IX. Kung Fu, Part 2
CW: Brief suicidal ideation after the flashback.
The wind blows gently over the rice fields, bringing with it the cool caress of night. Yet the stars are nowhere to be seen, nor does the moon show her face; your light has eclipsed them all.
Nashai stands unafraid, her eyes as cold and hard as her school's namesake.
"So this your truth," she says. "The reason you bear a mask of sorrow, and carry guilt in your eyes. You were Anathema long before the gods chose you."
"And yet," you say, curling your dark-crowned hand into a claw, "choose me they did. There must exist ones such as I in this world, Nashai of the Adder. There must exist a weapon against the wicked."
She spits on the ground, fangs gleaming between her lips. "Such arrogant conceit. Let us put your righteousness to the test, then, shall we?"
Her few remaining students rise from their knees, and for a second you think you must fight them all - but no. They take a step back, spreading around you, and begin clapping their hands and stomping their feet, letting out deep, wordless calls, a rhythm building like a rising heartbeat.
Nashai crosses her hooked swords before her chest and closes her eyes, basking in the chant, and you brace yourself.
Golden lightning erupts from the ground where she stands, the Hounds
roaring, and where she stood is nothing but a small crater in the dirt and a spray of dirt. She is
behind you. You whip around on your feet in time to see a glowing eye, a fanged grin, and one gleaming purple arc swinging for your head.
The flash-step. You're in danger.
You instinctively coil on your knees and kick the ground, a standing leap five feet into the air; the sword's arc sweeps the air underneath you as you twist your body in mid-air and extend your wooden leg into a flying kick.
Nashai's second sword meets your leg in a perfect parry, the hooked tip of her blade catching the limb in an iron grip. She lets out a cry of exertion, throwing her entire body into the next move, and the world turns upside-down as she drags your airborne weight by the leg and hurls you into the sky.
You blink once, Essence flooding your head, and the world seems to freeze as your senses readjust. Up is down, down is up, forward is backward, and it all makes sense to you. You bring your knees against your chest to make yourself into a ball, pirouette once in the air, and then hit the facade of the shrine with hands and peg-legs, absorbing the impact and steadying yourself. You're fifteen feet high squatting like a bug on wall, looking down at your foe, and you see the flare of anger in her eyes.
Gravity is for the weak.
"Today," she shouts, "I claim my second fang from you!"
Golden lightning trails the ground, scouring dirt to sandstone as Nashai makes a running leap for you. She soars from the ground with her swords held out like a butterfly's wings and you push on your arms, hurtling upwards along the shrine wall, feet bouncing off the stone twice. Nashai hits the wall with both swords, smashing the wall in a geyser of dust, chalk, and cobblestone, and you are already at the rooftop, a flat dais of stone with a smoke-pit in the middle. You grasp the ledge and launch yourself even higher, flying up into the sky to the point that the entire valley of Embercairn is revealed below you: the ceremonial pyre to the shrine goddess, the torches carried by villagers hurrying to and fro between their houses, the peaceful rice paddies swaying in the wind…
And Nashai. She catches the ledge with her sword-hook and uses it as leverage, launching herself after you. Her legs trail lightning and her swords reflect your anima with an ominous bruise-like tinge. Your momentum expended, you hover for a second in the sky, your foe soaring at your heels.
You spin upward, bringing your right foot down in a wide arc, trailing for a second the same golden light as the Hounds, and bring it down in a hammer-blow. The blow is so widely signaled that even in mid-air she has no difficulty bringing her two swords together in a cross-guard, blocking your flimsy wooden peg with her hepatizon blade - but she is simply not yet accustomed to battles at such high speed or in such weightless conditions; without any footing to root herself, your kick sends her barreling down, her guard opening wide.
Second Leg: Motion of Myriad Limbs.
