Chapter 49 - Zhurge (2)

Chapter 49 – Zhurge (2)

A kick scattered half of the elder’s images. They were many, but they also seemed to lack some of the weight the original had before he’d deployed whatever technique allowed him to split and multiply. They moved in straight lines and hard angles where they bounced from surfaces, as though free from the constraints of gravity. Zihan’s kick set them to multiplying further, but it also gave Zihan the space to grab one of the copies by an incoming fist then kick hard.

The elder’s eyes, in that image, grew wide just before the kick landed and ripped the construct’s arm from its torso.

Ki washed across the room as the construct fell apart. Tiles and glass panels in the cabinets shone briefly with sourceless reflected light as all of the images of the elder converged on Zihan at once. One of them detonated in a soundless flash of light that caused the woman clutching Yi Cao’s arm to cry out and his lenses to go black momentarily, then a second self-detonated, and a third. In the brief respite between blasts one of the constructs went for Zihan’s eyes with its thumbs and Zihan used both fists to slam it into the floor. It didn’t explode, but when it rebounded, split now into two, Zihan caught it, and the embedded reflection, with one foot then slammed his heel through both image’s chests bursting them.

A fist caught him in the side of the face and he spun to bat the offender away, generating a second image of the elder but grabbing another by the leg as it tried to kick only for that construct to detonate in another flash of light.

Suddenly, each of the remaining images bounced away. They caught themselves on walls, in the corners near the ceiling, at odd angles, even one of them upside down with one hand braced against the floor. Eight shimmering palms directed themselves towards the Young Master still in the center. The guard gave a wordless shout of excitement, and then eight beams of light shot from eight remaining copies of the sect leader to lash the spot Zihan had been.

Had been.

Because in the moment that they unleashed their combined barrage, he shot forward and crushed one of the constructs against the wall.

After that it was only a matter of time.

Zihan hunted the remaining copies of the elder one by one. They fled before him. Bouncing semi-translucent warriors who shouted and shot scattered beams from their hands as they tried to stay one step ahead of the Young Master. He dodged them all. Grabbed them and ripped them into diffuse Ki while the others repositioned to entrap him between their beams. With each image he destroyed, the others grew more tangible, more solid, until only two remained firing searing beams that left smoking trails across the tilework.

When Zihan grabbed one of them, it detonated with a scream while the last flew at him from behind, both hands sparking with power as it brought them to bear.

Fire flared. Enough heat to make Yi Cao’s eyebrows, what remained of them, crinkle and the woman behind him cry out and jerk away. Both beams from each palm of the remaining elder dissipated in a wave of liquid flame, then Zihan snatched the him and hurled him into the ground.

Thanks to his weightlessness, the elder rocketed back into the air, but Zihan’s fist met him as he rebounded and drove him into the tiles, then again, and again, each time with enough force to burst the constructs that tried to form and split from the original elder.

He continued bouncing the elder off the floor until he stopped bouncing and rolled bloody and gasping for breath from the shallow crater in the floor.

If it had been silent before the fight, the silence that followed it was absolute.

A bit of scorched tiling fell from a crater in one of the walls to shatter on the floor below, revealing more of the intricate script work rippling with light underneath.

Zihan ran a hand through ruffled hair and looked around at the destruction with a sour look on his face. “Fucking idiot,” he said. He tucked one toe under the elder and flipped him into the wall with a thud. “Those are your people.” He gestured to the cultivators huddled in the corners of the room. “You risk their lives with your techniques? Over some face?” He snorted and shook his head. “Fucking idiot.”

The elder groaned and rolled onto his front. Zihan ignored him. He walked to the display counter showing weapons beneath the glass and flipped out his sub-space wallet. He surveyed the scripted swords, knives, and staves on display then tossed Yi Cao the wallet and picked up a technomancer weapon with a steel bottle running the length of its short barrel.

“Loot.” He said as Yi Cao caught the wallet and stood there holding it. Zihan snorted, then dropped the pistol back onto the glass and paced to the cabinet next to Yi Cao housing sources of a half dozen varieties.

The woman behind the counter quickly backed away as he approached.

“Those are not for ye to take.” The guard snapped. He stepped towards Zihan but Zihan shot him a glare that froze him in his tracks.

“Do you really think you can stop me?” Zihan asked. With a touch, the glass over the cabinet evaporated into smoke. The young man stepped back and Zihan reached inside to scoop up a handful of the sources inside.

More tiling fell from the wall, and the elder groaned as he propped himself up. “Ye dishonored us,” he spat, “made little of our accomplishments.”

Zihan snorted. “You haven’t accomplished anything here.” He dropped all of the sources back into the cabinet except for a thin wand of wood that he held within a few inches of his eyes to examine the grain of the wood. “Half rate cultivators on a dead world.” He snorted.

“Have ye tried to advance in a dead world? Have ye Cultivated where there is no Ki? Where even the heavens are blind?” He worked himself into a sitting position and collapsed against the wall to glare at Zihan. “Honor, and power, is all we have.”

