8. Will to Power II

The winged creatures descended like boulders, crushing their talons across the furs of the muffa.

Their maws could swallow his arm whole in a single bite and still have enough room for two more. Next to him, Pria was already knocking her bow, and the cultivator Reimallia was running over to one of the creatures, bare-fisted.

His first thought was—that was stupid. But she was a cultivator, and they were similar to avatars.

“I’ll take one of them,” Reimallia said. “You two take the other one out!”

Then suddenly, as the muffa roared, the two creatures dug their rear claws deep onto it, and leaned far back into their rear legs, as if they were planning to jump.

Kal realized what they were doing. “Pria!”

“It’s a monkey dragon,” she said. “Juveniles. Look around for its mother.” She loosed. An arrow struck the eye of one of the creatures.

It screamed, then it let go of the muffa, causing the big creature to fall. The other monkey dragon bit onto its neck, but its hide was thick.

Reimallia clambered onto the muffa and attacked the monkey dragon in a flurry of punches. There were cracks in the skull, but not before it leapt—taking Reimallia with it in the distance.

The leap seemed to have affected the muffa, as he heard a crack, and its beck bent with so much force it limped over.

The one-eyed monkey dragon stared at them.

Kal thinned the guard to a point, then ran it down his palm. He hadn’t healed fast enough, so part of the wound re-opened.

“Come at me.”

The monkey dragon leapt. Kal failed to see it. The thing was too fast. There was a boom, and when he blinked he found his leg between its teeth, and he screamed.

He thrusted his saber, wounding it in its damage eye, and lodged it in its skull. It rammed him on the ground, and he felt his muscles tear.

A whoosh and the creature lost its other eye. Kal laughed dryly. It was blind, but it got ahold of me.

“Reimallia!” But he couldn’t see them from here. “Fine.”

Kal pulled back his rapier and thrusted it into its mouth. “I’ve got something for you to eat.”

He pulled his soul into his aspect. It vibrated, and as his will was infused onto it, the rapier exploded into tiny needles, like a swirl of storm inside its stomach.

The creature bit harder, and this time, Kal heard a crack from his leg. “Damn it, damn it, damn it.”

The monkey dragon, with the last flicker of its strength, flung him as he hit the tree, then collapsed face down on the dirt. He didn’t have the courtesy to faint.

It wasn’t long before Reimallia slowly flipped him onto his back. He coughed, and tried to make out some words, but he felt chilly.

“Are you well?” She asked. “You’re a cultivator. Meditate and heal.”

He forced out laughter. “I can’t.”

“What?”

“I can’t heal,” he took a deep breath. “I appreciate your concern. Where’s the other one?”

“It saw its kin died and ran away, thankfully.”

Pria ran over to them. She studied his leg, then she took a knife and passed it over to Reimallia. “Cut his pants. I’ll make a stretcher so we can carry him back to the manor.”

Kal groaned in pain. “My leg,” he said. “If I lose this, I’ll have to spend my life limping. Or abandon my life and be an artist. That wouldn’t be so bad. I’ll need to procure a drafting pencil.”

“Draw me with a pair of legs,” she said.

“That’s obvious. You desire what you cannot have. I’ll sketch you on paper and have you running.”

“Just don’t expect me nor Pria to spoon-feed you and clean up after your shit in the potty.”

At this point in time, Reimallia stripped the muffa off its meat. She wouldn’t be able to haul all the sack herself, but there was enough here that could save them some expeditions.

“We’ll need to be fast,” Pria said. “I don’t like the smell of the wind here.”

Pria managed to create a makeshift stretcher with the cultivator’s fur jacket. There wasn’t anything to treat Kal, so Reimallia slung a rope and pulled him forward. Pria walked ahead of them, alert. “I’ll drag the dead monkey dragon once I’ve taken you to bed. You owe me a favor.”

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“I do. Yes, I do.”

“Now, what was that? What you just did back then… that didn’t look like cultivation.”

“The Sarnasia family has its secrets. Or was that your favor?” She thought about it. When she didn’t answer, he continued. “I can’t tell you more about it, but I can teach you.”

She craned her head to him. If it was going to help them survive, he wouldn’t mind giving her the ability to construct aspects.

“But that will cost you that favor,” he said.

“Done. Tell it now, we have the time.”

He looked about. “I’m sure our feathered friend will arrive to that conclusion as well if it decides to circle around.”

She gave a weak nod. “I didn’t sense any qi from you,” she said. “And you can’t heal. Is that even cultivation?”

He supposed he should take this opportunity to ask questions. “What defines qi?”

“Look around you. Every plant, every rock, the wind that presses itself on you, they all contain qi. It’s thin here in the north though. No wonder cultivators are starved.” She paused for some thought. “Your family must have pursued a different Path of cultivation.”

More jargon, he thought. “What I can teach you will be invaluable,” he said. “I’ll need your aid in something myself.”

“Go on…”

“I’ll need to learn to cultivate again,” he told her. “From the beginning. Has it now occurred to you that I’m not at any realm?”

“You tricked the merchant splendidly,” she sighed. “But that in itself sprouts another problem.”

“We’re defenseless.”

She nodded grimly.