Your right leg hitting her allowed you to bounce back up and regain momentum. This allows your spinning motion to flow into an attack of your left foot - kicking once and twice and five times and twelve times, a single kick unfolding hundredfold down towards the shrine, wooden legs blurring into shining streaks of gold hitting Nashai's swords, her shoulders and torso, the ground beneath her, a rainfall of kicks tearing holes in her sleeveless tunic and cracking the stone below. Her back slams to the rooftop and she gasps, and you fall down with your fist raised…
But these scale-like patterns on her skin are not just for show, it seems. Faster and more resilient than you'd anticipated, she lunges for the edge of the roof, catching it with her hooked sword like she did on the way up and propelling herself over the edge, hitting it with both feet to give herself a platform. You land with a punch that hits only stone, webcracks spreading all the way to the edge, and immediately kick forward after her, striking again at the edge. Fragilized cobblestones explode outwards, spraying down on the road to the village, but Nashai is gone, having already jumped away. She is soaring above the rice paddies, cackling; you coil up on your knees and leap after her.
Snake and centipede, beasts defined by their crawl, earthbound by their very nature, fly through the night with weightless grace. Your sleeves billow, slowing you down, and you bring your arms to the side to make yourself an arrow aimed at the Adder's heart.
You notice the gesture just in time, as Nashai brings her swords together much too far to reach you - until you realize she is connecting the hooked points like a chain's link. She swings one sword at you and its sister doubles its reach, its spiked pommel turning it into a makeshift flail. You bring your forearm up over your face just before it hits, catching your breath to harden your skin, but she is learning fast. Her goal was not to hurt you, but to do the same thing you did a moment before: hit you with heavy momentum while you are airborne. The impact reverberates through your body and it sends you pummeling down to the ground.
You turn your fall into a somersault and hit the water with your legs, rice stalks bending backwards with the blast of your fall. Shining silver droplets spray out in the air around you and you look up - you thought Nashai would follow you down to take advantage of your fall, but she is still above, unclasping her swords and reaching backwards, steel-grey Essence spreading beneath her skin.
You know what's coming.
You reach up to your collar, and with one sharp gesture rip the shirt off your back. Golden light cascades off your wiry shoulders, revealing the pockmarks in your brown skin, old scars where fangs tore into you. All you are left with are the white cloth which with you bind your chest - and the chain. The chain you took from the defeated Adder girl before coming to meet Nashai, tying it at your waist like a belt, hidden under your clothes.
Gathered power explodes above you, Nashai lashing out with her sword from ten feet above you. Her Essence flows into the blade and the hooked sword uncoils, stretches, darts through the air with a sinuous motion and a deadly hiss - a viper of bronze, whose tip will pierce your heart.
You thrust one arm, open your hand, and let the chain flow. It needs no Essence to stretch its shape; its motion is burned in its fabric, a weapon of reach and denial, favored by the Art-Defiling Venom school for ages - and favored by roaming judges alike, used to capture criminals from horseback. You used one position as a way of concealing the other - in which order, you are not sure anymore.
Chain and sword meet and intertwine, sliding against one another in a cold embrace, but the winner is foretold: the adder's body serves to propel its venomous bite, whereas the centipede has a hundred legs with which to seize its prey. The tip of the sword stops inches from your face, shaking slightly, letting out a crystalline hum, as the chain wraps tightly around the entire length of the blade.
Then the burst of power Nashai unleashed is exhausted, and the sword attempts to snap back to its original shape - while still within your coils. There is a squeal from above as the sword's hilt is wrenched out of Nashai's grasp with enough strength to pull her down at the same time; you flick your wrist, pulling the chain towards you, and then swings to the side, tossing the hepatizon blade far into the rice fields, beyond the light of your anima.
Nashai lands harshly and with a gasp, water splashing awkwardly as she stumbles back up, tossing her drenched braids left and right. Steam rises from her snarling mouth as her eyes meet yours, her empty hand clawing at the air - but she still has one sword. Tongues of golden lightning kiss the waters around her, the Hounds howling at her feet. Her tunics, already sleeveless, is in tatters now, revealing a pattern of bruises on her stomach and arms - but you didn't scratch the skin. How resilient is she, you wonder? The Snake school practices a striking style with nary a grappling technique, and as such it uses a combination of sinuous dodges with breathing and tensing techniques to harden the skin over the long term so as to resist incoming blows while delivering its own - she is more suited to enduring long-term punishment than you are, but if you can get her in a lock, you will have a sure advantage.