Zihan dropped the wand back into the case then stood over it with a look of disgust on his face. He shook himself after a moment and turned to Yi Cao.

“See anything you want?” He asked.

Yi Cao looked around at the shattered sect. The audience stood huddled in corners, eyes wide from the power they’d just seen displayed. Yi Cao shook his head, tapped his amulet. “Got everything I need.” He said.

Zihan scowled and grabbed the sub-space wallet out of his hand.

“Those sources aren’t easy to get.” The woman behind the counter whispered. “There are disciples who depend on them here.”

“Those sources are trash.” Zihan replied. He glared at the woman as he dialed through the contents of his wallet. “If they want to ascend, then they’re wasting their time.” He stepped back to the cabinet of weapons and finally found what he was looking for in his wallet. “Even your master hasn’t opened more than four nodes.” he glared at the man who’d done most of the damage to his own sect.

The Ki in the room changed noticeably when Zihan popped the sapphire source out of subspace. Fog misted across the glass next to Zihan, water droplets shining with the light aspected Ki that still suffused the air. The sapphire thumped where Zihan tossed it onto the floor at the elder’s feet.

“We don’t require your pity.” The elder snarled. He still scrambled to scoop the sapphire up.

Zihan snorted. “Try a new path,” he said, “maybe some of your disciples will even be worth a damn.” He turned to go, but stopped and hesitated for a moment before he snatched the technomancer’s pistol off of the cabinet again. “I’m taking this.” He said, then tucked it into his wallet. He shoved the wallet back into his robes.

“Come on.” He said to Yi Cao as he headed towards the door. “We’re leaving, he turned to look at the guard as they stepped past. “Don’t expect us back.”

The girls were still waiting for them in the shuttle when they returned. Zihan told Bealtiel to take them back to Te’klub and the girl followed the instructions afforded to her by her implanted knowledge to take them out into the traffic moving between the stones.

Kalemal lay with her head on Zihan’s chest for most of the ride, smiling as she moved her hair to tickle his face. He ignored her except to push it out of his way while he stared out at the shifting starscape of miners and technomantic constructs moving amidst the rubble of the shattered world.

“You know what we should have taken?” Yi Cao asked after they’d made some distance.

Zihan grunted, but didn’t turn to look at him. “What could they have had that we don’t?”

Yi Cao’s head still ached from his experiments with his Ki, but it was an ache that working with his augments soothed. With enough focus, he found that he could push all four fingers of his augmetic hand until they stood upright from his palm. He held them up.

“My augments,” he said. “There are parts of my scripture that will need channels there if I’m going to complete the next circle. They’re going to be a bottleneck unless I cut channels through them, and I have no idea what effect that will have on my spirit, let alone on my hands, or my eyes… or my lungs.”

He felt the vibration in his chest as air moved within the machinery inside of him in the silence.

After a short silence, Zihan stirred.

Kalemal’s hair reached up like a brush to swipe across the curve where his chin met his neck and he glared down at her then pushed it away before he turned to focus on Yi Cao.

“Technomancers have some means of grading the power level of their people.” He said. “I don’t know much about it. I expect they’ll know more at Mubra.”

Yi Cao let his fingers snap back into a fist then let both brass fists rest in his lap. “The Firefly sect had scriptures for merging them with my cultivation.” He said.

Zihan hummed, and turned back out the window.

“Is Mubra going to be our next stop?”

Zihan nodded to himself, then batted Kalemal’s hand away when she tried to pull it across her chest.

“Mubra.” Kal said dreamily. “Taking me with you?” She giggled.

“As I understand it, the guild controls most of the interdex gates.” Zihan said, only half present, the other half of his attention lost somewhere in the false stars. “I doubt they’ll have much, if anything, on merging the two… paths.” He turned to Yi Cao and seemed to come back to the room. He frowned. “Should we go back?”

Yi Cao thought of the state of the hidden sect and the distance they’d already come. He shook his head. “No.” He said. “I know a place.”

Kalemal rolled over on Zihan’s chest and pulled herself up to nibble at his ear. “I know a place.” She said, and grinned.

Zihan’s smile didn’t touch his eyes. “This place close?” He asked Yi Cao.

“Very.” Kal whispered with a giggle.

Yi Cao looked away. “The library.” He said. “Where I got the guide book.”

Zihan nodded as Kalemal kissed his neck. “Then that will be our next stop.” He said. Kal’s hair moved to stroke the Young Master’s chin and Zihan turned up to kiss her. He pushed her off of him and she stretched out on the bench, wriggling and grinning up at him as Zihan stood up.

“Why don’t you go up and tell Bealtiel where we’re going.” He Told Yi Cao. He turned his attention to the girl waiting for him on the couch and Yi Cao stood quickly to do as he was told.

“We don’t have much longer on the station.” Zihan said as Yi Cao opened the door. “Best think if there is anything else we need to get before we leave.”

Yi Cao nodded and heard Kalemal give a throaty chuckle before he closed the door behind him.