“Stop!” Yi Cao grabbed the Young Master’s arm but it was like grabbing a bar of steel. The arm didn’t yield and the sword it held practically glowed with heat as it pressed towards Yi Cao’s neck. Fire Ki danced in the Young Master’s eyes in sympathy to the white flames that crawled across his arms.
“Please!”
Yi Cao struggled to find purchase on the cold glass. Flames licked at his fingers and hot tears pooled in the corners of Yi Cao’s eyes as he held on.
The Young Master used one hand to lift Yi Cao a little higher on the glass and smirked up at him.
“Now, now. What have we here? A junior disciple of the sect, and so far from home. What might we be doing at such a remove from the your home outer disciple?”
Yi Cao jammed his elbows between the sword arm and the glass.
“A mission!” Yi Cao squeaked. He felt his arms shake. “A mission! I told you already! For the elders!”
“Yes, for the elders, but which ones I wonder?” Zihan grinned. “And what did they offer you in return?”
Bits of dead men and pools of froth littere the hallway behind the young master while orange script ran along the wall, ceiling, and the unbroken tiles of the floor. Pieces of the shattered gray wire guardians oozed between the script while orange lights strobed along the wall length window sealed with steel shutters behind Yi Cao. Distant sirens echoed down the halls.
“Please.” Yi Cao said again. “I have a cousin in the sect. Only eight.”
The boy in front of Yi Cao, only a few years his senior, twenty one or twenty two, clucked and rolled his eyes. “The children, please, the children.” He mocked. He pressed Yi Cao harder into the glass while fire Ki flared in eyes that held no other warmth. “You should be dead.” The cultivator informed him. Heat flared from the cultivator and Yi Cao cried out, pushing himself away.
“That can still be how this ends.”
Something burbled behind the cultivator as the crawling pieces of the guardians suddenly surged together. A new guardians, sans eye, lurched upright from the lump of gray, and an amporphous arm shot for the cultivator as the guardian moaned something in the station’s language.
Zihan didn’t even turn.
The golem disintegrated in a spray of burning material. A patch splattered against the window not a foot from Yi Cao and oozed, burning, down the glass.
The sword was back at Yi Cao’s throat before he had time to realize it had truly left. He felt his skin burn from the radiant heat of the blade and pushed himself once more against the glass.
“It’s Yi Cao, isn’t it?” The cultivator asked, as though he hadn’t just obliterated a guardian capable of killing a cultivator with physical strength alone.
Yi Cao kicked, futiley, in an attempt to climb up the wall away from the sword. “Yes!” He squeaked.
Fire Ki rolled from the young master as he pinned Yi Cao in place. “Tell me something Yi Cao.” He intoned. “Do you trust fate?”
Yi Cao cried out and thrashed against the rising heat. Something rose in him, ugly and angry. “Fuck fate!” He spat. “And fuck you too!” He kicked, intentional this time, and managed to hit the other boy in the face.
The cultivator’s cold gaze turned to a look of surprise at the kick, then he grinned.
Yi Cao fell hard as the Young Master let him drop. His knees struck the hard tile and he cried out as they failed to hold him.
Laughter echoed up and down the concourse, a insane thing like a man about to die or a murder of ravens cackling and circling in the branches of a tree while distant sirens wailed in fear.
The sudden heat died with the laughter and the Young Master stood in the center of the hall whipping his hands to extinguish the white flames that still clung to them while he smiled at some personal joke. The smile didn’t touch his eyes, and the cold glint in them gave him a look of cruelty that had Yi Cao breaking out in a cold sweat.
“Fuck fate.” Zihan said to himself. “Fuck fate.” He tittered, a high pitched giggle as mad as the laughter he’d filled the hall with only moments earlier.
Yi Cao found the case nearyby and scooped it up. He found what remained of his shoulder bag with it and pulled it against his chest, then turned, to watch the young Master as he inched cautiously away.
“Fuck fate.” Zihan said one last time. He grinned and turned to Yi Cao, still beating at the last of the flames on his hands.
Yi Cao hesitated, then pushed the battered metal case towards Zihan and slid himself away. “You got what you wanted.” He said. “I won’t say anything to the elders. Please.”