And then, as you ponder these factors, her snarl turns into sharp laughter, her back arching up the sky.
"It's been so long," she says, "since I could truly test my skill against someone on my level. For this, if nothing else, I thank you."
You look at her for a moment, puzzling over what to say, then speak gently.
"This is who you could have been."
"Beg your pardon?" she says, her laughter fading but lingering in her mean, dangerous smirk.
"How long have you spent cloistered in this village, stewing in your bitterness and frustration, taking it out on the weak? You could have resolved this peacefully. You could have simply… walked away. Into the Grave, to meet the students of its many schools, to test yourself time and again and grow in skill and strength. That is an honorable path. I have walked it in my time."
"Why do you say this as if it were too late?" she asks mockingly. "I have the Hounds now. I am free - more swift and tireless than the best horse. I can leave this backwoods village behind - take my school with me."
"You struck a god," you say darkly, "stole a people's treasure, ate their food and drank their beer for years, breaking their pacts, giving nothing in return. It
is too late. You can't walk away from this."
"So there it is. The justice of the magistrate. Punishment when it is no longer necessary."
"Punishment is not for your sake," you say. "It is to soothe the pain and anger of all those you've wronged. It is to set right what went wrong. It is to restore the order of Heaven."
"
Fuck your Heaven!" she snarls, with an anger that surprises you, before spreading her arms wide. "You stand in the Grave of Swords, Golden Road! You stand in a prison for curses, where the rivers run tainted with the poison of a thousand forsaken blades! You speak to one whose master was declared Anathema by the Princes of the Earth! I spit on your order! I reject your law!"
"All the same," you say, "it does not reject you."
"Enough." She sweeps her sword from side to side, testing her strength, and smiles. ""Bring your law upon me, then, and see what good it does you."
Your fingers clutch the chain tightly as you spread your legs, finding your footing. The water in this paddy is ankle-height, but you do not
have ankles - with the lack of flexibility of your prosthetics, it will impair your movement. Enough to give her the edge? Only one way to find out.
You spin the chain in your hand once, twice, enough to lure Nashai into thinking you'll gather more momentum and then snap into a direct stroke, the weighted tip lashing at her throat. She clicks her tongue contemptuously and swats the chain aside with her sword, and you step in that opening; water surges in a wave at your back as you put all your strength into one dash, pulling the chain back with one hand and curling the other into a knuckle-knife to aim at her chest.
Her sword swings wide, too soon to hit or parry, and you don't understand; purple bronze slashes the air in a fury… And your step ends in a cloud of weeds, hundreds of rice stalks reaped and hurled into the air, a cloud in which Nashai dashes before you can reach her. Your jab hits nothing but air, and to your right more gleaming metal, more slashes, more rice spraying everywhere - full circle around you now. You blink, take a step back to secure your guard - and hear the splash of a foot at your back. You pivot on your heels, bringing your chain in a hasty blow to thwart your opponent, and too late feel the cold metal of her hook gripping your forearm.
She tugs to the side, wrenching your arm out wide, and strikes with two extended fingers of her free hand at your shoulder. The blow feels blunted, weaker than it should be, a vague impact spreading between your chest and your arm… and then your weapon-hand goes entirely numb. Your right arm falls limp to your side, the chain slipping from your grasp and splashing down in the water below.
Your eyes go wide with surprise. You bring up your left arm to parry her follow-up attack and manage to deflect another nerve-cluster strike, then awkwardly shove yourself to the side to slide your limp wrist out of her hook-sword.
So she kicks you in the stomach.
You go flying back through the air, your lost arm shattering your sense of balance. The water cushions a back-breaking landing against the soil of the paddy, but slows you down as you paddle madly to get up with your awkward wooden feet and your one good arm.
Pathetic.
You gasp as you emerge, water dripping from your hair, knees and elbows in the water, and see Nashai's gleaming teeth coming for your throat.
I gave you a name, didn't I?
The black rose on your temple scatters its wilted petals to the wind.
I named you Strides-Towards-Heaven, yet you now crawl down to hell.
