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

by Patrick Laplante

  This was the Monkey Clan. These were their forests. Their trees. They moved in stark contrast to the Phoenix Clan and its colorful flames, who burned everything before them. They did not respect trees but fire, and all living things retreated from their blazing anger. They didn’t come with the beating of drums but the sound of trumpets and blazing horns. They waved colorful banners that inspired, but to the Monkey Clan, they were infuriating.

  Monkey and Phoenix. They wanted war so badly they could taste it. It blinded them to any alternative. The armies met at the center of their territories, where neither side would have an advantage. Cha Ming marched ahead with the elders, to meet the Phoenix Clan leadership.

  Elder Empty Death was the first to speak. “Who are you to walk on our lands? Filthy flying things that burn things to ash, that revile trees and plants and growth?”

  “We are those who will not tolerate your warriors,” said one of the Phoenix Clan’s elders, the strongest among them and matching him in station. “We are sick of your raids and your attacks on our homes. They will stop, and now.”

  “Liars! Thieving magpies!” said Elder Empty Death. He raised his black staff, and his cry was taken up by their army, which was painfully weak and painfully small compared to the army of the Phoenix Clan.

  “Butchers and murderers, all of them!” said the Phoenix Clan’s head elder, raising his sword up high. It let off multicolored lights that caused the Phoenix Clan’s troop’s to straighten their spines and stand a little taller.

  Cha Ming walked a few steps forward. The Phoenix Clan’s First Feather joined him at the center. She wore regal, colored robes and made a show of the bright coloring in her iridescent feathers. “It seems to me that our respective people want a war,” Cha Ming said.

  “It seems unavoidable, yes,” said the First Feather. “To imagine that we were once the greatest of friends.”

  “Time is everyone’s great enemy,” Cha Ming said. “I notice humans among your ranks.”

  Indeed, it wasn’t only phoenixes and demons. Humans also lived in Shimmerwing City. There were even members of the Golden Dragon Clan who lived there, among many others.

  “Humans are welcome in our city,” the First Feather said. “They, too, have been harmed by the Monkey Clan.” She glanced at Cha Ming’s forehead. “Tell me. How did you happen upon a Monkey King’s crown? Such a feat should not be possible for a human.”

  “I earned my crown from the Star-Eye Ancestor herself,” Cha Ming said. “I built it from the power of the stars. They have agreed to allow me to lead this discussion.”

  “Discussion? There can be no discussion,” the First Feather said.

  “I am here as a mediator,” Cha Ming said. “I do not wish for war.”

  “I’m afraid war can’t be avoided,” said the First Feather. “You feel it too, don’t you? The tension? It requires an outlet.”

  “I will provide that outlet,” Cha Ming said.

  “I do not see what could satisfy us,” said the First Feather. “And even if it could, what of your people?”

  “I offer blood,” Cha Ming said, then turned around. He raised his staff, and the army quieted. The First Feather raised her sword, and her own army also quieted. A tense silence filled the potential battlefield. It was a field of dry grass that needed only a single spark to set off an unstoppable fire ravaging the countryside.

  “What are your orders?” asked Elder Empty Death.

  “One moment,” Cha Ming said. He placed his hand in his pocket and sent a message. The reply came soon after.

  You want me to what??? Captain Xing asked.

  Every one of them, Cha Ming confirmed. Moreover, I’ll need your assistance. Gold-ranked members. Possibly the Guard captain himself. And most definitely the prefecture lords.

  How certain are you? Captain Xing asked. If you’re wrong, it will be a great disgrace. I would have to kill you and your team to make up for it.

  As sure as I can be, Cha Ming said. I also need the most powerful truth watcher the Guard can find. Two more if you can manage. Oh, and a rune-gathering grade life-or-death contract. Late grade if you can manage it. I’ll send instructions later.

  You play a dangerous game, Captain Xing said. When can I expect you?

  Tonight, if all goes well, Cha Ming said. Otherwise, I’ll probably be dead. Regardless, I need you to act now. There will be no other chances.

  Fine, Captain Xing replied.

  “Clear Sky…” Elder Empty Death said. “The troops are waiting.”