Zihan’s smile turned into a sneer. He waved one hand dismissively. “Those old bags? Why would I care what they knew?” He blew out the last of the flames on his other hand then stepped towards Yi Cao and kicked the treasure case so hard it ricocheted off two walls on its way down the hall. “That’s not what I came for.”
He crouched, like a mountain bending down to look at a mouse. Yi Cao flinched back as he felt the heat of the fire Ki still dancing in the young master’s eyes.
Zihan smiled and Yi Cao’s heart twisted in fear.
“You’re going to swear an oath to me.”
Yi Cao felt every muscle of his body lock. He forced rigid muscles to kow tow before the superior cultivator.
“This Yi Cao’s oath would be a burden on your cultivation.” His voice trembled as he pressed his forehead into the tiles.
The Young Master snorted. “Do you think I care?” The words came out in a sneer. “Fuck fate.” He spat. “Swear to serve me and you’ll live.”
“Please.” Yi Cao said. “You could force me to do anything. Kill myself.” He started to look up and a sword tip slammed into the tiles beside his head. Yi Cao flinched back with a cry as shards of tile sprayed him.
He didn’t die, so he looked up and met the fire Ki dancing in Zihan’s cold eyes.
“Then you’ll have a few more days of life.” The Young Master stood. “Swear to serve me, to obey my every command for… three… no… eight years…” he gazed into his own black reflection thrown back by the window for a few moments. “Eight years.” He repeated, “Eight years ought to be enough.” He refocused on Yi Cao. “Serve me for eight years and I will give you a reward worthy of that service. Balance is the law of the heavens, after all, and payment, a mortal’s reward.”
He pulled something from his pocket and glared at it for a moment as he tossed it up and down in one hand. “Tell me, what did the elders offer you for your mission up here?”
“Advancement.” Yi Cao whispered.
“Advancement.” Zihan said, as though he’d expected it. “What else?” He swiped tapped at the thing in his hand for a moment. “Serve me for eight years, and this will be the minimum I am prepared to pay you.”
He tossed a wallet onto the floor. The wallet itself could not have been larger than Yi Cao’s hand, a small black metal case like a miniature book that opened as it landed. The treasures that spilled from it as it spun across the floor would not have fit in a bag ten times its size, let alone the small thing he’d just dropped to the tile. Gemstones and natural treasures, flasks that shimmered with aspected liquids, jewelry and scripted jade discs, a Gao that spat lightning as it rang against the tiled floor, a spear as long as Yi Cao was tall that shimmered and rippled weirdly above the flowing orange script, a single rose that seemed to glow with power.
Yi Cao realized his mouth was open and snapped it shut.
“That was the sect’s.” He said. He glanced up at the Young Master who smirked as he looked down at the treasures. “You stole from the sect?”
Zihan shrugged. “Is it stealing when they don’t try to stop you?” He turned his smile to Yi Cao. “They watched me do it. The lower treasure vault and the personal vault of elder Fu. Dung bag had it coming.” He snorted. “You were promised cultivation resources once you returned to the sect, weren’t you?” He gestured to the pile of treasure spread across the floor. “I think, eight years isn’t much to ask in return for the entire lower treasure vault of the sect.”
Yi Cao stared at the rose he’d been promised in the midst of other even more valuable treasures and felt his body shake.
“And… if I won’t?” He whispered.
Zihan’s smile held none of the warmth that radiated from his hand as the flames reappeared at his finger tips. He jerked the sword from the tiles next to Yi Cao causing Yi Cao to jerk away as Zihan gave it a spin. “Then fate receives its due.” He studied Yi Cao for a moment, then turned his back and paced towards the opposite side of the hall.
Yi Cao tore his eyes from the rose to look at the host of other treasures spread across the floor.
Little flames leapt up from a bit of molten guardian next to Yi Cao.
“Choose.” Zihan commanded.
Yi Cao pressed his face back to the tiles.
“This, Yi Cao, swears in sight of the heavens, an oath to obey every command of Zihan Beigao for the span of eight years upon condition that no command of Zihan Beigao gets him killed and in return for the rewards promised.”