The blade falls like a guillotine.
"My name," you scream to the world, "is Golden Road!"
It is one thing to hear of the anima. It is one thing to see the Solar's mantle drape around her shoulders as a radiant glow around her skin.
It is another thing entirely to see the
banner.
Your body erupts in shadowed gold, a vortex of night surrounded by a crown of purest light, a bonfire engulfing the entire rice field in the light of the eclipse. Each singular stalk of rice casts a shadow as sharp as a blade. The water is translucent crystal revealing the soil beneath. The sky is a deep dark blue and each star stands out in cold, frozen perfection, the outlines of constellations shimmering behind them.
A thousand chitinous legs chitter at the edges of understanding. All of the world's secrets revealed. The Eclipse is the moment of climax, of catharsis, of revelation.
A lesser foe would freeze in this light. But Nashai lives for this. You burst with light and translucent membranes slide over her eyes, nictitating membranes shielding her from the glare. Her course does not slow or bend. And you are still on your knees.
It doesn't matter.
You sweep your leg underwater with your bursting strength and kick up a wave six feet high, a wall hitting Nashai as she reaches you; she sputters and falters, her sword-strike finishing blind and hitting only the exposed ground. You are to her left now, limp arm trailing the the water, pushing yourself on your good hand and kicking the water again and again. Bubbles of water explode into waves to every side of Nashai; she rushes through them, slashing left and right and finding nothing.
"First Leg: Scurrying Vermin Approach."
A howl of sheer wrath answers you; Nashai dashes in the direction of your voice with all her speed and strength, lunging into a slice - which is exactly what you wanted. She glimpses your form in the water and strike, and you duck to the side - leaving behind a translucent afterimage delayed by a half-second and reflected against the countless splashes of water. Nashai cuts a wave of water in two and sees you, too late, crouched down at her side.
You lift your right leg in a horse-like kick from behind, blunt wooden peg hitting her in the gut, and she doubles back with a gasp of pain. You follow by pushing hard on your hand, launching yourself with both legs extended like a javelin, and hit her square in the solar plexus. She stumbles backwards, flailing, and you whirl in the air, landing on your feet, up once more.
Sweat mingles with the water of the paddy. Your heart is beating a thousand beats a minute. A red rose blooms in your hair.
You grin, sunfire in your veins. This is why you were Chosen. This is your purpose.
Nashai swings her blade hastily - not by mistake, simply using its edge to force you to step back while she catches her balance. A reasonable choice, under other circumstances.
You rush into the blow and jab with your good hand, catching her wrist before the sword can bite you. You slide around her, pulling gracefully on her arm while using your leg to block her own and keep her from moving with the lock. She cries out as you twist her arm around her back, then twist her wrist the
other way, and her hand opens instinctively, letting the sword fall to the ground - you kick it aside into the water.
Your hold is not secure enough to keep her pinned; her own fang bites her lip hard enough to draw blood and with a jolt she slithers out of your grasp, turning to face you, panting.
Second Leg - she knows this one. You grin, and lift your knee to snap into a high kick.
A hundredfold strike at point blank against an opponent deprived of her swords - it is the end of the fight, the finishing blow from which there is no recovering.
Lightning erupts out of the water, two dogs howling, and you strike too late. A dozen kicks like shooting stars strike out five feet out in an arc, digging furrows into the soil, and Nashai is gone.
Flash step.
Time slows to a crawl as your eyes swivel in their sockets, tracking the impossible motion and finding your opponent on your right, on the side of your limp arm and outstretched leg. Her right hand extends two fingers for another nerve strike, and you try as hard as you can to bring your leg back to the ground and pivot into a parry, but it is like moving through a world of molasses, each heartbeat excruciating slow as you slowly understand. Then reality snaps back to its full speed with a terrible clash.
She does not hit the nerves. She hits the straps of your prosthetic leg, snapping them clean apart and shattering the wood beneath for good measure. Your leg goes flying away into splinters, and you lose your balance, toppling backwards.
With only one good leg and one good arm, if you hit the ground, it's over. So you react with sheer instinct, snapping forward and grabbing Nashai by the shoulder, pulling yourself up close with her. The gesture takes her by surprise - but you cannot follow up.