  “Thank you for your patience,” Cha Ming said. “Please capture Elder Solemn Wood and bring him to me.”

  “Sir?” Lord Empty Death asked uncertainly.

  “Do I need to repeat myself?” Cha Ming said. “Get Elders Steady Gloom and Watchful Iris to escort him.” Those two were the next most powerful after Empty Death. Moreover, they fulfilled an important soon-to-be-revealed criteria.

  Lord Empty Death swallowed and nodded. He shouted orders, and soon enough, a Monkey Clan elder was brought before him, flanked between two elders.

  “Chieftain?” said Elder Steady Gloom. “Your orders?”

  “What have I done to anger you?” Elder Solemn Wood asked. “I have always been loyal.”

  “Kneel,” Cha Ming said. The elder slowly but obediently kneeled. “He is your first explanation,” he said to the First Feather.

  “A blood offering?” asked the First Feather. “You think this is enough? For all this pent-up resentment? We would wipe your clan from the face of this world for all you have done.”

  “My lord!” Elder Empty Death said. “We cannot surrender an elder. After all they’ve done? This is madness.”

  “We are not surrendering,” Cha Ming said. “And no one need die if I am wrong. I will not kill him. Yet.” He then took the Clear Sky Staff from his back. It floated in the air above the elder’s head. Then it split into six, one for each of the five elements and a central purple pillar. Both armies whispered when they saw it. They feared its demon-subduing power.

  “Seal!” Cha Ming said, and the pillars crashed down. Five around the elder, who began screaming in pain. His escort and Elder Empty Death backed up. The violet pillar pressed down on him with demon-subduing energy. It didn’t stop. It didn’t relent.

  “You’re killing him,” Elder Empty Death said.

  “I am not,” Cha Ming said. “I know my own abilities. Are you questioning me?”

  Empty Death clenched his teeth and looked to Clever Dusk, who stood nearby. He shook his head. “Of course not, my lord.”

  The screams intensified, and soon enough, they stopped. The elder lost consciousness. His power faded. Then one more thing that others hadn’t expected happened. His demon powers, sealed at last, faded. His fur turned black and white. His teeth grew sharper, and his tail transformed. His demon weapon faded and turned to nothing but a pile of pure white paper.

  What was left within the sealing circle was not a demon of the Monkey Clan. It was a demon of the Tiger Clan. Not pale and unadorned, but with black stripes. He had perfectly replaced the elder.

  “Rakshasa!” one of the Phoenix Clan elders whispered.

  “Rakshasa,” many in the tribes muttered. Not all of them remembered, but enough of them did. Their voices did not speak of wonder or amazement. They spoke of hatred, buried and long forgotten.

  “An ancient enemy,” Cha Ming said to the First Feather. “The first of my explanations. The Star-Eye Tribe was infiltrated.”

  “But surely he didn’t have enough influence to orchestrate this,” the First Feather said. “This is one elder.”

  “Not alone,” Cha Ming replied. “But if there were others?” He turned around and issued orders. “Capture Elders Seven Strike, Venom’s Path, and Blazing Sun. If they argue, kill them.” There was an uproar in the ranks, and they only quieted when the three strongest elders of the Star-Eye Clan enforced his orders.

  “You will seal them like before?” Elder Watchful Iris asked.


  “No need,” Cha Ming said. He grabbed the Demon-Subduing Pillar and struck one of the incapacitated elders in the heart. He pleaded, but Cha Ming didn’t relent. As his life left him, his fur faded to black and white. “They revert to their original form when they die, Watchful Iris. Kill the others. The manner of death matters not.”

  Lord Empty Death’s expression turned solemn. He nodded and walked up to each of the elders, cracking skulls, one after another. All of them changed when they hit the ground, growing stripes like the others before them.

  “Their members are few, so they cannot replace an entire clan,” Cha Ming said to the First Feather. “I hope this explains the aggression against your tribe.”

  “I am outraged, certainly,” she replied. “But we have suffered much.”

  He walked up to her and whispered in her ear, “And what if I told you they weren’t alone? What if I told you your own clan is infested?”

  “What?” she asked. Her expression went dark. “How certain are you?”

