26. Calm

  Dancing through the arena as flames erupted around him, Toorah laughed as he easily avoided the wind blades that his opponent struggled to conjure. Compared to his own well developed and practiced techniques, his opponent’s dao was weak and shallow. His flames whipped around and scored another hit on the opponents side, and just as the opponent was about to dash forward to try to make this match an exchange of martial arts, Toorah caused the earth under his left foot to soften.

  The opponent, a man in his thirties who had been an established practitioner in his sect for ten years, was humiliated as he stumbled and fell, with the earth softening further and preventing him from climbing back to his feet.

  He was left struggling to climb out of quicksand, and there was nothing he could do to counter it, as the air itself wasn’t cooperating in lifting him. He couldn’t fly, and he couldn’t escape.

  “I surrender!” he called just before the pit of quicksand swallowed him entirely. Still he sank further, but a moment later a hand punched down and grabbed hold of his own hand, pulling him to the surface.

  “Good match,” the little upstart brat said, patting him on the back. “Don’t worry, I’ll represent us both at the tournament with honor and pride.”

  The man scowled, his pride and ego bruised. Didn’t this brat know that he was the son of the patriarch of the Regis Pugilist Clan? His punches were like the wind, unstoppable and unpredictable. If they had only fought in close quarters, he could have proven himself.

  The crowd which had come to watch the regional qualifying tournament cheered at the combatants, and the young master of the Regis Pugilists turned on his heel and went to get himself cleaned up.

  Toorah scratched the back of his neck. “Was it something I said?” he wondered.

  He walked out of the arena as the next combatants entered the combat floor, where already the quicksand he had created had rehardened into solid earth. He stepped up into the stands to wait for his next combat in an hour or two, depending on how the other fights went.

  “That was quite impressive,” his employer said to him. The city officials were all in attendance, and as part of their entourage Toorah was given the option between sitting with them or sitting with the competition. He preferred the company of the people who gave him a lot of money for simply converting words from one language into another.

  “Thank you. I didn’t realize when I learned these techniques that they would scale so powerfully into silver rank. When I first learned to make a puddle of mud I thought it was a pathetic little skill, but my master made me promise to keep practicing it. I can see why now, but he must have had a lot of confidence in me reaching silver rank when I lacked that confidence in myself,” Toorah said.

  “Your master must have had an eye for talent,” the comptroller said.

  “Nah. He taught all of the kids in our village. I’m just the one who took it further than the rest,” Toorah argued. “And even then not by much, I think. I heard a lot of my old friends are starting to reach silver too.”

  “But you are brushing up against gold,” the comptroller insisted.

  Toorah shifted. “I’m not certain. Sometimes it feels like it. I’m not sure what I’d do if I suddenly broke through, but hopefully if I do it won’t be right when I’m trying to qualify for the silver tournament and get me disqualified from the entire thing.”

  The comptroller laughed. “Yes, that would be inconvenient.”

  “Do you think there’s ever been a competition on this scale before?” Toorah asked his employer and friend.

  “Not on this world,” the comptroller said seriously. “But the cosmos is a very large place. Who knows? Perhaps there is a champion being crowned right now in a competition that would dwarf this one.”

  ~~~~~~

  I felt numb.

  I sat in the luxury air car as Kuto spoke. The screens showed the pundits from other worlds discussing the unprecedented level of destruction that our match had caused in a tower designed to contain the furious energies released in a competition between the highest levels of cultivators. Images of the ruined tower were shown, and fractured glimpses of the battle were replayed from the broken recording devices that had survived the fight.

  I looked like a madman as I was bitten by one of Kuto’s Dao avatars and simply laughed as I ripped my arm out of the beast’s mouth, ripped its leg off, and beat it to death with its own limb.

  Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  “You realize that you faced only a fraction of my real strength, of course,” Kuto said. It was not a deflection, but a calm statement of fact.

  “Just as you faced a simple fraction of mine,” I said.

  “Did I?” Kuto asked. “How much of yourself did you send?”

  “Only the parts that I thought I could live without,” I said. “I knew nothing about what I would face when I arrived, but I knew that there was a chance that this avatar wouldn’t be coming back. It’s a pale reflection of who I truly am.”

  “No,” Kuto said. “It might have started out that way, but you have changed. Grown in many ways, including significance. Not only have you faced hundreds of battles, but you have bonded with Majeesha and overcome an impossible trial. When, if, you return to Atla and recombine with your true self, you will battle against yourself and struggle with the you that was left behind for dominance.”

  “I know,” I said.

  “Having reached the platinum path, you will win,” Kuto said.

  I didn’t contradict him.

  “Have you ever considered that the reason you had visions that you might not return was not that you would not be permitted to return, but that you would choose to stay?” Kuto asked, and he poured me a glass filled with peach brandy. “Because I could use a man like you. I would give you Majeesha, for one, and—”

  “I don’t want her,” I said.

  He frowned, and the pundits discussed where the power that I had displayed might have come from after my thorough defeat only days before.

  “Okay. But I want to help you, believe it or not. And you’re going to need help to deal with Loshi. Take some of my champions. You can use them as footsoldiers when he inevitably invades.”

  I frowned. A few platinum realm soldiers would be helpful when Nadia finally turned her sights upon me again. I couldn’t care less about Loshi, unless he tried to take Atla from me.

  “I’ll consider it,” I said. “But for now, I want to simply sleep.”

  He nodded. “Okay.”

  “Where are we going?”

  “To the tower where you first arrived,” he said. “We’ll talk more when you wake up.”

  ~~~~~~

  “I’m a girl now,” Atla said, appearing before me with a different face and dressed in the clothes of Hien Ro’s daughters.

  I blinked. “I see that,” I said. “May I ask why?”

  “I want to throw the flowers at the wedding,” she answered. “Is that bad?”

  “Why would it be bad?” I asked.

  “Do we have to find me another fake mother?”

  “That depends. Are you a girl forever or just for the wedding?”

  “I dunno yet.”

  “Well if you decide to be a girl forever we’ll have to come up with a reason why my son isn’t following me around anymore, and an explanation for where my daughter came from,” I said. “But we’ll figure that out after the wedding.”

  She nodded, satisfied that the matter was closed, then ran off. I sighed and went back to reading my reports. For all that I was a figurehead of the alliance, I had an endless supply of paperwork to do.

  I looked out the window, and I wondered how my other self was doing. Hopefully, I thought, he was navigating the complexities of Duke Doe’s court with grace and would return home soon.

  I didn’t like not being able to sense the parts of me that I’d split off to make him. Some of those parts were dangerous, and I regretted turning them loose into the universe.

  I sighed and turned back to the revenue reports.

  I spent some time considering Prince Yema’s offer. I paused and tapped my fingers against the desk.

  I had the strength of Atla to defend myself and the people I loved against Empress Nadia and her empire.

  One lonely planet against a multi-dimensional empire.

  I needed allies, I knew that much. But I wasn’t prepared to swear fealty. I would have to speak with the others before I made up my mind.

  ?