You need one leg to stand up, one arm to hold her, and you have none left to spare.
She sees this too, and her expression of shock turns to one of glee. In desperation you tug on her shoulder while throwing up a knee-strike with your footless leg, but without both arms your balance is off and the blow sluggish; she blocks it with the palm of her hand and then slams the other around your neck. Lightning spreads, spider-like, around her feet.
You have only one move left in these circumstances. Before her grip can close off your windpipe, you inhale sharply and stop breathing.
Nashai launches forward, pushing you by the throat, ramming through the field like a plow driven by an ox gone mad; her trail leaves a deep gouge in the soil, scattering grain, leaving a destroyed harvest in her wake. She slams your back down into the next paddy and
does not stop, pushing you headlong and using the ground like a sandbelt against your back and head. With her free hand she strikes you over and over, no crippling nerve-strike this time but a wild flurry seeking only to do as much damage as it can as quickly as it can. Her curled knuckles hit your flanks, your face, your ribs, anything in reach, over and over and over again.
You still hold your breath. Blow after blow bounces against your skin, sending dull throbs of pain in your body, making your limbs twitch, but doing no more than light bruises.
Third Leg: Breathless Carapace. A meditative exercise refined over years until it becomes such second nature that you can enter the trance in one instant - catching your breath and circulating it within you, charging it with Essence so as to harden your veins and everything your blood circulates through. As long as you hold this breath, your body is strengthened even further than Nashai's passive techniques would allow - but it ends as soon as you exhale.
And she is hitting your ribcage with quite the fury.
"Look at yourself!" she shouts with mad glee. "Wasn't your style the one supposed to rob others of their art by crippling their body and soul? I am still whole! I took your arm! I took your leg! And now I will take
everything else!"
Your swords, you think distantly as she pummels your body,
I took your swords. I took…
Your lungs are burning - no, it is your entire body that is burning, a single Essence-breath wrung to its utmost limit to withstand the assault, every nerve struggling to keep yourself from opening your mouth on reflex from the blows hitting your torso. She rattles your lungs over and over, and she doesn't even know what she is doing, that this is the one weakness of your technique.
It is what saves you, because instead of focusing, half of her blows bounce off other parts of your body, giving you a heartbeat of reprieve. She drags you through the rice paddies, slamming you down each time you go down a step of the stairs-like field, dragging you through the earth, thinking it hurts.
And, eventually, her course reaches its end. She only has so much strength, so much momentum. You both slow down and come to a halt, your back pushing a mound of earth out of the water and resting on it like the world's most painful pillow.
The hand with which you held on to her shoulder falls limp to the ground.
I took…
She stands above you, grinning, wide-eyed, breathless, her fist held high. Staring at your dim, half-lidded eyes with the certainty of victory. She shifts her posture, coiling her arm, extending her knuckles again, and grey light shines in the veins of her arms, pulsing upwards towards her hand, where it gathers into a cold glint.
Never bite twice. Her motto. She knows a killing move, a technique which harnesses her Essence into a single blow that brings sure victory - if it lands right.
She had to disable two of your limbs, drag you over hundreds of yards of terrain while beating you half to death, and hold you down into the earth before she could feel confident in using that move.
I took your cold blood.
I took your pride.
If you'd had the confidence to use that move in the moment after breaking my leg, you would have won.
Her eyes narrows as she aims for the right spot of your helpless body. And she hit you so much, and you have been so still, that her grip on your throat has relaxed.
You breathe out once, sharply, and she freezes in surprise.
You breathe in again.
You punch her in the throat.
She starts up with a strangled gasp, her breath briefly cut out, and you grab her by the shoulder again. But this time you pull hard, hoisting yourself up chest-to-chest, and close your knees around her waist in a lover's embrace.
Then you sling your arm around her neck and twist your whole body, crawling up to her back as she tries to stand, stumbling off-balance with the weight of you; Nashai strikes blindly at your arm, at your legs, trying to get you to let go.