  “I can restrain, not kill, until your verdict is passed,” Cha Ming said. There is also one last traitor among us, he sent secretly. He is dangerous and must come last. “I will show you how to identify them. Are any of the Phoenix Clan skilled in karma? Elder Watchful Iris will learn as well.

  “If you swear not to kill until we are convinced, then I agree,” the First Feather said. “Who?”

  He pointed. “Her. The weakest of your elders.”

  “Detain Elder Luminescent Grace and bring her here, please,” the First Feather ordered.

  “First Feather, no!” the elder in question protested.

  “Now!” she said. The elder in question struggled as the others brought her forward. “Resist, and you will be killed.”

  “You can’t do this to me,” Elder Luminescent Grace said. “I am loyal. Loyal!”

  “That remains to be seen,” said the First Feather. She nodded, and Cha Ming began to seal her. Before long, her feathers faded and were replaced by the same black and white fur. The rakshasa tigress bared her fangs. She lunged at Cha Ming, who trapped her in an Ink-Splattered Cage.

  “You promised to show us how to find these creatures,” said the First Feather.

  “I did,” Cha Ming said. He snatched at the air, revealing a tangle of threads. He didn’t pick all of them—that would take a lifetime. He found the process much easier than with the Star-Eye Ancestor. “Do you see?” he asked the elders of both clans.

  “Yes, I think I could replicate this,” said the Phoenix Clan elder. “Allow me to inspect…” He began to look at them, but as he did, dozens of the closest Phoenix Clan members summoned their dominions, including the investitures of one more elder. The elder yelped as they charged Cha Ming, wanting nothing more than to tear him apart.

  Fortunately, Cha Ming had seen this coming. A wall of earth and metal shot out from the ground and deflected the flames. It shielded both him and the two elders from the attack, though it began to crack straightaway. The two elders recovered quickly and supported him, and before long, the fighting died down, and he dismissed the shield.

  The Iridescent Phoenix Clan was filled with charred corpses. The fighting had been brutal, and one of their true elders had been killed in the process. Many more innocents had died. The First Feather herself was covered in soot, and her sword glistened with blood.

  “It is done,” said the First Feather. “Your explanation is satisfactory. Or it will be soon.” She nodded, and together they turned on Empty Death, whose eyes narrowed and whose presence grew more vicious.

  “How did you know?” Elder Empty Death asked. “I’m not unskilled like these other fools.”

  “Call it intuition,” Cha Ming said. The man was too strong. Too skilled. He was thousands of years old. But it was that fact alone that made him doubt him. Why would he have served the Stargazer Chieftain given his aggression? He had also been too willing to sacrifice their own elders.

  Suddenly, the elder’s figure blurred. Cha Ming felt a crisis unlike any he’d ever felt before. Fear overwhelmed him from the depths of his heart. He immediately broke his limits and summoned the Crown of the Starry Sky. He used his Golden Boots of the Clockwork Dragon, and with his increased speed, barely avoided the armored monstrosity.

  Empty Death, or whatever his true name was, had adopted his bestial form—an armored tiger with razor-sharp teeth. One of his claws tore Cha Ming’s chest open as he pushed himself away with a Demon-Sealing Pillar. He felt his life blood draining as a good half of his vitality poured out from that single indirect strike. He was going to die. There was no avoiding it.

  Fortunately for him, the old Stargazer Chieftain was with them. He barreled into Empty Death, preventing him from finishing the job. Never had Cha Ming felt better about sparing someone in his life. He was safe now, or as safe as anyone could be, but that didn’t stop the rakshasa from felling others.

  His paws swept out, and dozens more died in a single strike. Another Monkey Clan elder fell as both the Iridescent Phoenix Clan and the Star-Eye Monkey Clan’s investiture-realm experts surrounded him and summoned their manifestations. He was simply overwhelming. So strong that Cha Ming couldn’t even determine his cultivation realm.

  The ground around the rakshasa bled to white, despite the competing investitures. The terrain became lifeless and barren, a place where no human or demon would want to live. This land hated all who were present.