“I considered your offer,” she said. “I will not serve you. I will not call you ‘master’ and kowtow for every mistake I make. I will not kiss your toes and worship you if you ever did something beneficial. But I am not above showing proper appreciation. You will have my hand, as long as you extend yours.”

Kal smiled. “That is all I ask.”

“What about Pria?”

“What about her?”

She lowered her voice. “Give her to me.”

He snorted. “Ask her yourself. Walk up to her and plead, serve me, servant, and I shall treat you better than your master. She’d kiss you and proclaim you her savior.”

“At least terminate her servitude. Give her back her freedom.”

That wasn’t a difficult option to consider. He had already intended to divide the tasks anyway. “You’re a demanding one. Who will wipe the shit off the potties in the privy? Who will scrub the walls and the collected crap on the floor?”

“You will.”

“Shall I take it that you’ll heat the baths?”

She considered it for a moment. “Very well. And stop your façade of civility. It disgusts me.”

“Politeness never hurt anyone,” he reasoned.

“Unless you wish to appear weak. I’d rather hear your thoughts, rust and dung and all. You’re a cultivator and I’m no maid in a silk dress.”

He smiled. “You have a roundabout way of offering to speak casually. If you speak more riddles, I’d need an interpreter.”

“If that was a riddle, Lahrs Sarnasia, you’re in dire need of a whetstone. Has the monkey dragon rocked your head they robbed you of your wits?”

Kal laughed weakly.

It was midnight when Reimallia returned home, carrying with her the body of the dead monkey dragon and the majority of the muffa meat. Kal had remained within his quarters, being tended to by Pria, who disinfected and stitched his wounds, pressed ice taken from the nearby river, and ran her hand across his leg to study it, which was painful.

She was wearing a cloth around her nose, remaining stoic during all that time. “I would be a dead man without you,” he said. “You’re used to this.”

She turned to him, then back to his wounds, and began stitching him near his ankle. “When cultivators war against each other, it’s the common folk who is often bleeding on the sidewalk. You’re a cultivator yourself. You’ve seen your own kind spar before. For every stone that you break, it’s a stonemason and a laborer who fixes it. For every wound, a healer. When you destroy a house, it’s an accident, and when you trample a family and kill their children, it’s an unfortunate reality in the world of cultivators.”

“Your world,” she continued in a lower voice. “But never mortals. If you knew you can’t heal, you could’ve left me there to be eaten, and gave yourself time to retreat. Do you know how much a mortal costs up here? Around ten silvers, if it’s a child. Twenty, if they’re a woman.”

“Would you prefer it if I left you?”

“Yes,” and she seemed certain of that answer. “Why risk yourself for me?”

“Why?” He looked outside the window. “I’m a cultivator. Who am I supposed to order around? Ouch! It’s painful enough seeing that needle through my skin, why did you have to pull that hard?”

“You’re used to this,” she observed. She wasn’t amused with his answer.

“Cultivators often are,” he lied. “I saved you for a selfish reason. It felt good.”

“Do you yearn to be good?”

“No. I don’t know. Perhaps. Is it something people desire?”

“ ‘You desire what you cannot have’ “, she recited.

Kal opened his mouth, closed it, and realized that if he speaks another word he would be entangled in a web of truths and lies, and she would’ve seen right through him. He could heal faster. But that would require someone else knowing the truth of who he was.

The door slammed open. Reimallia strode forward, spun to him, and then his leg. She cringed away, covering her nose.“I would’ve screamed if you stitch me like that without alchemical drugs.”

Kal pursed his lips.

“It’s been hours. You’re not done, Pria?”

“I’ll need to regularly check this every day. It’s highly likely that his bone’s been fractured.”

“That’ll take forever. Just heal!”

“I can’t,” Kal said. “It’s a Sarnasia thing.” Blaming it all on this vessel’s family was getting more and more convenient. Throw some random rabbit dung pellets and they’ll lick it off the ground as if it’s a magical explanation to everything.

Pria said, “I’ll have to cast it too, tie the young master to bed, and put a hanging toy just out of reach over his head to amuse himself. You’ll have to breastfeed him, Reimallia.”

Kal was at a loss for words. Reimallia looked like she had lost her lover, and when Pria turned to them, she was confused.

“Why are you two looking at me like that?”

“I’ve never seen you jest,” Kal said. “And here I doubted you have the capacity for it.”

“You made a jest,” Reimallia said. “And you called me by name. I’m still dreaming. That’s right. Why wouldn’t a cultivator heal? Let’s capture some sleep and wake up to reality.” Reimallia sighed as she left the room.

----------------------------------------

Pria left the room half an hour later and spotted Reimallia in the garden, who waved at her with a smile. “I wanted to talk to you before I collapse on my bed.”

Pria walked closer.

“You freed me from slavery,” Reimallia said. “I’m free to do as I wish now. I’m a master of myself again, and it had been so long since I felt what the taste of freedom on my tongue.”

Pria bowed respectfully.

“Are you bound by any contract?”

“No.”

“You have your limbs, I have mine. We have no chains that bind us now, Pria, unlike your young master.” Reimallia took her hand. “Let’s steal the silvers from his room and leave.”

“I heard you say you were willing to cooperate to survive,” Pria said.

“That, I was. But when I cut the belly of the monkey dragon, I found something interesting.”