shaped her into an entirely different person.

  She was different. She was also the same. She looked different, talked different, and did many other things differently despite the unique signature on her soul. But despite her jaded nature, he spotted hints of the sweetness and free-spiritedness that had entranced him on the Bridge of Stars.

  Unfortunately, he couldn’t exactly try his luck at a second budding romance. She and Wei Longshen were an item. At least unofficially. Not only did he have to consider his obligations to his friend, but he had to consider her wishes as well. Yu Wen—or Mi Fei as he should really remember her—was her own person. What did she want? That, he discovered, mattered more than anything else.

  “We’ve arrived,” the receptionist said, snapping him out of his reverie. “The Xia family’s representative is waiting for you inside the conference room.

  “Thank you,” Cha Ming said. He pushed open the dark glass door and entered the room.

  “I thought it was you,” said a familiar dry voice as he walked inside. “Look at you. Promotion and all that. I’d never even heard of the Crimson Division before the Guard called us. Lucky me.”

  “Dao God Killjoy,” Cha Ming said with a grin. “You never did tell me which clan you were from.” It was a larger world than he was used to, but still a small one when you got down to it.

  “Eventually, things just got too difficult,” Killjoy said, wrapping up her explanation. “I couldn’t find good missions for the Guard because of that jerkface Dripping Blade. In the end, I came crawling back to my family. They were only too happy to get me back to work.”

  “They were short-handed?” Cha Ming asked.

  “They didn’t have the right people,” Killjoy said. “They were trying to run a transportation company like an office. Thing is, you need to run it like an army. You need cursing and physical discipline.”

  Cha Ming raised an eyebrow. “You beat your employees?”

  “Only lightly, and only when it’s not going overboard,” Killjoy said. “What? They’re free to leave whenever they want, and they get free healing supplies.”

  “They’re cultivators, I suppose,” Cha Ming said dubiously.

  “Most of them,” Killjoy agreed. “And if they can prove they served five years with us without getting fired more than once or twice, there isn’t a sect, company, or clan that would refuse them.”

  “Once or twice?” Cha Ming said, laughing. “You rehire people you fire?”

  “All the time,” Killjoy said. “Builds character. People who can take a firing and move on with their lives are leadership material.” She sighed. “Anyway, we’d better get to business. My family’s been worrying about these attacks, and it’s good to see that the Guard is taking them seriously.”

  “What do you know?” Cha Ming asked. Thus far, he’d been fed precious little information.

  “Only the basics,” Killjoy said. “Trade caravans have gone missing. Some landbound but mostly flight caravans. Landbound transports don’t carry anything too valuable, see? There’s a few of them, but the disappearances could just be a coincidence.”

  “Have any specific families or companies been targeted?” Cha Ming asked. “Any specific cargos?”

  “That’s the darnedest thing,” Killjoy said. “I can’t see any pattern. Every clan gets hit more or less equally. The reported value of goods stolen is about the same. No specific goods seem to be targeted. When a caravan gets attacked, the guards, the people, and the goods vanish into thin air.”

  “Could they be attacking your family specifically?” Cha Ming asked. As far as he knew, the Xia family controlled about half of the transportation business leading in and out of the city.

  “It’s possible,” Killjoy said. “But I know for a fact our competitors are getting hit just as hard as we are. Also, the cargo doesn’t belong to us. We don’t lose too much from thes
e attacks, though I guess getting staff killed isn’t good for morale, and replacing them is a pain. We’ve had to raise our rates, so we’re making a little less money, but not too much less. Insurance takes care of the rest.” She shook her head. “I don’t think they’re after us. It’s too elaborate. They’d be better off assassinating me or something.”

  “There goes that angle,” Cha Ming said. “Has anyone seen the attackers?”

  “No one that’s lived,” Killjoy said. “That’s a big part of the problem. Even with distress beacons and increasing the number of guards, we haven’t been able to keep them safe.”

  “Hmm…” Cha Ming walked over to the table at the center of the room. Like all rooms on this floor of the office building, the central table contained a large map. It was convenient for discussing logistics. He pressed on a few buttons, and the display shifted to accommodate the areas that had been attacked. Killjoy had taken the trouble to mark them. Half were blue, and half were red. The red ones were transports owned by her family’s competitors. “Fifty attacks in a week is an awful lot, isn’t it?”

  “We run over a thousand caravans in and out every day,” Killjoy said, shrugging. “In the grand scheme of things, it’s not that much. It’s also fairly easy to get the artificers to make us new transports, and we have access to contractors.”

  Cha Ming tapped his fingers on his lips. “We need to see who’s attacking.”

  “I agree,” Killjoy said. “But I doubt that’s something just you and I could handle.”

  “Fortunately, I’ve been given the authority to hand out missions,” Cha Ming said. “I’m allowed silver-ranked team members until I make a case for higher-level ones. I could arrange for a very large mission, but I feel a smaller team would be better in this case.”

  “A small team is more discreet, and you can send out personal invitations without advertising the overall mission,” Killjoy said. “Plus, gold-ranked guardsmen or too many silver ones would probably scare them off. You’d also have trouble managing them.”