Legend of The Young Master

Chapter 211: Loved Her

When he said "kneel," more than two-thirds of the surviving swamplings fell immediately to their knees. Wuyi was deeply gratified to see Luding twitch so that his body shook as if a strong wind had passed through a forest.

And as he shook the enemy, buying precious heartbeats, Wuyi entered the chamber and touched the wall. He chanted, "Animae Passio."

Luding felt the swelling of emotions—such a variety of emotions, with a taste he had forgotten. He lost a thousandth of a heartbeat trying to identify it. He consciousness was in turmoil.. Took him while to realize where attack was coming from only then did he reach for his shield of adamantine will. The will blocked the attack of emotions coming from Wuyi.

Then another attack came; the attack flew through Wuyi and reached Luding, attacking Luding's conscious space.

"You don't remember that taste, my sweet? That taste is love, and once, you were capable of it."

The lady was in his head—in his conscious space—naked, exposed, and rendering him the same.

Confused—a storm of rage and hate—he struck at her. In striking, he did not raise his shield.

The Pavilion Mistress took her stand in the ruined altar, in near darkness, her hair unbound, her feet bare in the shattered glass. Her pavilion members stood in close array behind her, and their voices rose in sacred chant.

Xilai stood beside her, his staff in his hand, riding the chant of power into the darkness, into the labyrinthine mind of the young man on the field below, facing a monster—

Pavilion mistress, too, faced a monster. A variety of monsters, many of them of her own making. That she had loved this thing which now sought the ruin of all she loved—

She hit him with her frustration and her love, her years of loss. She poured her love of her heavens into his wounds, and she added her contempt—that he had abandoned her to turn traitor to righteousness. That he had taken her gift and made this depravity with it.

She hurt him.

And he struck back. But he was hampered, and still—still—he hesitated to hurt her.

She hit him again. She'd had years to expunge her hesitations.

Feiru, standing in the former street of the Lower Town, nonetheless felt the old Pavilion Mistress struggle with the enemy. It was terrifying, but she felt the Pavilion Mistress's power, and she raised her own hands in sympathy. Unknowing, untrained, the seamstress nonetheless poured her carefully hoarded Qi into the Pavilion Mistress.

The Pavilion Mistress smiled in triumph.

Monk Zen hidden rose from behind the altar, drew his arrow to his mouth, and loosed.

And from the darkness, a cry of rage.

The Pavilion Mistress screamed like a soul in torment and was knocked flat on her face—dead before her head hit the stone floor. Blood welled from her eyes, and she lay still, a vicious black arrow in her back.

Outside the fort Fire—a pure fire of crystalline blue—had enveloped Luding's shell. The heat of it was stupendous. And from the fire, smoke—a rich, bright smoke, luminescent and alive, more than white, more than smoke. Wuyi could feel Xilai sending the smoke through him, through his place of power and down his arm and into the air about him.

A subtle working—insidious, clever, a fog of a million mirrors attacking Luding.

She had hurt Luding—hurt him so much. And the dark sun had hurt him, and now he was screaming in agony. A moment's remorse—and the cost had been cataclysmic.

But he was saved—she was dead, her light extinguished, and not by him. Some other power had struck her down, and he was innocent of that crime. He turned—strong enough to finish this pretender. But he writhed inwardly in the knowledge that she was dead. It had to be done. It should not have been done.

And then—too late! He felt his apprentice's working, the complex, layered work that was that boy's trademark—a colored smoke, so quiet, so harmless, so complex—

He moved back up the line of Xilai's casting, as he had attacked along the line of his lover's.

Xilai felt his former master's power coming. His counter-strike was so tiny, so very subtle, that it cost him almost no power. It relied on his enemy's hubris and his sense of his own power. The counterattack was ruthless it hurt Xilai and Pavilion members.

Luding felt that he killed the apprentice effortlessly, although he couldn't, for some reason, take Xilai's not inconsiderable power for his own. Typical of the man—to squander his power rather than let his master have it. His former apprentice fell back amidst a group of pavilion members.

If he'd had time, Luding might have exterminated the nest, but the dark sun was still pounding him with its strange hidden Qi. And his red warrior was attacking him still. The swamplings around him continuously tried to injure him too.