Something rose from the world as he invoked the sight of the heavens, as though the heavens themselves truly manifested to watch the proceedings. It felt like a weight, huge and incorporeal, bearing down on Yi Cao as he said the words, heavy enough to make it difficult to breath.
“No.” Zihan replied.
The heavens turned, and Zihan glared down at Yi Cao cowering on the floor. “Swear to obey my every command, unconditionally, and in return for the promised reward.” He grinned and spun his sword. “You wouldn’t want to miss out on the interesting bits of our adventures.”
Yi Cao felt his channels convulse as the heavens turned back to him. “I so swear!” He squeaked.
Zihan nodded and struck a pose, sword propped in one hand like a cane. “This Zihan Beigao swears in the sight of the heavens to reward Yi Cao tenfold for the obedience he renders for the span of eight years or until I release him from his vow, at which time I will give to him all that remains of the treasures stolen from the Hidden Heart Sect currently in my possession.”
Yi Cao closed his eyes as the world shook with the attention of the heavens.
“I so swear.” Zihan intoned.
“I, so, swear.” Yi Cao choked.
The heavens descended, not as a weight, but as a hand, reaching into Yi Cao’s soul through his channels. Yi Cao quaked and struggled to breath.
“We are bound by fate.” Zihan intoned as the heavens twisted Yi Cao’s spirit and guts into knots, his voice hard and cold as ice. “Your fate is what I say it is.” The flames on the young master’s hands died and the Ki flickering in his eyes went out, as though a switch was flipped, turning off the spiritual power and leaving just a boy, long hair pulled back into a chonmage, green robes singed almost black by his own Ki, an expression of grim resolve set on his cold features.
Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.
Yi Cao gasped and felt his entire being convulse as the oath took hold and bound him to his promise.
Only the tips of Zihan’s fingers trembled as he went through his own side of the same experience.
“My first command is this.” The Young Master said as the shaking stopped and the hand of the heavens retracted from Yi Cao’s spirit. “Where I go, you go, for the duration of our oath. My goals must be your goals, my desires, your desires. We stick together, through thick and thin until…” He looked at his hands as Yi Cao shook.
“Until the end.”
The oath twisted in Yi Cao’s mouth. “Until the end.” He spat.
The heavens lifted away, and Yi Cao collapsed to the floor.
Zihan let out a long controlled breath as the weight faded. He stretched out his hand and watched until the shaking in his fingertips stopped.
It was hard to tell when Yi Cao stopped shaking from the aftershocks of the oath and continued shaking as the result of everything else.
“What now?” He whispered from the floor.
“Now?” Zihan asked. He whipped his hand away and looked at Yi Cao. “Now you need to clean this mess up.” He gestured to the scattered treasures across the floor and grinned. “Then we need to get out of here before station security sends more of their techno ooze golems.” He toed a puddle of molten guardian then turned and walked towards the sword still bubbling and smoking beside bits of the over-muscled cultivator he’d thrown it at when the man was alive.
Yi Cao probed, mentally, at the possibility of disobeying the command, and felt his channels twist just at the thought. Disobey and ruin your cultivation. A simple consequence. He picked himself up, ignoring the injuries that screamed at him each time he moved, and began shoveling treasures into the magical wallet on the floor. At any other time the bauble might have fascinated Yi Cao. It had flashing lights along one side of the open flaps and hard metallic edges that made it look technomancer in origin. Instead of pages, a flat shimmering field occupied the center of the covers contained by a thin rectangle of wires. When he pushed objects into the field they sank in without resistance and gave no indication of coming out, even the spear. He had to twist the Gao to get the handle to fit, and yet, every treasure spilled from the wallet fit back inside and the wallet didn’t even feel any heavier.
Zihan kicked the bubbling sword as Yi Cao cleaned up. It left a molten trail of slag as it spun in a lazy circle across the floor. “A pity.” Zihan said. “I’d have liked to save that one.” He turned as. Yi Cao closed the wallet. The lights along the edge flickered between green and red and Yi Cao tossed the piece to Zihan who tucked it into his robes. His intact sword disappeared as he sheathed it in his robes beside it.
