70. The Path Not Taken
Di Ram exhaled as the two representatives of the Peach Blossoms finished giving their report. It was beyond his expectation that there would have been three golden path cultivators – no, perhaps that wasn’t the correct term. Three gold ranked threats. None of the enemies that the peach blossoms had disposed of were cultivators anymore. But that there would be three gold ranked threats so close to the city was concerning.
“And you slew them all,” one of his aides asked. “You truly expect us to believe that?”
“Compared to fighting our master, the trial was easy,” Hien Ro said flatly. “Their Dao was flat and their power stolen. The one weapon that they had which might have undone our unity was something that we have faced before and know how to overcome.”
“They were weak,” Thaseus confirmed. “Even though we were forced to split into three groups and only keep a marginal collective, we were easily able to dispose of them. A half-formed avatar of our master could have dealt with the lot of them.”
“And that is before whatever happened earlier today,” Hien Ro supplied.
Di Ram went stiff. “What do you mean?”
“I’m not sure, but I think he broke through onto the golden path,” Hien Ro said. “I heard him speaking, and then I sensed something strange. I’m not certain though, and I don’t want to give anyone false hope.”
Di Ram relaxed slightly. He hadn’t thought that the peach blossoms knew the identity of Little Bug’s family yet, and he preferred to keep it that way. Especially until the murderer of Little Bug’s father was sent on a suitable suicide mission in the north.
Di Ram frowned, and began to plan how he would handle it if Little Bug returned to demand justice. Simply having the murderer executed would suffice most of the time, but in this instance, they were dealing with Little Bug. It was impossible to predict what the Little Sage would do or say about mundane things, let alone something so significant.
Well, for now, he was confident in how he had handled that situation.
As for how to handle this one?
“It seems that we have vastly underestimated the power that the Peach Blossoms possess,” he said, “I need to reevaluate my chessboard after having found that certain pieces move in ways which I did not anticipate. Might you help me readjust my understanding of this game’s rules?”
“You want to duel us to determine if we’re truly as strong as all of that,” Hien Ro said, motioning to the reports on the table which detailed their heroics from the night of the attack. They were still dealing with the ramifications of that attack, but the Peach Blossoms had not been requested for any further duty so far.
“Of course not,” Di Ram said, taking a sip of water from a glass on his table. “I have people to delegate such things to. Tornolai is very excited to test your mettle. His strength I am familiar with and know how to rank. The duel is only supposed to establish where you sit, collectively, in the rankings. But he might push things further than that.”
“As you wish,” Hien Ro said, and he turned to leave.
“Your servant has been crying,” Thaseus said suddenly. Hien Ro turned and paused, a questioning look on his face.
“Her husband died recently,” Di Ram said.
“Oh,” Thaseus said. “Take care of her. Those who see us in our weakest moments of solitude deserve our loyalty, even as they return it a thousand fold.”
Di Ram cocked his head to the side. “I did not think to hear a man from your family say words like that.”
Thaseus fingered the patriarch’s ring on his left hand. “I may be a scion of my clan, but I am a student of Little Bug. I am trying to remind myself of this every day. When I saw the tears on her face, I made a choice not to ignore them as I would have before.”
“But at the same time, it is not your place,” Di Ram said, motioning for him to go. “Rest assured that I am looking after her family to the best of my abilities and your attention is better spent elsewhere.”
Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original.
Thaseus accepted the rebuke with grace, and the Peach Blossoms left the room.
Di Ram sighed and fidgeted with his own ring, and it was then that his wife emerged from the library within, her face excited behind its black veil and a set of scrolls in her hand.
“Here it is, here it is!” she announced, holding out a scroll for him to review. “The little genius used the gathering array as a base to power the formation which has been keeping the dead from rising within the city array, and he detailed the process in this scroll for us. With this, we should be able to replicate it throughout all of the major cities and ports of the south.”
Di Ram smiled and took the rolled scroll from her, pulling it open to review the now familiar handwriting of Little Bug. It was just what she had said, a detailed instruction on how to rebuild the formation that he had used to help Tornolai fend off Ko Ren.
He rang a bell, and Po Sana appeared. As Thaseus had noted, her eyes were red from tears, which she held back now and presented a face of stoicism.
“Sana, would you please instruct my generals that I have found something which requires the attention of my formation experts?” he said politely. He had always been polite with her, but since she had lost her husband he had been especially so. He had been surprised when she’d returned for duty in the morning, for he’d given her a week of bereavement, but she hadn’t commented on it any more than she had.
“Of course, Lord Di Ram,” she said, and she stepped out once more to pass the message.
Standing side by side with his wife, Lady Tonilla, Patriarch Di Ram studied the formation which had the potential to, if not change the shape of the war, at least give them some measure of defense and warning in the future.
~~~~~~
In a thousand and one directions I traveled. My avatars, more me than they had ever been before, split off from one another as each crossroad was reached, as each divergence of fate or chance, whichever name you prefer to call the thing that governs that which we cannot control, pulled me in a new direction.
I was listening not just to fate, but to the world itself.
And she was crying out in pain.
I had heard this pain for a while but had turned a deaf ear to it, for there had been nothing that I could do.
It was not just the infection of fel energy which was causing the dead to rise, upsetting the natural order of birth, life, death, and rebirth. It was also the gathering arrays which had been strangling this world for millennia, keeping Atla from reaching its full potential. Stunted and starved for Qi, the world had whithered on the vine.
I came to places of power and found them already claimed by the Lord of the Realm’s gathering array. I found them spewing the poison that was infecting the world.
With my hands, and with magic, I rolled up my sleeves and set to work.
Just as I had once built an array to protect a city from the attack of a golden ranked cultivator while I was but of the Bronze Path, I now set about a more ambitious prospect.
I hoped that this narrowing of my path, this blind canyon I passed through, did not lead to a sudden dead end. Because there was no going back.
~~~~~~
Di Phon was never a seer, or a revolutionary, but as he felt one of the few strings of fate from the world of Atla, one of his few remaining ties to the world of his birth, pulling him in the direction he wanted to go, he abruptly closed his eyes.
“Mai Mai. I would take another cup of tea,” he said. “And the rice that was served to me three days ago, along with an egg from the hen which laid my morning meal three weeks and two days ago. And—”
He continued to give instructions, growing more certain as he did. Mai Mai was terrified, but she was not alone. Though he addressed his instructions to her, it was the elder servants of the palace which would carry them out, and she knew this. She simply set about making another cup of tea, carefully picking out the tea leaves, paying especially close attention to the ones that she would serve in this pot.
When the food was served, Di Phon ate mechanically, taking little time to enjoy or reflect on the meal. Then he quietly sat for hours, his attention focused inward.
Abruptly the palace shook, and the formations which were set to detect such things flared to life in distant places.
A cultivator at the palace of new arrivals had stepped from the golden path onto the diamond.
When Di Phon finally opened his eyes again, he looked around, seeing the world with crystal clarity as he saw the path which would lead him to sever his ties with his home world completely.
He saw the path.
And he ignored it.
“I know that it is not time,” He said to nobody and everybody who was listening, “but I would kindly ask to take my audience with the lord of the realm soon.”