If Luding had been a man he might have laughed. Or cried. Instead, his consciousness raced back to the plain below, where his shell faced being consumed by fire.

Another slow heartbeat while he poured power into the problem and extinguished the fire. He was surprised—and concerned—to see how badly hurt he was. Again—yet again, he would appear weak.

He had no time to take stock. Even now he was so badly hurt that any of the lesser powers could take him. He raised his staff and was gone.

"Run, boy!" spoke Xilai in Wuyi's mind. Wuyi stood up. Instead of running, he walked towards the fort. Some bolts and arrows came flying towards him, but he did not even look; the arrows were stopped by the red Daoist effortlessly.

While he walked, He also stood in the chamber and looked at the statue of harmony. The statue was different now; the statue had taken a soul—the soul of the Pavilion Mistress. Wuyi had some attachment to the Pavilion Mistress, but not too deep. He felt the statue had chosen her for some reason.

Wuyi stared at the statue for some time, then he went to the chamber wall and chanted "Ignis flammae" and left the chamber. Luding was weak now; he wanted to hurt him bit more.

The flicker of a casting—Luding felt the burn. He reached out, trying to find its source. The dark sun was still on the battlefield. Still attacking?

"I am badly hurt," he conceded. He summoned his guards to withdraw.

Wuyi walked back to the fortress alone. Besides some arrows and swamplings, nothing disturbed his journey back. After returning, he did not interact with anyone and went straight to his abode.

It wasn't yet morning when he woke up. Noise in the corridor had awakened him. He heard the noise of armor—and he was in the wrong bed. When he had gone to bed, he had brought his sword and armor. His clothes were removed and there was no sword by his bed.

The door opened, and Elder Yueli entered, in the full robes of the pavilion; Yun Ming in armor, and Jia,Wuli Yuan, and Master Zhenying of the merchant group.

He pulled the sheet up over his chest.

"The Pavilion Mistress died in the enemy attack," Elder Yueli said. Her face had aged.

Wuyi had scarcely heard her speak. What she had said took a moment to register, so that his mind explored the fact that Elder Yueli was speaking for heartbeats before he realized the import of what she said. He already knew it. He also knew how she might have died. He knew about the traitor; he had known it for a long time.

If he could, he would have changed the outcome, but he did not because he did not have any proof. Even the Pavilion Mistress must have known, but for some reason, she had too much faith in her members. The empty belief had bitten her in the back.

"I'm sorry," he said. Useless, empty words.

"There's open talk of negotiation. Of surrendering the fortress for free passage away," Yun Ming said. The others flinched at his tone.

"No," Wuyi said. "There will be neither surrender nor negotiation." He was noticing that he'd been bandaged around the ribs. He winced. But physical pain less burdensome then mental. He did not understand the depth of pain he was feeling for the Pavilion Mistress and why the statue of harmony had decided to take her soul. Just like Valor and Shadow had done in the past for his guardians.

He sighed; maybe it was because of him. The Pavilion Mistress was dead, and he realized that he had, in his way, loved her.

"If you all will leave Jia to dress me," he said quietly.

"Dress quickly," Yun Ming said. "It's happening right now." He was quiet. "All the local people. Some of the men."

Sister Yueli withdrew to the door. "She would never have surrendered," she said quietly. "The men in the courtyard are saying Liwei did it," she added.

Wuyi sighed and met her eye. "I'll see to it." The elder closed the door.

Wuyi got himself out of bed. He felt a touch of vertigo. He had a feeling he rarely experienced—the feeling of having tapped his energy utterly from his body. An emptiness, but also a good feeling, like a well-exercised body.

He was still wondering about the death of the Pavilion Mistress. It was not the first time that good people had died to keep him alive.

Dong appeared; he looked terrified.

Wuyi took time to dress—he tried to quiet his own pulse. To think about something besides the Pavilion Mistress.

"She was murdered," Yun Ming said. "Someone shot the Pavilion Mistress in the back." He lowered his voice. "Jin says it was Curse Bane."

The thought of it made him physically sick. "And no one saw this?" he asked wearily.