“Grab that case.” Zihan told him. “Then lets go.” His grin was all teeth. “It’s time we disappeared.”
Yi Cao let the oath carry him to the case and he snatched the waterlogged bag of personal effects. The two seemed unnecessarily unwieldy after handling the wallet filled with treasures. He cradled them and followed the Young Master down a hall still running with orange script.
The orange script ran out as they left the hall. They trotted around an intersection and it just disappeared, replaced momentarily by the flashing orange strobes and a single woop from an alarm before even those faded. Green blue and yellow arrows shot out from the walls like fish to resume their curling dance across the floor.
A voice boomed over a loudspeaker and Zihan cocked his head to listen, then gestured for Yi Cao to follow as he led the way down another intersection, then another until they found themselves in the assembly area beneath the balcony where the frost cultivators had tried to ambush Yi Cao’s ambushers.
Water still ran from the balcony and ice still clung to the rails and hung from the roof in long icicles. Men, or what looked like men, in heavy plate and huge domed helms, with bony spare metal arms hanging from their shoulders, stood around the splattered body on the floor waving at a crowd of people who clustered to look at the dead man while a swarm of hovering constructs buzzed around the hall. A few others Yi Cao took to be technomancers stood in a corner with oddly articulated metal limbs and lenses hanging over their eyes as they wrapped bandages around a handful of men and women who’d been caught in the crossfire.
Zihan pushed through the crowd. The crowd ignored them, and Yi Cao followed Zihan through until they passed into a concourse more or less free from the signs of recent conflict. Yi Cao itched to run, but Zihan actually slowed once they passed onto the concourse and put his hands behind his back as he gazed out at the starscape visible beyond windows that hadn’t been sealed against their own destruction, and Yi Cao forced himself to match the Young Master’s pace.
His, master’s, pace, he realized, and he felt the oath squeeze his channels again.
There was no sign of any conflict at the market concourse where Yi Cao first spotted the Young Master on the station. The Young Master led Yi Cao to the dark skinned woman still swaying at the door marked with the red symbol of a vice den.
“Back so soon?” The woman remarked when Zihan pushed through the crowd moving past her door. The woman pressed herself to him, two hands on his chest, hips swaying as she stepped closer. She picked at his scorched robe and looked at it. “You’re darker than you were when you left.”
“Puka.” Zihan said in greeting. “This is Yi.” He gestured to Yi Cao trailing after him. “We may be in a spot of trouble, and we need someone to help us disappear.” He grinned. “We need new clothes, obviously, and a way to dodge any eyes the station might have following us after our… adventures.”
Puka eyed Yi Cao, then turned back to Zihan. She kissed him. “It will be expensive.” She said, looking into his eyes.
Zihan smiled, hard and cold. “Money has never been my problem.” He replied.
The whore pouted, then turned away. “And here I thought you just missed my company.” She gestured, “follow me”, then she disappeared past the crimson beads draped across her door.
New clothes were easy. “Many men leave their clothes with us.” The woman, Puka, remarked as she watched Zihan and Yi Cao undress. Yi Cao found himself embarrassed by her attention and turned away as he pulled on faux silk that shimmered silver and grabbed a two toned shirt of green and red. Zihan snorted at Yi Cao’s selection, then skimmed through the boxes of clothes until he found something for both of them. He forced Yi Cao to change again but took his time in front of a mirror getting his clothes just right. He tugged at the layers of black mesh and gray collars, swapped out a vest for a half cloak and readjusted until he was satisfied, then he transferred all his goods from the scorched green robes to the angular half cloak.
He eyed himself in the mirror for a moment, then ordered Yi Cao to come stand beside him.
Yi Cao barely recognized himself. It didn’t help that his only experience with mirrors until this point had been the reflections in pools and dark windows lit by candlelight, but the clothing made him a new man. Shining black buckles ran up the seams of his new trousers while red lights shifted like sparks across the folds of black cloth wrapped around his chest in the same style as his old brown robes. He looked nothing like the junior disciple he’d been when he arrived. He looked like a technomancer, or a technomancer’s son, anyways. Without the wires in his brain.