  “You’re dead,” said the rakshasa, pointing to Cha Ming with a single claw. Bloodred karmic tethers fell into place around him. Cha Ming felt them tighten around him like a noose, threatening to strangle him. “We’ll hunt you for this. As long as you live, you shall never know peace.”

  And he knew this was true. This karma was of the deepest kind. Unbreakable. Always trackable.

  “We can’t hold him,” the First Feather said. Her breathing was harsh and labored.

  Huxian, I need you now! Cha Ming called. His heart beat loudly. Once. Twice. Three times. One beat per precious second as the vicious creature wounded and killed.

  Coming! Huxian said. He popped up beside Cha Ming using a teleportation talisman. His friends appeared beside him. They’d traveled all the way from the other battlefield in his tails. They trembled as they saw the creature but steeled their hearts. This was a life-or-death battle. There could be no hesitating.

  “We need to contain it,” Cha Ming said. He clutched his chest. He was bleeding, and his body was having difficulty healing, even with the Samsara Talisman he’d slapped on it. The Dao scars the Stargazer Chieftain had inflicted on him had hurt, but he’d been able to drive most of its power out using his crown. This was something else entirely. If the claw had gotten slightly closer to his heart, he’d have been beyond recovery. The whiteness was a lethal poison that he had no idea how to extract. It ate at him from the inside.

  A massive fox appeared overhead. Five other manifestations formed a circle with him. There was a sun and moon, and the tricky fox pushed the moon in front of the blazing sun. The air grew cold as it happened, and everything within the circle slowed. This counterpoint to the elder took away the edge from his frightening presence. It was enough to rally them all to battle.

  “Charge up your attack, and we’ll buy you time,” Cha Ming said. “Your strongest manifestations!”

  “Do it!” the First Feather called out. She was afraid. They were all afraid. But this was treachery of the highest degree, an enemy that had to be stopped at all costs.

  “You heard him!” the old Stargazer Chieftain said, taking command of the elders once more. Clever Dusk was in the back, and though her eyes glowed with an intelligent light, she couldn’t move. She was paralyzed with fear.

  Dozens of manifestations appeared, and nature sprung to life around them. Dozens of investitures by the most powerful demons in their clans. Cha Ming spent a fortune in inkwell jades just as Huxian’s combination manifestation broke. The Space-time Camera took a picture of the rakshasa. The entrapment only last
ed two seconds before shattering, sending shards of space out at the assembled armies. As Empty Death tried charging out, however, Cha Ming struck down with all nine of his sealing pillars. But he was strong, and they only sealed him for a single second, even with the support of Cha Ming’s five poetic talismans. Cha Ming’s soul trembled as he tried to hold on for even a fraction of a second longer.

  “Golden Dragon’s Music Box!” Serrendil shouted. She was still weak from the battle, but she, too, played her part. A golden manifestation appeared. It was faint compared to the original, and while it didn’t restrain the rakshasa, it struck his soul, befuddling him for a full half second. Meanwhile, it let out an inspiring melody. A battle call to all those present. It invigorated them and sped up their recovery, buying Mi Fei and Xiao Bai just enough time to cover the rakshasa in a sea of Grandmist, slowing time a little bit longer. Anything they could do to buy the elders another half second.

  The rakshasa finally broke free. He wasn’t just skilled, but powerful. There was a reason he’d thrown away the others. Cha Ming had surprised him by uncovering the Monkey Clan infiltrators, something Cha Ming had hinted might be due to his King’s crown. Then when the first traitor of the Phoenix Tribe was exposed, it was clear that he had an alternate detection method. Still, he was clever. He was strong and could remain hidden, waiting for an opportunity. Even now, Cha Ming couldn’t see through the tangle of karma Empty Death had forged for himself.

  He swept out a paw, and two elders collapsed as their half-formed manifestations were destroyed. One of them was an icy phoenix, and the other was a stone monkey that used the heavens as their weapon. Their destruction bought the time needed for the others to complete their manifestations. A massive Iridescent Phoenix blasted him with colored flames. Companions of all five elements joined it. The Star-Eye Clan manifested shining stars that struck him with wave after wave of light. Others summoned massive trees and vines. They trapped the raging tiger as he struggled to overcome these predators that once were prey.