So you do. You release her neck, holding yourself to her by your knees, and brace your arm - then jab her five times in the skull, bell-like,
bang bang bang bang. Bang.
The grey light scatters, bursting out of her skin, shredding capilaries and dotting her entire hand and forearm with little bloody dots. She sways on her feet, dazed, and you grab her by the air, then throw your entire weight backwards. You both slam to the ground - you first, wincing at the impact - and water rushes in around you. Nashai pushes herself on her elbows, pulling her head and yours above the surface, then starts flailing around frantically, clawing at the soil, striking at your limbs, gasping and screaming.
You squeeze tighter around her torso with the sole strength of your knees, cramps already aching all throughout them, and slide your arm between her right arm and her chest, locking it in place.
Inch by inch against her struggles, you bring your hand around her face, past the cheek, the nose, until finally, your clawed fingers touch her brow. The golden crown of your anima expends one last time to swallow the rice paddy - then collapses inwards into your body, flowing like liquid midnight in your veins.
It was never about breaking limbs or gouging eyes.
You took her swords. You took her self-control. You took her pride.
And now…
You take her art.
"Third Hand of Ruination: Soul-Scarring Embrace."
And you reach into her past.
***
Your name is Nashai, Mistress of the Steel-Fanged Adder, and you have lived this dream too many times to count.
It always starts the same way - with the worst moment of your life. You are a child, standing in your home in the glow of twilight. Staring at the bodies of your parents lying in pools of their own still-warm blood.
It begins with the worst because it is the story of your triumph. The dark figure at your back is the man who will become your master, and when his heavy hand lays on your shoulder, you know he will whisper -
"I can teach you the strength to avenge them."
And then the dream shifts, a gallery of shadows in which you a hundred reflections of you practice kata after kata, running and lifting weights and a thousand other exercises, growing inch by inch into the teenaged girl who, one day, comes to the estate of the riverborn merchants who took your whole life from you, yet unknowingly gave you this, your new life, your new purpose, greater than whatever merchant girl you would have grown into in that old life.
And this is the reason this dream comes back to you again and again, it is the moment of your affirmation, the day on which you reforged yourself into the woman you have become. You remember perfectly every blow you delivered, every drop of blood spilled by your hook swords as you took down the guards one by one and moved into the mansion. Until you reach the chambers of the head of the family, and take down the Falcon student that served as the head of his guards. Until you step over the body, dropping your swords and walking slowly towards the terrified, cowering old man, because
this you want to do with your bare hands, and he…
He…
He starts laughing.
No.
You pause, baffled, wondering if the old man's mind snapped from the fear, but his laughter is not that of a madman. It is earnest and mean-spirited.
That's not how it happened.
"Oh, you foolish girl," he says, wiping a tear from his eye as you take a step back unconsciously, your confidence faltering. "Did you
really spend all these years training for
this? Did you really think one girl - one child - could take down an entire household?"
He was begging for his life.
Behind you is the rustling of cloth, and you turn - and the Falcon student is up again, smirking. Two men you killed walk into the room.
"It was a delight watching you go through my guards, thinking you were winning."
That does not make sense. I saw their blood.
You cry out in fury, lunging at the man, and he parries your blow effortlessly. You bring your foot up in a kick and he slam his hand on your knee so hard, you hear the bone snap. You fall to the ground, your shout of anger turning to a whimper of pain.
I killed him. I avenged my parents. I did it.
They beat you. But in the end, they don't kill you. In the end, they leave you broken and bloodied, and toss you into the street.
In the end, you aren't worth killing. Your aspirations were for naught. Your training achieved nothing.
And as you breathe raspily through your broken teeth and bloodied lips, you find your master standing above you, his mouth curled in distaste.
He was smiling. He was proud of me. He asked me if I wanted to go back to my old life now, to seize the merchant's wealth and take back my family's work, and I smiled and told him 'no.' That this life held no meaning for me anymore. Only the art did.
He turns his back on you.
He opened his arms and welcomed me.
And what you do next is the most terrible thing you've ever done - it hurts far, far worse than every broken bone in your body.
You reach out to him with a shaking hand, and beg.
You beg for him not to leave you.