“Time, I think.” Zihan said as he studied their paired reflection. He reached into his half cloak and pulled a sword from inside, like the magic tricks some traveling actors had once performed for members of the sect during a harvest festival.
Zihan seized his chonmage in one hand and used the sword to hack it off. Chin length hair fell to frame his face and he used the blade to cut it back it until it came no further than his eyes, just a bit longer than Yi Cao’s own.
Zihan grinned at his reflection, then laughed and tucked the sword back into the invisible space inside his cloak. His grin, as he paid Puka for the clothes and let her guide them into some kind of tunnel that ran beneath the floor, was something fierce, something wild, something dangerous enough to make Yi Cao shiver as he followed him through the dark.
Hours later Yi Cao waited, as he’d been commanded to wait, at a window looking out onto the stars glittering beyond the curve of the planet below. He could move, if he wanted, a little to the left, a little to the right, but he could do nothing that couldn’t, in his own mind, be considered “waiting”.
People moved around him on the concourse, some sitting in chairs between potted plants while others waited in a line to board the ship docked at the circular gate cut into the window alongside or wandered the concourse on business of their own. This ship looked nothing like the sky ship that brought him to the station that morning. It was huge, for one, ten times the size of the ship that brought him there and tapered from stacks of tubular drives at the rear to a blocky nose with angular crags and contusions jutting from otherwise flat gray hull plating.
Arrows in all the colors of the rainbow danced their slow dance across the white tiles of the floor as Yi Cao stared at the planet beyond the ship and waited.
He couldn’t see his home from this angle, couldn’t have, anyways, even if he could see its part of the Southern Continent thanks to the distance, just shifting clouds and a glittering sea beneath the long sickle of night. It was hard to reconcile the vast expanse he’d once looked out over from the top of a mountain with Uncle Bao, and the distant sphere spinning against the dark.
“Here we are.”
Yi Cao felt the oath loosen as Zihan appeared beside him. He extended something and Yi Cao looked down to find a paper ticket in the Young Master’s hand.
He took it without comment then tucked his hands behind his back.
“I got us something to eat.” Zihan said. He offered Yi Cao something in a paper bowl that looked like paint spread across rice and vegetables, a pair of chopsticks jammed into the top of the glutinous ball. “I’m starving after that fight.”
Yi Cao hadn’t been ordered to take the food, so he hesitated, then felt the hollow pit in his stomach make itself known and accepted the bowl of rice. He stared at it as Zihan dug into a paper bowl of his own and looked out at the stars.
“We should talk about your oath.” Zihan said after they’d stood in silence for a couple of minutes.
Yi Cao’s lips compressed and he yanked the chopsticks out of the rice to stir the contents of the bowl for a moment. He filled his mouth rather than answer. The rice tasted like rice, but the paint tasted like nothing he’d ever had before. Tangy yet sweet, with a hint of burn.
Zihan took his own bite and chewed. “You know what happens if you break it?” He asked with his mouth full.
Yi Cao swallowed. “Everyone knows.” He said.
Zihan gestured with his chopsticks. “Tell me anyways, just so I know you know.”
Yi Cao felt the oath tighten and scowled as the words were forced out of him. “Your cultivation is stripped from you. Your channels are sealed and your affinity for Ki is closed off completely.” He looked out at the stars. “You become a mortal, forever.”
“That’s right.” Zihan nodded and took another bite. “There are a few exceptions but it’s a good enough approximation.”
He watched Yi Cao stir his food.
“Eat.” Zihan said.
Yi Cao ate.
Zihan watched. Eventually he turned back to the stars. “I don’t want your cultivation stripped form you for no reason.” He said. “So, we need to keep that from happening. We need to come to an understanding about what does and does not constitute an order.”
Yi Cao glared at his food as he shoveled it into his mouth. The sweet and tangy spice was bitter in his mouth.
Zihan took a bite and bobbed his chopsticks in his hand as he chewed and thought. “From now on,” he said, “if I don’t explicitly make something a command, I don’t want you to treat it like a command, and, by explicit, I mean, if I don’t say something like, I command you, or I order you, or something along those lines, you’re allowed to treat it as a suggestion rather than a command.”
