Chương 20: Do the Right Thing

I had taken the time to check Smoke's injuries and found them to only be superficial cuts. And since the cat was okay, I trusted that he could watch the farm in my absence while I brought Yomi into the village. The healer of Tiode was an old man by the name of Guang. He, and just about everyone else in the village, had been woken by the battle on my land, which must have sounded like a fucking war from their point of view.

By the time I got Yomi into the confines of Guang's squat hut on the main street I had drawn a bit of a crowd, watching me from their houses but not daring to say a word. A cassowary, wearing a saddle, had followed me the whole way, watching Yomi with rapt attention. It didn't take a genius to tell he was her mount. Yomi, in the meantime, had fallen unconscious. Her breathing was harsh and laboured, her face contorted in agony, and a sheen of sweat was pouring from her face.

"Set her down there," Guang said, running a hand through the ivory braid of his beard. I did as he asked, placing Yomi onto a doctor's table. On the far side was a smaller table upon which sat a myriad of labelled mason jars filled with pills, powders, and leaves and strange tools I had no notion about. It was much the same back home. The alchemists and apothecaries and surgeons were a mystic order all of their own. The old man moved around, lifting an ornate white and gold pipe to his lips.

He puffed upon it, blowing thin streams of ivory smoke from his broad nostrils. His eyes were focused upon her, his free hand pressing to her brow, then to the side of her neck. He parted the lids of one eye and stared intently at her pupil.

"Hm," he said, in that frustrating enigmatic way healers liked to do. Lastly he peeled her shirt up by the hem and sucked a breath through his teeth when he saw the wound below her ribs. When I got a look at it myself, I couldn't blame him. You saw all kinds of wounds in war. Even rotten and gangrenous ones, left to fester without the proper treatment. This was different. The skin was gnarled and dark where Inumi had struck, and it seemed to smoke with a malevolent aura.

Looking closer I could see dark flesh was slowly, incredibly slowly, spreading from the point of impact.

"A qi-based wound. You certainly don't see many of these out in Tiode," said Guang.

"It seems that your friend here has put herself into a coma of sorts, shutting down all non-essential functions of her body so her energy can focus on stemming the tide. If she hadn't done that, this wound would have burned through her in minutes."

"She said the guy who attacked us was a yokai," I remarked. Guang shifted his pipe from one corner of his mouth to the other.

"That would do it alright. Those creatures know a lot of particularly nasty techniques."

"A yokai? Here?" This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon. I turned as Iudex Ryuga entered. The man looked alert, even if he'd undoubtedly been pulled out of bed, and approached Yomi's unconscious form with a grave look on his face.

"My guards informed me of the situation, they said a group of bandits attacked your farm?"

"That woman killed 'em all, and the yokai, singlehandedly. But not without getting hurt." I had to do what I could to lessen stories spreading about me, even if the damned universe itself seemed to be conspiring against me in that regard. Ryuga nodded. I doubted he believed me, but he didn't say anything on the matter. His sharp eyes drifted to Guang.

"You were a healer in Low Moon, highly trained. Is there anything you can do for her?" The older man considered this, his gnarled posture looming over Yomi.

"I have some affinity for qi, but... well, this isn't something I can just pluck out like a splinter. Particularly with how potent this qi is." His voice was papery, ancient, but it seemed to regain some vitality when he spoke of medical matters.

"It would require a special ingredient, a conductor for qi to draw the corruption from her body. This could be something artificial, like an empty qi crystal, or a special kind of herb. And I don't have such things lying around."

"A crystal... you would need to go to somewhere like Low Moon for that, and that could take days. To say nothing for the cost." Ryuga frowned, staring down at Yomi.

"While this woman is here, we shall care for her as if she were one of our people. We owe our lives to her, saving hers is the least we can do to thank her. How long... do you suppose she can last like this?" Guang sucked briefly at the tip of his pipe.

"Difficult to say. This woman is clearly a very strong cultivator, so that improves her odds. But, even then, I can only guess. A few days, minimum. Maybe over a week, at most. And that's if she's as tough as she looks. But this..." he gestured to her wound, "nobody could endure this, indefinitely." I could probably run up to Low Moon and back at a quick pace, but... well, I'd consider that a last resort. That would draw even more attention to me from beyond this village, after all.

"Any alternatives?" I asked. I watched as Guang shuffled across to a small stack of scrolls on a nearby shelves. He sorted through them and eventually unfurled one of them.

"By my reckoning," the old man said, a golden piece of pipe wedged in his teeth, "I could do the job if I had access to a pale spiral lotus." He offered the scroll for our inspection, showing a detailed diagram of an unfurling lotus flower. As the name implied a pair of stems spiralled up from the center of it.

"They're a potent strain of spiritual herb, absorbing ambient qi from the world. With the right set up, it could be used to draw that malignant energy from this young lady's body. Only..." The old man set the scroll aside, and suddenly a look of unease crossed his face.

"The nearest place to find such a thing would be on Mount Gruai. A closer trip than Low Moon, only the Snake Flower would not be pleased to find outsiders on their mountain." Ryuga and I shared a look.

"I am owed favours in Low Moon. If I dispatch a bird now it could reach the town by the early morning. And, ideally a crystal could reach us in a few days by courier. I'll also ask them to send along people to deal with the... bodies on your land, Amon."

"I appreciate it. But we can't rely on 'ideally', Iudex. That's something I've learned the hard way in the past." I turned, making for the door while both men watched me. I allowed myself a stray look at Yomi, her face contorted in agony. She'd live. But only because she'd fought to save Smoke. And because I needed her alive to take all the credit for dealing with Inumi. But... there was more to it than that, I would reluctantly admit to myself.

I wanted to be a better man, after all, and being a better man involved doing things like this. Being a better man, unfortunately involved being a fucking sentimental fool.

"Leave it to me," I said.

"I'll brave that mountain." Ryuga's eyes widened, his jaw dropping slightly.

"Wha-" I held a hand up to calm him.

"It's a big mountain, and there's bound to be some of those flowers somewhere those sect bastards can't see. I'll be in and out before they see a thing." At least, that was the hope.

"If... if you are caught," Ryuga said, his voice low, "there is nothing I could do for you. Just so you know." I shrugged at him.

"Suppose I'll just have to not get caught, then." Walking into the den of some mad wizard cult. I'm sure I'd done stupider things in the past, but for the life of me couldn't think of any...