And your master turns his face back to you, and in his expression disgust at your weakness is now mixed with…
Pity.
He walks back to you and lifts your broken body off the ground. He takes you with him, and nurses you back to health. You spend weeks in bed, being spoon-fed gruel. It is only by his magic that your injuries do not leave you crippled forever. That you are not left as one of the meek, forever extended the charity of the graveborn.
He never condescended to me. Even with his power, he trusted in me to always rise when I was knocked down. To always recover from every defeat, and come back to claim victory.
You never went back to the city of your birth, never took the merchant's life. He was old already - he probably died in his bed, happy and fat. You wouldn't know. You left, spending your adult years in the shadow of your master, his little pet, his one failure. Watching other, brighter students drink his words and learn his moves before moving on to make their own deeds echo in history.
I was the strongest. They left because they could not abide my status, because they were envious of me but could never unseat me as his right hand.
Until he could no longer stand the sight of you, and left too. Left you in a backwater village, the head of a school full of his failed pupils.
He left because he had nothing left to teach me and he knew I would grow strong enough that one day he could challenge me as a peer-
He gave you a polite lie. He told you he would be back. And you pretended to believe. But in your heart of heart you know, and this is why you never left Embercairn…
He will never come back.
You will grow old and die in this village.
IT DID NOT HAPPEN THIS WAY!
You scream. You scream forever in this shadow-play of a dream. You scream as it all vanishes around you.
You are still screaming when you wake up.
You emerge from the waters of the rice paddy, soaked and battered, stumble away from the terrible, gold-clad figure that held you a moment before, and crawl on your elbows and knees.
"It did not happen this way!" you scream to no one, to the indifferent sky, to the blind and deaf stalks of rice around you. "It… didn't…" you whimper, your voice breaking, tears welling up in your eyes.
More water for the field. It does not care.
The eclipsed sun still shines behind you. It does not walk towards you. It watches with burning, blazing judgement. For your crimes. For your weakness. For your shame.
Does it, too, pity you?
You look up, and there, a dozen lights. Torches.
The villagers. Abanya the elder. The students who betrayed you. Your fight took you close enough that they came to see. To witness your defeat.
The pyre burns in the distance. Did you really wound a goddess? You must have been strong… You claimed the boots…
A young man treads the waters of the paddy, staff in hand, walking towards you, and you think - you hope - that this is the end, that now that you lie broken and artless on the ground the villagers will gather and pummel you -
like the guards did - and that you will expire, and be spared the weight of shame gnawing at your soul.
He walks past you without sparing you a glance, and you hear him kneel before the sun.
"Exalted One," he says reverently - and you remember, you remember when that man spoke to
you in such a tone, even as you know it will never happen again - "I am sorry if I trespass, but I saw your leg-"
"Thank you," the sun says kindly, speaking in the voice of a woman, and the light shifts as she stands up behind you, wooden staff splashing the water. You can't look at it. You can only look up at the men and women of Embercairn.
"It did not happen this way," you plead, begging for the crowd to tell you… what?
"It did not," the sun says, "until today. And now - it always did happen this way. It always will have."
You turn, your weeping eyes seeing nothing past the glare but the faint outline of the one you fought, the one you had crushed and were about to kill, and who now seems to stand so tall she is infinitely out of your reach.
"Why would you do this to me?"
"Because you found your worth, your pride, your
meaning in the skillful exercise of violence. And that led you down a path of evil. So I took away that worth, that pride. Now your art can never bring you happiness again."
"You took my life from me!" you scream, anger and despair mingling into a venom of their own, burning your skull from the inside. "You took… everything I was…"
And she is in front of you, kneeling, the light parting to reveal an all-too human face.
"And now," she says, "you must become something else. Something better."
You stare into these green eyes for what seems an eternity, looking for a trace of mercy, and when you find none, for at least hate enough to justify doing such a terrible thing to you. You could understand hate. You could understand being broken at the hands of one who loathes you.
But there is none. There is only sorrow, and…
Pity.
"Kill me," you whisper. "I cannot live like this."
"Death," she answers, "is an escape. Live. Atone. As I must. As your students must."