Yi Cao stopped eating. He took a second to realize the freedom he’d been given then threw the bowl away from himself so that the contents scattered across the floor. A few people looked at him but Yi Cao ignored them and heaved for breath as he stared out at the stars.
Zihan eyed him sideways as he chewed on his rice. “You understand what I’m giving you, I hope.” Zihan said.
Yi Cao didn’t say anything.
Zihan dug in the bottom of his bowl and studied its contents. “What have I commanded you so far?” He asked.
Yi Cao felt nothing from his oath. He remained silent.
“This is something I can reverse.” Zihan said. He eyed Yi Cao as he chewed, then looked back out the window. “If we’re going to make this work you’re going to have to get used to it. I could force you to do everything against your will, but that sounds exhausting, for both of us. We can play that game, or, you can choose to serve me willingly, and earn your reward.” He swallowed. “Eight years is a long time to hate what you’re required to do.”
“you ordered me to follow you.” Yi Cao replied.
“Just so.” Zihan replied.
Yi Cao growled. “You could let me go.”
Zihan grinned but his eyes remained cold. “Now where would be the fun in that.” He tipped his bowl to scrape the last of his rice into his mouth.
Red lines appeared on the floor in a circle around what remained of Yi Cao’s rice.
Yi Cao’s stomach rumbled and he pressed his face to the glass.
“How are you holding up?” Zihan asked after a moment.
Yi Cao closed his eyes. “I’m hungry.” He said at last.
Zihan gestured to the food on the ground. “Your own fault now, isn’t it?”
Something nudged Yi Cao’s foot and he opened his eyes to find small triangular constructs huffing and blinking as they swept up the rice and hauled away the paper bowl, following an undulating path outlined for them in red.
“What I meant,” Zihan went on, “is how are you holding up after everything else.” He tossed his bowl to one of the machines puffing along the floor and it snatched it out of the air on a hook. Zihan crossed his arms behind his back and stared out at the planet. “You’ve probably never seen somebody die.”
“Yes I have.” Yi Cao snapped. He blinked, hard, then turned his face so he could look at the planet without removing his forehead from the glass.
The oath was looser now in Yi Cao’s spirit, less oppressive, but still there, reminding him to follow Zihan wherever he went.
“I have a cousin.” Yi Cao said. He spat the words, hating himself for playing for some spark of pity. “A junior disciple in the sect. Just eight years old. One of the elders, Elder Xia, said he’d kill him if I didn’t return.”
Zihan snorted. “Elder Xia’s a prick.”
The glass was cold against Yi Cao’s forehead.
“You don’t have to agree.” Zihan said after a moment of silence.
“He killed a junior disciple to prove his point.” Yi Cao whispered.
“Mmm.” Zihan chewed on that for a moment as they both looked down at the planet. “The elders will be, busy, right about now, or will be very soon. I think even the treasure they’d hoped for is going to be a minor concern compared to what’s coming for them.” He gazed out at the curve of planet below, cold and strangely silent. “You’d never have made it back you know.”
Yi Cao looked at him.
“Or did you think that you were the only one with alternative orders for getting that treasure out of the sect’s hands?”
Zihan’s grave front broke as he smiled, showing too many teeth.
Yi Cao turned away as a voice boomed something over the ambient noise of the concourse.
Zihan turned back to their view of the planet. “I’m pretty sure we made enough of a mess up here that no one is going to think you survived. No point in punishing a promising junior just because his relative couldn’t come through.” Zihan looked at his ticket as the voice continued. “You should be overjoyed.” He added. “This could be a great opportunity for you. Better than anything you’d have a chance at in the sect, and certainly better than any deal Elder Xia was going to offer you.”
He nodded as the voice finished. “This is us.” He said, and nodded for Yi Cao to follow as he headed towards the line queuing up outside the dock. “Come on. The ship will have something to eat on the transit.”
Yi Cao felt his oath tighten and he took one last look at the planet before he turned to follow Zihan towards the door.
“Bring that case.” Zihan called back over his shoulder. “No point leaving behind the treasure of the century.”
Yi Cao hesitated, feeling no stirring from the oath at Zihan’s command.
He scooped it off the ground anyways.
Like the man said, no point in leaving it behind.