"I can't."
"Then you truly are as weak as your memories say," she says, tearing another hole in your heart.
And she stands, pushing on her staff, lifting her feeble, crippled body, sighing with discomfort.
And she walks away.
And she leaves you behind.
No one comes to put you in shackles. No crowd gathers to hurl stones at you, or to drag you bodily and throw you in a storehouse in expectation of a public trial. The crowd leaves with the sun, and night returns, all the stars in the sky staring down in contempt. Silence surrounds you, broken only by your sobs, until your tears dry.
You look down at your feet, where the Golden Hounds no longer shine, no longer sparkle with lightning.
She didn't even take them off your feet. You truly were wrong about her.
And what good are they to you now?
You stare past the boots, at your own moonlit reflection. The waters are so peaceful now. They so easily returned to sleep after the mad frenzy of your fight. You wish to sleep too. You should lay down in the paddy, covering your body with its waters, and let yourself drown. You are so tired and injured, it would be easy. You would return to the earth, feed the crops, and give back to the village a little of what you took from them. It would be… so easy.
"Master!" calls out a frantic, hoarse voice, snapping you out of your reverie. You look up, and there on the road beyond the field -
Shay. Loyal, arrogant Shay. Your most prized student, his face swolen with bruises, half his weight resting on the arm of that gigantic lover of his. You note distantly that Shay is bare-chested - and then that his shirt has become a makeshift bandage around the sickleman's chest.
Still young, but sure to be stronger than you some day.
He rushes towards you, almost stumbling face down into the paddy, and leans down at your side.
"Master," he says again, and then words fail him.
He knows. He knows you have lost. And it is such a foreign idea to him, such an unthinkable concept, that he does not know what else to say. Behind him, the sickleman looks pained by his distress.
But he is here. He…
He cares.
Where did it all go wrong? When did you lose your way?
"Is there anything I can do…" he starts, and you nod.
"The boots," you say.
"Take them to the magistrate."
***
You are Golden Road, and you are victorious.
It does not feel that way.
For all of Nashai's crimes, for all her wickedness, her art was a bright jewel a whole life in the making. And you shattered it.
You would do so again if you had to - but it does not diminish the sadness of the deed. Your art is a cursed one, and it is for good reason that all other schools treat is as anathema.
But its existence is necessary.
You walk uneasily with one leg and a staff, your stump knee dangling underneath you, the grace that Essence gave you fading fast. Your anima is rapidly ebbing low, down to a soft glow around your skin. And yet the villagers look at you with awe and wonder. No matter how feeble you might be now that the rush is gone, you have forever set yourself apart from them. They part around you, and do not offer to help you walk - not out of fear, but because it is unthinkable for them that one of your stature might need the help of mere mortals.
They're all here. They all came to witness the final instants of the fight - the defeat of the tyrant. The victory of the Chosen.
They… all… came?
You blink, and look at lorekeeper Abanya quizzically.
"The goddess," you say, "she is not with you."
The old man looks at you with a strange expression. "The stranger told us it was alright - told us to go to you. That he would take care of her."
"...the stranger?"
"He appeared when your light broke through the clouds," says one of the Adder girls who sided with you. "I think…" And then she falls quiet, not daring to voice her thoughts.
"Take me to him," you say, your heart resting heavily in your chest.
So they do. They walk at your pace, slow and cautious, out of the rice fields, past the outermost houses of the village, back to the plaza where the ceremonial bonfire still burns hot and bright, sending sparks and smoke to the skies.
The golden hound still lies on her flank, breathing heavily but steadily - and a man is crouching at her side, brushing her fur.
"Here," he says, "it will be alright."
You freeze, and the crowd stops with you.
The man stands up, and turns to you.
You know this face.
[ ] An older man with a long, flowing white beard, wearing saffron-yellow robes and old, much-worn sandals.
[ ] A man in his middle age, thin spectacles framing his weary face, clad in the attire of a funerarian from distant Sijan.
[ ] A dark-haired youth, with eyes as black as night and a dangerous smile, dressed handsomely but surrounded with the sickly-sweet smell of rot.
